Cold

San Salvador, November 12 2009


Could be her could be her could be her could be her could be her could be her
I text this into my cell phone waiting for the girl to show up. My first blind date ever.
Barbed wire and pigeons top tile roofs, office buildings, and the San Salvador sun sets,
Bringing in the cold.

I am waiting for a girl. Lorena Beatriz. It is a blind date. Did I say that already?
(This all ends so not awkwardly anyways)

Bus horns and neon lights take hold of the night, the flower venders know I am waiting for a woman and the dirty kids, dirty on purpose, approach me. I buy a yellow rose and stuff it in my backpack, just in case it doesn’t go well, and a hat because the wind, sign of a coming summer, whips through these broad avenues, each one with a brass statue of a general mounted on a horse, palm fronds swaying.

I am waiting for her to show up exactly where, six months ago, our mutual friend, the break-dance champion of El Salvador, was waiting for me and a friend.
Metro Center, the most well-known mall in the country. People spending more on a pair of shoes than my family makes in a month.

She comes. Calls first, picks the gringo out of the crowd, and comes over. I wanted her to be pretty. Not that she isn’t. Tall, blond hair (dyed), active eyes. Energy! We get coffee and she is so alive, speaking her mind, making fun of me, laughing at herself.

After a coffee, she called her dad letting her know she was going out with a girlfriend and we went out to get some Chinese. We went into one restaurant, too expensive!, and walked out, saying nothing. Entered another a block down, empty except for a drunk Asian woman smoking with her eyes closed and a 50-something Salvadoran man in a long sleeve blue shirt and glasses, laughing, pointing at her to us as a mariachi guy plays a tune. The mariachi guy is also cold, hooded jacket up over his curly hair. We ate, too much food, and I hardly stomached it. Not hungry.

I knew, at first sight, it couldn’t be it. She seemed to know it, too. But when was the next time I’d see her? Talk with her? A young, confident, attractive woman and she was mine for the night! Not for me, forever, but we tried to have fun. I drank jasmine tea, freezing, and we talked.

She lives in Apopa (dangerous neighborhood) with her parents. Dated a man, John, from the US Navy for two years. Works as a paralegal. College graduate. Has a law degree.

We went to our friend’s house in a cab to drop her off, end the night. Standing outside his house (the break-dancer’s), whose nick name is Gufi, I saw giant gang graffiti, police doing a house search, the guy outside with hands behind head. We didn’t kiss. Obviously.

And this morning I want to be alone. No more couples on park benches, sad goodbyes with wet cheeks and runny noses. I want to…what? Do my thing? Run wild? I just didn’t even see it as fun, last night, running around with her. What if she had been beautiful to me? What if she had been somehow right? Would I want to be alone in this airport waiting for a flight to Panama the morning after?

I board planes, talk to strangers, travel, make friends, work hard. I think about my almost loves: Jaime, Jackie, Samm. I think about the Dutch woman in San Salvador telling me it is dangerous to travel alone because you can’t share anything with anyone. I wonder if I am willing to love someone. Because I cannot stay still.

I felt last night like I had a thousand stories to tell her—this is so much to learn about me!
Let me tell you about the time I almost drowned in my grandmother’s creek when I was four years old! But there was no time and I was cold and I couldn’t find the right space or words in Spanish or maybe I am too young. I told the taxi driver this morning
“Don’t run” when he said he didn’t have a girlfriend. “You’re so young,” I said. I had four years on him.

Our hands touched, took flight, landed on the table with exasperation, trying to tie themselves to something! Our knees rubbed. In the taxi, our shoulders.

I am a good boyfriend, or would like to be. I am attentive. But I have so much to do! So much to share. Who can keep up with me?

This morning, on the way to the airport, I had the taxi driver stop at an ATM in a gas station. 4:00 AM. Dark, still cold, the gas station a haven with awake souls in a city still sleeping off the alcohol. A girl, an absolutely beautiful girl, was outside freezing. She was a prostitute. Young, long black hair, gold hoop earrings, a tiny black purse (what fits in a purse that small?), and eyes like a doe, but glassy now with the hour, the cold, the sex, the lies, the truths (I bet poverty) which are harder and colder than all of these.

She sees me, enters the store, gives me the eye and pretends to buy something. I thought of taking out an extra $20 and telling her to go home. Next time. There were two more on the next corner.

The plane turns into Panama City and I see the thousand skyscrapers and wonder what next. A cigar? A beer? I invite the taxi driver to lunch and he shows me a great place to eat and we drink beer and eat fried squid. It has rained here, now late afternoon and I am showered and clean but still so cold.