From the Other Side of My Bed

28. Blurry Times

Hands on my knees, little bitty waist, throwing it back in a circle.
I wish I saw how I looked at this moment, because everyone around me all had their eyes on me, and inebriated smiles shone through the darkness of the club I was in. My body ignites by the sound of reggaeton, EL Residente is playing, and his Calle 13 makes me wanna go off roading with the homies.

It didn't take me long to create bad influences with people who knew how to party. My curfew was until 9pm so I had, what seems to an American, little time to party but in third world countries which curfews are at 9pm before it gets dangerous, the party starts earlier.
I loved that I was the center of attention in my small group of guys and a few girls who never saw me as a threat but as a genuine friend.
Of course the guys I had with me only stayed because they received some attention from me as a hand on their knee or a kiss on the cheek or a prolong hug while I looked into their eyes.
I learned that in third world countries, people are so deprived of physical touch and they still practice courtships which consists of promenade around the streets, eating granizadas, flirting or talking about politics and quite often the men take the girls to their home and under the house's thresholds, they would give the girl a kiss.
It was all sort of romantic to me.
But I didn't care for romantic.
I didn't care to fall in love.
I didn't care for the roses and chocolates I was given.
I cared to forget.

Guatemala es una chimba, cariño.
The streets call your name, fuels with bateria y reggeaton, the mobility and the willingness to enjoy each day as your last is what my country is about. We are warriors. We fight for what's right by us, we take no shit from nobody and sure we love some fun.
It varies what kind of fun, of course.
And back then I was new to this side of freedom and life. I'm still surprised by my dad giving me the will to enjoy life by my own, letting me go out unsupervised and only giving me a curfew which was shocking to my stepmom.
But I think he saw something of himself in me. He knew I was moved by a force greater than any and I wouldn't be able to be tamed.

I used to go dancing and drinking at this lowkey hide-out club.
The thing about third world countries, they don't ID people, so I was able to go as I pleased. So anyways, you know those clubs that are hidden behind the fake resemblance of a taco shop in Tokyo?
There's multiple in my country.
This bar/club was hidden behind the facade of a corner store and if you were cool with the owner and paid the right price, you would be let in.
I only find out about this because I started dating a street dancer in La Sexta.

Nothing serious, just laughs and giggles.
Now older me thinks it was a super dangerous thing to do, going out drinking in nonpublic places but if I'm honest, after my rape and after mom's death, I could have had cared less. And I guess it was God's hand who prevented all that happening to me, but he didn't spare me the pain of losing valuable things about myself.
Yet I still daydream of Nik.
I think it was my longing for him that made me hallucinate sometimes.
I really missed him.
It was empty without him.
The sun didn't warm up to me no more. It bugged me instead.
Summer wasn't the same without him.
-

In the soft quiet moments, I loved my dad.
Like when we go to La Berna and order panes con pollo and strawberry milkshakes. When we go together to buy pan dulce and eat it at home in silence while drinking coffee and watching a novela on the screen. Like when I'm freezing cold at night and I'm hugging tight on Nik's and I picture together and dad comes over and tucks me in nicely, covering me with the blankets up to my nose and I smile in my sleep.
Like when we are free together, in the freeways and small rural streets, with the windows all open and my hair dancing in the air as I stick my head out the passenger window and we listen to the radio.
Like when we have breakfast together with Socorro.
Like when we give money to the panhandlers.
Like when we go to Pop's ice cream shop and we go to the swing area now that I'm older, and then I get on a swing, and he insists on pushing me so I take flight.
In moments like this, we are one.
Instead of being apart.

-
"Fuck you, that's what the fuck I just said, or what? Got a problem? cause me too!"
I screamed at the top of my lungs at my dad, trying to cause more harm each time. This time I don't remember well why we are fighting again, but we are at the very far corners of the room, him on the left and I on the right, talking shit to each other and I am fuming. It's a family issue, but once again, my uncle butts in and questions us why we are fighting.
"You really want to get cussed at huh? Stop fucking butting in as if this is your issue!"
"It is my issue because it's my house!"
"Fuck you and your house bro!"
"That's it!" He screams and gets on my face. "I am done making up excuses for you."
"no one asked you to." And I turn my heel and start heading upstairs to the terrace in order to calm down, but he follows me, talking shit.
"This is it! I am not going to continue to host mental patients."
"Then fucking don't!"
"Are you listening? I don't want you all in my house any longer!"
"Tell that to someone who gives a fuck."
I say, turning to face him and he's lucky I didn't spit on him.
"Do as you please, but know dad gave you free housing for 20 years and never said a thing so fuck you and all your descendants."
He gasps and I smirk, beginning to laugh and I walk away, feeling glorious.

-

I guess the thing between my dad and Socorro wasn't so good because she left us before we left my uncle's house. It was weird to be.... Completely alone.
I would go to that Saturday school alone, then come home to an empty room, and 25$ for food my dad left for me, and I would go buy it and come home and eat alone.
I was only 14.
I would often write about all of this in my journals, trying to find solace and peace with all of these. I hated I was never important enough for anyone to stay for the long run. Adult me understand that we are all living once and we must be selfish sometimes in order to live our lives.
But young me felt forsaken.

-
Once again, we packed up our stuff and we made our way to the new house we were going to be at for now. It was nighttime when we left.
I felt empty.
Instability was a friend of mind who often made me sad.
I wish I had been drunk during that process.
Again, I was only 14.
.
.
.
.
Anyways we moved to a colony called Altos de Barcenas.
It was a residential area, but it was ghetto in a Madeline way. It wasn't posh, it wasn't fancy, it had thousands of boutiques and corner stores, and panaderias, ice cream shops, carnicerias and food trucks. It was super diverse and vivid; it had a large plaza where mariachis would come to play on Saturdays and thousands would gather and we would drink cerveza Gallo and smoke our lungs back.
But when we arrived, it was nighttime and only the light poles showed the real beauty of such place. We made a turn and there it was, the Virgin's house.
It was called like that by the community because at the front of the house there's a space to put a virgencita on there, but the former was stolen so.
The house had a playground next to it too, where sometimes I would smoke weed with the friends I would later make. When we parked, I stayed there with my head resting on the open window and for a moment, the door opened. My dad was getting our stuff, so it was someone else there.
Socorro.
A feeling of hatred came in my heart, I don't understand it well, but according to my inner me, I hated that she played with my emotions about leaving then ops! Came back again.
If you say you'll go, be gone.
I didn't need her.
I need nobody.
Understanding I had no choice but to put a smile on my face and get along with this, I get off the car and walk up to her open arms.