Excerpt From New Novel II: Raised in Miami Beach

So where was I?

Oh yeah, in the drama. In still frame pictures that mocked me on the counter over the television. They were windows to another kind of life than this one. I looked at them a lot when I was growing up. Anger was welling up, screaming for release, growing, growing, with each passing day. Why so much anger? So much hate, so much frustration… it went against everything I wanted to be: calm, serene, understanding, compassionate, in control of my emotions. Why was it there? Hovering over me in still frame pictures of another life? Why did it taunt me so?

Dostoevsky understands what I went through, what I’m still going through, what I survived by the skin of my fucking teeth. I denied my anger existed, and the three witches came to stir the cauldron over an open flame. It was a mistake I had to make as a writer and a person. The curse didn’t relent, but at times slowed down, that was all.

By 16, I had given up hope for a future. My family… and a house of failed ambitions and the smell of cat shit. Why can’t I just be content with the lot I was given? Why did something inside scream ‘not enough! Not enough!’?

I confess that in the eyes of people, I am a bad son, a bad seed, a division sign in the fated equation. The world treated me like an ungrateful little scoundrel, and I believed them because I was a fool to boot. I guess somehow I knew I needed people, depended on people to survive. I wasn’t ready to cut myself off from the web, to travel 3,000 miles away to a new city, a new start, humble beginnings and a future I never believed I could have. The human heart has latent knowledge of our paths across the windblown sands. Deep down, I knew I was destined for great things by the coincidences and books I read. I hated that knowledge. I looked around my house and saw proof in nothing. How could I believe? Why did I believe without believing? Why was it so hard to look the other way, to become what others want, to leave myself behind for them? I was born an arrogant philosopher, an inadvertent judge, a small man playing in the big leagues. My place… is it what they say? Then how I’ve sinned! Who the fuck do I think I am? Who do I think I am? I am a low level employee telling the CEO to move his fat ass over so I can do his job better. I am the one constantly asking God questions about the business. I am the one who tells you what you don’t want to hear for your own good. I am as disrespectful as Oliver Twist was. Give me some more, and pass the damn pot while you’re at it will you? I’m starving over here! I am the cherry picker who debates with scientists and politicians. Ungrateful scum through and through and through….

It feels good to confess that I don’t care anymore. Let people see me only through their eyes, and not as I really am. Let them fester and fret to the tune of my b-side record, of the loser who plays his guitar, knowing it won’t get him laid and love it forevermore. Why do people care so much about my displacement? Let me retrace my steps along a kaleidoscope of memories.

Henry Miller put it best how I felt as a teenager: “I wanted to be cleansed of all iniquity. I wanted to be soaked through and through, then stabbed, then thrown into the gutter, then flattened out by a heavy truck, then ground down into the muck and mire, obliterated, annihilated for good and all.” Sounds a tad dramatic but that’s how I felt, although I imagine it’s normal for a teenager now. Back then however, holding on was a constant battle little by little, bit by bit, day by day… Ironically, I was callous to the sufferings of other teenagers. Oh the asshole broke your heart? Give me a break. Oh, you’re not getting laid? Join the fucking club, pal. Oh your parents suck? Well at least you’re not a second class citizen around here. At least you got a future. I know… annoying, right?

Maybe everyone projected their ungratefulness onto me, and that’s what I became. Who knows? Aren’t we all guilty of that? I know I have been ungrateful and hateful, but only my mother’s face comes to mind when I write that. The rest of the world can go to hell in a handbasket. What can I say? I can’t pretend guilt when it isn’t there, so I don’t bother. I confess it doesn’t torment me like it used to, like people thought it should. Away with the interpretation of others! Away with their feelings! I love the world too much; I care too much to bother with that. And the hate you ask? It’s still there, only I attempt to hold the reigns now. As a teenager it kept me going. One day I swear to God I will become a success and repay all my debts, and throw back their money at their cheap fucking faces not to prove anything to them, but to be done with them; to finish the burden and stab it dead. I will be generous and give and expect no return, and I won’t let it ruin me. Maybe I could give some kid like me, or someone worse off than I was, the hope I never had. Hope for the future!

It’s not your fault you’re born into this child, here’s something from a stranger, something for nothing. You deserve it because it’s not your fault. Let it make your life blossom and let it make you bust your ass for happiness, even if the shot is dim, even if you can’t see it, even if when you look around, there is nothing but cat piss and cat shit and failed ambitions, and piles of dirty dishes, and fat cockroaches that live with you. Even if there is nothing to make you believe in sight… fight! Day by day, bit by bit, step by step, trip by trip! Fight the odds, fight the defeat, fight the fate; fight the universe if you have to! And to hell with the rest! My anger made me never completely give up, even as a miserable ugly failure that I was in my mind. I stopped listening to the world, and the curse, and the family and went to the tune of my own making. I became a detective and went on the hunt to find the real me.

I can finally confess that I am grateful now. That if I could do it all again, I wouldn’t change how people treated me. It’s made me who I am, and quite frankly, I love who I am. I am one egotistical motherfucker and I don’t shy away from that, especially as a writer. I had a girl taunt me once, say that it was all about me, me, me. And who else’s life would it be about bitch? Yours? I don’t think so. Fortunately at the time, I was more polite about it. Why is it that when you want to become a writer, everyone tries to discourage you, or try to shit an egg of wisdom on your head about it when they don’t have nearly as much experience as you do? What gives people the right to question your passions and try to make you distrust them? Everyone has something to prove, but the proof is never in the pudding, folks! Don’t come around and try to take me under your wing. I appreciate the offer, but I didn’t ask for it. Call me a dick, but I’m being honest with you. When I ask for your opinion, then you can bring that big fat feathery wing over and show me a thing or two. But if you can’t stand the thought of learning something from someone like me, then you better stop trying to teach. Surrender those wings already and try to save yourself for a change. Try to show yourself a thing or two.

Come to think about it, it’s a miracle nothing happened to me in Miami with that mouth of mine. I should’ve been shot, stabbed, kidnapped, raped, beaten to a bloody pulp, jumped, but that never happened to me. I never got my ass kicked, I never got into fights, I never got arrested. That’s quite an achievement for a Miami street rat. Usually I was on the brink of murder and pain, but what got through was humiliation and poverty. I must have cheated death more than once, perhaps even by accident. The curse never destroyed my family completely, only my mother. Maybe she was responsible for keeping me safe, for making sure we had a net over the abyss. Somehow, she fought the curse all on her own. I tried to help her, but I didn’t know how. It was like watching a drowning innocent, helpless to change the course of nature. The more I tried the more futile it was. I was Darwin, watching the poor little innocent turtles get hacked to pieces by birds of prey. Was this really the course of nature? Can it be this cruel and heartless? You bet.

It’s not nature’s job to worry about sorting the guilty from the innocent. A bird flies through the air, and swoops with one gentle motion to the ground. A lion tears down the gazelle piece by piece in gentle peace and ecumenical hunger. Storms and tornadoes spin together and ravage a town, a city, a state, a trail of islands in the tropical sun. In those moments when hurricanes hit, I loved nature’s process. School was out, and the storm clouds cooled the land. The wind would shift suddenly and strongly, without any warning, and change direction. I walked through the winds, being pushed to and fro almost to the point of flight. I loved running with the violent currents, soaked to the bone in painful torrents of rain. Looking back, there were quite a few hurricanes in the 90’s. I remember at first being terrified of them really young. On the Television at 9332 Munne Motel (always open) I sat and watched these giant white balls of clouds in great terror. My mother had to console and reassure me quite a bit, which I’m sure she loved to do. For some reason as a young child, the idea of the world coming to an end, the fall of civilization, unnatural disasters, (you name it) had a more permanent feel to it. The way I saw it?

Any minute now, any minute now, any minute now, any minute now. When? When you least suspect it; When you let your guard down; any minute now; anytime, any when, anyhow… when? Any minute, any then, any now. I could feel Armageddon’s hot stale breath on my neck. If it wasn’t real, if nothing was there, then why did I feel it? Why did I sense it? I was oppressed by the power of my imaginative spirit. I was carried away, with no control. I hung my head by a thread and lived on the razors edge. There was nothing religious or secular about it. All I knew was a sinking feeling and visions of chaos. But the white spinning balls of cloud and destruction came and went, and the world stayed more or less, the same. Nothing changed; nothing whatsoever. Any minute now, nothing will happen.

The older I got, the more I grew to appreciate these bouts of nature, and the fears of catastrophe dissipated. My life was a catastrophe in limbo, a photograph of misfortune, a hex in motion. Sometimes they compounded, sometimes they relented. My family’s miserable defeats happened in fluctuations, in ripples of rocks tossed into a still pond, in kau cim, in Tarot Cards, in Ouija boards, in the entrails of sacrificed animals before a battle, in Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The whole enterprise was uncertain if you ask me… uncertain from the very start. Get ready for the next 15 years Daniel. Get ready to roll a rock up a never-ending hill like Sisyphus. And that’s what we prepared for, without knowing it. Our life definitely had a Greek tragedy feel to it, or at least a Spanish Soap Opera feel. Up the hill we went, and down the hill the rock came, and just when we were about to push it over the hill, just as we started to believe, down the hill the rock came, again and again. Why were we being punished? And by who or whom or Who with a capital W? Believe it or not, sometimes we talked about it as a family. It was spooky to say the least but fascinating. For a moment we were on the same boat, not screaming and trying to kick each other off. My father assumed the role of reckless positivity, and my brother and sister challenged it with what our lives had become. My mother tried to listen to them, hopelessly in the middle, trying to find a solution amid the fighting and yelling. I usually stayed in the sidelines, observing, interjecting only when accused or included somehow. Later as a teenager I got hair on my cojones and spoke out more, gave my opinion, which most of the time only made things worse. But let’s go back to the hurricanes.

The fear eventually became excitement, then anticipation. Why can a category 5 hurricane like Andrew hit Miami Beach? Better yet, bring a tsunami while you’re at it. Bring it all and blow it away, the palm trees, the PAST DUE bills, the gavels from cold judges, the uncompromising landlords, the tears from my mother, from my heart, from the fury in my soul. Wash it all away dammit. To Kingdom Come and back again. Let the destruction fluctuate like the curse of my family!

The rain cooled my tropical spirit, and eased my worries as I watched it tap on the windows in bucketfuls of white noise. To fall asleep to it, to wake to it, to hear the shifts in wind, and the raindrops follow… the end was calm. Annihilation was serene and peaceful like death. The lapping waves of raindrops and water, water, water everywhere. We were stranded in the sea of nowhere, in the heat of a million suns without light. When the hurricanes came, I was at peace with myself and my miserable life. When I think about it now, I can’t help but to smile. Regardless of the power outages, the ripped up trees, the terrible floods, the incompetence of FPL, the debris and junk scattered about, the bugs that came after, regardless of that, I still loved Poseidon’s visit and thanked him for his bounty. This was my life, after all. I was born in it… born somehow stepping on the toes of vengeful gods. Maybe in the womb I made some kind of spiritual faux pas. Maybe I bitch slapped St. Joseph at the pearly gates, and he sent me back, disgusted at my ungratefulness. I wouldn’t be surprised. Who would turn down Heaven? I would. Because that would mean we are guilty. Because that would mean we have to apologize. Because that would mean we deserved what happened to us. ‘Fuck God and fuck heaven if that’s the price!’ I told myself.

Never! Fuck that venue!

I know we made a lot of mistakes. I know my parents especially did, quite a few. But it wasn’t fair that we kids had to pay for it. How was it our fault in the eyes of God? God was wrong then. He wasn’t supposed to allow the innocent to be punished, no matter the situation. Let the guilty hang, but the innocent by association? Who the fuck is in charge here? I have a coffin with my mother’s name on it. Can I stuff it in your Human Resource box? Can I write a letter to God or Congress with her suffering? Can I make it into a PDF file, or a HTML, or just E-Mail her corpse? Maybe I can post it on my wall on FB, see if that changes anything. Bottom line, I am a low level employee and I have a complaint about my mother and what she went through. She didn’t deserve what she got… and neither did my family. God, cost benefit analysis, science, religion, mathematics, the laws of nature… wrong, wrong, all wrong about our verdict and our sentence. We were framed by an irrational streak in the universe. We got the wrong sentence.

I stood in the rain and the gusts and gale force winds and I laughed at nature, with nature, against nature. Thank you so much nature! I knew what to do! Thank you Hurricane Gordon, Erin, Bertha, Lili, Earl, Georges, Floyd, Irene! Thank you Tropical Storm Harvey, Mitch, Hermine, Josephine, Jerry, Allyson, Gordon, Beryl, Alberto! It’s because of you, that I’m not afraid anymore of the Apocalypse!

If life is unfair, if corruption is irresistible then I’ll rebel against it by embracing honor and ethics! I’ll rebel by ‘doing the right thing.’ I’ll rebel by reading, learning, questioning, doubting, researching, realizing. I’ll rebel by taking the high road, by living up to my own code of morals and principles and voice which would eventually become my writing, my art. And whatever the price, I don’t care! Good things will happen! Things will finally change because of my resolutions! The universe will pay it back.

God, what a fool I was.

So I’ve Been Told: A Sex Poem

When it comes to sex, I am a pervert

My conventions are a little unconventional

My aims are too lusty and too radical

At least, that’s what I’ve been told

By parent/teacher conferences

By suburban and urban posers

Trying to do the same thing

Only in a different way

(and wrong, you don’t do it halfway, couples. Mean what you say)

See the thing is, I revere sex

I can’t get enough because I never had enough

But to be completely honest with you

I was dirty from the start

At least, that’s what I’ve been told

Now I agree with that

But I get it

Can’t get too capitalistic about banging the planet

Bombing the planet, well that’s a different story

And any news correspondent can tell you that

But banging the planet?

Nah, too many diseases

Makes me wish it was the 60’s all over again

What I would do for that summer of love!

What I would do for that blissful ignorance!

To touch anything! To touch anything!

Now am I saying that? Not quite

But that’s what I’ve been told

By Public School Morning Announcements

By elementary school principals

By concerned teachers

And yet, the youth saw the consequences

And we knew better than anyone

Summer of love? For the kids of the 90’s?

You think that shit happened?

I mean look at our attempt at Woodstock!

That should tell you a thing or two

About what we were told

About what we grew up seeing on the news

We didn’t have that moment to really appreciate sex

Because the consequences were already shoved in our faces

We didn’t stand a chance

We used to watch old sitcoms and think

Did they seriously live like that?

Where’s the junky?

Where’s the bum?

Where’s the beef?

Ancient world

Long since dead

Day one of the government shutdown

Maybe they don’t want to live in this new world

Of adults, of old age

They want their old world back, and there’s no going back

I’m not whining here you skeptical fuck so listen up!

Don’t give me that ‘Where’s the solutions?’ crap!

I ain’t trying to depress you

I’m just up here saying what I feel

About 800,000 government employees

And not one grown up among them to knock some sense

On both sides of the fence

(if there’s really a fence

is it an absence of sex?

on both sides of the fence?)

And have them work together instead of bickering like they say kids do

And me?

I’ve seen better teamwork and compromises with kids

Shit I remember!

Flag football and basketball and kickball and all those other games

And school projects and school plays

A lot of laughing, a lot of snickering

But they had the teamwork thing down!

Maybe the problem is we expect the adults to know what’s best

And the trick is

We have to work together to find out what that is

Because look at the ones in power

Even the small ones

Anybody know what the fuck they’re doing?

I say let the kids run the show

Give them a shot to fuck things up

Why not?

They’re already changing the world

Old and youth have to do the ol’ switch-a-roo

That’s my kind of world

The old motto was ‘Don’t Trust Anyone over 30’

But what if I’m a fan of the older ladies?

What if I got a list in mind to please from behind the stage?

I like my first impression to be a deep impression

The deeper the better

I know I have this terrible, terrible yearning

It’s a problem because the more I fuck the more I want

At least that’s what I’ve been told

By mothers who don’t leave daughters alone

By parents who don’t ever want to think of their kids in terms of sex

By the neighborhood watch

Who liked feeling like crap because you felt something warm under your blanket?

Who liked feeling like you did something terrible, because you did something so natural?

Does rape exist? Of course it does!

But is all sex rape?

Is all groping wrong?

It’s not fun and transcendent, unless both feel it, unless both want it

Am I a rapist because I have a giant animal inside of me?

Because I look forward to those moments?

Because I like to get a pussy wet? A cock hard?

Because I like to give it so much?

Because I like to see the faces of the people I please?

And give them some release if only for one day?

Did anyone really get ‘The World According to Garp’, or what?

That’s what I’ve been told by PTA meetings

By the public media

I am a menace and I need to be stopped

But tell that to my pen!

Tell that to my heart!

Tell that to my passionate lust!

I’m not preaching the gospel of raves or ecstasy either

I don’t need none of that

To fuck like a sensual man

Because that’s what I really am

I got standards and class about tapping dat ass

Excuse the urban lingo please

I think there’s some old ladies in the back playing bingo

Shh keep it quiet!

Don’t tell them that!

Kids don’t fuck! They uh… play hopscotch until they’re thirty

Is that what the old ladies are calling it these days? No shit!

And who am I?

The worst pervert of all

The one with too much sex in the blood

It’s funny because I used to know a lot of people who tried on my style

Didn’t look right on them because they weren’t artists

I mean REAL artists

Or sexually progressive parents

Must have sucked growing up in that house, but I can relate

I think all of our sexual problems stem from our conceptions of sex

Of what were told it is

Sex isn’t taboo to me!

Last week I got my wife of five years a lap dance!

That was a fun night!

We all went back to our place and…

But that’s another story

What I am saying is this:

Sex is missing something

Something crucial

Something society has forcibly removed

In place of twerking, jerking, and all the other illusions of real sensuality

That are force-fed to unsuspecting kids and parents

That’s not what sex is, people!

That’s not what I’m talking about!

Don’t be bamboozled now!

Those are just scare tactics, to degrade sex, to put a bad spin on it

Don’t let them make you ashamed of what you feel kids!

Sex can be something beautiful if your parents let it

If you let it

Sex is missing sensuality

Sex is missing style!

Why so much drama?

Why so much jealousy and hate?

Why so much shame?

Is a relationship just two genitals wrapped in matrimony?

I don’t buy that

I banged my wife on the first night

Five years and change since together

Stronger than ever

But I don’t mind sharing

And neither does she

But we have standards too

Not just any john or jane are invited to play

You better leave your twerking ass at the door

Because what I’m talking about is a lot more personal

And makes you feel a lot more vulnerable

And ain’t as easy

It’s a deeper connection, a deeper penetration than that

So many can’t handle it, so many fake it

And I hate the pretenders; can spot them a mile away

You can call me a swinger but that ain’t it

I put more thought in my choices

And I don’t abuse the proceeds too much

I’m here to break some morals and give it purpose

A talking taboo with a walking erection

(I named him Elwood like the Blues Brothers)

Listen to the black censor bar in front of you!

I’m the bad influence who says not to beat yourself up

I’m the bad influence who doesn’t want you to feel ashamed!

In fact I encourage you to feed the wild animal!

But don’t just throw it any scraps you have lying around on your block

Respect the beast! Acknowledge it’s there!

Tell your parents to clear it and explore your body!

Make it an art form again!

Or better yet get a friend to help you

As kids we know the price of sex, more than most

We can be responsible about our lust!

It doesn’t have to be rape!

We can push the boundaries and not make the same mistakes as our parents

Have you seen Gen X lately?

So many are aging better now

Some look better than when they were teens

Its okay Gen X the absent parents are gone, you can come out now

Rediscover your youth that you never had, that you never were allowed!

I’m not saying to screw anything that moves!

I’m saying be the start of the new generations of ageless adults!

Of a new psycho-sensual revolution!

Better than all the others!

It’s not just about sex, or just about getting laid like the 60’s or the 70’s or the 80’s

It’s more than that, more cerebral than that

It’s about changing the standards of sex

It’s about bringing back Athens

Growing up, I didn’t get enough tail so I had to see a shrink

Best shrink in the world

There were bouncers at the door, and the floors were always sticky

Got me through some hard times if you know what I mean

I survived youth through my few contacts with sex

I want all that to change

I am not going to let happen to the kids what happened to Generation X!!!

Be more artistic about your approach to sex

Don’t let the adults tell you what that is

Figure it out for yourself

Define it for yourself

Learn how to handle it first

I know it’s one of the hardest things to do in life

But go out boy! Go out girl!

Feed the beast! Tame your animal! Let it speak for once!

Whatever it takes!

Don’t let sex be a pop twerking media fuck-fest

Change its definitions!

Change that perspective!

Let sex and sensuality be something beautiful again, something not so serious

Something natural and evolved

Something not EVER equated with rape and violence!

It’s not the same thing! It’s not the same thing! It’s not what I mean!

So drop the devil’s advocate bit and really listen to me!

In the future I see us all having sex and maintaining relationships at the same time

Full steam ahead! Or else-

What was all this modern life for?

To continue the violent monotony of history?

A modern life… to create a sexual upheaval in society…

Now wouldn’t that make more sense?

Wouldn’t that be some kind of return on our investment?

It’s not like our 401K are worth a crap (whatever that is)

The planet is shot for shit

Oil is done

The suburbs are pretty much owned by banks

So can’t we get something back?

Is that too much to ask of a distopian future, of a robbed youth?

You see folks?

I’m a genuine Grade-A pervert of the lowest kind

At least, that’s what I’ve been told

By the old and empty

For being forever young-

-at heart

From Riches to Rags: Excerpt From New Novel

There was a secret behind locked doors. It was about money and fame and failure. The ADULTS did a good job hiding it from me most of my young life. Nevertheless, I peered through the cracks at a broke-down palace. My family: the worker bees, nursing it in futility and despair. Cracks are in the walls; it reeked of cat shit and ruined ambitions; everything was imperfect, askew, wrong, out of shape, disproportionate, unbalanced, not where it’s supposed to be. The ADULTS tried to contain this, and keep it from me as much as possible, but I saw through the cracks and the clutter, and the heat and the grime. I saw something alive that should’ve been long dead. What perversion is this? I screamed. The Navarros, the failed Navarros, the worthless and helpless Navarros.

I confess that I grew a chip on my shoulder as my mom drove delivering newspapers. I would lay on the backseat, with my older brother Michael in front, and watch the sky of Miami, Hollywood breeze by. I remember my mom had the radio on, and a new song just recorded called ‘Mi Tierra’ came out by Gloria Estefan. It’s funny now that I read about it. It was recorded a year after Andrew devastated South Florida, and not far from where we were at the time. In a way it was a herald of our eventual and more permanent stay in Miami Beach proper. But then, I had no idea. Our life was chaos. Even at eight years old, I had a hard time keeping track of things. Did we stay with some families? Did we stay in a broken house in Homestead when the hurricane hit? How long have we lived in our car? Didn’t we drive on a long empty road? Was it Florida or Chile? I was plagued by haunting questions as the song played for the tenth time in the night. Palm trees floated by. Mom took a right, then left, then straight… then stop.

The picture would stop on gray storms, blinding blue skies, buildings, power lines, flashing lights, birds, airplanes, loud talking, loud music, loud cars with loud horns, loud styles, attitudes, spending habits, bills, tips, drinks, joints, white lines and rolled up dollar bills, horniness and heat. Drugs and guns and cops and people flow and network and are all connected together. Miami pulses with corruption that sets everyone on edge along with the heat and FPL. Everyone is paid or laid to rest or can’t afford the game. People clump together under a roof with their faces in front of the AC. Jesus and welfare and Sunday church and divorce settlements, and suspects in shootouts. Get rich quick is the name of the game. If you can’t make it on your own, regulate homie. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. In Miami anything goes… past the car window. The song finished, and I wondered what Tierra I thought was santa…?

I rarely slept in the night. I was fascinated by the newspaper life. With my brother sprawled on his side, always sleeping like an angel, I felt the cars hum beneath me, a hum of life that pushed us forever onward in the streets of North Miami. Atlanta Drive, Sheridan Street, Hollywood Ave, Bird Road… my mom drives in the night, filled with worry and newspapers. She is a newspaper boy. It has come to this. She stops, leaves the engine running, opens the door newspaper in hand, and goes to each house. She feels her health already debilitating. Why is it so painful to throw this paper? She has to walk most of the way to throw it properly. The ritual continues, over and over, in reverse and in drive. The tape rewinds and she hops into the car, again to streets, again the radio plays the same music, the same haunting songs, the ones you can’t help to associate anguish and sorrow, even if they are happy, again the sky would move before my eyes, and so did the city. What a city! What madness and cacophony! What miracles and blunders! What a salivating treat you want so bad! Miami is like a seasoned whore on the point of becoming a violent con. She takes but you never see. You are too enchanted with her slender figure, her full fake lips, and tits, and sweat. You are rooted to the spot like a shipwrecked sailor beholding a perfect Siren. She is whatever you want her to be. She hides in disguises and becomes what you want. It could be anything, for it’s not man or woman. It is the sexiest thing on earth, the object for which even a cultured gentleman of the 21st Century would beg for. You want a touch, just one, and you try your hardest to succeed. Some aren’t able, but it’s worse for those that do. You’re left wanting more than that. It wasn’t enough, because it never is. And all the meanwhile, she takes, takes, takes; behind your back; a small piece at a time, always every time. A conviction here, a promise there, a selfless act, a resolution… but it’s always worse when you succeed. What a feeling when you touch Miami, when you fuck Miami, when you snort her up in a ballroom party, smoke her down in Overtown from a crack pipe in bushes outside tenement buildings, roll her up with Phillies in a stairway, feel her up in a club and dance with her the night away before the real fun begins! What oh what a fucking feeling! God, that feels so fucking good! And in the clear light of an endless summer, it hits you. You lost something, you don’t know what. It could be money, a phone, a shirt, a gun, a wallet, a pipe, a pill, an eight ball, anything but what you lost is much more than that. Miami took your soul in the middle of the night. You were played fool. You were cheated.

I don’t know about anyone else, but that was to be my relationship with Miami. I confess I didn’t get laid nearly as enough as you might think, growing up in such a place. Maybe it was my crooked stare, crooked teeth, sad doughy eyes, soup bowl haircut, button nose, scrawny build, small height, and young face which stuck with me until my late teenage years. I always felt like the little kid who interrupted their parents having sex, only it was with kids my age. At eight kids in my school were already getting bulky, hairy and big. At thirteen, some looked like they had kids of their own. I knew that there was no way to compete for the attention of girls. I lusted after them very young, but understood my place as a child. At the time I don’t think I could’ve handled that kind of humiliation if I went too far and acted on my sexual impulses. That’s right. I took notice of Miami long before the other boys while they played flag football and kickball… and I couldn’t stop thinking about her while my mother continued her newspaper trek.

I seem to recall a girlfriend I used to have when I lived in the red house on Atlanta Drive. She always sat with me during recess, and we would kiss each other on the cheeks much to the shock of the rest of the kids in our group of 1st Graders. They considered us mature, and grown up, and brave, and maybe a little crazy too. We were the talk of the playground, and the talk of our class. I don’t remember her name anymore, but I do remember her. She had milky white skin filled with freckles like specs of nutmeg in eggnog. Her hair was the lightest blonde and her eyes big, blue, and cat-like. We used to hold hands and sit on the swings or near the slide and look at each other. I was in seventh nirvana. I was so happy with her. Child relationships are a marvelous thing. We rarely spoke, because we didn’t have to. We were a team, and most importantly: grown up. I was immune to cooties unlike the other boys who teased me mercilessly about my ‘girlfriend’. We loved each other the way adults have to learn to all over again in the later stages of life.

I barely recall what happened to our ‘relationship.’ One day, we had to go back home to the motherland Chile, just like that. And just like that, we found ourselves having to say goodbye. I didn’t understand why we were leaving. Now I know what happened. The contract was up. The television station didn’t renew it, not even for another year. My parents fought constantly in the little red house on Atlanta Drive in its remaining days. I guess the defeat was nigh for them. Dad gambled some more, and tried his luck looking for other places, other opportunities. But the doors began to close, one by one, station to station. No one hired him, no one wanted him. Armand Navarro had become a marked man. And so, we left to what we thought was greener pastures in the homeland.

I never saw the little girl again. All I remember is her weeping at the news and clutching at my shirt. I walked away underneath the arched pathways that lead to the school entrance, tears streaming down my face, still hearing her wails in the background. My mom was by my side, reassuring me. I cried in silence. It was my first experience with death. I knew I would never see her smiling face again. I knew that I would never see that little red house. I knew that the normal and stable life was over… for a long time at least.

The memory completely fades after that. All that is left is a faint impression of airports. I love airports and it’s probably due to that trip. Such a strange comfort that comes over me when I’m at an airport, it’s so exciting to see planes take off and arrive, hearing the tumulus sounds, the buzzing and droning of bags and suitcases with little wheels, and different languages and intercom announcements… to me as a child, I imagine it was my Alexandria. An amalgamation of different wears, styles, speech patterns, accents, nationalities, stories…what a place!

I imagine I didn’t have a bad time at our temporary sojourn in Chile, but for whatever reason I couldn’t remember much about it. I’ve repressed it. Perhaps my mother wept in front of us or exploded in frustration. I don’t blame her for any of it. Doors continued to close. More television stations, more radio stations, more channels, more, more, more…. Chile itself began to close. Mom would hang up and scream in anger at the odds, before trying another number, another failure. Why is this happening?

‘Why the fuck not?’ Answered the voice on the other end, almost innocently.

“Where are our friends our families, our contacts?” Maria demanded. “What’s happening?”

“They can’t help you Maria.” The voice told her. “I’m sorry. They have more pressing matters to deal with. I mean come on! You know people have their own lives right? They can’t support you when you make bad investments. I mean, think about it. Isn’t it your fault? You were irresponsible. Some will try to carry you… back in sunny North Miami, but they’ll regret it. Oh yes they will. You were not meant to be a mother, or stay with Armand. All the signs were there. You should have listened Maria. Now the Navarros are cursed, and so are you. The curse is in your head. It’s too late. You will never see Chile again. And you will never see your children succeed. You know why? Because life is pain…”

The doors continued to close like a sinister domino effect. My mom always heard the same recording in her brain after that. Nothing deterred her from that view, which eventually became reality for her. She was changed forever. Maria felt abandoned more than ever in her life, abandoned by God. I will never know how she managed to juggle us and the dogs the entire time. Somehow, I’m not quite sure how, we managed to hang our heads and leave in defeat.

That was the end of a saga, and the beginning of our long and painful crawl back to below poverty. My parents agreed that the United States will be the best bet, Miami in particular with its strong Caribbean presence. My father assured that it will be a matter of time before he found something. They still had their American Visas, and so did the rest of us. We will work, and save our money. We just need someone to help us, and give us our start, pathetic as it may be. That was the best solution. Or so we thought.

On Turning Thirty-Three

I just turned thirty-three and I’m anxiously waiting for my crucifixion.

Bureaucracy in Heaven is slowing things down. What’s different in Heaven? People have halos and wings but that’s about it. Bureaucracy is a necessary stain in this Universe. The Milky Way is spilling, and the insects are getting hungry. They’re attracted to failure, of those that get close, so close, so damn close, but no cigar! No sir! Then the insects come, galactic insects as big as Lexx, floating in the vacuum of space, attracted to the scent, affecting your mind.

You lie there in spoiled Milk and Honey waiting for the worms, for the Old Ones, for the Lovecraft nightmare to digest you… and you finally look through the cracked looking-glass of a servant.

You were never a God. You were never a blip. You were a servant the whole time and you didn’t even know it.

Know your place. Stasis. Enoch says it isn’t time yet. 33 and it seems like light-years away. Forever stasis. Forever dependent. Control is an Illusion. Control is a psychotic break. Control is a Soul Mate in her tailormade prison. She followed the blueprints to a T. Signed on the dotted line. And Fate sped that result.

People talk but no one engages. Must be a computing error. Brains are similar to computers that way. Tech has made people socially impotent. Very little exchange. The self important ones drone on and on. I find it pathetic. Don’t they know how they look for fuck’s sake? How they sound? How embarrassing they are? Even if they’re doing important things? I hate them so much, yet they surround me, smelling the lies and the stink of failure.

And I serve them. Always serving them.

They smoke me out, give me free drinks, and of course try to teach a thing or two. The horrible realization is I need them in my life. Why? Without them, loneliness would kill me where I stand. Without them I fade away to nothing.

I meet better types but they usually end up ditching me. They are right to leave me behind. I would leave me behind. For the first time in my life, I’m getting used to the notion. Know your place and so I do. I will submerge myself in liquid nitrogen and wait for the tech to catch up; revive my downtrodden brain. Maybe I’ll be better then. Maybe I won’t be what I am now. Maybe I can be something I can respect and love. But how do you love an epic failure? How can you embrace a Supernova? Kiss a Black Hole Sun? You wait until the ice melts. You give up the ghost.

That’s what I have done now. Whatever I am, I will be. And whatever I will be, will be Power. I know my place at this moment but I never lost my power-lust. I have a world to save. But I’ll keep my head down. I’ll serve. I’ll take the hints and passive aggressive words. I’ll rub their backs and wash their feet. Never send a Cat to do a Dog’s job. But that’s the best they got. So I go and do as best I can, which isn’t very good. I am trying god help me. But it isn’t very good.

It’s hard to keep your head down when you’re so exposed though. People are curious about me. Prying eyes. I feel them. I meet them. I alienate them. Pitying eyes. I might be frozen in Amber but I want dignity. Is that too much to ask for? Keep low. Exposed and in the open. Opportunities flower, blossom, then turn to glass and shatter. Expect the unexpected! How do you stay positive? Is being positive another trick the devil pulled?

Evil is attracted to a broken heart. It’s not fair. Are atheists right? Are the nihilists right? Before, I thought it was a way to avoid thinking about the unexplained, about the undiscovered country, about a future with too much progress and too little wisdom to handle it. Even THINKING is filing for divorce.

Let the computers worry about our minds. Let the pills worry about our emotions.

I am the Voyeur Absolute. I live outside the world. A slow-going Pornhub ecological disaster plays and replays. Dissolution is the only solution. But this goddamn EGO! How can I kill my nurturer? Why would I break free from my only freedom?

Had a seizure moment last night. Programming error. My legs gave way underneath me, but all I saw was a still image of the hostel lobby in front of me.

“Dude are you alright?”

I look up and see the young guy at the front desk looking so worried I’m nearly touched. State of confusion. What happened? Why does my body hurt? Mr Robot shit. And it happens again in the bathroom, twice. Second time, I bang my head so hard, half the hostel is at the bathroom door. I had tried taking a piss, and blip! I’m on the floor with a howling pain in my head. My junk was out for the whole world to see. Look at the drunken buffoon at 33 years old. Look at the very personification of failure. I was scared of getting kicked out. But the kindness of strangers is something that I’ve always been able to rely on in the wicked Miami Beach. One silver lightning.

Two picked me up off the floor and took me into the stall. Asked me all the usual talk to the wasted: “ Do you need to puke?” “Are you bleeding?”

The genuine concern swelled my heart. I wanted to be pulverized by the Sirens of Titan. I wanted to be a satellite. Forever stasis. Swallowed by shame and regret. I was an apologizing machine, but they gave love in return. Is there a lesson here?

“You have nothing to be ashamed about bro. It happens to the best of us. We’ve all been there yo,” That’s the hostel manager. Salt of the earth no bullshit homo sapien. Gives as good as he gets. A man of his word. Never a shamer.

“It’s ok man.” That’s the Dominican New Yorker. Another genuine soul; a vegan with the ambition of a meat-eater. Very smart and really into theology. “Nothing to feel bad for.”

Maybe there ARE good people in this world. Have I not been looking hard enough?

Skip to the future. I’m making deals with these men. I’m shaking hands. We’re signing Contracts together. The stasis ceases. But for now, they’re picking me up from the literal floor.

The New Yorker insists he saw me hit my head against the floor with brutal force. I believe him but he doesn’t know how hard my skull is. I’ve fractured it on many occasions. Just a bump remains, to remind me that I have to take care of my brain; that it doesn’t work the way it should; that it’s compromised. To remind myself that age makes it harder to live with epilepsy.

I am not afraid. No doom and gloom. I take things as they come. Easy come, easy go. Go forth into the great unknown, with or without your consent. Better with. I am a breadcrumb of identity in an endless sea of identities, bigger than Andromeda. Everything is alive, more alive than the living, more human than human, more awesome and terrifying than we could ever conceive in our feeble inept 3 dimensional brains. You know that feeling when you see a horror-creature for the first time? A spider? A snake? A jellyfish touching your skin? That’s what I mean. We are constantly being dominated by the unseen knitting hands. Little monsters no bigger than our hands can determine our fate. Do we really have control in this life? Or are we being slowly digested, like Lovecraft believed?

In my case the literal truth is in the facts: A stacked deck. Not even a pair of twos. All I have is my bluff, which is the worst bluff in history. No one buys what I’m selling. No one ever does. Some come close, but when other people come into the mix, they toss my hand away in shame. What’s the use of a vexed hand? I was born with a deformity called poverty, from a deformity called bureaucracy, from tension between two nations that I had nothing to do with. Fate decided my path before I was born; when an ancient black woman stared at the fire Prometheus gave, and saw the face of a curious blinking boy thousands of years in the future, staring back.

Some have the life of choice, everything choice. But I wasn’t in that category. No matter what choice I made, no matter where I went, the weavers of life had different plans. Enoch laughs, arms folded, sitting on a bench of toothache.

But not all is lost. I seem to be upgrading. The level of people surrounding me aren’t all shit anymore. For example, look at the guy coming in to check on me in the bathroom.

That’s Terrell, the nice kid from Trinidad. He stays in my room and shows me all the music that the Caribbean and Indians offer. We laugh at how promiscuous they are. He takes to me easily. He’s repairs air conditioners and freezers, an engineer who never finished school. Tyrell is in pain. I can tell. His eyes are trying not to hate the cruelty of the world and the fate weavers. He is an anomaly in Trinidad. I can tell. His parents were able to provide a better life for him than many of his friends. And the shame is there. I can’t blame anyone. But his father is dead, and his girlfriend and mother want him to stop chasing these silly dreams of being his own businessman, of being his own boss, of providing a better life to his country. He came on a 2 week Visa and found a job in 5 days. I love pumping him up. He was scared of not getting the job. I told him not to be too grateful, to prove his skills and be confident, to play the game without shame. He laughs and laughs with a giddiness only people from the Caribbean have. His one flaw is the flaw many Caribbean people have: worry about gays.

“Emulate the worst motherfuckers at the top, wear a suit, BE a suit, and that’s how you take that power for yourself. Take that power back from those greedy money makers.” I tell him. Words from a bum.

Whether true or not, this gives him confidence, a second wind he was losing when we met.

“I got the job man!” My heart is filled with relief and happiness for him. It’s rare when good people win. You have to celebrate that when it happens. We wax nostalgic about an unwritten future where we are running the world amid clinking glasses aboard planes and yachts. He wants to study to be a pilot but he doesn’t have the money.

“I’ll buy the plane and you can drive us around.”

Tyrell laughs with a grin bigger than Cheshire Cat and fist-pumps me with Caribbean enthusiasm. Days later I seem him hovering over me looking slightly disappointed but I don’t mind. He cares about me a lot. How strange.

“You’re wasting your life with drink man.” His accent pleasantly tickles my ears. His concern is real, not like my fake friends. That’s why it doesn’t piss me off like usual. He cares about me so it isn’t sanctimonious. I try to explain to him that I don’t always drink, that I’m epileptic and I haven’t treated it at all. He believes my words. How strange. What is this feeling? Of people caring about me? Are the times finally a-changing? Bob Dylan’s net worth is 200 million but he’s the voice of the voiceless. More computing errors. Life is a missing file; something deleted and only half recovered. Fate is shaped by sins of another life.

“Why do you drink the way you do? Why do you do this to yourself?”

I want to scream how much I hate myself, my situation, my so-called partner and friends and family. I want to wage war in heaven and carve pentagrams on the foreheads of Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel. Lucifer was right to be so fucking pissed off. And I’m there with him (or am I really him??) filled with rage, storming the Pearly Gates, calling for the spilled blood of the worthless angels. I will tear the bureaucracy down, brick by brick, bit by bit, ripping my hands open and not caring about the pain. Helter Skelter on the face of God, on the atrocities committed in his Name, on the chest of Hernan Cortes, on the Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria, on monarchy and country and good morals and bad sense, on the history of the world, on Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, on the Romans that killed the Gnostics, on the scientists that split the atom, on the addiction of opioids and social media and the doctors that write the prescriptions.

Depression: the ultimate pre-existing condition. Sorrow is the links of a never-ending chain that wraps around our throats and hearts, that binds our wrists as we are herded to the New World like cattle. And here I am, pulling with desperation, slamming my blade against the chain as the ocean slams the slave ship, threatening to swallow me up. If I die tonight, my vengeance will bring me back. Spin the cruel wheel of karma! Break it off its hinges!

Tyrell goes back to Trinidad, decides to get the appropriate paperwork to work legally. He has to sell his pickup and refrigerating equipment but doesn’t want to. I wish him well and promise to keep in touch and for the first time I mean it. His road and mine are the same. Fly-by-wire in space. Good luck Tyrell. I’m rooting for you.

“Peace my bredrin.” He texts me when he gets to Trinidad. Shows me a pic of his truck and a video on FB of his house flooded by the unforgiving Tropical weather. Hang in there bro. Jah love.

It’s only appropriate coming back to Miami the second time, that all the people I hang with are foreigners and transients. A surprising number of them are running away from something; unrelenting responsibilities, exes, failed familial relationships, shattered hopes, frustrated sex…

Have I found my tribe?

CONTACT INFO: carvallodan@gmail.com