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.

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.