I arrived on a slow train, tired and hungry... and in need of a bath. I have been dreaming of Veronica for the last four nights... I dream of conversations we never had in cities we never saw together... I dream of the love we never gave and glances we might have shared had we found each-other in another time and place... in Hong Kong, 1956... I walk up a crowded street in a city called Asuncion in Paraguay... It feels like I am in 1956 sometimes... people smile and nod politely and I in return... I ask a friendly face to point me in the direction of my hotel - have I been away so long that I have forgotten where everything is... This city does not change fast enough to catch up to this world spinning out of control... no... I am the one who has changed... Life is slow here and easy on the soul... it is like that in this part of the world... there may be revolutions and dictators every now and then... but it will always go back to the way it is meant to be... a place where people stay out of other’s affairs and mind their own business and life moves slow and easy on the soul...
My hotel, which will remain nameless, still retains a hint of it’s former glory, corners and hallways glow softly in the night like a memory that refuses to fade away of elegant nights of extravagant parties... of women in Dior and Chanel evening gowns with silk gloves that cover their elbows and hair that took all day to sculpt... I can hear the whispers that still linger of tycoons conspiring to rule the world and lovers scheming to abandon their humdrum lives for a lost weekend in Buenos Aires or Rio De Janeiro... My room still carries the scent of talcum powder and Chanel... and Bay Rum... or maybe it was left behind from last nights tourist and his whore...
I slept for twenty four hours... dreaming of Veronica... If she had more time, would she still be mine?
If you were to make any assumption of my life you would say that I am a man that likes to mix business with pleasure... you would be forgiven for such wild accusations... this trip is more business than pleasure... but the business is more of a personal nature.. It is fine tunning “Plan B”
Every one should have a “Plan B” - a back door... a getaway plan... a packed suitcase with a way to get out and a place to go if the place you call your home falls apart... this for me is not that place... it is just a place where I have come to do business... but I will admit, it has very good qualities that do put it on a very short list of places to run away to... Asuncion is perhaps the cheapest city in the world to live in... people are not taxed for the money that is earned outside of the country and life moves slow... and is easy on the soul... ah, yes... the pleasure... pleasure in Asuncion is cheap and abundant... and you could very well say that pleasure is the reason for everything else in my life... no need to be dark and gloomy all the time... brooding my time away dreaming of places I will never see again with lovers I abandoned forever with no good bye letters or backward glances... I do actually have fun sometimes... unfortunately, I do get my giggles from making fun of the stupid most of that time - and the stupid for me would be most of the world... but here I was... freshly risen from my long slumber hungry and in need of pleasures of the flesh and looking for one of the few I call a friend in the sphere of reality I currently occupy...
As I stepped out the front entrance to my humble hotel and breath in the cool morning air... a poem begins to form in the back room of the production factory I call my brain - I can’t remember it now, but it was about how very unromantic my hotel is in the morning light... I chuckled and moved forward. Cities in South America feel more like Europe than one would expect, it is only the colors of peoples skin and the Indians that remind you - you are in the Americas...
I wandered around with no direction stumbling upon the places I used to know... the places Veronica and I would frequent... from one place to another I subconsciously strayed... and it was not until I arrived that I realized where I ended up... the coffee shop... the paper stands... restaurants... stores... theaters... parks... my hands would tremble... my heart expanded... I reach into my pocket for a cigarette - but I quit smoking years ago... I wander the streets and the markets... I begin to go dizzy... my legs get weak... my mind drifts and I begin to go in and out of reality... I feel her next to me... I know it’s not real - it never is... but this time... being here... it feels more real than it ever has... I hear her laugh... I hear her cry... I smell her... it's just the scents of the city... her city... I wander and stumble.. and cling to the walls of ancient buildings to keep from falling... I never thought this would happen to me... but if insanity is the way I am meant to go out... then let it be here...
I knock on a door... I don’t know how I got there...
It’s Frankie... I raise my head to look at him... first he is shocked to see me... then he looks worried... I lean against the entrance and he puts his arm around me to help me in... he asks if I’m drunk... I say not yet - what have you got... he laughs and feel I have returned home...
He sits me down in a plush leather chair... I look around the room... It is furnished more like a Manhattan penthouse than a crumbling town house in Asuncion.. There are black and white photographs on one wall chronicling his rise from poverty.. I am in a couple of those photos... so is Veronica... He re-appears with glasses and bottles of alcohol... “bueno, hermano... que sera...” - wine or scotch? The wine is from Argentina - I can’t remember the label now... but we start with the wine... he pours and I look around... I can’t take my eyes from a photo of Veronica... she is smiling... she is happy... it was during a festival that we played at - Frankie and I were DJ’s a long time ago... well, Frankie was the DJ - I counted the money... he turns to look at the photo... and says...
- She is beautiful there... she was queen of the world that day wasn’t she... (she was)
And we... we were peasants at her feet...
- mice turn to coach men... I respond...
I raise the glass of wine to my nose and take a good long sniff... I inhale to drown the oxygen.. And drink... a long slow swallow... and it is gone...
- slow down there old man... says Frankie...
I look back up at the picture...
He pours me another glass...
He knows... I turn to him... and he knows
- After all these years? Your telling me after all these years... now your falling apart over it...
He laughs - You fuck!... you stupid fuck! That girl made you the center of the universe... and you were just a fuck...
- It wasn’t always a god damn holiday with her you know...
- I know... I just like calling you a fuck... He looks at me for a good long while with a big smile on his face - What in the hell are you doing here? You always said you would return but you never did... and I don’t blame you if this is what was going to happen to you.. I haven’t heard from you in years... what the hell man...
- Frankie... my young man... we’re going to need lots of drink... and I drink down the wine in my glass in one long slow swallow again...
And I told him everything... I told him how and why I ended up in Paraguay the first time and everything that led to that... I told him of my life before... where I was from and the tales of my youth... I told him my story after I left Asuncion... my travels and my life in Chicago... my friendships and my conquests of love... the women and the friendships... the betrayals and the heart aches... I told him everything... Things I have never told anyone and things that no-one other than him will ever know... I told him my deepest darkest secrets.. My hopes and my fears... my goals... my failures and those moments that will be lost for ever... I told him... everything...
By the time I had finished my tale... we had been drunk and sober a couple of times... and we had moved from the front room to the kitchen... and two days had passed... and all Frankie had to say at the end of it all was... - Fuck... get out of here before that old dragon finds you again... you don’t have to come back to be with Veronica... you don’t owe her ghost anything... and here, old man... in your state... you would stumble and fall back into that pit she worked so hard to pull you out of...
And he was right...
I was on a bus that afternoon to Ciudad del Este... City of the East... “nowhere will you find a more retched hive of scum and villainy... we must be cautious...” or something like that...
to be continued...
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