The Purple Tux

With just enough education to perform.

Like I said before, we were going to stay in Surabaya for a few days with my dad’s cousins before flying on over to Makassar to see my mom’s side of the family. Actually, the main reason we went to Indonesia in the first place was to see my grandpa, my mom’s father. You see, my parents had planned a vacation in Indonesia to be taken later this year, in November. However, in the middle of April, my grandpa had a heart attack, and it was looking kinda serious. So we moved the timetable up and left America as fast as we could. I think we were finally able to leave around a week after getting a call from our relatives that my grandpa had a heart attack. And, like I mentioned, the flight to Indonesia takes a long time, factoring in all the waiting around in airports between transfer flights and such.

I guess sometime between our departure from San Francisco and our arrival in Surabaya, my grandpa’s condition took a turn for the worse. As soon as we saw my dad’s cousins, they told us that one of my mom’s brother-in-laws had called, and they got us same-day tickets for Makassar. From Surabaya to Makassar, it’s only about a one hour flight, but I was pretty spent after all the lack of sleep.

We were in Surabaya for around 8 hours or so before we left. During that time, we drove around the city- to the U.S. Embassy and to the bank to exchange some money. The banks there are more anal than my friend Sheynis, which is saying a lot. The banks there wouldn’t exchange money with us if our bills weren’t completely flat (as though they were just printed) and they wouldn’t exchange if the bills didn’t have a specific code printed on them (take a look at your dollar bills now and notice the code printed in green ink on it). That’s absolutely retarded, and I don’t say that to demean retards; it’s just a backwards policy, is all. As a result, we spent a frustratingly long time at a bank with very little turnover.

I was able to take the most satisfying and yet painfully short nap of my life at my dad’s cousin’s house. I might have napped for around 4 hours, but it wasn’t enough due to all the sleep I had missed over the flight. What I really wanted was just to crash on the bed and knock myself out for a good half day. But it was like that episode of Everybody Hates Chris, when Chris goes to bed, barely closes his eyes, and his mom turns off the light and immediately turns it back on, telling him it’s time to wake up and get ready for school. Was that a run-on sentence? I’m beyond caring. That’s how tired I was. Don’t you hate it when waking up hurts?

Fast-forward. We got on the plane to Makassar on this seemingly never-ending journey. I was still pretty tired. I wasn’t so tired that I didn’t notice the airplane stewardesses, though. In all of the planes I took, I noticed that most airplane stewardesses are pretty decent looking. Even if their faces aren’t too strikingly beautiful, it seems like the makeup they wear makes them at least presentable. Plus, I think they have to be proportionate to work for the airline, so I didn’t see any Big Berthas, if y’know what I mean.

Being able to look at pretty stewardesses is an important part of any flight, I think. Getting onto a vehicle that is potentially a flying deathtrap of doom isn’t a very logical course of action, but somehow, being served by attractive women puts me very much at ease. Plus, the outfits the Singapore Airlines (our international flight) stewardesses wear are pretty classy, as were the uniforms of the domestic Indonesian flight we took to get to Makassar. Tasteful batik designs that were pleasing to look at.

Only when we were on the plane to Makassar, still on the landing strip and preparing for takeoff, did I begin to realize the implications of our same-day trip. Leaving so quickly could only mean my grandpa was getting worse. Sadly, I must have been so exhausted that the idea hadn’t even occurred to me until we were on the plane. Sure enough, my parents, especially my mom, looked really worried. This, of course, worried me as well.

For the first time, it finally hit home that this trip wasn’t solely for pleasure; it was an emergency.

I don’t know how many times in my life I have accurately used the word “emergency” to describe a situation that directly affected me. It’s a powerful word, I think, one with a resonance that people don’t often recognize. But at that particular moment, I just about felt the weight of the word on my shoulders.

It’s like I said… Don’t you hate it when waking up hurts?

Reflections 2: American Eyes Take No Chances

I was always wary of going back to Indonesia. I’ve heard how dangerous it can be for foreigners, especially Americans. Plus, there’s always been tension between the native Indonesians and the Chinese Indonesians, and my family is part Chinese. And every so often I keep hearing about these riots and other violent things that happen there. So when we got to Surabaya, I insisted on checking in with the U.S. Embassy. Somehow, it just makes me feel better knowing that someone connected to my country knows where I am and what I’ll be doing… You know, ‘cause in case anything happened, at least it’d be a little easier to identify my remains or something. So first thing we did right when my dad’s cousin and his daughter picked us up at the airport was head on over to the U.S. Embassy.

It never really occurred to me that something awful could happen before we even reached the embassy.

I have no idea if this is common in all Asian countries; I’ve never been to any others (well, other than a couple of airports, I guess). The streets, to my American eyes, were mildly chaotic. To start off, the streets have lanes, but nobody stays in them. People just weave in and out as they please. I even saw people driving on the wrong side of the road, going against traffic. There are no stop signs and traffic lights are rare. I’ve noticed that I’ve switched verb tenses in the middle of a paragraph. The anal part of me wants to go back and properly edit my writing. But the rest of me just doesn’t give a crap. Guess you know which side of me wins. Ahem. There aren’t crosswalks, so people just cross the street whenever they can, and sometimes they hold out a hand with palm raised outward, as if to tell oncoming cars to stop in the name of love. To top that all off, seatbelts aren’t standard issue in the cars there (most of which are cheap models that aren’t sold in America).

And there’s the motorcycles. Everyone has a motorbike there. I saw 15 year old Muslim girls wearing those Muslim head cover things (as you can see, my knowledge on world religions is quite detailed) riding motorbikes. I saw 65 year old grandmothers riding motorbikes. Apparently, you only need to be 14 to get a driver’s license in Indonesia. Later, my cousin told me that you can also bribe the officials, and they will give you a license if you are 12 years old. (That’s what he did.) There’s no need to be tested or anything, it’s all about having Rupiah. Money talks louder than principles in Indonesia… But I suppose that’s probably true of any country, eh? (That “eh,” by the way, is an allusion to Canada. Pat yourself on the back if you noticed my intricate and layered writing.)

The motorcycles are insane. At intersections, there were around 75 motorbikes just swarming all around us. And of course, they took the weaving in and out to a whole new level. I was seriously concerned about getting into an accident. As if several dozen motorcycles on the street zipping around isn’t enough, there are also normal bikes and trishaws. (I think they’re called trishaws- you know, bikes that have a seat connected to the front of them, so they can ferry extra passengers. These are really common in Indonesia, the poor man’s taxi.)

Also, people really pile it on when they ride their motorbikes. There are people transporting things such as fruits, freshly baked chips, and other various objects. Sometimes these packages are so large that there is absolutely no way that the rider can see anything useful in his rearview mirrors. I never saw anything like it until I was in Surabaya.

Families also ride on motorbikes together. It looks very dangerous. More times than I could count, I saw small five year-olds sitting in the front of the bike, and then the father would be driving it, with his wife behind him, and the wife would be holding a small baby. The exact same thing, many, many times. I guess motorbikes and mopeds are cheaper than cars, so everyone has them.

When I’m chillin’ in America, I like to go for walks. Partly because it’s a nice way to take in some fresh air and sunlight, partly because it’s decent exercise and beats sitting around the entire day, and mostly because I’m too flamin’ lazy to go for a jog and do some actual running. You can’t really go for walks in Indonesia, unless you live in the countryside.

Sidewalks are rare commodities, and even when there are sidewalks, chances are they are cracked and beat up all to hell. If you aren’t careful, you can sprain an ankle or fall into the exposed sewer. Speaking of which, sewers are generally exposed, which really makes the filth of the city all the more apparent. No wonder there are so many killer mosquitoes and crap over there, with all those spawning pits. So if you wanted to go for a walk in an Indonesian city, you’d have to constantly be on the lookout for cars. No stop signs, weak sidewalks, exposed sewers- not very relaxing.

We eventually made it to the embassy and registered, after a surprisingly thorough search from the security guards. I felt a lot more confident about the whole situation knowing that if I were to get my throat slit by an angry, militant Muslim, at least someone would know I was missing. Well, that was the only part of the plan that came together. Everything else unraveled soon enough.

I’m still not too clear on the concept of “culture shock.” But I guess it doesn’t matter because the city doesn’t care.

Reflections On Indonesia 1: The First Departure

I went to Indonesia with my folks for a couple weeks. It was my first time going there since I was about six years old. I also went to Indonesia when I was two years old, but I don’t remember too much about either of my two earliest visits. For the first time, I went to Indonesia with a decent-sized mental capacity. Although sadly, I must admit that my two year-old and six year-old selves probably spoke Indonesian a lot better than I can now.

We left San Francisco in the early afternoon on Wednesday, April 19^th. It was a long flight. The first leg of the journey was something like 12 or 14 hours (I can’t remember exactly and I lost track of time anyway) to the airport at Seoul. From there, after an hour, we left for Singapore. What was absurd was that we had to spend almost 7 hours in the Singapore airport (Singapore local time: 11PM-6AM) before our next flight to Surabaya, our first destination in Indonesia.

Fortunately, the plane was nice. I don’t know what kind of Boeing we flew in, but it was spacious and had plenty of entertainment- even in economy class, everyone got this entertainment system that allowed you to watch movies and TV programs, listen to music, and play computer games. What was extra nice was that for the first leg of the trip, from SFO to Seoul, the plane only had something like 35% of its seats filled, so we could walk around the plane and sit just about anywhere or even lie down on a row of chairs for sleep.

It’s just nice when there aren’t too many passengers on a plane. You can really enjoy your flight and you don’t have to worry about bumping into people or waiting to use the toilet. When a plane is that empty, it actually doesn’t feel too constraining to have to be in it for 14 straight hours.

I hardly slept at all during those first 14 hours to Seoul. I think I tried sleeping a bit after the first 8 or 9 hours, but it was just too hard for me. I might have dozed on and off uncomfortably for two hours, but that was about it. Other than that, I mostly read a couple of the novels I brought with me and listened to music on my iPod. I also played around a bit with the plane’s entertainment thing, and watched a few random things.

I brought a lot of books with me on the trip. But on the plane, I brought maybe four books, thinking that it would only take me a few hours each to read them. I didn’t take into account the fact that I would eventually get tired. Not only that, I forgot that I can hardly do the same action nonstop for 14 hours. I love videogames but even I can’t play Xbox for more than like four hours in a row. So I’d read for a few hours and then take breaks.

During these breaks, I’d listen to my music and just start thinking about things. I thought about Indonesia, and what it would be like. Would I be very bored? What could I possibly do there, especially seeing as how I didn’t know the language well? How weird would it be to arrive there for the first time after 16 years? I didn’t remember almost anything from my previous trips. (However, I think my earliest vivid memory is from when I was 2 years old. My parents went to a cemetery or someplace and left me with one of my aunts while I was napping. When I woke up, I got scared because I didn’t know where my mom was so I started crying. Then my aunt heard me and picked me up and held me for a bit. I calmed down for a while, until I realized she was my aunt, not my mom. This made me continue crying again, harder and louder. It’s embarrassing to think back to that moment, but that truly is perhaps my earliest vivid memory.)

It’s an interesting experience being on such a long journey. Especially when you are on a plane and there’s no real chance of you getting lost or going on a detour. There isn’t much scenery to look at, either, because for most of the trip you’re so high up that everything looks the same. Also, no matter whom you travel with, it’s probably almost impossible that you’ll have a conversation that lasts 14 hours. As a result, you find yourself generally alone with your own thoughts, and everyone else on the plane is pretty much the same way. After a while, it doesn’t even feel like you’re traveling anymore. Rather, it’s as though you are an animal living inside a comfortable cage, completely used to your limited surroundings. I find this thought to be somewhat poetic, if a bit clichéd.

A few seats away from me, I noticed a young pair of people. There was an Asian male traveling with a white chick, both of them probably about my age. I wasn’t sure if they were boyfriend/girlfriend, but they might have been. They had what seemed to me to be an ease of communication with one another, as if it were effortless for them to be in each other’s company. It’s possible that they could have merely been good friends. It doesn’t really matter; the plane trip was long enough that I started making up a story about them in my mind. I have no idea if other people do this sort of thing, but sometimes I just look at people and create my very own narrative about them in my mind.

I imagined that they were indeed, a young couple in love. (Maybe my subconscious came up with the idea, because whenever I see Asian Male + White Girl, I got to respect the Asian brother. We all know it’s almost always White Male + Asian Girl, so when it’s the other way around, I can’t help but root for my own kind.) I imagined that the dude was some foreign exchange student who came to America for his studies, and the girl met him in a study group, and eventually they came to fall in love with each other. Now, in an effort to better understand his culture, or perhaps to meet his family, or maybe just for the hell of it, the girl was going with him to the homeland. If it seems bizarre that I think of things like this, perhaps you’ll understand if you sit in a plane for over a dozen hours.

So, when we landed in Seoul, we only had to wait an hour for the next flight to take us to Singapore. The Seoul airport was nice enough, and now I guess I can say that I’ve been in South Korea. I guess the young couple must have disembarked there because they didn’t get back on the plane when we left. From Seoul, I think it was another 3 or 4 hours to get to Singapore. There were much more people on the plane this time, as well- the plane was full. Being in the same plane with so many more people made me less comfortable, to be honest. I suppose this is like what I meant when I said that being on a plane is like being an animal in a cage. If there are too many animals in the cage, it starts getting a little crowded, even if none of them bother you. You just can’t help wishing you had more space to yourself, but you understand the situation and you tolerate it because there is nothing else you can do. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t really rest.

Singapore has one of the nicest airports I’ve ever been to. I mean, I am no world-traveled expert, but the Singapore airport has got to be in the Top Five. My parents and I had to spend around 8 hours there. We touched down around 10PM local time there and the next flight was around 7AM. That was absurd. But we got to become somewhat familiar with the clean airport. Because it was the middle of the night, the airport was pretty empty and almost lifeless, other than some other people who were also on layovers.

The airport had free high speed internet, rest areas, and super clean bathrooms. (I definitely enjoyed a nice dump in one of their many spacious and spotless Western-style toilet stalls.) There were also a great deal of restaurants (cheap and fast food as well as sit-down type places) and a ton of stores. Most of the restaurants and stores were closed because it was late. For the first couple hours, we just kind of wandered around a bit, enjoying the impressive airport. Walking around a foreign, deserted airport in the dead of night is kind of creepy but it really helps you appreciate the effort that goes into maintaining such a large structure. Eventually, it became morning and we ate at an airport restaurant before we boarded our flight to Surabaya.

The third leg of this trip wasn’t as comfortable as the first two. Singapore to Indonesia is a shorter trip, and we flew in on a smaller plane. There wasn’t much to do on the plane other than read a book, but after so much lack of sleep I was having trouble concentrating on any particular task for too long. Plus, all the flying and changing time zones and stuff was messing with my internal systems. When we left our house for SFO Airport, it was Wednesday morning. When we arrived in Surabaya, it was Friday morning. It was like one long day. With only 7 hours of darkness. Very strange.

As soon as we stepped off the plane, we were assaulted by the heat. I still have vague memories of how hot it was when I was a kid, and how sometimes it was so hot I would get bloody noses. Plus, the humidity is just intense. You get off the plane, and even before you really start to feel the heat, you just start sweating.

It’s always the heat that gets to you. The plan was to arrive in Surabaya, stay with some of my dad’s relatives for a couple of days, and then fly again to Makassar (on a different island) to see my mom’s side of the family. But plans, like promises, are all too easily broken, as we would be reminded shortly…

Harrier Investigations: Low Expectations

It was that time of year again, all right. The time of year when young people everywhere spend ridiculous amounts of money on useless trinkets, the time of year when teenage melodramas receive their highest ratings, the time year when a boatload of romantic comedies hit the theaters, and the time of year when the condom dispenser in the public bathroom in Central Park is most likely to run out of rubbers. Halloween was just a fond memory, one to grasp for and long for, only it was certain that the ugliest, loneliest, and most misunderstood beast of them all was the fellow looking back at me when I looked into my mirror.

Yeah. Valentine’s Day. How much different would the world be if Halloween and Valentine’s Day were flipped around? Not very much. Only the lucky, likable ones would get treats on October 31^st either way.

So it was Sunday night, February the thirteenth. I knew that if I wanted to be responsible, I should show up on time at the office the next day. But the benefit of being self-employed is that you could set your own hours and do your own thing, if you so wanted; I would never fire myself. It was a tempting thought. Not showing up at the office wouldn’t accomplish much; it’d be more like my middle finger to a society whose women have passed me over time and time again.

No. That wasn’t true. I can be an angst-filled resentful bachelor sometimes, but I like to hope that I never cross the line into the teenage sissy area. My interest in emo begins and ends with Weezer’s Pinkerton album.

What I wanted was just what every other sensible young man wants at this time of year. How about a little romance? Relationship optional, of course. Maybe I just wanted the day to be about me for a change. Maybe I just wanted to see Janie Sweder one more time.

Janie Sweder was the one I let get away. I met her some months ago when she hired me to investigate her old boyfriend and his shady dealings. Janie and I just clicked with each other. I’ll admit that I have no idea if she felt the same, but she was pretty much the first dame in a long while that I felt attracted to. Someone once told me that whenever a guy reveals deep or private emotions to a girl, it’s the equivalent of a girl flashing herself to a guy. I suppose that made me guilty of emotional flashing.

I had her phone number written on a piece of paper sitting next to the phone on my drawer right next to my bed. Every once in a while when I was feeling a little lonely, I’d consider dialing her up, but I never did. She’d probably see right through me. I was embarrassed at how I’d handled myself the last time I saw her and I was sure that she didn’t forget. It would have been too awkward for me to look her in the eye again.

What I longed for most was a different woman to grab my heart and run away with it into the cold, lonely night, stopping only for candles and a blanket with which to stay warm within the dark confines of a relentless feeling of seclusion. Someone new to get my mind off an improbable future with a woman who’s long since forgotten me. I was so sick and so tired of holding on to this juvenile dream, caught up in my fantasies of wooing the fair maiden, warped in my own perverted belief that a woman like her belonged with, well, not just a man like me, but me.

Her phone number beckoned me as I sat on my bed, taking my shirt off and getting ready to sleep. At only eleven thirty, it was still relatively early in college-town terms. Then I remembered that this town goes to sleep by nine in the PM. It was Davis, not Berkeley. What was the use of calling her? At this hour, she might even be sleeping and all I’d do is just trouble her and feel self-conscious for doing so, even if I kept silent after she picked up the phone.

The most private and inner thoughts I have throughout the day are continually punctuated by deep and meaningful sighs.

Screw this, I thought, putting on a new shirt and exchanging my sweat pants for a pair of dark blue jeans. They don’t call it comfort in a bottle for nothing. Even the most ironic statement has a hint of truth in it. I grabbed my wallet and pulled on a coat. Then I stepped into the chilly Davis night.

Downtown in Davis doesn’t mean much. Whereas in a city’s downtown area, the streets would have multiple lanes and the sidewalks would be extra wide to accommodate a multitude of denizens, Davis keeps it simple. It was basically the same as a typical residential district, except there were a lot more stores and restaurants, along with the occasional movie theaters and parking lots. I drove around a bit in my 4Runner before I gave in to my initial temptation to hit my favorite bar. Located just a couple blocks up from the Amtrak station, the aptly named The Bitter End was always a favorite haunt of mine. Too bad I gave up alcohol over a year ago. But like most things in life, once you’ve had a taste of something, you can never resist coming back home again, even after moving on to bigger and better things.

I strode into the bar. It was pretty empty, aside from a dozen or so lonely souls, which wasn’t surprising since the next day was a workday and many of the older college students in the town would also have class. I didn’t really want to drink but I felt brainwashed by Hollywood movies that my only recourse was to drink my sorrows away. And I wasn’t living in the world of A Clockwork Orange. I’d feel stupid asking the bartender for a glass of milk. Hell, I didn’t even think they served milk here. I was standing near the doorway wondering just what I was doing at a bar when I didn’t want to drink (even though I did- but at this point, I wasn’t too sure any longer). While I was being an idiot, a woman’s gentle but insistent voice called out my name.

I looked over in the corner. Sitting at a table by herself, it was Veronica Beaumont. She was nursing a drink I couldn’t identify (some private detective I am, huh? I have a real eye for details, that’s for sure.) and she waved to me. I waved back and walked over.

“Why hello, Vera,” I greeted her as suavely as I could muster in a bar called The Bitter End. “How are things going for you?”

Veronica motioned for me to sit down with her, so I daintily lowered my ass on the hard oak chair. “Hi, Damon. Sit down, sit down. I just got here a little while ago. What are you doing here?” she asked.

“The obvious answer would be that I’m here to consume copious amounts of alcoholic beverages, but actually, I realized when I walked in that I didn’t want anything to do with drunkenness or debauchery tonight.”

Veronica smiled. And what a smile! Her lower lip always gave me the impression of a pouting, if insolent brat, but it was offset by the tinge of mirth in her sharp brown eyes and the dimples that appeared in her cheeks whenever she turned up the corners of her mouth. All at once I felt protective of her and wanted to take her away from this seedy bar, this little rundown shack of a joint where felonious and wanted men would try to pick up on her to use her for pleasure and for pain- and not the pleasant kind of pain, at that. Then I remembered we were only in Davis, California, and I relaxed my guard.

“My, you sure have a way with words, Damon,” she said. “You ever think about becoming a writer?”

I didn’t mean to laugh at her innocent question, but I couldn’t help it. The image of me writing something that people actually cared to read was just an image that was so unlikely that my mind couldn’t fully picture it. I guess the natural response to things we don’t understand is just to laugh them off. However, I did feel a little bit guilty for barking my laughter. That feeling soon passed as she laughed alongside me.

A moment of not unpleasant silence washed over us and Veronica finished whatever it was she was drinking. I admired the way she tilted her head back as she drank. Her short brown hair looked nice and healthy the way the dim light of the bar reflected off her crown. Her eyes closed in momentary ecstasy, with her throat pulsating gently as she swallowed the last few of her drink. She placed the empty mug on the table but her eyes remained closed for another few moments. A husky sigh registering her contentment escaped her as she licked her lips clean, savoring whatever flavor remained on the edges of her mouth and leaving no particles to be wasted. I caught a flash of pink tongue licking pouty red lips. I couldn’t help but grow excited.

Too soon, she opened her eyes again, her feet back in The Bitter End. We made eye contact very quickly.

“So,” she said, “are you going to have anything to drink or not?”

“Nah,” I replied without any hesitation. “I don’t think I will after all. How much longer do you plan on staying?”

She studied her watch for a few seconds and then she said that she was done and she asked if I wanted to stay in The Bitter End or go somewhere else to enjoy pleasant company and stimulating conversation. I told her I was ready to leave for better things, and we gathered ourselves and left. As we walked out, I glanced back at the bartender. He was disappointed that I didn’t want anything to drink because it used to be that I came in to the joint all the time. He offered me one on the house, but I told him that I was looking to keep as clear a head as possible tonight. I left him a five dollar tip for old times’ sake. He was a good guy and deserved a little bit of cheer. He ought not be working so hard for The Bitter End anyway.

Veronica and I left the bar. The chilly night air cooled us off.

“Where to, Damon? We could go to my place, but…” her voice trailed off before she continued. “You’re the only one who lives at your apartment, right?”

I fought down a fantasy in my head and managed to nod so it was decided that we were going to my place. Veronica had parked her car not too far from where I’d parked mine, so we drove over to my apartment. It was a brief drive. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen tonight and I was scared to think of it. By the time we finally walked through my door, I felt like the last man on Earth. Veronica must’ve been lonely or drunk to waste her attention on me. It didn’t seem like she’d had that much to drink, so I figured it was the former.

“Have a seat,” I invited.

She plopped down on the sofa, grabbing the remote as she did. There wasn’t too much on the television. She scrolled through a few channels until we got to one of those late night reruns of an NBA game on ESPN. I sat down on the other end of the sofa. We both watched with mild interest for a couple minutes. The sound was barely audible; only with some straining of the ears could we effectively hear the announcers. The TV’s gentle, hypnotic buzz entranced us for far longer than it should have. The commentators were having the only conversation in the room. But that’s the thing with being with Veronica- things are never awkward with her around. It was part of her charm, or least what I liked about her. She was never one to feel forced to make conversation. Plus she was quite attractive.

Finally, by about the time the fourth quarter rolled about, she turned the television off. She didn’t ask me if I wanted to continue watching or not, she just used the remote. I figured this was a reflection of how she must like being in control of things. But it didn’t matter. The game was a blowout anyway. And I’d already seen the box score on the Internet before I had left for the bar in the first place.

The sudden silence assaulted my senses like whiff of ammonia to a sleeping man.

“So,” Veronica began tremulously, “tell me how you’re doing.”

“Fine. Work is going fine. I’m making enough to get by, I suppose. So things are going just fine.”

“That’s good to hear. So, any big plans for tomorrow?”

I frowned. “Tomorrow? What’s tomorrow?” I’d forgotten it was Valentine’s Day tomorrow, even though that was the whole reason I went down to The Bitter End in the first place. Yeah, my mind just gets shot to hell whenever I’m around the smoking dames.

She must have thought I was being sarcastic because she replied with a roll of her eyes, “Okay, not tomorrow, I mean technically today. Look what time it is. It’s Valentine’s Day already.”

“Oh.” I didn’t much know what to say to that.

“So, are you seeing someone?”

“Nope.”

“Neither am I.”

Her words hung in the air for a minute, framed by voiceless hopes and a boundless, meaningful silence. I was tempted to sigh wistfully, just to see what would happen, but thought better of it. We sat on opposite ends of the sofa and avoided eye contact for a moment or two. Finally, and this was not entirely to my surprise, Veronica moved one cushion over, breaking the invisible force field separating our lonely souls. Only then did we look at each other once again.

“You know,” she spoke softly, gently sliding an arm around my shoulder, “I’ve wanted to do this for a while now.” Her arm forced me to lean towards her. I shifted my head slightly to meet her full-on. Our faces were mere inches from each other, potential energy waiting for that kinetic burst of passion.

We pulled away laughing, when two sets of teeth clicked and clacked with each other. That’s what happens when you don’t coordinate your efforts in open-mouthed kissing with your partner: a dangerous outbreak of onomatopoeia.

“Sorry,” we said to each other, almost simultaneously.

“Damon, I’m afraid I’m a little tipsy,” Veronica said, bashfully.

I paused a moment, letting the smile linger on my face before I answered.

“Yeah. I think I am, too.”

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