One Way Or The Other
Avital Gad-Cykman

By the end of my story, you will know a little about me. It may not seem much, dear reader, but it will be more than my future wife knows.

The Beginning

Exactly twenty-six years ago, I slipped into the world and landed on a crummy seat. It was midnight, the cross-point of the shortest night of the year, and I was born in a truck, driven by the only sober person of the group of family and friends.

At family gatherings, my uncles recall how my mother yelled at the dumbfounded men, my father included, to stop staring and for heaven's sake do something and give me that baby!

Mother suspected that the circumstances might kick confusion into her baby boy's blood. While watching the shaking hands that grabbed me, she prepared herself to help me find my way in the future.

What was the chance she could count on the others? They were only men that showed her their admiration by scoring goals and telling stories. Not that it was all bad. Being human, and more specifically, feminine, she found men's impractical devotion, endearing. However, she did not want me to resemble them.

During numerous parties, I have watched men, raising their beer glasses and shouting: "To Rita!" It can get quite loud when more than fifty people crowd our little brick house.

Mother would put a hand to her hips, round and full of grace, and with her glass up would make them wait a few seconds before saying: "to the golden years." Everybody knows she refers to the times of glamour and poetry, the different epochs of great artists whose works only exist in far countries and in her antiques store.

Looking across these unions, you'd find me in a corner, sipping orange juice and smiling with pride. My mother is a living legend.

In my father's absence, my uncles tell me that the idea of having a son did not even occur to him on that first year of marriage. It did to her, though. Notwithstanding, the pregnancy couldn't interrupt my parents' habits or change their lifestyle. They continued exploring what Rio de Janeiro offered, flirting, dancing and having a good time until the first convulsion.

"Can you believe it?" my uncles ask me.

Of course, I can. I can also forgive. I wouldn't object to anyone attempting to have fun, even if fun is not something I usually consider. Unlike so many, I value a clear mind.

People may say that life is a box full of surprises, but mine has been mostly predictable. My mother's first intuition proved itself right. I have grown to find in free choice an irrevocable mistake, a call for confusion. I primarily spent so long in front of my dresser, by the full dinner table, and in stores, that too little time was left for simple activities such as sleep. Mother came up with temporary solutions: blue clothes, pasta and salad, no shopping. It was somewhat too limited, of course. However, I have learned that when events threaten to go out of hand, rigorous measures are needed.

For the act of decision-making, the choices should be like day and night - two strongly opposed stages of light. Anything between the two is irrelevant. Take the afternoon-is it the opposite of the morning?

"Of course not," you wisely answer. Nor dusk is opposed to dawn. All of these are minor parts of the two options: the day and the night.

From this angle, nothing makes more sense than the coin method.

It's easy and practical. I never consider more than two options at a time. Between the two, I'll choose one by flipping a coin.

This bright idea was Mother's, but I have developed it to an art. Clearly, Mother and I constitute a good team. A similar cooperation had taken place when she found I could copy her signature.

She apologized to the teacher. "I apologize," she said. "It will not happen again." Not at school.

Soon, she asked me to help her with the store's paper work. Artistic as I am, I went further. I learned other signatures and featured them under old verses, creating an elusive charm of authentic writings. We would hang them on the store's walls and never regret it.

In the fine balance of a decision-making, the utilization of an antique gold coin benefits the process most. It adds tradition and history to every choice taken. I have acquired a considerable collection of coins, but my favorite still is the old one I received from Mario, the birth-truck driver.

Whenever I sit down, I feel it pressing against my butt like a reminder. Occasion arising, I pull the coin out, rest it against my forefinger and shoot it upward with my thumb. The ritual is as sacred as any.

This is my way and I see no other. Like Mother, I don't believe in consulting other people. Too often, their decisions are odd. Surprising as it may seem, Mother is no exception.

Once, when I was ten, she sent me with the present I made for father's day to Mario, the truck driver. I found him in the garage, cleaning the vehicle.

"For you," I whispered, timid.

"Oh my," he said. His eyes were green with brown dots, very much like mine.

"Oh my!" I echoed.

There's no better moment to mention that my father treated me as if I were his own son. Until not long ago, he used to take me to fairs, tell me family stories and show me affection in a general way. I may have really been his. After all, my mother has a strange sense of humor. She maintains and polishes her humor the way she does her Amethyst stone of luck.

"The secret of a good marriage is laughter," she often says. It alludes to her attitude to my father's courting of other women. She has her ways. As a counterpoint, she courts other men. He calls his "the little sluts," and she calls hers "the delivery boys."

In spite or maybe because of everything, we have family pride. When uncles and friends mention us, they don't say: Rita, Alberto and Izzo, but simply: The Perreiras. I repeat: The Perreiras. Beautiful, right?

All of that oneness doesn't mean we don't have our little misunderstandings from time to time. Somewhat critical of me, my father did not accept my decision to lose my virginity with one of his girl friends. He never treated the coin method seriously enough.

Having no choice, I took the other way around and lost my virginity with one of my mother's boy friends, an occasional sailor named Davie. In spite of his vulgar jokes ("I start at the bottom and make my way up,") I found him gentle. He had a strong body, with brown hair that softened the muscles of his legs, covering them like little cotton balls. It was nice, but not as nice as it could have been with a soft, voluptuous girl.

"I won't be jealous when you find your true love, Izzo," Davie promised. He was very sweet.