One Way Or The Other (Cont'd.)
 

The Middle

Not long after that first sexual experience, a young woman of generous proportions and long blond hair approached me by a bus station. She must have liked my looks. I bear a pleasant masculinity, undisturbed by puffed up muscles, and I smile easily.

Her voice came soft, almost childish. "Excuse me, when is the last bus to Barra?"

I looked at the timetable, hung on the post. "I'm afraid you've missed it." I said, without checking.

"Damnnit. Hell!" her temper betrayed her. Then she asked, "Do you know a place where I can pass the night?"

I knew she was offering me love.

And I was right.

I liked the sweet smell of her neck.

Her name was Dona. "Oh, Dona!" I said.

She was warm and humid like a bowl of porridge.

Three months later, Dona moved in with me. We rarely left the basement of my parents' house-that good it was. She made clay dolls and my father sold them in the city fairs. We filled our place with candles and soft pillows. We loaded the wooden shelves with embraced couples made of clay. We made love. I cooked her food and she washed my clothes. We made love again.

In the autumn, Father hired Mario's truck service. After a day or two alone with Mario, he invited Dona to drive with him to the fairs. She refused. We stayed in, in perfect harmony.

We talked little.

"Do you ever think of getting married?" she would ask.

"Sometimes," I'd answer.

"Do you see us getting old together?" she'd inquire, combing her long hair with long strokes, the way I liked.

"You'll never be old," I would say.

Finally, she asked, "would you marry me?"

Before I could make a decision properly, she left me.

"Don't flip the damned coin!" she screamed.

Have I mentioned she had quite a temper?

"I can't do that," I clarified.

"Give me a straight 'maybe', at least," she yelled.

Some people find it hard to face the coin method.

I tried to explain: "'Maybe' is not a yes and not a no. It's a second rate option, like arriving second in a race. The silver medal is totally forgettable. You either win or lose, the rest is irrelevant."

I should have shut my mouth.

Dona left. The basement became so empty, I missed her more every day. I knew she could not live without love. Nonetheless, she came home a few times but ignored me.

"Stay," I'd ask. But she went upstairs to see my father.

He told me they held long conversations up there in the attic. I tried to imagine what they said about me, but I had no idea. I really wanted to know. I became more curious as days ran by. I could not sleep well, imagining a slick, hard stone installing itself under my ribs. I wrote it down.

The neighborhood journal published a poem, named: Dona.

I called Dona daily, but she kept hanging up on me.

In the winter, father took Dona and her clay dolls to the fairs in Theresopolis, and Petropolis-two lovely towns by the mountains.

He returned three days later. Mother said nothing. She made a lot of spaghetti with tomato sauce-her peace offering.

Father ate, but I couldn't.

"Oh, poor baby," Mother told me. "You're too good for her."

"Is he?" Father asked in a tiny voice.

"I need her," said I.

"It sounds like a decision," Mother said with wonder.

They ate the spaghetti, vigorously eyeing each other.

When Dona finally stayed on the line for over a second, I told her I would marry her. I said, "The hell with coins."

She cried and said she was very pleased.

"I'm with people now," she whispered, "I'll call you later."

When she did, she described the delicious things she would do to me.

I leaned back on the corpulent pillows, mumbling, "Hmmm. Yes. Hmmm. Yes."

"You will be my lollipop;the younger-the sweeter" she whispered.

Something occurred to me.

"Sorry, wrong number," I said.

Before dinner, I asked my father, "Is Dona a little slut?" He should have known, you see. I knew it by then.

His smile turned into a savage laughter. "Yes, she is," he gagged. "No doubt."

"She is!" I repeated. It hurt.

"I'm ordering a pizza," Mother said. "Joaquim delivers."

One thing I have re-learned: people are not trustworthy. The coin is.

I observed my father at the dinner table. What was he doing when we were out at the store?

Father smiled, perhaps. Men with mustaches always seem to be smiling. Father, a stocky man with a graying mustache is an example. His assumed smile acknowledged my first steps, my first day at school, my first beer (his), my dancing lesson with Mother. All were good occasions for a grin.

But now?!

I couldn't get hold of my thoughts. They got wild and turned into a headache. I wanted to smash his face. But pride stopped me. We, the Perreiras, are against violence.