Cuando Nadia Me Ve

Growing up is not the problem,
forgetting is.

Garrett General

   1

   There is this small town in West Texas that died decades ago. Yet, if you have studied even a modicum of biology, it tells that even in death organisms continue to thrive. The natural processes of decomposition can turn life's dead end sign, into a community that might be more active that it ever was. This was Juniper, Texas. 

   "Theresa, get up. Seriously, last time I'm gonna say it. The store was supposed to be open fifteen minutes ago", her mother's voice rattled through Theresa's hazy, over slept mind. For a fleeting second, even with it's impatience, her mother's angry voice was not vastly different from her singing voice. 

   "We had one customer yesterday, and it was Hugh", Theresa shouted, knowing this argument would mean nothing.

   "Just because he's your little brother, doesn't mean he's any less a customer", mother's counterpoint wins. 

                                                                                   2

   There are thousands of towns across the U.S. that were settled by German immigrants. You can see it in the large "A" framed faux cottages of tourists traps. Towns that litter the Midwest and South have been bilking people out of their hard earned cash for almost a hundred years, at this point. Packed with wine stores, biergartens, and shirts reading, "Octoberfest is All Year Long". Juniper was not this place. 

   When a fender well cover comes loose it makes an unmistakable sound as it hits the tire. Blap...blap...blap...blap.....resonated throughout the cab. Taking over the loud mumbling of static and Bob Wills coming through the speakers. 

   "Fuck", yelling the most obvious thing to myself. Pulling the car over in the middle of what looked like a post-apocalyptic landscape was not in my plans today. Nor was my toolbox even close to prepared for this type of repair. "Well Robert, do you think you can deal with this fucking annoying sound for another five miles?", I questioned out loud to no one. Looking up at the sign that read: "Juniper     5", I decided I could. 

   3

   Behind closed doors, especially in desert towns, dust settles in a strange way. When a door is opened it is like you have surprised the air, and it is doing it's best to act like it's been working the whole time you were gone. The outside air pushes in and causes a swirling, that seems magical until you take a breath, and realize that it's choking your lungs. 

   Theresa did her best to make sure that as little of that dust hung around, lazily, as the day passed. If you were a frequent patron, it wouldn't be unusual to see a feather duster sticking out of her rear pocket. There was a full length mirror hanging in the back of the store where they sold cheap Wranglers, and pearl snap button shirts. One time she passed it, and saw the duster hanging out from her ass pocket. She spent the next five minutes walking passing the mirror, and pretending she was a chicken. Arms folded in a Mick Jagger-like stance and softly clucking, she walked back and forth bobbing her head and giggling. 

   At 19, and stuck in this "one horse town". She didn't even know what that meant. "One horse town"? She had always heard that expression. Yet, she had been all over Texas, and she knew that often towns like Juniper, had more horses than people. These are the thoughts that went through a young girls head, as she sat on a stool, looking out the large, single pane window, of her family's store. "Garrett General" was slightly faded, and hand painted across the window. She watched very few trucks, and people, pass by the window that morning. 

   It was the loud noise of an El Camino pulling up in front that broke her steady stream of daydreams. 

   

The Truth of the Matter

   The predictability of life had hit him hard in the last decade. Sometimes he would sit, and watch people standing in lines at food trailers. The cloudy days outside, during the last summer, seemed to accurately mirror the weather in his brain. Not a sad, rainy cloud cover, but a shade and comfort that allowed him to sit and confirm his feelings about human behavior. Counting down from 3....2...1, he could single out the person that would switch from the pressure from one foot to the other. This is not a story of boredom that would normally come with that ability. This is the story of his willingness to resolve himself to the unpredictability of something that he was even more highly skilled at predicting. 

   "Watch yourself", he would whisper into his own ear. Doing this became instinctual to him. Slightly whispering out loud. These things that he should say only in his mind, had become a habit that was ongoing since elementary school. Hoping no one could hear these whisperings, followed this same age long process. 

   "Why?", she asked, in the same whispered tone. Leaning in slightly, as if they had just shared a secret. Yet, there was no other occupants of their picnic table. In the second, literally second, between that question, and his response, he pictured this in his mind. 

   The way she hugged him as she left that evening, didn't contain any different inflection of body language, than any other friend that had left his side after a night of drinking any loud 'talking". He tried to do the same. Tried to hug her just as ordinary, and plain, as he knew she was hugging him. Yet, her hair always seemed to catch him just right. Directly in his open mouth. Softly blowing air through his slightly open lips would normally cause the hair to leave, but her long fragrant locks defied physics. Which, he noticed, is the same thing his heart defied everytime she held him close.  If even for that second. 

   "Oh, nothing. Just trying to remember something", he dismissively said. She knew this wasn't the truth because he could never remember anything. With a mind that could recite the air velocity, and speed, of a penny falling from the Empire State Building. He couldn't even remember the color of the couch sitting the living room, of her house, that they literally just left thirty minutes ago. 

   This was them. Sitting on this bench. Watching a slow moving crowd. Dreaming of what was happening, currently.