Volume 1, Issue 3 & 4 - Diverse Voices Quarterly

The girl places a new glass of beer before the son, and I reach down and grab
her delicate small wrist and ask, “Do you want to see where cinnamon is made?”
“Ja vel,” she smiles widely, “ja vel.”
“Ja vel,” I scream to my father who stands gobsmacked at the open door of the
café below, rising into the air like Errol Flynn, hoisting my rescued woman in tow,
“means, yes, a fucking lot.”
The door to my Studio City condo slams behind me, and I am greeted by my cat,
Bertram. Sitting on the couch and listening to him purr as I scratch his ear, I
remember the other reality of that Saturday afternoon, one of many afternoons in
Amsterdam that blurred into night. My father charmed the girl behind the bar and
anyone else within eyesight to show me how he is better at everything than I would
ever be. We took a cab to the Hotel Pulitzer, drank some more, then took a cab to
another bar in the red-light district filled with drunken Scots and Jorty oil rig workers
who liked to fight—the one where the deflowering party took place. I just shut up and
kept splitting because that is my way to handle this situation. Luckily I don’t drink
anymore, but I still shut up because I don’t know how to do anything else when I am
with someone with whom I want to matter to. I really do wish I had come with a set of
instructions: To exorcise ghosts, do A, then B. To find the one you love and have her
find you, look for A, say B, then do.
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