An Ocean Holds My Story
Louis Di Leo
Outside a bar, beneath a coconut tree, deepening this second-week suntan,
my toes dig into sand. Mr. Walcott tells me visual surprise is natural here in the
Antilles, and I figure surprises to be like stories—new stories. He says, “it comes
with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves.” I
know he doesn’t mean my history or my sighs, but I dig my toes farther down
and for the moment I know I’ve made the right choice; I never want to go back to
New York. I think: ¡Viva Puerto Rico! Then I’m wondering about my toes again:
how far down they can go. Doesn’t matter, I suppose. I sip my punch and rum a
little more and farther down it goes until it’s just a hollow pull, an empty purple
straw. But I have a relapsing thought, one of many since my marriage ended two
years ago, since that story turned into sighs, and now more often since leaving
home. The thought:
Sundays, our favorite days—my ex and I, when we’re together. We
lie on the couch, legs tangled. She smiles a lot. She plays with my hair
as I shut my eyes and start to dream against her chest. Dreams of us
beneath the speckled night over Nassau from a trip we took. She looks
like a healthy woman when she’s tan; like a true New Yorker when she’s
not—too much discrepancy, maybe tedium. We take the dog for a long
walk in the afternoon, downtown and back, holding hands, watching
his brown tail swing. We kiss when I go into the store on Garden Street,
Woody’s Market, for sandwiches or chips, or glass-bottled Cokes. “Not a
single adventure between us,” she alleges one day. But I can’t answer her;
our lives fit together like a padlock and a whittled key. We kiss every time
I go into the store.
And I miss her and I miss our dog. And I hate her. And I hate them both. I’d
tell her now she was right. Now I have the beach and sun and a Spanish guitar I
rest on a raised knee, its neck high and head even with my own. Now I have San
Juan. I sigh.
Perhaps, I’ll have another one. “Bar-ward,” I command and I leave my
friend, the Honourable Mr. Walcott, opened upside down on my beach chair.
I’m up, back in the bar. Then, right there: Boom! She wasn’t here before.
And she smiles wide on ginger-lily lips: “Señor? Can I help you?”
I’m sweating through this linen shirt I bought after I stepped off the
plane—feels like yesterday. Fifty simoleons could have been spent in better
ways, but it looks good on me. I take off my glasses and wipe my forehead. Now
look cool. “Have I met you yet?” I ask as I place the plastic cup of orange ice and
pulp down. I spread my hands against the counter’s imitation alabaster stone. I
know I haven’t.
87
TCW