STORIES FROM NOWHERETOWN

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 STORIES FROM NOWHERETOWN

MOISES F. SALINAS

WRITTEN IN ENGLISH, NORTH OF THE RIVER,

SOUTH OF REALITY

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 © Moisés F. Salinas

All Rights reserved. Can be freely distributed in whole

or in part with attribution to the author.

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INDICE DE CUENTOS

THE PIECE OF CLOTH .....................................7

A BUS RIDE ON A SUNNY DAY ....................19
MAXIMUM SECURITY ....................................27
THE DELAY .......................................................31

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 THE PIECE OF CLOTH

2006

It was an early afternoon on a typical Friday

at the house of the Goldbaums. They lived in the
third floor of a turn of the century building in a
nice area of the Bronx. A Jewish neighborhood
where, even though the majority of the families
were secular, the incoming Sabbath could be felt in
the air, with many Jewish households abuzz with
the preparations for the festive dinner. Michl, the
grandfather of the family was sitting in an old sofa,
next to the small terrace were the sun lit warmer at
that time of the afternoon. His grandson, Joseph, or
as he now preferred to be called, Joey, had just
returned from school. Joey was in seventh grade in
public school, and he was approaching the age
were he had to do his Bar-mitzvah. But to Michl’s
dismay, Joey did not really know much about
davening, the ritual prayers of Judaism. He did not
speak but a dozen of words of Yiddish and much
less Hebrew. He attended a fine public school were
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many of his friends were Jewish, but other than
Sunday religious school for the last year to prepare
him for his haftorah, a portion of the bible that you
read when you do you Bar-mitzvah, he never got
much of a Jewish education. Michl was greatly
troubled about this, but several years ago, after
arguing about it with his son Morris (Moishe by
birth) he decided there was nothing much he could
do about it. After all, as Morris had said, this
Reform new ways were more modern, more
pluralistic and in tune with the melting pot that was
America, and very different from the orthodoxy
Michl grew up with far in the village, the shtetl of
his native Poland.
But today Michl was going to do something
about it. He decided that as Joey approached his
Bar-mitzvah, it was perhaps time to tell him a
story, and to pass on a memento from his own
grandfather. “Joey, tatele,” he called when Joey
was passing by the living room. “Can you come for
a moment? I would like to tell you a story” he said
in the very heavily Yiddish accented English that
he had learnt to speak years earlier, coming as a
refugee from the Holocaust in Europe.
Joey loved his grandfather very much, but
sometimes he found him annoying in the way most
older people tend to be for pre-adolescent children.
In spite of that, he did not have anything really
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better to do before Shabbat, so he decided to
acquiesce with Michl’s request, and sat next to him
on a chair.
“Joey, tatele. Many many years ago, my
Grandfather, your great great grandfather Mendel,
use to live in a very small village in an area close
to the border between Poland and Russia. I wish I
could tell you which country was it, but I really
can’t because the area changed so much along the
years… but the truth is that for us, the Jews, it
didn’t really matter since we lived as our own
people, with our own language and customs, and it
did not make any difference if the ones who hated
us were the Poles, the Russians, the Ukrainians or
the Slovaks. For us it was all the same. Anyway,
Joseph… oh sorry, Joey, one day in the early
evening, my grandfather Mendel was getting ready
for Maariv. Oh, sorry, yes, Maariv, the evening
prayer… Yes, I promise I will keep the foreign
words to a minimum, yes. Well, in any case, he
was getting ready for prayer time, when suddenly
he heard great noise and commotion outside in the
street of the village. Before he could react,
somebody kicked down the door of their little shul,
the synagogue, and a big, dark Cossack soldier
dragged him outside with the rest of the men of the
village. There were probably a couple dozen of
them, and they smelled strongly to alcohol… what?

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Reeked? Yes, reeked. They put all the men on the
center of the street, and their leader, a man named
Svoboda or something like it, pulled out his sword,
and a big, gold cross. ‘I came to save your souls,
you Jewish sinners.’ He spoke with a drool and
was obviously very, very drunk. ‘You should
resign your sinful ways and swear allegiance to our
only savior, Jesus the lord. And I shall let you
live.’ He said. Mendel was obviously very, very
afraid. He knew that these men were not joking, the
value of life back then was very, very low, and
Jewish life was even cheaper than that. They
looked at their rabbi for guidance, as these
Svoboda guy put the cross right in front of him.
The rabbi was silent for a moment, but then he
began: Shemah Israel, Adonay Eloheinu, Adonai
Echadˆ… Oh, you learned that one in Sunday
school? Yes, yes, Hear thee, oh Israel, the lord is
our God, our Lord in one. Your great grandfather
Mendel remembered then the story of Rabbi
Chananya ben Teradyon who sacrificed himself
and ended up burning wrapped in a Torah scroll
rather than renouncing his faith. And Kiddush
Hashem, the holiness of the name of God as the
only God of the people of Israel, and how over
generations we, the Jewish People, have died to
sanctify his name and maintain the legacy of Israel.
And that gave him strength. So he started too:

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Shemah Israel, Adonay Eloheinu, Adonai Echad…
Soon, all the men started to pray, together, and the
Rabbi, who was on his knees in front of Svoboda,
stood up. All the other men started to do the same,
but then Svoboda screamed and stabbed the Rabbi
in the chest. The other Cossacks fell upon the men
and started stabbing them right and left. Mendel
too got stabbed and fell on the dirt. The Cossacks
burned the shul, and they left. Many of the men
died that night, but not your great grandfather. He
was injured, and very ill. They took him to his
house to rest, but he was not well. The next day,
Mendel called his son, Yitzhok, my grandfather.
Mendel had his Tallis with him, his prayer shawl,
which had been stained by his blood because he
was wearing it when the Cossacks dragged him out
into the street. He told my grandfather Yitzhok to
take it. ‘This is to remind you of your legacy.
Never forget who you are. Keep it and pass it on
for generations, and hopefully one day this Tallis
will make it to Jerusalem when the Moschiach
comes.’ Mendel died the next day, and even
though Yitzhok was too young to say Kadish for
him at the funeral, he donned the blood stained
Tallis on and repeated the ancient words of the
bereavement prayer: Veyitkadal, Veytkadash,
sheme rabba…”

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 Michl was very tired, and they had to stop the
story anyway to get ready to light the candles and
start the Shabbat. But that night, Joey stayed
awake very very late thinking about his great grand
father, the blood stained Tallis, and his legacy.
The next morning Joey could not wait to hear
the rest of the story, so he asked his grandfather
Michl to please continue where he left the night
before.
“ Well, Yitzhok never washed the stains, and
he continued to use that Tallis for many years. I
remember as a young child thinking about it and
saying, “why doesn’t he wash that old dirty
Tallis?” But one day he told me the story of the
Tallis, and I understood. When he died, a few years
later, I kept the Tallis. I did not wear it all the time
as my grandfather Yitzhok did. But I kept it in a
very special place, and took it out on special
occasions when I needed to remind myself of the
hardship our people had to endure to survive for
the past 2000 years. That is, until several years
later a guy by the name of Hitler came to power in
Germany. Oh, you learned about him too? In
school? Yes, he was a very mean person. He
wanted to kill all of the Jewish people. Well, he
was in Germany back then, and I was in Poland,
and we didn’t think much about it at the beginning.
But then the big war began and in a couple of
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weeks German soldiers were parading all over
Poland. And it wasn’t long before SS soldiers came
into our little village and took all of us. I was a
very young man then, but I was married and had
one little son. No, Joey, I’m sorry, both of them
died in the war. We got separated, and I was sent to
a concentration camp first. But when the German
soldiers came marching into the village, the first
thing I thought about was the Tallis, so I ran to my
house and put it under my clothes. After a while I
got sent to another camp, and I could not keep the
Tallis anymore, but I did not want to loose the
legacy, so I cut off a corner, the tzitzit, and carried
it with me even as our condition was getting worst
and worst every day. Well, I’ll tell you the story of
how I survived some other day, Joey, but for now
all I need to say is that I survived and the only
piece left I had from my life back at the shtetl was
that little piece of a Tallis, with a small stain of
blood and a tzitzit that was more gray than white.
And yet, at that moment, the day the American
soldiers marched into the camp and rescued us,
there was nothing more important to me than that
little piece of Tallis that in my mind represented
our legacy and the whole 2000 years of history of
the Jewish people outside of our land, the land of
Israel. No, I married your grandmother when I got
here, to America, and your father was born soon

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thereafter. Well, yes, as I matter of fact I do, I still
have it. And guess what? I have it right here with
me.”
Michl pulled out a carefully folded
handkerchief from his pocket, unfolded it, and
revealed a small triangular piece of cloth that was
so grimy and discolored that it could really be
anything. At the center of the triangle there was a
hole, and from the hole, some strings, the tzitzit,
hung in a tight knot. There was indeed a small
brownish stain, which Joey guessed was the blood
of this very ancient ancestor of his.
“Joey, tatele, I want you to have the Tallis
now. Your Bar Mitzvah is approaching, and you
will become part of the people of Israel. When you
do, I want you to remember the legacy. I want you
to remember how hard it has been for our People to
make it this far.”
Joey took the piece of Tallis that day, and the
day of his Bar Mitzvah he had it on his pocket, in
the handkerchief and inside a plastic bag. That day
he felt very proud to be part of the legacy. The day
after, he put it in a closet. And there it remained for
many many years, undisturbed, and while not
completely forgotten, it became just a part of a
memory that Joey would only bring every once in a
while. He only took it out twice in the next 30
years. The day his grandfather Michl died, as he
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held on tight on the small piece of Tallis as he
recited the ancient words of the Kadish, and the
day his own son, Michael, who had been named
after his great grandfather, became a Bar Mitzvah
on his own and thus part of the ancient people of
Israel.
II
It was an early afternoon on a typical Friday
at the house of the Goldbaums. They lived in the
fourth floor of modern building in an upscale area
of Seattle, a trendy neighborhood, where young
successful professionals made the bulk of the
tenants. The incoming weekend could be felt in the
air with many of the young professionals were
abuzz with the preparations for the weekend, the
dances and the dinner parties of the Friday night.
Yuan, a beautiful young woman whose
grandparents had emigrated from China, but who
now preferred to be called Jean and had very little
connection with her family, was getting ready for a
dinner party at her house. She had been married to
Michael Goldbaum for about a year now. They
were very happy and they looked like the perfect
couple, perpetually happy, even though Michael
had a bad month or two after his father Joseph
passed away early that year from cancer. Jean was
looking for some tablecloths and dinnerware in a
closet when she stumbled upon an unopened box
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they had received after Michael’s father passed
away, with some of Michael’s childhood
belongings. She had plenty of time before the
dinner, and the box was kind of unsightly (Jean
loved cleanliness and organization, and everything
in her house had to be as close to perfection as
possible). She decided it was time to open the box,
and sort its contents out. She took some old
baseball cards, an old high school diploma,
pictures, a small little league trophy. Some old
record albums (they don’t even make those
turntables anymore, she thought). And inside a
small plastic bag, a white handkerchief. She
opened it, unfolded the handkerchief, and then was
disgusted with what she found. It was a small
piece of old cloth, filthy and smelly, stained by
what looked like chocolate, and clearly had been
attached to something by an unraveling piece of
string that looked like it had been dragged through
mud. It was positively disgusting. She put is aside
and as soon as Michael got home she confronted
him about it.
“Jean, it is some sort of family heirloom. A
souvenir or something from and old ancestor. I
really don’t remember the story that well. Yes, I
know is disgusting. Well, it kind of connects me to
my past. Yes, I know, we have to look towards the
future, and I know that you gave up all of your old

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Chinese culture and break up with your family to
become part of the modern world, as you say it.
No, no, I know you wouldn’t be married to me
otherwise. Fine, fine with me. Get rid of it. I know
how much that bothers you, and yes, I love you, so
if you thing is a focus of infection, just put it in the
garbage.”
The next Monday, the city dump truck drove
through the pick up area of the complex. A large
metal container was dumped and then compacted
into the truck. The little piece of cloth, now mixed
with some rotten raspberries, some used paper
napkins, and a disposable diaper, laid inside.
The middle aged driver pushed the lever to
compact the trash further, but some of the leftover
food splashed and stained his uniform. He cleaned
up the pieces of food from the nametag in his chest
that clearly showed his family name, Svoboda.

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 A BUS RIDE ON A SUNY DAY

2009

The 23 bus line takes you from the top of Mount

Scopus, down to the Old City of Jerusalem, via the
Arab neighborhood of Wadi Joz. It was the
preferred bus line for the students of the School for
Overseas Students at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, wanting to go down to the Old City: to
the Arab “Shuk,” or market, to the Western Wall,
or to the hundreds of small shops and restaurants
that surround the ancient walls. It was a cold,
sunny, and dusty afternoon, just like many an
afternoon in a Jerusalem winter. I was riding the 23
bus line with my friend Mike, just as we had done
dozens of times before. It was an unremarkable,
white and red bus from the Egged bus cooperative,
except for the acrylic panels outside the windows.
Most buses in the world don’t have acrylic panels.
I mean, they didn’t look pretty; they looked like
they were hastily screwed to the body of the bus,
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giving it an unsightly appearance. Acrylic panels
also get scratched easily, and after a few months,
they blur the view. When riding the 23 bus line, it
felt like you were watching the city go by from
some sort of fog. Which was very fitting, since
riding a bus in Jerusalem is like traveling on a time
machine: From the very modern and architecturally
impressive Hebrew University, that dominates the
summit of Mount Scopus with a commanding view
of the city, you enter some of the older
neighborhoods of Jerusalem where you suddenly
find yourself in 16th century eastern Europe. Men
fully clad on black robes or rain cotes, old
fashioned hats, and long beards. Women donning
long skirts and head scarves or even wigs. Narrow
paved streets that look more like they belong in
Cracow or Warsaw than in the Middle East. And
then the bus turns left. And your are in the land of
Sherezade, the 1001 nights and Aladdin. Arab men
shouting, with white and red Kefiyes over their
heads. Donkeys and sometimes horses pulling carts
full of produce, or spices. That is Jerusalem, the
city of gold. The city of Miracles. The city of
stones. Since the beginning of the 20th century,
every building in the city has to be built, by code,
with the white limestone that is common in the
hills surrounding Jerusalem. At dusk, the sundown
gives the city a yellow glow that poets over the

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eons have compared to gold. But at noon, with the
sun up high, it just looks like stone. But stones
were everywhere in Jerusalem of the late 1980s.
They were on the walls, on the paved streets, on
the ancient ruins, and in the air. Yes, in the air,
because besides being the city of stones, Jerusalem
is the city of conflict. The city has been fought over
and conquered dozens of times, by the Israelites,
the Mesopotamians, the Babilonians, the Greeks,
the Romans, the Mamelucs, the Muslims, the
Christians, the Ottomans, the French, the British,
the Jews, hey, some people say even the Aliens.
No, not illegal Aliens, Extraterrestrial Aliens. Are
they are not joking either. The Internet is full of
stories, from the Second Temple to Elijah the
prophet, claiming a connection to Aliens. In any
event, the point is that Jerusalem is the city of
stones, and the city of war, and at that point, in the
winter of 1987, the stones and the war came
together. See, in 1967, depending on which side of
the stone you where, Israel either “liberated” or
“conquered” the east side of Jerusalem. And for the
next 20 years, the Palestinians from Jerusalem,
which where for the most part considered second-
class citizens de facto even if legally they were
supposed to have all the rights of their Jewish
counterparts, actually did their best at integrating
economically to the new Israeli reality. But by

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1987, a new generation of Palestinians, who had
only known Israeli occupation, and had never lived
under Jordanian occupation, or British occupation,
or Ottoman occupation, got tired of this particular
occupation and were willing to fight for their self-
determination. And that is when the stones and the
conflict came together in beautiful synergy.
Palestinias, first in the Jebalia refugee camp, then
in the rest of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem,
decided to fight the powerful Israeli Army with
stones. The same stones that gave Jerusalem its
aurous name became the weapon of choice for
these perennially occupied people. The Israelis
were mystified. How does the mythical Army of
the six-day-war and the Entebbe rescue fight an
army of stone-wielding Palestinian Davids? The
reactions were varied. “Rubber coated bullets,”
water cannons, tear gas. “Break their legs” said the
legendary Yitzhak Rabin. And of course, acrylic.
Tons and tons of acrylic sheeting to cover the
windows of military vehicles, of civilian vehicles
of West Bank Israeli settlers, and of course, of that
non-descriptive white and red Israeli line 23 bus
that me and my friend Mike were riding that
ordinary afternoon in Wadi Joz.
“Take Cover” screamed the driver. The bus was
pretty full and there was no room in the center aisle
to drop to the floor. I was sitting next to the acrylic

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covered window anyway, so all I could do was
crouch. I remembered those little safety cards from
the airplanes that said that in case of emergency,
you should put your head between your legs. I
don’t think the safety engineers on airplanes ever
thought about flying stones as one of those
emergencies, but that was all I could think of on
that second. I was expecting baseball sized, sharp
rocks to start hitting the window any second now.
Probably because what we, and the rest of the
world had seen on TV, I imagined Palestinian teens
on the other side of the street, like young Arab
versions of Roger Clemens or Fernando
Valenzuela, throwing with all their might to try and
break the acrylic sheeting protecting the bus (me!)
from their fury. So what happened next came as a
total surprise. A heavy, loud thump!! From the
ceiling. I instinctively lifted my head in surprise,
just to hear a second thump!! And actually saw the
roof of the bus cave in a little and begin to crush
just like an empty beer can against the forehead of
John Belushi. This were no stones. They were
massive boulders, several dozen if not hundreds of
pounds heavy, that had been lined up carefully on
the edge of the roof of adjacent buildings. I was
paralyzed. Would the roof of the bus cave in,
letting one of this massive rocks in, crushing the
bodies of the people inside? I was not confident the

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aluminum body of a bus could take the impacts,
not to say anything about the useless acrylic that
the Egged cooperative spent millions installing in
many of its buses. It was a small example of a
basic rule of warfare: improve your defenses, and
the enemy will eventually find a way to improve its
weapons. Military solutions are never final, always
cyclical.
And then, a miracle happened. No, the Israeli army
did not show up to save our souls. No, the bus did
not sped away, it had to slowly roll out because of
the traffic. Neither God nor the Jerusalem Aliens
lifted the bus into safety. No. The miracle was at a
more human level. As I sat there, with my torso
down and my head up, paralyzed in disbelief, my
friend Mike took the hood of my coat, and put it
over my head. Just like that. Suddenly I had the
certainty that the thin cloth hood would protect me.
Suddenly my thoughts moved away from the fear
of being stoned to death, to that simple, useless act
of kindness, of caring.
Slowly, through the rain of rocks that weirdly
reminded me of the sound of heavy hail, the bus
struggled to roll out of Wadi Joz. The roof was
seriously dented. Suddenly, a massive rock hit the
windshield. The driver steered left, and the bus
went off the road and started speeding down the

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hill, faster and faster, towards the valley down
below…

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 MAXIMUM SECURITY

2002

The van arrived to the building early in the

morning. It was a large, mostly concrete and
unassuming building surrounded by security
guards. I have never been in the “big building”
before. Sure, I have been in places like this one,
but mostly small time. Local, maybe state, but
never in one of the big ones. Federal guards
escorted you pretty much from the beginning. A
long time ago, you were allowed to bring some of
your possessions with you, maybe even a small
bag. Not any more. At some point the feds got fed
up with people trying to smuggle dangerous stuff
and they simply prohibited us from bringing any
items inside at all.
I knew the drill. Even though this was the first time
with the feds, I knew what I was supposed to do.
They lined all the people from the van in a long
line. We were being watched all the time by
guards with automatic weapons, and you were
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always afraid that something would happen if
anybody misbehaved. Finally, after a long wait
that seemed like hours, I arrived to a counter. I
submitted my documents, was placed against a
screened wall, and a camera took pictures that were
compared to a computer database to make sure I
did not have any priors. A fingerprint scanner also
confirmed my identity, and after I was issued a
number ( A-G17-14D) I was escorted by a guard
for the security check.
I had to remove all my clothing. The security
guard placed all small items (my watch, my wallet)
in a paper bag, and then the paper bag with all the
clothes in a marked, sealed plastic bag. Then the
humiliation began. They stripped searched me,
made me kneel, made sure I was not smuggling
any dangerous items in my anus. Then pulled from
a shelf a plain gray jump suit, and fabric slippers
with plastic soles. They gave them to me with a
plain paper pass with my name and assigned
number. Nothing was allowed inside anymore.
Anything, pens, belts, even shoelaces, could be
used as weapons so they had to make sure nothing
made it inside.
The gray jumpsuits were marked with big white
letters on the back, “Property of AA.” I was placed
on another line, and even though I have been
stripped searched already, I still had to walk
28
through a metal detector. Finally, a group of us
was escorted to A-G17 by another security guard.
At the end of a metal hallway, we could see the
heavy, hermetic steel door where a young woman
reviewed my pass and plainly told me: “14 D.
Straight to the right. Thank you for flying
Amazing Airlines.”

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 THE DELAY

(Translated from Spanish)

1992

I had my sight glued into the white device, which

remained stubbornly silent, waiting for it to react as
if my life depended on it. In the beginning, I did
not doubt even for a second that it would be a
matter of hours, or maybe a day, for him to call. It
was like, so obvious. After all, he was the one that
took the first step (that's the way it always is and
the way it should be) even though, of course, I had
done everything necessary to be noticed by him: A
smile, a slight touch, a fleeting glance. He was tall
and dark and with very masculine traits. He was
sitting in a table with two friends, no girls. I was
sitting in mine, with a group of girlfriends from
school, and had set my sights on him from the
moment we arrived. Our eyes crossed paths, and he
smiled. I did not smile back, but I kept staring at
him for a fraction of a second longer than
31
necessary. I knew that would keep him interested.
For a while I just talked to my friends about trivial
stuff attempting not to look towards him. Then I
turned. Indeed, he was looking at me. He tried
again, he smiled. This time I smiled back, but then
quickly turned my head around. I turned back to
see him, and I laughed loudly as a friend was
telling a joke. Finally, he stood up and walked to
my table. He approached me with a generic type of
excuse, something like "Don't I know you from
somewhere?" or "Aren't you so and so's sister?" I
don't really remember.
One moment, the phone…
My hart beats with violence, I'm mad and at the
same time I feel helpless. When the phone rang I
thought it was him. I thought about everything he
would say:

"Hello…"
"Heather?" I recognize his voice.
"Yes. Who is this?" I pretend not to know.
"Robert"
"Robert?"
"Yeah, from the bar, the other night…"
"Oh, yes. Robert" I say with an uninterested
intonation.
"How are you?"
"OK"
32
"Listen, I wanted to ask you out on Friday"
"Oh, I can't Friday" I lie.
"How about Saturday?"
"Where to?"
"To this place"
"Maybe, I don't know. Why don't you call me
Friday to confirm?"
"OK, but it's a date"
"Maybe. Call me"
"OK, bye, but I'll see you Saturday"
"See you"

A few more words, a few less words. I approached

the device while my heart accelerated to the
rhythm of the bell sound:
Ring………Ring……Ring…Ring..RingRingRing.
"Hello"
A fraction of a second, no more, are necessary to
arise hope, and then, a voice.
A woman's voice.
She asks for my mother, and I feel a frozen liquid
flow through my veins, and I tremble while I call
my mother. The fluid gets to my eyes, where it
attempts to escape in the form of a tear…
But no. Who does he think he is, to deserve a tear.
They are all the same, men only want to play with
you. That's what he is doing, playing. Well, I will
not stand for it this time, not anymore.
33
Ever.
If he calls I will not answer. If his intentions had
been honest, if he had felt attracted to me, he
would've called right away. To wait for three days
means that he only wants me "to have fun." Well,
this time he is dead wrong. I will not fall on his
trap.
I can figure out his strategy: He waits for three or
four days, since he knows I'm attracted to him.
Otherwise, why would I have accepted to dance
with him from the get go? That was my mistake. I
gave him "wings." I Know he KNOWS I'm
attracted to him, and he begins to play his game.
By the third day, he knows I'm thinking about him,
hoping for his call, desiring him… Finally, he calls,
asks me out. Of course, he is sure I'll accept. He
takes me to an elegant place, maybe a restaurant,
tells some tasteful jokes, we drink some wine, and
then…
"You are a very beautiful woman, Heather." I
blush. He is preparing the terrain.
"Thanks for the compliment, but you know it's not
true…" I lie. I've always been told that modesty is
a good quality in a lady.
"Oh, no. It's true. I never lie." Another lie. But
there is nothing I could say.
"You know," he goes on "since the moment I saw
you I was attracted to you." A pause. The pause is
34
important since it generates expectation. On one
hand, he lowers my defenses with a compliment,
then he makes me wait, to long for him to say
something, I do not know what, but something.
And finally, when he says it, one falls into the trap.
Whatever he says, it was what I was longing to
hear. I smile, and he goes on:
"It is like so incredible that we have such a good
time together…and, you know, is that… I would
like to be closer to you"
Closer to you. That is the first pitch, a curve,
sneaky. It is vague enough to be misinterpreted,
but direct enough to initiate his move. I give it a
pass, not my king of pitch.
"What do you mean, Robert?"
"Oh, nothing." That's zero strikes one ball. "It's just
that I would like to have something between us
beyond just friendship. I would like to get to know
you better, I want there to be something special
between us."
Makes me wonder. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe
his intentions are honest? But that is what he
wants. To make me doubt. NO, this is also part of
his game. If I had swung for it, Zoooom! Strike.
The pitch was inside, or perhaps it is the "bat" he
wants to get inside. But if he doesn't, then the old
story. Just a 'friendly' pitch.

35
He changes the topic, again, courteous and
friendly, but this time he takes my hand. His hand
is strong yet delicate. It's warm, it feels good. I let
him be and he keeps talking without interruption.
He smiles. His smile is charming, and his eyes.
But it is all part of the plan.

The telephone rings again. It's him, I thought.

I’ll let my mother pick up. In a second, she'll yell

"Heather, pick up the phone."
"Who is it, Mom?"
"Robert"
"Tell him I'm out." That's it. A taste of his own
medicine. And let him listen 'Tell him I'm out.'

I wait for my mother's call, but it doesn't come.

Silence. What's going on? Why doesn't she yell? I
approach the phone and pick up for a second.
"Julie, don't forget the committee meeting…"
It's not him.
I hang up very rapidly, and I feel desperate.
Maybe something happened to him. Maybe he
couldn't call, he is on a trip, or he thinks is
courteous to wait a few days before calling.
Everything was so magical the other day, I can't
believe he would do something like this on
purpose.
36
We were talking in the bar for a while. He was at
the same time funny and interesting. His eyes
looked so beautiful in the tenuous orange light, and
the sound of my favorite song suddenly filled the
air. That soft ballad, full of love.
I looked him in the eye and he read that I wanted to
dance. I took my hand, and without saying a word
he took me to the floor. He placed his hand in my
waist, and I garbed his shoulder. It was a strong
and safe shoulder, that attracted my head just like a
soft pillow in which you want to dream a fairy
dream. Our hands, strongly clutched, and our
bodies rocking to the rhythm of the soft music. I
felt in paradise. I did not resist when he pulled me
toward him, softly, sweetly. I rested my head on
his shoulder, like a fulfilled dream, and I felt his
chest touching mine. I let the music take over. I
closed my eyes and I felt we were flying. He
gently pressed his body against mine, and I felt his
legs moving in rhythm next to mine, one, two…
one, two. The music played and drugged me with
a wonderful love potion. I felt his breath on my
neck, and a soft, warm sensation filled my
trembling body. The sensation of his body over
my chest excited me, and I was sure he felt mine
on his, through my clothes and his. I yearned to
feel his skin…
The phone again.
37
I answered almost automatically.
"Hello" And then I realized my mistake.
"Heather?" A male's voice. I got nervous. What
was the sound of His voice? I don't remember.
"Yes?"
"Is your Mom home. This is your uncle Charlie"
Disappointment… and Relief.
It is amazing how two emotions so contradictory
can live inside you. We women are ambivalent
beings. We can love and hate at the same time.
That is our weakness.
And that is why we must be tough. We must
follow 'the rules' and not become easy prey.
Because the balance is broken and they take
advantage of it because of our love. Men are not
ambivalent. They only look for sex. Sex or
submission. Or in easier terms, while the soul of
the woman is hungry for romance, the body of the
man is hungry for sex. They are parallel feelings.
Just like safety and submission, we look for safety,
they for submission.
We kept dancing for a little while. Well, to me it
felt like a little while, but my girlfriends
approached me and hinted that it was late and it
was time to go home. I could hear in their voices a
number of different feelings. Disapproval for
allowing to be seduced by a man I barely knew,
jealousy for finding a 'stud' while they were leaving
38
empty-handed (or should I say empty-legged?), and
also some worry , since when I finally looked at
my watch I realized it was getting late.
"Heather, let's go because we all came in Monica's
car"
"If you want, I can give you a ride home" Robert
said "where do you live?"
"Oh, no, please, don't worry. I live at the other end
of town" and I explained in some detail where 'the
other end of town' was in an attempt for him to
read in my words 'Yes, I want you to take me.'
"Oh, please, is no bother. I live around that area"
when in fact he lived quite in the opposite
direction.
The Phone!
I ran towards the device, and just as if it had been
at a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, I jerked my hand
away from it just as I touched it. No, I will not
answer.
It rang once, twice, five times…
"Heather, can you get the phone" yelled my
mother.
Six. I pick up.
"He…" Click. They hung up.
I'm suddenly overwhelmed by doubt. What if it
was him? Would he call again? I feel pain in my
stomach, and a drop of cold sweat runs down my
back. What a fool I am. Besides, who told me to
39
start imagining things. Maybe he has a perfectly
good reason not to call until now, maybe he is
really busy, he has finals, I don't know, something.
It was so beautiful the other night. So magical, so
special.

I called my Mom and told her we were going to be

out for another while longer. "Don't get home too
late" she said. "don't worry, Mom, Monica will
take me home." More lies. But what matters a little
lie when you feel love knocking on your door? We
kept chatting. Small talk. Then, that cool song by
the popular artist started to play. I looked at him
with a begging expression. He understands. Shall
we dance? He whispers something to one of his
friends and we hit the dance floor. When we are
done dancing, his friends are gone. We sat and
kept talking about us, our likes and dislikes, our
lives, everything. We are so similar, and yet so
different in the small details. I like that. I have no
doubt I'm attracted to him and he is to me. Or isn't
he?
The imagination flies and time does too,
unnoticeably. We are in another dimension,
chatting, laughing together, holding hands. It seems
like only a second has elapsed when I finally look
at my watch.

40
"My Mom is going to kill me!!!" I jump out of my
seat.
"Don't worry. We'll be at your home in a minute"
He said which with such confidence that a strange
feeling of calm invades me.
We get on his car, and begin a long road to an
unwanted farewell. Almost without noticing, his
fingers drip down and weave in with mine. We
stay that way, in silence, until we get home.
Silence and love. I was drunk with happiness and
at that instant I couldn't ask for anything else in the
world.
"Well, we're here"
"Yeah. We are here." I look at him with sadness.
I would like for that evening to go on forever.
Only one thing was missing.
"Why don't you give me your phone and I'll call
you…" the phrase interrupted by the speed in
which I get a pen from my purse and I write down
my number in a piece of paper. I sign it: Heather,
and draw a happy face right next to it.
Just like the happy face, he looks at the paper, and
smiles. He steps out of the car and opens the door
for me. I stand up, look at him, and almost like
making a wish… he holds me with tenderness and
time seems to stand still. He moves his face closer
to mine and… only one thing was missing: a kiss. I
feel his lips, warm and moist, on mine. My heart
41
beats furiously and I get scared of myself. I freeze.
A few seconds go by and I feel confused, and
finally he moves away. I feel like an idiot, and
begin to wonder what is he thinking about me. I'm
ashamed of having desired that kiss so much only
to ruin it by getting petrified when he finally does.
I would like to hug him and kiss him again just to
show him, but…
"Bye" is all I can say.
"Good bye. I'll call you" but it sounded like… I
don't know. Maybe I'm just imagining things.
Maybe it was sadness what I heard in his voice, or
maybe not. Maybe hope, I don't know. He looked
at me intensely for a few seconds as I was opening
the door, trying not to turn around. Finally he got
on his car and drove away. Away from me.
That night I could barely sleep. I was thinking
about him, his hugs, his kiss. About me. The next
day I was expecting all day, waiting…

The Phone!!!
I run to pick up and grab the handset: "Hello…"

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