Am I Here?(Oh, Lovely)

                 

                               "My story is of such marvel that if it were written with a needle
                                on the corner of an eye, it would yet serve as a lesson to those
                                who seek wisdom."
                                                                   - One Thousand and One Nights


It had been almost seven hours since my last cigarette when I finally lit one in the back patio of the bar. The longest timespan I had gone without one during the day was eight hours, and that was when I was eating marijuana cookies on a regular basis, and I'd forget the fact I was a smoker eager for a routine nicotine hit.
     She aloud me to do this after we got our drinks at the bar -- more like encouraged me to do so after noticing I was a bit on edge and fidgety during our conversation. The thing was I didn't want to have a cigarette while we were hanging out, because she was a non-smoker, and on top of that, a workout freak -- the complete opposite of me. Though I knew there was really no chance of us ever seeing each other after that day, I still held onto the hope that maybe -- even if it truly was an imaginary daydream -- she'd want to keep in contact, and see me again. Even though I've matured over the years, I still believe in attaining the impossible: the true love I want the most. I honestly prefer it over the winning lottery ticket. But such an idea was thwarted when she asked me what was wrong.
     I didn't want to lie to her, so I admitted: "I haven't had a cigarette since this morning."
     I remember thinking that if she suggested I go out to the patio and light up while she sat inside at the bar by herself, I wouldn't have moved from the barstool, not even if she insisted to the fullest extent. There was no way in Hell I was leaving her side in the short timespan we had left being in each other's company; I aimed to take up every second that was left, before we made our separate ways -- most likely for good as I already said.
     Then, like being struck by lightening, she said, "Let's go out to the patio. There's tables and chairs we can sit at."
     "You don't mind me smoking?" I asked.
     "No," she replied, getting of the barstool, and making her way to the entrance leading to the patio. "I prefer being outside when I drink beer, anyway. Just don't blow the smoke in my face."
     So there we were, sitting in the back patio section of the bar, our beers on the table, and me enjoying a natural tobacco cigarette. Old school rock 'n roll played on the speakers bolted to the walls, as well as a flatscreen television with no sound tuned to some sports event. A familiar scene I had not been in for quite some time.
     "Do you feel better now?" she inquired.
     I took a nice, long drag, inhaled the mouthful of smoke in one big breath, leaned my head back, then blew it from my lungs with the feeling of ultimate relief.
     "Never mind," she said. "You've just answered the question." She took a sip of her beer.
     "You know," I began to say, "non-smokers will never truly understand what we smokers go through on a daily basis, especially in this era where the only hip thing to do is try to live long enough to see the next century."
     "I had a cigarette once," she admitted.
     "Really?" I was a bit shocked; she didn't seem the type to even consider experimenting with unhealthy substances.
     She nodded. "Yep. When I was in college."
     "How did that go for you? Let me guess, you threw up after one drag."
     "How'd you know?" she asked, genuinely surprised.
     "I usually can tell, because a girl your size, who most likely was drunk at the time, will barf right after the smoke passes the throat. So, you ever try cocaine?"
     "No," she said. "That was never appealing to me. You?"
     I leaned my head up in thought. "Hmm, once, twice, ten times maybe." I looked at her, grinning. "You could say I learned the hard way it was appealing."
     Before taking another sip of her beer, she asked, "You ever think about quitting cigarettes?"
     "Living in a state mostly run by hippies I'm asked that question every other week. I usually ignore the question, but I'll tell you there are three types of tobacco smokers: one loves it, but always says to people they want to quit; the second eventually quits -- hopefully before it's too late; the third hates the question you just asked."
     "Which one are you?" She had this grin on her face that put a spell on me, and I loved the feeling it had on my spirit; I wanted to tell the truth.
     "I'd say two out of the three," I said.
     "Which two?" she asked.
     "Um, the first and third, I guess."
     "So you love to smoke tobacco, tell people you'll quit, and hate when asked if you'll ever quit."
     "Correct," I affirmed, exhaling smoke. "Maybe we shouldn't get into a discussion of lifestyle choices. It --"
     "No, no," she interrupted, "I mean no disrespect. I'm just trying to get to know you better."
     "Okay, okay," I said. "No restrictions, continue on ahead."
     "I'm genuinely curious to know what it would take to get you to stop smoking cigarettes," she said, her head tilting to the side a little.
     I found her looking cute, causing me to have no desire to speak lies, or half-truths. As if being controlled by a puppet master, I put up three fingers.
     "It would take three things, I guess."
     "What would they be?" she inquired.
     I sat silent for a moment, taking the final puffs of the cigarette before dubbing it out in the ashtray on the table.
     I said, "Love. Raising a child. And maybe a cancer scare, or getting cancer."
     She nodded her head slightly, then finished her beer.
     "Hopefully only two out of three," she said. "Love, and having a child."
     "I prefer the former over the latter," I admitted. "The stress of raising a kid for eighteen years might make me relapse." I chuckled at my own comment, then took a bug gulp of my beer.
     "What kind of a name is Olavi?" she asked. "I've never heard the name before."
     "It's Finnish," I informed. "It's my father's middle-name, as well as my grandfather's, his brother, and my great-grandfather before them. Obviously it was passed down to me, but instead of it being my middle, it's my first."
     "What's your middle-name then?" she asked.
     "I, uh, actually don't have one."
     "That's kind of unusual," she said, making this facial expression where she raised her eyebrows, and one side of her lips.
     I smiled at the site of the look she gave me. It had been three years since I had a really good conversation like this with a woman -- a real woman, I'd like to add, not some numbskull eager to itch her crotch with a man's dick, or stupefied by drug use. Being with this particular lady was the ultimate relief, comparable to a cold shower after working a double-shift at a steel factory. I honestly wouldn't know such a feeling, because I've never worked that hard.
     "Actually," I began to say, "one of my closest friends doesn't have a middle-name either. You see, he's Mexican, and I think it's a Latino cultural thing to not give their kids middle-names, because it was my mother's decision to just give me a first and last only, not my father's. My father agreed cause he thought it was cool, and the fact I'm first-generation Finnish-American."
     "So your mother got the idea from your friend's parents," she stated. "That's how you two are such good friends, eh. Both your parents were good friends before you two were even born."
     "No," I corrected. "I've known Mario since the third grade. I'm thinking it's a Latino thing because my mother's Mexican. Well, point in fact, Mexican-American. She was born in San Francisco. My father was born in Finland. He came to America when he was thirteen years old."
     "Whoa," she uttered. "Usually it's the other way around."
     "Yep, that's usually the stereotype people assume when I tell them that about my heritage. Even when I tell Latinos I'm half-mexican, they ask when my mother hopped the border." I couldn't help but giggle when I finished the sentence, saying, "Mario hates it when I remind him of that fact. I mean, not everyone makes such an assumption, but it's most people who do."
     "I couldn't even tell you were half-mexican," she confessed in a tone which contained a slight hint of guilt.
     "No one can, really," I said. "With us mixed race people it's a flip of the coin -- or, as some others would say, a roll of the dice -- on whether we're born pale, or with darker skin. I got brown eyes, pale skin. I actually have a cousin who's Mexican-Irish, skin a shade darker than most of the Latinos I know, and has blue eyes. Both his parents have brown eyes. Did you know the chance of my cousin getting blue eyes is only like six percent. It kind of makes me hopeful in a way. No matter how small the possibilities of a certain outcome, doesn't mean it can't happen."
     "Interesting," she said, smiling. "I mean, that's cool."
     "Thanks," I said, raising my glass. "To the great melting pot that is the United States." I then began to finish my beer.
     She leaned back in the chair, staring at me as I poured the beer down my throat. I expected, at most, to be with her no more than maybe thirty minutes before she decided to part ways with me. We had come to the point where anything could have happened, positive or negative. I leaned toward the negative, because I no longer believed my personal desire could be achieved at that point in my life, since my heart was broken three years earlier, leaving me alone in a dark place, and feeling as if stuck at the center of a black whole in space, remembering I was once a bright star surrounded by lifeforms I failed to keep alive due to my self-destructive behavior.
     I breathed a sigh of relief after finishing my beer, admitting to myself that merely being in that place was a first step back into the light out of the void.
     "You know," she began to say, "originally I decided on not meeting up with you when you e-mailed me you were coming to town."
     "Oh," I uttered.
     This was it, I thought. She's about to leave.
     At least it was better to hang out with someone you admired for a short while than to have never met them at all.
     A little hesitantly I asked her, "What made you change your mind?"
     She crossed her arms, grinning. I loved that grin, the way she lifted one eyebrow, and how her biceps flexed by the simple motion of crossing her arms over her chest. The mere sight of it made my dark, dormant soul light up like a Roman candle.
     "My friends convinced me otherwise," she replied. "They looked you up on all your social media accounts, and then told me you seemed friendly, innocent, and most of important of all, harmless."
     "Any naysayers amongst your friends, or was it unanimous?" I asked.
     She leaned her head back a bit, raising her eyes overhead in thought.
     "Um," she uttered. "No. Not one said to proceed with caution either."
     "I'm just being curious, but do you always seek approval from your friends before meeting new people?"
     Leaning forward in her seat, looking closer into my eyes, she said, "Only if they're men I've met through the internet."
     "I was just kidding by asking that question," I said, putting up my hands in civil surrender. "Of course you'd do such a thing. I mean, I'm basically a stranger to you."
     "Yes, of course," she said, leaning back in her chair, uncrossing her arms, and laying her hands on the table. "I made another decision when we were having lunch earlier today. One I made myself. Do you want to know what it is?"
     "Sure," I said.
     So far I had been lucky to be in an intimate only once in my life with a beautiful woman which had lasted nearly seven years; being with this particular woman for most of that day made me feel even luckier, even though we were most likely to separate in just a few minutes. One day I would tell people, I met her once. Not only that, we had lunch, had a cool conversation about this and that, then we went to a bar, and I got her a --
     "I'm gonna get us more beer," she said. "Does a pitcher sound nice to you?" She stood up, and moved around the table, then stopped before she went passed me. "When I get back I want you to tell me about yourself. Like everything about yourself, so by the time we leave this bar later you won't be a stranger to me, you'll be a guy I know, and then I'll come to a third decision whether we'll end up being friends or not." She then continued on walking toward the inside of the bar.
     Somewhat awestruck, I half-turned in my chair.
     "Haven't I said enough about myself?" I queried. "What else do you want to know?"
     She stopped walking, and turned around.
     "When two people first meet there's always some restraint from one or the other. I want to learn everything about you, because I know you know a lot about me. Give me an autobiography, Olavi Pijnen, not a simple synopsis. Just don't start with the day you were born, or the first memory you ever had. Have another cigarette so you won't be smoking while you're talking." She turned back around and went into the bar to get the pitcher of beer.
     Sitting alone at the table, I lit another cigarette as she requested, and as I inhaled the first fresh drag of tobacco smoke, I became a bit overwhelmingly nervous. For a moment I had no clue what to tell her, or even where to begin. After a few more drags I began rummaging through my memories as if I were looking for my favorite toy in the attic with the intention to simply look at it, only to realize I had thrown it away when I felt it was useless to me. All I had was the image of that particular toy in my mind, and only the words to describe it.
     There are things in my past I hadn't mentioned to anybody, but since I wanted her to make a sound assessment of my character, I decided to tell all without shame or restraint. Why not? The probability of her choosing to remain present in my life in any capacity was minuscule anyway. I accepted a long time ago that the occurrence of miracles are imaginative for people like me.
     She came back outside to the patio with a pitcher filled with beer in one hand, and two empty glasses in the other.
     "I ordered us burger and fries, if you don't mind," she said, placing the pitcher and glasses on the table.
     "No, I don't mind," I said. "As you can already tell by my size, I don't mind food."
     I moved to pour her and myself a glass of beer. She put up her hand to stop me.
     "No, please allow me, Olavi," she said, then began filling the glasses.
     "Thank you," I said.
     I sat silent for a moment, staring at her hand as it gripped the pitcher's handle, the other holding the glass at a certain angle so the beer foam would not overflow. If she asked me what my favorite part of her body was, it would be her hands. It wasn't because of how they looked to me, but all the talented things she did with them: the way they moved and touched the strings on a guitar; when they created a painting; played the piano; even when they clapped.
     The sound of the glass of beer clanking on the table as she placed it near me woke me out of the little reverie regarding her hands.
     "Before I begin I just want to say something," I said. "When I drink and talk I tend to rant more than I should. So, warning, we may be here a lot longer than you might expect."
     "I don't mind," she said. "There's nothing wrong with liquid courage to remove shyness from the mind."
     "And one more thing." I finished my cigarette, dubbing it out in the ashtray. "I ask you not to judge me too harshly, for one must not be defined by their past mistakes and bad choices. The past is bordered by the eternal present, and the future only comes when I finish telling you my story."
     "Alright," she said. "But before you start, I want to know something. What kind of haircut is that? I know it's not a Mohawk."
     "It's called a Devilock," I informed. "This is my third one. And like the saying goes, third times a charm, because I've been letting it grow for six years. I cut the first two off for reasons which will be explained as I tell the story you want to hear."