Power Lines
We lay next to each other in the moonlight. The light coat of sweat covering my body was beginning to cool except for the length where our bodies met. There it made a warm, languid connection that was somehow more satisfying than the lovemaking itself. I didn’t yet understand why or how that could possibly be, that it was a confluence of factors, yes, but it could only happen at that one specific moment. A brief interval where we understand the weight of adulthood but, one foot raised yet paused, defiantly resisting stepping through that doorway. Most importantly though, there is just something about this girl. She makes me crazy. And I don’t understand it.
Toyota seats lay back better than airplane seats and they’re more comfortable too. Stretched out as we were, we looked out over our toes and the curving arc of the steering wheel into a view of the top of the jungle canopy under a star-filled sky. There was very little man-made light pollution to interfere with the view here under the Panamanian sky.
We were parked along a dirt access road and from where I lay I could look out the side window up at the power lines. The full moon perched on one line. It was that shade between bright white and ivory. I turned my head to look at her and kissed her cinnamon-colored cheek. “Do you hear that?”
She yawned. “Hear what?” she asked. “The monkeys?”
“No. That buzzing from the power lines. It sounds like my tinnitus; wheee-ooo, wheee-ooo.”
She gave me a light elbow in the rib. “You mean the voices in your head?”
“Ha, ha; not voices, funny lady.”
“Go get me a Coke out of the trunk. I’m thirsty.”
I made wavy motions between our faces and the headliner. “Oh, no; what about that loony escaped mental guy with the hook hand?”
She smiled and elbowed me in the ribs. “No seas flojo, pelao.”
“Voy, chica.” I padded barefoot through the cool dewy grass around to the trunk and got her a Coke and an Atlas for myself.
I stretched back out, leaned over and buried my nose in her curly head behind her ear. Always patchouli. “None of the cool kids smell like you do,” I said.
“You sniff all the girls at school?”
“Only the cholitas.”
“Hey, is Kevin going to Toboga with us tomorrow?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. He’s still fighting with Val. What do you want to do tonight?”
“Let’s go to that party at the observatory. It’s on the way back to town anyway. Then I want fries at the Diablo Clubhouse.”
“Hooray for Bright Fish Productions. Beer and a band for five bucks.”
We dressed standing next to the car and then shared a long, familiar kiss before getting back in. I was gripping the gear shift when she stopped me to put her palm over my hand. “Te quiero,” she whispered.
I looked over; a silhouette in the moonlight and patchouli. “Me too, chica.”
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