I've been shot at two times in my life. The first time was after going to this bar in Kansas City on Troost that no longer exists. Mike's Bar was the name and you could use anything to get in. You could flash a pokemon card to the bouncer who would just nod and step aside. On this particular night, I went with a friend that I had recently met through another friend. She's an architect in Dallas now, I believe. Sweet girl who I think was led to believe I was more interesting than I really was. We had some drinks then we decided to go back to our mutual friend's house who lived over a couple of blocks. We left the bar and walked over to the parking lot. We pulled off at the same time as this nice Honda Accord that then pulled up to us at the light. I could see the guy looking over at me and he was talking on speaker while glaring at us. My friend said she wanted to get McDonald's' so instead of turning right I took off my blinker and went straight. We drove up about 100 yards to the next light with the Honda still next to us. This time he was yelling something out of the window to us. It took my friend telling me about it to even notice. By the way she told me to look over at the car next to us, I knew that Honda guy was going to make things much more interesting that night. I look over, lower my window, ask him what's good and he just yells "stupid white bitch, fucking dumb white bitch." He looked like he was off some shit so I just kind of ignored it, but he kept yelling about white bitches while we drove through the light and through the avenue. I looked over at my new acquaintance to see if she was doing ok and I realized that she kept looking over at him. I told her he was crazy and to not give him any attention. She tried but he just kept yelling about stupid white bitches. I decided to speed up and pull over in front of him just to not see his face. We drove another block like that until we arrived at the McDonald's where I had to take a right and then quick left turn into the parking lot. As I was taking that quick left turn I realized Honda was still behind us and that's when he shot two rounds at us. I sped through that parking lot and into the CVS around the block so fast dude. My friend was crying and super freaked out so I just kept circling the CVS parking lot while I called 911. The call with the dispatcher was quick since we didn't get the license plate. Not much the police could really do about that. Homegirl was super rattled on the drive back to our friend's house, and to make matters worse our friend wasn't picking up the phone. We got back to our friend's house and she was angry at us because we didn't invite her (even though she was working) and because her girlfriend in Brazil had a nosebleed or something. So - after being shot at and slightly traumatized - we were greeted with hostility and annoyance -- which I just think is brilliant. I swear sometimes that she was on the phone with Honda Accord boy.
She’s someone that I always imagine lost and, yet, found in mental tornados of thought and experience.
My guess is as good as yours and that’s what makes her supernatural.
Picture this force alone.
She wants to feel like the sky is magnetizing her towards the heavens, and once she gets up there, way, way up across the star-studded sky, she will feel the glorious shower of celestial utopia.
It’s there.
She feels it blow cold jet streams up her spine, making her hair fly towards God.
This feeling is something tangible.
Something that she knows is so foreign to others that it could only be familiar to her.
Then, she will beg.
She will shut her eyes, open her mouth, and let out soundless screams that make the angels cup their ears.
Her eyes will close down the universe.
Straining her brain, she will wish that those blue circles that well up in our eyes when we close them tightly explode, throwing her away.
Back into something that wasn’t there.
Because there has always been a place, and her cosmic mind has grown out of things such as places.
She will plead that the earth swallows her because at least the earth had millions of minds scattered on it, all waiting to be explored.
Little universes. Objects with no places, just stories, narratives.
She will tighten her fists and spar violently with the celestial utopia.
Telling it to command mother earth to eat her up and crush her in the planet's deepest womb of grass, dirt, and rock.
Coming back home to be swallowed by matter itself.
She will never come to existence and that gives the cosmos therapy.
A sigh of relief that this play won’t disintegrate the elements with the conclusion of every act.
I met Madi’s son when I was 13 years old. It was during one of the most important transitional periods of my life. Everything was changing for me at that moment in time. I met her son through new acquaintances at a new school - if that tells you anything. Her son was and still is a sweet kid. Nevertheless, the outside world has no idea what a big, negative toll that mother of his had on his own development as a person.
To put it into perspective, prior to first meeting Madi, I had most of her personality already outlined for me by her son. He described her as wealthy, not well educated, severely lacking in taste, having an over-inflated ego, and, lastly, having an inability to sit down for more than 30 minutes. She was always up and around just looking and fixing and calling and buying, he said with a disappointing tone.
I truly believe that I am the only person to this day that knows some of the fine, minute details that I came to find out about that family over the next two to three years. Obviously, it comes from a limited scope, but I remember the feeling of having cracked through that Midwest mirage in a truly revealing way. I asked a lot of questions and I had a tendency to point out inappropriate things (I still do kinda have that tendency, unfortunately). I examined this suburban tragedy in ways that others haven’t. I hold the feeling of having cut through that repressed veil of Americana.
Anyways, it was stated earlier that Madi was a despicable individual in the eyes of her son. What I didn’t mention, however, was the dark spot of Madi’s personal narrative upon this green, beautiful, expansive earth that painted her and her actions in that light. Well, this twisted epicenter was that she had an ongoing affair with some man in Texas. She had met him while away on business and her husband had found out about it. Sadly, my friend had tagged along with his father in this slow reveal of betrayal. It all unfolded four to six months prior to my first meeting the son.
Madi proceeded to evade an expensive divorce through strong-arming and emotional manipulation. All the way through the course of my more intimate relationship with the son and all the way through today. It wasn’t like we didn’t know Madi’s ways of keeping the divorce at bay. The strong-arming and manipulation came in the shape of trips to California for the husband and kids, new golf clubs for the husband, a microbrewery in the basement for the husband, a water park in the backyard for the kids, the newest gaming systems for the kids, and a home theatre for the family. She brought home the bacon in a big way. Regardless, none of it was received genuinely by anyone in the family of four besides the youngest daughter since she was too young to comprehend the strings attached to it all.
I got to know Madi intimately during that time period. Well enough to become physically sickened whenever I witnessed the mental and verbal gymnastics that so precisely held up her personal life. I don’t think I’ve ever felt the same nauseating feeling of plasticity that I felt in that mansion ever since. Only one time at this restaurant I worked at. Anyhow, it was sickening to know what I knew and see her act the way she did. I knew she had another family-type situation in Texas with that hot yoga instructor. I knew that that’s who she talked to after our bocci ball games. I knew that that’s who she was texting before she paid the expensive dinner bill. I knew that there was always an uncertainty as to where Madi was really going for business. I knew all this and it made me feel pathetic.
What’s strange is that I still feel pathetic thinking about it now and I’ll tell you why. I can recollect little moments and instances shared with Madi that proved her utter contentment with life. Finding out that she herself had been brutally betrayed by her first husband. The way she sang along to songs about being your own God or finding your own personal muse. Her comments when we watched the “Pine Barrens” episode of “The Sopranos.” How she made it a point to let me know that the most important thing in life is your reputation. How she shamelessly flirted with that tennis coach while leaning on her sports car. Countless little gestures reassured me of her doubling down on her actions.
Still, I’m the one to feel pathetic because I know that she romanticized her own ugly behavior. She was the hero. Her husband had traded in emotional closeness for affluence but that didn’t register with Madi as long as the marriage stayed together. Her son couldn’t hug her without showing discomfort. She lived in a half-baked world where nobody could fully love her, yet, none of it made her want to surface self-awareness and genuineness. She was the hero as long as she was perceived as the perfect wife and loving mother of two. The one who provided her family with countless privileges that so many others can only dream of acquiring. All that mattered was the view of the outside looking in.
I guess that’s what people do. They build their own worlds that are traded in at everyone’s expense. They force into existence lukewarm, shallow lives that they dress up as meaningful. They bask in their own dualities while we fragment in the wayside. I always felt as if Madi must’ve had puke in her mouth the way she talked and lived. It was so boring and lacking of real stakes. Simply lukewarm and gross. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel like I’m the pathetic one. She checked off all the reasons in her own psyche to feel peace of mind. Everything was and continues to be in its place. Everything is nice and neat in her mind, yet, I can’t put some of my smallest demons to bed. So, here’s to you making me feel pathetic again, Mrs. Pukeymouth.
Find that escape already
They're getting sick of the placidness
Stop dipping your toes in
Nosedive into your new fantasy
Don't leave it up for interpretation
You love the fence
If you keep teetering they'll be validated
About the confidence, there's always comments
You'll brush them off but it always stuck within you
Dalliances in the far off sublime
You had nothing but castles of boredom filled
Foundationless in why they crowded
Humiliation will wash away the shame
Your memories never weighed
Find that escape now
Because we know you'll never pay
For about the last 3 years I’ve made a concerted effort to find out more about my parents. I’ve asked more questions about who they are, what they were like, some of their experiences. I’ve gotten to find out some crazy stuff. Like, how my mom studied to be a lawyer all the way up until her last semester in college but then decided to drop out. She dropped her law degree after her brother, a state attorney in charge of prosecuting members of Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, was assassinated. I knew about my uncle but I never knew my mother studied law for so long. I got to find out some stuff about my dad, too. I knew he competed in the Pan American games but I never knew some of the stories he had about teammates or opponents. Anyhow, I called them last night because I thought about this recurring memory that I have from early in my childhood. I wanted to clear up any questions I had about it so I called. The memory is that I’m in the backseat of this taxi with my brother. There is a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat. The woman is wearing a ski mask and my brother is crying. I told my mom the memory and I asked her if I had ever been kidnapped. I asked because I knew that we had come to the United States because some narco guys were upset that my dad and his brother-in-law refused to sell them some farmland that they wanted to grow drugs on. These narcos started to extort and threaten my dad. My dad was the vice president of the biggest iron manufacturer in Colombia. My mother grew up in Colombia’s upper class. She especially was privileged in a country that has incredibly high levels of socioeconomic disparity. My dad, on the other hand, was sort of like this illegitimate son to a rich man. He grew up in the working-class neighborhoods of Medellín. He worked his way all the way up. Anyways, what I’m saying is that they both had money and when these narco guys find out about that they just decide to bleed you slowly. My mom and dad wouldn’t live their life that way so we left. I knew all of this. Anyways, when I was asking my mother about the kidnap story she interrupted me saying that she knew what I was talking about. She said I was talking about this shoot-out that we once witnessed on the outskirts of Medellín. The shoot-out was between the Colombian military and the FARC. The FARC had kidnapped some lady on the highway up ahead of us so the gunfight ensued as we drove through. I told her that I remember that, and that the memory I was telling her was different. She just said no, that nothing like that had happened. She gave the phone to my dad so that I could ask him more about everything. I asked him about the memory as well and he also denied it. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt like this before about both of them, but it felt like they were lying. They were just being weird and taking these pauses. I don’t know, it felt odd. I then proceeded to ask my dad about how they were extorted. I wanted to know the finer details of the events that transpired. He said that the narcos started calling them in different places. By doing that they showed that they knew where my family was at all times. They stopped my dad on his way home and stole his suv. My dad said that they were super calm and relaxed about it. They said it was to show that they could take whatever they wanted from him. I didn’t know that at all. I asked him if there was anything else and he just said that they asked for a certain amount of money or else “they would take something of more value.” Thinking about the ambiguity of that statement now as an adult is frightening. Maybe I was misinterpreting their weird pauses as lying when in reality it’s just them having to recollect trauma. I asked my dad if he knew what had happened to these narco guys. He said that he did, actually. I excitedly asked him to please tell me. He said that they were brutally gunned down in the countryside. He said that some of them had been burned to death, too. He told me that we almost went back but decided the United States was still a better option. We reminisced a little about what life would’ve been like back in Colombia. We talked a little about crypto and then we wrapped up the call and I told him good night. I still don’t know what that memory with the taxi is about. I’ll probably never know and that’s fine. I’m not the first Colombian who has been forced to piece together past realities of horror. I’ll be fine.