Clevelander
It’s been one of the hardest winters I can remember in a long time, this last one we got. It was strange because the fall usually prepares you for the bitter chill that follows, but this time it seemed like no one was ready. What with all the snow falling throughout the day, streets so smothered in ice you didn’t dare make the trip out to the corner stop unless you really had to, cold gray skies stretching on for miles and keeping you locked inside the house, day after day the same freezing prison, how could you be? It just came out of nowhere one day and never let up, and, honestly, I think it’s amazing how anyone managed to make it out at all ……… Okay, I know, you’re probably thinking, “People say the same thing every year,” and maybe that’s true, but, really, this time it was different, it was one of the worst. And it’s not just me saying this. You can ask anyone I know. Like my family. They’d call up almost every day, my dad, my brother, asking how bad it was in Upper East Side, and I’d tell them, it’s not great, you know, it’s just not great, we’re just trying to make it through. And then they’d start to complain, about the cold, and all the snow piling in the drive, and not being able to go out anywhere, complaining just like that, almost every day. And at work, too, because everyone still went in despite that god-awful snowstorm raging on outside, none of us wanting to lose the leads we had been working on to one of the shifty office sharks lurking around the agency, once we made it inside it was such a relief, it was like no one wanted to go back out. And a lot of times none of us did. Not for lunch, not for dinner. We just kept huddled inside the building, drinking whiskey sours at the lobby to help shake the chill from our bones, and sharing whatever gossip we knew to pass the time. My wife, I’ve got a kid, he’s three years old this year, she didn’t like that too much. Saying how I spend too much time away from home, how she doesn’t know who I’m running off with, what about our boy, you have another baby on the way, the stuff she always complains about. But honestly things were going on like that for a while. There was something new almost every month that she’d get upset about and we’d end up fighting over. Little things, things you wouldn’t think about when you started out with a girl, but here we are. I should have listened to my friends when they said be careful marrying so young, but I guess you only start worrying about those sort of things when you’re about to hit your thirties. You start to worry about a lot of things. Things like, did I make the right decision, is this really the best life for me, who else could I have been if I hadn’t started working at just fourteen years old? I mean, it was a lot going on, the job, the wife, the weather, it was just too many things coming together at the same time and it was starting to crush me in, you know, I had to get away, I just had to get away. So that’s when I decided to come to Miami.
I got a hotel at the beach, on Washington Avenue. On the day I arrived, when I exited from the backseat door, the sheen of the car almost blinded me, I hadn’t seen so much sun in months. Everywhere you looked there was sun. On the pavement, on the buildings, in the streets. People walked up and down the crosswalks, shirtless and tanned, moving slowly, and purposelessly, and as if they had never heard of what a war is. I hadn’t seen anything like it before, not at this time of the year anyway when the rest of the world peered out from behind a frosted window. What you covered up in other places from the hard, cold chill of the world, you didn’t here. Here you shed your outer coverings and waited. And as I stood there, peering narrowly onto the glaring, shimmering street, I started to feel the heat myself.
I didn’t have any plans, nor did I need them. Before I left home, I left a note with my manager saying I was going to be out a few weeks, how much exactly I wasn’t sure, but if my vacation hours didn’t cover the time spent that they should just take the rest out of my wages. Look, it wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve done, but God knows I’ve more than paid my dues these last ten years at the agency, so it was good enough for me. I also left my wife a message, because by this time she was already staying at her mother’s place, and it wasn’t something I wanted to get into another fight about. She ignored my message for the first few days, at a time when I still would have noticed her reply. But when she finally did get around to responding it was no use, because I had by then already been thickly steeped into a warm, seeping pool of indulgence and dissipation.
Looking back on it now, it’s hard to say what actually happened all those days and nights, or even how long it all lasted. But if you met the right people and had the money to throw around, you could suddenly find yourself wherever you wanted to be.
I went to all the night clubs, partied at all the lounges, drank myself blind at all the bars. I joked, laughed, confided in rakes and millionaires, joined up with lowly dissolutes running around the city, looking for nothing more than what they could seize for themselves that night, danced with beautiful women, woke up in hotel rooms I couldn’t remember how I got to.
When mornings came around, the hot eye of the sun seared the room through the large, covered window, oppressing the air with heat. But no matter how bad it got inside, there was always a bottle standing by to cool my thirsting tongue. I went outside, to the beach, past the boardwalk, dug my feet into the sand, and felt all its innumerable grains sifting around my sinking step. The ocean water was cool, and no matter how much the sun glared above, all you had to do was plunge yourself in deeper to get away from it. The only problem, when you got out, was the sharp taste of salt still sitting in your mouth.
Around the third or fourth week of my spree some of the acquaintances I had met began to sour. The same smiling faces I now saw turned to scowls. The men I dealt with wouldn’t negotiate. The women I met wouldn’t see me. At a few different places I even got into rows with the other patrons, because they didn’t like how I was dressed, the way I spoke, that I talked to the girls they were with, because they didn’t like being friendly, you tell me. It was bad news anyway you cut it. Things had been rotting like that for some time and weren’t showing signs of getting any better. Everything was, every last damned thing, until one night, when I made the most unexpected encounter of my entire trip.
It was already going in the night. I stopped by a few of the spots I frequented, got drinks, chatted up the help. At some point they cut me off, I don’t know, maybe I upset someone who was having a bad day, so I moved on. I went to a few other places, but by then some of the bouncers had begun to recognize me and held me at the line. We had short, “friendly” discussions, but anyway I kept moving. I followed the music and the noise and ended up at that one place that’s flooded with blue lights and always loaded with people. The line came all the way out to the street, so I started to make some friends closer to the entrance. But you know, the bouncers, maybe I didn’t have the right clothes on or whatever, because they just kept me there while all the others went in. Well, alright then, I guess they must have really enjoyed my company, because we just kept talking. We just kept talking even with everyone else around. So when two more gentlemen came to join our conversation and started to get “friendly”, I started to get louder. But then I heard a voice calling from behind.
“Manuel. Esta bien. Esta con migo.”
With that the bouncers let off. Their looks turned to the man standing behind me and they let us in. His hands were full carrying something, so I only got to pat his shoulders as a thanks. I even asked what I could buy him to drink, but he said he didn’t want anything, just like that, nothing else. He walked away without me getting his name and sat down in one of the private lounging areas, all there by himself, surrounded by a ring of empty white cushions and a crowd of crocked, rioting people. Later that night, after having run through all the entertainment straying around the bar, I looked back and saw him still sitting on the white couches, frozen and alone, staring down intently at a large, bright, fractured sea shell lying at the center of the table.
There wasn’t much else going on that night. I found a few dives still open that I could walk into, but at that time it was just me and the dry barkeep to keep it going. That’s alright, I thought, just let me get something to eat and we’ll call it quits. So, I looked and looked, but if there’s one problem with this city it’s how early everything closes. I must have looked for at least an hour, walking back and forth along the streets, finding nothing but dimmed storefronts and shop windows, and finally I just said to hell with it. When I was making my way back to the hotel, I suddenly saw a bagel shop across the street with the light on. I crossed over. It was 5:30 in the morning, and the sign said “Closed,” that they open at 6:00. But I saw the light on. I saw the light on, so I entered.
“Hello? Anyone there?” I shouted.
No one answered. I looked around and saw that the shop was empty. The racks on the wall were filled with bagels and breads and they smelled warm, like they had just left the oven. A man in black attire then came up, walking from out a back door.
“We only have cold food right now.”
He looked at me without recognizing who I was, but I remembered clearly those same solemn eyes that looked out at me from earlier in the night under the blue light.
I placed my order. He took the bagel from the rack and laid it on a tray. When he was ringing me up, I looked at the badge pinned to his chest, and it read,
Store Manager
Adrián Abrán Belman
He handed me the receipt and then left to the back room. On the way to the table, I passed the doorway and looked inside, and there he was, sitting with that same intent look he had on from earlier in the night, as if he was looking out toward someone, or at nothing at all. I sat down at the table with my food. Then he began to speak, softly and slowly, but to someone who I never heard answer back.
“When we were younger, things were different,” he began. “Back then, it felt like we all wanted the same thing. Some of us worked for it, some of us cheated, but we never doubted the sincerity of each other’s intentions. Life gave us opportunities, and what we saw in them was nothing but the promise of our futures. In the end, things turned out differently for all of us. I have friends that are wealthy, professionals who’ve found their way into a respectable line of business that few others have been able to enter and manage successfully; and I have friends that have learned from the weaknesses of others and have profited egregiously from their vices. Something changed along the way, and it felt like there was nothing you could do but just stand back and watch. Today, I still talk with many of them, meet for a drink and catch up on all the time that’s passed and now lost. Along the way we get careers and houses, marry and divorce, make friends and lose them, and when we stop to look back on it all we see that we’re no longer that same person dreaming of any of it, still clinging to our thirties. I didn’t find the way to my promise, chasing pleasure where I found it and so often being drawn to only what made sense in the moment. I can name you the names of girls I knew, ones I was in love with and ones I had fun with, but none of them left anything lasting in my way. I tried, but the decision was always beyond my grasp. And now I know the things I didn’t when I was younger. To leave something lasting behind: what greater gift can a man be given?”
I sat there listening. He went on.
“… But things are alright. I live in a nice place and I have a good job. I meet interesting people every day and I’m always learning something new. There are tourists who come into the bagel shop from all parts of the world—vice presidents, lawyers, city officials—and my employees work hard and try to do a good job, and it’s a good feeling when you get a chance to help someone out when you see they really need it …. Well, most of them do anyway. I had these two girls working here a few months ago, and there would always be something going on with them. One was from Pennsylvania, the other from New York. They started around the same time so they would often work together, and after a while they became good friends. In the mornings I would hear their stories of the night before, of their escapades running around the city, who they went out with, the guys they got to buy them drinks. They were pretty girls and they got a lot of attention. Sometimes I would see Elise talking playfully with one of the customers in the shop, and then Svetlana would go over and ask if she had given out her number. It was an entertainment they both enjoyed. Eventually, the two became roommates. After that their outings started to create a problem, because when one of them was out late the night before it usually meant that the other was too. In the end, we decided it would work out best if we had them working different hours, that way they wouldn’t both be out during store open. That’s when Ernando sent over Sarah from the afternoon shift. Sarah was a girl from Ohio.
“On her first day on the job Sarah walked in through the doors with a heavy, unsure step, as if it was the first time she had been inside the shop. She glanced around, and there was something like a look of wonder in her eyes at all the things going on around her. She had only started recently, so I put her with Svetlana so that she could show her how everything worked. In the beginning, she had trouble handling the customers. They didn’t all speak English, and she would often hold up the line trying to make out what they were saying through their accents. Then Svetlana would jump in, answering the customers with vivacity and a little joke, and receiving attentive smiles in return. She got the hang of it eventually, but I always felt that Sarah never became fully comfortable working alongside the others in that morning shift.
“But there was something about her! I couldn’t place it, but whenever I saw her it was as though some world I never knew about began to open up. She had lunch in the break room, a small, meager lunch, when the rest of us went out to eat. Our conversations were short; she shared little details about her life when I asked her, but with an innocence and joy in things wholly unremarkable, that a glittering picture began to form around her, enchanting and incomplete.
“I wanted to ask her to lunch, so I prodded Caro—who just clocked into her shift—to see if she was interested. That week the three of us went out. We went to an Asian fusion restaurant on Española. It was one that Caro loved, so I thought it would be a good choice. We ordered, and when the food came out Sarah was bewildered by what she saw, not expecting the unfamiliar Latin cuisine garnishing the meal. Later on, my friend Felipe came to our table from inside the kitchen. We greeted and hugged, and he asked how our food was. When he saw Sarah sitting at the table, he offered her his hand and asked her what her name was. I told Felipe that she just started on our shift a few weeks ago, so we had invited her out to eat. Felipe looked at me, and then at Sarah, welcomed her and said her first meal was on the house. He said to enjoy our lunch, and then went back inside the kitchen. At that moment, Sarah looked at me with a sudden expression that seemed as if it wasn’t sure of what it was.
“From then on we had lunch every day. We got to know each other well, sharing stories of our pasts and the events that brought us to this point in our lives. She was intrigued by the different life I had, by my stories of growing up in San Juan and moving alone as a teenager to the United States. And it turned out that this was something we had in common. She had always wanted to leave home ever since she was young, had always felt that there was some great life waiting for her in some other, faraway place. When she turned sixteen this is what she did, having left home to enroll in professional training at a prestigious ballet school. She had been dancing ballet since she was eight, and when she moved to Miami she was completing an apprenticeship at the ballet school located here on the beach.
“She told me stories of her childhood and youth, of her dreams and hardships. She could still vividly remember the first ballet she had ever seen, sitting entranced and speechless inside the dark theater hall beside her mother and father. She saw magnificent performers bounding over the stage, extraordinary women who triumphed in strength against the forces of the world, captivating throngs with their brilliance and grace—her Aurora, and Odette, and Tatiana with her Onegin—and from that point on she knew that this is what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
“She took ballet classes six days a week, with half days on the weekend. This is the reason why she only came into work at those times. Classes were strenuous, the students having to dance for eight hours each day. Once she showed me the blisters she had bandaged on her feet. The skin was ruddy, spotted, peeled and broken, and I couldn’t understand how a person was able to do the things she had to do on them. But she insisted there was no other way. She had turned twenty-one this year and still hadn’t received a contract offer from any of the companies she had auditioned for. There was so much competition, she told me, and felt that year that her friendships were starting to fall apart. It worried her because she wasn’t sure how things would turn out, but for now, she said, she was going to keep dancing.
“I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help Sarah, if just to make her believe that she would one day become the great ballerina of her dreams. I watched her inside the shop and could see how difficult it was for her to stand in front of that impatient crowd and perform all that they expected of her, doing her best all the while to maintain her poise. She had a friend who would come by when she got off work, who Sarah would save her maybe only smile of the day for. But then even the smiles for her began to stop, and one day the friend had stopped coming to see Sarah for good.
“I tried everything I could think of. I helped at the register when I could see she was having a bad day, I let her take longer breaks than the other employees, I took her to lunch at restaurants where I had friends that might spot her the bill. But when I saw her entering past the shop doors each morning, she moved with the same flat step. So then I had an idea. I would show her a fun time. I would invite her out somewhere nice where she could have a drink, listen to music, and unwind. I asked Caro to come. They were delighted and agreed. We went out later that night after getting off our shifts.
“We arrived around ten o’clock. It was a nice chill lounge with a DJ on an elevated platform mixing beats. The girls that night drank for free, though I didn’t see Sarah with more than one drink in her hand the whole night. She was enjoying herself, chatting and laughing with Caro as Caro told her stories about the clueless, enamored men that were chasing her at that time, and seeing this made me happy. We spent a couple hours there and it was a great time, but I knew Sarah would have to leave soon so she could get up early for ballet class in the morning. At that moment, one of Caro’s friends arrived. She had invited him knowing we would be out. He didn’t come alone. With him were two others, one of which I remembered seeing around at some of the late-night parties my friends and I had been invited to. His name was Joaquim. They introduced themselves, and I saw Joaquim looking at Sarah. We stayed, I think, another hour. The new group joined ours. They were rowdy and enjoyed asking Sarah about herself. She answered back, and I could see that she liked the attention. It was going like that for a while when they suddenly broke off, speaking in Portuguese so that none of us could understand what they were saying. Caro’s friend, Emilio, then asked Sarah if she could teach them some ballet, and this created a little uproar among the ladies, who didn’t take them seriously at all. But then everyone stood up, and Joaquim walked over to where Sarah was with Emilio, showing him how to do an arabesque. ‘Please show me,’ Joaquim asked Sarah. When he stumbled on attempting the move, he gripped Sarah by the arms and fell into her chest. She thought this was very funny and couldn’t stop laughing. They continued like that for the rest of the night, executing pliés and développés and petits battements, Sarah and the smiling rake, who I’d seen before in places and with people she couldn’t even dream of. Before we left, I saw Joaquim and Sarah pull out their phones.
“The next Saturday she came in early. Her feet flitted past the open doors as if they were gliding on air. We had our usual lunch, but she was much more animated. She spoke happily about ballet class and the routines they were working on in preparation for the upcoming auditions. I was glad she was excited.
“Then I began to see her less. She would take breaks in the middle of the day, returning to the shop with an inscrutable look in her eyes. After her shift was over, she would leave in a hurry and was gone almost at once. She began to skip our lunches, making excuses why she couldn’t come, and then one day she stopped going to them altogether.
“I became bitter and furious; I couldn’t believe that such a fiend could succeed in running off with my Sarah. I had to do something, on my honor and in everything I held dearly in life. I began to conspire, devising a scheme that would defeat my enemy and free Sarah from the deceptive web she had become entangled in.
“The night came. It was in the middle of the week, when Sarah would have been preparing for her auditions. I asked Caro to invite her friend Emilio out to a party on the beach, hoping that he would bring Joaquim. I arrived at the bar early, meeting with the friends I had working there to make sure that everything needed for the night was in order. I told Caro to have the others arrive by 10:00, on reason that we needed to be inside the bar before it got late and the crowds had reserved all the VIP areas. As expected, Caro arrived on time. She was with a girlfriend I had met once before at a party, but the others were nowhere to be found. I led the girls to the table, ordered them drinks, and waited. A little after 10:30 the others arrived. I showed them in quickly, hoping that the time remaining would be enough. I asked what they wanted to order and had a bottle brought to the table. The hostess poured our drinks, bending down with a smile as the two friends reclined on the cushions and enquired about her night. The bar began to fill up. Crowds of people entered, roaming the open floor and making lines around the bar stands. Tall, thin, sumptuous girls glittered before a throng of regarding onlookers, gliding through the air with necks lofty and up-raised. Drinks were poured in plenty, and my guests took full advantage of the ample bounty at hand.
“An hour passed and it was getting late. I took out my phone and messaged Sarah. I asked her if she could make it out at that time, that I knew it was late but that I had something special for her. I didn’t know whether she would read my message or suspect what harm those fateful words would ultimately cause, but after a minute she replied. She said she couldn’t be out late because of her audition in the morning but that she would come.
“She arrived a little after 12:00. When I saw her, and for no special reason that I can recall, I was greatly struck, for she moved with a radiance and fascination that I had never seen in her before. I saw her approaching outside the line, confounded at its size and not knowing how she would get in. I stepped out of the bar and grabbed her, signaling my man that she was with me. We walked in and made our way through the riotous mass. We stopped at a table and she looked at me, blithe and content, as if there was nothing going on around us at all, waiting on me. I reached for the present and gave it to her. She took the box and looked at it, frozen for a moment, almost frightened, and not seeming ready to open it to see what was inside. But then she opened it, and a large, bright, iridescent conch shell hung in the breezy air, held around the curve of her fingers. An indescribable glow came over her when she saw it, turning it carefully in her hands with tenderness and affection, as if the whole time it was something she already knew to be a part of her, precious and alive. We stood there for a moment without words, not knowing what worth if any they could give. It was an extraordinary moment, and I didn’t want it to end. So I told her to blow on the shell, that it would bring her luck. She raised it to her lips, her eyes reflective of all the wonder that it held, and she blew on it. She blew into it again, and once more, but it didn’t matter how hard she tried because the clamor of the surroundings drowned out all the sound. Then the time had come. I took her elbow gently and told her I was glad that she had made it, that we had a table waiting and that she should come say hi to Caro. I turned, pointing in the direction of our group, which lay in the center of all the revelry and commotion, and that’s when she saw him. Joaquim, with his eager comrade alongside, carousing raucously and unconcerned, cramped tightly on the white teeming couches, and fooling pleasurably with a ready band of willing girls. I turned back, and Sarah dropped the shell. It hit the floor and pieces of it shattered in all directions. Her mouth opened and she ran, rushing precipitously away from everything she had seen that night. It was a terrible thing to witness, and it is something that I’ll never be able to forget. I can still see her even now, cast in the middle of all that feverish light and commotion, rushing frantically and alone past the long line of restless, glittering newcomers.
“I didn’t hear from Sarah after that. I waited anxiously for her to come into work that weekend, but I didn’t see her. I sent her several messages asking how she was doing, but she never answered. Even Caro, who had become a close friend, hadn’t heard from her in weeks. It soon became apparent that we wouldn’t hear from her again.
“The regret I felt for what I had done had become too great. I turned to drink as a way of getting away from the pain. I came into work drunk after nights of aimless wandering in the streets. It didn’t help, but nothing else would either. The store owner noticed something was wrong. Having a compassionate heart, he told me to take some time off, to not to worry about making it up, and that he would take care of the shop. So I left, lost and searching for answers.
“I went to the ballet school Sarah had attended. I hoped that somebody there could tell me what had happened to her. I went in the middle of the day, when classes were still in session. Flocks of boys and girls raced through the hall, exuberant and chaotic of youth, some not even more than a few days past ten years old. In the classrooms I could hear the instructors shouting to their pupils, giving commands in an arcane language I could not understand but which the assembled body of dancers moved to with harmony and faultless ease. I walked by a classroom filled with teenagers and young women, strong and powerful of limb, performing exercises on the barre running along the wall. This is where Sarah must have danced, I thought. I watched them for a minute. The dancers seemed to me to have the most remarkable faces. They were young and beautiful and looked onto the world with an assurance and poise that never left them. They carried it in every maneuver they performed, heads raised and determined, arms curving gracefully, feet set to the ground and standing sturdily even after being tossed into the air by the young men.
“One of the instructors saw me at the door and walked over, asking if I was there to see one of the dancers. I told her I was looking for Sarah.
“‘Sarah?’ she exclaimed. ‘Sarah is no longer at the school. Are you a relative?’
“‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m a friend. We used to work together. I haven’t seen her in a while and I was wondering what happened to her.’
“A sad look came over the instructor’s face.
“‘Sarah left the school weeks ago,’ she said. ‘It was after the auditions. She didn’t do well in them, and none of the companies picked her up. It was a shock to everyone because she trained so hard. Nobody knows what happened. She didn’t even go to her final auditions. Afterwards, she told everyone that she was going to leave the school and return home. It must have been very hard on her. It all happened very suddenly.’
“I thanked the instructor for the information she had given me and wished her a good day. I left the school.
“So, she had left for good. I thought as much had happened when we stopped hearing from her, but now after finding out the truth I could finally begin on my path to atonement. I stopped drinking and returned to the shop. I called on friends I hadn’t heard from in months to see how they were doing. I kept busy, reading, thinking, talking to people to learn what life had taught them by its example, and in this way sought an understanding into the meaning of all these events that had transpired. When I look back on it now, all I see is a haze. Dark and bright images crowd each other, arising at their own command, heartening or afflicting as they will. I try to focus on the good and remember what she was to me in those happy days when we first met, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t. The only thing I can still clearly remember was the image of her on that fateful night, standing joyfully before me and with a look of wonder in her eyes as she held on closely to the bright, glimmering conch in her hands ….”
After this last word he abruptly stopped.
I roused suddenly, looked down at the table, and saw a mass of seeds scattered all over it. I hadn’t eaten, just kind of held onto it, I don’t know. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I thought about returning to the hotel to get some sleep, and then I thought about home. I took out my phone and saw that there were over a hundred messages. Friends, family, my wife. She said she was worried about me, and that our boy misses me, and to come home soon. I sat there for a while, looking at her message, and I knew then there was nothing left to keep me lingering in that sandy dump.
I got up to leave. I threw away the bagel and made my way to the exit. On my way there, I passed by the doorway and saw my pal sitting inside the room. He hadn’t moved. It was really something, you know, just looking at him. You didn’t know if he was in an interrogation room, or in a prison, or in a confession booth. I never found out if there was anyone else inside that room with him who he was talking to, but as I left the bagel shop I could see him gazing up at something in the distance, clasping his hands tightly as if he was afraid of letting something inside them go.
And so that’s what happened …. Alright, I know, I know, you probably think this all sounds crazy, but, seriously, after that morning everything for me had changed. When I got back to the hotel, I rushed to the closet, packed up my things, and left. In a minute, my ride pulled up, and I hopped onto the back seat. We made our way onto the highway with the sun beating down as hot as ever. I rolled down the window, breathed in the air, and sat back watching all those scrawny palm trees swaying in the salty breeze. They were just swaying there, you know, like phantoms or something, like screaming phantoms or something. But it was kind of beautiful, you know? I mean, I don’t know. It was just something I thought up at the time. Because sometimes, it’s like, you just kind of think up crazy things and get stuck on them, you know? But anyway. I’ve been going on for a while. What about you? Where did you say you were flying to again? Sorry, I forgot. Kind of got sidetracked there for a little …. Oh, hey, look! There’s LaGuardia below. It looks like we’re already here. Honestly, I can’t believe how glad I am to see home. I guess you just got to get away sometimes to know what you’ve really got. Well, anyway, pal, it was nice talking to you. Have a great trip wherever you end up.
Ajam Rosado is a writer from Miami. He studied philosophy at the University of Florida and lives, works, and plays in Little Havana. When the day is cloudy, Ava, Everly, and Milo bring the sunshine. You can find Ajam's fiction in BlazeVOX.