Holes in My Heart

Fall is here. Leaves of deciduous trees are changing colors. Some members of the human species wax poetic of the changing season, prompted by the colors and the drop of the temperature. You are a child of the season. You were born in the middle of October, smack right in the middle of fall. Whether that fact has any bearing on your personality and moods, you don’t know for sure. One thing you know for certain is that every year, when fall arrives and the winds from the north begin howling, you feel lonely and forlorn, as if the winds blew through the holes in your heart.
It began as a matter of chance. One late evening in the fall when you were a mere lad of fifteen, an age when sex hormones began raging throughout your body, you stood by your bedroom window in the second floor of your house in the dark, watching the rain falling down and lightning flashing, and listening to the symphony of rain drops on the tin roof of the house, when suddenly your eyes caught the movement of somebody in the bedroom of another house, also on the second floor, across the street. The curtain was not closed, very possibly by some providential act of forgetfulness. The light was very subdued. The room was dimly lit by a low wattage bulb meant to help the occupant navigate the room at night when answering nature’s calls. She was undressing. Her back was in your view. For a brief two seconds, you caught the sight of a magnificent pair of buttocks. Then she disappeared, possibly lying down in bed for the night. The scene was not repeated. For weeks and months afterwards, the curtain remained closed at all times. It was the daughter of a vendor of rice noodles. She was about your age, not very pretty, but certainly her derriere inflamed your imagination ever since. You had never talked to her. You were busy at school. For years you had not applied yourself at school. Now you were catching up. The war was going in with a ferocity that scared you. You were afraid to be drafted into the army if you flunked the compulsory national exam when you turned seventeen. You had seen young men in your neighborhood went to the war and didn’t come back whole. Some of them didn’t come back at all. The war was absurd. You began to taste the absurdity of life, of human actions. So you suppressed your burgeoning sexuality. You sublimated your desires. You put all your energies into school work. You wanted to survive. You began reading philosophy. You did not talk to the daughter. You stayed out of her sight. You were suppressing, suppressing. Meanwhile you felt a nagging loneliness. The first hole in your heart appeared.

For the next two years, you did nothing but studied. You didn’t even look at girls on the street. You were fearful of distraction, yet inside you there was a gnawing emptiness. You passed the national exam with some flying colors. Your parents were relieved and so were you. Then just before you turned seventeen, you met Agnes while you were applying for an exchange student program whereby you would spend one year in America, living with an American family while attending the senior year in high school. Both she and you were accepted into the program along with twelve others. Agnes lived with a family in Iowa. Your host family was in Wisconsin. You had her address, but you controlled yourself. You didn’t write to her though you really wanted to. Once again, your studies came first, you told yourself. You didn’t go for any dates during your stay in America. You just studied and studied, determined to improve your English while you had the chance.

You met Agnes again in New York prior to the flight back home. You just exchanged a few words of greetings with her, but inside you waves of excitement flooded your heart. During the long flight back home, you sat in the row behind her. She was sleeping most of the time. She sat in the window seat. You were directly behind her, so near and yet somehow you felt there was an unbridgeable chasm between you and her.

You enrolled at college, majoring in English (how presumptuous of you! Your family tried to dissuade you from pursuing such a useless major. You resisted. You somehow just wanted to improve your English. You were naïve and stupid. You knew nothing of the real world). For the next few months you saw Agnes now and then. Another hole in your heart appeared. It got bigger with time. One day, you couldn’t face the distractions anymore. You must concentrate at school. You stopped seeing her, at your own initiative. It was a good decision, as subsequent events proved to be so.

You were a risk taker, even with your life on the line. You never played safe. There was a foreign language requirement in the first year in your college. All students were required to take a beginner’s course in French, Chinese, or German. French would be a piece of cake for you because you already had three years of French in high school and you happened to be first of the class in the subject. In retrospect, you should have taken Chinese since it would be more useful for you, but you were then keenly interested in the Western world, so you opted for German. The professor conducted his lectures in French! Most of the students in the class were lost, including you. You were aware that if you flunked the final exam, you ran a risk of getting drafted, but you hung on. You didn’t switch to French as you should have. Somehow you passed the exam. You were awfully proud of yourself. You didn’t run from adversity. You persevered and you triumphed. French was the language Agnes was very comfortable with. Unlike you, she grew up speaking it at a very young age. Because of Agnes, you didn’t neglect French. You kept working at it on and off all your life.

Near the end of the first year of college, Fate intervened into your life. A strange-looking student one day came to you to borrow your lectures notes because she was sick for a week and had to skip classes. Thus began the biggest hole of your heart. Laura was her name. Like Agnes, French was the language Laura learned when she was in kindergarten. Laura happened to be very good at English as well. In fact, throughout college, her grades were consistently higher than yours. However, you have a feeling that perhaps now you have surpassed her, finally. You didn’t feel like going into detail your relationship with Laura. Not anymore. Not here. Not yet. Suffice to say that you loved her with all you heart and you thought she loved you, too, but you were sadly mistaken. You were merely infatuated with Agnes, but definitely were in love with Laura. There was no doubt about that. Laura was a very unusual woman. You once thought she was an angel, but now you realize that she is merely a mortal like everybody else.

It is late at night now. Winds are howling in earnest. What you are writing is not a story; it is not a memoir. You are merely weaving words together to protect you from the howling winds of memories. You feel compelled to write, to keep the memories at bay.

After Laura disappeared from your life, you got to know many, many women. One thing you finally realized was that women were different from men. Really smart and insightful of you, heh? Their values are different. They are more practical, cunning, and ruthless, generally speaking. Your friends at the golf club confirmed that. Last month, Jay told you he was filing papers for divorce because he caught his Vietnamese wife sleeping with his neighbor who is a fireman. She told him she was bored with him. She found the neighbor full of fun and virility! Jay has two kids with her. Because of them, he doesn’t want to kill her. Anyway, Jay is a mess now, full of anger and bitterness. His golf game deteriorates, needless to say. You are acting as his counselor, but even so you find his harpings tiresome. You told him:

“Listen, Jay, listen carefully. What more can I tell you? Either you accept reality or you do not. Either you move on, learn to accept the reality that there are women out there like Jade, your wife, who would cheat and sleep with neighbors, or you do something if you don’t accept that reality. If you want to kill the bitch, go ahead, but please don’t talk about it. Talk is cheap, you know. It degrades you, really. It’s not like the first time in human history that you discovered that a woman was capable of fucking the next door neighbor because she was tired of her husband whom she found boring and lacking zest. Welcome to the club. Things like that happen all the time. It is not so much what happens to you, but how you cope with it. The more you live, the more you will realize that humans are the strangest animals on this planet. We are capable of anything and everything. What we can imagine, we can do it. We are only limited by the limits of our imagination. There’s one more thing you probably know already. There are not two, but three kinds of people. Those who are smart and know they are smart. Those who are stupid and accept they are stupid. These two groups are the easiest people to live with. And then there are those who are stupid but think they are smart. It is this third group whom I am fond of labeling Monkeys which account for all kinds of strange behavior among humans. These Monkeys invent concepts like God, believing that God takes care of them and that they will to heaven after they die. These Monkeys are self-righteous and smug and selfish and full of poses. Yet, somehow they subconsciously do things that debase themselves like writing cheap, unrhymed poetry or posting sex-laden materials on the Internet, thinking those materials are of interest to other people or engaging in sophistical thinking, trying to appear smart and profound and cryptic and sole possessor of the truth.”

Jay was perplexed. He blinked his eyes and sheepishly asked you: “So, what advice you are giving me? You talked around and around. I am lost.”

You stood up, walked around the desk, came over to Jay, put your arm around his shoulders, and said: “You are the master of your own body, your own life. Don’t let anybody having power over you, over how you can think, how you can feel. You have to accept the consequences of your actions. Think through before you act. Meanwhile conduct yourself with dignity. No more crying over your wife cheating on you. No more feeling sorry for yourself. Be more careful and selective with your next woman.”

Then all hell broke loose, Jay burst out crying: “But, Roberto, you don’t understand. I did love Jade. I loved her very much. I don’t think I can love another woman. I cannot take this hurt anymore. It’s killing me.”

You seized his shoulders and looked straight at his tears-drenched eyes and softly sighed, “I understand, my friend. I also once loved a woman deeply. Her name was Laura. And I have tried to kill her in my mind for over thirty-seven years with words, to no avail. The biggest debts are those of the heart. I know all about emptiness inside, the hole in the heart”

You then walked Jay out of your office and saw him shuffling and wobbling out of sight. In the reception area, Michael Atkins was reading the National Geographic magazine. He looked up and you signaled him to come on into the inner sanctum of your alter ego.

“Hello, Michael. I am quite surprised to see you. Everything’s Ok?” said you. “Hello, Michael. I am quite surprised to see you. Everything’s Ok?” said you.

“This isn’t a social call. No, everything is not Okay” Michael grumbled.
“Go ahead. Cry your heart out. That’s what I am here.”
“Okay, wise guy. You know about the woman living in California whom I told you the other day, right?”
“Yes, you seemed to be proud of her and everything. What happened? She gave you herpes?”
“Roberto, cut the crap out, will you? I’m being serious here,” snarled Michael.
“Sorry, please tell me what I can help you with.”
“The bitch and I no longer see each other. We broke up last week. Roberto, I think I’ve been had. I lent her $10,000 two weeks ago. Now she stopped taking my calls. The bitch also said goodbye to me two days after I treated her to a nice birthday dinner and an expensive present.”
You shook your head slowly and you stopped listening to Michael because flood of suppressed memories rose up inside you and choked you. You felt suffocated and angry. Blood was rushing to your head.
“Roberto, you look funny. Are you listening to me? Roberto?”
You snapped back to the present. You were breathing hard.
“Michael, tell me exactly what happened. Why the fuck you lent her $10,000 for? You just knew her for two months.”
“But I thought she loved me. Besides, she didn’t seem to be that kind of girl. She seemed to have money. A nice house in Huntington Beach and a condo in Scottsdale, for Chrissake. She said she would pay back right away within five days. Five days! She needed ten grand to take care of some business. I kept asking what kind of business, but she accused me of not trusting her. Now I am out ten fucking thousand dollars. I’m mad as hell.”
“Don’t get mad. Get even. All it takes is a little courage. Have some balls. Are you up to the task?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I mean. Are you willing to use force to get your money back since it looks like talking get you nowhere? She doesn’t even answer your call.”
“Stop beating around the bush. Spell it out.”
“You came to me because you want a solution to your problem. On your own you can’t solve it. Now I suggest that if you have balls, show up to her house, demand the bitch give you back the money right there and then, if she refuses, blow her fucking head off. If you want somebody to do for you, it costs you more than ten grand. It’s up to you.”
“Jesus, you are some kind of a counselor. I am surprised you still have the license to practice.”
“That’s right, buddy. That’s who I am. If the state of Arizona knows about this conversation, you are about as good as dead.”
“Let’s me think about this.”
“Sure, think about it. Think with your head, the one on top, not the one in you pants. That’s the problem with you. You see an attractive woman and all you want to do is to jump into a sack with her. I am different. Let me tell you a real story. Hard to believe, sounds like I’m making it up, but it’s fucking true, man. Last week, a woman came to me with a marital problem. I gave her some advice. She looked at my hair and said that she had a good friend who was a hair stylist. Since she liked my advice, she wanted to be nice and treated me to a nice haircut, courtesy of her friend. I said fine, figuring I had nothing to lose, right? So I showed up at her friend salon. And it was a nice salon and a spa, too. Her friend was a few years younger than me, but still a knock-out, with very nice tits, natural way, not man-made and she didn’t mind displaying them. She had a low-cut shirt. She also had a nice figure, not fat, not thin, and a nice firm ass. She took a long time to cut my hair, talked with me, asking me all kinds of personal questions, acting a bit coquettish and all. She gave me her business cards and asking me to refer my friends to her. Everything seemed fine and dandy. I gave her my cell number since she asked for it. Guess what? Two days later, she called me and said if I would like to escort her to a trip to Vegas, using my own car. She would pay for the gas, the hotel, and the meals. All I needed was to show up at her house at six in the morning in my car and away we would go. I was flabbergasted, not flattered. I smell something rotten in the state of Denmark. I hemmed and hawed and said that I needed time to think about this because it was so unexpected, so sudden. She said she needed to know an answer before midnight. Two hours later, around 4pm, I called her back, saying I was not comfortable about the idea. She was surprised at my answer. Within thirty minutes, Oanh, the woman with the marital problem, called me and said that I was a calculating and stingy man who was concerned about the wear and tear on his car. Would you believe that? What a fucking world we are living in, man. I’m more concerned on the wear and tear on my dick than anything else. I’m concerned about my life, about the disappearance of my car. I’m not kind of a guy who would pant and have my tongue sticking out and be ready to pull down my pants just because some woman wiggling her nice tits in front of me. I’ve had my share of women. I’m no stranger to female anatomy. What I need and want is true love, not a quick lay. I know all about the emptiness inside, the holes in my heart. I don’t need to explore the orifices of anyone else.”

Michael looked at you as if you were an alien, a kind from Mars, not Mexico, and shook his head. “You’re fucking strange, man. Bring me to the hair salon. I’ll tell her I am her chauffeur anytime she wants. Shit, I’ll even pay for the gas and the motel.” He then got up and walked out of your office.

There was nobody waiting in the reception area. You checked the appointment book. For the rest of the day, nobody was scheduled to ask for help, to sort out the entanglements in his mind.
Your night job didn’t begin until three hours later. You didn’t feel like going home and then drove another 15 miles to work. You decided to stay in the office till it was time to go to your night job. So, you leaned back in your chair, put your feet up on the desk, and took a nap. As you were dozing off, a wave of loneliness hit you. You recognized the irony of your situation. You dispensed advice and counsel to people in emotional distress, yet to whom would you turn for comfort? Nobody. You couldn’t even turn to God because you didn’t believe in a higher power. All you had was your own little self. Your mind was drifting, dredging memories and recollections. This morning while checking the email, you came across an instance of incorrect usage of the word “jurisdiction”. The Monkey, as usual, betrayed his ignorance whenever he attempted to use big words. He should have simply used the expression “area of expertise” or at least the word “bailiwick”. Neither did the Monkey seem to understand that the expression “Down Under” was used to express Australia, not Down and Under. Up above, down under (or below), but up and away. English is tricky. It takes a lifetime of devoted study to understand it a little bit. His friend was not an administrative, legal, or political entity; thus, he had no jurisdiction over anybody or anything. You felt intensely lonely when you forced yourself not to point out to the forum the ignorance of the Monkey. You were trying to get a better handle of yourself. The Monkey is beneath you, anyway. There is no point to indulge in gamesmanship with him.

As your mind was playing back the tape of memories and petty annoyances while you were drifting towards sleep, you reached for the radio and instantly love ballads in Spanish comforted and soothed you and made you feel good about yourself.

You dozed off for a couple of hours. When you woke up, it was time to go to the evening job. You felt physically recharged, but somehow a feeling of melancholy took over you. Job hazards, you told yourself. Although you watched yourself and braced yourself from being contaminated by all those tales of woes from your clients, you now found yourself affected strongly by those tales. You became more pessimistic and increasing viewed women with jaundiced eyes. Then bam! The songs of Traces and Feelings on the radio hit you hard on your way to the work. You realized you were just fooling yourself, thinking you could get over her. You did not. You merely suppressed your feelings. You were doomed with a lifelong sentence of sorrow and sadness, starting the day she walked away and leaving you with the biggest hole in your heart.

Roberto Wissai
(To be continued)