Emilio Santiago

I woke up, slowly, or I though I woke up. Maybe I was still dreaming. Next

thing I knew I had quit my job at the factory, and at the office, and on the

assembly line and I was sitting on the warm ground with my father fishing in

city park. We both had on freshly washed jeans and old shirts. His had a

torn pockets and a hole in the left sleeve, mine had chocolate milk stains on it

from that morning when I went to drink the milk and missed my mouth.

My dad was showing me things he never showed me when he was alive, or

maybe it was things he showed me but things somehow I was unable to see

then even though he tried to show me. I smile as I see myself learning stuff

from my dad. I was 13 and I was learning how to smile like a man.

When the sun started going down we walked home. He walked slowly

enough that I could keep up without rushing. I was holding the poles and

the empty bucket, we had released all the fish we caught. Daddy had said

there was no need to take what we didn't need, and he put his arm around my

shoulder, loosely around my shoulders, and kissed me on the nose.

Fully awake now, I look over at you. You are still sleeping. The window in

our room are shaded but the morning light is spread around the edges like

the crust on bread. You make a very light whistling sound as you inhale

while sleeping. I don't want to turn the TV on. I don't want to see anymore

hostages. if I turn the TV on I will become a hostage too. What does your

mother think of me now? I am in the middle of my life and there are no bells

on my shoulders, no post graduate degrees on my wall.

I can hear the traffic in the street outside. Where do people think they are

going? I wish everyday I could go somewhere I've never been before, touch

the doors of houses I've never entered, walk in the wash of seas that have

never wet me. I start to wake you and ask you the last time we walked along

in the park wandering hand in hand through the flock of ducks or when was

it I most recently kissed you in public. Over all I'm pretty satisfied with our

furniture, it's just the nagging thoughts that we didn't really need a leather

sofa and glass coffee table to be happy, but it's just a thought.

I see the shape of you beneath the thin sheet pulled up almost to your

shoulders. The radio has come on automatically, and as the jazz filters into

the room and into my consciousness I realize it's on WWOZ and someone

is on the radio saying that this is a gorgeous Monday, that Mondays are the

best days of the week. I look at him queerly. The music is nice.

Suddenly there is this sound, this song that doesn't quite sound like the

average song, it sounds so, so, so I don't know, so lonely, no not lonely, so

incomplete, unfinished. It sounds like he is in my head, or I mean that music 

is music that is inside me, and somehow he saw it. Did my father tell him to

play his music? And then the track is over. I listen for what the artist is and 

the DJ calls my name, but I never made any music. I never made the music I

wanted to, maybe he is trying to tell me something.

The next song that plays is a ballad in some language I don't recognize but I

clearly see myself singing this foreign song on a red tile patio early in the

morning with five freshly cut yellow roles in my hand.

I stand up to listen to the music better. Both my hands are on top of my

head with my fingers interlaced. I am nude. You wake up. I can feel you

watching me. My eyes are closed.

When the song ends you ask me what I am thinking. I tell you I don't know

and you kiss my hand, the hand with which I reached down to touch your

thick dark brown hair.

Is this still a dream? No, my fingers are wet where you kissed me. The music

 is filling our bedroom. Maybe I am supposed to be an artist. Finally I tell

you as much of my truth as I am able to understand at this moment. "I was

just listening to that music and it made me think about a lot of things I've

always wanted to do. . . ."

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