Escapismo

"Larry Tovar Acuña, traficante de droga (drug lord)", that's how the man introduced himself to me, offering a fearless handshake.

Skinny, with no shoes on and deadly looking nails popping out from under his oversized jeans, an used-to-be-white shirt, a nose that seemed it would fall off, vanishing, anytime soon, clear blue eyes, crooked teeth, with a few missing, leaving space enough for a tiny black hole to spend a summer there, and well, hair like a random array of stars in a solar system that was born a second ago. He was a mess.

I was startled, he asked me "¿qué escribes? a ver, ¡a ver!". Pencil in one hand and my notebook on the other, I was -sort of- writing down a film schedule, he took it, mumbled something that seemed like half a song, half magic, and sat down next to me, pencil in one hand and my notebook on the other, he started to write.

It was the middle of the dry season in Caracas, not a cloud could be seen in the sky. Plaza Altamira was full of people minding their own business, executives, policemen, Haitian ice-cream salesmen, pretty girls and boys who'll fall in love with them, nobody seemed interested in us.

"¿Qué escribes Harry?", I asked him interested. He looked at me and punched me lightly in the right shoulder, "Mi nombre es LARRY". Messing up with his name was a once and only once affair...This won me an invitation to donate my shoes to him, which I politely refused.

He stopped writing, got up and read out loud: "Comprendo que tus labios jamás han de ser míos. Entiendo que en tus ojos no me he de ver" (I understand that your lips should never be mine. I understand that in your eyes I'll never see myself). He paused, for what seemed like a few eternities, looking always up, blue against blue, his galaxies at the mercy of the summer.ish wind.

He then looked down in what I thought was slow-motion and read: "Amigo, no hay amigo" (friend, there is no friend). He read it once twice, sang, shout, his eyes went a bit red, and in the exact previous moment before anyone would look our way alarmed, he stopped, sat next to me, handed me my notebook, asked for some cash and said, "Nos vemos aquí en la plaza, en navidad." (See you here on the square, on christmas). Then he left.

Later I found another poem/song/scribble on my notebook, it was about loneliness. And a date, "Caracas 08- 02 2012".

I truly wish I went back to the square that year's christmas...