Red Lights, Black Hearts

by Fabiola Francisco

  I tilt my head and smile. “This is my life.”

  “Because you needed it to hide and control.”

  “You’re a good man. I’ve already told you you deserve better.”

  “You don’t get to make those choices for me. Even as a punching bag if you so desire, I will be that. My purpose at this moment is to be what you need because we have more than this physical connection. Believe it or not, you and I know each other from another time, another place.”

  “You talk all this mystic stuff as if it were true or normal.”

  “It is what it is. Believe in fairy tales.”

  “Even Disney had fucked up messages in their fairy tales.”

  “I’m not talking about man-made fairy tales. I’m talking about the one in your heart. The one that I know yearns to be free but your mind stops you from truly feeling.”

  He’s so sensitive when he wants to be. A man like no other I’ve met. He is kind and passionate in his beliefs. He gives no shit about what the world thinks.

  “Can one heal without answers?”

  “You hold the answers.”

  “Come upstairs?” I’ve suddenly become vulnerable when it comes to him. Not exceedingly so but enough where I understand somewhat about his words of soul linking from other times. Or feel it better. Understanding is a whole different level.

  Before he can protest about coming up to fuck, I say, “I want to show you something.”

  He follows me up without question. I turn on the light of my apartment and go straight for my room. In a small tin box that I rediscovered recently, I have pictures of my younger version—childhood, teenage years, my memories. I can’t remember when I packed this box or why I even thought of doing so. When I moved I wanted to leave everything behind and start new.

  I slide it over to him from my position on the floor and he sits across from me. He takes out groups of pictures at a time, looking through them carefully.

  Max sits mesmerized, analyzing each picture. Not only taking in the faces and expressions, but the backgrounds and colors. I watch. When you look through old photographs you get transported back in time. You remember more than just what was captured on film.

  “You look just like him.” Max holds a picture of my dad carrying me as a baby.

  I nod. Every time I look in the mirror his eyes stare back at me. I never kept in touch with him after I got a little older. I have no idea if he stayed in South Florida or got remarried.

  “Was this your mom?”

  “Yeah.” I look closely at the picture of the young woman with strawberry blonde hair—such a contradiction to my father with his darker features. Even then she had a far away look.

  “She was pretty.”

  “Thanks.”

  To this day I can’t understand how anyone could hurt a child that way. I shiver and Max notices. He puts the pictures down and looks at me.

  “Why are you showing me this?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “I found them and thought of you. I haven’t looked through all of them yet.”

  Max smiles. He picks up the pictures again and slides next to me. We sit and look through photos for a long time. I try to recall as much as I can from them, but my mind has blocked a lot of it. The mind has a way of controlling our thoughts and memories. Had I not just experienced this, I would have said we control it.

  One picture stood out. It was a candid of a car ride back home after the beach. My hair was in waves from the salt of the ocean, blown by the breeze. I could see my favorite bathing suit peeking out from the edge of my shirt. It was a retro influenced one-piece. I always wanted to keep it in hopes that it would grow with me. My face was mostly hidden as I stared out the window. I wonder what I was thinking about. I was about eight years old, and the light in me was already dimming.

  These are all puzzle pieces to the missing links Max has been searching for. I’m sure of it. His desire to know me better emphasized by the privilege I’ve given him tonight to enter my world.

  “After my first year of marriage I stopped taking pictures. These are the last bits of proof of my existence. Nothing else but watching me in that window will prove I’m here.”

  “But you are very much here. You’re breathing and alive. The only proof you need of your existence is the beat of your heart.”

  “Ha. I wouldn’t count on my heart to show you I’m real.”

  “You speak of it as dark and tainted, but the reality is that you are so much more. Look at these. More than abuse and death mark your soul.”

  My core contracts and the clawing begins again. I see her in those pictures. She wants to be let free, but can the naïve girl who stares back at me be able to survive the truth that has happened while she was away?

  “You’re one in the same. Your souls are the same. You’ve already survived it, so there’s no need to continue protecting her.”

  I hadn’t realized I spoke that last part aloud.

  “It’s late.”

  “I should go.” Max stands and stretches.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know, but you need rest and I work in a few hours. Thank you.”

  Max kisses me on the top of my head and leaves. His compassion lingering for a while longer.

  I cleanse from a night’s work in the shower. In the last few weeks, work hasn’t offered me what it used to. It hasn’t supplied me with the sense of control and demand. I’ve been taking less clients who want actual intercourse and using less of the tactic I had in the past. I prefer the audience on the outside than the one that enters. I suppose this is what happens when you begin to understand the whys in life. No drug is strong enough or satisfying enough as is the truth.

  I stare at myself in the mirror after my shower. “Come on. Give me something to work with or let me slip back into the night.”

  Nothing.

  I turn off the lights and go to sleep. No reflection is going to speak to me. On my way to bed I see that picture again. The candid one that is hauntingly honest. I slip into bed with it in my hand and stare.

  I’m sorry if I let anything happen to you.

  The biggest guilt and resentment I’ve been holding is towards myself. Blame for allowing pain to be served my way. Anger for not standing up for myself. Hatred for not defending myself sooner. Disappointment for not being truthful from the beginning. The person I need to love, apologize to and forgive is myself.

  So as lay in bed staring at my little girl, I repeat ho’oponopono.

  You know your mind is not in the best of places when you’re judging the dead. Even more so when you’re yelling at them as if they were hearing you. Maybe they are from beyond their graves, or ashes. Whatever.

  I’ve spent an hour accusing my dead grandfather of being the worst human being on this planet. I’ve accused my grandmother of being a hypocritical bitch who preferred to stand beside a child molester than protect her own child. And I have verbally murdered John again for causing me so much unnecessary torture. What kind of people did I bring into my life?

  After I calmed down, I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote words on it. I can’t tell you what they say because I refuse to reread them and the script is too messy even if I tried.

  Peace can only come once the storm has swept away what was no longer necessary. This storm is taking its time to sweep it all away, and by the end of it I’ll be lucky if my soul is still intact.

  Last night I was in bed in that state between sleep and awareness. The faint memory of sleeping in bed and feeling it dip on the edge. Fear. Limitless fear ran through me as I became immobilized.

  I awoke in panic cursing out every person I could directly link this feeling to. Hence judging the dead.

  Looking through the old pictures last night with Max was a trigger. It gave me insight into who I was and who I’ve become. This morning I forgot the bit of realization I made last night and began the blaming game. Full force.

  I wash my face, take a deep breath, and put my hair in
a ponytail—my way of controlling the mess within. Tied laces, I run down the steps of my apartment building and out the door.

  One. Two. One. Two. I focus on counting my steps. My breathing matches each step, creating a new rhythm. I run across the bridges connecting pieces of land divided by canals, boats moving through under the sunshine that has come with the ending of winter.

  I continue to count and pound the pavement as I turn and see a line of people standing outside a building. Breathless, I make the line and wait, practicing patience.

  Anne Frank House.

  I walk in and leave the tour group behind as I follow the path, vaguely looking at the photographs hung on the wall. I peek into the small rooms and see where the hidden annex was. It’s the diary room that pulls me in. Maybe because I spent part of my morning writing words held in my own secret annex.

  I walk around slowly reading words. Words that vibrate with meaning. Words that kept a young girl hopeful during one of the most horrific times this world has lived. I read her book when I was young. I didn’t pay much attention to it. A teenager has other things on her mind than reading about a Jewish girl hiding for her safety. Teens can be insensitive. Instead we laughed and joked about her words.

  I stop in front of a picture of a young Anne Frank and wonder if she resented anyone for what she was experiencing.

  Next to her picture are the words, “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” Typed so no one misses it and framed in black.

  The first thing that comes to mind is Max’s grandparents. The story he told me about one being Jewish and the other a Nazi. How they found love despite the hatred of the world, and how they forgave despite the resentment built between their people.

  Did Anne Frank really still believe in the good of people when her people were being kept in camps and burned to death?

  Do I still believe people are really good at heart? Can I be as compassionate as a thirteen-year-old girl?

  I think of Max and Bale. They’re good. I believe in that. I believe in them. My heart? Not the kindest, but it’s been a reaction to my experiences. Had I lived different situations, would I be where I am right now? Probably not. Maybe I needed to end up exactly where I am in order to grow into the person I need to be.

  Maybe I’m more like Anne than I ever thought. Although not physically, I was also once a thirteen-year-old girl who had to enter a secret annex to stay safe from the world. Or my world.

  As much indifference as I wanted to portray, I’m a human feeling things. I masked anger with indifference. A truth I didn’t take lightly at first. If there’s anything I’ve learned recently it’s that life is all about perception. Everyone’s experience affects how he or she perceives things. What is unreal to one person is the honest truth to someone else. Perception defines our actions. Perception carves our path. In Max’s words, it’s all relative.

  I leave the museum in a daze. Anne Frank used humor and good nature to make her situation lighter. She never took away from the seriousness of it, but she was able to turn her thoughts around.

  I start my run again, heading home when I’m exhausted. After a shower and a quick bite, I’m ready to go to work.

  Work.

  Even I can admit I’m not the same person anymore. With everything resurfacing, I’m unsure if I can continue this path. The only thing keeping me on it is the uncertainty of what I’ll be if I don’t.

  I walk home in the silence of the night. I stare up at the moon and count the stars. I contemplate about what else exists amongst its beauty. In the vast darkness there must be more than we can see.

  “Darkness swallows up light, only to be lit from the inside out. The universe is the perfect example of that. The stars are piercings through the obscurity, always fighting to be seen.” Max offers as he watches me gaze upward.

  “You’re changing me.”

  “Impossible. No one has the ability of changing another unless that person grants permission, and even then that change is irrelevant to the true nature of the person. Only you can change yourself.”

  “You’re doing something though.”

  “Maybe I’m just mirroring everything you’ve hidden away. Your counterpart.”

  I continue my silent walk home.

  Mirrors are reflections. I’ve been more aware of my own. What is Max reflecting in me? He’s too good to have anything of mine. I’m too damaged to show anything of him.

  “I blame myself for all that happened. I don’t even know why when some of it I wasn’t even alive for. I’ve been trying to understand that the girl in me doesn’t need to stay hidden. I’m also trying to understand that I don’t need to fear who I could be when I let go of who I was.”

  His blue eyes shine under the star lit sky.

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” I conclude.

  “Just believe what’s in your heart.”

  If I hadn’t touched him, felt him, experienced him, I would think he wasn’t real. A figment of my imagination to contradict my every thought. A figment created to add instability to my very well planned life. But he’s real. So very real and concrete despite his words being a poetic beauty that no man would normally express.

  “Goodnight, Mond,” Max says as we stop in front of my apartment.

  “Goodnight.”

  Max kisses me. He kisses me with meaning but not desperately. It’s as if he knew we would have all an eternity to kiss. I’m fast and urgent. Afraid moments like this where I’m completely honest with myself will slip away.

  Once in my apartment, I go to my bed and lift the mattress. I take out the black paper I hid there. Black paper pierced with intention. I walk over to the window in my room and open it, leaning out a bit and holding the paper above my head. Even at night the light peeks through the holes.

  Light can enter at any time.

  Maybe my soul has piercings like that. Light can enter me and shine from the inside out. Like Max said. Maybe I should stop saying maybe and just do. Just believe. Just be.

  I sit on my bed, keeping the paper on my bedside table, and stare at my picture.

  I begin again. The process of forgiveness, understanding, healing. I look in my mirror, but I see me not Max. My mirror image. More like my one-eighty. How could someone like him be associated with someone like me? Then I look back at my picture. I was like him once. I was like Anne Frank once. I was me once.

  “Come back to me,” I whisper.

  Now that I’ve started peeling away at layers of me and layers of my reality, I can’t stop. It’s like once you start taking an onion apart you need to continue until you reach the core. With an onion you can skip through a few layers. With yourself you can’t. Yet I find myself oddly intrigued by this process. It’s the psychologist in me.

  My bed dips again in the middle of the night. This time I’m more aware, more prepared. I’m still immobilized. My mind reacts to what my body cannot. It makes me wonder. Flashbacks of John wanting what he wanted at any time, play in the hidden crevices of my mind. I can’t even open my eyes. I just think. I can’t move my arms. I just think about it. My body feels numb while my mind races.

  I fall back asleep.

  A dream. I saw my grandfather. He entered my childhood home. He was supposed to be dead already, but there he was being praised by everyone for his return. Like a messiah, except he was far from it. They were praising a fallen angel who smiled and took in their well wishes. He turned his head and watched me watch them. He smirked. A secret smirk that gave me chills. I wanted to yell that he was an imposter but I couldn’t speak. He just stared with a permanent smile. I just stared, panic rising, and woke up gasping.

  Everyone was so happy to see him. Why can’t the dead just stay dead?

  I grab the metal tin from under my bed and begin flipping through the pictures. I stop at the one I’m looking for.

  He seemed okay. He seemed kind. Never in my wildest dreams would I have taken my grandfather for the truth he wa
s. I loved him. How do you unlove someone you always admired? He cared about us. It makes no sense. Nothing makes sense anymore.

  I wake up just in time to see the sun rising. You know that time of day where the sun has already peeked but the moon is still out? Where the moon is too lazy to descend, or maybe too in love with the sun to separate from him? Where the two caress each other for a few minutes before they’re meant to leave the other? That time of the day is precious. That time of the day is Max’s and mine.

  I sit and watch. I look as the moon slowly disappears, the sun overshadowing its beauty. It’s the law of the universe. It’s the balance created in time.

  My counterpart.

  I lace up and run out. The streets are empty. I race myself through the chilly weather. My body guides me through turns and bridges. I end up in Zon’s Hofje. I walk slowly into the garden and sit back down at the same picnic table I sat with Max and stare at the lilies anxious to bloom. I stare at the sky and find the sun. Lost in thoughts, I become hypnotized by the sun—its light comforting in the cool shade.

  Time has passed before I realize I’ve been lost in nothingness. My vision is spotted orange as I try to regain clarity. Clarity. It will be difficult to regain that in my life.

  Where did the dominant prostitute go? And why didn’t she take me with her?

  If you’ve ever visited Amsterdam, you would know that the people who live here are the nicest in the world. It’s sickening really. When I first moved here I wanted to punch everyone in the face. I tell you this now as I watch an older gentleman approach me with a genuine smile.

  “You okay, young lady?”

  “Yes sir.” I must have the American stamp across my forehead for him to go directly to English.

  “Well, great. I guess you’re just enjoying the sunshine today. It’s rare this time of year in our city, but boy is it worth the wait.”

  I sigh and smile. Worth the wait.

  I’ve lost my mind. I’ve thrown the pictures half way across my apartment. Anger boils within and disappointment seeps out of me. Insanity must be a trait that runs through my blood. I’m watching myself lose it from the outside. An out of body experience. I’m not even sure what made me snap.