Reportage, Week 2

She lies in my computer chair, chin resting on both her crossed front and her back paws, making a perfect circle with the outline of her body. Her stomach distends with each quick breath she takes, the dark lines on her tabbied coat momentarily spreading apart and coming back together. Her right ear, the one pricking the air, twitches once, twice and is still. Chip's phone vibrates and she stretches, her limbs straight and taut like some strange state of rigor mortis, but she still doesn't spook and jump from the chair. I need her to jump from the chair; I need my computer and she seems too peaceful to pick up and toss to the floor, even if she would land on all feet. She's laying on the top of her head now, her legs relaxed but still straight in front of her. From my angle above her, all I can see is the white of her chin and throat. I reach down, scratch it, and she rolls further onto the top of her head, giving my fingers greater purchase. "Alright Zumba, mama needs her chair." She opens one eye and looks at me with all the interest of the fence post I argued down last week, daintily crosses her paws, and lays her head back down.

Memory 2, Week 2

Sir Kona sits hunched against the back of the flimsy rampart whose front is painted to look like the solid stone of a castle for the ongoing "fort battle." The dark braided leather of the greaves covering his upright shin and the arm he slings across his bent knee completely hide the face he has buried in the crook of his elbow. Only his long, dark, wavy hair peaks above his arm and falls over his pauldrons. My Lord Chip walks over and holds a bottle of water out to his knight, but Kona shakes his head and instead reaches for Chip's hand and hoists himself from the ground. He slowly walks away, headed for camp, slightly dragging his feet through the dust and sparse grass. In real life, Kona's name is Brian Cooper and he is in great need of back surgery. He, like many of the aging men of the SCA, however, likes to pretend that he can leave that part of himself behind for event weekends as well. Chip stands in front of me now, eyes brighter blue than usual. The way they always do when he's happy and has physically exerted himself. "Do you have any Advil?" he asks. He knows I do; in my purse next to the cell phone I'm not supposed to carry around here. "Kona's really hurting."

Original Prompt, Week 2

"They die around the clock here, without apparent preference for a day of the week, month of the year; there is no clear favorite in the way of season. Nor does the alignment of the stars, fullness of moon, or liturgical calendar have very much to do with it...it is also true that the dead don't care. In this way, the dead I bury and burn are like the dead before them, for whom time and space have become mortally unimportant...but no cause of death is any less permanent than the other. Any one will do. The dead don't care." -Thomas Lynch "The Undertaking"

There are two elements of this passage which I'd like to draw prompts from. The two could be taken separately or together. 1) Lynch spends great portions of "The Undertaking" describing what the dead don't do, don't think, don't care about, etc. This negative description serves to somewhat negate the dead person and bring Lynch's suggestion that funerals are not for the dead, but are for the living to the forefront. Take a memory, an object, a person, which you can recall to mind vividly and instead of trying to describe what or how that subject IS, describe what or how it ISN'T. Try to describe a scene, person, etc. through a negative description. 2) Lynch repeats the refrain "the dead don't care" several times throughout "The Undertaking." This is a technique poets use frequently to add emphasis, etc. Use this same method of repetition with one of the phrases, sentences, words, etc. in one of your drafts to create this same type of cyclical narrative and see what, perhaps disparate, details can be linked in this way.

Oddity, Week 2

I was sitting across from the man who is now my husband at dinner early on in our relationship. I noticed when he chewed that his lips puckered and protruded slightly to form a perfect little heart shape. This was caused by the fullness of his bottom lip and the relatively thin, yet perfect, arcs of his upper lip being pursed together in a slight kissing motion, bringing the outside corners of his mouth into line with the down-turn of the arcs of his upper lip. He, of course, noticed me studying his mouth and immediately became self-conscious and asked me what I was staring at. When I told him that his lips made a perfect little heart when he chewed, he flushed, said "no they don't," and covered his mouth when he chewed from that point on that night. In spite of the fact that I assure him every time I note it that I find it adorable, til this day he still cannot stand for me to scrutinize his chewing.

Response to Susana's Oddity from week 2, week 2

I know that Dr. Davidson said to stay away from affective reasoning, but what first got my attention on this draft was just that. I, too, had an ear fixation. What's really funny is that I STILL find myself playing with my ear, especially when I am tired. I, however, went beyond just rubbing my ear. I can actually stick my ear inside of my ear and it will stay (and if it is cold, I like it even better). I've done this since I was a baby, and the doctor told my mom that the cartiledge would never harden...it hasn't. What struck me about this post after the affective reasoning, however, was how it had never even occurred to me to write about my ear. I think many times we try to think of something to write and can't come up with something; the task seems too daunting. I mean, what could I possibly have to write that would be of interest to anyone else? This one little detail about your ear, however, could open up a whole world of stories (or at least I could write pages on the experiences that center around this oddity of mine). The more I read of creative non-fiction, the more I am becoming convinced that the trick is to begin with the small details, keep writing, and see how it evolves. Or, at least, this seems like what is beginning to work best for me. Thank you for this snipit!

Junkyard quote 4, Week 2

"When Grandma Goes to Court" -title of an email my husband received...I saw it across the room and this is all I could read, but that sounds like a story I really want to hear.

Memory, Week 2

It was probably October when I first saw them, before time had fallen back. That's the only time in Carrollton, Georgia when the days are still alight at around seven o'clock, but the air also carries that crispness that's chill enough to be invigorating but not enough to freckle my legs with goosebumps. I don't remember where I was coming from; it could have been a late-ending class or even the library where I had been doing some research for a midterm paper, but as I crossed the quad, I first heard loud banging and then saw two figures going at each other with sticks. My first reaction was to alert the campus police, but I then realized that the figures were surrounded by a group of other people lounging on the grass in the slanting light and that one person watching leaned against a tree dressed in a police officer's uniform complete with a red patch of flame on the right shoulder. The two figures danced on tip-toe around one another, studying the others moves. One held a short stick in one hand and a makeshift shield in the other. As I got nearer, I noticed the unmistakable flash of a stop sign peak from the underside of the shield and heard the clash of solidity against metal as the other figure leveled a quick blow from over his head, the blow glanced of the shield, and he rebounded out of reach. This figure carried a stick that looked to be about twice the length of the other's, and which he wielded with both hands. This figure also wore a long black dress that was held tight against his chest by a leather vest of black and dark brown. Along what could be seen of his forearms were plates of some hard black material; his head was covered with a beaten, dark steel helm. He backpedaled away from the other figures advances, eventually blocking a blow with his long sword, dancing around to the the other's backside, and making ready to hit from behind. The other figure was quick, however, and the dark figure's jab only glanced off the edge of his shield. This figure was dressed in a white dress that was longer than the dark figure's. Something bulky was secured across his chest, but the dress was fitted over it. His hands were covered with bright silver metal and his helm hurt my eyes as it reflected the setting sun. I noted rather snidely to myself at the time that these two would make the perfect, stereotypical figures for a medieval fight of good and evil. Little did I know that "evil" would one day be my husband.

Junkyard quote 3, Week 2

"I ran out of shaving cream, and since you never use yours, I commandeered it." -my husband, to me, after which I promptly went and shaved my legs

Junkyard quote 2, week 2

"You have to wait three days to call a woman; it's what Jesus wants us to do." -Barney from the show "How I Met Your Mother"

Junkyard quote1, week 2

"Asshole." -my brother, Seth
Okay, so I realize this language isn't particularly poetic, but I think, under certain circumstances it can be really interesting. Take the instance under which I heard it: I've always been quicker with the comeback or the insult than my brother. I'm the wit in my family...that is until I married Chip (but that's another story). The point is, it kills my brother that he can't come up with retorts as quickly as I can, so "asshole" really means, "I can't think of anything to say, but I can't let you have the last word" when he says it. This detail, coupled with others of course, can be really telling about my brother because the subtext of what he says is often so much more interesting than what he actually says. That, to me, is the power of dialogue. While we may try to keep as true to what is actually said as possible, we can also teach our readers how to read that dialogue through the details surrounding that dialogue. In essence, we can make the words the people in our essays say, actually say so much more than the words, outside of context, could.

Original Prompt, Week 1

This is a prompt from Jo Ann Beard's "The Fourth State of Matter." In this essay, Beard tells about the murder of her friends and colleagues on a college campus. Interestingly enough, however, this horrific experience is not the sole subject of her essay. In her essay, Beard most definitely describes certain memories of her friends and describes, in rather muted detail, her friends' deaths, but much of the essay focuses on her husband who left her but continually calls and keeps himself fresh in her mind, her aging and dying collie, the family of squirrels that made a home in her spare bedroom and the friend who helped her get rid of them, etc. The tendency when thinking and writing about a traumatic experience would be to focus on that experience to the exclusion of other surrounding details, but here, Beard focuses on these other details and keeps herself from over-sentimentality and lends HER experience, more individual and personal, to what was a story on the news to most anyone else. It seems that this technique could prove quite useful in the writing of "big" memories and events. Think about some pivotal, horrific, or even sublimely happy event in your life and instead of focusing on the details of that one moment, focus on the life you lived around that event, the smaller details of your day, what you were doing a week/month/day/year before, who was close to you at the time, where you were and any time you may have been there before, etc. In short, focus on any detail that does not immediately link to the "big" experience and, in essence, write two or three, or even four, stories, only one of which is the "big" experience just to see how they may connect or throw one another into sharper relief.

Memory, Week 1

I remember thinking, "Damn, this place is going to be so crowded" as we pulled into sight of the Nassau port. Already moored were five cruise ships and we made number six. The Carnival Imagination tilted only slightly as the captain turned the ship out toward open ocean; apparently, ships large enough to contain a casino, putt-putt golf course, a pool, a water park, and god knows how many staterooms need a lot of room to turn around. This was all Hurricane Rina's fault. She had made places like Cozumel, Mexico undesirable locations in October of 2011, so every cruise line was redirecting their ships here.
It took me a while to understand why we were headed back out to open seas; "Did the captain change his mind?" I asked my new husband, Chip. "No, they're going to tug us in," he said. We made our way to the aft end of the ship, which I had come to affectionately call the "ass" end after mishearing what Chip had said the first time, and sure enough, a comparatively small boat was being attached to the ass end of our boat by tug lines that, from our height, looked like they'd snap if they tried to move this heavy lady. The lines pulled taught and as I watched the tug boat pull against the weight, I couldn't help but think "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." I didn't even notice that we were moving at first, the movement was too imperceptible to feel through the eleven stories of our ship, but then I noticed the slight whitening of the water at the edges of the ship's base.
I can only imagine how impossible and, okay, silly our huge cruise liner looked being backed into its parking space, nor do I even remotely pretend to understand how the little tug boat moved the huge ship, but as we disembarked and I saw the true breadth of the lines holding the boat in place, at least as big around as my new husband and then some, I realized, perspective is everything.

Junkyard quote 4, Week 1

"Okay, well we'll throw on a pair of pants and head on over."-my husband's best friend Ryan
"One pair between the two of you?" -my husband in response

Junkyard quote 3, week 1

"My wife says it's like Mardi Gras on steroids." -Trolley guide describing Fantasy Fest in Key West

Junkyard quote 2, Week 1

"My husband always says I apologize too much. He just doesn't understand; sometimes 'I'm sorry' doesn't mean 'I'm sorry.'"

Junkyard quote 1, week 1

While holding my two year-old nephew at the McDonald's playground he looks up at the plastic dolphins and manta rays hanging from the ceiling and says, "I not sceered" with a somewhat affected smile. What is interesting to me is that Kade is already learning socially conditioned responses such as the fact that boys are not supposed to admit fear. Kade, most certainly, was scared as he kept telling me to hold him and wouldn't let me put him down, and this quote, to me, illustrates not only social conditioning, but also the fact that, unlike in straight journalism, in creative non-fiction, sometimes what is said is not the complete story and that the hidden context can often be more interesting and telling.

Response to Susana's Junkyard quote 2 (week 1), week 1

I love the originality of what children say. I think that is what makes it almost harder to capture their character on paper than it is to capture what we think is the more complex adult. It's like my nephew, Kade, there are times when he says things that you know are merely parroting repetition of something he's heard his mother, father, or some other adult in his life say. In fact, one day my sister started noticing him saying something that sounded like "damn it," but she had no idea where he would have picked up that language (his family is very careful to watch what we say whenever we are around him), and thought it had to be something else that she just couldn't make out. It was about a week later, however, that he was standing in the kitchen "helping" his grandmother put up dishes out of the dishwasher that my mother dropped a spoon on the floor. In completely plain language, Kade said "Damn it, Bramma, you dropped a 'poon." The occasion of the five year-old boy Susana overheard is probably just like Kade, a repetition of something heard. I mean, how many times do you think both of those twin brothers have probably heard their mother chide them for being cranky? But then, there are other times that a child will say something that couldn't possibly have come from an adult; the language is too new, fresh, and unexpected to have been overheard and betrays and uniquely child-like perspective. It's this kind of material I hope to steal like crazy from my nephew this semester.

Oddity, Week 1

Growing up in the Bible Belt, the sight of a church of some denomination on just about every street corner never really seemed that odd to me. What I have begun to notice, however, are the billboards that now seem to appear in front of each of these churches. We've all seen these signs, I'm sure. They usually consist of the name of whatever church I may be passing in bold, solidly-scripted letters across the top and channels of plastic meant to hold removable letter cards so that the church can continually change their message. Some of these billboards display the name of the message that will flow from the pulpit the following Sunday and the verses of scripture on which the pastor, reverend, father, etc. will focus. Some of these billboards hold dates and times for important events at the church that week. These billboards make some sort of sense to me. They relay what I can only assume is valuable information to the churches parishoners. What seems strangely odd to me are the campy sayings that some churches put on their signs. Like the church I saw last summer in the humid Georgia heat that said "And you think it's hot here...," or the sign in front of the small church on a dirt road near my parents' house that looked like it could barely hold fifteen people and said "Hungry? Soul food served here," or the hopelessly cheesy saying found on the sign of a rather prominent church in Carrollton that said "Fight truth decay, read the Bible daily." I wondered where all of these saying were coming from and decided to do a little research. Apparently, there are whole websites devoted to the promotion and dispersion of these sayings. You can literally find categorized and sortable lists of sayings for any event or holiday. Now I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and still attend regularly, but I have to admit that I have absolutely no idea what these churches are hoping to accomplish by putting up these sayings.

Frescoes

Cobblestones thump softly under my flip-flops, the indentations of each stone smoothly pressing into my feet. In my hands I carry several bags full of tourist memorabilia: pashminas, Ciao Bella t-shirts, and the cool, Celtic bracelet that attaches itself to a ring of Celtic knots around my finger. “Molto delicate,” the trendy store owner had told me as she wrapped the silver in tissue paper and slipped it into a crimson paper bag sealed closed with a gold sticker. Now, outside the glass fronts of a long line of such trendy stores, heat rises like slithering phantoms from the Florence streets and disappears into the heavy summer air. People mill about, dark-haired, expressive-eyed Italians hurrying between the paler, wide-eyed tourists that periodically swoop in and out of these stores with familiarly foreign names: Dolce and Gabana, Gucci, Armani. Crowded buses creep like gorged caterpillars, huffing grey puffs of exhaust into the clear blue sky as business men in suits and ties swerve through the traffic, beeping the tinny horns of their Vespas.
Rounding the corner, the shiny fronts of cafés, boutiques, and tourism give way to the mud-caked, stone façade of an unfinished church. It’s just like Italians to put off what can be done tomorrow for a few centuries worth of tomorrows, displaying their procrastination as civic pride. Weathered stone steps ascend to the church’s heavy, wooden double doors, a grand platform for such a humble frontage. I finger the intricate carvings etched into the doors’ rich surface and smoothed by uncounted hands before my own. Leaning against the portals and escaping the heat, I duck into the refuge of the cavernous church.
Here, all is cool, dark, and quiet. Small candles flicker along the walls, casting their light on the upturned, ecstatic faces of stone saints. I am not Catholic, yet still the scene evokes a sense of deep respect, a feeling of smallness, inadequacy, before the God that could excite such devotion in men. The bright, white walls and dark red pews of my own, familiar Southern Baptist church reflect nothing so reverent, yet even here, though their tones are hushed, the general murmur of tourists echoes against the tall, frescoed ceiling.
My skirt’s sheer, black fabric brushes against my bare legs as I drift down the center aisle and slide into a pew in the center of the church. Supported by rows of thick, white columns, the vaulted ceiling weighs down on those below, dampening the source of the noise it magnifies. A naturally lit dome brightens the space directly above my head, filters the light downward into the church’s dimmest recesses. And I sit, ankles crossed, shopping bags gathered around my feet, hands folded in my lap, listening, looking.
To my right, an elderly Asian man drops his glossy souvenir bags into his wife’s waiting hands and pulls the camera hanging around his neck to his eye. I watch as the pair make their way around the room, pausing at each statue, each altar, only long enough for the man to snap a picture before moving on to the next, then the next, the next, then out the door. They must hurry; they have so much to see.
A few pews ahead of where I sit, a blonde boy of about eight also sits with his feet dangling, his elbows on his knees, and his face in his hands. He swings his feet, stretching to scuff the toe of his sneaker against the tile floor until he jerks his head upward and runs to a young couple standing nearby. Although I do not denotatively understand him—except enough to know he is speaking German—his whining tone translates well enough for me, “Can we go yet?” A quick look at his mother’s face and the resulting slump of his shoulders and dejected trudge back to his seat, also tell me that she has replied “no” and that he realizes the futility of further badgering.
Backed against one of the columns that line the aisle leading to the altar, an old man with salt and pepper hair and eyes clear and bright as a mountain stream, sits hunched on a rickety stool, a sketch pad open across his lap. A couple of charcoal pencils peek out from his breast pocket and one rests lightly in his hand. His fingertips are blackened and trace a slight shadow across his forehead as he pushes his hair from his face and looks up to eye the statue opposite him. Watching his eyes searching, studying, darting back and forth from statue to paper, I come to understand that shading a drawing of a statue displaying so many folds of fabric must be rather difficult. His weathered and knotted hands, however, make smooth strokes of his work. Quick flicks of his wrist accentuate detail. Deliberate presses of his fingertips smudge in shadow and dimension. Or at least that is what happens as the picture his movements form in my mind takes shape, but he is too far away for me to see his drawing. Perhaps he doesn’t even sketch the statue.
Perhaps, instead, he sketches the woman who, for as long as he has been sketching, has been standing staring into the face of the figure I assumed was his focus. Perhaps his smooth strokes trace the length of her hair as it falls down her back. Perhaps the quick flicks of his wrist sketch in her folded arms, one hand reaching upward to rest right below her lips. Perhaps the darting of his eyes is to catch every detail, hurrying back and forth in fear that she might move before he is finished. As she turns and walks away, I wonder if he had enough time to capture her sad expression, the lowered arch of her eyebrows, the slight downward turn at the corners of her mouth, or the way that one strand of hair wouldn’t stay out of her face no matter how many times she brushed it away.
To my left, I hear the musical sounds of an Italian woman speaking softly. I turn to see an elderly woman leading a young girl by the hand. Pausing next to one of the smaller altars lining the walls, the old woman kneels and motions for the girl to do the same. The little girl kneels and her large, dark eyes look up into the face of a figure of Jesus with a radiant heart painted upon his chest. Touching her head, chest, and shoulders, the girl crosses herself and bows her head. Her eyes close tightly as her little lips move quietly in her smooth round face. The elderly woman beside her periodically peers over at her, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
Suddenly feeling rather intrusive, I pull my eyes away from the little girl who, in my mind, has begun to resemble the cloud-lying cherubim that adorn the ceiling and scan the room until my eyes meet a pair staring straight into mine. These eyes peer out of a sun-swept face under honey-colored hair and, like me, she is probably in her early twenties. Slightly embarrassed, we both quickly look away and I begin gathering my bags. Stepping out into the aisle, I file past her, noting the several bags also lying about her feet and make my way to the door. Pushing it open, the heat and noise of a busy city greet me. Molto delicate, the moment is gone, fades away like frescoes on a church wall.

Mawnkey

“Mawnkey” he says pointing a long, skinny finger at me through the chain link. I smile, but just in case I didn’t understand him, Francesco says one more time “mawnkey,” rolling his arm upward to scratch beneath his armpit, the other arm hanging limply, swaying from side to side in some prehistoric, Neanderthal dance. At this point, Christina, Brandy, and I are laughing, not so much at Francesco’s joke, (I mean, let’s face it, I’ve been called worse than a monkey.) but at the sheer absurdity of a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-five year-old Italian guy mimicking an ape just to make sure that I understand that he is calling me the one English word he knows.
In the three weeks we have known Francesco, this is the first time he has spoken any English except in parroting repetition, and now, feeling sufficiently adored, Francesco resumes his soccer game. He walks away from us, goofy smile on his face, muscular legs protruding from shorts short enough to make any American guy uncomfortable.
“So he does know some English,” Brandy says.
“Yeah, and now he’s so proud of himself for making us laugh. He’ll be calling us
mawnkeys for the next three weeks,” Christina says staring across the field at him. Turning back to me, she continues. “Seriously, you’ve already got one, so why do all the rest of them feel the need to flirt with you too? Can you please just share SOME of the Italian boys?”
“Aww, did you want Francesco to call YOU a monkey, Christina?” Brandy mocks, a smile playing its way into her eyes.
Again, they are laughing as I turn my attention back to the guy Christina says I’ve “got.” Unlike Francesco, Andréa Miceli fits the Italian stereotype, short to medium build, dark hair, equally dark eyes, olive skin. He even works in the wine shop his family owns. I met him after only three days in Montepulciano, Italy. His older brother, Eliseo (who HAS taken an interest in Christina, by the way), works as a waiter in the restaurant where our study abroad group eats every night. Eli is a warm guy with a broad smile and a fairly good conversational English, so my table of University of West Georgia students took to him almost immediately. So much so, that we invited him to come to Café Polizziano for coffee with us after he got off work that first night we were here. He came, and two days later he brought Andréa with him.
Always the leader, Eli was the first to come into the café that night. It wasn’t until they had almost reached our table, that I realized there was even someone with him. Eli slid into the tan, leather seat across from me and suddenly I found myself staring at a pair of what we Americans had come to affectionately call man-pris, a navy blue fannypack and a fitted black shirt with the word Yes in white block letters printed across it. As Andréa slid into the booth, his face slid down to eyelevel and stopped directly across the round table from me. Andréa was quiet, reserved, mirroring nothing of the open, jovial mood of his brother, but I often caught him looking at me as our group of about five American students were tutored in the Italian language by his brother. Noticing me notice him, Andréa would smile, but quickly look away, usually dropping his eyes to the glass of Coke in front of him.
Later, our group filed out of the café and walked the wrong way down the one-way streets of Montepulciano, my flip-flops slapping the ground beneath me. Even warned that Italian girls don’t generally wear shorts as short as American girls do, I had packed and was wearing a light blue pair of jersey cheerleading shorts and the cool summer breeze felt wonderful against my bare legs. While the others stayed to the main road through town, it wasn’t long before I was ducking away alone to explore the smaller side roads, rejoining the group as the streets looped around and emptied back into the main thuroughfare. As I sneaked off to one such road, I heard a heavy accent behind me,
“Where she go?”
“She has a habit of wandering off; she’ll be back,” my friend Nick laughed.
I rounded a corner onto an amazing view, or what I assumed in the daylight would be an amazing view of Italy’s domesticated, pastoral beauty, but that was then an amazing view of darkness pricked a million times with pinpoints of light. I climbed onto the wall overlooking the valley that fell away into the darkness when the same heavy accent startled me.
“You fall.”
I turned to find that Andréa had followed me. Ignoring the hand he held open to me, I practiced walking the balance beam across the wide wall.
“You fall,” he said again, taking my hand before I had time to deny it. Laughing, I pulled my hand away and jumped off of the wall myself.
“What do you call the stars?” I asked.
“Stelle.”
“Stelle?”
“You speak good Italian.”
“Si,” I laughed.
“Why you walk solo…only?”
Ignoring the question I caught up with the others.
“See. I told you she’d be back.” Nick told Andréa. “He wanted to make sure you’d be okay.”
I spent the rest of the night asking Andréa to name random things in Italian, and he spent the remainder accompanying me on my “solo” excursions and stealing brief glances in my direction.
Tonight at his soccer game, however, Andréa looks over openly and frequently to make sure I’m watching him. Each time a smile spreads across his face momentarily before he sprints back into the game. Running around in his red and black AC Milan jersey and black shorts, he almost looks professional until he stops to look at me. Then, he looks much like a child just learning to play, scanning the sidelines for his mother and father’s approving faces. The first night he asked me to come watch him and his friends play, I believe he thought I would say no. “Yes?” he said, for yes was always a question with him. The truth is, I love soccer and had played it in high school, but the doubt was apparent on his face when I told him this. I soon learned why. Their soccer game was now a weekly event for Christina, Brandy, and me, but not one time that we came did we ever see any other girls there, although many of Andréa’s friends assured us that they had girlfriends.
“Girls don’t like soccer,” Andréa had told me. Even when I assured him that that was most certainly not the case, and that I had even played co-ed soccer, WITH BOYS, in high school, I still had yet to receive an invitation to play with these boys. But he was right, the concrete bleachers beside the field did remain empty except for three American girls, two of which sat and talked most of the time, waiting for the guys to be done so we could go out to a restaurant, and one of which wished she could play rather than watch.
But now the guys are finishing up, filing off of the field, and I look back at Christina and Brandy. They are huddled over Brandy’s I-pod, filing through what seems an endless list of music. “I have Brass Monkey on here” Brandy beams. “I’m gonna let Francesco listen to it” Christina says taking the player from Brandy’s outstretched hand. They run over to Francesco, pushing the buds into his ears. He waits, eyes glancing upward to the right, expectant, bouncing his head with the beat until he latches onto the one word he knows. “Mawnkey!” he yells over the music and our laughter. From the corner of my eye, I see a soccer ball skirting toward me and instinctively my foot is out to stop it, shift it to my right foot, and pass back to whoever it got away from. Andréa stands, hands on his hips, smiling at me. Smirking I take a soft, chip shot on him, hitting him square in the stomach. Laughing, he feigns injury as he follows Francesco to the showers in the field house. I rejoin Christina and Brandy on the bleachers as the sound of running water and a clear, distinct voice rise from the building. “Na nana na na MAWNKEY na nana na na MAWNKEY.”