My parents divorced when I was nine, and it wasn’t pretty—as most divorce isn’t. Even the word sounds like a knife slicing. I see anger as cold air; it sinks to the floor. And theirs settled onto me and my siblings to wade in. Except for me, the anger mutated into intense anxiety that drifted with me all through high school. I broke out into hives and would scratch at my inflamed hands and feet a week before Dad’s designated weekend. As my anxiety continued to tear me apart from the inside, I soon developed ulcerative colitis, which spun me off into deeper anxiety about my body.
My mother struggled to find kind things to say about Dad after their divorce, which was difficult to bear as I have half his blood. It’s her beliefs, after being wronged by him, that I carried with me into adulthood. My dad and I fought. I decided at sixteen I didn’t want to see him anymore, but once I moved out, I desired to mend the wound between us that I’ve always felt at fault for. After nine years, it was only this past May that I believe the wound has finally scarred.
Now I focus on finding things to love about my dad, things I’m grateful to inherit. His candor is one of those things. He has a sparkling geniality, can meet any rando on the street for the first time and a stranger walking past would assume they were lifelong friends. He did this over breakfast at the Sandy Buns Bakery in West End. Buddied up with the Texan owner of the restaurant, known for its Texas-sized cinnamon rolls. We had avocado on Texas toast. We might as well have been in Texas, which I am now certain has its citizens unawares that bread can come in slices less than two inches width.
I’d thrown caution to the wind, and later to my own detriment, when it came to my intake of gluten. To top off our breakfast, we all quartered a cinnamon roll which dropped me into a state of momentary bliss. For context, I’ve been gluten free for the past two years to ease my UC, but goddammit I was on vacation! Dad and the Texan Restauranteer talked about high school. Mr. Texas may have even joined us for the remainder of our vacation if he didn’t have a restaurant to run.
Later that day, we found Nathan at a cigar shop, leaning over the bar with smoke swirling around his face. Since we both left home, I’ve seen him in stretches of two days at most once a year, around Christmas. With the passing of time, I find him in different forms, as he likely finds me. One year I was amazed by his bulk, and he resorted to showing off his strength by squeezing my hand until the knuckles crunched together in a way they weren’t made to, and twisted my arm backward until I told him to quit it. Things I’d do to him when we were younger. We fought the same way with words—aiming for the jugular.
Now, after three years out of the military, I found his frame gangly. His light brown hair was grown out and splayed around his ears. He donned a patchy beard. Said he was Roman-maxxing, and meant to grow his hair down to his shoulders. He’s been reading the bible, starting with the old testament, and drinks boxed wine every night—Sangria is his favorite flavor, and Ashley looked pained at the mention of it. We were making our move to go, and Nathan handed the cigar-tender fifteen lempira.
“Nathan,” I said. “The cigar is fifteen dollars. You handed him fifty cents.” Before we left, he removed a tall bottle of talcum foot powder from a pocket in his knapsack and dumped it into his shoes. When he noticed I was watching, he told me how good it made his feet smell.
We made the walk once again to West Bay, this time in daylight, and the beaches grew cleaner and less packed the further we got from West End.
“I just travelled fourteen hours and you guys are making me walk everywhere,” Nathan grumbled. Him and Dad sloughed through the sand a good hundred meters behind Ashley and me. Seems the men in my family lack vitality.
The sunset coated the beach in a blazing copper. Rows of water taxis anchored along the shore line, and their drivers sat in them, their necks bent over crossed arms, dozing with the setting sun on their backs. Nathan was always the quiet one—I assume being the middle child has much to do with it—it takes work coaxing any details about his personal life out of him. He currently works as a security guard for Seattle transit, where he recently held a man’s head up who had dropped to the ground convulsing into a seizure; and collected used syringes into a big plastic bucket from the dark corners of a subway terminal. A tweaker asked if Nathan could please part with just a few syringes that still had traces of a golden viscous liquid along the sides of their glass tubes. Nathan is counting down the days until he can quit transit security.
When we arrived at Kismet, once again, the sky was purple. Nathan and I, at my Dad’s expense, split a Monkey la la: blended ice, rum, kahluha, coconut cream, and Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Though, I was the one that slurped down its majority. Seeing as we were once again the only people at the bar, we left for home, hailing a water taxi back to West End.
I find it difficult to be present—I’ve spent so much of my life in my head, and less in the world around me. But it’s small moments like these—wind in my hair, black water crashing against the sides of the aluminum boat, and stars swaying overhead—that I let go. It’s what I love about travel: being in a place where anything and nothing can happen. Where I’m not grinding, head down, for the sole purpose of a future I can’t even see yet, daydreaming of any life but the one I’m living. In these moments I am living that life. I want to be better about living it everyday, and not in some fantasy future. I need to recall that this nowness is the only thing I have. That I’m in the midst of an experience no one else has ever had, because no one else has lived in my body but myself.
Nathan and I aimed to meet my guy friends from the night before, and I was hopeful of seeing Anton a second time. Before we left, we sat on the patio in the dark with my father, the two of them huffing on Nathan’s half-smoked cigar from earlier.
“I never saw this coming,” Dad started. “First I thought it would be Nathan to take care of my old, withering body. Then I lost hope and thought it would be Sophie (my sister), but now I’m surprised to say it will be Camille.”
“Nobody wants to listen to you gripe to death, Dad,” said Nathan. I, however, stole a smile to myself. His approval was never something I yearned for, but now that I have it I can’t help but feel honored. I was Daddy’s girl up to age nine, and gratified to return to it.
When Nathan and I got up with the gaggle of boys (men[?])—Danny, Danny’s brother, and Anton—it was at the Booty Bar once again, and they seemed in dire spirits. Danny had ordered a clay bowl of plantain chips and refried beans, kept warm by a small pile of coals in a chafing pot beneath it. Danny motioned us to help ourselves, and Nathan, amid our introductions and chit chat, helped himself until the bean bowl was empty.
I was intrigued to watch Nathan interact with strangers. It came so naturally to him, as if he’d been there all along. Same as our father. Same as myself.
But even more interesting to me was watching how these boys engaged with each other. A situation I don’t commonly find myself the observer of. They talked about women—Danny and Nathan finding camaraderie by discussing their tastes. Nathan turned to me and asked how to say, in Spanish, that he preferred brown girls.
The boys were all laid back in comparison to last night, and I tried my best to lift the vibes. I gave in to the call of tequila shots, my brother and I apt to spend the fifty dollars my Dad gifted us (Wahoo!), but when we flashed our bill, Anton waved it away and covered the drinks. Then covered another two rounds. Another Honduran showed up and joined our circle—this one twice our age. It was Danny’s taxi driver. I greeted myself, but not much beyond that, he lingered outside the circle, with another Honduran man—2.5x our age and a little spooky. His stare was wicked as he watched me. I kept my distance, using my group of knights as a buffer. I could see some viscous fire in those eyes. I know I should have ignored him, but I’m giving myself grace—it’s only natural to be conscious of the gaze of a predator, which I believe he was.
Thankfully, spooky man stayed behind as I corralled the party to venture down the main street, hoping to find a bar that was more lively. Given we were crunk on a Wednesday, this task proved difficult.
On our march, we ran into Joshua—my taxi driver. What a jubilant reunion that was. I asked if he knew somewhere we could dance, and he led us to an open air bar with sand gathered in the corners of the dance floor.
At the bar, where no one danced save for myself and posse, Joshua took my hand and gave me my umpteenth lesson in bachata. On the dance floor Joshua told me, to the benefit of my ego, that I was a very special woman and we were meant to cross paths. Latinos are smooth with their words. Over the deafening squawk of the speakers he spoke to me in rapid Spanish which I pretended to understand. I leaned on the number one word in my vocabulary—Si. Si si si. Claro! Usually, it’s pretty reliable.
Joshua told me to listen to the song “Propuesta Indecente” by Romeo Santos, and it would explain everything about our connection. The song, in so few words, is about getting a woman drunk and seducing her into car sex. Gee thanks, Joshua. While my taxi driver was sweet and interested, though, I have an infatuation for Swedes, and managed to divert my alcohol-induced confidence to Anton.
Anton is a wind turbine mechanic. Tradies get the ladies. They get me riled up, anyway. He told me how much he wanted to travel; I told him how much I loved Sweden. I learned where Anton lived, somewhere way up north, and I was already planning a trip to visit him. Then marriage, children.
We left the bar, and wandered to the inmost curve of Half Moon Bay. Here there were more people, kicked out of the bars with nowhere else to entertain their drunken stupors. All my attention was on Anton now—I wanted another taste of our moment last night. We waded out to the water together while Nathan stayed on the beach with Danny, Danny’s brother, and the locals. Anton and I did share a kiss or two (or ten [eeek]). His shyness evaporated while intoxicated. A crescent moon slipped overhead—it’s pale light a shivering line across the flat, waveless ocean.
We were called ashore. The whole clan, including my dear Anton, went North down the road, toward the lighthouse; Nathan and I went South. Nathan walked sluggishly beside me.
“I just did cocaine,” he said.
“Nathan, you what!?”
“Your taxi driver gave me a bump off his car key.”
Camille Bliss 
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