Stop Here On Red Signal

Belmopan to Belmopan

Belmopan to Belmopan. Tricks the tongue but never lights the mind’s fire with eternal sparks fading on fresh flint. Tongue on tongue, and tongue on soft lips, wet lips, devious misty lips. Drunks’, fluent, eager yearning lips... “textbooks, bluebirds, wrap-around balconies, blueberries, porch lights” all promised as light infantries of fingers march on thighs, spiders sizing up water spouts ...“hope, hills, Havana, dusk, drive, touch, crevice, curl” fingers trepidate on those soft, smooth crevices, curls, the hair, the organ.

Eyes, previously politely lowered, angled away, rise after first touch and meet each other, linger in each other, search and research each other; spiral into their counterpart’s countenance, less and less is salient beyond the salacious fingers and eye-balls locked on eye-balls. The eyes of long-time lovers lock in loose love, but our leers are pressing urgent forays, reporting what we see in them, what they see in us. Internal calculus contemplates match compatibility by unseen, unknown algorithms, judging by shape, by scent, by colour, combined in unconscious genetic formulae. Should subconscience be satisfied, the conscious consideration commences, eschewing complicating parameters and narrowing focus to its true consideration: the others eyes.

My tongue, my palms, my abs yearn: rub – friction – heat. I want to merge with her, to intertwine, to incorporate, concatenate in time and space, and become single as a warm flat layer woven with her, as fabric with fabric in the warm blankets on a high bed on a November new-moon night, and from my loins light that blanket on fire. She looks into my eyes, I look back in hers.

Eye in eye, tunnel upon tunnel upon tunnel, dug long, thin, twisting, into hard rock, far beyond sunlight’s faintest deepest reflected reaches. Small carts on precarious mine rails: faster, steeper, further our carts roll into the others uncharted personal cave. The point of no return, of course, does not exist, just the point of no return without crash, long ago surpassed, and with each passing instant, each passing hour, each passing life time spent mining our own perception of the other’s soul through the eye, that potential crash becomes a more and more violent proposition, serving to add tension, arousal, and eroticism to the new relationship.

The function of the human iris at which we now gaze is controlling the size of the pupil, and thus the amount of light which reaches the center of visual acuity, at the back of the eye, the retina. To observe an iris is to notice a central, pupilary zone divvied by a collarette region from the ciliary zone which surrounds it. Texturing these zones are crypts which allow a flow of nutritive fluids, ruffs of nature’s imprecision, and wrinkles accrued from the iris folding in then spreading out as the sun passes behind a cloud then back out again. Front to back, the iris is comprised of three layers. Foremost and largest is the stroma made of fibrous connective tissue, vessles, and nerves, interlaced in fragile mesh radiating away from the pupil. Connected to the stroma is the dilator pupillae, muscles that contract when it’s dark or when fear draws adrenaline to our blood, and the sphincter papillae, muscles which contract when it’s light, or keep the pupil small when we’re calm and resting. To read one by their pupils alone, you’ve got open and closed to go by, not nearly enough to discern all the mind has to say, but telling none the less. Finally, most inward of the iris, is the posterior pigment epithelium, a pigmented back drop sheet which prevents all passage of light: absorbing and reflecting uniquely, distinctly, intriguingly, and in the case of my damsel, gorgeously. This is the iris. ‘Tis rich indeed, so I stare and stare and stare, yet I cannot get my fill...

First of all, I mean not to say there’s no truth to physiognomy’s powers, or that betrayals of emotion by expression are a falsehood, but I will say that it’s an art founded less on studying faces and more on the reflections of the thoughts – wishful, doubtful, hopeful, tearful – of our own minds which we project on to others in hopes of catching a reflection in resonance. Secondly, I make a claim to being artful in deceit, or cunning in deception, I suggest - I know - only that no other mind has ever understood, ever read, my face, more to the point my eyes, accurately.

From my youngest of memories I can remember I having been approached with the query “do I know you from somewhere?” Total strangers, of all descents, ages, histories, and temperaments are sure they know my face. So they ask questions, suggest potential past meeting, discuss where they've lived, worked, gone to school. For the most part they really are total strangers. In fact, without fail, given a chance alone with me, practically all new acquaintances will reveal they see in me a similarity to some dim distant recollection, though they know not where from. My face on them inflicts eternal déjà vu. They’ve looked only at my face, my nose, brow, cheek, hair, and all the moving, flexible, doctorable parts. They haven’t seen my eyes. Had they seen my eyes they would have realized how they stood frightfully at the precipice of a cliff: depth unknown. Their misperceptions, haunting though it can be to them, it is the least of my worries. More to the point are a series of circumstances, in which my own expression I know induces an emotional misreading in observers. And as I’ve had all my life to do so, there a few such circumstances I have duly catalogued.

The first circumstance I am clearly aware of is when I feel contented, proud, or satisfied. The result is that my face and all external features are drained of resource which is then concentrated in the cavernous walls of the castle that is my mind, each chamber turning all its lights on serving finest of fare to all manner of guests local guests in unrestrained cheer. The effect, an outward laconism, and apparent absent focus is generally assumed by all as ample indication that I am possessed by dreary boredom and sleep deprived fatigue. I usually respond demurely if at all and let the conversation pass to other matters of its own accord, as conversations are wont to do. Should anyone see my eyes on such blissfull occasions they would see dancing, fireworks, jubilance, happiness.

A second circumstance, much more to my detriment, is the occasion when I am curious, persistent in seeking information, and sincerely interested in a topic. At such times, I am forever perceived as malicious in intent, antagonistic, deeply bitter or to reveal an internal distaste for whomever I confer with. In fact, on this point, I know a few astute coaches of behaviour who have taught me how to keep in check the overt signs of aggression I might inadvertently display on such investigative moments. To no avail: innocent friendly bemusement is without exception the last emotion attributed to me in such instances. Put off by their perceptions they look away from my eyes which swell with eager students at desks, with pen an paper, arms raised not in fury, but to pose questions.

Worst of all, to others, is fear. My face, I have deduced, animates fear beyond all capacity of my mind to feel fearful. I should explain what is known in the branches of psychology that deal these topics: it is proven that the image of a fearful face, simply the sight of it alone, inspires feelings of fear in those who see it. Should you look at one gripped in ghastly terror, his experience will shift your own to be like his, no matter how confident or rational you may be. This horrific consequence of this is a burden I carry, as I have found myself, more than once, to terrorize a small group by virtue of chain reaction and the fear others see in my face. It comes into my face, this specific fearful regard, not when I am physically tired, but when I feel certain war weariness, and am overcome by resignation, exasperation, flustered and exhausted of all options. As one cannot see the eyes without seeing the face, no amount of perception precludes this effect.

I recall the first Tuesday of December a year back, when a spiky wind, studded with jagged hailstones pelted across winter’s early sundown. Filthy weather. A meeting had been set between the club I was running and the student counsel treasury, five o’clock in 5351, a yet undecorated room with cowardly dim yellow lights, and a wide window displaying the sinister sky and leafless tree limbs which whipped the pane alerting us to each mad gust. My VP, a small, keen girl of Vietnamese descent and timid disposition, with immaculate long black silk for hair, sat beside me, hands hiding inside the ends of her sleeves, arms crossed for warmth, present at my request so she might learn and take over the role of president the following year. The delegate of the student counsel treasury were, unlike me, consummate pros of student politics. Having been through the wars of paper work, budget over runs, have baked liars, aggressive bullies, and self aggrandizing opportunists, they had no sympathy for simple, pithy, naive causes like my own. Two larger girls, both with streaked hair, fat lips, conceited dispositions, one in thick flannel, the other still in stylish black felt and a red scarf, were as sealed from the cold as they were to my attempts to earn my club capital.

I had some meagre demand that I they soon dismissed out of hand, quickly shifting their initial offer to a mild concession (likely preconceived) in my favour they dropped anchor and held firm. I’m not sure the reason I was so desperate, was I trying to impress the VP with my resolve, was I trying to haul some imaginary white whale back to the club members, afraid that four years of membership in that cause would go in vain if I didn’t come back ahead, seeing a blank spot on a resume if no great bargain might be struck. And I tried and tried and tried to no avail. They would not budge. The weather, the semesters end, the cold outside, the cold growing round my heart set in. The meeting ground to silence, and each stared at me resolute, for a long stretch, perhaps five whole seconds. In the course of that time, I saw both the counsellors changed. I didn’t clue in at first to the cause, as I sat abject, a hand slowly through my hair, cheeked billowed, a slow puff escaping. Then I looked at them again, in that window their spirits had crumble. A fear, which even they didn’t understand, had overcome them. Glancing right, my VP too, bore a look of horror, and I too seeing their faces felt my heart lurch in despairing agony. A weight lowered onto all our shoulders, a dense cloud had ensconced our minds.

For a while we sat silent, lost in personal grief and angst, forgetting the presence of anyone else in the room. Then suddenly, the girl in the black felt coat brought a finger to her eye, wiping out a tear on her nose, rose, and quickly excused herself from the room, to the hall, where I heard her gasping and weeping. It was the saddest moment of my life.

Belmopan. Though we met upon the dance floor we strayed briefly to the bar to catch our breath, and dodge an unfitting tune. I told her I was from Belmopan. I thought it sounded exotic. I thought no one else knew it was the capital of Belize, that little British Central-American backwater. I can’t explain it; I just thought it felt right to say at the time. Like poetry, BELL-mo-pan, it rolls of the tongue like a burst, then a blown kiss, and then a soft bubble, popping. But I was wrong.

“Oh,” head cocked condescendingly “Belize, me too. That’s kinda cool” smiling cheekily, calmly tucking her long brown hair back behind her left ear. Oh so coy, oh so cheekily smiling. Tongue in cheek I suppose?

Oh death! Ridiculous! Reeeee –DICK –u-lous! She’s from Belmopan?, yeah efffing right!

“I’m from the north part of the city, the Accardo quarter?” Brilliant dumbass, there’s probably like 24 people in Belmopan, she probably knows every family.

“I don’t know it...You’re here to go to school too I suppose?” We exchange nods.

She’s looking from the floor back up to me then around the bar. I stare fixed at her, unable to read a thing.

She has got to be lying. There’s no way. If only I had any intuition what-so-god-dam-ever. Fuck. I have no idea if she lying or not. Think. A) No one’s from fucking Belmopan. B) She’s white as a Viking you dolt: it’s impossible. It was a British colony maybe it full of whites or at least a rich upper class perhaps? And why’s she so indifferent? Wouldn’t she be ecstatic to meet someone from there? If she were faking being from there then she’d really be ecstatic. Maybe we’re ‘mutually embarrassed’ to be from there? I should be able to tell from her face, but...

She leans in and whispers in my ear “Let’s dance”, takes my hand, walks me back to the dance floor. We never mention it again. But it’s there, the weird lie, the double lie, the doubt, a twisted self-doubt, hanging in between us, or at least, if not hanging between her and me, it’s hanging between me and her. And here, later, sitting on her bed, staring at those lovely magnetic eyes, it’s eating me up, worms eating a rotten apple.

The dance floor. The Dance floor has a capacity, unique among almost all social settings, to lay bare the underlying sexual realities inherent in inter-relations, and to eviscerate the veneer of gentility which permeates human life beyond the dank, hot, sweaty, intoxications of Saturday night, 2 am. The dance floor leaves nothing to hide behind. The dance floor is deaf to those who pull back, affronted by the nakedness of power, persuasion, desire, control. The dance floor ensures failure for half-measures and slightest hints of timidity, reluctance, reservation, question, or doubt. The dance floor is a shark, a Great White Shark, singular, unerring, uncompromising. Ruthless. Vicious. Carnal.

And who should cross paths with the dance floor? Why, if it wasn't coming along all innocent and curious: a generation. My generation. A generation afraid of spiders, and grey clouds, and Halloween candy.A generation afraid of signs: No Trespassing, Beware of Dog, Cross at the Lights. A generation raised on pillow cushions, knee padds, and individually wrapped snack cakes. A generation without a brain.

Soft.

A real soft generation of consummate phonies (Salinger would have opined) without a Hemingway among them (mercifully for his sake). A generation without revolution, rivaly, contention, debate, or principle. A generation who lost sleep only on questions of Minivan versus SUV, red versus blue, or pie versus cake. A generation weaned on cribs, cruches, peace, order, and vague bland dogmas served with a surplus Maslowian basics. All Maslow’s basics that is, except sex. The only basic need your rich parents can't give you.

And so sucking pressure abounds in the vacuous hole at the base of the generation's Maslow pyramid. Beyond parental shelter the generaation bleeds an occult blood into the ether which acts as chemo-attratant for a shark that is the dance floor.

And when the little mining carts have crashed in epic flames –some dim offence read between the lines of my eyes- I walk home. Staring up through the garish streetlights that pollute the summer sky, dulling all but the brightest bits of the cosmos, I glimpse a few thin rays of stellar light sent my way some long time ago, to dodge my iris and die upon my retina.

The walk of shame, that overexposed homeward stumble, is for now a consummation devoutly to be wished. In my own unique misfortune, illuminated by the halogenic surrogate stars I trudge across Toronto, West to East, amidst the urban canyons, to my desolate low-rise domicile, locked out somehow of the only great chase me and my depraved generation knows to pursue.