/larry-and-laura

Originally written in Portuguese, translated by the author.

The feeling in the house was boredom, Friday night, everyone had gone out, I knew that I was not going anywhere and had no plans, just waiting patiently 11:00 to finally be free. Laura enters the house sneakily as always and show up smiling, then walking fast, wearing a leather black skirt and a white blouse, she looks happy for something, she enters the reception and I ask what happens, she says that found a place to live, I feel happy for her, but I wish she lived with me and the others, get used too much living with her, see her every day is always a bit of happiness and good companionship, also in a certain way I already care too much about her. She says she is going to a neighborhood that I never heard about and when I look in the map I see that it is on the other side of the island, far north, I say in a joking tone that no way, she can’t live that far from us, beside my tone, in fact I don’t want she goes that far, and she says that found a good place to live alone, even without us around, also she has to solve all of this soon as possible. I finish my duties some minutes past 11 as always, and met Larry in the backyard and ask him what are his plans for this strange Friday night, he says that is not going out, he will just going to buy a wine and drink alone, I say that he will not be alone for sure and also ask Laura if she wants drink with us and she suggest that we do this at the beach, excellent idea. Laura grabs her red coat and then we head out to the narrow hexagonal block streets of Albagaard Road, I feel happy going out with these two people for the first time, Laura never goes out and tonight she looks happy going with us to do something simple. It is a pleasant night, the streets are empty like mostly of the days of this April, I go smoking my tobacco on the way to the small market at the corner, when we arrive Larry goes direct to the market while me and Laura stay out for a moment, I’m still smoking, then I ask her if she wants something, she says anything is good for her. I left my cigarette lighted in her hands, she smiles and I enter the market to find some cheap wine with Larry, he have a Doritos and a beer is his hands and we move to the wine section, we grab two red bottles, one sweet and one dry, the cheapest ones and we get out of the market. Laura is in the exactly same spot looking distant to the street beneath a yellow lamp, she turns to me with my cigarette lighted off in her hand, exactly in the same position that I left between her fingers, I look to her eyes, they are blue than never, I took my cigarette and we start to walk to the beach while we open the first bottle, and we drink a bit each, for the first time I see Laura drinking alcohol and felt happy for being present. Larry drinks again and ask me with a surprised face if this is what Brazilian wine looks like, I confirm without much more to say, se says it’s shit, I agree again, Laura laughs. We reach the sands of the empty beach and walk to the left, listening now the sound of the ocean and the white waves breaking, the tide is high, almost no place with dry sand at the beach. The ocean breeze already making we walk happier to a wood deck where used to stay a barrack that is not there anymore, now just a perfect square wood spot to sit and follow the rest of the night. We met Godoi and the French guys at the same spot, they were drinking run and coke listening to reaggeton, soon they will go to some party, apparently is birthday of one of the guys, we join them with our cheap wine, the sea water comes until it pass under the deck, after some minutes standing up analyzing the deck, Laura find a small square wood bench and sit down, I sit on the ground in front of her and and lay my back in her legs, Larry also sits on the ground close to us and open his Doritos offering it to us, Laura says she doesn’t like it, I took a bit and and said that it smells like feet, Larry said: “what a fuck cunt”, but I said that it was good anyway and ate it. Then we stay in silence just listening to the french words being spelled on our side, the ocean and reaggeton, I don’t like much the musics, but I don’t care at all at this moment, I just roll another cigarette and light it looking to the dark sky with a few stars, then Larry says: “onde meu tabaco ?” I give it to him and lay my head back trying to look to Laura face above me, she look down to me smiling. The French guys and Godoi say goodbye and go out for the night, now it’s just us and the sound of ocean, Laura gets tired of the bench and sits on the ground between me and Larry, she starts to touch the long Larry’s hair saying that she wanted to have a hair like this, Larry looks to us without understanding anything we’re talking about and we laugh.

A noise comes up far on the right, when we look there we saw a motorbike flashlight moving from the lighthouse at the end of the beach, I think that the bike will turn to the streets, but it keep coming on the beach through the shallow waters over the sand and pass through us, and we just observe this curious fact while the driver pass with the feet raised to not get wet and we keep in silence. I ask Larry if he brought the phone, he confirmed and bring it to me already with the music player opened, I pass my finger on the screen checking his playlist and we find a lot of musics that we all like, Laura says she loves Kings of Leon and I say the same and I hit the play and we open the second bottle of wine. Now that is me sitting on the bench and Laura is on my left side laying on me, Larry is still at the same place almost in front of us laying on his elbows and he complains about the wine again, saying that this one is even worst than the other one e says: “eu não entende”, I don’t know much about wine, but I realize that is common sense between foreigner think the same about Brazilian wine, but we keep drinking anyway. Laura ask me for a drag of my cigarette, I look at her very surprised, then I give it to her and watch her movements, holding gently the cigarette and the red sparks glowing her face, I can almost hear the sound of the tobacco burning and I see the smoking going out of her mouth disappearing under the sky, everything happens slowly, and she give it back to me saying that she used to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes back then at her small farm home town, I like that fact and now it feels that I like her even more. I back my attention to the waves and stay smiling for the ocean for some minutes, three birds cross the sky ahead us over the waters. I also give up of the small wood bench and sit on the ground again, now we are all in the wood deck, almost laying on each other. A man appear cycling with a dog, the dog join us on the deck to be patted while his apparently owner stay outside of the deck saying things that I not pay much attention, then he leaves and the dog stays with us, Laura keeps patting him and saying how much it is cute and stinks a lot though, while I take pictures and short films of this beautiful scene. Then Laura says we will need a dog for our new house, and I look at her with a question mark in my face and she says yes, she will not live alone anymore, she will live with us and I can imagine we all living together through happy days figuring out our lives, everything looks easy. The dog now lay down over Larry and Laura with the head close to me, I touch his head and think that now it is part of the family. After some musics the dog stand up and sits again in front of us just looking ahead the ocean, as it was one of us just contemplating and then he runs back to its owner that is far away now. I take the phone that is over Laura’s leg to find another music, I find Johnny Cash and ask Larry if there is Folsom Blues Prison, he says: “siem”, I find the music and hit play, Larry stand up e we sing together excited: “when I was just a baby, my mom told me son, always be a good boy, don’t never play with guns, but I shot a man in Reno, just to watch hiim diiee” and I remember when I listened to this music for the first many years ago, I always liked that part and it was the only part that me and Larry could sing, the music enter in a guitar solo cheering us and I remember of Larry dancing in his unique way the first time we went out. The music ends and a wave breaks making a sound extremely louder than the others almost like a thunder, like it was saying to us that it was here, then the next waves crash again in regular sound like it was just our background soundtrack. Laura drinks from the bottle e ask me another drag of cigarette, I pass it to her gently and smiling, I watch her smoking again, now she gave two drags and give it back to me saying that this is a perfect night, that we couldn’t be in another place, living the moment, I agree with her and I say that is all that matter and we look to each other full of empathy. Two lights appear on the black horizon as it was just two additional stars, showing us the edge between the ocean and sky which we can’t distinguish now, and we point to them asking ourselves where they are going or doing late night on the high sea. The bottle is almost at the end and I say to Larry that we should bought five bottles instead of two and he says: “six”, while we listen to Ocean Alley and I explain to Laura the lyrics, that talks about a guy who lacks confidence when he is with the girl he likes and never know exactly what say or do, and say that is what usually happen to me, and she says that the same happens to her, interesting, I thought. The wine bottle reach its end, now it is Larry who is sitting on the small square bench and I’m sitting in front of him with Laura on my left side and we realize that we’re listening to the last song, and the song says: “where do we go from here?” and it is exactly what is on our minds now, and I think about everything, about how I love these people, e now looks like we know each other for ages and wouldn’t make any sense if I hadn’t met them in this life and I just want to stay around them. And we all keep in silence watching the white sponge lines of the small waves finding each other and forming a big white line that vanishes on the sand in front of our eyes and everything looks mystical and life makes sense and don’t at the same, a wind pass through us and I think about us, not just me anymore. The song ends, we contemplate everything for a few more seconds, then we stand up and walk away through the beach back home, feeling happy and thoughtful.