The Moon Along The Shorelines*

Another personal story. My first trip to Miami in search of a woman who may have never existed.

Joshua Cannon

20140428

C103 Section 26687

4300 Word Count

 

The Moon along the Shorelines

 

I woke up in a cold sweat, panting slightly. The clothes I had walked around in the sun in earlier were still damp with sweat. My suitcases were still scattered and half opened throughout the hotel floor. I hadn’t bothered to use the covers due to the extreme heat outside�"the forecast had predicted a straight 90 the whole week didn’t he?�"but for some reason, I desired some fresh coffee. Some hot coffee at that. In Miami, it didn’t matter the weather. If it was 100 degrees outside and you wanted some coffee (maybe to wake you up from that goddamn nightmare you just had) then by God you drank it. I looked at the time while I walked over to the table next to the slide glass window in the hotel room. I started to notice that the 7^th floor was such a beautiful view that I forgot about the real b***h it was to get up the stairs since the elevators didn’t work. I stood off the balcony, cup of fresh brewed beans in hand, and could hear the cars swerving in and out of traffic. Could almost cringe at the sound of girls from below giggling, because that’s just who I was, a man fascinated with women. ‘A player?’ some may say. Now I think that would be pushing it. Now a man’s’ that’s had enough of the same cup of coffee is what I’d call it. But as much different kinds of coffee there are in this world, I wasn’t here for them. It’d make life a hell of a lot easier but no. I was here for her.

            I walked over to my phone and seen that she had texted me. I always liked her texts but hated them at the same time. Cute. Brief. To the point. I get it. But I didn’t fly all the way out here to play those same cute and brief games either. And for a while, I thought she felt the same. Sending me subliminal messages that she cared (“I always liked you” she flat out told me even), I chewed on it like a dog that’s had nothing but veggies in its diet. But when I got here it all changed.

            You’re killing yourself my mind preached to me. You’re killing yourself and you haven’t even got the chance to see her yet, and no, the dreams don’t count. I hate the good side of me sometimes, but I had to agree with it. Didn’t really have the right to disagree. For 3 days straight �" not counting the sea sickness­­ you incurred the 2^nd day Josh my boy- I have been drinking way too much. What good was a trip if you couldn’t remember it? Then it came, the other, much darker conscience. The child that seemed to miss puberty and think life was all but a game.

But it’s so hard! The other half rationalized; sounding almost as if it were pleading to being considered right. You flew from the middle of nowhere into a world you may never ever see again. It aint Vegas, I know, but you know-just know- that it blows Vegas right out of the water.

I had to agree with the devil child in this debate as well I’ll admit. Now that the 4 nights of madness were finally over, I could now finally begin my search for her. Given I had drank anything (yet), rationally, it could be tonight actually. But even if you don’t find her, can’t say you had one hell of a time, right? Right. If I never got the chance to see her, I could honestly say these days have been the most enjoyably in my life.

I started to recall back to the day when I landed here in Miami; and being right on the docks next to the cruise ship. The people, the scenery, the experiences I would never tangibly feel again�"because you couldn’t quiet ‘feel’ these things. You could only could live it in the moment. The pictures I took would always be there (most of them anyways; the pictures from Key West got lost in Mexico along with the camera), but nobody would be able to feel how I had felt right in those moments. Why you ask? Well, because you never lived them.

Despite these conversed feelings, I looked at my phone at her text like it was the newest thing to hit the millennial ages. I just stood there idle, staring at the words for what seemed like a very long time.

“Hope you’re having a wonderful day! Cant wait to see you!” <3 Janeira

            Was she really serious about seeing a person she has never met face to face her before? More importantly though, was I serious about making this happen? I couldn’t help but feel like a chump, but I did really want to see her, I knew that much. A person that, somehow and someway, has managed to keep in contact with me for nearly 6 years. I couldn’t even keep my best friend Mark from middle school in my life for more than 3 years, and I loved that kid (who is an excellent chef by the way, working in San Diego California; don’t ask me where). Shouldn’t that have been a sign?

The most troublesome though, and perhaps the most bizarre thing of it all though was that the girl was the most beautiful I have ever seen in my life. Jet black hair, white olive skin (she had laughed at this once, saying she was the ‘whitest’ Latino in Miami), big hazel eyes that tended to sway more towards the brownish side. A smile that had the power to subdue any man who despised and spat upon the name of compassion. Was this what the shrink called delusional? I thought about when we had talked my second night on the cruise ship. I wanted to kick myself for taking that stupid cruise instead of staying in Miami instead. How just seeing her for half a day would be more fulfilling than all of the nights at sea combined. But I still had time. Just two days maybe, but I still had time. I suppose yes, I was beginning to get delusional.

            Lost in thought, a knock on the door woke me out of the sleep that you might call day dreams. It was the maid. I opened the door to an older (not much older than my own mother I noticed) Spanish woman with short black hair and burnt tanned skin. I immediately let her in and she just went ahead and happily took out my trash and replaced my filters for the coffee. She tried to say in English should she take out the sheets for the bed but I told her ‘no ahora’.

She looked at me for a moment. Her eyes glanced at my half empty bottle of Gin next to a glass of orange juice that I had mixed the night before and she smiled. I felt embarrassed. She began to leave when I told her ‘wait!’

She turned around and I tipped her 4 dollars and her smile seemed to light up the room, if not all of Miami. I tipped her every day after that until I ended up leaving 2 days later. In a strange way, I felt she accepted my tip more on my favor than hers. It was strange also to me because I never tipped anybody before, let alone some foreign maid. She left with a smile on her face (maybe from the tip, maybe from my poor excuse for Spanish or a little of both) and I took a shower to get ready to head to the beach. Miami Beach was one of the things she said I had to see while I was there, and I shot her a text to meet me. If only I had known she wouldn’t text me back for the next 4 hours.

            When I got there, after nearly an hour of driving, it was still daylight out. I didn’t know where I was, but could hear the sounds of the ocean, so I started walking towards it. I put the 5 bucks in the meter that would last me all night (ironically cheaper then what I’d thought it would be) still thinking she would text me soon. On the way, joggers, people walking their pets, couples, families, and old people crossed my path; I started to see everybody and everything here. When the concrete started turning into sand, I took my sandals off. When I got to the shoreline, I took my shirt off. Nobody seemed to care, something I wasn’t used to feeling before. I thought at any moment, somebody would tell me to ‘please cover it up sir’, especially the older folks. Nobody ever did. To my surprise, women that day approached me to ask questions about the tattoos I had, mostly the ones from my military days in Japan.  Feeling flattered with a tint of shock, I was starting to fall in love with this place, and then I saw it.

            There was a very long (and pretty dangerous looking) walkway made up entirely of hunches of stones and rocks. I didn’t know if I was allowed to, but I started to climb the rocks until I reached the top.  I felt accomplished as I looked down at the now smaller people swimming and playing volleyball along the shore. It seemed to travel as far as my eyes would allow. I saw a large Haitian man with a tank top on with dreadlocks begin to pass me when I stopped him.

            “Would you mind taking a picture for me?”

I faced opposite of the sun and the beach, while managing the best smile I could muster. I thanked him kindly (after trying to sell me a bag of weed) and sent the picture to her. When I would later post this picture on Facebook, it had the most comments and likes I had on any other picture at that time. Guess it was the only picture besides having my son that I actually smiled in. Staring and hearing the ocean swallowing the laughter of others from below, I was starting to feel different, somewhat abstract.  Whatever it was, it felt good, though I couldn’t recall exactly what it was. I climbed down from the rocks and continued walking up the beach and started entering the local bars trying to enjoy the moment.

It would be around nightfall (and way too many drinks later) that she would text me the “I wish I was with you and not at work” excuse. I didn’t text back. A part of me in doubt, another part of me not seeming to care anymore, I stayed in Miami Beach several more hours before I would leave to visit a friend in West Palm Beach off of the east coast. Walking parallel with the shore but on thickened concrete on the strips of stores, night clubs, and restaurants, I looked up into the sky and saw the moon. It’s funny how the most obvious things in your life seem so distant because they tell you it’s just a part of ‘normality’.

I stood staring at that damn moon for a long time. It seemed to have this effect on the ocean I noticed, as if its mere presence soothed the beast we know so little about. The clouds hazed around its luminous glow and off in the distance, I could see couples holding hands and marveling at its presence along with me. I’ve never seen the moon actually reflect light before, I thought, still staring.

Taking my eyes off it to focus on the walkway, I saw a cute girl sitting along a stoned little hedge that separated the pavement from the sands of the beach. She eyed me sharply, boldly even, and smiled. The girls here are nothing like how they are back home, I thought and approached her�"something I rarely ever did.

“Excuse me, but this has got to be the corniest pick up in the history of pickups but”- as I said this, I reached for my phone, unlocked it, and reached out my hand toward her-“Could you take a picture of me?”

She glanced lightly down to the ground and as she did this, I got a better look at her; long straight black hair that reflected the moonlight, dark brown skin, pearly white teeth for a smile. Mostly the same I thought, studying her. Most of these girls are just the same, yet they still linger in my dreams. Yet they are so damn different. What makes them so different! She lifted her head up, with those black eyes of hers, and I saw that she had been laughing. My hand still stretched out, she took the phone and I posed for her. I made her retake the picture at least three times, even calling her ‘the worst photographer in Miami’ which she only replied with sounds of laughter. Ten minutes I got her number and I told her goodbye knowing I wasn’t ever going to call her. I wasn’t ready to give up on Janiera just yet.

 

As I walked back to the car (at least I thought I was) and the moon still shining the way it did, my phone rang: It was the friend from the Palms, Andrew. I told him I would be on my way, a 45 minute to an hour and a half drive, depending on the traffic. His words before I got off the phone were “Bro your gonna have the time of your life!”

I sure hope so I thought.

It rained on and off the entire drive up to meet Andrew. Maybe it was a sign, maybe it was just Florida. Any which way, I was contemplating on going back and just hanging out with the girl I recently met on the beach. A pitiful attempt to get back at someone that probably never cared at all. A part of me temporarily believed that was exactly what she wanted me to do.

 I started passing strange exit signs such as Pookiepaduka Ave and Choosaloosie. The names I cannot recall exactly, but mind boggling, I will always remember. Janiera texted me again as I pulled off the exit and into a McDonalds parking lot where Andrew waited. My heart sped up a little faster as I began to pull aside a foreign car in a foreign place and in a foreign land. Skipping the texts from Andrew (telling me to hurry up), I only stared at what I saw back at my phone as the car lie idle: the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen right there in my phone, lying half naked, but not in a bad way. It was the way you looked when you just walked in the door from a long day of work. The way you just kind of took off the uniform the boss made you wear and collapsed on the bed. Her breast falling comfortably on the pillow where she laid, a girl that was finally able to grab the phone and text me this ‘picture’. Savoring the moment before your strange boss (she told me he had a crush on her, which I never blamed him for) made the sun seem like hell in the sky because it was day and you had to work so you just hurried up and sent a strange guy like me a picture. Seemed normal. Seemed not normal.

Seemed not normal at all Josh my boy

 

            “Wish I didn’t have to be at work tomorrow…I really hope I see you and hope you’re having a good time.”

            But I’m not; don’t think I have been since I woke up today either. Oh no, Miss Rodriquez, come to think about it, I think I know what could change all that exactly but first I’ll ask: got any suggestions?

I laughed quietly to myself and simply texted ‘I hope so too’ and walked out to meet Andrew for the first time. The cousin of a friend which I had served in the military with, had went to war with, was waiting to meet a stranger. Someone I could call family, and like Erick always said ‘mi casa su casa Jay’, I suppose now we were not only sharing houses, but sharing family members as well. That’s the Marines for you. I stepped out of the car and saw how unrelated he looked like my friend back home but instantly saw the resemblance in his actions. I felt I had met his twin, only it was in a Twilight Zone kind of way, which was a little awkward.

            Andrew looked like a thinner, balder, Latino version of Stone Cold Steve Austin, yet he was only 21.  I felt it strange that I trusted a person I have never met before in my life. I also didn’t ask what we was getting into that night. Didn’t really need too, I suppose. In this moment, nothing really mattered. He drove a tall black Chevy suburban and roared the engine as I got in. I wished I could say I could pass the bottle up as he handed it to me. Wanted to tell him I had enough drinking for the entire month. Wanted to pour it out the window as I uncapped it and it started to sting down my throat. But of course, I never did.

            “So where’re we going?” I asked, starting to feel buzzed already from the gin. Andrew just sat in front, lit up a cigarette and told me it was going to be a country bar. I almost choked on my drink.

            “A country bar? The hell is the matter with you! Didn’t Erick tell you that’s where I’m from? The country?”

            “Well yea” �"he paused�" maybe laughing to himself. “But this isn’t really country you know what I mean? It’s just what it’s known for.” He waved a hand aside as he drove. “Man you’ll see.”

            He was right. Not only was the place packed, but nobody there was really country. Everybody seemed to me to have liked the idea of being a redneck, but yet was far from it. Bound by some unseen wall they tried to get across but failed every single time. Rap music was repeatedly played and Andrew me and went outside to play pool, which they had about 3 with one available. Little did I know, the guy was a pro. He kicked my a*s the first time, and the second time, we partnered up against two random guys outside. I did little work, letting Andrew take most of the shots. Then when he made in the last winning shot, I watched in surprise when the other player gave him money and left quietly.

            “You’re a pool shark?” I asked, impressed. Andrew counted the money twice, stuffed it in his pocket and slapped me on the shoulder. “Naaa, do it for the fun, you know? You want a drink?” Eyeing me seriously.

            “Can’t say no to that.” I told him and we laughed our way to the bar.

            I wish I could have told you that my night ended there when they closed the place down at 1 in the morning, but Andrew had other plans.

            “Ok, so my car is the other way. Where are we going now?” Andrew just smiled at me and kept on driving. I didn’t argue with him because I didn’t want to go back home honestly. I was having too good of a time, plus I ended up getting two more numbers from some girls that I’d probably never call but what the hell. It’s all about the thrill. When Andrew pulled into the parking lot, I already knew what type of place he had in mind. There were bouncers eyeing us as we pulled in lighting up our cigarettes and downing cheap alcohol from canteen bottles.

            “A strip club man? Really. What the hell dude!” I don’t know what I said that was funny but he thought my little reaction was hilarious. He looked at me with tears in his eyes. “Erick told me to man. He said you’d love it.” As perverted as it sounded, I did. Inside the club, God knows how much money I blew but I decided to give Andrew some play money anyways. He let out a howl, put his hands over my shoulder and announced (a bit too loudly) that I was his brother. Right then two of the most beautiful girls I probably have ever seen in one place at the same time came up to us. One had an accent from London and that’s the one that grabbed me and took me to the back room. It was almost on command and at my current state, I wasn’t going to fight it. Whatever happened to Andrew, he was on his own now. The girl that took me was Michelle and was a mix between Cuban and Asian and it turned out she really was from London. Go figure. I was beginning to realize that not only Americans come to Florida, but the whole damn world.

            “So I guess you want my money now.” I confessed, reaching for my wallet. She put her hand on mine and told me it would be the biggest mistake I’d ever make. In her accent she told me she just wanted me, not a dance. I was wondering what the hell was wrong with girls from Florida but kept my mouth shut. This was something that only comes once in a life time given her beauty, so I tapped her thigh. “It’s okay really. I want you too.” She only smiled back and that’s when she took off her clothes.

When we were done, I could feel her staring at me as I put my clothes back on (I took my shirt off too) and asked her what was wrong. Michelle smiled and asked the number one question: did I have a girlfriend. I didn’t know how to answer so I just showed her the picture I had of Janeira.

            “She’s beautiful.” She whispered.

            “I get that a lot. But she’s not my girlfriend. I wish she was, but I haven’t even seen her yet.” I then explained the story of how I had come down here just to see her but ended up in a strip club with a drunken Andrew either passed out on a table or kicked outside on the curb.  Still topless, Michelle scooted close to me that we were touching again. “Well why don’t you see her then? I swear men don’t think sometimes.” She said playfully and began to laugh.

            “I would but I don’t know exactly where she lives.” I admitted.

“I know where she works and she’s blown me off a couple times, saying her job is full of a bunch of a******s. I don’t know, something just doesn’t add up. I mean, if she knew I was coming down here for her, and she tells me to come see her, then what is she not telling me?” I paused right then and a crazy but maybe not to crazy thought came to my mind.

“Maybe she doesn’t even exist.”

            She thought about this for a moment. I didn’t know this girl from anything but I coming closer to just telling myself to forget Janeira and just make Michelle my Saturday night girlfriend. Stripper or no stripper, the woman was as nice as they come. That’s saying a lot because I’m probably the pickiest they come when it comes to looks. This girl I was sitting next to who was for some reason so fond of me was a straight 10.

“Maybe she’s scared.” Michelle said. “I mean, it’s not every day we get people like you in Florida. Your accent drives me crazy.” She started to laugh then. “I bet you have a full list of girl’s numbers in that phone.”

            I thought about it and knew she was right, and I had blown all of them off for a girl that had blown me off.

“Michelle, you’re not going to believe me when I tell you that I don’t get girls numbers all day back home. I’ve only been with 5 my whole life.”  If Michelle would have been eating or drinking, I would have seen it splatter in my face right then. I’m sure of it. She just didn’t believe me. “I want to give you my number.” She said. She then stood up in front of me. “I know a place we can go. Take your shirt back off, I like you’re looking at those crazy tattoos of yours.” And in that moment, I wouldn’t have believed me either.

            The strip club closed around 4 am but Andrew and I didn’t depart ways until about 2 hours after. Getting over our drunken stupors and trying to make sense of the night, I went ahead and told him about Janeira.

“Is that what all of this is about?” He had said. I asked him what he thought about it. Andrew being Andrew, looked at my phone for one glimpse and put it away. “Yea she’s nice, but you just hooked up with a bad stripper. What more do you want dude? It’s hard for even me to do that and I live here.”

            “I don’t know any more man.” I said to him.

            “You think too much bro. You had a good time though, right? I know I did. You gotta let me know in advance next time. Something tells me you’d love the day life out here.”

            I looked over to him. “Yea? I think I would too. Better then home that’s for damn sure.”

            Andrew hit me in the shoulder. “You was my guy tonight man. Everyone I introduced you too say they like you a lot. For real, come back alright? You don’t even wanna know about this other place I got in store for you.”

            “I will. No more strippers though.” We laughed and he dropped me off to my car. I never saw him the rest of my stay there. I couldn’t. There was something else I felt I needed to do first. The drive to West Palm back Miami was about a 2 hour drive and it rained off and on the entire drive back. When I got back to Miami, I stopped by the hotel and grabbed some coffee at the little restaurant attached to the side of the building. On the way in, the girl behind the desk asked me if I was really leaving; a girl I had talked with frequently before I would leave for my expenditures. I told her yes and it had been one hell of a ride. “I hope you’ll come back and see us.” She told me with a gleeful smile.

“We’ll see. Take care.” My smile faded and I kindly left the conversation to get my coffee.

The restaurant owner on duty saw me and shouted my name in Cuban Spanish. I told her this would be my last night here and an unpleasant silence filled the venue. She said the coffee was on her and I paid her for it anyways. I told her I was going back to the beach today one last time.  “Someone special waiting there?” She asked. “Yea.” I told her. “Something like that.”

At the beach, I ate at Cuban restaurants that were too good to be true. I got invited to play volleyball by a group of sight seers. I jogged at least a good mile and a half. All of these things really comforted me but what I really came back for was to see the moon again. Wanted to see if it would look the way it did the first time I saw it, and sure enough it did.

You was my guy tonight he had said.

I opened up a bottle of Corona I had bought earlier and thought in long silence. I was sitting on this log looking thing on the street now. People passing me by never glanced twice my direction.

Your accent drives me crazy Michelle had told me.

Crazy enough, Janeira had said the same thing. And it was crazy wasn’t it? The most obvious things in your life seem so distant because they tell you it’s just a part of ‘normality’. Just so happens, I realized, that normality is what you make it and weird a*s city or not, I loved this place. And I knew now that Janeira helped me see that. I felt a tap on my shoulder and snapped out of my trance. It was the girl I had seen around the same spot earlier yesterday.

“Is this seat taken?” She asked.

“No.” I replied, and scoot over a couple of a*s cheeks down. Before she sat down, she showed me her phone.

“This is for never calling me.” She said, and grabbed my collar and kissed me. The rest well, is history.

I never saw Janeira that night or the rest of my stay there, but oddly enough, it didn’t bother me the way I thought it would. As I boarded my plane the next day, I saw all the people hurrying and looking worried they would miss their flights. I honestly wished my flight would get delayed but I had a life back home. A job, a family, the same friends that seemed to slip in and out of my life. A criminal record that just doesn’t seem to go away and a baby momma that could pass off as Satan herself. A college I went to where the girls could give a s**t less if I had an accent or a 5 story house. I could feel my phone vibrate as I began making way with pounds of luggage to my final terminal. I knew it was Janeira but I never saw it. I was still thinking I was asleep back at the hotel.

 

Epilogue

Where are they now?

            Currently, I’m in my final year of college as I write this. This story happened to me in the year 2013 before I quit my job and decided to go to school full time up in Bloomington Indiana. I was inspired to write this story after I had first wrote it out in poetry form. I was encouraged then to just write the damn story so I did. A year later, I actually went back to Miami to try to see her again and I plan on finishing that story soon. Today, I have lost contact of Andrew and although Janiera is on my Facebook, I lost her number somehow and just stopped giving a s**t about it. I do know that Andrew had a child and currently works at a barbershop somewhere in West Palm Beach and it is my hopes that we will meet again. Older and more mature now, I don’t think the strip clubs or the club in general would be on the menu when that day comes but then again, who knows.

As far as everyone else mentioned in the story, I don’t know where they are either but that’s life. The only thing I know is that the hotel I slept at still exist out there. Life does that sometimes though. We meet people, we take our paths, and we split off into our own destiny. Sometimes we will cross paths but the majority of the time we will not. I say this especially for me, given the fact I travel any chance I get. What I do know though is that someday I really would like to go down there to live. Not for the women, not for the weather, and not for the food, but because of the moon. There’s something magical about it there that I for the life of me, have never seen it look that way any other place I’ve visited on the earth. Of course, it could be just me. Until we meet again, take care Miami.

-          J.R.