Yellow Camaro Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Segovia is a castle surrounded by rolling hills leading into snowy mountain tops. Streets are cobble stone, people live above shops, fresh bread is made daily, everything closes midday for a long nap, people ride horses through fields of tall grasses on dirt roads, medieval catholic church ascends into heaven with archways, ceiling points, lookout tower and stain glass windows are as colorful as bright red roses growing in endless reaching fields. City of Segovia rests at bottom of valley where roof tops are red and houses are brown, white and red. Stories of Isabel de Castille sending Christopher Colombus across the Atlantis echo through market places where fresh produce from local farmers is offered along with vintage clothing, quilts and handmade shoes and bags, wool blankets, shawls, sombreros and jewelry of fine craftmanship. Religious hymns hum in church apse, altar, aisles, nave, chevet, narthex, ambulatory revealing Greek and Roman dominance. Festivals conjure at aqueduct for rowdy raves. Night is full of stars, street lights ascending and descending along condominiums with porches overlooking passage of time. Cars parallel park, always touching each other, blue of dusk brings chilly mountain air, gold of dawn brings gold light shimmering on plaster condominiums.

University for Spanish children hides in forest of green beside catholic castle surrounded by walls of mega stone. Stories of romance, battle and nobility sing its hymns reminding us that time passes quickly so be steadfast and present. I walk through field of wild red roses encompassing city of Segovia in silence. I skip, twirl, touch tall grasses gently as if I am a hummingbird taking in nectar from a flower. I am not fast or hasty. I am not irrational or impulsive. I can hear my own heartbeat inside my ear as I breathe like lovers do when love making is meshing with other’s pheromone. I lay in tall summer grasses, burring myself away from city dialogue. Wild red roses aren’t to be taken. They are left to be free.

Nature is like ivy taking over city of Segovia. Though cobble stone streets are firm and impenetrable evergreen finds a way to snake its heart into hearth of everyone’s homes. I marvel from high point on rolling hill at city of Segovia. I can see everything, each street, market place, condominium, perfectly aligned cars, catholic castle and its tower and trees galloping wind. I know nothing of people who live here. They’re way of life is sentimental, poetic and just. Though unemployment is shocking high in Spain, Segovia still finds beauty like the Dao. Beauty of romance glints and gleams as lovers dance streets with wide open hearts and steady feet. I want thrill of sexual bliss that of my own starlight fragrance. I want to smell my own essence and become orgasmic. I want to bloom pink flowers and offer my pedals to the wind. I want to be river by University of Segovia, slow and patient. Vitality of the sun tans my skin, enhancing my golden tone.

            My room is small with a window I can jump out that takes me to fields of endless grasses. My bedsheets are flat and have images of wild horses. I don’t have a TV or a closet. I don’t unpack my suitcase. I use suitcase as a dresser. My house mother is friendly and angry. She’s super catholic and authoritative. She’s a tiny old lady with brown eyes, short brown hair and red cheeks. She’s chatty and curious. We don’t talk much. I keep to myself. She knows I’m mixed. That intrigues her. I find her staring at me trying to figure out where I come from, who I am. I’m a mystic she can’t decipher. My labyrinth of wanderlust is too overwhelming to dive into. It’s like trying to swim stormy ocean.

She makes me breakfast, lunch and dinner. Meals are fresh and not processed. It’s all grown from Segovia wild lands. She makes octopus a lot. It turns my mouth black. I have to scrub my teeth hard to get ink stains out. She also makes chocolate pudding. I eat that several times a week. I don’t want her to think I’m a glutton so I sneak chocolate puddling into my room and hide it in under empty dresser. She has a daughter trying to learn English. She has long black hair, olive skin and round brown eyes. She’s tall and glamorous. She works as a travel agent. Marce has a son who’s towering with dark brown skin, honey brown wavy short hair and intense big brown eyes. He doesn’t live with in house like her daughter does but he comes around a lot. He sells stuff. He drives superfast and can parallel park his car under ten seconds without damaging surround cars and only has four centimeters between his car and other cars. He picked me up from bus stop and drove me home. We don’t talk. My Spanish is twelve-year-old level and his English is four-year-old level.

            I get lost first day. I walk to school having no idea which direction school is. I walk through fields of wild roses following a trail that takes me around city of Segovia. I reenter city of Segovia not knowing if I’m north, south, east of west. I think I’m east because I pay attention to the sun. I don’t know name of my school or have an address. I wander around asking people where the school for Americans is. Minutes turn to hours. For a moment, I’m scared. Nobody speaks English. Then, something shifts within me. I’m elated. Fear turns to amusement. I laugh at my own mistake, confusion and disarray. I have no number to call. I can’t remember my house mother’s name or address. I’m a stranger. I’m a mystery. I’m in wilderness learning how to survive.

            I recognize a face from bus ride to Segovia. He’s my classmate. His face is olive, black hair is very long, eyes are blue and lips are red. He’s a daredevil, unfeeling yet bold, romantic and stern. He’s serious and careless. He notices my clueless stares. I clinch to him.

            “I’m totally lost!”

            “Yolo. That’s rough first day of school,” Jeremy speaks guiding me in right direction.

            He was late to school. Evidently he was walking around city of Segovia causally. We arrive to a tiny school with only three classrooms. We’re only Americans here. There are Germans and Polish. Classroom is small. There are only seven of us. It’s euphoric to not have to compete for profession’s attention. There are no cliques. Everyone embraces everyone only out of temporary sense of survival. Once everyone feels well-adjusted in a couple weeks, we split and cliques resurrect.

Some students are nervous, pissing their pants and hiding it. Some students are hysteric to be away from tyrannical parents. Some students came to Segovia not to learn Spanish but to go buck wild. Some students are uptight, following rules word for word. Other students are jagged looking to ride beasts.

            I stay close with a beautiful surfer blonde young man with golden waves, green eyes, suntan skin and lean tall height. He’s gay and so fun. He has a lot of stories about love making. It’s thrilling. He’s dated a lot of guys, all obsessed with love. At clubs, we climb tables and dance. He’s partly an alcoholic but he’s funny when intoxicated. His sweet smile is genuine. He doesn’t care about his flaws, mistakes or awkward quirks. He’s raw and real like taste of lavender in my tea. He’s not bitter. Though, he’s been hurt, betrayed and deceived by a long list of ex lovers, he’s cool like lemonade on a boiling Georgia summer day. He’s Hollywood spice and skydiving.

            There are two girls. They know each other well. They’re both short and gossipy. Lily is a thin blonde with tan skin, blue eyes and militant stare. Rachel is thick with dark brown curls laying on her shoulders, Spanish golden skin, hazel eyes and judgmental glare. They exile me quickly, thinking I ditched them to meet up with Jeremy. Jeremy thinks I like him because Lily and Rachel told him I lied to get close with him. Jeremy isn’t attractive to me. I like exotic. He’s atypical, predictable. They adore him because he’s a rockstar, reckless, hot and rambunctious, the perfect bad boy with a secret good heart.

            I ignore an unexpected friend for a while until my exile forces me to examine who are my true friends and who are not. Cathrine is a mixed girl with wide hips, big boobs, long curly brown hair, deep brown skin and eyes and shyness that makes her invisible. She’s earthy, a Capricorn. She contains my fire, keeping it from becoming a wildfire. On a short break from classes, we travel to the beach. I wanted to go to Ibiza but it’s forbidden. We barely make train from Madrid. Our Spanish is slow. Luckily, we don’t get stuck in Madrid and have to sleep in streets like a group of boys had to do because they missed their train. Basically they took turns sleeping to make sure nobody stole their passports. American passports are valuable.

            We walk long blocks from train to hostile with big jugs of water in streaming heat. Stuffed backpacks and egocentric strides give it away that we’re Americans. We’re drenched by our own body sweat arriving at hostile to climb inside a box. Room is monstrously small like a sexual contraption with an oval window opening to street of bikers and boxy cars taking in ocean glow. Flamboyant and sensual people walk like ocean air is a drug increasing happy hormones, enlivening ojas and dumping dopamine into body with awe bursting oxytocin.

I didn’t mind hostile room. Sleeping in a box is radical like walking on top of a moving train. Hostile room squeezes the fright out of me. I was recording hostile room on my phone in an attempt to blast our risky bunk bed where top bunk is only two feet from ceiling. I giggle riotous, wetting my pants with long held pee. Bathroom toilet is a death trap. Seat covering isn’t attached to toilet. It’s like sledding. I slid off toilet and hit the ground and shower is one foot radius. Cathrine demands a bigger space. I speak with young Spanish employee at front desk. His office is a worse cage. We have the lion cage. He has the rabbit cage. Walls smell of paint and junky papers, dusty desk and dirty floors tell me that young man is complacent. He hangs partly drunk from boredom and has a biker’s helmet in corner. It belongs to a Japanese slide and die ride.

            We go to nude beach. I spend two hours swimming like a child with my breasts soaking in sunlight. I don’t like wearing a bra all the time. I imagine it’s like wearing a speedo. My breasts are coking. My breasts have been in a dungeon, crying out to cave walls for relief.

A French old dude starts talking to me. He’s bald with vampire skin, sharp teeth, beer belly slamming against his shriveled penis and bushy eye brows. I try to be nice. He looks lonely and casted out with a Shakespearean goth romance. Cathrine watches us closely. She’s a mama bear and a patriarch wolf. She doesn’t trust anyone, especially men. Men to her are agents to the matrix.

We play leap frog and other children’s games like hold our breath and swim between each other’s open legs. He cradles me like a baby, spinning me around. He tries not to make it obvious but he glances at my airy breasts. He never touches me inappropriately. He knows I’m a jaguar. I strike to kill.

Everything between us is cordial until he asks me to see his hotel room. He acts as if his hotel is more precious than the Mona Lisa. He brags about his luxurious crystal bathtub, gold chandeliers and king size bed covered in velvet sheets with a ceiling of painted angels and Juliet balcony. His English is bad and his Spanish is nonexistent. He says he’s a taxi driver from Paris on vacation.

He’s a freak looking for something freaky. Of course, I swim off and return to shore after he tries to glide his hand from my upper arm to my breasts. I can feel his hard penis on my back. Back at shore, there is a bunch of people now. It’s less challenging to expose my breasts when there are few people. A beach packed with people, I put my top back on. Mostly old women show their breasts. Their breasts hang long and flap loosely like dead meat.

            Cathrine laughs at me and my awkward relationship with a French guy.

            “He isn’t even cute. He’s old and probably divorced with a bunch of kids,” Cathrine can barely contain her cheeky smile. I roll my eyes.

            I study by aqueduct near a fancy restaurant with velvet curtains, red carpets, crystal chandeliers and waiters dressed as butlers. Walk to my special spot is only for athletes. It’s an intense decline and heart pumping ascent back home to my house mother’s apartment on edge of city where cobble streets become dirt roads. It takes me weeks for breathing to steady. Breathing chaotically has Segovia natives staring at me, impatient and concerned. Walking becomes a constant. Walking to school, walking to bus stop, walking at museums, walking through cities, walking in castles and walking around monuments. I lose weight fast but chocolate pudding keeps me meaty.

            Everything changes when University of Arizona arrives with second session of Tennessee students. Group A departs back to America as a new group B arrives. We take a trip to a winery in hilltops of remote lands that remind me of Atlantis and its enchantment. Lands beyond cities are long stretching fields, farms, gardens, rolling green hills and flat land vineries. Vineries grow everywhere. Scent of grapes, oranges, pears remind me of carnal beloved and its wonderland of booming passion, lubricating desire and sensitive kindness.

            Climbing into bus, I find an empty seat. There is twelve of us including new group of Tennessee students. I am in group C with Lily, Rachel, Jeremy, Cathrine and Lucus. We’re staying longer to complete additional coursework for advance Spanish program. I stare out window at cafes. People sit at tables drinking tea and eating freshly cut bread with Segovia cultivated cheese. Wine is always seen, doesn’t matter time of day. Wine keeps Segovia natives youthful, happy and generous. Segovia natives are vibrant like aurora in winter’s Norway even in old age. People are bouncy, blunt and transparent. Nobody wears facades or fake their way into the future. Segovia natives will call me out on my nonsense and talk me into revealing me true intention. Wine here isn’t dumped with disruptive alcohol. It’s not artificial like from back home. There’s no capitalistic oligarch white man producing alcohol for decrease in common people IQ. Wine in Segovia tastes of soil, grapes and love songs and feels like alchemical orgasm surging through my spine and bursting out top of my head in a heart chakra eruption.

            “Can I sit here?” a young man with a very tall height, black wavy hair, olive skin, rosy cheeks, kissable lips and sincere brown eyes with eye lashes that curve elegantly. He must be from University of Arizona group. There are plenty of empty seats. Bus is very empty. I node for him to sit.

            “I’m Pasha.”

            “I’m Rosa.”

            Pasha smiles softly. He stares out window as we drive off towards vineries extending on flat lands towards hilltops. Two hours pass. Scenery of green, sky blue and marigold paint pictures in my head. I imagine Mary Magdalene traveling on horse through these fruitful lands receiving messages from nature that translate into gospels for future humans who’ve evolved past discouragement towards women. I imagine her reddish-brown hair touches her legs. I imagine her middle eastern face to be gentle brown with dark blue eyes. She carries herself defiantly royal. I sense fire inside her gut pushing her to go places most women would not dare go for fear of shame. I taste her wisdom like drinking herbal tea and transport myself to a mystical school for secret Egyptian priestesses.

            Bus drops us off at vinery. We walk dirt road into barn where grapes are processed into wine. Man of the house, owner of vinery steps forward. He doesn’t speak English and speaks Spanish poetry. Most of us cannot understand what he’s talking about. Pasha knows. He speaks Spanish fluently. I wonder why he’s here if he’s already an outstanding Spanish speaker.

            Jole is a forty-year-old man with honey skin, brown wavy short hair, tender brown eyes and muscular stature. His eyes stare deeply into mine. Is he speaking to me? It’s hard to tell. His Spanish is rhythms. He gestures at different machines producing different results in a long process of making wine. He shows us a big room with hundreds of barrels. Some barrels have been here for years. He speaks to me. Other students start to notice. Pasha glances at me curiously. He thinks I know Jole somehow. Students glare at me as if I’m Jole’s private mistress. My face is red with embarrassment. Jole looks around room at students glaring at me and laughs inside his quick smile.

            We leave barn and enter grape yards. We adventure in different directions exploring black grapes. I sigh for relief. It’s steamy inside barn. Pasha looks back at me before joining Arizona group. Jole walks to me, speaking Spanish poetry. A friend interprets for me. She lived in Guatemala for years with her mother. She’s a sunflower with blonde long hair, sunny tan skin, dark brown eyes and hippy energy. She tells me he’s comparing grapes to tingles up spine and rich blood from nutritional sex and that it’s love he gives to grapes that make them taste pleasant. Lola leaves to walk with Jeremy, her new best friend. Jole knows I can’t understand his way of speaking. He stops talking. He begins to communicate through his presence. His shifting eye gaze and eclipsing smile examines my eyes, memorizing my unique breath pattern. He asks me my name.

            “Rosa.”

            “Why Rosa?” He smiles opening his mouth to inhale and exhale.

            “My grandmother was named Rose. She was Cherokee and Spanish. The rose is a symbol of eternal life. Earth might die one day maybe from an explosive sun or galactic war but her essence never leaves the universe,” I speak partly in Spanish and English.

            His breath is overwhelming. He steps to me. Jole glances at my lips and then titles his head to get a different angle of my face. He’s trying to see my soul hidden inside my physical vessel. He sees beyond my honey brown skin, brown eyes and curly black hair. I’m nobody. I’m not a person, a human. In this moment, I am everybody. I am black, white, yellow, red. I’m an Asian, Hispanic, African, Native American, Caucasian and none of these things at same time.

Sunset collides with the night as we herd into bus. Some students have wine. Drinking age is eighteen so young humans purchasing wine is typical, expected. I look back at Jole before entering bus, departing forever. His eyes don’t waste a second. They download this final breathtaking interaction between us and stores it in his frontal lobe forever. I wave at him goodbye. Though we are strangers passing by, I got to experience closeness like witnessing a rose bud. It’s a rare, unexplainable moment of power and surrender. I mark his overwhelming stare on my body like an invisible tattoo. Jole is a man I don’t love. I don’t know. I share beauty with. I am a rose growing beside his clover. We coexist harmoniously because we adore each other’s offering to Earth.

            Bus carries us away into the night. I stare out window at Jole walking away towards his farmhouse where he lives a life with his wife and animals. Pasha jumps seats. He sits next to me.

            “He’s a kindred spirit,” Pasha smiles in wink.

            “He speaks Spanish poetry. Is that normal?”

            “No.”

            Pasha shows me wine he bought. “Do you want to hang out? We’re going clubbing.”

            I nod, yes before resting my head on window, falling to sleep under stars running with me as bus passes dark fields that remind me of oceans of black. I feel Pasha’s breath. He breathes wholeheartedly. It’s loud and warm. I can sense his heartbeat. It’s fast and theatrical. My eyes open slightly.

            “What are you passionate about?”

            “I write scripts. I’m a story teller.”

            “I can see that in you.”

            Pasha is wanting more. “What do you see in me?”

            “You’re quiet and yet you’re lionhearted. You don’t care what people think and that’s what makes you popular. I see how your friends adore you,” my words slide into sweet dreams. Pasha squeezes my hand before turning his head to rest.

            We return to Segovia late. Professors wake us. We stumble out of bus into empty streets. House mothers aren’t expecting our arrival. They know we’re carefree young people with nighttime raves. I sluggishly walk-up cobble stone hills from aqueduct. I don’t feel like walking a mile uphill. I think I’ll sleep on bench. Pasha jumps in front of me. His nocturnal. His dazzling smile supercharge me. He’s a shot of red bull. His friends crowd him, ready for a night of infinity.

            “You want to hang now?” my eyes see stars open and close as passing clouds shift above.

            Pasha grabs my hand and we run towards discos. Discos have a love and hate relationship with savage Americans drunk on daring ambition. Clubs are full of dancing people. Lights are neon and darkness is maverick. We collide into bars where older Spanish men and women rolls eyes at our youth. Disco lights revolve, blink and glint like crystal caves where energy is fervid and paramount. We mimic wild things and demand attention like rosters to the morning sun.

            Pasha’s willow tree becomes a wind horse. I can’t hold him. He’s too swift to grab. He dances around me like a Spanish fiesta. His Argentina flavor of reality is foreign and evergiving. I never knew fiesta through eyes of a lionheart. His sexual, drunken, rapture isn’t a fake it till you make it scheme. His thoughts are blank, pouring out to the universe and taking in seeds of new growth. His juvenile is an art gallery and every piece is different from each other. There is realism and abstract emerging with mixed media, watercolor and raku. Nothing makes sense and everything is bewildering in the best way. It’s stirring and revolutionary because it’s deathless, a visionary quest where eagles turn to buffalo and buffalo turn to a wolves.

            Right now, he’s a wind horse but before he was a quiet raven. Tomorrow he might be an eager ram. His tides of unfoldment are fractals of light turning purple into green, green into blue and red into white.

            I write my first Spanish song at bar watching Pasha turn, leap, twist, bend, open and glide. His wide smile doesn’t lose my attention. He has my full affection. His universe and my universe join like a supernova birthing a nebula. He’s the supernova and I’m his nebula. I absorb his fertility and root our sharing oxygen like decomposition takes dead things and makes beauty out of closing stories.

            “Mi cuerpo, mi mente, mi alma es escuela de tu corázon. Soy universitario de tu amor. Enséñame tu asombro. soy una mariposa para ti. Tomaré tu dolor y lo transformaré en sanación para ti. Cuando estés triste, cantaré para calmar tu mente. Volar con pájaros, nadar con orcas, caminar con búfalos. Estoy aquí para ti como amiga como el universe. Tu beso es aliento que me nutre. besa mi mejilla una vez más,” Pasha listens to my voice. He pauses, goes blank and touches my throat softly, feeling my vibration.

            I spend all night in my tiny room with open window basking in chilly air from fields of wild roses outside. Deliriously tired, my brain wants to write a poem in Turkish. I look through online dictionary and listen to Turkish hand drum and cosmic hum. It’s interstellar.

Günyanın ruhu bana şarkı söyle (soul of the earth sing a song)

Şarkı söyle (sing a song)

Güneş ve ay yağmurla dans ediyor (sun and moon dance the rain)

Dans ediyor (she is dancing)

Gözleri ışık ışınlarıdır (Her eyes are rays of light)

Işınlarıdır (Are rays)

Gel ve toprakla tanış (come and meet the earth)

Karanlık korkusuzdur (darkness is fearless)

            I text Pasha. I ask him if he wants to watch a movie on my phone together. It’s 3am.

            “I’m sorry. If I come over, I’m going to want more. I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early,” Pasha sends wink emoji.

            Another hour passes. I sit at window ceil with my feet dangling over edge. I want to leap into air and gallop like a horse through fields of wild roses. I’m starting to become like Jole. My Spanish poetry is pure, unfiltered, unrestricted and unlimited romance. Pasha has given me permission through his fearless magic to fully embrace mine.

“Cree en ti mismo cuando nadie lo hace

Amor más profundo que la mayoría

Enamórate de tu corazón único

Llorarás y lloverá

Te enojarás y habrá tormenta

Deja ir el dolor y fluye

Tus ojos son magicos

Tus palabras son amorosas

Canta a tu alma y encuentra tu chispa

Es tu momento de volar

Vuela alto con el águila,”

            Thirty minutes later, alarm goes off on my phone. School is in an hour. I see a text on my phone. “Meet me at the aqueduct in at 6:30am,” Pasha sends sun with rays emoji.

            My voice is leaping out of my throat. There are shuffled papers all over my bed and colored pencils scattered on floor. I see speck of light rising from east out cold open window. It’s turning dark fields into bursts of red, orange and indigo. It’s a sour patch, sweet and sour, sweet because it’s divine and sour because it has an end. I’m not afraid of bitter taste. Bitter tea is meant to heal my pain so I can take in more radiance. Seeds don’t grow in dirt. They need soil. They need nourishment that comes from transforming grief, anger and betrayal into dead stuff that decomposes back into boundless life force.

            Pasha’s sublime dance evokes surreal realism that is honest, faithful and lionhearted. I want to be a beast like him, quietly animated, sarcastically compassionate and infinitely silly. I finally found a vibing friend, someone I can love like crazy who isn’t afraid to give his beastly heart in return.