cinco de mayo

The small apartment building on Grand Avenue has a courtyard always full of shallow puddles and sour smelling flowers. Dirtball, LD and I live on the groundfloor, with a wide window facing out on the comings and goings of our neighbors. Upstairs in apartment E there is Liz --usually strung out and shrieking for her dog (Diego, chihuahua) to stop yipping. She works at American Apparel; when Creeder and I go in and flip lustfully through the racks, Liz doesn't say hi. One night she comes home at 2 am and has it out with her boyfriend on the steps by my bedroom window. I hear her pleading and sobbing (these words aren't really strong enough for the sounds she's making) and then his truck door slams. What false, flimsy barriers we construct I think as I lay there and listen through the wall to her cry and cry for hours, her life unraveling itself 10 feet from my head.

The people next door in apartment A speak Spanish. Through the screen door you can see beds in the living room and, when we sit down and add, we count 9 adults, 2 little kids on rusty tricycles, and a fat baby girl. In San Diego there are certain conculsions you can draw and we draw them, right or wrong. Most of the adults come home in fast food uniforms. Some nights Manuel and Maria put their baby in the stroller and wheel her out to the alley where they stand and talk and drink Mexican beer.

On a Friday afternoon, someone in apartment A pushes the play button and turns up the volume for the first time. Creeder and I have just come back from the beach and we are lying on the couch, laughing. Walking home we'd seen a ridiculous car --a huge BMW--black and big as a boat--the entire thing covered in neon Louis Vuitton decals (like a purse) including the tinted windows. The song plays once, twice, three times, before we let go of the car and the absurdity of this town and begin speculating on why the song is blaring on "repeat 1". We start making hatchmarks on the back of a Chinese menu. We get to 23 and then leave for a party, the song following us down the block.

They play it over and over again. Again and again and again for almost a month. The courtyard fills with this song and and the music spills through the open windows and dooors, into our heads. Liz screams down the stairs that she's calling the landlord. LD tries to translate the lyrics and Dirtball makes up her own. We live our lives on top of it and the song fades into the background.

The music itself sounds like dancing under red lanterns on a hot night. The man's voice is somehow strong and wistful at once. There are high trumpets in fanfare and guitars. It's almost like a waltz. It is a carnival, a funeral, a picnic under a tree. It sounds like a first kiss and unrequited love. Like longing.

One morning Creeder and I are tying our shoes for a run when she looks up and asks when the music stopped. Before I can answer someone knocks on the screen door. It is Graciella from next door. and upclose, I can see that her shirt has the Jack-n-the-box logo on it. She hands me a package delivered to her apartment instead of ours and I say gracias. She stands there, though, looking sheepish before finally saying something about music that I don't quite catch. I nod and smile, two skills perfected during my own foreign childhood. She can tell I don't understand so she smiles and turns to cross the courtyard.

It's okay. I know what you're getting at -- where you're trying to go, I want to call after her. Instead I shut the door.