Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - Forgetting Things on the Beach

Forgetting Things on the Beach

I once had a rather cheap watch, a ratty, blood-soaked and scratched Timex, but I no longer have that watch. Jorge has it. It’s not that he stole it from me; he just wouldn’t give it back. Nor did I care much for that watch, but he lied to me about it. And I love him for it.
My semester in Venezuela was spent as is usual of collegians studying abroad: a lot of traveling, a lot of drinking, and a lot less studying. Still gleaming and reeling from my semester in Mexico a year before, I tried to do more of the first than the second. Therefore, I found myself among others on the vast empires of sand and sun of the Caribbean, absorbing both the solar ambience from above and the melodic beats of Bob Marley or UB-40 blaring from nearly every radio on the beach
The school I attended had a house on the beach in Cata, a gorgeous stretch a few hours from the capital city of Caracas; on the weekends, throngs of caraqueños would fill the beach and their ass cracks with their thongs and innumerable bottles of Cacique, the local equivalent of Bacardi rum. I made sure I arrived on Friday morning, to avoid the mass the first day but to guarantee a good view of it the next. When I arrived at the house the first time, I was surprised to find a family actually living in it: I assumed it was meant for the debauchery of us students, but after my first night there, I realized that an entire family would be necessary to keep the house clean and still standing after we had been through it. It was this first night that I had lost my watch.
The family consisted of three: Jorge, Fannie, and Christopher. Jorge was in his mid or late 20s, his wife Fannie 21 (a year older than me), and their son, Christopher, the most rambunctious but adorable 4 year old that I have ever met. I still have a picture of him and me together on my wall (though he is Venezuelan, his sun-kissed hair and brazen hide resembled mine after some time in the sun, and he looks like he could be my son).
I didn’t really get to know the family my first trip to the beach: it was full enough of drama queens, drunks buried in sand, and bad sunburns to keep my mind occupied, 15 of us numbering in total. But I did notice Fannie, as did the other males in my group. Greenish-hazel eyes, brunette hair, charming looks, fair-skinned if not for all the time on the beach chasing Christopher, and a slender hipless form. She was the opposite of most Venezuelan women. I don’t know if that was what drew us to her or not, but she noticed that we noticed and played a long a bit when Jorge wasn’t around.
On my second trip to Cata, my traveling entourage consisted of Andrea and Liz, fellow students from my school. Conversations abounded in English and in Spanish: I spend my days talking to Christopher, trying to understand his mumbled, toddlerish Spanish while my nights were among the adults, spouting out fragments of thought between sips and gulps of the Rum and Cokes we were all enjoying and translating to whoever was listening. We all said a bit (or more) about our lives, but I heard some things from Jorge that I didn’t want to her. I think one reason Americans subconsciously spend so much time in bars abroad is because of the poverty, the apparent, apparent poverty. While we drink away for fun, I think we also drink away the sights and sounds of third world humanity, with all it’s orphaned children and cripples roaming the streets, selling candy or begging for loose change. Jorge had been one of those children, and he retold the countless days of thievery and shoe shining, nights spend on park benches or sometimes in jail, when the policía felt like cracking down. He had lived on the streets for most of his life. I asked him how long; his reply, “I don’t know.” He seemed to have forgotten about time, about that time, the time he would not remember, or he just didn’t have the energy to tell me. All he would talk about was his beautiful wife and kid and his new amigos, ever thankful for the rum, as he would say. It wasn’t until later in the night, when he told me of their situation in the house. They weren’t getting paid: they ate off of credit from the local grocery store, just enough to sustain a family of three. And there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Without money, they could not return to their home in Mérida and find sanctuary among friends or family he claimed would take them in. Even combined, we rich Americans did not have enough to give to help their plight and flight from the shores of Cata.
During the night, when Jorge was doing things like trying to impress Andrea and Liz with dancing and jokes they didn’t understand, I could see Fannie looking in my direction. I don’t know if it was out of politeness, being left out of their silly charades, or of secret interest, though I hoped more of the latter. She was more my age, I said to myself repeatedly. If things were different, I thought, concocting unfeasible plans of visas and marriage, bringing back to the US not only my experiences but also a wife and her child that I was crazy about. Another drink would mask foolish thoughts like these, but they would nevertheless seep through at times during my stay and continuing until the present. I don’t know if it was that I didn’t think she loved her husband or that I just couldn’t bear the though of watching someone actually live the poverty that Jorge described. I still don’t.
I decided that my last weekend would be spent on the beach again, but this time I went alone. I bought a toy, some kind of He-Man meets G.I. Joe piece of plastic, at the bus station for Christopher when I arrived He duly lost most of the pieces before I left, but he had a riot hanging it from the ceiling and his unmentionables. Jorge and Fanny were glad to see me, though my trip had been unannounced. I don’t think they minded: I wasn’t going to tell my school I was going to stay there (and pay), the bastard boss still wasn’t paying them. I spent the weekend as usual, laying on the beach and drinking Cuba Libres. But this time I was trying to forget: forget the fact that I would be going home soon, forget the fact that I would leave and life, Jorge’s life, would still go on in Venezuela the same way it had, forget that I would not see Christopher again, the one that looked like my son. The last night, I remember salsa dancing with Fannie at one of the watering holes on the beach, much to the amusement of Jorge and whoever else cared to watch, laughing at the idea of a gringo trying to emulate their dance on the beach, me enjoying the quick turns, loose shirts, and accumulated sweat on our bodies. I was buying the rounds, and when I ran out of bolívares we went back to the house to continue with the bottle of Cacique in the fridge, continue to forget.
When we got back, listening to merengue mixes from the local radio, I noticed something else: my watch. It was propped up on an old kitchen chair, a perfect throne for this cheap timepiece, in Jorge and Fannie’s room. I had already gotten another watch: an even cheaper Nike knockoff from the black markets of Mérida for the price of eight American dollars. I knew I had lost my watch here: it was not among the things that made it to my drunken collection of things surrounding my blowup mattress on the roof that first night. I thought of something: I was going to ask Jorge and Fannie if they had found my watch. I started talked of it in detail, inebriated exaggerated gestures describing it to the dot. I heard some comment from Jorge pierce Fannie’s ears when she headed towards their room, some swear word or slang I hadn’t heard or learned yet. She brought it, and I quickly claimed it as my watch. Jorge, looking me straight in the eyes, said that it was not my watch. First, Sandra (another student) had found among the sand and had given it to him; then, he himself had found it; third, a gift from one of the local’s. I heard excuse after excuse, and truthfully I didn’t want the watch. But while he looked me in the eye, he lied to me. Not just a fib or an exaggeration of sorts, he lied to me directly and profoundly and he knew I knew, his drab, plain dark eyes (could he really be the father of Christopher, maybe he wasn't?) screaming the obvious truth. I always wondered why people never look you in the eye when they eye to you (I heard the eyes look towards the corner of the brain that has to do with creativity): now, I think I know. The eyes are so frightened of what the mind is saying that they can't handle it. I eventually abated: though ironically I didn’t have my new watch of me, I assured Jorge he could keep this one, and I watched in awe as he returned to it’s resting spot, the night nearing it’s end. I left the next day without saying goodbye.
I don’t know why I felt so inclined to bring up the watch (drunk), maybe to matter-of-factly press the point that, Damnit, that is my watch, and although I don’t want it, that is my damn watch and I just wanted to tell you that. Or why I left without saying goodbye (sober) the next morning, probably ashamed of my actions and my feelings throughout that night and others, while Jorge and Fannie were taking Christopher for his daily stroll down the beach with his red bucket and shovel in hand, oblivious to everything, to last night, to his life. I envy him: he doesn’t have to forget because life is still so simple for him. But I won’t forget or want to Jorge’s reaction that night: I saw a man nearly cry out of terror, out of franticness, of what was more important than honesty. I realized when I left that there was not a clock in the house to accompany the lazy pace of life and leisure that one enjoyed in this house. But those that cared for it, and cared for themselves, could forget the past and try to live in the present, the wonderful and terrible fleeting present. Without time (or the watch to tell it), how can you forget anything?

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This was a non-fiction piece I had to write for an English class. Let me know what you think.

Cheers,
JD