Day One: Decision chisels fate – July 7

She sways her petite Latin hips for me.

I hold her waist and gaze into the soft brown of her almond-shaped eyes. She’s Spanish and Brazilian but her eyes look Asian, look beautiful. She smiles coyly but the little dimples that appear around her mouth betray her pleasure in this moment. I clasp her hand, our fingers interlock. She cocks her head sideways and poses in a way she probably learned while modeling.

I know I want this girl. Know what I want to do, what I must do…

Decision chisels fate.

Earlier that day, I stood in a grassy field with my phone pressed to my ear. Sweet beaded my forehead as I listened to a voice that sounded like me, could’ve been me. The voice didn’t pressure me, even though I sort of wanted it to.

I felt the ambivalence that comes before approaches, before makeouts, before extractions, before life-changing decisions.

Decisions that chisel fate.

“You know what, fuck it,” I heard myself say, the words surprising me, the sentence escaping my mouth like a locomotive suddenly detaching from its freight and speeding away. “Sign me up.”

Five minutes later: I’m going to bootcamp.

I snapped my phone shut and sat in the field. I looked up at the blue, cloudless sky. What does this mean? I wondered as my eyes lazily followed a fleet of birds.

Later I walked down a long hallway, my footsteps echoing off walls dotted with inexpensive art. The art remains in perpetual flux because my coworkers never stop complaining about it. Last month, they deemed an instillation of nude portraits highly offensive.

Photographs of dogs in bowties replaced the nudity.

One picture suddenly stopped me. It was a black-and-white scene with two dogs dancing in a glitzy ballroom. The upright dogs have their paws unnaturally pressed together. The viewer can imply the gender of the dogs by a bowtie and hair bow.

I’d passed this picture twice a day and just thought it was sort of hilarious but now everything – the dogs, the scene, the art – became incredibly uncomfortable and unnatural.

It became threatening.

For the first time I realized under that bowtie, under that idiotic toothy grin, that dog was actually a dog. And he probably wanted to fuck that hair bow-wearing female dog.

The security guard scampered up to me.

He’s a fat, old, and looks ridiculous to the point of absurd in his security outfit. His white hair is airy, hanging over his fleshy skull like a blank thought balloon in a comic strip. His red face never stops smiling. He makes me think he should be an ice cream man for no apparent reason.

“Great stuff, huh?” he laughed as if me, him and the dog were sharing a conspiracy or inside joke. “Next month they’re bringing out the rest of the exhibit. I hear there’s one of a dog driving a Cadillac. How funny! Dogs driving cars, what’ll they think of next?”

He exploded in laughter then clapped me on the back.

I wanted to tell this man these pictures were fucking revolting, were an atrocity, were cruel – but crueler to humans than to dogs. I wanted to explain that at least when the bowtie came off, that dog could go back to walking on all fours, eating dog food, and licking his doggy balls.

Instead, I chuckled and said, “Yeah.”

I might’ve even added, “It’s a dog’s life!”

There’s work to do.

I returned to my desk and pulled up my calendar. I clicked on The Date and typed BOOTCAMP. It became more real on my calendar. But real in a way that light is real. Light takes up no space yet surrounds and defines us.

The Date beams off my calendar like a spotlight, like twilight. It shines from weeks in the future, illuminating all my indecision. The shitskin that covers (me) will not survive under the white light of The Date. Seeing BOOTCAMP written over The Date has my fears scampering into the cracks of my character like scurrying cockroaches. Either I exterminate these fears or The Date will reveal them. Make a decision. Cleanse myself of my weakness or be destroyed on The Date. I write under The Date:

-Am I always positive?

-Do I always feel comfortable?

-Do I act through my intentions with congruence and confidence?

-Do I push myself into mixed sets?

-Do I always try and escalate when I want to?

-Most importantly, AM I AUTHENTIC?

I look at the words, at the question marks. They sting of truth and its implications. I fool most people into believing I’m a huge pimp. Into believing my authenticity. But I live with my thoughts. I live with my feelings. I know my core self and know there’s work to do.

At the bottom of the calendar, I write: I WANT TO BE BROKEN. I hope I mean it.

Later, I meet the half-Spanish, half-Brazilian model. I knew very little of this girl aside from her name, heritage, job, phone number, and a time she was free to meet.

She struts into the bar and hugs me.

“Hey! Que pasa?” she smiles. Her accent makes your dick hurt.

I want to spend the evening playing pool, drinking fruity beer, and fucking.

And maybe she did, too.

We run around hand-in-hand. We play pool. We drink each other’s fruity beer. We laugh and pick songs on the jukebox. We are unaware this is a shitty old man bar on a Monday night and the clientele follows suite. Men stare at her. They follow her body out of habit, not desire. Desire has long become an abstract quality to these men, something felt through magazines and masturbating. “An itch,” they call it.

Itches are not enjoyable. These are defeated men.

She wanted to teach me salsa dancing. I laughed and let her body sway rhythmically in front of me. I felt intense desire recoil through my body, the timeless echo that marches generations forward. The echo is life itself.

I knew I wanted this girl. Knew what I wanted to do, what I must do…

But I decided to do a clownish dance move instead.

She laughed, told me I’m so funny.

We spent the evening playing pool, drinking fruity beers, and not fucking.

There’s work to do.