The Miracle in July

Now my pokerface delight
Is red alert
In the safe tomorrow sun

[Safe Tomorrow Sun] by [Surrounded]

Today I thought I saw Daniel in the window of a pub on Copenhagen's [pedestrian street]. It turned out to be the same one Daniel and I had escaped into years ago during a slicing rain. Very strange to have walked this street so many times since my arrival last week — noticing things, remembering things — but not recognizing the pub until I thought I saw Daniel sitting in its window seat. The substantial pedestal table is still there, and so are the Halloween decorations, taped to the same green walls. It's the same as I remember, and the same time of year. But such a long long time ago.

I remember our cuddling conversation about the paper jack-o-lanterns and the witches flying on brooms — typical Halloween displays from the West, infiltrating their way into Danish culture at the time. It seemed funnily to us like I was doing something similar. I had just arrived in Denmark for the first time, here to meet my new family, to become a part of Daniel's daily life. We kissed gently over the table with this thought. Then we laughed at the supposed need for an October Halloween in Denmark in the first place. For centuries, on the 22nd of every February, Nordic children have dressed themselves up and gone door-to-door collecting candy and sweets. And they've had their own special holiday game for the occasion — a wicked game, as so many games are when the rules roots lead to ancient Roman Catholic [carnivals].

In the Danish [Fastelavn], the kiddies play slå katten af tønden (hit the cat out of the barrel). This is like a game of hit-the-piñata, only with a barrel full of candy and a baseball bat. While the 17th Century Viking child might actually beat a wooden barrel with a flesh-and-blood black feline inside, the modern Danish child hits one with a cat painted on it. The goal is to be the first to release the candy from the barrel and become the katterdronning (queen of cats), or the one to win the very last of the candy and become kattekonge (king of cats).

But it wasn't Daniel, the king of cats, sitting in the pub's window seat today, just a similarly featured much younger version of him. So here I sit alone at the pub's bar, saying [tak] each time I'm presented with another pint of sloshing beer, glancing at the odd sight of toothless pumpkins and a strange man sitting where my lover sat, once upon a time. I'm thinking about an earlier time, before Daniel and I had even met face-to-face, about the insane timing of it all. About how, as Daniel and I were sending our first rounds of erotic writing back and forth between our Denmark and Portland computers, my sister's liver was pickling itself in alcohol and virus.

I knew that my sister was still drinking non-stop to stymie the shakes and vomiting, and I thought it unlikely that she could get a transplant for her failing organ. I said as much in a texted response to my mother's news. I thanked her for letting me know, but I had no intention of contacting Ruthie. The pain was too great. And I had no intention of talking to Daniel about any of this. Our relationship was only supposed to skim the top; it was there to appease my body's appetites.

But it quickly became more than that as Daniel began to fill up more and more of my mind and my digital devices:

"Add me as your friend - indulge me yet again. I know you want to."

"Please, love. May I have your cell number? And do you have a Web cam?"

"I was wondering, Shelley...will you be available in an hour to chat?"

Daniel discovered my close friends call me Shelley, and now he was calling me by that name. I loved it. I loved the effortless attention, where I could invest very little effort and get a whole new world in return. I was very busy all the time, but when I was there so was he, sending sweet email messages bargaining for progressively naughtier photographs, wanting to share a new song, or sending a simple text message just to say "Hi". And when I slept he was still there. Not Ruthie. I put away my thoughts of her and her choice to not do absolutely everything possible to stay alive. To stop drinking.

The last time I'd seen Ruthie was through a sliver in my living room curtains. Her husband Mark had pulled up outside, his beater minivan parked in the middle of the street with the hazard-lights off so he could shoot a horribly violent stare at as many people as possible swerving their way around him. Ruthie got out and went to the driveway, where I had stacked her belongings. I'd been storing them for her since the time two years earlier, just before our father's death, when she decided to move out and return to her abusive sloth of a husband. And now here he was, stepping out of the minivan behind her, jiggling his way up my front walk, screaming. I watched Ruthie collect her belongings from the driveway. She was yellowish and puffy, very different then when I saw her last, at Pops' funeral. Her time with Mark had not been good to her.

Mark was Ruthie's 4th, though she'd been married six times. There are seven marriages in her past if you count her first marriage at age 15 to a pimp — which I don't.  Her 1st official husband was Patrick, who left her after six months, probably because she secured a lover on the side while she was with him. This lover, an ex-con named John, became her 2nd and 3rd husband when she married and divorced him twice. John gave her Hepatitis-C, one of the two diseases she was battling, the other being cirrhosis of the liver from her life-long vice: alcoholism. Then there was Don, a [Gypsy Joker] racist from the Oregon/Idaho border who gave her a White Pride tattoo and a son. They divorced, and she lost custody of the son, but she already had another man lined up. Mark. She married Mark twice, too. Ruthie was not entirely a fool for love. She believed she deserved this life of hers, and these men she picked to abuse her proved that.

My sister was living with Mark in Las Vegas when her Hepatitis-C was diagnosed. He'd already been arrested and released numerous times before for breaking her bones and resolve. Although she never pressed charges, this time — after knocking her down and kicking her repeatedly to drive the point home — he forced her out of the casino hotel room where they were living. So she packed up her belongings and made her way from Nevada back to Portland with the money my father gave to her with the condition that she move in with me and my son. It was all Pops could do for her; he was too sick and depressed at that point to care for the sick and depressed.

When Ruthie got to me, her liver wasn't totally devastated yet and there was medication for her to take. But she was constantly drunk; it was the only way to keep the withdrawal from twisting her into desperate knots, forcing her to give in to the demons. With no money she still found ways to get alcohol, I suspect from hooking — her old standby. I would leave her asleep at home, then return to find her spirits lifted by spirits. And then I'd watch her crash into tears when my disappointment was too transparent. I have no poker face.

"You don't understand," she would say. "I have a criminal mind. I can't change who I am." I vehemently disagreed. She could fight the diseases, fight the way of life that was wrecking her, and she could live without a man's affection. She could live forever. But Ruthie's wet eyes and mine, both an identical shade and shape of blue, could never connected on this point. And before long, she was moving out. To return to Mark.

And now here she was, two years later, the last time I would ever see her. Sallow and silently, almost gingerly, gathering her things from my driveway and loading them into the minivan in the middle of the street. And there was Mark, aggressively pounding at my door, scaring the shit out of me. He had come to pick up Pops' motorcycle, which he had bought from Pop's estate with what I thought was a $300 down payment. Mark insisted that it was Paid In Full. Did I want to fuck with him about it? Did I want to get my ass beaten? No.

I threw the keys at the heaving monster at my door and quickly locked the doors. Then I called my mother and told her to relay a message to Ruthie: We're done. Don't ever contact me again. And she didn't. Ruthie didn't try to contact me again, and I didn't try to contact her. I knew nothing about her life after Mark's minivan carried her and her belongings away. Not until the text message from my mother which let me know that Ruthie's life was probably coming to an end.

After that message, I felt that my next "date" with Daniel couldn't possibly come any sooner. I only wanted to think about the small Viking country in the happy, hopeful East where my lover lived. There was too much heartbreak anywhere else. I enjoyed losing myself in the photos he shared with me, looking into his beautiful [black grease] eyes. They softened the distracting objections to my time spent with him. I only looked forward to when Daniel's digital words would appear and strike me with juicy white flashes, like lightening piercing a ripe peach sunset.

And Daniel's next story, when it finally arrived, began with a beautiful visual:

"The sun is slowly disappearing over the Venetian rooftops, casting it’s golden lights on the city of love. The air is hot and fragrant with spices, the canals slowly flowing. The [Rialto bridge] turning into a place of magic, with street artists wearing Commedia dell’arte masks."

I type: "I'm screwed...literally..."

We are in our gorgeous hotel room in the [Hotel Danieli], which is on the most beautiful promenade in Venice, the Riva degli Schiavoni. There are strawberries to feed each other, fellatio in the shower under water spilling from the mouth of a brass lion head, and my real, explosively wonderful orgasm that leaves the back of my knees damp.

"Mptfth," I sputtered. "Your visuals are so rich." The rhythm of his words resonated with mine. His words brought me to him. I was there, [running away] with him to the canal streets of Venice.

*breathing heavily* "I'm honored u think that," he sighed.

During the day following our Venetian "date", I failed to pay attention to anything related to my job, staring out my window instead. It was one of those strange Portland-weather days with an unforseen rainforest mist filling up the city, and a blinding sun which turned the high rain-clouds almost white. It looked like heaven. And then Daniel suddenly appeared on my work computer's screen. He'd been going through his photos, looking for images of himself — of his life — to share with me:

Daniel: God here's another picture of me smoking
Me: here's an assignment: find any that you're not smoking in. I'd say less than 20%
Daniel: now where'd you go?
Me: where'd YOU go sir?
Daniel: Why, I'm right here in my apartment
Me: missing moi?
Daniel: more than you think
Daniel: I feel like a teenager sending you pictures of myself all the time
Me: you like a girl! you like a girl!
I know what you mean. I feel silly and elated. and fine with that.
Daniel: nice to be 17 again
Me: 17 and not stoopid is even better
Daniel: I WANT PICTURES
I like pictures
pictures pictures pictures
gimme
Me: geeze, lemme look around...
Daniel: *rolls eyes*
Me: sending C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Pictures\lily\lily_st_patricks_day.jpg
here's Lily's st patrick's day boobs
Daniel: why wont it download
Me: hold please
Transfer of [lily_st_patricks_day.jpg] is complete.
Daniel: Christ
Me: I KNOW!!!
and I've seen them naked. unbelievable.
Daniel: Those are huge motherfucking boobs
Me: her nipples are exquisite
wanna see the front walk to my house
Daniel: yes
Me: sending C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Pictures\house.JPG
Daniel: you have your own house?
Me: yep
hold, please
Daniel: *masturbating while typing, looking unsuspicious*
Me: la-lah-lah, not doing anything, la-lala
Daniel: are those strawberries?
Me: yes
Daniel: neat
Me: theyre twice as big now
Daniel: when can I move in?
Me: come on over
Daniel: you have room for my ego?
Me: i have an entire spare room for that monstrosity
Daniel: lol
Me: on the other side of the walk and flowers is my garden of Walla Walla sweet onions, broccoli, cauliflower and I've since planted cherry tomatoes and lettuce
Daniel: [Walla Walla] - that's silly. You're a farmer for sure
Me: Walla Walla is a Washington logging town, named after that place. My Pops used to spend his summer's there logging trees.
and the window you see on the corner of the house is my bedroom
with the paint peeling window frame =)
Daniel: what's that green thing on the window
Me: its a [gift from Becca]: green sea glass with a sea shell in the middle...its a nickname reference
"she shell" "sea shell"
"me-shell"
Daniel: oh cute
Me: really a tribute to my dad who called me that
see my dad was everyone's dad
even people who never met him feel him in my life...Lily paints with his brushes
Daniel: that's really nice
Me: blah blah blah, spiritual, blah, circle of life, blah
Daniel: no
Me: no...what?
Daniel: no blah blah thank you
Me: dont mind if i get all deep and shit?
Daniel: not at all, I encourage you to.
Me: if its mutual
Daniel: erhm.....?
me: if you get deep, too
Daniel: then what?
Me: then i would allow myself to do that more
Daniel: ok, this is officially the next step then
Me: is there ice cream for celebrating this new step?
Daniel: ahm...I'll take a beer
Me: good enough
whats this next step like? sharing more info?
say, is there a manual on this?
Daniel: Don't...think...so
We can do whatever we want - we're adults remember
Me: quite right, dahling
Daniel: So what do you want
Me: you, in my bed
Daniel: ..........
Me: just to see what happens. I feel more for you every day. I want to learn about you.
Daniel: like what darling
Me: who you are, what your daily life is like, when you're sad I want to be someone you talk to about it
Daniel: can I start unloading?
maybe when you're not at work
Me: Gah! my first interruption...
hold, please
Daniel: ....20 minutes....
okay, all done. but now I have to leave if I'm going to meet my friends in time.
if you want...
Daniel: deal
Me: I've always wanted to get an epic-novel-sized email from you...about whatever you want. Just talk to me, I won't judge you. I promise.
Daniel: like I said - deal
Me: *happy*
Daniel: say hello to your friends for me
Me: I will, darling. have a great night and I'll talk to you soon.
Daniel: sure thing girlfriend
Me: goodnight boyfriend *smooch*
Daniel: night
Me: night
Daniel: *Roar*
Me: purr

The next day, [swimming] in emotions, I went to pick fruit with friends on [Sauvie Island].  I spent the afternoon sitting under the bushes on the grassy grove floor pulling thorn-less berries from above. My thoughts were lost in the safe sun of Daniel and our lovemaking fantasies,  our orgasm's glow feeding a lingering, budding curiosity. I was [Venus in Cancer], even in the middle of a Pacific Northwest blueberry farm. And I couldn't spare the heartbeats to think about Ruthie, even if I'd wanted to.

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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.