Miami’s oceanfront promenade basked in a pleasant bright midmorning sun, when the approaching young man, black, twenty-fiveish, crisp jeans and shirt, clean-shaven, turns to me, voicing. “Five Dollars, please!”
Surprised, atypical outstretch hands, I utter. “Asking for money isn’t the answer,” launched a conversation. “Gotta find a job, you know? Earn that sell-respect of making it on your own.”
He nods at every phrase, agreeable, flickering smart-eyes. “Yeah, man, you’re right,” after a while, I exhausted the topic of our friendly chat. I turn, leaving him standing by. Hit me, just after the taxi dropped me off at a Miami hotel, with my bloated suitcase.
I stepped inside, greeted by a faded grandeur of Spanish colonial influences — a subtle nod to Cuba’s heritage. A mixed-race attendant behind the counter, faded warmth or animated conversations or vibrant clothing, Mr. Cuban, my mind dub, the thirtyish, welcomed me at the reception desk, “Twenty Dollar deposit,” he utters. I hand him the cash, leaving my luggage behind h counter. I grabbed my room keys and ventured out into the sun-drenched streets.
At a snail’s-pace of traffic, prompting me to slow my long strides and join the leisurely flow of tanned pedestrians. a few street vendors dot the pedestrian street, drawing figures in bright feast colors. my curiosity piqued along the overhead massif beams against scattered skies. Following inside, a few youths into a gleaming station. ascend the stairs to a sprawling platform, to a stance before a pair of a single rail-track.
I’ve stepped on a futuristic scene – Whine. . . – a windowed train approach, driverless to a pod’s see-through figuring a dozen seated passengers glides to a silent stop. Doors – hiss – open. A few passengers disembark, as I embarked. A metallic voice announces our departure.
We glide, lift-off over city pulsating arteries of retailers. Riding the pod with the metallic announcement of successive stops. A few passengers move platform’s peaceful exchange with the pod followed by a metallic voice repeating its departure and the next station, suburban houses’ sprawl weathered tiled hip and ridges pitch roof to a sprawling landscape. When I step out, leaving the pod to continue, I descend to the beachfront promenade.
After hopeless, I shed the young black man, walking away echoing his voicing plea in my head, “Have you got five dollars?” To an absurd voice hailing me down. I spared him a glimpsed, to forsake him, ‘_On his part without a first effort!_’
After a night cruise, the water shimmered the building’s vibrant dancing iridescent colors. In daylight looming the bascule bridge, a mesmerizing spectacle. the novelty of the city wears thin. Homesick destined to meet Lionel and Gavin gnawed at me, to the morning of my departure.
I handed my room key to the Mr. Cuban in attendance. I settled my bill. With a mix of anticipation and reluctance, he sends me to a phone booth to call a taxi. However, upon my return, Mr. Cuban’s demeanor shifts. As he raises a mask of amnesia, I’m growing suspicious. He spouts foreign phrases, feigns ignorance about my 20.00 dollar deposit.
His shoulders slumped, resigned to this charade, as I rise my voice. “I want my deposit back,” I blurted. rising notched, words echoing through the lobby. My opportunity arises, when a woman hauling a mountain of luggage entered. her eyes scanning the scene with a mix of curiosity and trepidation.
I planted myself in front of Mr. Cuban. “I’ll stand here until you return my twenty dollars!” The Warthog in me, shoved Gemini out the way. My voice is booming. The woman hesitated, intervening in an unfolding drama.
Mr. Cuban’s eyes flickered a friendly, serviceable welcome. Until she resigned with a sigh, a hand reluctant hand dips into the cash drawer, returns a crisp bill. He handed it over, without relenting his sight from the woman.
Pulling the hotel door shut behind me, after the wrath of my Warthog, cynic biting. ‘_You wouldn’t have raised such a menace not fluent in the country’s language!_’ — A warning to remember.
I hustle with my suitcase toward the arriving taxi. “Airport.” I uttered. Pulling away, glad I’m on my way, dwelling, gnawing into my long journey before meeting Lionel and Gavin. The taxi halts in front of the terminal, dazing in Miami’s relax mood. Shaking off the lethargy, I’m step out. Entering the concourse the thin scattered crowds, my eyes scanning, following the airline logo, with a leading ticket. I cross to a lobby’s juxtaposed counters. greeting the flitting airline ground hostess from behind the counter. Without sparing a glance at my outstretched ticket. “Your flight has left,” She drones.
“That can’t be!” I exclaimed, my composure crumbling as panic surged through me. The idea of being stuck in Miami for another night filled me with dread. Summoning my inner Warthog, I steeled myself for a battle of wits. My eyes darting around the lobby, seeking a solution.
Two individuals in matching uniforms quietly conversed behind the nearby airline counter. In a few strides, approaching them, I’m unloading my frustration and explaining how I’m left stranded, pointing at their competitor’s 
To my surprise, the woman left the male colleague speechless. In a full-blown tirade, supporting my accusations, she unleashed a torrent of accusations against the other airline’s ground hostess, distant and out of the equation. Siding to my advantage, doctoring my anxiety dwindled away. Came to stand in front of the ground hostess, found her advantageous pulse. “OK! I’ll take the flight,” she uttered. An unexpected solution, soothing my frazzled mind.
With a wave of relief, she sent me on to board the flight with the blue airline. ‘_Perhaps there’s some inter-airline understanding in place?_’ I am left to head for the boarding gate. Boarded the plane, taxiing the apron to the runway, take-off, continuing my journey down the continent. In a twist of fate left me pondering: ‘_Perhaps there was some unspoken inter-airline understanding for the passengers filling seats?_’
Nine hours later, the aircraft touched down at Galeão International Airport. I emerged from the arrival terminal, eager to embrace the city’s vibrancy to catch a taxi. I step out to the driveway, a slight man walks out of the driveway’s shadows, approaching, aims at me, as I’m catching my bearings.
He circled my side, addressing me. “I have an apartment to rent.” He utters. “Cheap for the week.” His smooth voice seduced my skeptic Warthog.
The slinky man leads me across the terminal driveway to a waiting phantom taxi. entering opposite sides, meeting in the back seat, leans over muttering in the taxi driver’s ear. We pull away, en route, weaving Rio de Janeiro’s vibrant streets a kaleidoscope of colors, engaged in a lively conversation. I’m imagining the slink scavenger perched on the seat next to me. I’m confident in my ability to navigate this encounter. fleeting thought crossed my mind. I can’t be vulnerable if in the end I’ll have to pay the man. swirling in mind, the moon in Libra forgive the charming character craft to build rapport and trust.
Dropping my bloated suitcase in the slight man’s rented apartment, I surrender to the call of the Ocean. The allure of the Rio nigh draws me on the Copacabana promenade, illuminating the vibrant paintings in the shadows. As I strolled, lulled by the rhythmic washing of waves along the mosaic designs, I perceived ghostly sighs emanating a distance behind my shoulders, risen from the adorned sidewalk. While upfront scattered in motion statues, figures of a stroller, a jogger, a woman gliding on rollerblades. I’m skirting past imposing facades bathed in the soft glow of streetlights to apartments blocks in row distancing against the veil of the night out of sight.
The wide sidewalk before me, empty, raises sighing footsteps. Locking into my pace. Whispering at a flare back brush of wingtips, the intrigue churns in my mind, until a block down, I’m joined by young and petite women two arms’ lengths away ’ pausing at the curb. chafing me with sparkling eyes and charming smiles.
Together, we step down the curb. Crossing the asphalt, stealing glimpses, stepping onto the opposite curb, to a sequel, friendly glances with the petite spirited beauties. hooked and uncomfortable by their silent infectious smiles, my mind sheds and rollover my lips acknowledging words. “Hi! What are you girls up to?”
Aetheria doesn’t invoke her presence, amidst the absurd girls’ laughter, tinkling melody of Portuguese and broken English, continued unabated through the promenade, stretching miles upfront. “Is there a nightclub here?” I blurted out, laced with a hint of hope for the night.
Their youthful grins, “Yes.” they chirped in unison. The girls’ eyes sparkling with a mischievous glint, they crossed my path, leading me in silence, with a confident stride neared the looming rocky mountain. A cracked of light from the ground floor building spills on the promenade, silhouetting a flurry of figures, opening the gap pulsating rhythm of Latin music. Louder, teasing my body with every approaching step. The girls ushered me towards past the youngsters’ egress. entering the air vibrating the salsa rhythms. I lose my stride into a dancing crowd. The girls vanished, one of the petite girls reappears to vanish, alternating with her companion. To my surprise, lost in the crowds, maintaining a proximity.
Aetheria’s cumulus looming, basking in the midst of zodiacal forests mirror earth as the music thrills the air, reverberating through me. Tapping on the ball of my feet, the beat, rolling hips, as the sambas play. Deeper into the night, the crowds thinning out, exposing the petite girls on the floor, as the music pulsate rumbas, cha-chas.
Until the rising sun’s yellow rays, entering the dance hall, aired with distant figures dancing, to walk out with the girls through the wide doorway into a golden glow. Guilt rose long before the pang hit me. In an exchange of glances, I abandoned the girls, and half-blind of their needs not met. I couldn’t ask, but their eyes seemed filled with joy walking out of their night.
In the following days, exploring the city, wandering through the main street bustles with people and buses. Aimless, I stroll past a side street’s wainscot encroaching on the sidewalk. Left me to wonder, while behind the wooden barrier patrons dining at terraced tables. A gateway at the street corner. At leisure, scrutinizing posters advertising ridiculous prices, luring me into the restaurant.
A waiter ushered me to a terrace table, where I’m intrigued by the shoulder-height wainscot impeding my space, while my table edged on the sidewalk. I sip my red wine, mesmerizing by the light traffic of people blind to the architecture. A sneaking discomfort, I’m attributing to wining and dining at the service of a waiter, not tolerating siting overexposed. My steak arrived, carried by the waiter who maneuvered between tables, darting eyes on me. The waiter disappears into the shadowing depth beyond a bar man behind the counter. I pick up my fork and knife, slice the filet steak onto my plate. again savoring a morsel. A hand over the wainscot snatches my steak off my plate. In dismay, the young man sauntering away throws me a smirk, plastering, ‘_Thank you!_’ distancing and disappearing in the city’s underbelly.
As I joined a charismatic tour guide. Aetheria’s sunbeams fingertips pluck the harp strings, rhymes to my mind; ‘_Don’t cry for me, Argentina. The truth is, I never left you. All through my wild. . ._’ Her with a mane of raven hair. she streams an infectious chatter, an Aquarius welcome distraction from a venturing in a lingering sightseeing.
I return the apartment key to the slight Libra, turning away to boarding a taxi. I’m riding Aetheria’s gift, with the Argentinian’s memory paved in my path, distracted by a sun-drenched church’s stained-glass windows ablaze with color farewell, onto a pirouette gravity-defying tower. relenting a moment of folly. When I could have swept the young woman off her feet. As the taxi mirrors in the airport terminal.
The taxi driver deposited my calf-suitcase on the curb and turned away, leaving me to walk through my reflection into a concourse in the aftermath of feasting. I check in, passing passport control. To my relief, I presented my South African Airways boarding at the gate to the aircraft. On board with mixed feeling, exhausted from a vacation hangover, tempered with anticipation as the aircrew fastened their seatbelts for take-off on my last leg across the Atlantic before reuniting with my boys.
Floating in my seat amid the relentless engine thrum, prolong glide by distant gold mine dump, the East Rand’s sprawling suburbs to skim rooftop — In my mind surges the leading highway driving my Audi, as technical director of A1 Conco (Pty.) Ltd.’s house development in Spring. My car’s panoramic windshield framing the graceful jumbo jets’ belly extracted undercarriage claws anchored in the skies, landing the ship on the mounted runway threshold.
My muscles ache in the shackles of my seat. Sitting. “Almost there,” I whisper to myself, a mantra to soothe my impatience. The aircraft breaks out shudders – whoosh – air brakes, to relent. taxiing approaching the terminal curtain wall adorn a bold streak texted, “Jan Smuts International Airport,” athwart the fascia.
The aircraft slips to a halt, resonating the cabin bell chime – click, click, click. . . – raising passengers stepping to the aisles, dropping behind seatbelts buckles. Lifting hands to overhead bins, as engines whining down. Despite urging my body, ‘_Stay put._’ quells my impatience. ‘_Leave passengers squeeze and jostle through the aisle_’ I whisper in mind.
But my legs spring from my cramped limb to my feet free from my seat’s clutch. I find a niche among the throng of passengers in the aisle. mimicking stretch arms wrench my bag out the overhead bin. Weigh to odds idle in the trail for long minutes. Until, the queue, shuffle, reaching a symphony of farewells and smiling aircrews, to view a tarmac serpentine trail vanishing behind the terminal’s curtain wall.
Entering the sterile glow of fluorescent lights, I trail a stream of passengers down the long corridor. Ending in a hall, herd before a barrier of glass cubicles manned by stern-faced, pale passport control officers. I slip through the checkpoint with my permanent residential stamp.
I walk toward passengers regrouping around a luggage carousel. I change spots, restless finding too crowded, to a deserted corner, or to seek greater visibility. Upcoming my beige canvass suitcase, in a stride I whisk off the conveyor pallets, walking away. I find the exit by observing figures trickling through a crack in the wall. Passing the intimidating custom officers, my gaze falls to the gleaming floor. Raise to afar the corridor, the figure pushing a loaded luggage trolley, snapped by the wink of wing doors. In my approach – hiss – clearing a greeting throng of eager eyes, quick in losing interest, bar a wiggling figure. my eldest sister, Ilona, emerges with a shy smile. She weaves through the crowd, joining me greeting in our north Antwerp flat dialect. “(Goeien) Dag, oe ghot et? (good day, how are you?)” She leads the pace offside toward the distant glowing strip of sun across the concourse.
After I replied, “Ghoet, (good)” I’m falling into English, while Lionel and Gavin are in the shadow of my divorce from Jean. As Jean’s legal team obliged Ilona to represent me in my absence in the Pretoria Supreme Court, to my dismay, we step out the terminal. Across the shade driveway, sunlight washes over us. Walk the lanes through glittering parked cars, pauses at Ines’ Alfa Romeo. to my surprise, I dare not question — ‘_You don’t pose questions to Ilona._’ she picks the lock lifting the trunk lid, permitting me to stow my bloated suitcase. Closes the trunk lid, we round the Alfa Romeo to the doors, joining her from slipping to our seat. Ilona tweaks the ignition key. She reverses the car, and drives away, an invasive thought. ‘_I couldn’t see myself driving Ines’ car!_’ creeping a chill under my skin. I’m trying to figure out, how she feels driving Ines’ car, as she drives out the parking lot. weaving out the airport grounds, slipping onto the highway. Exiting into Johannesburg’s northern streets, Ilona speaks in a tone that she reminds me she’s the apple of De-P’pa’s eye. In Houghton’s suburban artery, she veers into a gated entrance along a high wall adorned with the Sabi-Sabi sign, to a mansion. Ilona parks off the driveway, by a set of trees’ trunk into the cast shade. We step out, meeting at the rear. She offers me the car keys, without a word. But her gesture speaks. ‘_Come and get me later to drive home._’
I drive away, watching Ilona’s reflection in the rearview mirror as she walks toward the side door to her office. Turning onto the street, I map my route toward the highway on-ramp, averting to glance at where I sat earlier. Awkward. Convincing myself that the car had been cleaned, but the stained passenger seat instigating my mind to understand. I focus on reaching “Marlboro” exit. Continue along the Old Pretoria Road, to steer into Kelvin, nestling Lionel and Gavin.
I drove up the leafy Sunnyway, eerie silent, raising my clandestine approach, as the car breaches dappled shady patches from trees’ canopies. A dozen years ago, mere saplings lining the sidewalk. Grown with new villas sprawling, with shrubs tipping over yard walls. I pulled up by the grill, extending the driveway apron into a panhandle. I built speculating, to cradle the ethereal essence of a pre-birth sanctuary for my boys.
But Lionel walked out of the neighbor’s gate, where my boys’ friend “Steve,” lived. He steps into the street, approaching as I wound down the window. “Daddy!” he exclaims, pleading, “Tomorrow we want to go to Peter for Christmas. Can we go? You can have us on Monday, mom said.”
I’m silent, uncommitted, until, gazing in his pleading eyes, I succumb. “We’ll see!” I uttered.
While the engine idles, Lionel turns away, passes across the windshield, opening the door, joins me in the passenger seat. Pointing to turn right onto Coneway. After a short stretch, at the junction, we turn left onto Meadway. Nearing the bend, glimpses of the clubhouse flashes through a backdrop of eucalyptus trees undazzling the facades, windows’ glaze, tiled pitched roof. As we turned onto the gravel driveway, tires crunching, players dressed in white shorts and shirts paused, hitting balls behind the meshed-enclosed courts, watching our approach. On the mat–green court, the player nearest the net crossed the white line, casting a defiant look from within his high screened confinement.
“We can’t play here, Dad,” Lionel exclaimed. “They told Gavin and me earlier to leave!”
I pulled the Alfa Romeo to a halt and, stepping out, walked towards the adjacent empty court. My approach seemed to freeze the players in their tracks. I confronted them, arguing, “The court is not being used! What objection do you have to us playing?”
“Are you members?” one of the players barked.
“Yes, we are members,” I barked back, feeling a surge of defiance.
When a player asked for a membership card, I sidestepped the question. “We are from down the road,” I said, implying that our proximity granted us membership rights.
Defeated, I asked, “Haven’t you seen two young boys?”
“There were two youngsters, but they were there somewhere.” One player responded, pointing toward the open playground across mowed lawns fresh from the recent rains. Two black children dangled upside down from the trapeze bar. Beyond the shrubs, a footpath meandered through the veldt toward the looming villas.
‘_Fifteen minutes late,_’ I thought. ‘_and missing our Rendezvous!_’ I rush back to the car, tweak the ignition key. With an engine purr, we pull a swift U-turn out the dirt parking lot, down the driveway, and onto the asphalt road. I retraced my our route, scanning the veld for Gavin and his cousin, Brian. Each a pair of tennis rackets tucked in the back of their shirts, the handles striking out the collar. Crossing paths, I call out the wound down window. “Come, boys.”
Going to Ilona’s place for a splash in her pool crossed my mind, but I didn’t have permission from either Ronny or Edna, Brian’s parents, nor Jean, borrowing the boys. At a glance at my wristwatch, it was twenty-five past twelve, and a long drive halfway to Pretoria.
I turn to Lionel. “ Cook’s, Let’s go to the Kelvin shops and get something. . .” I uttered. Felling the fiasco blowing over, as Gavin and Brian climb in the rear – smack – closing the door.
At the burned peppered face-brick architecture of the local mall nestled in the veldt, I pulled up and we all disembarked, to sit on the brick–paved steps. Soda cans at hand, finger picking packs of chips. broached the subject I had ignored — stretching out the avoidance as long as possible. After sipping and munching. “Let’s have a snooker game,” Lionel exclaims, then Gavin chiming in his support.
I hesitate before a pool table, feeling foolish about playing a game I hadn’t played before. But Lionel insisted. rising from our seats and stepping away. We crossed the brick paving under the covered passage, toward the split-level stores, down the stairs. Past the Video store, the bare table waited in a community room. The plate-glass doors – hiss – saluting the boys opening to the wings closing behind me.
Lionel and Gavin were no strangers to the pool game, to my knowledge, by their neighbor “Steve’s” family playroom. I sent Lionel to the storekeeper, who approached us and cites the rules of the game. Lionel racked the balls, as we each take a cue, and alternate shooting. After a while, Gavin’s patience, a trait inherited from his mother, has a knack for mastering the game.
We leave the center’s face-brick crawling across the floors and walls, heading back to the sunlight glinting Alfa Romeo, in the deserted street’s asphalt unfolded service driveway. The boys board the car, as I’m counting the door smacks, before a reassuring glance, and driving away. I circled around the Esso garage and around the build-up block to the cul-de-sac. Lionel steps out, to pick up his bike and Brian returns to his parents’ the Whitehorn’s family house with Gavin.
Christmas morning, I dial Jean’s house number. Lionel answers. “Dad! Are you passing here? Can you bring my the games?”
I paused, a fleeting thought assessing what Lionel had in mind.
“Lionel! You mean the diskettes? To play on Peter’s computer?” I asked.
“Yes,” Lionel said in a hopeful voice.
I jumped at the opportunity. “Lionel,” I uttered, “tell your mother… go and ask… say, if she has you today, then I want you both for a trip to Hazyview…” They understood means a visit to their Bom’Pa and Bom’Ma, their grandparents.
“But Dad?” Lionel objects. “I want to go to Peter’s.”
While a negotiating path opens up, I sense the fragility of Lionel and Gavin. I remind myself to exercise caution, applying pressure, not to upset my boys — Squeezed between Jean and me.
Jean’s stringent rules, which had dominated since she initiated the divorce, branded in my mind. My visitation rights, unequivocal down to the minute, limited to Sundays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, as laid out in the divorce agreement confirmed by the Johannesburg Supreme Court. “Tell your mother the Court Order states I should have you today,” I blurted out. “We’ll swap today for the rest of the holidays.” I spoke words tumbling from m mind, unsure if I was referring to the rest of their school vacation, my envisage trip to Hazyview, or the remainder of my stay before flying back to New York.
“But Dad…” Lionel protested, and drops the phone, agape sigh — the phone cradle in the amber light of the entrance hall. He rushes back. “Dad!” his voice filled with a hopeful enthusiasm. “I’ll call Gavin to talk to you.”
Gavin’s words cut short as Lionel relayed the message. Their mother wouldn’t budge and withdraw from the conversation. “Then you’ll have to take us today!” Lionel muttered before passing the phone to his brother.
“Daddy! We’re going to have turkey by Peter…?” Gavin pleaded.
“Gavy!” I uttered, stinging. “I’ll go to Hazyview to meet Bon’ma. I’ll see you when I’m back from Hazyview.”
“When Daddy?” Gavin sobs. “But Dad! When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know yet?” But knowing myself, my boys’ happiness in the forefront, I’ll concede, letting them have a good day at their uncle’s place.
. . ./ YD6~34 . . .
Vitrine of Consciousness 