Avram Nomad
all stories and essays by Avram Klein
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I asked her if she would like to go to the movies and she said yes and I should call her back the next day at one o'clock. She also told me to go to the Orbitz that night for Rock Night. I was stoked and took off to check out the bikinis at Pria Biruta on Pria Futura.
Pria Futura was crowded with a strip of natural pools that had formed in the sand where women were laying in their own personal hot springs with nothing sticking out but their heads and the tops of their butts.
I found a beautiful girl about my age sitting at the edge of the pools but stalled for a moment before talking to her. As I sat and looked, she stood up, put on a shirt, and split. A second later the sky turned grey and the rain hit the beach as if the ocean had picked up and dumped out of the sky.
A few people made it to their cars while everybody else piled under the roof of an outdoor restaurant and started a little night club, rocking out in their wet bikinis. I was pretty stoked to be there, but the one chick I thought was pretty hot was chain smoking, so I decided to make a break for it.
Once in the bus, we winded throught the Pria Futuro neighborhood on our way back to the city. The streets were so flooded, giant whirlpools had formed in some of the intersections, gradually disappearing down into the ground.
Back in Fortaleza, I had to jump out of the bus and run along the beach. Restaurant owners opened their back doors as a foot of water flooded out into the street. A manhole had popped out in front of the statue of the Indian Princess of Fortaleza, and the dirty water stung my feet as I stepped through it. I ran down to the water to rinse my feet in the ocean, and the ocean water was hot.
In Pria Iracema, there are almost no tourists of a law-abiding or adult nature, but there is a great cigar shop on the corner. I went in and bought some Cuban leaf-rolling papers and some licorice-flavored Spanish papers, went back to my room, rolled two Cuban blunts, and fell asleep.
At midnight, I woke up and headed out to the clubs. The Cuban leaf burned slow, steady, and sweet, but I didn't feel stoned. When I got to the club, however, I tried to pay to get in the exit. I then walked to the front and tried to hand my money to the bouncer. Then when I got my hands on a ticket to get in, I walked up to the ticket collector and raised my arms so he could frisk me. When I went to buy some water there was a pissed-off looking military policeman behind the bar, and the girl who took my money looked at me like she wasn't going to be able to sleep that night knowing there was a gringo out there as stoned as I was.
I was stoned to the point of being stunned. I weaved my way to the back of the club where I could watch the girls dance. The band sang Beatles tunes and other classic rock and I found a nice blond girl of about thirty with a Seventies-style "7" on the back of her shirt. She started to dance in front of me like a Sixties smokehouse go-go dancer.
It was mesmerizing, and I thought to talk to her, but I found the girls in the club a little confusing. For instance, the "7" chick was with a 35-year-old chick and a 20-year-old brunette who was deva'd out and was walking around like some kind of sexual vampire.
They were also with three 22-year-olds and another nice blond 26-year-old. So I thought, "Should I talk to the 30-year-old blond, or is she a 30-year-old who acts like a 20-year-old? And what's up with the 35-year-old chick?"
There was, however, an incredibly gorgeous girl sitting by herself. I talked to her, but she didn't care. She was playing some kind of crazy eye tag with a guy who seemed to be really sad that she wasn't talking to him.
When the band stopped and the techno started, the bartenders stood up on the bar and started dancing like their asses were going to blast off into outer space. I went back and bought another water and when the girl saw that my reaction time had returned, she looked so relieved you'd think she had just heard that she wouldn't be fed to lions.
I still felt a little too stoned to hit on any of the girls at Orbitz, so I took off and checked Ritz out, which is a half a block away. There were some cool couples walking out along with some guys carrying instruments. I paid the 10R and went in to find all kinds of cool-looking heads dancing like crazy.
There were guys with dreads and guys who seemed to be a group of surfers all doing funny dances together. There were also quite a few about-30-year-old girls in there. I pulled out my second blunt and lit it up on the dance floor feeling proud of my antics.
The crowd was pleased and an almost-40-year-old lady came up and gave a little shove to get in on the blunt. I noticed, somehow, that the woman was a lesbian. This is when I realized that most of the straight people had left with the band and that the surfers with dreads weren't surfers, but gay homeboys.
I halved the blunt and started dancing with a really cute 30-year-old girl. I tried to talk to her, but she just wanted to keep dancing. I bought a water and another 30-year-old cute girl gave me a smile. I went up and asked her to dance and she just said no and didn't really want to talk.
This is when I realized I was the only straight person in the whole club and that the chicks weren't even bi. Which was different, because none of them looked gay at all. If I hadn't realized the lady who shared the blunt with me was gay, I may have never noticed.
The next morning, my anticipation of meeting Inga was out of control. I called her at 1:00 p.m. and she said to meet her at the mall at 4:30 p.m. I had spent the entire morning doing push-ups, pull-ups, yoga, and my first round of bench presses. I picked out my clothes, shot my arms with perfume, and headed for the mall at about 3:30 p.m.
At about 5 p.m., her friend showed up. I hadn't been able to understand a word Inga had said, so I wasn't sure if she had told me her friend would be there. I greeted her and she asked if I was tired. I said no, a little confused.
It turned out the movie they had planned to see wasn't playing. We began to walk away from the theater and I asked, "Where is Inga? Do you have her cell?"
She said, "Ave, I am Inga. My friend's name is Carol."
I immediately started to crack up and Inga went into shock. I had to start laughing though. I had to do something, because I knew we would be spending the rest of the day together and I figured if I turned out to be a nice guy, she would send a good report back to her friend.
It was just a gut reaction. The moment it happened, we got onto a crowded elevator with some American bankers, which gave us a moment of silence to absorb what had happened. We both knew flat out that we had been hitting on each other for two days without me knowing who she was.
As we stepped off the elevator, I smiled and asked if she wanted an English lesson. She agreed and we spent an hour or so trying to talk and then saw The Pianista. The movie was better the second time, and there were a few WWII survivors in the audience which made it well worth it.
When I got home I went to call Carol, thinking she would laugh at the story, but not before buying a joint roller and some pure hemp papers at the cigar store. I didn't reach Carol until the next morning, Tuesday. We had a nice chat, but when I said goodbye she sounded about as interested in having a romantic encounter with me as she was to get a coupon for a free hair straightening.
She actually sounded a lot like a 22-year-old German girl I had tried to kiss in front of her boyfriend in Maracaipe. So I guess I'm two for two with the 22-year-olds. Going out with a with a girl more than five years younger is kind of a fiasco in itself, because it is wrong.
For instance, when you say, "I remember sixth grade when Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" was the most incredible video I had ever seen." And she replies, "Yeah, I remember sixth grade when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the most incredible video I had ever seen." And then you can say, "Oh, yeah, I'm the same age as them."
I hung out with Inga again, still not understanding a word she said. After a few moments together, she told me she had a friend who had returned to town from England—a Brazilian. I had no clue what this was all about—if she was telling me she had a boyfriend or what.
Then the guy turned out to be there, but he turned out to be gay. We had a nice chat and Inga's gay friend Thalis told us about London and Wales. He invited me to stay with him at his house, but I turned him down even though I was running low on cash and didn't know what I was going to do at this point.
I looked for work at the English schools in Fortaleza, but the semester wasn't starting for months. My dad wanted me to travel through the Amazon and climb the peaks of the Peruvian Andes. I got to thinking that I'd better get going.
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