How I Met Abraham Lincoln

This is how I met Mr. Lincoln.

"Hey get the EFF out of here, man!"
Only he didn't say "eff."

He was charging across the concrete outside the Magic Mart toward some derelict wearing a flannel shirt and a stocking hat. It was August.

"How many times we gotta tell you, man. Take your shit and get outta here!"

I grimaced and raised my eyebrows in surprise. It was as much about the confrontational words as it was about the guy who was saying them.
"Forgive my language, please. But you gotta do what you gotta do, right?"
On his way back into the store he grinned at me and shrugged after apologizing.
"It's okay," I said, grinning back.
He had on a red t-shirt and some nice looking jeans. He wore shoes that made me second guess his job at the gas station. His outfit looked like something a trendy college kid would wear. It just had that look to it. Its hard to pin point what makes a t-shirt and jeans look trendy, but they can. It helped that his hair was gelled into a tiny faux hawk.
"Innnnteresting." I mused to myself, shutting the car door behind me.

It took me four visits to the Magic Mart to actually determine he wasn't hispanic. I thought from day one that he spoke Spanish. Then one day he chased some guy down in the parking lot for walking out with a beer and not showing ID. All this hwa-ha-kha stuff came out of his mouth to the other cashier and I realized he was actually an Arab of some sort.

"Egypt," he told me. "See this right here?" He held out his wrist.
"That X from a club or something?"
"What?" He threw back his head and laughed. He did that alot. He was a generally happy person. "No, no. It means eternal life. Its a good symbol. A symbol of faith."
"Its a tattoo?"
He laughed again. "Yeah! You don't believe me?"
"It's all faded. It really looks like you went to the club yesterday and tried to wash it off in the sink."
"My mom gave this to me when I was nine years old. Its a tattoo. It's just grown with me. Can you believe that?"
"I guess so."
"In my country, we do that sort of thing. Everybody has these things. Kids, too."

In my country, in my country. Everybody has a country. I guess we Americans just never realize it because we never live anywhere else, and when we do nobody asks us about our country. Our country is television.
The only thing I knew about Egypt was that the pyramids were there.

"I NEED SOME HONEY MUSTARD."
"I can't understand you, sir." The clerk was older. He was also Egyptian. But I didn't know that the first day I walked in. I felt sorry for him.
"HONEY. MUSTARD. FOR. MY. CHICKEN."
"Yes, sir, yes, sir."
"THANK YOUUUUUU."
The customers were always the most magical part of the Magic Mart.

That first day I was taken aback by how ugly they were to the two employees. The older Arab man, and this young guy with a perma-grin and a faux hawk.

"That's a nice car you have," he said that day.
"Thank you."
"You wanna trade? I have a Lexus for you."
"Nah, I like my car."
"I'll show it to you right now if you want."
"I bet you will."
"You don't want my car? Fair trade!"
"Not fair trade. If you want my car, its because yours isn't as nice."
That was the first time I saw him tip his head back and laugh like that. The old guy laughed, too.
"You're good!" He said, handed me my receipt, and smiled again.

Two months passed before he told me his name. It was then that I discovered that the laughing Egyptian faux hawk was really Abraham Lincoln. An American forefather. Who knew?!

But I Love Me More

"Five hundred dollars!?"
"Thats actually less than I thought it was going to be."
"Five hundred dollars..."
"For the cracked wheel, and two new tires. We also have no idea about the rotars yet, but we'll check it out when we get in there."
"Five hundred dollars..."

Outside the service station I went digging through my glove compartment. I was trying to find the receipt from when I had my brakes done almost this exact same time last year. I pulled out all sorts of random things. I found a thick receipt from a prescription that was a year old. I found two plastic packages of "new car" scented Little Trees. I found the ipod radio jack I'd been looking for. And I found three photos of Daniel Castillo.

I knew what they were before I touched them. I squeezed my eyes shut for the tiniest second before looking down at them. They were my favorites from the trip to the beach we took. He looked so happy. He looked like a cute little boy who just happened to have abs and caramel colored skin. His hair was shiny from the sea water, and he was looking at me with his hands up, like "I don't know!?" In the next picture he was grinning, looking down, digging something in the sand. His teeth were small and white between his pink lips. I couldn't see it, but I knew there was a freckle right there on his upper lip. In the last one, he was silhouetted against the setting sun, standing in the ocean, a row of vacation houses behind him. I couldn't see his face very well. He had these crazy sunglasses on we had bought at Walgreens one time. They made him look like a rockstar. Like Daddy Yankee. I flipped back to the "I don't know!?" one.
"I was never good enough for you," I said to his picture.
"I don't know!?" he stared back at me, covered in sea water.
"Thats right, you don't know. You never knew. You had no idea who I was." I suddenly wanted to cry. "And I'm so sorry that you never got to meet me. I'm so sorry I couldn't be what you wanted."

I never had to dress up to be with him. I could come out wearing shorts and a t-shirt that was too small and made me look incredibly fat, and he would tell me how beautiful I was.

Why is life so unfair? Why is insecurity so cruel?

I remembered, suddenly, the way back from the beach. I remembered the resturant we went to, and how he told me that I was flirting with the waiter and to never do that in front of him again. I remembered the next couple weeks, during which he found a number in my cell phone that was unnamed, and how he accused me of cheating and talking to other guys, when in reality, the number was one I had called inquiring about an apartment I had seen for rent. Daniel's family had been trying to move and I had wanted to help.

"I don't understand why you say I can't trust you. I trust you!"
"No, Daniel, you don't. If you did you wouldn't be doing this. And if you don't trust me, you don't really love me."
"No! Its not that way! Why are you so mad? Every time! Every time, you doing this!"
"Because it never changes!"
"I think, en realidad, you do not love me. You always making these little problems, and you don't want to fix this."
"There's nothing to fix! I'm not the one that needs fixing!"
"I know now. I know! You no love me!"
"I do love you, Daniel! I love you so much! ... but I love me more... I have to love me more..."

"Yeah its going to be about five hundred dollars. I'm going to have to call you when the wheel comes in, cause we gotta get it shipped up here. It'll probably come tomorrow."
The mechanic was right in my window.
"Here, I found the receipt from the brakes," I said. I handed it to him from behind Daniel's pictures.
"All right. Lets see what we got here." He took the receipt inside the office, and I sat there, looking at the three pictures, my mind blank.

I wanted to throw them away. But I just couldn't.

Mazatlan's Return: A Decrescendo

I was ticked off because they didn't have mutligrain bagels this morning. The crazy lady from the fourth floor who has bald spots and wears at least six extra pieces of fake hair was trying to tell me that my bagel wasn't getting brown enough. I pulled it out thirty seconds later. It was burnt.
"Stupid bitch," I mumbled. I really was NOT in a good mood.

Then from the kitchen, behind the toaster, came Mazatlan. He winked at me and moved on without staring uncomfortably, illiciting secret smiles from both of us. And I did smile despite myself. Because even though Nestor and I were perfectly happy, I felt like Mazatlan was exactly what he was meant to be. He was a piece of hopeful furniture in my life. He was a little reminder of what I was capable of.

"I don't care about money, Nestor."
"Really? Because it sounds like you do. You are making me feel bad."
"Thats not what I mean. I mean that I will need to make money so that I can prepare my life for you."
"In Costa Rica?"
I grinned and raised my eyebrows. "My only problem with this little equation I have worked out, is being able to work and make enough money to live there."
"You need to learn Spanish, ninita. You will be valuable to everyone if you do. Not just me."
"I'd be valuable if I did that here! Nestor, you have no idea what you are capable of just because you speak two languages. Two WIDELY KNOWN languages."
"You can find work there. It will be easy for you."
"And in time, to come back, all we need to do is say 'Hey, US government! I met this GREAT GUY in Costa Rica!?' and by that time the five year limitations will have run out or been forgotten and you will come back with me and do whatever you want!"
"What about what you said? About children? About a better life?"
"Nestor I want a HAPPY life. And besides, children will be minors. They go wherever I go. I'm an American. As long as you don't pull a Not-Without-My-Daughter, I won't ever have to become Sally Field."
"What?"

I didn't mind so much that Mazatlan had decreased the intensity of his stare. It wasn't even a stare now. It was more like a quick, Bewitched, eyebrow wiggle. It was enough to make me smile and remember that I could live any life I wanted, in a sense. I could be working at a hotel in Managua, or Santo Domingo, or I could teach school in flippin Rockmart, Georgia. But whatever I did, it was going to involve passion. It was going to be real. It was going to be difficult. But aren't all life affirming experiences?

Who the Hell Is This Fat Chick?

I looked down at my new drivers license. A fat girl stared at me from the picture on the left side. Who the hell was this fat chick?

"I told you, I am gonna be honest, and I'm sorry, but you are correct. You are a little fat."

My jaw dropped and I sat there gaping at him. Nestor was laughing at his own candor, so the corners of my mouth went up, too. But I felt so disgusting all of a sudden. We were at a resturant, and I didn't even look up when the waiter came over.

"Here's your chicken salad, ma'am. And here's a black bean salad for you, sir." I suddenly wanted to die before I ate that chicken salad.

Liquids only! my mind chirped at me. Fiber! Nutrients! Exercize! What the hell was I going to do for exercize?! My brain was working out plans for myself in the only way it knew how. Which, of course, was in response to male criticism.

"I can't believe you just said that," I told him. I scooted my food around with the fork.

"I didn't mean to be rude. And I don't want you to be thinking about it too much. But you are. I love you the way you are, though, and its not important to me. But, yes, it is true."

"Oh my god." I laughed like I was surprised and amused at the same time. What I really felt was disappointed. I was sad that it had gotten to this point. I was going to have to do something for real.

"I'm sorry! You are a little puffy!" Nestor was still laughing at these admissions. I think he was laughing at my horror, too.

The next twenty minutes were the quietest lunch date I've ever had. It wasn't because I was eating.

Jameson Hanby

Jameson Hanby had a gimpy leg. It forced him to hobble a bit when he walked, and was a birth defect that had nothing to do with multiple sclerosis or muscular distrophy or any other syndrome involving muscle deterioration. In fact, his slight lisp was merely something he'd developed as an outcast child, nervous and alone in corners and behind trees at his elementary school's playground. He was fair haired and freckled. He wore white tennis shoes and long sleeved shirts. He owned two cats, and the house he shared with his brother reeked of them.

Some kids warm to the idea of being outcast. They flourish in subcultures involving video games and/or black clothing. Jameson, on the other hand, had mastered the subculture of being an asshole. He had developed a mean streak. There were lots of situations in which he would inevitably look silly, and if Jameson was an asshole, people wrote him off as such. They didn't pay as much attention to the fact that his ego might bleed when they treated him differently, or looked at him like a wounded bird.

I first met him through the lens of a camera. He was finishing a Bachelors degree in Mass Communication with an emphasis on Television Production. He spent all the money he ever saved on audio/video equipment, and came up with killer packages for the evening student-run news where I worked. The fact that Jameson didn't have to talk might have had something to do with it. Though when he did talk, he was known to be unpleasantly blunt and snippy.

"I'm not going to tell you again. Move three inches to the left, and stay there."
"Geez. Sorry."

We met filming a package about tornado relief just to the north of Nashville. A whole subdivision had nearly been leveled, and I wanted Jameson to get shots of the Cabbage Patch doll hanging 50 feet above ground from a cedar tree. Jameson wanted to film me walking along side a house with its left side completely cut out. It looked like a doll house.

"You know, I didn't really get to say anything to that Commissioner back there. He didn't let me get a word in edgewise."
"Thats because you wouldn't have had anything important to say anyway." Jameson scoffed. "You ask the questions. The answers are what we want on tape."
"I guess." I had always secretly fantasized about becoming Barbara Walters. Though I was three fourths of the way through with my teaching degree, I sometimes wondered what I could have done with a Mass Comm degree.
"Oh, yeah. That's great." Jameson was crouching, panning around the middle of this cul de sac where one side looked completely untouched.
"Isn't that amazing?" I marvelled.
"Sure." The wind was ruffling his sandy colored hair, and his long, pale fingers steadied the camera as he turned it on its base. He had pale blue eyes. They got smaller and more intense when he was concentrating.
"What are you doing when you get back?"
"Excuse me?" I didn't expect that.
"What are you doing? When we get back to town?"
"Uh. Nothing."
"Do you want to have a drink?"
Jameson? Drinking?
"Sure, I guess."

I didn't intend for him to fall in love with me or anything. Things like that just happen to me. I don't know what it is about me that means anyone should fall in love with me, and I guess I'm being presumptuous to even imply that Jameson was in love with me. Still, after we hung out a few times and flirted after news tapings for around three weeks, Jameson became extremely aggitated to find out that I was interested in someone else.

"Am I not hard enough for you?" We sat on the loading ramp to the tv studio hours after the live broadcast was finished.
"Jameson. Come on."
"God, you girls are all the same! You just flirt around when its convenient for you, and then you leave like nothing ever happened."
"Who said I was leaving? Leaving what? I thought we were friends."
"Don't give me that bullshit. You know as well as I do that's not what this was about."
"Jameson. It could never be about that. We're too different. We're... I mean you're... a virgin, you know, and--"
"Damn it!" He swore and stood up. "Take it! I don't want to say that anymore. I'm sorry I even mentioned it. I--"
"That's not what its about."
"Tha'ts ALL its about! That's all the world is about! Its the only motivation for any important action ever made!"
I smiled a little bit. He could be so dramatic.
"Look," he said, "Next chance I get, we're going to get drunk and we're going to fix this little problem of ours."
"--Oh my god! Jameson, chill out. Its not that big of a deal."
"Yes it is." He sat back down. "You just said it is. You want somebody else who'll GIVE it to you."
"You're such an asshole, you know that?"
"Apparently I'm not enough of one. If I were enough of an asshole, you'd think I didn't care. And then YOU'D care."
His reverse psychology actually made logical sense to me. Sadly.
"Jameson, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore if you're going to be like this."
"God. Screw you, you know. Just screw you."
And he got up, with this awful twisted scowl on his face, and walked off toward his car.

I didn't know what to do with that. And I didn't even end up dating the guy Jameson was so mad about. I kept doing the news and Jameson ignored me like nothing had ever happened between us. It was only then that I began hearing what people said about him. They made jokes about how he was such a douche, and how he was so conceited, and they laughed hysterically from inside the sound booth when he asked out my cutesy blonde co-anchor, probably just to spite me. She had a boyfriend. It made Jameson look like an idiot. He didn't flinch though, he just kept his conversation rolling right along. I admired that. Even when the tech kids were imitating him behind me like he was mentally challenged. I knew it was all an act. I felt like I knew him better than he would have admited to anyone else there. I knew why he had to hide behind all that anger and meanness. Deep down, just like everybody else, Jameson was insecure as hell.

Why is it that virtually every problem known to mankind originates in insecurity. Whole wars have been started because of insecure leaders with agendas of greatness. Is it possible that the entire world is made solely of insecure people constantly digging at each other so that they can feel a little better about the wounds they got from OTHER insecure people? Thats some vicious cycle!

"Don't talk to me again," Jameson replied, after I messaged him online about how it felt to be a video journalist.
I never actually did talk to him again. In fact, within minutes, I had forgotten about him entirely.

The Nature of the Game: How the Cops Stole My ID

Some stories don't even need embellishment to be entertaining. Some can be related simply, flat out, across a lunch table, and something inside the listener can still shift with piqued interest.
This is the story of how a police officer ripped off my drivers license.

"Are you aware that this particular location is frequented by drug users and prostitutes?"
"We're not on drugs," Nestor said, his accent forcing a twitch from the cop's mouth.
"And I am NOT a prostitute!" I almost laughed. I would have, if my heart hadn't been beating so fast.

They made us get out of the car. They made Nestor put his hands behind his head. They separated us, then searched the car. One cop asked me various unusually personal questions. Another cop took Nestor over by the third car that had pulled up. They asked if I was married. They asked how well I knew Nestor. They asked why I was so far from home, gesturing to my school badge from when I taught seventh grade. They may have felt they knew me after they saw that.

"We want you to know that you shouldn't come out here at night. For one, its trespassing. For two, its dangerous. This unit has been working this area because we've come up against a lot of drug usage out here. A lot of crime."
"Oh. My god."
"Yeah, believe it. The last thing we want is for you to be made a victim coming out here. Have some guy pop up at your window holding a gun."
"I will never come here again. You will never SEE me again!"
"All right, ma'am, we're just trying to verify the identity of your boyfriend so we can send you guys on with a warning."

Nestor was talking quickly, but his eyes were directed at me. I could hear the cop answer.
"So whats your last name again? Spell it please."

This terrible feeling started coiling, welling up inside me. I felt panicked all of a sudden. What if they took Nestor away? What if it was my fault! What if me cursing repeatedly at the officer's approach was the last thing he'd ever hear me say? And honestly, I thought of Lavery. I thought of March 24th, 2005. I thought of all the pain and bad poetry and the scab that later formed, and that I continued to pick at in the years that followed.

I made an uncomfortable noise. "Is he saying his name is Jonathan? He goes by Jonathan sometimes." I said.

The cop standing next to me walked over to the one talking to Nestor and they chatted. I gave Nestor an anguished look, and I saw him mouth the words I Love You. Logically I knew that couldn't be true. But I felt like my life was overlapping itself. I felt like I was being swallowed up by the same stupid stuff all over again, so I mouthed back Yo Te Amo Tambien, and smiled weakly.

"Hey, did you hear that?"
"What?"
"The radio, did you catch that?"
"Yeah, lets go."

The cop who was hearing things walked over to me quickly and I noticed suddenly that all the other policemen were backing into their cars and shutting their doors.

"Ma'am, listen, we're going to let you go tonight. You need to go home. But if I were you, I wouldn't trust that guy as far as I could throw him. I don't know who you think he is, but we can't seem to get a straight answer out of him. We got enough ID from him to let you guys go, all right. So drive safely, okay?"
"Okay."

Four police cars backed away from us in a carnival of blue lights. I was still standing there when the last one had gone. Nestor was still, too.
"Oh my god." I said.
"We're alive!"
"I know! I was so worried!"
He came and hugged me, hard. Waves of relief were washing over me.
"I knew you were. I could see it in your face." He kissed me.
"That can NEVER happen again, Nestor. We are so stupid!"
"I'm sorry. It was my idea. I'm so sorry."
I let go of him and opened my car door. "Come on, we've got to get out of here before they decide to come back."
"You're in love with me. I can feel it."
"Oh, shut up."

I only realized later that my drivers license was still missing. There had been at least five policemen running around my car. Two different people had asked me Nestor's name and how to spell it. Another two had searched my car with gloves and flashlights. I couldn't even remember which officer had taken my ID, but I remembered it leaving my hands.

"Maybe they wanted you to feel like me." Nestor joked.
I didn't think so.

My mother wanted to kill me for my lateness. She was getting dressed for work when I came in. She delivered a speech of chastisement for approximately 30 minutes before allowing me to pass out for an hour before work. It was stupid.
I kept remembering that face Nestor made at me while he was waiting for the cops to identify him. We didn't want to be taken from each other. We didn't want to be separated. Not now. Not so soon. Not when things were going so well.

"This is the nature of the game, Querida. This may not be the last time."
"We have to try harder, then. We can't let it happen so easily. We have to know better. We need to live the quiet life. Stop living so loudly."

What happened at Lavery would never happen again. I wanted to have broken that spell. I did not ever want to be interrupted and taken from like that, so unexpectedly. After we were told to leave Lavery I never saw Micah again. I never saw him, and I never quite saw myself the same way, either. Of course, those things had nothing to do with Nestor being deported. But the sting, that same sharp stab in my heart, the wound I thought had healed, started throbbing all over again when I thought about it.

So that's how the cops stole my license.
And that's why I can't drink or run red lights for the foreseeable future.

Get the Girl of Your Dreams: 6 Steps

1. Bring flowers
I don't care if its a silk rose from a gas station that smells like motor oil, the gesture is dying and it will make her feel special. Simply because flowers are not given that often anymore, it will, at the least, seem like you don't just give them to anyone. Once your relationship is established, this can be upped to actually sending flowers to her workplace. This is the best place EVER to receive flowers, because it makes every other girl there green with envy. Don't always pick red roses. Going with a different color, or even a different flower, will make you stand out.

2. Tell Her She's Beautiful/Pretty/Gorgeous/Sexy
Don't overdo it, now. Don't push her into that void called Maybe-I'm-Too-Good-For-Him, but make it just so that she hears it at unexpected times. If she really is beautiful, she probably doesn't think so, or hear it enough. And if she is actually hideous, she needs to hear that she's beautiful, at least, to you.

3. Do the Unexpected
You don't have to "figure her out" to get it right. All women love tiny surprises. I'm not talking about embarassing surprises, I'm talking about romantic surprises. In fact, the whole idea behind "romantic surprises" doesn't really have anything to do with "romance" at all. Its all about preparation, and proving that you think about her when she's not around. Get dinner reservations without being asked. Buy the cd she said she wanted when you went shopping last week. Prepare dinner before she gets there and light a candle in the center of the table. Don't go over the top. One candle will do the trick.

4. Listen... and care about it.
If she's really the girl of your dreams, you should be able to stand her bitching about how obnoxious her coworkers are. You should express concern about the things she is concerned about. You should seriously show that you care and pay extreme detail to her emotions. The art of listening, also, is a dying art. Remember that the average guy will be self-absorbed. You, however, are not average. So don't be an average boyfriend.

5. Be Passionate
Touch her! When you aren't telling her she's beautiful, you can show her. Some mature couples have said that they maintain the spark in their relationship because they can't keep their hands off each other. This does not mean that they grope in public. Yet a simple hand on the small of her back as you are led to your table is important. Don't wait for her to reach for your hand. Grab hers. Slip your fingers through her fingers. Reach across dinner tables. Put your hand on her knee when she's next to you. When kissing her, use your hands and touch the sides of her face. Brush the hair out of her eyes. Smooth it behind her ear. You don't even have to be kissing to do that one. Be soft with her. These displays prove that you are not solely concerned with the inside of your pants. They say you are gentle, and you absolutely adore her.

6. Be Real
You don't have to be smooth to pull this off, kids. In fact, its when you are NOT smooth that proves to her you are sincere. It says that you are trying because of her, not because you do this all the time. Girls want to think that, even if its not true. They want to feel like loving them means you want to do things you wouldn't normally do. Thus, some discomfort, along with sincerity, is a GOOD thing. Its cute. Its sweet. Its important. And it will let her know you're serious.

.................
In Closing:

Do NOT stop doing these things when you are officially together, or when you think you've "got" her, or when you're married. The minute you stop is the minute she stops. This is not a game. This could be the rest of your life. So, if you love her, you won't mind going above and beyond, because you'll be rewarded with that light in her smile every time. Don't ever forget that.