The Trip to the Moon

Ira stood in the corner with me, her foil space hat cocked backwards resting on the ball of her head. The NASA that I had drawn on the foil was beginning to wear out and the foil was beginning to crack. My space hat was still on my head but had changed form, from a pointy dunce-like cap to some kind of weird blunt object now that sat precariously on my forehead. The ‘I heart science’ that I had drawn on my hat was illegible. Things were yellow and warm. There was a constant sweaty milk on all of our faces, due to the overwhelmingly swampy night. Ira’s face sparkled with this milk as I tried to calm her down, telling her that our friend Pepe was fine. A blond haired American woman casually made her way over to ask us about our hats. She was bursting with curiosity.

“What are the hats for guys? Are you gonna like stab someone with them in the heart?”

“No. Why would we do something like that?” I asked her. Her attempt at humor failed to put a smile on my face. She was trying to relate, but at this point, it was impossible. There was a very thin unbroken meniscus of sanity still, and with each of the girl’s questions, the membrane grew weaker. The meniscus had broken for Ira already, and one false step was all I needed to step into the great abyss of momentary confusion. I knew there was no possible way to relate to this blond woman what we had done and why we were wearing these space hats. The definition of insanity—when you can’t relate to a sane person anymore—crossed my mind.

But this girl wasn’t sane at all. After all, she was talking about stabbing someone at this party in the heart with my space hat.

“I mean, come on, why are you wearing these hats? What’s the story?” She continued interrogating me.

“Well, we went to the moon. And now we’re back.” I said as I looked at Pepe who was laughing and with a spouted pail watering all the plants that lined the courtyard. Those aren’t his plants, I thought, why would he be watering them? Maybe Ira is right. Maybe Pepe is losing his mind.

“You went to the moon.” The blond American woman said. I think she was angry by my response.

“Yeah. We built a spaceship.” I said. “Out of space material.”

“Okay. So you built a spaceship.” She was definitely aggravated. I think she expected a wittier response, and normally I could have delivered one, but my wit was overcome with lysergic acid and the only thing that remained of it was my blank stare that was directed at Pepe watering the plants.

It was better Ira couldn’t understand this woman’s questions. It would have confused her.

I didn’t tell this woman that the day before Ira and I had scoured the dumpsters of Buenos Aires like Cartoneros searching for cardboard and anything that resembled technology in order to transform Ira's bed into a makeshift spaceship. Most of my friends hadn’t understood; they just appreciated my insistence of the idea for its comical appeal. They thought, Haha, Zach, a spaceship.

After we came up with the idea, it had quickly spun out of control. In no time, Ira and I had a pile of trash on her floor and bunch of folded cardboard boxes stacked . But it wasn’t then, when we had started to cut the windows out of the cardboard or when we built the engine out of a broken floor fan and the frame of an umbrella, that I wondered why we were building a spaceship. When we ate the LSD, which we euphemistically referred to as combustible, I felt confident and I ignored the anticipating butterflies that had been flying around in my stomach the whole day. Our choreographed disco dance to the galactic funk version of the Star Wars Theme put me at ease and in the right mood before our journey. The next few hours followed peacefully and the world turned yellow and the heat caught me paralyzed.

When I entered the party with my friends, who eyes were lit like green and blue globes, I was wearing my space hat that was covered with aluminum foil and made from an empty cardboard cone that still had grease marks from the French fries I had eaten from it. With the cold eyes of my expatriated colleagues who comprised most of the guests of the party, I asked myself for the first time what we were doing. I felt like some kind of poor pseudo-Timothy Leary who was delivering his band of drugged out misfits into the mayhem and chaos of the outside world. The only difference was: Timothy Leary was a Harvard Professor with some kind of existential purpose. I was just skinny and confused.

What would my old friends think of me right now? What would my parents think? What did this strange occurrence, the spaceship, these space hats, the unwanted glares from the drunken people at this party have to do with my life as a whole? Why did I spend a day building a spaceship out of cardboard boxes? And why was Pepe watering the plants?

I had come far now, in this exact moment, away from the world that I had come from. I hadn’t felt farther from home, from the sane pulse of existence, than at any other moment in my entire year and a half journey. The expatriate community, the ones throwing the party, had accepted me into their world of escapees and fleers. We had all identified and respected each other. We all saw a bit of ourselves in each other. We were the ones who had to try something else, the dreamers, the makers, the shakers, and the escapers. I felt, in this expatriate party, that I was at some end of this escapist extreme and those that had accepted me, now were looking at me in complete confusion.

I have no conclusion. The spaceship was a spaceship. Did we make it for fun? To have some kind of funny purpose to use drugs? Yes and yes. Was there something more to the spaceship besides a few cardboard boxes with the NASA logo drawn on them? Yes. I chose to do something funny and maybe a bit extreme that put me somewhere outside of conventional understanding. Maybe it was something artistic--it was creation. Along with the celestial craft, there was a celestial state of being that was created alongside of it that we all participated in for the night.

I don't know what this is, my life. I don't know where my life exists within the conventional hierarchy of well-being. It took the construction of the Nave Espacial to really consider this, to realize that constructing a spaceship out of cardboard isn't what other twenty seven year olds do. I am escaping a certain reality that would exist for me in the states, a certain middle-ness. I could be finding my place in the middle, and with my intelligence, I could be a successful middle-est, like my parents and their parents.

Is it living outside my country that gives me the feeling that I have some how escaped the middle-ness? I should be happy the middle still awaits because at least its not the bottom. And if my childhood friends, the attorney and the dentist, are finding themselves on the higher side of this hierarchy of well-being, where does that put me--building spaceships and taking drugs?

I guess that's a spaceship. All rules are off when you break the stratosphere.

La Construcción de la Nave Espacial

Construction began furiously without a screw unaccounted for on Friday afternoon. My first mate, Iratxe, and I scoured the streets of Buenos Aires for space materials. Our search proved fruitful and with the right construction materials in hand it looked as though we were on our way to space.

We had gathered:

2 cables (2 Cables)

4 Tubos (4 Tubes)

1 Caja de jugo de naranja (1 empty box of orange juice, large)

5 Trazitos de aluminio de chocolatina ( 5 little pieces of aluminum from chocolate, small)

2 trazos de alambre (Don’t know what this is)

2 trazos de alumino (2 pieces of aluminum foil, large)

2 Conos de sombreros para el espacio (2 cones for space hats)

10 metros de cinta VHS (10 meters of tape from a VHS)
1 lampara rota (1 broken fluorescent light fixture)

1 panel de arma (1 panel from a broken security system

1 trazo de tecnologia importante (1 important piece of space technology)

1 motor de ventilador ( 1 motor from a broken floor fan)

2 trazos de stryofoam (2 stryofoam rings used for packaging something round)

2 pares de palillos chinos (2 pairs of chopsticks)

1 mongo paraguas (1 frame from an umbrella)

1 controlador de television (1 TV controller)

1 bomba explotada (an Exploded piece of plastic) --the power source--

1 caja con una imagen de telescopio (1 box with the image of a telescope

1 serpentina (I don’t know what this is)

I arranged the space materials on the floor of the construction zone:

The basic structure was built out of mostly titanium carbon alloy and other space-age materials.

These are pictures of space technician Iratxe molding a space window.

This is a picture of the cockpit. I'm setting buttons to go to outer space.

This is a picture of the engine. It's hooked to a small nuclear reactor. Those are space clothes in the background.

This is a picture of the main frame computer. It has a mind link.

The Spaceship was ready to fly. We just needed fuel.

NAVE ESPACIAL

The summer swamp heat flows in from the contaminated river as the speed and volume of English courses slow to a turtle-pace. Broken hearts hang from the telephone and electricity wires that connect the buildings of this never-ending metropolis. The loud screeching busses and the crowded subways capture the heat, forcing it inside and around me, and a slow push has begun that is out of my control. The city has used me, finished with me, and wants me out.

Many would think that an airplane flight back to Orlando, my supposed home, would be the most logical and easy method of return. I thought long and hard about the rapidity, the strength of those turbine jet engines turning at a furious pace, the loud noises, the turbulence, nine hours in exchange for a year and a half journey, the screeching tires as they landed on the green plains of my homeland, and Mickey Mouse holding a sign that said, ‘Welcome home, Mr Watson. We’ve been waiting to capture you.

“Now.” Mickey would say in his shrill voice. “This broken economy has nothing to offer you, except maybe to work as a waiter, but don’t expect to make as much as you did before, after all, there’s a recession. Don’t worry, you’ll be a peon again; no one will understand you; and the Buddha doesn’t exist. I exist. M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. The nation has continued without you for the last year and a half. So fuck you.”

In place of this hopeless fate, I have decided to construct a spacecraft, using state-of-the-art construction methods designed by NASA. I have begun collecting various advanced materials from broken down alien spacecraft that I’ve come across in the streets. I’m not sure whether they are actually spacecraft or just dumpsters full of cardboard and wires.

I figure I will need to cover the outside of this spacecraft with mirrors to protect myself and the other passengers from the sun once we breakthrough the stratosphere. Once we have entered the earth’s orbit, I will fire the rocket engines that will boost us out into open space. Once we are in deep space, the moon’s gravitational pull will grab us, doing most of the work. By using my advanced piloting skills, I will slowly lower the homemade craft down and onto the surface of the moon.

I have decided to use lysergic acid diethylamide diluted with ethanol as our primary fuel base. As far as I can see, it’s the only fuel strong enough to take us to the moon and back.

It’s time to begin my metaphysical journey home.

All I can think about are Indians. Indians with painted faces and feathers and moccasins and big ridged noses. "How!" is their greeting. They always sit on the ground with their legs crossed. They also eat with their fingers and smoke long wooden pipes. "Aw wa wa wa!" They say this too when they are high on peyote possessed by the flames of big fire.

Indians gave the Pilgrims corn and turkey. The Pilgrims gave them Jesus Christ.

In Spanish they call Thanksgiving El dia de Accion de Gracias. I think of that action, that grand feast of thanks to God, with the corn bread, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and big wet Turkey dripping with grease straight from the oven. We eat like pigs to thank God or is it to thank Indians? But why would we eat like gluttons to thank Indians? They didn't give us anything that wasn't already rightfully ours. Right? No, I guess they gave us corn. Oh and Casinos in places where we can't legally gamble. So corn and casinos.

And God, he gave us the great land of liberty. The home of the free and brave. Purple mountain majesties. Slavery, but also Abraham Lincoln. Segregation, but also Martin Luther King. The New York Yankees. Microsoft. Wal-Mart. Kraft.

So Happy Thanksgiving.

Tres Duraznos por un Beso

Con una cara hecho de cuero, ojos que brillaba como

La chispa de una bomba, hombros músculosos fuertes como el toro, el olor de perfuma barata, y manos secos

el hombre que vende frutas en la calle Brasil sonrió.

Tenía todos tipos de verduras y todos tipos de frutas

que estaban común en este calle. Manzanas rojas y verdes, brócoli, morrones rojas y verdes, pimientos picantes y duraznos.

“A cuanto salen los duraznos?” Dije.

“Tres por un beso.” Dijo el hombre con la sonrisa de dientes.

“Tres por un peso? Que barato!”

“No. Tres por un beso.”

“No es tan barato.”

Se relamió por algo sabroso y dijo “¡ven aquí y deja que te dé un beso!”

Acerqué el hombre y podía oler el aliento de chorizo, ver los pelos cubierto con cera natural, y ya probar sus labios secos.

Nunca he besado un hombre antes.

Cuando nuestras labias se tocaron, sus labias secas

y mis labias jóvenes, yo estaba un prostituta. Con cada rithmo del lengua, sentí cada durazno. Tres lenguas por tres duraznos.

Por lo menos, eran besos, no pajas.

For those people remembering 9/11 today, the people who will never forget, what are you not forgetting? I think we all need to ask ourselves that question.

First, of course, we need not to forgot the innocent people who were killed in the event and the people who died trying to save them. It was tragic. In addition to honoring the memory of our fallen brothers, we need to try to remember a little bit further, not just what we consciously thought, but how we felt, the reasons that we felt this way, and what happened next.

As I conjure up these ten year old memories now, what I remember most vividly were two airplanes hitting the twin towers and this image being repeatedly driven into my brain. There is no way I will ever be able to forget that image because I saw it thousands and thousands of times, so I believe it's a little redundant to say we'll never forget. Of course, we won't.

I remember people jumping out of windows. I remember being scared shitless and vulnerable. I was 17 and it was the first time that I realized that this illusion of living in the strongest country in the world was, in fact just that, an illusion . And this feeling of superiority that was ingrained for years by my parents, by my media, by my schooling was wiped away.

9/11 aroused our dormant patriotism, yes, which I believe is what you are remembering, too, a feeling of nostalgia for a oneness, a nation coming together over the most horrific thing we had ever seen in our lives. We didn't know what else to do. We had to rely on each other because we were so shitting scared. And it felt good.

But do you remember what that patriotism led to? Do you remember how our government used that patriotism? Two wars that are still being fought today and many more lives, including Americans, lost, all at the expense of the American taxpayer, don't forget, while making a few war profiteers richer.

And who was this enemy? This Osama Bin Laden. This terrorist? Did he really exist anywhere tangible or just on the evening news when they would show clips of someone we were told was our enemy who said evil things, or so we were told on some indescriptive scroll on the bottom of the TV screen. We salivated at the Hate and at our Goldstein, the enemy to our ways, to the beautiful American way of freedom. And when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, we cheered because it was the only way we could fill the emptiness that was left by 9/11. We had to regain that superiority that we lost. And we trusted our government; we had to. We all shared an enemy.

It was a year before Osama Bin Ladin came out and laid claim for the attacks. But to us without a doubt it was him, and we knew this a short time later. Isn't that weird? I don't remember waiting a year wondering who did it.

And the word terrorist, now that, is a strong word, though extremely loose in its application. What happens when the government starts doing something that's legitimately wrong and you want to fight against it?

So will it make us terrorists if we demonstrate a true concern, whenever the time may arise? In their eyes, maybe it will, the discretion of the U.S. government is a funny thing.

I don't know whether today we are on a yellow defcon flag of terror alert 7 because I am not there. And it's taken me a few years standing outside of my homeland to realize fully how ridiculous it all really is. But it's a good country and we need to keep it that way. As good warm blooded Americans it is our responsibility to pose these questions to ourselves, question the environment that surrounds us, and fuck our girlfriends with our boners. Because if we don't do that, then we are not informed, and a public that doesn't question, is a public that is taken advantage of. Just keep a boner for your girlfriends and for America. Just make sure you know why you have a boner.

I had this thought after drinking cheap wine and beer…last night…

What do I know? Or think I know.

First things first. My body.

My body is made up of bones, blood, tissues, and organs. They are made up of cells. The cells are made up of things that I learned in my ninth grade biology class like the mitochondria and the nucleus. These cells contain my DNA, Deoxyribonucleic acid. This is something that makes my external features like my nose and my decently sized nostrils. DNA is also called genes, not like blue jeans like I thought before I turned nine. These genes decide the color of eyes and the size of ears. But they don’t look like eyes and ears. They're too small to be seen by eyeballs alone. Genes come from your parents. And for that reason, when you see someone with big ears and pink eyes, feel free to laugh, but please, blame the parents for fornicating and creating monsters.

I have genes. Like the hair falling out gene. Some day I will pass this unfortunate gene down to my children. I don’t know if I want children, but it’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re also supposed to get married

So the smallest unit is the cell, but what is a cell made out of, I guess atoms. Atoms have nuclei too. Atoms are protons, neutrons, and electrons, and they float around each other in some way or another. So is there anything smaller than that? Is the universe as infinitely small as it is large?

I have toes and fingers. Sometimes I put my toes in socks and then into shoes. I put my fingers in all types of places, too. My favorite place to put my fingers is in a pussy. Pussies are warm. They feel good. I know that pussies feel good and are warm. I don’t have a pussy though, I just like them. I have a penis, which sometimes I put into pussies too. It’s better to have a penis than to have a pussy. Because penises are more than pussies, in a matter of substance. They are long and can be seen easier. They go in. Pussies get penetrated. I put, not receive. It really is a power thing.

I also have a heart. This heart pumps blood through my body, to all the different places that there are in the body like arms and legs and heads (and my penis when I see T&A). My heart also feels sad and love. My heart makes me feel bad for starving people in Africa, but not enough to do anything about it. My head stops such ideas. My heart also makes me feel love towards women that let me put my fingers in their pussies. Sometimes that’s bad. But sometimes it’s good.

My head makes me “think.” It makes me say jokes and other funny types of things. It also allows me to make ideas and try to make sense of the world around me. My head makes me understand when I am being lied to. But sometimes it takes a lot of “thinking” to realize that I am being lied to.

I realize, because of my head, that I am made of atoms, maybe something smaller, and that I know that I like to put my fingers in pussies. It sends signals to my fingertips and then my fingertips touch this keyboard, which more and more seems to be becoming another part of my body.