Amor de Lejos Amor de Pendejos

Today, we hear from our first cast member — Camilo Almonacid, who plays the role of David in “Midnight Mass” — about where he was on 9/11: 

Two weeks prior, my relationship had reached a point of no return. Elizabeth, then a journalist at Vibe magazine, was insisting I move from Seattle to New York. A three-hour difference can feel more like a ten year difference. But apart from her and the desire to live in real time, I had no other reasons to move to New York. What I wanted to know about the Big Apple; Federico Garcia Lorca had already written in A Poet in New York.

No duerme nadie por el cielo. Nadie, nadie.
No duerme nadie.

And besides I had plenty of Hip Hop CD’s (Talking, Pre MP3 days) to enthrall me with the New York landscapes, and cultural values they don’t tell you about on those double decker bus tours. I was part of a large percentage of the world for whom New York only existed in film, television, recorded music, poetry books, fiction books and graffiti magazines.

 
No, but seriously, the idea of New York filled me with neurosis. I saw myself living the trajectory of a wino lunatic, who stands on a corner and recites fragmented speeches and dances with a carrot stick. I had all kinds of excuses and arguments. My most developed argument for not relocating to New York was the argument of windows. Elizabeth’s room, in a shared house in Brooklyn, had no windows. Not one. No windows? The closest thing to death is sleeping in a room with no windows! Is this how all rooms in New York were? I can’t live in a city with no windows. 

“Take the chance,” she said.  “Just come.”

“Elizabeth, I don’t just do things. Maybe you do. But I think things through, ok.”  (That was me defending myself from the unknown.) I still say and do really stupid things.  Whether or not this constitutes one of those moments, I’m not sure.  All I can say is that the whole matter was handled very civilized, as all “break-ups” should be handled. No hard feelings. Our lesson learned. Amor de Lejos, Amor de Pendejos. (Long distance relationships are for morons.)

I hung up the phone that night not feeling like a moron, but feeling empty, as though I were in room alone, a room that had no windows, no doors, no vents, and no girlfriend.

In the coming weeks, we didn’t speak. The ultimatum of to be a Pendejo or not be a Pendejo was definitely the point of no return. Or the Point. Or the Return?

Still in Seattle, I was inside of a grocery story, a few days later. I happened to pass by the magazine section when I see the most recent edition of Vibe. There, bright on the page was her name. Elizabeth-I-can’t-say-her-last name-Ary. Her article about misogyny in Hip Hop, had been published. I didn’t really read it all the way through. Even though later on I told her that I did. Nonetheless, I was impressed. She exposed some very taboo subject matter about the Hip Hop world. Actually, I was not as much impressed, as I was worried for her safety. I mean, if talk isn’t cheap, then these rappers she exposed for being wife beaters, had already written lyrical confessions of the sardonic shit they are capable of doing if someone ever crosses them. I went to sleep that night imagining a war against my ex girlfriend. That all the indicted rappers formed a battalion to get the wench who accused them of “smakin’ hoes” The city under fire, Elizabeth began to receive death threats in numerous rap albums. That night, I imagined her being chased by Big Pun. A very slow race, in fact. But Elizabeth just couldn’t move her feet fast enough. They were being buried in the concrete, until finally Big Pun caught up to her, smacked her, and put her in his mouth like a whopper. I few more of these similar scenarios and I finally fall asleep.

The next day is a day that changed the course of history, the course of wars, paranoia, absolutism, patriotic-outcries, conspiracy theories. We all know what I’m talking about, right?

I found out when I was helping a woman whose car had broken down in front of my job. The woman say’s “They attacked the Towers!”

They?

“Two planes, They crashed two planes! Oh my God!” The woman had forgotten about her over heated car. Who did it? That’s all I could think about. “Arabs.” Oh no! In that moment, when she said that, I swore I was living in a repeated cycle of history. A repeating moment. “All those people, God Bless them”. Then I snap-

Elizabeth! She works in Manhattan! I have to call her. Call her. I call. The lines are busy. The lines are busy for two days. All I know is what I see and hear on the news. I am saturated with graphic explosions, and hijacked planes, and the vicarious grief of the country. In my eyes the chances are high that something may have happened to her. She worked in the Financial District. No answer. Busy signal. Busy signal.

Finally, Late on September 13^th,  I receive a call. Her voice was new. She said my name. Camilo. I said her name. Elizabeth.

She went into work late that morning, around ten o’clock.  She never made it into Manhattan that day. She said that everyone who was usually an asshole in New York stopped being an asshole that day. She said she missed me. She said she was scared.

That night I told her I was coming to New York. When? Tomorrow.

Yeah, on Sept 13th I decided I wasn’t going to be a pendejo anymore.

28 June 2011 ·

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• New York,
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• New York City
• 9/11
• September 11
• By the Dawn's Early Light