Confused-Shoes

I had ten thousand pesos in my pockets. My guy bestfriend and my girl bestfriend (which happen to be my parents) each gave me one half of the total sum I had with me as, for what else, December money. Besides, I’ve got some work and all the salary is for myself, if I dare chose to be a little selfish. So, those clarify the whole issue: I didn’t have to commit a crime to have such a fat wallet around this time of year.

Not being rich, I felt that what I had with me was quite a useful amount. I could spend it any way I like, perhaps entirely for myself, or perhaps, for someone else (who would have to be really special), or for whatever. Thoughts like these give me a bloated feeling in the head.

Sunday, I went out with my family to the nearest big mall from our place. As usual (what we’ve done religiously for almost ever since I was born, at least as I can remember) we had some sort of dinner (since mama hates to cook on Sunday evenings), strolled around, saw a few acquaintances doing the same, and actually enjoyed the lengthened shopping hours that are a Christmas-season necessity. So just then naturally there occurred in me the demon urging me to spend. That is when I started getting this depression.

You see, I figured, I could buy many things for myself, if I were wise and gratuitous at the same time. Yuletide gifts and presents excluded, I simply had much money for myself to spare. So around 9 pm I disengaged myself from the family stroll (just after we had a chat with the family of this girl I had a crush on) and went by myself around certain places. Bear with me.

I thought, hey, maybe I could buy a new pair of sneakers, so I checked the Lebron James poster-clad store out. But nothing fancy caught my fancy. Was I growing old, and these shox and air maxes no longer stir Jordan-esque fantasies in me? Oh well, my money and youth intact (still), I walked out the store, feeling proud that my soiled, battle-tested high-cut canvas Chuck Taylors were the comfiest ever sneakers for a kid like me to wear.

Next up: maybe I could replace my year-old Kenneth Cole with something sazzier, like the cheapest Swiss chronographs I could find? Well, well, I did go to some watch seller. Funny. For a moment I had delusions of purchasing an Oris or an Omega or even a Breguet right then and there. Haha, madmen have delusions. Kids fantasize. But my money wouldn’t take me anywhere, especially for something of Swiss descent. Besides, buying a watch while I still have nice ones right now would seem too much of caprice, wouldn’t it?

Many things came to mind as I walked on: new T-shirts (atttaboy, I could use some), new shirts and slacks (the people at the office might notice, the girl behind my desk might even let drop a compliment), new leather shoes (c’mon), new other things. Or I could spend on books (pity my bookcase – it might collapse anytime) or splurge on Cd’s (I still have not yet bought that 2-cd best of Miles Davis/Jim Coltrane). The list went on. The list goes on, only, I couldn’t really seem to manage to pick one thing to purchase from that. Talk about a pretty useless catalogue.

I went home in a state of trauma.

Cigarette after cigarette, and a little J&B in a freebie Jose Cuervo shot glass, with Oishi to boot, I watched Sergio Leone’s 3-hour plus epic Once Upon a Time in America. It was almost 2 am, and I was infatuated with the Noodles – Deborah love affair. Then I went to bed.

In the cold and dark of my room I raised my right hand as I lay flat on my back on my almost spineless bed. I felt like I was on speedball and coccaine, contemplating the vastness of my universe with my right hand outstretched, my eyes closely watching as my fingers cut through the moonlight-stricken dark haven. I pictured myself in prison, sentenced to lifetime imprisonment, like I have committed murder or something. Would my mother bring me cigarettes whenever she visits? I would down about five packs of Marlboro reds every day (assuming no inmates would hustle from me) so I would die of emphysema or cancer and I wouldn’t have to wretchedly spend every day of my sentence, rotting, sex-deprived, agonizingly thin, stricken with every imaginable skin disease. But that was pure stupidity, I reckoned. I would just be punishing myself more, for I might die of cancer very, very slowly, I living corpse of such an intelligent once inhabitant of St. John Street.

I have my money intact. But my mind was lost. In the darkness, brooding. A fellowship with other confused souls.

But I do remember, I said hi to her and her entire family later in the evening. She just smiled back, and I had a conversation with her equally beautiful older sister. Those are the things, or events, that money can’t ever buy/

Of course, now, it could. I thought. Trauma, this is.