The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart

by R. Zamora Linmark

  The First Days of Forever List

  You forget to set the alarm clock.

  You wake up late on the sunny side of the world.

  Bonjour means “Good morning, mon amour.”

  You call in sick to the universe.

  You forget the public library’s hours of operation.

  You mistake one librarian for another.

  You can’t come up with a name for your book club.

  You rechristen yourself Ken Zoom.

  You talk in your daydreams.

  You start creating what-if scenarios, but all versions end happily.

  “You Light Up My Life” is your new ringtone.

  You surprise the neighborhood with your hidden tenor talent in the shower.

  You can’t—don’t want to—eat.

  It’s okay.

  You can’t—don’t want to—sleep.

  Even better—more time for head rushes and memories.

  You track down the scent of his cologne to the nearest strip mall.

  You ask the salesclerk for a box of samples of it.

  You reek of Eternity eau de toilette.

  Inhale Ran, exhale Ken Z; inhale Ken Z, exhale Ran.

  You invent a hundred body languages.

  No news, good or bad, can wipe the smile off your face.

  For once, you’re staring at sexy in the mirror.

  For once, your confidence is made of steel.

  You thank the angel playing with your heart.

  You wake up for only one reason.

  Your world brakes for the same reason.

  You answer only to one voice.

  His.

  Ran.

  And only his.

  As in Be random

  With me.

  Unless the gods

  Are lying.

  Right now.

  Unless the heart.

  Is pretending.

  Unless.

  Unless.

  DAYDREAMS

  The curve of your lips

  The sigh that completes a kiss

  Ah, the endless Ahs!

  This

  Sunday afternoon, 10 March

  Ran and I are in my room. He’s in his favorite chair and I’m sitting on the edge of my bed.

  “I can’t…live…spring…ache’s…over,” I say.

  “Ken Zan, can you reboot?” he asks, laughing.

  I look at him, puzzled.

  He rolls his chair toward me. “Can you please reboot? Transmission is a little choppy. You keep breaking up.” He plants a wet kiss on my lips before rolling his chair back with a kick.

  “I said I can’t believe spring break is over.” This time, the words rush out, loud and clear, in one breath.

  He looks at his watch. “It’s not yet over. We still got a couple of minutes left.”

  “It’s too darn short,” I say.

  “I’m going to miss driving to you every day, Ken Z.”

  “…” (You can always defect!)

  “This is the best spring break ever,” he says, rolling his chair forward and almost crashing into me. He takes my hands and interlaces his fingers with mine. A perfect clasp. “The best ever.”

  “Mine too.”

  He releases my hands, and with his forefingers, draws circles on my palms.

  “I’m going to keep seeing you until you get tired of me, Ken Z,” he says.

  “Or you get bored of me,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Me get bored of you? Never! Nobody understands me like you do, Ken Z.”

  “I wish summer were here already.”

  “We don’t have to wait for summer. We’ll Zap each other. You tell me how your day went and I’ll do the same. It’ll be as if we spent the day together. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Ken Z—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can we keep this between us?”

  He doesn’t need to explain further. I know exactly what he means. This room, our own private Antarctica, just the two of us, my hand in his, his head on my chest, my heart beating in his ears, his mouth on my neck, his body dreaming beside mine.

  This.

  Us.

  Perfect clasp, perfect moon, perfect kiss. Everything perfect. Even Elroy with his broken flipper.

  “Not even to your friends, okay?” he says. “I know you’re very close to them. But let’s not let anyone in.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.” Not a peep to Estelle and CaZZ about this new and strange happiness. This dizzying and exhilarating and amazing bliss that I have to safeguard from the outside world. So I can continue feeling this unbelievable head rush. This wild silence. This hummingbird heartbeat called Ran & I.

  The One-Sided World

  Sunday evening, 10 March

  Ran has been driving to South Kristol for a week now. In and out of the tunnel. Up and down the island. He doesn’t mind, says, “It’s worth the drive, Ken Z.” But I want to see where he lives too. I want to see where he hangs out, the school he attends, the park he goes to moon-gaze and read and think. I want him to sneak me into his bedroom, in broad daylight. I want to know if his bed is tucked in the corner, away from the sunlight, like mine. I want to see if his desk faces the window, or if his walls are blank or crowded with posters and paintings and maps. I want to see his library, if the books are organized by genre or author’s last name. What about his collection of Oscar Wilde? Are they out in the open or hidden under the bed? I want to lie on his bed, sit in his chair, peek in his closet. I want to be part of his room. The way he’s become a part of mine. I want to know what his world looked like before he entered mine. I want to make some kind of difference, leave an imprint of my face on his pillow. Something that bears a single unit of memory, something that says, “I know, because I remember.”

  RECURRING DILEMMA

  You up north, me down

  South. Between us, soldiers and

  Knuckles of mountains.

  Spiffy

  Sunday night, 10 March

  Sunday is almost over. My mom just got home. I suspect that she suspects that I’m up to something. That’s me and my mom: synchronized suspicious minds.

  Tonight, for example, she stops by my room to check in on me. Before walking away, she smiles lightly and tosses the word spiffy in the air. Spiffy? Me? I think I know what she’s trying to tell me. To be sure, I look it up in Ken Z’s Dictionary of Style. And she’s right. I am fashionable. I am styling. Ken Zoot Suit.

  Minutes later, I hear the soothing voice of Frank Sinatra singing “The Way You Look Tonight” coming from her bedroom. I close my eyes, and through the walls that separate our rooms, I listen as the blue-eyed crooner serenades my mother. In his story-like voice, he tells her that when he’s feeling down, all he has to do is think of her, then he’ll be fine again. I can relate. I do the same thing, too, when my day is ruined by bullies and bad news. I turn my thoughts to the people I care about—my mom, CaZZ, Estelle, and now Ran—and I start to feel better and lighter and grateful for the warm glow they comfort me with.

  SENT SUNDAY 3/10, 7:31 P.M.

  Home from Mt. Pula.

  Lots to tell.

  Zap me.

  SENT SUNDAY 3/10, 8:29 P.M.

  Hello? Are you there?

  It’s just me, your Estelle.

  Nada enchilada.

  SENT SUNDAY 3/10, 9:03 P.M.

  Nine-o-three p.m.

  Still—no Zaps, no texts, nada!

  Where is my haiku?

  SENT SUNDAY 3/10, 10:44 P.M.

  CaZZ is sick—bad cold.

  I thi
nk I’m getting sick too.

  Wanna play hooky?

  Uneventful

  Monday, 11 March

  First day of class. Uneventful. High school life is really boring without CaZZ and Estelle around to bitch about it. CaZZ is down with a bad cold and Estelle decided to play hooky. I should have stayed home myself since all I did was check my phone constantly for Zaps from Ran. None. I already Zapped him four times. I wonder if he’s received any of them. He must have. At least one, for sure. I sent them hours apart from each other. One last night, another this morning, the third during lunch recess, the fourth just a minute ago. But no reply. He probably passed out from exhaustion. He did not leave until way past his bedtime and he had to be in school by six this morning. Poor guy. Hope he made it to class on time and did not get a demerit because of me. But what if—? Nope, I’m not going to entertain questions I don’t have the answers to.

  SENT TUESDAY 3/12, 7:10 A.M.

  Ken Zeeeeee!

  You’re killing me softly

  With your silence.

  SENT TUESDAY 3/12, 3:44 P.M.

  How was school?

  Miss me?

  SOS!

  SENT TUESDAY 3/12, 7:44 P.M.

  What you doing?

  Wanna play staring contest?

  SENT TUESDAY 3/12, 10:01 P.M.

  Save the whales.

  Zap me.

  SENT TUESDAY 3/12, 11:15 P.M.

  RIP: Estelle and Ken Z.

  Just kidding.

  Ken Zapless

  Tuesday, 12 March

  I did good today. I never knew I had the power to control myself. I only Zapped Ran six times over a span of twelve hours. Not bad, considering he hasn’t sent me a single Zap! I hope he doesn’t think I’m needy—or worse! Maybe that’s why he’s no longer responding. Maybe he only saw me as a spring break friend, someone to hang out with for a week, then adios, amigo. But what if he never made it back home Sunday night? What if he got into a major accident and is now fighting for his life in a trauma unit? Or worse: What if he was a bunburyist who found the perfect victim in me? But what if I’m building a tower of anxieties for nothing? What am I doing? I’ve got better things to worry about. Like my unfinished lists and haikus and Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis to read and names to come up with for the book club and more beautiful memories and uncertainties to look forward to.

  Gutter and Stars

  Wednesday afternoon, 13 March

  South Kristol High School library. CaZZ’s and Estelle’s first day back at school after missing classes for two days because of a head cold (CaZZ) and laziness (Estelle). The last time we were together was over a week ago, right before they were about to go camping on Mount Pula with CaZZ’s grandfather and brothers.

  “Imagine, Ken Z, five days without a phone?” CaZZ says, her dramatic eyes beaming at me. “It was like living in the dark ages of the ’90s.”

  I shake my head. That’s all I can do. Thoughts of Ran keep derailing me from enjoying myself with Estelle and CaZZ. I don’t see them in over a week, and now that we’re all in the same room, my mind is on him, worrying about him. If only he’d Zap and let me know that he’s okay, then I, too, can go back to being okay.

  “We gave a new meaning to the word wireless,” Estelle continues.

  “It was just us, nature, and Pula,” CaZZ says, referring to the goddess of volcanoes who gave birth to the island millions of years ago, way before outsiders came and stole it from her people. First the explorers, then the missionaries, then superpower countries purporting to be allies.

  “I thought I would go cray-cray up there,” Estelle says.

  “But she ended up loving it,” CaZZ remarks.

  “Every minute of it,” Estelle says. “I didn’t know I was a closeted nature freak, Ken Z.”

  “I didn’t know either,” I say, trying to stay focused.

  “Of course, we could’ve easily walked down to the reservation if we were so desperate,” CaZZ says.

  “But what for?” Estelle asks.

  And CaZZ answers with: “So we can be reminded that we live in a violent, pro-apocalyptic, hopeless, senseless, culturally insensitive, homophobic, misogynistic, environmentally unconscious, fake-news-driven, doomed-from-the-very-start world?”

  That’s CaZZ. Once she gets started, there’s no stopping her adjectives.

  “Amen to that, sister,” Estelle says.

  They high-five each other.

  It’s good to see them again. They almost make me forget about Ran.

  CaZZ and Estelle.

  Different as sun and moon, yet they depend on each other to finish each other’s sentences, complete each other’s thoughts.

  Like Siamese twins separated at birth.

  Then reunited under third-world conditions.

  And when they tell a story, they take turns supplying the details. It’s like watching a tennis match, my head moving back and forth from one storyteller to the other.

  “I loved being up there, Ken Z,” Estelle continues. “It was so calm—”

  “So serene,” CaZZ jumps in.

  “I almost forgot I was in the island of tropical depression,” Estelle concludes.

  “It’s a very special place in my heart,” CaZZ says.

  “Very mystical,” Estelle says, “like you’re communing with a great force.”

  “Because you are,” CaZZ asserts.

  “I still can’t believe it—a week without your smartphones,” I say.

  “It was hell in the beginning—the withdrawal,” CaZZ says. “That’s how addicted we were to these gadgets.”

  “Practically slaves to apps and up-and-downloads,” Estelle says.

  “You’re lucky you don’t have this problem, Ken Z,” CaZZ says.

  “Yeah, Ken Z,” Estelle seconds.

  Ha! If only they knew how, in one night, I went from anti-apps to a Zap junkie!

  “Yoga helped a lot,” Estelle says.

  “You? Yoga? Really?” I can picture CaZZ doing warrior poses atop Mount Pula. But Estelle? No way. She’s more the adrenaline-pumping kickboxing type. She’d rather karate-chop a bully than be caught dead lying on her back with her eyes closed, lifeless as a corpse. But Estelle is nodding her head and looking at me wide-eyed, like she can’t believe it either.

  Estelle and CaZZ then go on to describe what their day was like up in the sacred mountain. In the morning, they went for a hike, then swam in the clear pool at the bottom of Pula Falls. After lunch, which consisted of fresh fruits and vegetables that came from CaZZ’s grandfather’s farm, they napped or read Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales in their tent. Dinner was usually grilled vegetables and barbecue chicken.

  “At night, we gathered around a campfire and CaZZ’s grandfather told us stories,” Estelle says. These were myths and legends that, according to CaZZ, the native Pulas had preserved and passed down generation after generation through the art of remembering.

  CaZZ’s grandfather is one of the remaining natives who are one hundred percent pure-blooded Pula. Most of the Pulas have intermarried with other races who’d settled in the islands—missionaries from Europe, plantation owners from North America, laborers from Asia and Portugal and Latin America, immigrants from Africa and Central America. CaZZ and her brothers are mixed; you wouldn’t be able to tell what they are or where they came from just by appearance alone. CaZZ is dark-skinned, but the color of her eyes is sometimes ocean green, sometimes blue, while both of her brothers have fair complexions and slanted blue eyes. Looks aside, they identify as one hundred percent native Pula.

  “On our last night, CaZZ’s grandfather did a chant,” Estelle says. “Oh, my God, Ken Z, it was so hauntingly beautiful. Definitely the highlight of my trip.”

  I ask them about the chant.

  “It was about
the volcanic goddess Pula losing one of her children,” CaZZ replies. “Her grief was so powerful that, from the bottom of the sea, she erupted for millions and millions of years. That’s how this island came to be.”

  “Out of rage,” I say.

  “And grief,” Estelle adds.

  The chant reminds me of CaZZ and the time she lost her grandmother, less than a year ago. CaZZ was still recovering from the beating that almost killed her, when her grandmother suffered a heart attack and died. She was the rose that bloomed beneath CaZZ’s wounds and sadness, the suit of armor that protected her from hurting herself whenever the bullying got unbearable. So when she died, we were afraid that CaZZ would do something crazy. But instead she grew tougher, more defiant. It was as if her grandmother had taken all of CaZZ’s weaknesses to her grave and replaced them with the spirit of an ancient Pula warrior, for the Pulas were known as the warriors of the Pacific.

  “Grief can do that to you, Ken Z,” I remember CaZZ telling me. “It can crush you to pieces, then bring out the strength you never thought you had.”

  I turn to CaZZ, shrouded in silence. Usually she’s the one who attracts the spotlight, doing most of the talking and leading. She says she can’t help it. It’s the Aries in her, the fire that comes with being a ram. Always ablaze, always taking charge.

  But sometimes she gets very quiet, reflective. Like now. That’s her listening and thinking and honoring her grandmother’s spirit and the spirits of her ancestors and their goddess Pula. And preserving their memories through chants and stories.

  “Oh, guess who we saw at the protest rally?” Estelle says.

  “What rally?” I ask.

  “You mean you don’t know, Mister Walking Quickiepedia?” Estelle says, feigning shock.