Mi vida loca

Lately I’ve been hanging out with an angel.

I met him in a party, one of those where you cannot tell who’s a he or who’s a she: everybody with long hair. But there he was, standing out somehow, with his shoulder-length black hair.

It was one of those nights when your head was full of worries and things to forget, when you just grasp the first glass, and then the second, and the third and the… tenth? And suddenly your head is just not there with you anymore. Then is when you see him; you don’t know where he came from, you’ve never seen him around before… But there he is! And he looks at you, and he smiles at you and… Suddenly somebody pokes you and you remember you came with somebody else! Is not that I was really thinking of dating this person that came with me or anything else, but as he paid dinner I thought I should pay at least some attention to whatever he had to say. And so I lost my angel in a sea of smoke.

Later on, we moved to another party. Another friend of mine joined us and the guy I came with just happened to like her more… So there was I: no angel and no friend… and as crappy and sad the situation may seem, my friend Jack was there with me, so I really couldn’t care less. I just kept on drinking and drinking, and answering all the crap people would ask me (sometimes it’s annoying being a gaijin!).

Eventually we moved back to the place we were before. My friends were already kissing in the taxi, which made me realize how depressing my situation really was. However, this didn’t really affect me because, when we got to the bar where we started the night, there my angel was! White t-shirt, black leather pants.

I don’t know why but that night I didn’t feel brave enough so as to approach nobody, so I didn’t even approach him. I just sat down next to the bar and asked for another drink. Then I saw my angel leave… He waved goodbye to me, but didn’t come close enough to talk. “There my angel goes”, I thought. My angel with evil smile, that makes even my bones melt. When you lose and angel and then you find him again and you let it go once more… you just don’t hope to meet him again. So I just looked back at my drink and resigned myself to the idea.

Then these guys started talking to me (by the way, just in case somebody is curious about, all this time my friends are just standing at the bar, completely wasted). They were really drunk, but still I guess they could guess the pitiful situation I was in. One of them was a gaijin like me and the other one Japanese. The gaijin is the most wasted of the three, so I and the Japanese guy just keep on ignoring him. The Japanese guy asks me the usual questions and, after a appropriately long conversation, he invites me to go to karaoke. “Why not?” I say, and there I am: on my way to some karaoke somewhere with a complete stranger… so typical of me!

To my surprise, there is a bunch of people waiting for this guy at the karaoke. Eventually I found out I am in an after-wedding-party karaoke! I guess if I hadn’t been so drunk I would have felt hell embarrassed, but in my state… I just couldn’t care less.

However, that was not the only surprise… There was I, talking to all the people, introducing myself and answering for umpteenth time that night the same usual questions people ask a gaijin, when suddenly I spot a familiar face in the crowd. He was as surprised as me and came to talk to me: “what are you doing here???”. My angel’s voice was sweetest than the sweetest of the voices. I just don’t know what I told him, all I could focus on was his voice, his eyes, his smile… Then everybody moved to the elevator and to the karaoke room.

Again, as I came with another guy, I left my angel and followed the guy. I enter the room and sit next to him, to my other side another guy. My angel enters the room, spots me, and manages to reach the spot where I’m sitting. Moving the other guy away, he sits right next to me and starts talking to me. Again the same usual questions, but this time I am more than pleased to answer them. He looks like a gaijin too, or at least half, but no: he is 100% Japanese. We talk and talk while everybody else sings. They make me sing too, and I sing. My angel sings too: the song I picked for him. Now I know what “música celestial” is.

The night went on and the morning came. 8 am: time to leave the karaoke. I already exchanged numbers with my angel, so this time, when I lost him in the group, I was not worried anymore: I could contact him and meet him another day! It was a rainy morning and thinking about the hour by train waiting for me made me very tired, so I just said goodbye to everyone. When I opened my umbrella and was ready to leave, once more my angel appears from nowhere, saying: “I’ll take her to the station”. My heart smiled.