A mistake and a premintion

Its 4:30 am, we just finished a group singing rendition of the Fugees killing me softly, got yelled at by neighbors, and decided it was time to "relax" on our porch, smoking cigarettes and the like. Passing around an amulet, we basked in the moons glory and told of times past.

And just then Steven proclaims, "ew whens the last time this water was cleaned" and he begins to screw off the amulets top piece. As he does, much to his dismay, his fingers slip and the piece falls onto the balcony below, which just happens to be a childrens daycare center. Forget the good stuff, we get yelled at when the wind blows an occasional butt down there.

Without skipping a beat Steven says, "oh, damn. Dont worry, I had a dream about this last night," goes inside and pulls out a step ladder and hands it to me.

"Lets see if it'll reach"

so we lower it down, and were a good three and a half feet short.

"Get my bedsheet, were going medieval!" orders Roberto and I dash into the bedroom and retrieve a blue bedsheet. With the utmost precision and care (equivalent to that of a four year old) we tie the most complicated double knot the world has ever seen.

Lowering down the ladder is not as easy as it seemed to be. We had to dodge three laundry lines, the side of our porch (which we kept clanging the ladder into, making our operation oh-so-not-incognito) and then there was the question of opening it up into its full breadth without:

1. breaking our fingers
2. dropping the ladder
3. waking up the neighbors, whom were already awoken by a faint chant of, "strumming my pain with his with my fingers, singing my life in his words......."

nevertheless, we got the job done. With the ladder in place and its lifeline (bedsheet) attaching it to us, we could abort the mission at any moment. But it was now a question of who.

My dear friend Hassan, stepped foward and in his most characteristic Californian non-nonchalance said, "yo man, im the smallest one here, I weigh 130 fucking pounds man, I'm going down"

Mind you, Hassan had just poured himself close to three full inches of some "fine" (7.50 euro bottle of) vodka into his glass con zumo, and he was pretty loose, judging by his break-dancing and cartwheel stints earlier in the night.

But, there was a task at hand, and we had a ready and willing volunteer. I took his drink from him, he pulled up his jeans and readied himself to hop over the railing when he was stopped by Joshua, who very confidently and oh-so-soberly said, "No Hassan your not going over"

"its fine man, seriously"

"no hassan really"

"dude, im going"

"no Hassan"

"fuck you"

and in a feat of calisthenic perfection Hassan hopped over the railing in one fell swoop. He then (i really have no idea how) shimmied his body down the spindles until his elbows were supporting his dangling feet, frantically searching for the ladder, which was haphazardly placed too far away for his feet to reach, so he JUMPED!

the .3 seconds of his descent went by like shutters in a broken projector in the school classroom i was never in in the 1970s.

but he landed with the finesse of a cat- scratch that, a panther; a devious predator on the loose, he combed the tile patio, but he was blind in the dark

"yo, somebody give me some light, or my cell phone, i don't know where it is"

of course it was in my hand. 'hassan!!' i yelled and immediately got his attention and turned on the blinding flashlight all of the pre paid phones here have (a great invention, but more on that later) and threw it down to him with only one warm-up fake throw.

With his hands raised he saw the blinding light and it hit the crook of his neck with the grotesque sound of flat plastic hitting flesh.

'ooooooohhhh' we all yelled, followed by the flashes of someones camera (so much for the clandestine rescue) and the annoyance of an abundance of ssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh' s

but there was a problem: Hasaan couldnt find the top-piece.

'top right!'

'no its not there, its just dirt'

'fuck'

then just in that instant i saw a little black dot at the bottom right hand corner of the patio, being that Hus had looked everywhere else, this was our only hope, summoning courage from within I bellowed to my brethren below

"Bottom right hus, right here dude"

success!

'alright put it in your pocket and get the fuck up here!'

with the finesse of a tai chi master he climbed up the sketchy ladder and standing on its platform he extended his hands upwards to us. Just like in the movies we grabbed his arms as he braced our own and we pulled him up. the celebrating began prematurely, as once he was on his feet (on the wrong side of the railing) we started to jump with joy and grab him, to which he replied,

"get the fuck off me, seriously guys im fine, get the fuck off me"

as soon as we removed our embrace, he hopped over the railing and was home-safe.

teamwork, dedication, commitment, and fulfillment.





Jose Santa Anna Maria Luiz