Drunk out of their minds, these two. We’re all in line for cabs at four in the morning outside this big fancy resort and they stand out not only because they are very fucked up, but because of the larger parties, a bachelor and a bachelorette, and there is a kind of Capulet-Montague thing happening, both sides trying to tear them apart only to have them collide again, sloppy and swapping spit. The whole thing looks kind of like a fraught Renaissance painting if the painting were barefoot outside a Vegas nightclub. The guy, an American, is on his knees in front of this tiny Brazilian girl.
“You don’t understand,” he says. “I’m in love with you.”
She laughs and says something in Portuguese. Her heavyset friend, one of the other bachelorettes, translates for her.
“She says you’re an idiot,” says the friend.
The tiny girl plants her bare foot on the guy’s face and shoves. When he tumbles backward the bachelorettes scream in unison. Their party sashes are askew, or otherwise pooled at their ankles. The guy moans, rolling around in cigarette butts and penis confetti. His party are absorbed in their phones or else leaning on one another, trying to stay upright.
“What’s your name,” he says. “You’re going to be my wife.”
The heavyset girl translates. Tiny girl hocks a fat wad of phlegm next to her husband-to-be. Stands over him, tossing her long hair, going off in rapid bolts of Portuguese. She plants her foot on his chest, like a hunter with a prized kill.
“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she mocks.
“She says she told you fifteen times what her name is,” says the heavyset girl, “she says, what are you, deaf and dumb?”
“You’re so beautiful,” moans the guy. “Have my children.”
The cabs aren’t coming fast enough and I’m stone sober, by the way, watching this theatre of humanity unfold outside the nightclub. I’m barefoot too, after dancing. My feet are killing me. I wore stilettos to be beautiful and fancy like this resort but the straps carved up my feet and now I’m bleeding lightly, holding my shoes in one hand and my phone and wallet in the other, arms folded under my tits. The bachelors steal glimpses at them and they look up, up, up, at the sky exaggeratedly when I catch them. The guy rolls over and brings himself to his knees again, in front of the tiny girl.
“Bella,” he says, clawing at her skirt. “Don’t hurt me.”
“That’s Italian,” says the heavyset girl.
“How do you say marry me in Spanish,” he says.
“But we’re Brazilian,” says the heavyset girl, exasperated.
He stares dumbly at her. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s why I’m trying to speak Spanish.”
She translates for the bachelorette party and they bray laughter. The guy offers a dopey grin. He looks like one of those cartoons where someone gets knocked the fuck out, crowned with a rotating halo of stars and cuckoo birds. I’m watching this and I want to explain it to you, I’m composing the texts in my head but not on my phone, I know you’d find it funny but you’re not here, I’m here alone, watching these two idiots pantomime tragedy in the neon lights and desert heat. Tiny girl grabs a hold of the guy’s ear—he is somehow shirtless, and she has nothing else to grab onto—and hauls him to his feet. Says something else.
“Stupid American,” says the heavy set girl. “She says you’re too dumb to marry.”
“Oh, no,” he says, cheerfully. “I took Spanish in high school. I can learn.”
More Portuguese.
“I’m not going to repeat that one,” says the heavyset girl. “Maria! That’s so mean.”
The guy leans forward for a kiss like a great felled redwood on its way to the earth. She winds up for a slap but because they’re so colossally fucked her timing is off she swings past his head and wraps her arm round his neck as his forehead collides with her nose with a small crack. They tumble to the ground at the feet of the bachelors, who jump and bellow. She lets out a wail. The guy’s face is covered in blood, which is now gushing from her nose.
“Oh, bella,” he says, pawing at her face. “My Maria, my bella.”
“Idiota,” she shrieks. “Perdedor.”
The funny thing is, I don’t remember seeing any of these people in the nightclub. It was big enough, I guess. And I was at the very front, where the DJs were, dancing and pressed against the rail with all these strangers. I thought it would be weird, dancing alone, but it was freeing, and there were nice people who took care of me. Two of them were a couple and the husband wedged himself between me and the men behind me and yelled in my ear was I alright, did I need him to kick anybody’s ass, and I laughed no, no, no and gave his wife the thumbs up.
“WE THINK YOU’RE VERY BEAUTIFUL,” yelled the husband.
“Thank you?” I said.
I kept my eyes trained on the wife. She sipped her drink and stared back.
“WE’RE LOCALS,” he yelled.
“Oh!” I said.
“WHERE ARE YOU STAYING,” he yelled.
I told him. He placed his hand gently on the sweaty small of my back.
“MAYBE WE CAN ALL,” he yelled, “YOU KNOW.”
“Um?” I said.
“AFTER,” he yelled.
I heard him say it but did not look at him so it did not register, really, until I saw it in the wife’s eyes. Hungry, half-lidded. Her lipstick was almost the same shade as mine and I imagined briefly the colour it would make if I took them up on the offer but giggles started tumbling out of me. The husband smiled wider in the way people do when they are offended. I held my hands up.
“What would I do with my hands!” I said.
“WHAT,” he yelled.
“My hands!” I said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with my hands!”
He smiled wider still. I laughed harder.
“Like,” I said. “There would be so much to grab!”
“WHAT,” he said.
“BOOBS?” I yelled. “AND A DICK? WHERE DO YOU START?”
I’m telling you because I know you would find this funny, even if he did not, me blushing on a dance floor in the middle of a Vegas nightclub, grabbing the air to demonstrate, honking and jerking while the DJs in front of me set off those great gusts of dry ice and airhorns and confetti under us every thirty seconds, did I mention this? The confetti? Did I mention I was sober? Did I mention I was alone? Did I mention you were the one I wanted with your hand on the small of my back in the middle of a Vegas nightclub, so I would not have to explain to this couple that I would be a nightmare in a threesome on account of the not knowing where to put my hands? Because I don’t want threesomes? Or casual sex? I want you? Oh, here it comes again. Oh, goddamnit. Again, with the dry ice?
I keep wanting to tell you, to text, outside this nightclub at four in the morning, but every time I open a dm between us all I can come up with is an unsent
hey
Because we haven’t talked, not for a long time, and I don’t know how to say that I thought some trip to this great wheezing sleaze beast of a city would make me forget you for even a minute
but it didn’t
and the parties are stooped over the lovers now, the tiny Brazilian girl is curled up in the American’s arms, clutching her nose, cursing him. He strokes her hair and kisses her all over her bloody face as the parties try to break them up. They cling harder together. There is something screwy about their doomed intimacy that I envy. Like those dusty lovers’ bones they uncovered at Pompeii.
“Maria,” coo the girls. “Oh, Maria.”
They pry her from the American’s arms and haul her to her feet, stuffing her sash under her nose. She pinches it and stares at the night sky. The American staggers to his feet and lavishes kisses on her neck. I expect her to start swinging but instead I see her eyes close and her knees buckle, just a bit.
“Take me with you,” he says.
“Sou casado,” she says.
I don’t know Portuguese, but somehow I know because of the way she says it. My heart breaks for the American. We have this problem in common, he and I. He looks at her dumbly and she removes her hand from her nose just long enough to wiggle her rings at him, causing a fresh gush of blood. She grabs the back of his neck and wrenches his face to hers, planting her tongue in his mouth.
“I don’t care,” he stutters around her lips. “Te amo, te amo—”
“Meu marido,” she says, “vai chutar sua bunda.”
And her bachelorettes pull her toward a cab, causing a schism between the parties. They stuff her into the back of the car but she rolls the window down and looks up at him. He hangs in the window, begging her to stay, or for him to go with her. His body is half in the cab, so it can’t leave, and a bunch of manicured hands appear on his naked torso, pushing him out of the window. He starts jogging along the car as it pulls away but the biggest of the bachelors finally grabs him and throws him into a headlock, wrestling him out of the car. As they pull away she leans out of the window, her sash and dress covered in blood, making her look wild and beautiful. She kisses her palm and extends it to him, and then they’re gone.
“No,” he says. “No bro, I love her.”
“Then text her,” says the big guy.
He falls silent.
“You didn’t get her number?” cries the big guy. “Bro.”
“I didn’t know how to ask!” he says. “I don’t speak Spanish!”
The bachelors are ahead of me in the cab line. Just ahead of them are that couple, leaning on each other. The husband has his arm around the wife’s shoulder, scanning the cars sweeping in and out of the entrance. To avoid his gaze I hunch behind one of the bachelors. He smiles at me shyly, so plastered his eyes are rotating in different directions. I recognize him. He’s one of the guys that was behind me, one of the ones who tried to dance with me before the husband inserted himself. For a moment I think he recognizes me too but he is fucking walleyed, staring at me but not seeing me at all. This feels important, somehow. Like a bad metaphor for being here.
“I’m getting married,” he slurs.
“Oh,” I say.
“Can I—” he says, burping. “Can I tell you—a—a se—a secret.”
“Oh, no,” I say.
“Dunno if I—” he says. “If I want—”
I panic, planting a hand on his mouth. I’m still clutching my shoes so they clop against his chin. I’ve heard this one before. You remember. I screwed up the answer, the advice. I wasn’t honest. I didn’t want to fuck up your life. You should know that. I pulled a punch because I thought your jaw was made of glass, and I couldn’t bear to shatter it. But I don’t believe in cold feet. I think you should want her in your bones, that nobody should be able to talk you out of her, that you should want her so bad you can’t go another second without. Like his buddy, with the tiny Brazilian. If it’s not that—well, I don’t know. I don’t want to fuck up anybody’s life. So I gave him the same advice I gave you.
“Yes, you do,” I say. “You’ll be fine.”
He pries my hand from his mouth, smiling. His teeth are a little crooked. He brings my hand to his lips and plants a fat wet kiss on my knuckles.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
Is it?
Is that enough?
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Kirsti MacKenzie (@KeersteeMack) is a writer and editor in chief of Major 7th Magazine. Her debut novel, BETTER TO BEG, is out now.
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image: MM Kaufman
Rejection Letters 