Alejandro
I met a man one night in a restaurant/bar in Vilcabamba. It was the first karaoke night in a bar that had had some open mic nights and they were trying karaoke on for size. Huge success. I’d been waiting for near two years for something like this to happen. I didn’t know it was so easy. YouTube now has such a karaoke library that the days of cd libraries and huge books of song lists are over. Just type is what you want to sing and voila! It’s on the computer ready to go. Any and every bar can do it.
I went with a girlfriend and her friend and they were the first to sing. I needed a little more lube. I’m under no illusion that sing better drunk. However, if the REALLY drunk line is not crossed one can still sing on key but with far less abandon.
Some more of my friends arrived and I had someone to sit with after my first two friends left. I’d noticed a guy sitting at a table by himself. I didn’t know what to make of him really. He looked to be about 30 years old (now I now he was over 40) He had beautiful eyes, a handsome face, a goatee. He wore a hoodie and a sweater cap. I couldn’t tell if he was a hoodlum or just a brooding young man.
My friend Nancy gave singing a try but decided it was moving too fast for her. She’s not used to karaoke. I decided to sing Anna by the Beatles, one of my favorites, and it has to do with my name even though it’s usually a song sung by a man, not a woman. That’s a problem with singing our favorite songs: they often don’t fit your gender. I really appreciate artists Miley Cyrus and Pink singing Led Zeppelin’s “Babe, I’m Going to Leave You” without changing the lyrics, one of my all time favorite songs. one I can play on the piano but have never dared to sing in public.
Then the cute brooding guy got up and sang a Pink Floyd song. He had instant fans.
Then he asked me to sing with him. And I did. I don’t have a clue what song now. I was busy being in the moment.
I went back to my table to gossip and keep the alcohol level up. Then my friend Nancy said, “Skye” She kept poking me. “Look. He’s singing to you.” I scoffed. She persisted. “Really. That guy is singing to you.” She reminded me today that the song was “Girl” by the Beatles. I love it when a man pays attention. So I turned around and I’ll be damned. This guy was fucking singing to me, his eyes on my eyes, Nancy says my face lit up. I just remember smiling.
We asked him to join us. He kept taking my hand and pulling me up to sing again with him, over and over. I can’t say what we sang. My memory of this night involves always having eye contact with him. Being on my tippie toes to hit some high notes. Some vague memory of “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease. Thankfully nothing in Spanish.
He told me his name was Alejandro and he was from Argentina. “Skye,” I said, “New Mexico.” Then Magdalena had to close to avoid issues with the landlord. And we parted. Alejandro told me how much he’d enjoyed the evening and requested that I learn an Olivia Newton-John song for next time. I replied, “I can’t wait to do this again!” We parted each seeming to walk on air.
Three days ago Alejandro Fraccia was stabbed 22 times in the back. A slasher type tourist had come to town and cut a woman badly. The cops held him awhile and then released him. Wounds apparently are not a criminal offense if they will heal within 30 days. Alejandro, a couple of others, had made it a mission to warn people about him. They warned his landlady who did nothing. Sometimes poverty wins. Alejandro moved to a hotel here where he was working on a mural in the reception area in exchange for his rent. His last FB post said something along the lines of “I must be the unluckiest person in the world.” He told about how the slasher had not only moved into his hotel but the room next to him and was harassing him. I hear that the situation was so bad that the management escorted Alejandro to his room every night. He ended his post saying that if you don’t see me around, you can figure out what happened.
Alejandro and I were not FB friends. I only read his FB after his death. Prior, I didn’t even know his last name. I was in extreme denial. His FB profile picture meant nothing to me. My Alejandro didn’t have a braided beard or a big nose or an angular face. I told myself that surely there had to be two Alejandros in town from Argentina. And there were times before when he’d passed by and Nancy would nudge me and say, “There’s Alejandro” Huh? I was like I couldn’t recognize him unless he was wearing a hoodie and had a goatee. Sometimes there was a man-bun. Different ways with the hair.
I asked my friend, Brooks, a co-conspirator with Alejandro to bring down the slasher, “Did you ever see Alejandro at the Beverly Hills Cafe? The one I knew went there.” Denial searches for any excuse, you see. “No,” he replied. “I never saw him there.” I explained that I was trying to decide how sad to be and realized how utterly lame that sounded when Brooks looks at me perplexed. My first instinct was to completely break down in grief. But, in denial, I told myself, “Really? You going to cry for some stranger? How stupid will you feel then?” Brooks, I’m sure, thinks I’m a moron.
Yesterday afternoon Nancy called me. “It’s him,” she declared.
“No, I’m pretty sure it isn't.”
“I investigated. I went to his FB and it’s him.”
“Well I went to his FB too and while similar, I’m sure it’s not him.”
“No,” she assured me. “I saw his photos. It’s him. I’m sorry to tell you this but it’s him.”
I hung up. Once again I hit FB. And this time I paged down to his videos. And there he was with his goatee and green sweater cap. I felt my heart break. And I spent a couple of hours reading all his posts. The video (with the sweater cap) was about music, musicians, composers and the desire to sing. I saw the post right after that said, “I love parting without saying goodbye. If you really want to find me, you will find a way.”
The karaoke place stopped having karaoke. In fact the joint closed down completely. Alejandro and I travel in different circles. But I truly believed that we’d meet again, sing together again, and who knows? Never in my two years in Vilcabamba have I met one single man who put a spark into my heart, who made me look forward to seeing him again. And I’m in no hurry. We have all the time in the world, right?
I had a good cry last night. It’s hard to really want to see someone again and realize that in a flash all hope of that is gone. No possibility. Done deal. Will never happen. Today I needed to be around my friends. I was ready to admit that it was him. That he was gone. And Nancy is my only friend who knew. I needed to be around her. She said she’d go with me tomorrow to his memorial service. No one else in town knows. To everyone else we were strangers. I would never post this on FB. But I needed to put it somewhere.
My friend Patrick today told me that I had some extra energy around me. You really look great! When he mentioned it the second time, I replied to him. “Someone reminded me what it’s like to be in love.”
