Deja Vu:

making maps in Lyon

Victor and I are sleeping outside on an uncovered deck; the landscape is unknown but it is somewhat vast, more rural, not attached to a suburban house. In my memory it is not really the physical form of Victor, but someone who stands in for him.

I approach the steps of the deck and Mauricio's Mom is there. It is her real form from my memory. She hands me something to drink and I joke that it is something like sangria, though it is more milky.

I express surprise and gratitude that she has allowed us--Victor and I-- to camp here the night. She says one must always help people, no matter the circumstance. I know that Mau is unaware we are here, I sense his parents will not tell him until we've gone. We are momentarily refugees, from what calamity I cannot say: a broken down car across Michoacán, or some terrorist attack.

Mau's mom took my hand after she had hugged me with great force, and her words were wet with grateful tears: "take care of my son." She said so less like a command and more like a plea. The night before she had witnessed me singing to him in a hospital bed, consoling him through the severe abdomen pain that turned out to be trapped gas or simply too much comida during Semana Santa. Mau told me his father was touched by this, too. Perhaps she senses in me a genuine desire to take care of her boy, a child she'd seen struggle through meth addiction and bad romances. I said: "I will." I believe it, then.

Mau would simply pass the pain after a good thick shit or a loud fart; I can't remember which did the trick after hours of abdominal massages and hands on healing.

Standing a few meters from the stage where soon Little Dragon will perform, the venue is lit brightly and Sylvester is playing quiter than he's ever sang before. Victor is still wearing the tan London Fog trenchcoat that gives away his French acclimation. We forwent coat check because it was 2 € and could faintly predict the dread of standing in line later. I'm holding a spot of his abdomen, discending colon maybe? He could tell you, exactly, from his formal training before failing med school. He's in quiet agony from a bit of trapped gas: not too much comida, but from my fucking him -- Doctor's official diagnosis. I hold his little belly with one palm, and his lower back with my other, recalling my humble training from reiki I and my craneosacral sessions with Amanda. I can feel a bulge, a throbbing; something.

I stand in a cue for 40 minutes at the venue bar for a cup of water and well tequila. Later, I learn that where I'd left Victor to hold our spot, standing in the great hall, that he was incompasitated by pain. He was glad I wasn't there to see his expression because he was sure I would have pleaded that we leave. Then he farted it out. Brand new and ready to dance.

When Little Dragon ends their first set, before the obligatory encore, the audience erupts in cheers and stomps their shoes on the hollow wood floor. Fear overtakes me, the premonition I'd envisioned coming true: AK-47s blasting the crowd from all directions, screams mingling with cheers; I await a stampede of confusion. I've decided to jump the bar but I'd neglected to tell Victor. The odds of us both surviving are slim. Who would lament a room of dead hipsters when Gaza is being massacred? My death would be framed as barbarity onto the innocents. Little Dragon would release a statement of shock; still they would not say anything explicit or declarative about the IOF, Hamas, or Cease-Fires.

Mau laughs at the banter between the ranchera y ranchero: they are sparing off in predictable quips with clever wordplay. She pokes fun of his ill performed masculinity; he basically calls her a slut. The crowd cheers with pulque breath and Mau is among them, a peanut pulque all chalk-line from the naturale mixed with crushed powder. We are in Centro, Mexico City. Everyone wears boots that stomp stomp stomp atop the wood platform stage. Two gay daddies stand out and I scope them out throughout the evening. I wouldn't mind following one to a stall and having a good nasty moment on my knees. Mau's laugh is simple and sweet; it conceals no malice, no hidden motives.

What happens to a premonition that doesn't come true? Does it go to the same place as forgone promises? Failed romances? A crazy idea: a "failed" romance. Do I owe Mau's mother a letter of apology? Should I not have sung by his bedside? Did I love then? As much as I knew I would die that night in Paris?