Henry loves his Cuban wife, Lucia, he wants to take her in his arms and hold her. He wonders why she’s upset.
You must believe me, Henry, it may sound stupid, but, I’m telling the truth.
He looks out the kitchen window at the palm branches swaying in the morning wind, wondering what the drama is about and thinking,
she’s Latin, when she’s upset she's has a problem expressing herself.
The lovers are sitting at the kitchen table, she lights a joint and takes a deep drag, forgetting about the liar, whoever he is, and saying,
querida, you burned la tostada, make some more. I finished Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude last night, I adore him, his stuff feeds the Latino soul, it's butterflies rising from mud and flying to the moon.
Yeah, he’s cosmic, baby, I know you love him.
Estas celosa bebe?
No, I’m not jealous, Gaby Marquez is dead, he's dust.
Henry, you’re jealous because you’ll never write like him, and his mind is beautiful and yours is muck.
Lucia, is it rag week? Look, I write like me, OK?
I want to kill you, Henry, you make me crazy, tonight when you sleep I’m going snuff you out with a pillow.
Let me tell ya, croaking beats dealing with you when it’s your monthly. If somethin’s eatin you doll I'll call Skank the shrink.
They shower, dress, braid each other's long hair, then make the short trip to the Skank’s office on their Vespa, parking it in the Sunset Mall lot— a conglomerate of pink cement modules connected by blue tile walkways.
After walking past Radio Shack, and Sears, Lucia ducks her head inside her girlfriend’s salon saying,
Chica, back in a few, vamos a hablar Skank the shrink.
Inside Skank’s office, they go to the reception desk, where Henry asks,
how much is a session with Skank?
A middle-aged nurse whose face is deeply lined scowls as she answers,
160 dollars for sixty minutes,
how bout a half hour for 80 beans?
Sir, our office is a member in good standing of the American Psychiatric Association, we don’t bargain.
OK then, an hour for my wife, Lucia, it’s somewhat urgent, but I wouldn't call it an emergency.
Sir, if your wife’s situation is urgent I’ll call 911.
Call me Henry, so how long is the queue?
two hours sir,
two hours? Jesus, we’ll go have a drink then.
That's none of my business.
Whataya mean you old goat? You're Skank's nurse, ain't ya? Lucia pulls his arm and says,
querido común.
The couple makes a b-line for Chica’s Beauty Salon, going inside where Lucia collapses in the parlor chair.
Oh mi Chica, that bitch at Skanks office is crazy. Henry laughs saying,
when Nurse Ratched finishes jacking the patients up, Skank the shrink makes em whole again.
Chica brings them a beer and goes to work on Lucia's long curly hair, spraying it with water and shaving the split ends off her curls with a razor.
Then the Cubano stylist leads Lucia to the shampoo station, where she washes and conditions her friend's hair.
As she’s being shampooed Lucia unconsciously spreads her long legs, exposing her thick black bush. Chica laughs saying,
darling your cono es maravillosa, like a jungle bush.
She draws a mesh curtain on a circular track around Lucia, leaving and returning with a stand-up tray that has warm wax and strips of cloth on it.
Then swabbing Lucia’s pussy with alcohol, cleaning her clitoris and vagina, slowly drying the sensitive area with a soft hand towel, arousing Lucia.
She applies tepid and gooey wax to Lucia’s bush that she’s trimmed down with scissors. Finally, placing strips of cloth on the pubic hair, letting them settle, and jerking them off.
The pain of waxing is akin to ripping a bandaid off sensitive skin— Lucia doesn't feel anything because she and Henry are three sheets to the wind.
When the beauty treatment's finished, the couple drinks with Chica till sunset, walking to the parking lot and getting on their Vespa.
They pull out of Sunset Mall— driving northwest on the Key’s Overseas Highway instead of driving home, pulled by something unknown to them.
Twenty minutes later they’re at Saddleback Key disoriented and driving in circles.
Eventually, they stop and get off their scooter in an open field lit by a Waning Gibbous moon. Henry says,
It’s fun bein lost ain’t it babe? This island’s witchy.
I wanna go home and go to bed, pollino.
OK, give me a second to suck in more green microbes.
Green microbes? Are you loco, Henry?
They’re in the sea air, they’re sobering, revitalizing.
A dark form moves out of a shadow, approaching them and saying,
I’m Dom the Jew, I live in a Gypsy commune on Raccoon Key. I was night fishing and got lost so I rowed ashore.
Everything about Dom the Jew is black, his curly hair, beard, overalls, and T. Henry smiles and says,
you’re on Saddleback Key, Dom, can we help you?
I'm OK, I’ll row home when the sun comes up. Let me reward your kind understanding. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a polished crystal, raising it to the moon, holding it there as shards of rainbow-colored moonlight flood the field.
Henry and Lucia begin to feel a happiness that is impossible under ordinary circumstances. They feel sheer harmony leading to bliss.
Then, they’re engulfed in a balloon-like white aura that expands, and implodes, uncovering a field of fine white dust, a purely energetic state yogis call Sahasrara— a wholly other dimension of reality.
The couple experiences an aha moment as they realize a pearl of wisdom has been thrown their way by the Gypsy boy.
The out-of-body experience ends as quickly as it began and Dom the Jew is nowhere to be seen— most likely he was never there.
In a whisp, Henry and Lucia are cruising the Key’s Overseas Highway, wailing Walt Whitman’s Songs of Joy to the night sky.
O the joy of spirit— when it's uncaged— it darts like lightning!
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