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How did I come to draw up a list of the moviesof my life? Why did it occur to me? Why haven'tI done anything other than mentally tabulate listafter list since touching down at LAX and thething I never thought would happen to me happened? How did I come to revisit this endless cityin the backseat of an old green Malibu with awhite-haired Salvadoran as my driver? What mademy head spin in the brightly lit aisles of a storecalled DVD Planet full of solitary and obsessivefreaks? Why have I returned to think -- to live, tofeel, to enjoy, to suffer -- about facts and peopleand films chalked up to the oblivion (superceded, eliminated, erased) of my unconsciousness? Whyam I remembering now, after so much time? Why, after years of not going to the movies, ofseeing absolutely nothing, have I returned to thedays when I used to devour them?
In other words, ¿qué fucking pasa?
What happens is terrible.
Well, not so terrible, but it is for me. I brokemy commitment to the university, I've set asidemy itinerary, I haven't arrived at the place wherethey're waiting for me.
I'm in Los Angeles, "Elei," the city of angels, in the San FernandoValley, on Van Nuys, ver the horizontal fault of the Elysian ParkSystem. What am I doing here?
Why am I still here? Why, instead of being in Tokyo, as was theplan, as we stipulated, am I now shut up in a room at the Holiday Innwith a panoramic view of the 405 freeway, writing like a madman?
It's already been four days like this, on the edge, to the max, sometimes in slow motion, other times in double fast forward. The6:43 A.M.s, the dawn about to break, the hot Santa Ana winds ripplingthe surface of the pool below. The ice I went searching for down thehall is now melted. The carpet is covered in Twinkie crumbs andpumpkin seeds.
Have you ever gone into your kitchen, bored, tired, drowsy, like azombie, with a dry, scratchy throat and verly ripe breath, dying toopen a big, 2.5-liter bottle of ice-cold, refreshing Coke and drink itstraight from the bottle, but just as you go to open it, without warning it occurs to you that someone (maybe yourself) has shaken it up, but now it's too late (it's always too late), and you unscrew the plasticcap, and BOOM, pafff, swoooooosh ... all the sweet, dark liquid, complete with foam and bubbles, explodes in your face like a fire hydrant in a crash, and you can't do a thing about it except to stand thereand take it all in until the eruption subsides?
Well, that's more or less the state I'm in.
Honestly, though, it's worse. But it's not all bad.
Let's say that I'm the bottle of Coke and the person who shook meup is a w man who I'll probably never see again. It was she wholooked me straight in the eye, she who made me laugh, talk, doubt, connect. It was she who opened up my mind and let loose the thick, viscous, gooey stuff that memories are made of.
SUNDAY
January 14, 2001
6:43 A.M.
Santiago de Chile
"Hello?"
"Hi, Beltrán. It's Manuela, your sister."
"Ah ... what time is it?"
"Early. Sorry to wake you up. I've been waiting for hours to call."
"The alarm clock was already going off;I'mjust a sound sleeper, is all."
"Were you dreaming?"
"I think so."
"How are you?"
"Okay."
"What are you up to these days?"
"Nothing much. I'm leaving on a trip to-night."
"A change of scenery is always good. Vaca-tion?"
"No, no. I'm off to Tokyo. Tsakuba University."
"You've been there before, right? I read thatsomewhere."
"Years ago, yes."
"At least you'll be somewhere familiar. That's good."
"Yeah, but my Japanese is pretty bad these days."
"Will you be there long?"
"A semester."
"I envy your ability to just pack up and go places."
"One of the few advantages of being alone in life."
"The flight must take forever, I'd guess."
"Yeah, but they gave me a whole afternoon to relax in Los Angeles."
"California?"
"Yes."
"You could go out to Encino. Or Inglewood. I still remember AshStreet."
"I don't think so, Manuela. You remember the pictures, not theplace. They're two different things. We were just kids."
"Anyway, you could go . . ."
"I'm just going to lie down in the hotel room the travel agency gotme. It's part of the package;I don't have to pay for a thing. I'm notgoing out anywhere. Why would I?"
"You've never gone back? You, who travels so much?"
"To California?"
"Yes, where we used to live."
"No. Well, I've been up north. Twice to San Jose and once toPalo Alto. I've had lay vers in L.A., but I never went out in thecity."
"Weird, huh?"
"I don't know. . . . Maybe."
"Sometimes I enjoy going back."
"We were different people, Manuela. Kids. All that happened solong ago. It's not so hard to have good childhood memories. Those arethe ones that stick with us."
"I guess."
"Perhaps. What do I know."
"I couldn't resist the temptation to visit."The Movies of My Life. Copyright © by Alberto Fuguet. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Excerpted from The Movies of My Life by Alberto Fuguet
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