The Color Yellow

1

The Color Yellow

Jennifer Wickham

It still haunts[AF1], even though four out of her seven babies lived. It haunts even today from where I’m at [AF2]because the dead often come back, making themselves remembered like when a yellow[AF3] rubber fisherman´s glove bobs happily on a sea swell. Hola, it says, I belong to someone. But out in great open space, where there shines the light of the sun and eternal time in every direction,and down there in the ocean where there is no fresh water and only thousand-year-old light, a woman has every reason to want to get it right[AF4]. A[AF5]sea lion[AF6] points you in a certain direction and you follow. She is my patient’s new lesbian partner.[AF7] She is a Catholic Chilean in her late 50s, so the lesbian part of the partner is surprising, if not alarming[AF8]. Her name is Veronica Zamorano. She accidentally voted Sí for Pinochet back on the Day, so it took a few dud caterpillars to gain the new-aged strength to spin a cocoon around her owndinopillar and wait to make her Pterosaurusbreak[AF9]. My interpretation of second hand information is that she could use a little help. When you say, “Chilean,” many automatically think of the 2010 8.8 on the Richter. Or the Copiapó mining accident (Estamosbienen el refugio Los 33). Or the lost-and-found Carmenere grapes or the Tsunami of 2014 or the Calbuco Volcano eruption of 2015 or the fires in the hills of Valparaíso of 2017[AF10]; I think of Veronica.

What is the hottest thing that´s ever happened to you[AF11]? Did it even involve your throbbing genitals? An animal? Numbers? The eyes of strangers who weren’t strangers? A cousin? Seeds? What is the hottest pressure that has ever overcome you? Did it involve your mind? The need to shed your skin? Your heart? The spot between your shoulder blades? Some pressing scent? Or guilt? Did you succumb? If so, mind map it. Propose that for your Open Space conversation and seven-steps plan; [AF12]heartgrate-lipbite[AF13]it, microwave a lavender rice heating pad, look in the mirror and put a scarf around your neck.

Veronica’s younger lesbian partner, my patient, is named YurikoYolanda Montero Yamada.[AF14]She is blessed with flesh and soul from a Japanese mother, “an eccentric artist”, and a tall, macho Argentine cock line. Cock line, right? Sure. (She’s learning English, I don’t know from where.) Yuriko stands out for tallish with pale fingers with colorful tips, full lips, small beautiful tits and a neat little cunt. It’s okay how I say that, right? Sure[AF15]. This is what Yuriko tells me that Veronica says about her. And I have to sit through these sessions. She doesn´t shave or wax. I listen to first time mouth was on body parts with enough detail to know she smells good, though I haven´t seen or smelled her naked with my own organs. Once I told Yuriko if she kept on so vividly, I´d have to excuse myself to the bathroom. What was she trying to do, provoke me?

Yuriko has a lover named Chemin[AF16]. He is French with a sculptured cock. Penis, cock; vagina, cunt, right? For some people, sure, I say. She’s getting a 2x1 in our session.Una “joya,” she tells me, Better in Spanish. I was going to be politically correct and professionally ethical and not mention that I can picture it perfectly, my patient sucking it and me even joining them, but it’s a common understanding that therapists project onto their patients and vise versa. In fact, I think Chemin’s jewel is described in detail for me, so we can partake in a kind of therapist-patient dry fucking. [AF17]

What if Chemin and I were book-group companions. What if he lent me his books [AF18]and he told me to keep some of them, his smell on the pages, his ink under his highlighted lines. What if he wrote to me about a poem he was working on and wanted me to offer feedback and translation help on some penultimate stanza and we met for coffee and he stood behind me pressing in, Which sugar do you recommend? Nothing, I say, Straight up or a package of brown if you need dessert.

One reason Chemin and I will never be in the same book club is that I am Yuriko’s therapist. Therapists tend to find lovers and book groups outside of their work circles because it’s easier on the stomach[AF19]. Unless they are consciously involved, both parties, in which case engaging in oral sex with your patient’s lover can give you information. It also means: I amconscious enough to not grasp too hard, to act free from fear and hope. I can offer myself, unattached, for the well being of others[AF20].

If you are sure of something, ask yourself why you are so sure. Then argue for your devil’s advocate, just to make sitting in traffic more stimulating. If role-playingrole-playing[AF21]isn’t your thing, ask the question, What if I were not so sure?

Veronica was zipping up[AF22]behind playa Higuerillas, better known as La Gatita beach because it sits down [AF23]behind the best hole-in-the wall seafood jointenConcón. Sure, there are cats. People line up outside, hovering beside parked cars waiting hours to get a table. La Gatita[AF24] is also easier to pronounce. I’ll tell you about the cold ocean off of laGatita beach. It is cold. Training-to-be triathlete Veronica and her new buds [AF25]park their cars on the beach and take over. But when I went down the first time to swim, the fisherman told me that it was a beach for both rich and poor, foreigners and locals. I’m a gringa. He says, Don’t be afraid to park here or put your towel there, because you eat just as much congriofrito as they do. What doesn’t seem clear is if Veronica and her group understand that it’s a public beach. Yuriko doesn’t know that I know who Veronica is, in real life. I didn’t know that I knew, at first. It hit me one session and I found somewhere else to swim. Yuriko doesn’t know that I’m a multi-medaled athlete either. It’s important to stay discreet and humble around your patients.

Most people don’t know feathers stay dry as they float on the ocean, or how they get there in the first place. Or that there are days where the surface of the ocean looks like a fowl battlefield, bloodless white feathers shimmering for miles.

Veronicahas large breasts, not implants. I was going to be more tactful and not specify; but I think she takes pride in her breasts, which have nourished (at least have been breast to face with) seven babies. Seven. I assume she is attached to the memories of nursing, especially the three she had to bury, each of them with tiny fists and named.

What if Veronica and I had met in the preemie ward[AF26]. Me, the volunteer to help her pump and freeze her milk and feed her baby with the special doodad and help press its face against the blue veins in her bosom? What if she’d asked me, Why are you doing this and I told her, Because I can’t have children but always wanted to breastfeed, maybe because I wasn’t breastfed by my mother. What if in the dark quiet of the night she heard me weeping and came to me to offer her breast and I took it without resisting or feeling self conscious or shame and could let my tears run down her; and what if she removed my nametag and unbuttoned my shirt, passed her baby to me and helped it latch onto my small, but ready breasts, [AF27]even if insignificant nipples, But I don’t have anything to give it. Are you sure?

One reason Veronica and I would never meet in the preemie ward is that I was about twenty years too late to help. Time and space and all that[AF28]. People who lose children or can’t have them tend to get into extreme Something because it helps them forget. Unless they are spiritually predisposed, in which case a tragedyor deep loss can be a catalyst for transformation. It could lead one to an ultimate Something Else like: I can accept what has been given or taken from me, plus what was never given; I will not seek. But there are quicker roa[AF29]ds.

Are your pants on fire? Masturbate while driving. Did the truck driver see you? Did he honk? These days people are too horney for masturbating. What you might try is direct fucking. (Or choose you’re own verb –fill in the blank-- if you’re squeamish. “Holding hands” is a verb. Kind of. You get the idea.) Take a weak person and do the pre-verb___dance. Everybody’s got his or her own style. Convince him or her (or yourself) you are in love, in order to justify the whole thing. He or she will fall in love with you surely, so don’t worry about that. Consenting adults. Nothing weird. Lay the person out on the grass. Nature helps. And do the thing you do that makes them want you. Need you. Beg for you. You will have drawn the pre-verb:____ dance out weeks or months if you’re any good[AF30], so be nonchalant at the picnic for as long as you can bear. Take apricot jam and offer it on small round raisin toasts. Not Smuckers on graham crackers. If you can’t understand why, just pay forverb: ____. It’s cleaner. Sometimes we’re handed a free pass in life. But beyond that, you’ll have to pay by dealing with falling in love and heartache, etc. Or you’ll pay bythe someone else falling in love with you and make your life miserable. Just don’t be an idiot. Now, What do you want to verb: ____, really? Or what do you want verb: ____ed, really? Verb:Verb:____ hard enough for the point. Verb:____ it with your whole hot sadness and tired regret and raging longing. Go round and round and come back and back until the pain is gone and you see clearly, until lust transforms to emptiness, and you touch a space that contains you both, verb: ____ing, sharing pain and joy and loving. None of which is true, soyou’re better off surrenderingand let sunrays be the container for everything[AF31].

Veronica was on the public beach. My beach was full of fieldtrip kids, so I went to where I thought Veronica might be swimming alone. The group she’d recently glommed on to was competing. I didn’t want to know all this, but I hold information. In the name of safety I went. For her sake. And I needed to train. I was late, on purpose in hopes that she would be getting into the water and I wouldn’t have to say hello…maybe not even have to make eye contact. She was fussing with her booties near on the beach.Hola. Hola. I pulled on my wetsuit, lemon-head cap[AF32], and goggles. Even though it was March, I still felt summer’s air of possibility tickle my face. Even though Veronica didn’t recognize me[AF33], I still felt obvious; Yuriko had just given me details of her training session and fears of swimming alone. But a training plan is a training plan and swim one must. She must be more serious that I gave her credit for. I kicked off my flip-flops was Yuriko on top of or under el Francés and burped oatmeal and rice drink smell[AF34].

¿Lista?

Lista.

You swim alone con frequencia?

No, tú?

Harebrained idea.

¿Perdón?

Muy tonto.

Mis training partners estánenSidney para elhalf Iron.

Give me a break, I think, she was shitting her wetsuit. Cool, I say in Chileno, so she doesn’t think I’m fresh off the boat,Bacán.

Sí, ¿no?

¿Cuántos K hoy? I ask, setting the bar high.

¿1?

No problem.

You make more?

No, no, don’t worry, I say, waving it off. I gave the sign for laps and thumbs up.

Where you are from?

Good question, I think. Germany, I say and stand up straight. [AF35]

Finally, we plunged into the cold ocean off the public shore of La Gatita beach. Why is she swimming, stomach touching the rocks[AF36]? Does she realize she’s beached? Counter-phobic fear behavior, a six for sure. I dove under the first wavesand blew the saltwater threw from my lips.

I sidestroked ahead slowly to keep my eye on her, looking down the length of my body[AF37] until she yelled out for me to go ahead. The temperature seemed to drop. I held up. She was going to have to work on her entry. I could just imagine her in transition stations. I played my corkscrew game of two strokes crawl, side, back, doggie, float. This was going to take a while. When she caught up, we grannystroked, out past the bigger swells. It’s natural to chat.

How many forty two Ks had she finished? Oh. She’d get there one day. Best split in training? A climber? Usual pace? Energy consumption? Hammer was also my favorite. Gatorade was for toddlers. Because we’re both athletes, or at least she wanted to be, we follow this lingo. If Yuriko had appeared on a raft, we’d have to talk long hand so she’d feel included, but she didn’t appear on a raft because she was somewhere sucking Chemin’sjolla. He’s a pilot, so when the jewel’s in town, she puts on the crown. I think he must be a flight attendant. But I haven’t dared to tell her why I think this.

She fell further and further behind me until I just floated, stomach down, waiting[AF38].No sea lions so far[AF39]. I didn’t have to kick. It was bizarre, like suddenly floating in the womb of a woman you’ve been indirectly trying to understand. Was this my gig? Where were my swimming booties? Why did my brain freeze? I couldn’t feel my feet or hand. Moving might help or have helped this. Am I too early or late for this[AF40]? This was just more of the same: A pregnant woman in the womb of the womb of the womb, needing to push too soon. Burp.

Remembe[AF41]r French’s mustard zigzags Dad squirted on hotdogs. Remember the Big Bird feather duster (that’s what she called it) Mom would drag over the piano on Saturdays. Remember daffodils and Zippy’s teeth. Remember lemon bars and John Lemmon. Remember cartoon suns and Bro’s grey eyes staring into the Cheerios box, milk dripping from his braced face every morning before he walked ahead of me to the bus stop. I memorized the Pac-Man patch on his backpack.

Shorter strokes, Vero[AF42]! With each stroke her shoulders seemed to swallow more of her neck and head, all scrunched up until she trod upright and I didn’t have to guess, she just stopped. She needed me. I had an idea.

Cannery, canErnie?, canary: According to Wikipedia[AF43]: “Acanary in a coal mineis an advanced warning of danger. The metaphor originates from the times when miners used to carry cagedcanarieswhile at work; if there was any methane or carbon monoxide in themine, thecanarywould die before the levels of the gas reached those hazardous to humans.” A yellow canary. Big Bird. Rubber Duckie. Friends. The clever one of the two Muppet friends, Wikipedia again: “A typical Bert and Ernie skit has Ernie coming up with a hare brained idea, and Bert trying to talk him out of it, ending with Bert losing his temper and Ernie remaining unaware of the results of his own bad idea. For example, in one sketch, Ernie tells Bert he´d started to collect ice cubes the day before, and put them under the electric blanket overnight. When he shows the ice cubes to Bert, he finds out that they have melted into water. Bert knows what happened, and tries to tell Ernie that his ice cubes melted because of the electric blanket, but Ernie takes this to mean that a fish from the ocean came into the apartment and melted his ice cubes, and vows to find the culprit (non existent) fish that melted them.”

It was unexpected, like finding yourself standing out in the street watching something burn down. How could I help? This was depth, nothing else. It was the look on her face that told me where her mind was. Thinking about dead babies. Maybe she’d arrived at that tragic reality that she would have to spend the rest of her life making peace with, digging deep from everything she could togather herself up with the help of god and forgiveness and addictions. The stuff she didn’t know I knew about. But she doggie paddled over to me to ask if her zipper strap was free or if it looked stuck inside. It looks good, I said and didn’t know. And then she said, did Ithink there was a such thing as something I couldn’t hear[AF44].We were treading closer to personal questions. I needed to stay a nobody. And vomit. It was easier to swim with booties;Finding it easier to float here. Why were my goggles fogging up so much? I pretended I was cleaning my goggles and avoiding her telling me about the secret feeling of loneliness she carried in her loins, missing, longing longinglonging for someone to realize she wakes each day to get them back.

Yuriko had told me that Veronica had told Yuriko, Do you know why I run marathons? No, why? Every marathon training is like being pregnant and crossing the line is like having a baby. Except it’s a baby that nobody can ever take away from you, not ever. In a retreat setting, this is hot. They spent the night together in the woods that night[AF45].