Puerto Ayacucho
It has been awhile since my feet touched the burning streets of my hometown of Puerto Ayacucho. I miss the way the heat crashed like waves over me until I felt I would suffocate. How then, as the days went on, the heat became the ordinary, and even on hot nights with the fan blowing heavy and mucky breeze over my body, I didn’t mind. I miss walking down to the muddy Orinoco River. Waving off friends as their outboard motors rattled off up stream. The mud squeezing its way over my flip flops and between my toes. Warm, sometimes even hot, and slick as grease. I swatted away at the bugs. Mosquitoes and gnats mostly. Tugging at dad’s shirt and squishing my toes farther into the mud.
Back then Dad took my hand and swung me up on his sweaty shoulders. He wore a plaid button up of green an blue. It was worn to the point of almost being transparent and clung to him in little wrinkles full of sweat. He laughed a little.
“Buenos días,” Dad nodded to a passer-by. I could feel his smile through his shoulders, and I smiled too.
We stopped at a little shop on the side of the road. Tarps swept to the sides keeping the sun at bay. Inside the shadows a little man with a mustache worked a few propane burners with blackened pots. Behind him stood a huge juicing machine, and a big jug of bright red orange, carrot, and beet juice. Dad ordered a plastic cup full, paid with a few coins…
