Canary Islands, Spain
2005

The majority of the flyer was buried beneath the sand and her feet caught the edge before she picked it up. It was an advert for DJ Tiesto, scheduled to play at a nearby nightclub later that night. The fliers were scattered throughout the beach like dead fish and the polluting stench of revelry attracted the young and dissolute tourist. An empire of clubs and promiscuous nightlife, the Canary Islands catered to trust-fund babies who rejoiced in their ability to make spring break in Cancun appear pedestrian and juvenile. Livia and I were vacationing with my mother and two uncles. The closest we were going to get to hump day specials was on the back of a Lanzarote camel.

Feeling frustrated and somewhat provoked, Livia fed the flier to a wine bottle that was flooding the trash bin. I gave her a look reserved for twelve year olds who wet the bed. Livia and I had grown up in relatively the same type of household but somehow the cloaked mutiny that accompanies an uncompromising father and restricted childhood had been replaced in her with bare submission. I, however, was in no position to surrender my spring break so easily. Fortunately, Livia and I were given our own hotel room and a few minutes after midnight, with careful inspection of the surrounding floor, we felt it was safe to creep down the hotel stairs and into the island air. Once outside, we ran like Mexicans running for the border. Every bar and nightclub was within walking distance and we danced until the sun drank the moon and its sovereignty spit us out. Our subversive escapes were filled with neon strobe lights and wormwood fairies. On one particular night, we were even chosen to judge a transvestite fashion show and it was unlike anything we’d experienced before. We’d return to our rooms for two hours of sleep until it was time to join the family for breakfast in the main lobby. Needless to say, we were worthless during the day and my mother worried we’d contracted some deadly mosquito transmitted fever.

It was the last night of our visit and we’d jointly decided to turn in at 5 a.m., when the streets cleared of drunk men and their bad decisions. Reaching the doors to the hotel, we realized the regular doormen, two gaunt-looking employees with matching dumbbell mustaches and a fondness for Gillette Speed Stick deodorant, were nowhere in sight. The doors were locked. I felt my heart plummet into my stomach and explode in a shower of cardiatric fireworks. Livia, highly under the influence of a few questionable narcotics, was having trouble standing and looked as though she might begin seizing, which given the circumstance, wouldn’t have been the worst thing. Just as the sun began rising and I began accepting our imminent doom, the doormen appeared. We pounded on the glass, pleading and pathetic. They asked to see identification. I would have given him my entire wallet, my firstborn, anything. They laughed at our desperation and began speaking Spanish. Neither Livia or I speak Spanish and this became increasingly clear as their stream of words were met with blank stares.

“Husbands sleep and wives go for wild time, yes?”

Suddenly I felt like dying again.

An hour later, Livia and I, seated across from our uncles and my mother, had breakfast. Only we couldn’t eat. And the doormen watched and smiled as they poured the orange juice.

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