When Bluebirds Fly | ✔

Part Two : Chapter Two

My father and I burst out laughing childishly, clumsily stumbling in the taxi together. The taxi driver, a middle-aged, stout, white man with double chin smiled warmly at us through the rear-view mirror and his small eyes disappeared in the rolls of fat on his face. I found his face more hilarious than the joke at the restaurant so I laughed some more. He laughed ignorantly too and the rolls of fat dangling on his face vibrated which cracked me up more.

My dad still hadn't recovered from the earlier joke at the restaurant as he exclaimed, "Oh Dios! Ese niño!"

"What's so funny with your father?" the driver asked amusingly, curiosity slowly eating him in the inside like a fat, squiggly worm on a leaf.

"Nothing really . . . " I saw his dismal countenance and decided to tell, hoping that since he was poor like us, he would find the moderately funny story, hysterically funny. "So . . . at Olive Tree, there was this rich family sitting next to us. The man wore a shiny watch studded with diamonds, the woman wore a diamond necklace, their baby wore---"

"The baby!" my dad interrupted cheerfully, laughing ceaselessly. His shoulders didn't droop when he laughed and his lost youthful charm came twinkling back in his black eyes. I had my gaze fixed on him in awe, it was rare for me to see him being so . . . carefree.

"The baby was left unattended on the table and like a skilled bartender, the tiny thing kept pouring wine, water, orange juice into the woman's expensive Louis Vuitton bag, mixing everything up!" I was relishing my own story to even pay heed to whether the taxi driver shared our humour or not. "The woman didn't notice one bit, her husband and she were busy on their iPhones."

"Then what happened?" The driver seemed to enjoy because the rolls of fat on his face stretched with a genial smile and had engulfed his eyes.

"It became a madhouse! The woman finally reached for her purse and the bizarre mixture came flowing out like a dirty river and she shrieked, the husband shrieked, the waitresses shrieked and the baby shrieked too," I narrated delightfully, the chaotic scene at the restaurant flashing before my eyes. "We were watching this comedy unfold in front of our eyes, that's why papá can't stop laughing. We let our pasta go cold."

"Sí, sí," my dad agreed, nodding his head. "When you were small mija, you were naughty just like that baby. Once your abuela knitted a sweater for you, she put in months of hard work, but you refused to wear it. It was scratchy for you, itched you all over. Your abuela wouldn't listen to your protests so you deliberately puked on the sweater. The look of horror on my poor madre's face! You didn't stop that once, you have troubled her so much, nearly driven that poor, old woman to tears!"

I had a whimsical epiphany, my abuela had always preferred my cousins over me. She was the loveliest person on earth, but with me, it always felt like her love blossomed out of pity rather than love-love. The kind I felt with nearly all my extended family members. Sometimes, it even felt forced, out of the obligation of being a good grandmother or like charity. I thought it was because of my discernible poverty, but even before my mother ran off with all our wealth and tricked us, before when we were not part of the marginalised population, she had treated me with the same kind of passivity. The dislike festered in her over the years and she had admirably suppressed it.

The more I thought about all the beautiful memories with my abuela and my cousins, the more lonely I felt.

"Why didn't you tell that woman?" the driver suddenly questioned me, still smiling good-naturedly.

"Huh?"

"The rich woman at Olive Tree about her baby playing such pranks on her. Could have saved the bag."

"Oh, I . . . " I trailed off, trying to helplessly grasp for words the way I gasped for air after being underwater. "It never occurred to me to . . . "

An awkward silence fell over our greasy burger smelling taxi and I thoughtfully stared out of the window. I didn't get a whiff of the stale smell before because I was busy filling the space of the tiny taxi with my obtuse words. Now that I stopped talking and reflected on what I had spoken, the lingering smell came swirling back and overpowered my senses.

I watched all the scintillating lights of the opulent restaurants, malls and cinemas get dimmer and dimmer, eventually fading into nothingness as the taxi carried me away like a departing ship. Away from all the contained hullabaloo of the bourgeois to the eerie quietness of the destitute where the raving madness would soon come alive. The place where I belonged, beneath the regard of the ordinary. The wide, wet avenues diverged into dark lanes clogged with rainwater which splashed on the shut windows as the taxi whooshed by. I felt smaller and smaller as the taxi manoeuvred deeper into my home, a fire of indignation flaring inside me and being quelled by buckets of self-pity pouring over it.

I absolutely loathed feeling away and beneath. 

Why didn't you tell that woman?

The driver's voice echoed in my head, why, why, why. It wasn't as if the woman had done something diabolical to me that I could derive pleasure from her suffering. Granted, the entire scene was too comical to interfere and ruin the fun, yet all parts of me were screaming for the baby to destroy more of the bag. For me, the object of attention was the bag, not the baby.

I wasn't entitled to any more money than the person next-door, what had I done to become rich? Nothing. People like Allison and Isaac living comfortably in a typical suburban fashion didn't owe me anything. They simply were luckier than my sorry self and their parents sensible and hard-working to ensure their well-being.

I slyly glanced at my own father who was slouched against the seat, a little smile playing on his lips. He was conspicuously unaware of my inner turmoil, lost in dreams of my childhood and the weak, lucrative promises of the future. I wanted to bombard him with questions as to how he could be so content with one customer? How could he be so senseless to lose his job? Suddenly, all my past anger towards my affluent friends found a target to hit on.

"Aye, we have reached," the driver announced and I quickly got out, not bothering to wait till my father paid.

He caught up with me on the compound with his long strides and heavily wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "I hope you had fun today. We'll soon be going out more often, just wait for my company to pick up!"

"Yeah right." I scoffed, squirming and throwing his arm away. He was still blissfully oblivious of my irritation and shifted his hand to my back, patting me. I could feel my resentment rising with each pat as I suppressed it with tolerance. Once I was locked in my room, I took out my diary and scribbled furiously with the snores of my sleeping father from the living room fueling the vigour of my writing.