Chapter 15-Mishap #2
He paced the floor, sweat beading on his forehead, his hands fisting and unfitting. The anger building with each step.
“You know he actually said to me that I need to honor my mother and sign the contract,” Micah said.
“I told him that woman was no mother to me.
I wanted to rub it in his face that Ryanne Delgado was the only woman to mother me and show me an ounce of love and affection, and his daughter was the reason my brain ran hot on most days.
That defunct son of his slobbering on himself in a dark room, masturbating to the maids when they come to change his shitty bed linens is disgusting.
And Abuela wants to talk to Angel as if he doesn't understand and comprehend. Fuck her too.”
Eduardo reached for him but changed his mind. This was on Micah’s chest and he wanted it off. It was best to allow him the space to finish.
“And those girls! That's what they were, girls!” Micah ranted.
“The one from Suriname barely spoke English and no Spanish. How do you live on a continent whose primary language is Spanish, and you speak none? Even the most chuckle-headed cowboy hat-wearer can at least order two beers in Spanish. No Spanish at all. Pray tell, what language does she plan to teach my children to speak in our home? Dutch? Get the klompen-wearing, wooden shoe-wearing, fuck out of here!”
He inhaled and wiped the sweat away that had begun to pour down the sides of his face.
“The second one from Paraguay, her hobby was shopping.
That's it. Oh, and she thought I was fine as hell.
She wanted to fuck me but not live on a farm.
Hell, she wanted to fuck Andres too, pretty much said it while Roxana was standing there next to Andres.
She asked Roxana, who lives on a farm, if she was okay marrying a man who lived on a farm.
Roxana lives on a farm that produces coca and coffee just like us.
Perona de la Mar is a farm with a lot of fucking cows.
Bitch, we are farmers! Where does she think we're going to live?”
Eduardo was trying not to laugh, but he was listening. His son's chest was heaving as if he was going into a full-blown panic attack. Angel walked in and saw his brother on a tear and bolted for the back door. He knew something Eduardo didn't, but this, this is what Eduardo wanted to see.
He knew Angel was going for Alita.
“The last one, that last girl, she was born and bred for me like some automaton who speaks my chemistry language but only wants to have my children,” Micah snapped.
“I asked, ‘Don't you want to travel and go to Uni?’ No.
She said no! She wanted to get married right away and start making our family.
She told me she would be fulfilled by the children.
Wait, bitch how many children? She stood there, looking at me with those blank ass eyes, opening her vapid mouth to say, as many as I could afford or her body could bear.
Who said I wanted a house full of fucking kids?
I gots shit to do, mountains to climb, research to complete.
I'm not going to be up at three a.m. changing a bunch of pissy diapers every few hours for Ramon, Peri, Luis, Martín, Lauri, and Rebecka.
I like that name. If I have a girl, I want her to be named Rebecka.
The other names, I just made up, but I don't want a house full of kids.
She has no hobbies, no interests, no ability for a side hustle to create a slush fund for vacations in the Falkland Islands where I want to take pictures of penguins and shit.
No, she wants to pop out babies and ride me like a stallion.
Well, I am a stallion, but I'm not her personal baby batter pump. What is wrong with her?”
Alita came through the back door with a few tomatoes and a cucumbers in a basket.
She yelled out, “Think fast, Boss!” Tossing a tomato at him that he avoided, followed by another, and another, then the cucumber, followed by another cucumber.
Red tomatoes littered the floor from his blows, but Alita came at him.
“You have to be faster than that,” she called, executing a perfect aerial spin kick, coming close to his face.
Micah blocked the kick, returning the assault with his own perfectly executed roundhouse.
“Angel,” Alita yelled. “Up Emberá Chocó!”
“Emberá Chocó!” Angel yelled back.
Angel locked in, making a pocket with his hands as Alita charged at him, her right foot stepping into Angel's cupped hands, as he provided heft to her, and she landed behind Micah.
She swept the floor with her leg as Micah jumped, swinging at her.
They exchanged blows, swinging missing, ducking, parrying, darting, turning, swiping.
Finally, at an impasse, she looked at him.
“Back-to-back, lower to the floor,” she told Micah.
With their backs to each other, knees bending, their bodies lowered to a seated position, ending, legs folded lotus-style. Ryanne and Mara came from her office to see what was happening after hearing the commotion. Ryanne took a seat on the couch next to her husband, unclear on what she was seeing.
“Breathe deep,” Alita said. “From your center, feel the invisible line pulling you up, count it out: 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, three seven seven.”
Micah spoke, “Six ten, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946, 17711.”
“Perfect, let’s find your center and hum with me,” Alita said. “Hoy cobré y hoy mismo lo voy' a explotar...”
Micah continued the lyrics, rapping in his lower register.
He began to sing the remainder of the song.
She asked him to switch to ‘Underneath Your Clothes’, a ballad by Shakira, which he began to sing.
Eduardo sat listening to his son belt out the notes, in perfect key.
Angel joined in, tapping lightly on the table to provide background percussion as they sat on the floor, Alita singing along with him.
He hadn't heard Micah sing like this before, finding himself doubly impressed with the young woman's ability to bring him down so quickly.
The song ended, and she had him turn to face her.
She stared him in the eyes, her head slightly tilted, knowing it would irk him for her to not look at him headlong, making him focus on her face. “Are you ready to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about,” Micah said reaching over with his finger, bringing her head to a centered position. “I'm not marrying that insipid girl.”
“Okay, so now your grandfather and your Czar are aware,” Alita said. “Does your Czar know what your plan is, and do you?”
“My plan is to marry you?”
She straightened her back, “And why would you want to do that? Have you even asked me if that is what I want?”
“I want to marry you because I love you,” he said, looking at her.
“You love me too, so I'm asking. You're wearing the ring.
I wanted to make the request official, but that baboon of a man wants everything to be about him.
What about my father? He doesn't get to co-opt my father's sons as if they were his own.
He screwed up his kids. That doesn't give him rights to my father's.
He demands to be surrounded by his grandkids as if my father doesn't get that right as well.
Who is going to look after Papa when he breaks his hip and can't get around?”
Eduardo leaned forward. “How did I get into this? My hips are fine. Wait, a damned minute!”
Alita held up her hand to Eduardo, trying to keep Micah centered in the moment. She tapped on his thigh three times, and he once more, focused on her face.
“Loving me is not enough for a marriage, Micah.”
“I love when you say my name,” he said, looking at her. “Calling me Boss draws the line in the sand. I'm sick of the fucking line. I want to be yours and you to be mine. I want to be your first, your last, and your only.”
“You want to marry me to be my first lover?”
“No silly goose,” he said, leaning forward.
“I want you to be the mother of my gorgeous daughter Rebecka and my truly handsome and brilliant son Benicio.
I like that idea. He will be named after my father.
I didn't think I actually wanted kids until I saw you in that dress last night. I would have had them, because it is my duty, but I never truly wanted any, until I saw you last night. Alita, you looked so lovely.”
Alita tapped his leg three times. He was drifting. She needed him to stay on task. “Why didn't you want children?”
“I'm broken, Alita,” he said. “What if I have kids and they turn out like me, all weird and shit?”
“Weird, or able to see through the grey?” Alita asked.
“You aren't broken, Micah; you're a genius and people know it. You received acceptance letters to colleges you hadn’t even applied to, which want an opportunity to be a part of your next chapter.
You have patents and made a few million before you were even 18, and those men don't want you to marry their daughters for connection to your grandfather for beef.
They don't even want the connection for the cocaine and coffee here at Las Tierras; they want the connection to your greatness.”
He smiled, almost blushing at her praise. “You think I'm great?”
“I think you are the most amazing man, Micah, and yes, I do love you, but there are rules, regulations, and customs you can't simply sidestep to have your way,” she said.
“I can, and I will,” he told her. “I can pack a bag, whisk you off, and live how I fucking please.”
“And take me away from my family, everything we know and love, for what? So, you can do what exactly?” Alita said.
“You look forward to the morning outings with your father where you ride in silence but say so much.
The adventures you take Angel on as his best friend even though you are his brother is priceless to him, plus the teatimes with Catarina, the fighting and swim lessons with Isabella, are part of your life.
You don't like to admit how much you enjoy the mother-henning by the Lady of the Lands but running away means leaving all of this. You can simply ask for what you need.”
“I need you,” he said. “I want us to get married. I asked Yunior to be my best man and to use his house in Aruba for our honeymoon.”
“Aww, I really want to go to Aruba, sit on the beach, and watch the sunset as I sip wine and eat my favorite cheeses. Wow, you remember me mentioning that?”
“Yes, a few days there, then we can get back to prepping for Uni,” he said.
Alita had him in the pocket. She wanted him to lay out his train of thought not only for her but also for his parents. “Micah, how do you see this working out?”
“Simple, I say ‘Hey, Papa,’” he said, turning to his father. “I want to marry Alita. Is that cool with you?”
“It's cool with me,” Eduardo replied.
“See,” Micah said. “This afternoon, we head to the village and see Father Julio and see how soon the church is available to get the vows done.”
“And what about my family?”
“They can fly in with Yunior,” Micah said.
“Your father will get to brag to all his buddies at the cantina about being on the private plane with the Bocaraca. Mama can create a small reception here. We take your parents and Luis to Bogotá to show off the flat, then everybody leaves, and we head to Aruba for some sexy time. I mean, I will start slow, before I take you down the path and get into some freaky shit. I like some weird shit and the freaky too.”
“Micah, your parents are sitting right here,” Alita said, blushing furiously.
“Alita, the man has six kids. I promise you, the way Mami is around here smiling every day, they are doing some freaky shit too.”
“Goodness,” she said.
Eduardo chuckled. Ryanne covered her mouth at Micah's perceptions although he had never said a word out of line to her.
“I'm asking, Alita, will you marry me and start the next leg of our journey together? I can't marry anyone else because they will never measure up to you. Say yes, so we can start our lives together.”
“Yes, Micah, I will marry you,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him, which he accepted briefly.
“Listen here, Alita, we aren't doing any more of that practice kissing bullshit,” he told her, “And just for the record, you snore, so you will have to sleep in your own bedroom. I'm not sharing a bed with a snorer.”
“Or we can fix the snoring,” she said.
“You fart in your sleep too, so no, you will sleep in your own room,” he said. “I shall visit you when it's time for the sexy.”
“You get on my damned nerves, you know that, Micah?”
“But you love me, so we have that.”
“I love you, and we have that,” she said. “Rebecka and Benicio? Do I have a say in the naming of our children?”
“The first two I name,” he said with a wink, “the second two are up to you.”
“Four kids! Four kids?”
He stuck out his tongue and popped to his feet. “Alita, Angel, come we ride to the village to converse with Father Julio. We are off on a new adventure with the Embera Choco!”
Angel threw up his arm in victory, “The Embera Choco rides again!”
Alita tugged at his arm. “Micah, we only have three weeks before we start class at Uni. We still need to get furniture, schedules, schoolbooks, and a vehicle. You want to plan a wedding in the middle of all of that?”
“Alita, there is an IKEA in Bogotá to get furniture. Mami would love to take you to Medellin to look for a wedding dress,” he told her. “You and I are simple. Do you want an over-the-top ceremony or a simple affair here at the house with your family and mine?”
“If we had it here, that could be lovely. My mother would love to see this house,” Alita said. “Luis, man, he would be delighted to see the craftsman's work building, and my father, would lose his mind seeing the gardens and fields. He would never stop bragging at the cantina.”
“Then we make it happen, so I can have my wedding night with you,” he said, winking at her.
“Freaky shit, huh?”
“Hell yeah,” Micah said. “It shall be, how do you say, ah si, hella fun.”