Dulce

Excerpt:
So this was Caracas at three in the morning.

The wrong side of the tracks, assuming trains chugged through Venezuela en route to deforestation elswhere. Here was a side of town Fodors had clearly missed, a neighborhood set to the soundtrack of screeching Russian-made automobiles and slurred, Spanish curses. Shattered glass sparkled on dirt avenues under yellow lamplight; the salty tang of nearby waters hung thick in the air. Here, surely, was where the kids of Spring Break banded together for safety when the money ran low, when they were too full of pride and independent spirit to call home.

Here was a place the tires of chartered tour buses never tread. One would never see this part of the otherwise glamorous city in the backdrop as Robin Leach waxed gloriously of sangria wishes and churros dreams.

Neil Randall smiled through the windscreen of his helmet at Caracas at three in the morning, thinking of how much Cal Briscoe would have loved this place. Pity that his best friend was unable to accompany him on this trip, choosing instead to do something so out of character as fall in love and get married.

Que loco. How crazy, were those the words? Crazy to fall in love and marry after decades of confirmed bachelorhood. Crazy to suggest Neil do the same, to remarry anyway. Shake off the grief and anger, sell the bike, bloom where planted and find a pretty flower to stab repeatedly with his pistil until her petals wilted.

No, those hadn't been Cal's exact words, but they had been muy loco nonetheless. All Neil could remember of his last meeting with Cal was tuning out the lecture after the fourth beer and thinking of his passport and keys, both of which pinched his skin through a back denim pocket as he rocked on his ass, eager to leave the bar for this vacation. Nod and drink, nod and drink, until Cal's wife dragged him to the dance floor, where the two joined crotches in a seductive tangle. Cal's words had glance off of him. Neil would not remarry, he decided, yet he fully intended to stab many flowers before the month was over. He would be the plant kingdom's answer to Jack the Ripper, there would be so much stabbing with his rock hard pistil on this trip.