Love Whisperer

LOVE WHISPERER (part of a fictionalized memoir) 

You have heard of The Horse Whisperer, right? The book and then the movie. Both were relatively well received. Robert Redford both directed and starred in the movie. Redford fancies he is a cowboy. He has acted in several cowboy movies. 

Anyway, the book and the movie are sentimental, plausible, and predictable tugs at heartstrings. Real life, I suppose, is the same in most cases. Sentimental, plausible, predictable. But I wanted more than the sentimental, plausible, predictable in Life and in Love. I wanted the unpredictable, the surreal, the dark side of the moon. And of course, I got hurt. But that was me in the past. The present is a bit more complicated, but more in my mind than in actuality. I’m living the remainder of my life in fantasies, hence I write. I write to fulfill what I don’t have. We always want what we don’t have. We always fantasize. At least that’s what I think we humans do. Of course, I am self-projecting. 

I am not cool nor calm nor collected, but I fancy that I am cool and wry, and very British in humor and comportment. Stiff upper lip, unflappable under stress, taciturn, that’s what I want to be. And wildly and gently and hopelessly romantic with you. So Babette, you’re making me become a better person: more disciplined, more tranquil, more forgiving. And also more fanciful, more dreamy. As a certain song says, “every time I want you, all I need to do, is dream, dream, dream”

Yes, I have always been someone else’s, and yet ironically I want you to be mine, forever mine, even only in fantasy, even the song of Joan Sebastian “Te Iría Mejor Sin Mí” says otherwise. I am going to be your Love Whisperer. I am going to whisper into your ear, over long distances, via words on the Net, my heart’s murmurs; its muffled cries for you; its secret desires; its fantasies, hopes, and dreams. Against my will, I whisper. I have to. Because you are so marvelous, so rare, and so inspiring to me. I whisper as much for you as for myself. This is my song. I am singing. 

Recently I met several guys who gave me a song and dance about their wealth! I don’t know why. Maybe because I looked poor? You tell me!  One 71-year-old white guy, fat, talkative, plain-looking, and not very smart. At least that was how he came across to me: the way he talked, his manner of expressing himself, his diction, the subject matters of his choice. He boldly, proudly, and how loudly intimated that he currently has a beautiful, sexy, 33-year-old Chinese girlfriend living in China. They see each other 4, 5 times a year. She has a well-paid job, and, like him, owns several properties in various cities in China. They plan to get married next year. So, of course, I asked to look at her photos on his smart phone. He slyly said he would not show me those photos which would put her in “compromising positions”. I promptly agreed, “of course not”. The woman looks smart all right, but not what I would characterize as pretty. As for being sexy, I don’t know, but I can tell, from her face and her eyes, that she likes sex and if the man wouldn’t be careful, he would die in bed, and leaving all the money to her. In other words, she will kill him with her body, after conquering his mind and heart which she apparently did. I mean, the guy is besotted in Love. I could tell. I was like him several times in my distant past. I was dumb and stupid. I didn’t know any better. I thought I was irresistible to women. I have learned my lessons the hard and expensive way. 

Then just two days ago, I sat next to a punk in his middle 30s. He looked smart and cunning, but poor. He stupidly had tattoos all over his arms, including his fingers. He saw that I was reading a thin book in French, so he went into an unprompted soliloquy about his recent sojourn in Montréal. The speech was well rehearsed, but then when I tried to speak to him in French, he couldn’t join me in a sustained conversation. He then volunteered in English that he is buying a million-dollar condo for cash on the Strip. I asked him about the particulars, like the name of the condo tower, square footage, the monthly association fee, and he sounded knowledgeable and legit. He further voluntarily disclosed that his net worth is $50 million. I congratulated him for his ability to amass such wealth. He then ungraciously asked me if I am a millionaire myself. I said that I used to, but now I am just a short step from being hopeless and homeless.

“Really? Tell me what happened?”

-“I was dumb and stupid, gullible and trusting. I don’t feel like going into detail. Not today, anyway. Some other time.”

-“Women problems”? Investment problems?” He persisted.

-“All of the above. Should we talk about something else?To be honest, Money is a depressing subject for me right now .”

“Suit yourself,” he cheerily agreed and then proceeded talking about life in prison, solitary confinement, sexual abuses in prison, and how the most dangerous guys one must watch out for if one is ever held behind bars are the short little guys because these guys always carry prison-made knives, have a heavy chip on their shoulders, and are itching to prove their manhood. 

I didn’t want to talk to him anymore because it was very obvious to me then that he was an unsavory character, somebody I needed to keep at an arm’s length. I was back to reading my book which he rather rudely had interrupted. Time passed. About an hour had elapsed. There was nothing but silence between him and me. The poker game at the table proceeded to its own rhythm. Chips flowed among players and the casino slowly benefited from charging a commission. A slow death of a thousand cuts. A steady trickling outflow of blood until deluded, weak preys collapse and die, financially speaking mostly. Some actually physically die. They either commit suicide or die slowly by being homeless, waiting for illness brought on by exposure to the elements, poor diet and lack of medical care, to take them down.

Life is in essence only for the strong and the smart. The weak and the stupid will not inherit the earth as the silly doctrines of the religion named Christianity, born of slavery and resentment and inversion of values, have preached. As the Darwinists are fond of saying, the weak are the meat that the strong do eat. Only a tiny group of apex predators would survive. And for that evening he was a predator. He won steadily. His chips grew. He looked cocky and confident. And things got more surreal. He called a chip runner over and ordered a dish of plain rice. The cost was $4. I was puzzled. He obviously could afford a more substantial meal. When the food arrived, he consumed the rice which was sprinkled with soy sauce with relish and gusto. After he was done eating, he patted his tummy, and let out a primal scream of satisfaction. A floor manager rushed over and asked him what was going on. He apologized. Everybody at the table looked at him with distaste and disgust, but nobody said a word. Shortly thereafter, I decided that I had had enough exposure to the squalor, the depravity, the animality up close and personal, so I got up and left. I didn’t forget to dispense the bs of telling him that it was nice meeting him and all. I  was not always stupid and dumb as I looked or sounded. I had my moments of clarity. 

On the way to the parking lot and during the drive back to my own not-shabby-but-definitely-not-luxurious, not-in-the-$1 million-price-range, condo in the southwest side of town, I couldn’t help thinking of the punk’s behavior. I seriously doubted if he even had $50,000 in his name. Possibly $5,000, but extremely unlikely at $50,000,000. I have known and interacted with multi-millionaires. Nobody acted like him. Heck, you told me yourself that your net worth is around $50,000,000, but you didn’t act that way. I have met many stupid and crazy dudes in my life. And he certainly ranked very high on the list of being pathological. But humans are like that. We all want respect and domination the easy way, instead of earning them the old-fashioned way: working for them. But I don’t really hate or even dislike the punk. I am a fair guy. He didn’t do anything wrong to me. He just lied to me, or at least that was the impression I got from him. I could be wrong. He could have said the truth about his wealth. But I found it odd to brag to a total stranger about one’s wealth. Granted, $50,000,000 is a large sum of money, but it is not stupendous. You have it. Several friends and acquaintances of mine have it. I don’t have it, and it is extremely unlikely that I will have it. I don’t dream that I will have it. Money is not that important to me, however. I lied to the punk. I am not a short step from being homeless. I still have enough money to maintain a solid middle class lifestyle until the day I die. My current problem is not money, but health and peace of mind. I must sleep, exercise, and meditate more.

Anyway, my dear, dear Babette, I don’t always meet braggarts and punks in my turbulent life. I have met several nice and kind people, too. You, for one, and so is she, and then so are her mentor and several friends in California and elsewhere. And so are a man and a woman I met last month.

His name was Jack Sharma. He was a Hindu. His wife was white American. She was very pretty. He was just so-so looking and quite short, but he carried himself very well. He had a presence about him. An air of spiritual and emotional strength and wealth. He lived in London. He sat next to me while we were playing poker. We talked. And he decided to like me. He gave me his phone number and told me to look him up if I happened to be in London. Talking to him gave me peace and strength. 

A few days later, I met an American woman. She was in her early 50s. She was good-looking, statuesque, and had a friendly, open, humble disposition—a far cry from the punk. After much gentle prodding and prying from me, she told me her father owns a small electronics company in San Diego, CA., employing 40 workers and she is the CEO. She is unattached, drinks hard liquor (vodka and cranberry juice) quite liberally, and likes movies as much as I do. She was impressed by my acumen when I explained to her that Pulp Fiction, its ultra-violence and profanity notwithstanding, is a religious movie. The Samuel Jackson hitman character holds true to his religious views. That and because his believing in the sign of divine intervention when he was not hit despite being shot at close range ultimately saved his life. He forsook his “career” and bcame straight. The John Travolta character didn’t believe in any signs. He was an atheist and saw everything in life in terms of random occurrences or non-divine causal relationships. And he was killed by a random occurrence. You see, I respect those theists who stay true and faithful to all aspects of their faith, not pick and choose. Only then would being  religious do the theists good. They must live their faith, and not paying lip service to it. They must be religious all the way. The sad fact is that most so-called theists are not true, committed believers. I am an atheist but I must tell you that I am more “religious” and moralistic than them. I am not a hypocrite as they are. They are hypocrites because they are weak-minded and they are stupid. They cannot understand the issues at hand. Now you understand why I regard myself as a rare, superior human being. I am not perfect. I did several  bad things in life, but I took  ownership of my deeds and acts. I didn’t blame anybody else or the circumstances. I did bad things because I was weak and I was stupid, but I grew up. I have not done a bad thing for years. I have never lied about myself to impress you or anybody. I challenge you or anybody to prove conclusively that I have lied about myself, or about somebody else. I am fond of braggadocios but I am not a liar. I have not lied about several scumbags either despite my hating them. I respect facts and truths. I am an honest, superior human being, I repeat, and I regard most humans I have known as scums of the earth, and best utilized as fertilizers for the soil. To live is to avoid, if you can, humans that make this life dour and sour, humans that see the faults of others but are blind to their own fucking faults. 

But too much talking about myself already: who I am, what my values are, so on and so forth. Let’s talk about someone else today, someone similar to me, but not exactly me, someone who is a version of me in earlier times and in earlier places. His name is Mickey. He is sweet, honest, and trusting, and too fond of talking about himself. Sounds familiar? He is in the process of ending his fourth marriage. He will come out a loser financially because he was stupid enough not to have a pre-nuptial agreement. It was I who helped him in the courtship of his fourth wife. I wrote romantic poems so he could show them to his beloved how he felt about her. And now the marriage is on the rocks after 5 years. He has aged a lot during these five years. That was how a bad marriage could do to a man. Worse still, he has prostate problems and has to undergo chemo treatment. My heart is aching for him. I have looked at him and listened to his tales of woe and all along I keep thinking that I could be very easily like him. Maybe I am like him, but I just don’t know that. Anyway, I have been very nice and supportive since he confided in me about his impending divorce. I haven’t lectured him on how stupid he was for not having a pre-nups. I have been very understanding and sympathetic. I have learned over the years that one must learn how to listen when the interlocutor is in emotional pain. We must avoid the power games. 

When I had emotional problems almost 50 years ago, I discovered that nobody would want to listen to my problems. Some even couldn’t help themselves and showed that they were glad that I had problems. They even lectured me. I knew then I couldn’t trust those animals. As I have said ad nauseam, we don’t know who people are until they are tested. A false or wrong move on their or our part, and the relationship is broken beyond repair. Trust is very hard to restore once it is broken. A true man must learn a few basic things in life and he must learn them fast. One of them is he must look strong and calm even though inside he is shaken with fear and doubt. One must never show that he is weak, easily affected by words and deeds of others or even by acts of nature. A strong man can deal with all kinds of adversity, including the biggest adversity of all: his own death. 

I think it is stupid for people writing to the moderator of an egroup or to an individual requesting to have their names taken off the email distribution list. It is a naked, stupid power play. It is much better off to block people or groups you don’t want to hear from. Or if you don’t know how to block them off, you just delete their emails whenever you see their names in the inbox. I think it is beyond stupid to tell people in a certain way you don’t like them, and so they shouldn’t bother to correspond with you. I have no respect for folks who are that self-righteous and into the power games. Silence is always the best policy. We must learn to be quiet. Silence and Avoidance are essential for Happiness. Power Plays are for stupid, pompous, insecure folks.  

Babette, I think I don’t really know about humans. I now think I am really naive. But at least now I begin learning to have control over my mouth. I am learning to keep my mouth shut while keeping my eyes and ears wide open. A man’s biggest enemies are his mouth and his ego. One more thing I’m learning is that PERHAPS there is a mystery, a force, a spirit, if you will, watching over me and protecting me from real harm or MAYBE I have been very lucky. Anyway, whenever I have that consciousness, that awareness, I remember what you told me that because you are a good Catholic girl who has not hurt anybody, God is watching over you and protecting you. I know I’ve told you that I’m a die-hard atheist, but now even though I don’t believe in the existence of God, I must say that I feel there’s something out there, maybe my own electromagnetic field, protecting me, telling me to change for the better; to use my mind, my intuition, my sixth sense, for survival and not repeating the former behavioral mistakes of what I see in others or of my own. A strong man must be able to learn. A strong and secure man must learn to respect and practice Silence while being attuned to everything around him and inside him. Something out there is whispering Truth and Love to me. And I am in turn whispering Truth and Love to you. Am I making sense, Babette? Are you aware that I’m telling you all this while I’m shimmering with pain, while I am trying hard to shake loose the memories. I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m just stating the facts. I want you to know exactly what has happened to me. 

I’ve got to tell you something else. I just detest so much most Vietnamese I meet nowadays. They are so ignorant, stupid, superstitious and yet loud-mouthed and pompous. You know I am a Vietnamese myself but I just cannot stand most of my own people anymore, including the so-called educated ones. They are not as well-read as I am, and they are full of Shit and False Pride. They have no sense of Self-Respect and Honor. They steal and hijack the intellectual efforts of others and pass those efforts off as their own. Ridiculously and nauseously, they preach to others that they are the honest and kind ones. “Honest” and “kind”, my ass! 

Oh, you probably now think I have no Love inside me. Au contraire, Mademoiselle, I have too much. Too much, I’m telling you. But I’m learning to deal with it. I want to maintain Peace and Dignity, you see. I have a feeling one day you may regret that you  have treated my feelings with  disdain. That’s all I want to say to you tonight. Your ego is your biggest enemy. My own ego is also my biggest enemy, yet sadly I have placed it below yours. 

What a day I had today, full “Of Love and of Squalor”. So, Keith graciously bought my second book. He asked me about the price. I said, “Amazon is selling it for $45. I am selling you at cost. Forty dollars would be fine by me.” He initially handed over $40, but then he handed me another $5 . “I don’t want to short-change you.” I said, “Thanks, pal. You’re a good man” He said, “Write something and sign the book, Roberto.” So I wrote, “A mi amigo con amistad y gracias” and then signed and dated my autograph and shook his hand. I said upon leave-taking, “You won’t get disappointed. It’s a good literary book and a work of art. Hang on to it. Keep it in good condition. It may be worth a lot of money down the road, long after I’m gone. You will be hard pressed to come across another book like that. In fact I think not many humans in the English-speaking world can write as beautifully as I did in the book. Mark my words. You can take them to the bank.”

Keith is a good, kind man, just like me, and as loquacious as me, if not more. Today he confided in me that he had a heart attack a few years ago, right after his divorce from a blood-sucking wife. His marriage lasted 32 years until he didn’t want to continue getting conned until he died. Just before he left, he gave me an unsolicited advice, “Roberto, don’t get fucked like I was. If you want to have sex, see a hooker. It costs much less and you will have more fun and variety. Just remember to wear a condom and don’t engage in oral sex. And don’t fucking marry any chick. And if you think there’s a woman out there that really loves you for who you are, and not after your money, you’re out of your fucking mind. You must understand she is fucking really after your money. Watch your wallet. Don’t be stupid at your age. Don’t be an old fool. What? You said you have been married three times? Haven’t you learned your lesson by now?” 

His advice and counsel really distracted me from the poker game I was playing. So I got up and took a walk in the rain and the cold and the wind. I wanted Mother Nature to toughen me,  to instill discipline and rationality into my stupid, romantic heart.

When I couldn’t take the cold and the wet anymore, I went back inside and gathered my chips, cashed them, and went straight to the gym.

As I was running on the treadmill, the following words that I wrote last night in my diary came back to me:

“What and Who we believe (in) tell the world who we are, whether we are smart or stupid, free or enslaved, strong or weak, a real human with a functioning brain or a retarded monkey.  

The below cannot comprehend the above, but the above can understand the below.

The stupid cannot understand the intelligent, but the intelligent can understand the stupid. 

There are always two classes in any human society: 

-Those who know what is going on and those who don’t.

-The ruler and the ruled.

-The enslaver and the enslaved.

-The truly educated (those who know how to think with Facts and Logic) and the uneducated (those who are emotionally and intellectually enfeebled: they believe what they are told to believe despite facts to the contrary, despite Logic, and despite Common Sense). Many uneducated folks do have university degrees and falsely think they are educated.

Most humans, including the majority of my Vietnamese compatriots, cannot accept humiliation and subjugation. We don’t know what we and others are made of until we and they are tested. The tests usually involve Money, Pride and Ego, Love, Fame, and Power. Humans are the only species that knowingly risk death in the pursuit of Money, Pride/Ego, Love, and Power. Other species risk death only over two things: Sex and Territory. Incidentally, I only value Pride and Love. I have a disdain for Money, Fame, and Power. And I have a contempt for those humans who lust after Money, Fame, and Power. I also despise shameless liars and schemers such as Paul Van, Nguyễn Anh Giao (NAG), and stupid self-styled “journalist” Vũ Linh. They brazenly make up stories to assassinate the character of the individuals, me included, they don’t like. That’s  cheap and low and cowardly! That’s animalistic behavior! They don’t have an ounce  of honor and self-respect inside them. Unlike them, when I denounce anybody, I always back up my denunciation with incontrovertible facts.  More incredibly then, there are several very sick Vietnamese that post or forward  repulsive naked photos of human females on the Internet forums in order to denounce those they don’t like. Little do they know that in doing so, they degrade themselves and invite contempt from bystanders. When you are stupid and do stupid things, you don’t recognize the stupidity and even the futility of your deeds. Paul Van is one of them. He is an old fart that loves to falsely state on the forums that I am a plagiarist and a gigolo. More disgustingly, he is now starting forwarding dirty photos of naked human females on the Net. He is greatly suffering from Envy. He has one thing going on for him, however. He is still going on strong physically. Old Age has not slowed him down. He keeps on lying and name-dropping shamelessly. I always wonder why he hasn’t dropped dead like a stupid dog that he is. In fact, I think he is more like a proverbial fly that eats shit and bothers people. He has disgraced the officer class of the ARVN. What a creature! What a piece of shit! 

My philosophy is that because Life is temporary and fleeting (everybody has to die), I must live my life in such a way that I don’t have feelings of shame and discomfort when I look at myself in the mirror. I can lie and fool others, but I cannot lie to myself. I cannot steal and hijack intellectual efforts of others and pass them off as my own. I cannot live without True Pride and Self-Respect. However, I do know many humans that live without True Pride and Self-Respect. They can live like that. I cannot. Life for humans is nothing but a series of choices.”

After I took the hot shower after the run on the treadmill, I felt a bit better. My anger and my hurts dissipated somewhat. Then miraculously, her words arrived. So I wrote back to her, “Your greetings made my day. They cheered me up and lifted my spirits on an otherwise bloody dreary sad day.”

Then two more women from the past sent me Seasons Greetings. I wrote them back a reply, but my words lacked the effusiveness that I reserved for her.

It’s still cold and raining right now. I’m still feeling cynical and murderous. Then Orquídea called and invited me to a Christmas Eve party. I said, “Con mucho gusto, señora. Pero, por favor,  no hable sobre ella y de mi estupidez por pensar que ella mi amaba. Acuerda?”

What more can I tell you? I don’t think I can. I don’t think I’ve learned anything. The same mistakes. The same disappointments. The same pains. Maybe  I’ve been perceived as weak and stupid. Anyway, I begin to look at life from a glass half full perspective and learn from my own mistakes and those of others. Right now, I must be very cautious and listen to my Intuition and think in big pictures. I do know for sure that I cannot stand Insolence. Actually, Insolence is a form of stupid aggression and power pursuit. It pisses off people. 

Wissai

 December 13, 2021