Creating Writing Anthony Maxwell Gilbert

Creating Writing

Anthony Maxwell Gilbert sat in the dark brown leather chair, his feet resting on the matching footstool. He took another drag from his cigarette, deliberately, as if inhaling the smoke helped him reach further into that part of his brain filled with so many memories of a long ago time. A time when he was Antoniy Gilberto.

His beautiful wife, Mary, had just left for Boston to visit her parents. The limo had just pulled out of the driveway to take her to the Santa Fe airport. He could remember when they always drove each other to the airport, and then when they could afford it, started taking taxis, but now, that his artwork and her clothing line are so successful, they think nothing of hiring a limo to transport them to and fro. Success does have its perks. It doesn't buy utopia, but it can buy a little sugar to help make the sour days go down a little better.

They had been together twelve years, married for ten. The irony of their lives had never alluded him. They could not have come from more different backgrounds if they had been characters in some romance novel. The fact that they were both Catholic was about the only similarities to their upbringing. She was christened Mary Elizabeth O'Hara, and one could not get any more Irish than that. He was christened Antoniy Maximos Gilberto, and that's about as Latin as you can get. She comes from two generations of newspaper editors, while he comes from two generations of whores. Yet somehow their lives worked. He wasn't sure why and was too afraid, or maybe too superstitious to question the psychology of it all. He never looked at Mary as a savior, as if she had rescued him from some horrible existence. She didn't do that. Although there was no question that she opened a window of possibilities to him, introduced him to nurturing people who had proven invaluable to him and his work through the years, it was more than that.

They had connected from the first time they met at the annual Santa Fe arts fair. She had a booth two booths down from his. He remembers that she was surrounded by color, her batik dresses on hangers, waving in the breeze. This had been the third showing of her work, all designed, batiked and sewn by Mary. He was a painter, bright vivid colors on large canvases. This had been Tony's first showing, mainly because his job on the ranch just outside of town didn't afford him the time or the money to devote to painting. Tony had always believed some sort of divine intervention had played a hand in their meeting, for otherwise they probably never would have met. Had his booth been on the other side of the fair, she would not have been able to ask him to watch her booth while she took a break for some lunch. When she came back, she brought beer, chips and three specialty salsas. They spent the rest of the afternoon talking and six months later he had moved into her Santa Fe house and eighteen months later they were married. And that's why he never questions too deeply what she sees in him or what he sees in her. That fit. And that's all that matters.

Tony lit another cigarette and walked out to the patio to watch the evening come alive, the sun was just beginning to set. Nothing is as beautiful as a Southwestern sunset. Each one produces such a myriad of colors that it's impossible to ever be bored. it's like watching the ocean on a full-moon night, when the water twinkles like fairy lights in the dark, and you half expect some mystical experience to overcome you. He remembered the way the light danced on the water on moonlit nights in Brazil.

He had been born and raised in Adorabella's, a bordello about half way between Vitoria and Rio de Janerio. Because of its location, it was very popular, not only for locals, but for tourists and business people from the city. Adorabella's was one of the few places left where voyeurism was allowed. By the 1970's many of the whore houses no longer allowed the pay and watch customers. But at Adorabella's, anyone, man or woman, could pay and watch sex acts. The choice was yours - twosomes, threesomes, or all out orgies. There was even bestiality, but that was only for a handful of rich clients and very few people even knew it was offered or could have afforded it even if they had known. However, the majority of the clientele were men just looking to get laid and wealthy women seeking adventure.

His mother Elena had been born there also. Tony's grandmother, Donna, had worked at Adorabella's since she was fourteen years old. Her family had been so poor that when Donna reached puberty, her father traded her to Adorabella for some chickens. Adorabella's was a self-sustained operation. Aside from being a whore house, it was a very tightly run ranch, with livestock for butchering and crops for harvesting. She had a full staff of cooks and house-help, and just about the only imports were liquor, cigars and cigarettes, drugs and other sundries.

From the time he was old enough to walk, the ranch hands took him under their care more or less. That is how he knew so much about ranching and why he went to work on the New Mexico ranch when he came to the United States. It was a good thing that he been given the opportunity to work the ranch, otherwise he would have witnessed much more of the bordello life. As it was he saw much more than he could ever forget.

If Donna knew who Elena's father was, she never told anyone. Elena began servicing clients when she turned thirteen. Adorabella had wanted her to start working at eleven, because she had several customers who requested young pubescent girls, but the story goes, that Donna wouldn't allow it. Elena was only fifteen when she gave birth to Tony, and just like all the other girls who gave birth at Adorabella's, she was back working within a couple of weeks. The babies were cared for by the house-help and local wet-nurses.

As Tony watched the last rays of the sun disappear behind the mountains, he took another drag as he remembered Antoniy. It was impossible to remember all the men who visited his mother, or count the times he had wandered into her room. He could however, remember all the times he had deliberately watched through the window. He must have been about nine years old when he first stood outside his mother's window. Sometimes he would just stand in the shadows, other times, he would climb a nearby tree, and watch, watch for hours.

He watched as a child would watch his actress mother on stage, in play after play. Watching in wonder at her ability to perform.

Growing up on Adorabella's ranch, Tony knew no other lifestyle. It all seemed normal to him. Clients came day and night. Adorabella's was never closed, not even on Christmas. Yet, she never questioned anyone who wanted to attend mass and enlisted Lucia, an older woman who managed the cooks and house-help, to take the children and anyone else who wanted to go to church once a week. And although Tony attended mass on a fairly regular basis, he still did not understand the impact of Adorabella's until he was thirteen, and overheard a group of older boys talking about Adorabella's whores, and he caught the names of Alina and Kristina, and his mother, Elena.

As Tony sat in the early evening, he could still feel the sting of their words. Those words had struck him with such force, he had been left breathless. He remembered his mother's face when he questioned her. He remembered Lucia taking him aside and explaining to him how life is and is not always how it seems. "Nothing has changed," she said. "Your mother is still your mother, and life will go on. Be grateful you are not female or your fate would be written." And she was right about that. Had he been born a girl, he would most likely already have been one of Adorabella's whores, just like his mother and grandmother. By the time room and board, medical needs and other essentials were accounted for, the women had little if anything left to save. And the same was true for the men who worked the ranch. No one except Adorabella made money.