Love Is A Little Place

For a short time, I took on a personna in scroll (Writing.Com chat) as Bernardo Petrocelli and started this. Unless I transform back into that person, it is unlikely this story will ever be completed...so, as is for now...


I look at love and I don't know it. Many months I searched. It is here? No. Is it over here? Not there either. I ask people to show me where love is and they tell me everything they know. Love is kind. It is a fish in the ocean. It will come back to you. I grew tired of all of these lies. These people who know so much about love teach Bernardo nothing. So I go and look for it by myself.

I lived in a tiny apartment above a lawyer's office on the main street of a little town where I go to college in 1986. My friend, Renny, who real name was Renaldo, was a janitor at the community college where I go to school. He became a good friend and got me a job sweeping floors with him. It was a minimum wage job, but that was okay. Bernardo did not need money, just to find love. Floors needed to be cleaned and I needed time to think how to find that special someone.

"Renny, I'm lonely," I said to him one night before we lock up. "You have a great girlfriend. She love you, yes? How do I find a girl to love me like that?"

Renny was no ordinary guy. He was always thinking. Being a janitor gave him time to think of things so he could be wise. He said, "Love is not an easy thing, Bernie. Love is something that you just cannot go out and get. It has to be coaxed. She has to think she has found you, the perfect one. And you must shine down on her like the moon. Let her bask in your glow. Dazzle her with everything you have, and don't every let up. Don't do it to impress. Do it, because you love her. If a girl is the right one, shine on her. Don't ever stop shining until she knows how deeply you love."

I think about this many nights. Who was the right one for me. Renny's girl was a secretary in that office below. She was practically getting me and Renny the apartment for free because the lawyers, they do not know. They are smart men, but do not know what they charge for rent above. She tell us to be quiet. Lay low. To come and go after hours so they forget there is an apartment above that charges the rent. After a while, Renny does not come anymore. He pays his share of rent and I look out the windows at night, looking into the street. I'm wondering where I will find true love while Renny has his secretary girl who lays in bed with him each night. he is a lucky man, I thought.

Summer came and the spring semester was finished. I was one year done with college and no girlfriend. I did not need money because my rent was only $60! Thank you Renny's secretary girlfriend. I had plenty of money to get me through summer until the fall semester. But, I had no car and no place to go. I walked to college mostly and sat in the library. There I met not one girl, but three! Summer jobs brought new girls to may favorite place to hang out. But try as I may, Bernardo only could meet one girl who had a boyfriend. Her name was Brenda.

Brenda was one year out of high school and was waiting for her boyfriend to come back from a construction job that took him away for the summer. In the fall, he would come back, and maybe, they would get married. I was very glad to know her. She was very sweet. She would talk about how she missed her Randy. I would talk about how I missed being with a girl since moving to this country to get an education. I told her of my plans to work in a small engine repair shop run by my cousin, once I had completed the two years of technical school courses.

"Bernie," she said. "Where do you go to meet girls?"
"Here, mostly," I said. I shrugged my shoulders. I felt defeated. I knew she could tell because she looked sadly at me. Kind of like my Mama would look when we had no more milk to drink and had to wait until Papa could make more money working at the groceries for so little lira. It made me sad to think how lonely Mama was with Papa gone all day slaving to make enough money for her children to eat. She was the first one to put me on that boat. She wanted me to see America. She wanted me to have a chance like my cousins. They made enough money working in this country to live a 'good life' she said. I never asked her what that meant. I only had her few expressions to tell me when she was happy or when she was sad.