by Daniel Braum
I put the snorkel in my mouth and tread water. I could keep it up for a while. I stuck my face in the water. The lionfish was right there. I felt a strange kinship to it. Its simple life had been interrupted, all control and certainty taken away.
The current pulled me faster. The catamaran grew smaller by the second. The waves, the rain, the racing of my heart all beat their chaotic rhythms. There was nothing to latch onto. My leg exploded into a burst of pain and I jarred to a halt. I had been snagged on a wall of coral. The current dragged me along it and that same burning spread to my back. I scrambled for a hold hoping the coral wouldn’t snap. The ocean wanted to take me, but I held tight. Someone from the hotel would come. I searched the rain for a steady beat, kept my head above water and waited. Floating in the water I saw the patterns of my life—the currents that moved me. A cycle of bliss and chaos. It had always been this way with Kendra and it always would.
****
Later that night, after the hotel had fished me out, Kendra and I sat in our big tub full of warm, foamy water and soothing aromatic oils. The flicker from dozens of candles reflected off of the beige and white ceramic tiled walls.
“When you didn’t listen and went under like that I felt like it was New Years nineteen eighty all over again.”
“Things turned out okay then, I remember.”
“Today could have been a lot worse,” I said.
Except for the welts from the fire coral that saved me, things were fine.
“You made it down, right?” I said. “The fish are home?”
“Almost all of them,” she said, and pointed to a small cluster between the candles and a conch on the floor. “I knew it from the second dive. But I saw a shell I just had to have.”
It was no use to tell her she could have gotten us killed. I couldn’t handle a dose of her circular logic right now.
“A souvenir?” I asked. She knew as well as I the reef was a protected zone.
“Today was intense,” she said. “A milestone. It merited it.”
“The shell belongs to the sea,” I spat, trying to remember something Jack had said to me once while in a haze. “At one time the calcium was part of the earth. So that shell belongs to the sea—to the world. How’s that for a cosmic thought?”
“Calm down,” she said, unphased by my tirade. “I was reading up today.” She pointed at the fish on the floor. “They’re called gobies. I’m pretty sure they’re from the Red Sea, but could be India or the South Pacific. We’re going to have to travel the world together finding out.”
Her foot found my leg somewhere beneath the foam.
“I could think of worse ways to spend my time,” I said, but I didn’t want to touch her. I was thinking of treading water while being carried out to the sea.
“Good. Tomorrow I’ll get the tickets to Israel,” she said, obviously missing what I meant.
“Israel?”
“The Red Sea’s in Israel. I hear Eliat has the best reefs. Good hash and backgammon, too.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
She sat up, creating a wave that spilled over the side, dousing the nearest candles.
“Here we go again. Joe the monkey wrench. We’re almost there. Don’t ruin this.”
The smell of smoke filled my nose. With the candles out, her face was in shadow. The big lionfish floated between us. I smacked it but only hit the wall.
“I’m not ruining anything. You always have your head in the clouds and ignore what’s on the ground.”
She stood up and stormed out of the tub, the water pouring off her extinguishing the remaining candles with a sizzle.
I dried off, turned the wastebasket upside down, gathered the two conch shells, and drummed.
I started with the cool fade out from Mystic Tryst. The part that was cut too soon on the record. The little gobies scattered, and reformed their school on the ceiling. Soon I had recaptured the rhythm from my dream, the beat of the circling fish dividing and reforming their circling schools. It was so locked in I shouted, and shouted again in time. I chanted and pounded on the pail and shells till my hands were raw.
Then I slid into the tub and sat in the tepid water counting fish.
When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I quietly crept back into the room. Kendra was passed out, draped over the bed peacefully.
I laid down on the couch. It was long into the morning before I slept.
****
I woke up and Kendra was gone. Just like when we split the first time, gone in the night without so much as a note.
Just as I sat up, the door clicked. Kendra walked in holding a big covered tray.
“Done with my workout, sleepyhead,” she said without looking at me. “I saved us a spot at the pool and I’m going to have a shower. I brought you breakfast.”
She placed the tray on the table, put an envelope on the bed, and disappeared into the bathroom.
When I heard the water running, I went over to the bed and checked the envelope. Plane tickets. To Israel.
I pulled my suitcase from the closet and threw my stuff in it. I stomped around and decided to just leave it. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my passport, phone and wallet.
I opened the bathroom door and thought I was going to yell at the top of my lungs. She was in the shower. The water streamed down on her silhouette behind the smoked glass. We’d never be happy together. Or at least she’d never be. I was happy in my looping patterns. Circles of misery moving closer to and farther away from happiness with every encounter with Morty, with every affair, with every unfinished then completed beat, track, and project. She’d feed into me, like the endless tide, and I’d be satisfied in a way she’d never be. She was beautiful, mysterious, complex as the boulders at the beach, as the reef. I was drawn to her as she was drawn to me, like earth to water as she would say. But ultimately, I’d wear her down, slowly but surely batter her to sand. She didn’t belong with me.
I took one last, long look at the water cascading on her slender form and closed the door. The last fish would find their way. Just as she would. Maybe they wouldn’t. But I was going home. This was where our paths branched, for certain.
In the cab on the way to the airport, I called my assistant. Morty had called.
“I’m coming home,” I said.
He asked me about the weather but I was watching the propellers of a seaplane in the channel along the road sputter to life.
“If Morty bothers you again, tell him to screw himself. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”
Morty being pissed at me suited me just fine. I was going to be real busy for the next few months with the album.
I looked around for the lionfish. That feeling I was being watched was gone. It’d probably be back again. I had a lot to do yet before I joined Jack in rock star heaven and was sure I’d mess up plenty.
The plane leapt from the waves into the sky. Soon it would be me up in the air and I’d be out of here. I could already feel myself rising.
ACROSS THE DARIEN GAP
“Where Central and South America comes together lies a 54 mile stretch of rainforest, the only missing link in the Pan-American Highway—the 16,000 miles of continuous road stretching from Alaska to South America.”
—from Butler’s Guide to the Darien
Distorted reggae chords blare into the jungle from a tiny Marshall amp in the corner of Johnnie’s Video Bar. I watch a blond-bearded, dreadlocked American chuck chords on a beat up, blue, Fender knock-off guitar. His buddy, crammed in the corner behind him with his drum set, hammers out a sparse but steady beat.
Alexa shuffles on the dance floor with the seven others we’re traveling with. Her long black hair is coated in sweat and Costa Rican grime. She smiles and for a moment I can believe she is carefree, despite all our running and fear.
She keeps her distance from a short Indian man who is spinning in circles with his arms extended and eyes closed. A big, almost toothless grin spreads on his wrinkled old face. He’s definitely
had a few shots of guaro too many.
I picked up the seven others between here and San Antonio to bring us to nine. Makes us easier to mask. Harder to scrye. Now we look like just a bunch of nobodies heading to the gap, leisurely. Not in a beeline. Nothing that will call attention to our pursuers.
Alexa laughs and drinks beers and guaro with the rest, the bunch of them oblivious to the burnt-out look on the faces of the musicians, a look born of too many years of living lean. I know it too well. They don’t notice how the bass player, a Costa Rican, stands away from the transplanted gringos, probably once hippie students from Boston, avoiding direct eye contact as they play. They don’t yet have the wisdom to realize that every face, in every place we have passed, was not placed there for our amusement or education. Except for Alexa.
My old pal Johnnie himself stands behind the bar smiling as he serves a beer. A video screen behind him plays an American rock video with the sound off. He smiled big and greedily when we stepped into his gringo heaven in-the-middle-of-nowhere bar. He wouldn’t be smiling so wide if he knew that unlike the hippie holdovers in the corner who are probably running from themselves and their perceived sins of the world, the horrors I’m hiding Alexa from are dangerously real.
Tomas hired me to take her from St Louis across the Darien into Columbia. Told me she’s the daughter of some big time mystic, but not who. Told me her Pop’s enemies want her dead, but not why. I’m guessing a lot of people don’t want her to grow up big and strong like her Daddy. Now she’s got some bad stuff on her trail.
You can’t run from these things, Tomas said. They’ll keep coming forever. Her Dad is gone and we are all she has. Her only hope is to stay ahead of them long enough to get her across the Darien Gap, onto my ground. My hemisphere. I’ll stand a real chance of hiding her there.
I don’t know why he chose me. Probably ’cause I’m small-time enough to slip under the radar and not be noticed. I know just enough arcane tricks to make a living, keep me alive out here, and to piss a lot of people off.
The band stops so Boston-Dreadlock man can tune up. The din of peeping frogs, chirping lizards, and pulsing hum of insect night sounds fills the lull. The Indian keeps spinning, his hands almost slapping Alexa. The group laughs at him. Alejandro and Rita indulge in yet another public kiss. “Get a room,” David taunts. Alexa rolls her eyes, then notices me. A glowing smile grows on her beautiful face. She walks over to the window.
“Nate, get in here and dance with me,” she says.
I screwed up right from the start and used my real name. Some instinct in me mistakenly reacted as if “she and I” were real, and not just another job and fear born fling.
She tosses her freshly-showered, long, curly hair. She smells like soap and flowers.
I flick my cigarette and lean in. “In a minute,” I say, trying to manage an earnest smile, hoping it hides the sick feeling I get thinking about all this running. I walk across the dirt road to check the wards I placed in the edge of the jungle.
The leaves on the cibolas and ferny underbrush still lean south as I directed. Nothing has disturbed my “barrier.” Tomas said these simple wards would fool Alexa’s pursuers. Magical masks, he called them. Nothing outside will detect anything magical inside. Anything stronger will announce your presence for miles, like a flare. Keep it simple, and safe.
I walk along the barrier to check the next ward point.
A faint blue glow shimmers in the darkness. Something has walked into the barrier. Blue mist peels off a man-sized form, its pointed ears tight along its bald head. It turns, revealing stunted reptilian features, on an almost human face. Its eyes are the solid milky-blue of a snake about to molt. It moves its arms and legs slowly, deliberately though its wiry frame looks built to run.
I freeze. What the hell did Tomas get me into?
It keeps moving, apparently unaware of me. The bent plants all flip direction as it passes.
I didn’t bargain for this. Just figured I’d cast some wards, baby-sit some kid, and return home six months ahead on the rent.
The ward works. Simple and safe.
It circles an ancient strangler fig a few times, then steps out of the barrier—mist wisping off it as it disappears. Tendrils linger and settle on the ferns before dissipating.
I stand motionless, hoping it is gone.
A twig snaps. A dark shape close to the ground moves toward me. I release the breath I can hold no longer. It freezes. A black feline head regards me with intelligent yellow eyes. A jaguar. What is it doing this close to shore? A few heartbeats pass then it lifts a paw, slowly then gently puts it down.
Nostrils flaring, it crawls closer, its belly pressed to the ground, and I smell its musky stink. It paws the air in front of me, opens its mouth, baring its thick sharp teeth, releasing a low guttural growl. I hold still, thinking of what to do, but it crawls away in the direction the blue demon headed.
I stand still until my body is convinced all threat is gone. The adrenaline stops flowing. My heart slows. Beads of sweat roll down my face.
I backtrack to the bar. Juan is standing outside watching the five who have gravitated to the beach. When we met in Guatemala I hired him to be a lookout and some muscle, but more importantly to be our ninth member. I wouldn’t trust him with my girl, but I trust him not to run if things get out of control. David asked him about his scarred up arm. Shark bite, he said and they all believed him.
“Everything good?” he asks.
“Yeah, everything’s still in place. But I’m getting tired. Double duty tonight. We’ll sleep well tomorrow.”
“Check,” he says.
Inside Johnnie’s, the band is packing up. Alexa, David, (who keeps hitting on her), and the Indian guy are the only ones left on the dance floor, moving to the sound from the video screens.
I want to get between them, but don’t. Keeping our secret serves me better. He’d get pissed and maybe leave. We are nine and I want it to stay that way.
The Indian guy abruptly stops his spin and turns to me. He brings his hand into a claw and rakes the air. “Meow. Grrrowl. Meow,” he says through a mouthful of laughter.
How did he know?
“Don’t bother the paying customers,” Johnnie says, pushing him to the exit. “Time to get out of here.”
“What’s with him?” David asks.
“He’s nuts,” Johnnie says.
David yawns. “It’s dead in here, anyway. Let’s hit the beach.”
“I’ll bring you drinks,” Johnnie says.
Alexa’s eyes protest. I can read her well. They say you’re not going to dance with me after all.
I stare back. I’ll see her in her cabin, later. Like always.
We join the rest of the group, standing in a circle at the edge of the water smoking cigarettes under the stars. Balls of heat lightning flash on the horizon, slowly rolling closer.
“Come on,” Alexa says to me. “Take your boots off. Let’s go in the water.”
I take off my shoes, roll up my pants, and wade out into the shallow water with her. It’s only knee deep for a half mile out to the barrier reef. Hordes of tiny phosphorescent plankton float on the surface. We leave glowing trails in our wake. I light a cigarette and try to relax. We’re warded in all directions. Except from the water. Can I even place a ward on water?
After a minute David follows. I glance at Alexa’s perfect calves, half submerged in the water. I don’t blame him for his persistence. Alejandro and the others leisurely wade out to join us.
A big orange and purple cluster flashes in the sky.
“What was that?” David asks.
“Ball lightning,” I say.
“But there’s no rain.”
“Doesn’t have to be. Friction of front on front.”
“I don’t care what it is. Just look at it,” Alexa says.
“Beautiful,” David says.
As always, he adds one word too many.
“I mean, it’s the power of nature,” he continues
. “Makes you think all the nature worshippers and animal lovers have it right sometimes.”
“Not really,” Alexa says with disdain.
I think of the things searching for us in the jungle and the malice needed to sic them on us.
“If you could be any animal in the world what would you be, Nate?” Alexa asks, mockingly.
Something that hides, I think. Something that scavenges, crawls around on its belly. A crab. I don’t say it aloud.
As much as I can’t stand him, I need David to stay with us and keep our number nine so I encourage him with an inquisitive nod.
“I guess a fox,” he says. “Maybe a wolf or something.”
Half of Alexa’s face is lit by the stars. I can see the green plankton glow reflected in her brown eyes. I follow the taut line of muscle and cords from her neck to where it disappears under her t-shirt. Her smooth skin is perfectly tan.
David is still talking, but I’m not listening. Alexa yawns and stretches. Her shirt rides up revealing the coffee colored skin of her flat stomach. She wades back to shore. In a few minutes I will follow.
****
A humid wind blows through the thatched roof of the tiny cabin. The murmur of lapping waves serenades us.
Alexa is staring out the open window. Johnnie chose a great vantage point of the beach for his cabins—a little rise nestled at the edge of the jungle. I gently press my hand in the small of her back to move her away.
She arches reflexively. I take a deep breath, stifling my desire. I haven’t double-checked all the wards yet.
“You gonna stay?” she whispers.
“I gotta check on everyone.”
“You’re always checking on everyone. Stay with me, just this once.”
“I’ll be back. I promise.”
“Hurry.”
I check the wards I set around the four cabins. Muffled cries and groans from Alejandro and Rita’s cabin join the night sounds. In the dark of the night, when we are alone in each other’s arms, Alexa talks about the life we are going to have in Columbia. A villa. A ranch. Lazy days in the sun. It helps me believe that I’m special, that this is special and going to last, though I know it won’t. It can’t.
