The biggest problem is the wood floors, which are uneven and in horrible shape. I started with the easiest room, the bedroom, which needed a few nails removed, sanding, and a new stain. Then I moved to the living room and kitchen floors, which were burdened by a layer of carpet and underneath that a layer of linoleum that was glued to the wood. I pulled up the worn-out carpet and dragged it to the driveway. The driveway is being supported by hard dirt packed around an overturned porcelain claw foot tub; the house inspector had never seen anything like it, but laughingly told me it was the least of my problems. On the floor, I used a little metal tool to scrape up the linoleum and moved around the room on my hands and knees testing for weak patches that would come up easily. Soon the floor resembled a map of gluey continents, shifting plate tectonics, and then not only were the floors structurally uneven, they were sharp and sticky to walk on, too. It was so much worse than when I started.
Employees at the late-night mega-hardware store in Hollywood sold me tools and various liquids and goo in large containers. I tried their suggestions, took photos of the disastrous results, and returned to the store where invariably different people would be working so I’d whip out the series of photos and explain the project from the beginning, asking, What do I do now?
When I finally admitted defeat with the floors in these rooms, I called in an expert who assessed the mess and shook his head. The wood floors were never worth saving to begin with, he said, they’re soft wood, not hard, and no way was I going to get up those tiles, better to start over. I forked over the money for him to lay plywood over the current floors in the living room and kitchen as a base for new hardwood floors. It’s a great idea, but hardwood is expensive and will have to wait. What do I do now? Paint, trick the eye with color! After days of indecision, I settled on dark orange for the floor. Yes, orange. I was inspired by a book of dream homes in Mexico, and I decided those colors are my palette. I painted the plywood dark orange and finished it with a sealer. The baseboards were gone, oh well, one more thing for the list. I painted a faux finish on the walls in yellow and orange. Then I went all out and laid huge purple tiles on the plywood in the kitchen. I quickly discovered I’m not a good measurer. I’m an approximator, which isn’t the best quality to have for home renovation. The tiles approximately meet with the edges of the room. It will be covered once the baseboards are up, but what do I do now? Hide some of the gaps with floor plants! If I don’t look too closely at the unevenness—and the fact that the floor is plywood and that there are no baseboards—and just take in the gorgeous plants against the wild color scheme, the house is starting to look festive, if not beautiful.
As I continue to walk along the road past a pink house with green trim, an orange and blue house, and one painted yellow and red, I make mental notes while the camera in my backpack bangs against my spine. I wonder if I could afford to buy a tiny house here and if I could make it home.
I’m thirsty. I have money, but there’s nowhere to buy water. The road to the dive shop stretches out longer and farther. I don’t know what time it is, but the air is cooling. I hurry. I consider maybe I should have listened when the diver told me not to walk. I want to spend every minute of the rest of this day with him but when I get to the dive shop I’m surprised it’s already closing. He left work an hour ago to be with me. He must have gone home on the water while I was on the road. My heart sinks, and I feel foolish. My cell phone doesn’t work in Belize so I call him from the dive shop office and tell him where I am. I laugh at the situation and apologize for not being at the cabana. I tell him I’ll catch a taxi and meet him in a few minutes. He says he’ll wait in the hammock on the cabana porch. He says he misses me.
MYTH. The angry man’s father had a reputation for drinking. The angry man watched his mother take the brunt of it.
The dive shop doesn’t have a taxi phone number so I go to the restaurant next door, and the bartender makes a call. I step to the road to wait for the taxi. I could stand outside the dive shop or the restaurant where there are other people mingling, but the buildings are set back from the road on a small cul-de-sac, and I don’t want to waste a moment returning to the diver. I want it to be easy to jump in the taxi and go. I remember the O. Henry story of the couple that had no money for Christmas presents. He sold his cherished pocket watch to buy her hair combs. She cut and sold her hair to buy him a chain for his watch. I think the diver and I are a little like that couple. He left early on the water to be with me while I was traveling the road to be with him. I think I’ll tell him the story when I see him. I think he’ll kiss me for that story.
You have to learn to breathe from a regulator, the diver says. When you’re underwater you inhale and exhale through your mouth. Your nose is inside a mask so if you exhale through your nose you might create air space, which will cause the mask to fog up or allow water to clear. Then your view will be less.
I’m impatient, where is the taxi? Each car that passes makes my heart jump in anticipation. Finally a reddish orange van comes down the road. The driver, a striking guy in his thirties, about my own age, stops.
Taxi! he says.
It doesn’t look like a taxi and there’s a younger man in the front seat, but taxis here come in all colors, makes and models, and friends or family members often go along for the ride. I don’t notice many of the details of this taxi. My mind is preoccupied with the diver. I respond yes! The passenger jumps out and walks quickly up the road, turning once to give me a piercing or maybe encouraging look; I don’t know how to interpret it. Later, on another day, I will wonder about that guy in the passenger seat. Did he suspect what was going to happen? Did he try to send a message with his eyes? Or was it nothing, just a look? I hop in the front seat of the taxi, which is customary. The driver pulls a U-turn and heads toward town.
MYTH. The angry man’s mother loved to waltz. When he was very small, she used to dance him through the narrow space between the wall and the couch. He was proud to waltz with his mother, especially since his father had no rhythm. Then the angry man’s mother waltzed alone, while her boy and his father watched.
FOUR
I sit with my backpack on my lap chatting with the taxi driver. He has a distinct Mestizo look, seems out of place in this Creole village, an artist, I think, on the fringe. He reminds me of friends at home. I like the way he tied his red bandana over his long hair, notice the remains of red fingernail polish on his left thumb, and wonder why he painted his nails and if he has a thing for the color red. Maybe he’s a painter or a musician. Maybe he plays music on the beach—wine flowing, good food, a bonfire. I’ve never seen anything like that in the village, but maybe it’s because I hadn’t met him yet and didn’t know where they gathered. I wonder if the diver knows him though I doubt they’d have much in common.
Underwater there are signs you use to communicate, the diver says. Okay. Up. Down. Slow down. Something’s wrong. Low on air. Out of air. Watch out for that big fucking shark!
He seems like a friendly driver, and I hope for an interesting conversation, but I’m confused that he doesn’t recognize the name of my hotel in this tiny village. It’s one of the most popular places to stay. There are nearly a dozen cabanas on the property, which is located at the very end of the road, any farther I’d be in the bay. Why doesn’t he know? He mentions he was watching the soccer game with the guy who was riding with him, and the local team won. I’m glad because I know this will make the diver happy. I guess that the taxi driver’s been drinking and carefully explain where I’m going, using local references which gives me a slight twinge of pride to be in-the-know.
I ask how much the fare is. He says BZ$20, but he’ll give me the ride for BZ$15 since . . . I can’t hear his reason or maybe he mumbles or maybe he doesn’t finish his sentence. Great, I think, a discount. I ask if he has change for $20 US, and he doesn’t. Again, I find it strange for a taxi driver not to have change, but it’s Sunday and things in this village are relaxed so I’m not concerned. I check my backpack
and tell him I can either give him BZ$12 or I need to stop somewhere for change. It’s up to him. He says he’ll stop.
MYTH. When the angry man was still young, his father died and his abuela grieved. After the priest gave the last anointing and said, “Amen,” after Abu covered her dead son’s face with the small blanket she had stitched so many years ago for his baptism, after she cried in private because he had never been a good boy or a good man, she took her grandson’s hand and led him to the trailhead. They walked the easy loop, careful of the sharp sprouts and with an eye out for animal tracks. They stopped to watch a Blue Morpho drink from rich mud and flit around the branches of a rotting log. As the butterfly flapped its wings, it seemed to appear then disappear, blue then brown, blue then brown, here then gone, son then no son, father then no father.
Abu told him be still. He held his breath and froze.
I can feel your papa inside the butterfly, she told him.
Then with the magic of a grandmother, Abu suddenly caught the butterfly in her cupped hands.
I think he’s apologizing, she told him.
To you?
Yes. And you.
She handed him the butterfly. He took it in his little boy fingers, studied its blue side, brown side, body, and legs. Then he plucked off one of the wings. Abu snatched the butterfly, pried open the boy’s mouth, and crushed the butterfly inside. He gagged, spit out mangled pieces, slapped at his tongue with his hands, then sat on the trail, crying.
Get up, she told him.
It took him a long time, but she waited. Then Abu placed an open palm on the top of his head, bent down, and kissed both his eyes.
You’re like your father, she told him.
No I’m not.
I love you, but you are.
FACT. Blue Morphos aren’t really blue. They have tiny scales on their wings that reflect blue light, making them appear to be one thing when they’re really another.
We drive halfway to town. I’m struck by how far I walked. I hold my backpack on my lap, anxious to get to the cabana and hop right out. I’m annoyed it will take longer since we have to stop somewhere for change. He suddenly pulls left off the road onto a path in the sand that leads to two houses facing the sea. He says he’ll stop at home for some money so he can give me change. He turns off the van, gets out, comes around to my side, and opens the door. I get a strange feeling. He says there’s a restaurant up the road, and he’ll go there for change. Now I’m nervous, he just said he was going home, why the discrepancy? I want to get out of the van, but he blocks my way. He reaches across me for his red woven pouch from the console of the van. I don’t like his body pressing against mine, and I clutch the backpack to my chest. He slowly moves the red pouch and in a split second, before I can see what’s happening, he holds a knife to my chin and pins my arms with his other hand. I gasp, pull back from him, try to burrow my body into the seat. My heart slams against my chest, his mouth next to mine, his breath hits my lips, I taste metal.
Don’t do anything stupid, he says. I’m not a regular taxi driver.
This is what he says. I’m not a regular taxi driver.
He says, I’m going to rob you. I want all your money. Do what I say.
He says it this way, like he rehearsed it, like lines from dialogue written on paper. It seems forced. He forces himself on me, body and knife.
He forces himself on me, body and knife.
I shove my backpack toward him.
Here, take everything, I say. Don’t hurt me. You can have everything, I have a good camera, it’s worth a lot of money, here.
I’m not going to hurt you, he tells me, pressing the knife to my jaw. I don’t want your camera. I want your money. I have to get home.
Please don’t hurt me.
I’m not going to hurt you. Just do what I say.
He closes the door of the van, and I hear a click from the outside. Click. A key turning? The door locking? A latch catching? Click. If there is one dominant sound I will always associate with the angry man, it’s that click. Years from now I will still be able to hear it in my right ear, always the right, never the left, memories find tiny rooms in the body to live. Sitting in the van, I’m paralyzed with fear. I don’t even consider moving, let alone fighting. My mind races. What was that click? Does the door open from the inside? Am I trapped? Why didn’t he take my money?
FIVE
The story of X isn’t about X. It is but it isn’t. Stories are written or lived or told, and they turn out to be different than what they seem to be. The taxi driver isn’t a taxi driver. He’s in a costume that zips up the back. He’s an imposter, a concoction, a jaguar in a man’s clothes. He has a heart made of mud.
He returns to the driver’s seat, says he’s from another place. He’s not a taxi driver. He’s an outlaw. He’s on the run. He stole the van and needs money to get home. He tells me this as he closes his door, both of us now in the cage. I can see the landscape without turning my head, sand and water, a house far off. The sun is setting in magnificent streaks of pink on top of blue, sliding quickly down the sheet of sky, bouncing on the edge of earth before it finally drops into its dark, silent well.
The angry man’s eyes turn dark along with the sky, and his anger emerges, a storm with no rain touching ground. The angry man reaches across my lap. Hand becomes knife. He holds my arms against my body, and the knife on my side. A surge of electricity races through me, every cell on fire. I don’t scream—even if there were someone to hear it my throat can’t make the sound.
It’s hard to breathe. I suck shallow air and tell him again, Take everything I have, just don’t hurt me.
He says, I’m not going to hurt you, don’t do anything stupid, shut up, what do you have? He insists he doesn’t want my camera, just needs money. $20 US and BZ$12? He’s furious that’s all I have.
He needs more, he needs to get home, the government fucked up his life, they took his son. His breath is the smell of stale alcohol in my face. He’s high and desperate and his own adrenaline pushes him past frenzy.
The angry man turns on the ignition, reverses the van out of the sand back to the road and careens away from town. He’s going the wrong direction. Where is he taking me? He holds the knife with his right hand and drives with his left. His arm and the knife hold me in my seat.
Never go diving without a plan, the diver says. Plan your dive and dive your plan. In a situation where you’re scared, it’s very important that you stop, think, and then act. Stop, think, act.
Things change. They’re not what they appear. Taxi driver becomes abductor. Paradise becomes nightmare. Fear, like poison, burns through my veins. Fear wraps around me and shrinks me into a new shape. What am I? A grasshopper. I try to camouflage myself on the seat. I lack armor. I’m a little insect holding the backpack to my chest as if it can shield my smallness. I want to jump under the dashboard or hide in the crack of the seat until I can slowly inch along the door to find a way out through a hole in the rusted metal. Fight or flight? Neither is an option. I tell myself I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. What’s the signal for okay?
TRUTH. I’ll be okay.
TRUTH. I am okay.
TRUTH. There’s never a time I’m not okay. (Define okay.)
MYTH. Balam appears on the road in front of the van. The angry man has his hands full with the tourist, or he’d stop the van and fuck up the cat. Balam deserves an ugly death for the way it betrayed him in the forest. In a flash the angry man sees himself driving Balam instead of the tourist. He presses the knife to the tourist’s chest. He imagines turning the blade, stabbing Balam in the heart. The cat collapses, lays its head on the angry man’s lap, makes a dying guttural grunt. The angry man strokes the jaguar’s cheek. Then he slides his hand under the deep fur of the jaguar’s neck, reaches in, and pulls out Balam’s final breath. Balam’s teeth spill onto the floor of the van around the angry man’s feet. The angry man scoops up a tooth in his fist and tells himself he’s a man of
power. A jaguar man. He sees himself seated on an ancient temple throne, a jaguar coat on his back and a jaguar head atop his head. As he races down the road in his van, gunning the accelerator, he’s the conqueror of speed and might.
FACT. A jaguar’s teeth are used for biting, scraping, cutting, and crushing. Its jaw is powerful enough to pierce a turtle’s shell or pulverize bone.
The jaguar man tells me to take off my stupid hat. I do. My hands are shaking. He tells me to put my hands on my knees. I do. My terror convulses against my bones and skin, trying to find a way out. I hold my body as still as I can so he won’t notice, but it’s hard to keep from quaking. He says he’s going to take me to Maya Beach where he will rob me and leave me there. He says it will take me a long time to get back, and he’ll have a chance to get away. The knife is on my side. He’s driving fast. He says something about turning over, something about how he’ll take my money if we don’t turn over. He asks if I know what he means? My voice trembles, yes, I understand what he means. He means he’s driving very fast. It hadn’t occurred to me that the van might turn over, but he thinks it might and now I think so, too.
I soothe myself the best I can—I’ll be okay, I’ll be okay, I’ll be okay—but it’s not working. The jaguar man is talking, what is he saying? I need to focus on him, but I can’t listen to his ramble and soothe myself at the same time. How am I going to get out of this? What is he going to do? What is he talking about? My mind is rushing, my heart is pumping, the pressure on my internal levee is too great, my full fear explodes, the levee breaks, fear overwhelms me and floods my cells.
FACT. Physiologically speaking, adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol rush through my bloodstream. (And his?) My nerve cells fire. (And his?) My system is out of balance. (And his?) Fire, increase, redirect, heighten. Fire, increase, redirect, heighten.
The Jaguar Man Page 3
