FACT. He will hunt you down and kill you.
(Fact? He will hunt you down and kill you?)
Over and over, he demands to know if you’re going to report him.
No, no, no, no, no.
What you’re saying isn’t convincing him. Say something else. You get out the words you can, against the blade. You have nothing more to say, no other thoughts. You panic now, eye to eye with his panic.
He’s slipping into a new level of violence. A horn is screaming. The man is screaming at you to convince him. Your fear is so big it’s every fear you’ve ever felt screaming at you now. The jungle is thick, and his anger is a vine wrapping itself around you.
FACT. A snake vine can coil around a tree like an insistent noose and strangulate the tree. Sometimes the tree will reverse the effect, grow around the vine to suffocate it so the tree can live.
He wants to hurt you. He does but he doesn’t. He does but he doesn’t.
You don’t have time to think. You don’t have a mind. You only have room in your entire body for one word. God. This is your prayer. The most basic prayer ever prayed: God.
This prayer can’t unfold. It’s either answered now or never. From the distance, a bus appears. You think how odd that a bus is driving out of the sea. Odd but no more bizarre than the rest of this night. Two huge headlights streaming over the wicked night. No sound at all, just light. Not the single beam many people see at death’s door. These lights are of the earth, they’re real, one for you and one for him, and they’re coming right at you. You’re relieved. You think someone on the bus will save you.
The jaguar man is startled by the lights. They shine across you and break apart the moment. Darkness is overcome. He lowers the knife and pushes you backward toward the puny dark headlights of his stupid, little van. It gives you time to breathe, a silent rest between chords. But where is the bus? What happened to the lights? The lights have disappeared.
Later you will wonder about these lights. Later you will be confused how a bus could drive out of the sea. You will tell people about the bus, and they will analyze the lights from different perspectives, looking for logical explanations. A fishing boat or a . . . they don’t know what, but not a bus.
The jaguar man doesn’t want to hurt you now, as the lights disappear in the distance as quickly as they came. He wants to connect.
He asks if he can have you again, do you know what he means? He asks, but his knife against your chest reminds you there’s only one answer. You tell him it’s been a long night. This angers him.
What? he demands, his knife coming alive.
Okay, you say, in a soothing tone.
You say okay.
This is the second X.
X turns over and over on itself.
X becomes a jumble of letters, a-e-p-r, which turns to pear, which means feeding him the fruit, the touch, the calm he demands.
This is what you do to not get cut.
After, he doesn’t know what to do next. He seems drained.
SOUVENIR SNAPSHOT. A jaguar lies on his side, his cheek on the dirt. A female swats at him with her round paw.
He leans against the bumper of the van while you stand facing him. He takes a long look at you, as if for the first time. He threatens to take you with him for a few days—a vacation together—he likes your company. He thinks you’re a nice person.
You tell him it’s time to go home.
ELEVEN
For one hour, two hours, three hours at the edge of the sea, words shift. The story shifts. You shift forever. Your new reality is announced. You love this man you hate the best you can so he softens enough to let you live.
The horn of your life is spiraling in chaotic notes, against his, in counterpoint. He’s been improvising all this time and so have you. Jazz is like that. X is like that. Takes you on a ride, both of you so far gone it’s hard to know where you are, let alone how to get back. You’re reaching for another tune, a second life that’s just beyond X and his fucked-up rusted van. You want the comfort of something familiar, anything familiar, and then with startling breath he throws you a line you recognize from where you originally started. He asks if you have money in your cabana. Money. That’s the thread. He’s back to money. Maybe all he wants now is money.
Maybe all he wants now is money.
You answer him yes.
How much?
You tell the truth, $100 US in cash, more in traveler’s cheques. You say he can have it all. You give him what’s in your backpack. $20 US and BZ$12.
You sit in the passenger side of the van clutching your backpack. He slowly drives down the deserted road. You don’t notice that your other part, the helium balloon of your emotions, is still not with you. You leave her in the jungle to fend for herself. She’s so weak it’s easy to leave her behind. You don’t even turn your head to see if she’s stumbling to catch up.
He drives and talks. Relentlessly talking. He remembers Psalm 121 and recites it, but it doesn’t make sense the way he says it.
He asks if you want him to drop you off at the police station.
No.
Why not?
You gave him your word.
He tells you he trusts you not to report him. He says to prove it he’ll tell you his name. He introduces himself, first and last names, but whatever names he gives you fall out of your memory within seconds, like water through rocks. You will often wonder if he told you the truth.
He asks what you do for a living.
You’re a teacher.
He’s chitchatting now, a cabdriver with his fare. You notice the irony as the van retraces its steps down deserted dirt roads, passing the place where he first picked you up, taking you all the way through the village to your cabana.
When you get to the end of the village road where the cabanas are clustered, he parks the van then walks you down the long, dark, stone path. Your cabana is orange with a green porch. You pass the pink one, the green one, a yellow, a blue. You consider screaming for help, but there are no screams in you. You consider running but where? You don’t think about the horrible things he could do to you behind a locked door, you don’t question why you’re still following orders. You keep walking, push aside overgrown hibiscus, yellow trumpets, coconut palms, the jaguar man behind you, his hand on your back. You’re not sure where the knife is, but it must be near.
There are two orange cabanas at the end of the path, and you concentrate on getting to yours. When you get to your cabana, with the door facing the sea, the diver is still waiting on the hammock. This shocks you. You don’t know how to respond, you don’t want to reignite the jaguar man, don’t want the diver to get hurt. You’re disoriented to see the diver and you don’t want him involved so you pretend you don’t know him, ask if he’s hotel staff. The diver repeats your name several times, asks what’s going on.
The jaguar man gives you a suspicious look, you can feel his energy rise. You try to downplay your acquaintance with the diver so the jaguar man won’t catch on. At the same time, seeing the diver gives you courage. You can feel the ordeal is nearly over. The only thing left is money, and it will be over. It will be over. You’re almost there.
You unlock the cabana door with your key, which you find in your backpack, and the jaguar man follows you inside. The diver stands on the porch.
The jaguar man says, That guy seems to know you pretty well.
You say, casually, Oh, everyone here is really friendly.
You hand the jaguar man all your money. He only takes the cash. You say loudly, Thank you for the taxi ride, I’m sorry I didn’t have enough money to pay you.
Under his breath he demands you walk him back to the van. You do.
You ignore the diver who calls your name as you walk past him, trying to figure out what’s happening. His first thought is you picked up the man in a bar, and you’re on a date. Later he will be furious you didn’t give him a signal. He will feel helpless. He’s a professional diver, he doesn’t just dive for hi
mself, he dives for everybody around him. He’s trained in rescue so if something goes wrong he’s there to help people survive. But if he intervenes he might get hurt. You just want to get through this moment, this moment, this moment, play out your role to the end, compliant and calm, do what the jaguar man says, get to the finish.
When you reach the road, you’re suddenly confident. You’re in charge. You create meaning. In your mixed-up state of mind you think how lucky that he picked you, you who could handle it, you who never screamed or cried or resisted, who didn’t make him stab you, who saved a different woman from X, saved yourself from dying, saved him from being a murderer. How does a murderer ever know what direction to take next in life? If he had killed you he’d be lost. He’ll probably still be lost, maybe you’ll be lost, too, but it could have been worse. Above you the stars flicker, eyes burning in the sky. The air hums like bees.
You notice his van is a shade of red or orange with a white license plate. If you see the license plate number it doesn’t register. You’ve convinced yourself you won’t report him, and your mind won’t collect evidence. Later when you’re told cabs have green license plates you wonder how would tourists know?
You tell the jaguar man you’ll shake his hand and then he has to leave. You shake his hand and wish him many blessings. That’s what you say. You wish him many blessings.
I wish you many blessings.
Later you will wonder why you said this but standing beside the van you bless him for your life, for bringing you home. And home has a whole new meaning. Home is where safety is. Home is where the diver you’ve been trying to reach is waiting, has been waiting, the man who tonight will hold you and whisper to you in his soothing voice to sleep, sweetheart, sleep.
The wind shifts and palm trees ache, as you turn away from the van and walk until you reach a place on the path where you think the jaguar man can no longer see you. Then you run, you run for your life, past the hibiscus and coconut palms, past the pink and yellow cabanas, off the path across the sand to your cabana. Which one is it? You can’t see, you don’t know where you are anymore, the trees are crying, salt in the air, the moon is full, the moon has pieced itself together again, but there are splinters of you still far away, left in the jungle.
The diver appears in the light. You scream, your first scream all night. DON’T HURT ME.
It’s me, he says. It’s me.
Someone calls out from one of the cabanas, Are you alright?
You don’t answer, and the person doesn’t ask again.
You grab the diver and pull him inside, lock the door, close the windows, turn off the lights, and slump to the floor. This is where you begin your new life, the life where you wrestle to be rebirthed by this desperate, horrible night.
You steady your hands on the floor, feel the flatness, nothing moving or shifting, just a floor. You can do this. Come on. You’re you. You’re me. It’s me. She’s there. You’re here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.
TWELVE
What happened? The diver forces me to look at him. My eyes go cold. What happened? he demands.
My mind cuts the final cord to emotion and wraps around the O. Henry story about the Christmas presents, the pocket watch and hair combs. He doesn’t want to hear that story.
What happened?
Crouched on the floor of the cabana, I don’t tell him that my body feels exhausted and sick, even my skin, even my hair. I tell him I took a long walk.
WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?
I tell him he stole my money. I apologize for being late.
WHAT ELSE? WHAT DID HE DO?
I can’t tell you.
You have to tell me.
I can’t tell you.
I have to get my gun.
SOUVENIR SNAPSHOT. A jaguar, shot in the head, draped over the back of a motorcycle.
No! I pull at the diver’s arm, beg him not to leave me alone. I crawl across the cabana to the bed, climb on it, and lay on my back. The diver towers over me.
Tell me.
My words are slow and deliberate. He stole my money.
And . . .
X.
The diver doesn’t move. I don’t move. We stare at each other. Neither of us knows what to do next. The diver moves first. He takes off my clothes, inspects me for injuries.
Then he pellets me with questions. What time did he pick me up? It’s been hours, was I with him the entire time? Was I drinking? Did I struggle? Why didn’t I say something on the porch? Why didn’t I scream for help?
When the diver’s satisfied I’m telling the truth, I have to decide if I will go to the police. Yes, no. I don’t know what to do.
I lie on the bed agonizing and reeling. My adrenaline is crashing, surging, crashing, surging. How can anyone make a decision in this state? My heart is in my kneecaps, and my feet are in my teeth. I’m disoriented, out of proportion. I’ve been wrung like a wet sheet through a press. The people I know and trust are in a different country. I don’t have a history with the diver. We don’t know how to make decisions together. I want the diver’s advice but he says no, I have to decide for myself. I want to call my friend in Los Angeles, but the diver’s cell phone doesn’t get reception in the cabana, and I’m afraid to walk to the payphone. What if the jaguar man is waiting outside? What if he hurts me?
There are two things I want most.
1. A shower.
2. To go home.
What the jaguar man did was wrong. I’m never confused about that. I know what everyone knows. X is criminal, monstrous. It’s violent to the body and abrasive to the soul. Later, when I’m home, I’ll be surrounded by people who want the jaguar man in jail or dead, butchered and skinned. His hide thrown on the floor like a rug. I don’t want him to go unpunished, but right now I don’t feel rage or the desire for revenge. I don’t feel anything.
That’s not true. I feel lingering compassion.
I feel lingering compassion.
If I report him, I will have to stay in the country. There are no medical kits or composite sketches in this tiny village. If I report him, I cannot take a shower until after I go to Belize City tomorrow and find a place where they collect DNA evidence. I will have to figure out the Belizean judicial system. If they catch him, I will have to face the jaguar man again. I will have to send him to jail.
I don’t know the sentencing practices of Belize, but I figure if he’s caught he’ll be locked up for life. If I believed the courts would sentence him to counseling and rehabilitation, if I thought the system was restorative, I’d do it. But prison? I’ve always thought prison is an endless walk in hell, a place where the sickest people go only to get more pain inflicted on them in new ways, akin to treating blistering wounds by dousing them with battery acid. He needs to be held responsible, but how do I send someone to hell? I promised.
Later people will analyze me. Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe, I’ll think. Maybe. But I will always maintain that my right as his victim is that I get treated, and he gets treated. He’s profoundly sick and needs to get better. I will look up “victim’s rights” online but I won’t find this right expressed on any website. I will quickly discover I don’t hold a popular opinion.
Later, I will become obsessed with questions about justice. I will wonder about the men and women sitting inside prisons all over the world. I will become friends with men who served time, some guilty and some wrongly convicted. I will be drawn to them. I will visit a prison, meet old-timers who have lived behind prison walls and barbed gates for twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five years, men who will continue living there until they die and are buried on prison grounds. Many of these men haven’t held someone’s hand or received a birthday call or an encouraging note in decades. How does a person survive? I will resent the hard questions the jaguar man has left me to consider. What does it mean for him to pay for his crime? What, and whom, does he owe?
These questions will come, but as I lie at the edge of the bed, I just want to go home. I know I should get me
dical attention, but there’s only a small clinic here. I want to be checked by a licensed doctor in a big sterile hospital in my own city. I want to make the right decision, but I can’t think straight. I want to take a shower and get the jaguar man off my skin.
But what if he does it again? What if he hurts someone else? It will be my fault.
It will be my fault.
I want to pretend it never happened and go to the caye with the diver in the morning, have a vacation, and fall in love. I want so many conflicting things and I don’t know how to choose.
The diver wants to call his friends to hunt down the jaguar man on the road—island justice. I’m sure someone will end up dead. What if the diver dies? What if the jaguar man dies?
FACT. A jaguar caller can produce the grunt of either sex. Cut the top and bottom off a gourd, weave dried deerskin onto the top, and hang waxed string from the skin. Pull the string: one—pause—two. This is useful for hunting.
My mind tries to grab on to an answer, but my thoughts are like smoke rings. Then suddenly I think about her.
Her. The part of me still in the jungle. Her.
I promised the jaguar man silence. My rational mind knows that promise doesn’t count. But my fear says if I betray him, he will track me down like he said he would. I don’t believe him (but I do). He can’t find me (but he can). He can find the helium part of me still in the jungle. He’s the only one who knows where to look. If he finds her, he will take his knife and plunge it in her throat. I left her out there alone but I can’t let his knife penetrate her skin.
It takes all my energy to get off the bed. I roll to my side, push myself up, stand, and steady myself to the bathroom. The cabana is dark. I flip the bathroom switch and flood the room with light, turn on the shower, let it warm, and step in. The diver follows me. It’s cramped in the small space. I scrub my body, all the places the jaguar man touched—which is everywhere—but I can’t feel the rough washcloth or the burn of soap or my skin rubbed raw.
The Jaguar Man Page 6
