We walked a quarter mile of dirt road, our view restricted to straight up or straight ahead. Side-to-side was impossible, so thick was the greenery.
"Tell me, Juan, is Allie always like that?"
He flicked something from his red jersey and said, "Like what?"
"So matter-of-fact."
"It is first day of her first North American visitor. Give her break."
Fair enough.
Onward we trekked, my thoughts now back to the critters and their vocal harmonics. I had figured the bugs to be nocturnal, but that was my own myth-they never slept. In a loose blending of kingdoms, the insects and the birds formed a crude chorus of noontime accompaniment, the Amazon version of elevator music.
I tried to hum along, but theirs was a most peculiar ballad.
The more familiar sound of young voices signaled to me that we were nearing our destination. Rough and shabby, the makeshift soccer field had faded white lines marking the boundaries. There were no bleachers, only towering plants and banana trees looking on, bending over the field as green, leafy spectators.
Two dozen children ran their own zigs and zags across the field. Allie was sitting beside a goal, fingering her wooden beads. For shade, she had brought along a Panama hat, the sun giving a satin sheen to its burgundy band. The soccer goals were bent; their nets ripped.
"Nice hat, Teach," I said.
She nudged the cream-colored brim and said, "You'll roast here without one. That scrawny Cubs cap will ... well, you'll see. You'll be burnt in no time."
Having remembered my sunblock, I turned my scrawny Cubs cap around backward, then challenged Juan to a one-on-one soccer match.
Mistake of my life, challenging Juan to a soccer match.
"Fewt-bohl," said the children, seated on the sideline and clapping their hands. "Fewwwht-bohl!"
"Si, fewt-bohl," I responded, taking a position as goalie.
The ball went through my legs. No excuses; it just happened so fast. I tossed the ball back to Juan, and suddenly it curved around my legs and into the goal again. I fetched the ball and tossed it back, trying to keep my legs closer together. But the ball arched over my head, then off his own head, and into the goal.
We switched positions, and at the end of my three-second tap dance, I was not on offense anymore. Juan was slicker than a New York pickpocket.
The kids laughed and beat on the grass. Juan just shrugged and bounced the ball on his knees.
But I could whip him at surfing. Of that I was certain.
Allie stood, lined up the kids, and offered a challenge: all seventeen children versus the three adults. Two little boys fell on the grass in hysterics. "Only tres," they said, pointing at us. "Only tres!"
"Yes," said Allie. "Only tres."
After an hour of being outrun and outskilled and tripped more times than we could count, we had lost, ocho to uno.
From the net, I picked up the soccer ball and felt air seeping out. It was worn and squishy, like a bad orange. One kid tugged at my shorts like he wanted the ball back.
I bounced it off his head and told him no more tripping.
"The children like you," said Allie, smiling now, gathering the troops.
I leaned down to retie my sneakers. "Only the children?"
"I met you at the airport and drove you through the rainforest, didn't I?" And with that, she and the kids skipped and giggled their way back toward the village.
They were almost out of sight when she stopped, quieted the children, and yelled, "I really do have an afternoon surprise for you! Maybe today, maybe tomorrow."
I did not have a clue.
Like American kids, jungle kids occasionally get bored and succumb to an urge to smash things. With the burlap sack draped over my shoulder and not a scrap of paper anywhere, I discovered broken bottles against the side of the kitchen building. Rocks lay in the dirt beside the shards and shattered pieces: clear glass and brown glass, even some funky blue glass. What a mess, and for a moment I regretted not heading straight for Wall Street.
I had just emptied the sack into Juan's designated spot, a shallow hole at the edge of the jungle, when a bell rang from the kitchen hut.
At two in the afternoon, the village gathered around three outdoor tables-long, weathered, and carved upon. The tables were roofed by a covering of wood in a steep, A-frame pattern. The airy dinette sat just outside the kitchen, which was squeezed between the row of huts on the female side of the dirt road. Or the mostly female side. Who knew.
Children sat impatiently on their steps, watching Allie set out plates.
"How long is the workday around here?" I asked, wiping my hands on my shorts.
"Not long. We'll have a recreational event for you after lunch," she said, now pouring drinks from a wooden pitcher. Her white T-shirt magnified her tan, and that contentment, her childlike contentment, gave me guilt pangs for complaining about broken glass.
I walked closer, lowering my voice. "Over on the men's side, Allie, I heard a language ... different from Spanish."
"Quechua," she said. "Some of these folks are native Indians. And they're curious about you."
"What did you tell them?"
"Not much. Can you go get the other pitcher? Lunch is our biggest meal."
Up the four stairs and into the humble kitchen, I spotted a second wooden pitcher-plus three women and two men cooking up an Ecuadorian feast. Their backs were to me, as were the fish heads and banana peels topping off the garbage barrel.
They hummed as they cooked, and their clothes were no better matched than Juan's. In fact, it looked as though the entire village had been given thirty seconds inside the summer section of a Goodwill and just grabbed whatever they could: pink over purple, turquoise over mauve, plaid over stripes.
The little woman in mauve was the most energetic, dipping into the iron pot with both hands on the ladle. Without being noticed, I took the pitcher from a side table.
"Smells good," I said.
There was no reply.
Back down the stairs, I made for the middle table, where Allie was arranging stacks of plastic cups between frequent swatting of flies. I began to pour.
"Okay, what did you tell them about me?"
She carried a stack to the far table and said, "Only a brief story. Fill them to the top, please. No ice out here."
"Which story?"
"The beach."
"You didn't."
There were two sizes of bowls on the table. She had placed the smaller bowls, for the children, in lines of three, interrupted by a larger, adult bowl.
"They already have a nickname for you, Jay," she said.
"Oh, great. You speak that Quechua language, too? Now we're two languages removed."
"I'm learning a few words. But most nicknames are in English."
"Okay, let's hear it."
"They call you `El Marshmallow Head."'
"Very cruel, especially for a missionary. I would think you'd get demerits."
"A few. Knock those insects off the cups, please."
The colorful, mismatched kitchen crew brought out the food, and I joined Juan in setting utensils. Like cafeteria spoons, they were so worn that no shine remained on the metal. The knives were dull and some were bent, but then I wasn't expecting to cut into steak. Nor was I expecting to be seated on the end, next to Plaid-over-Stripes, whose sense of small talk rivaled her sense of fashion.
"You prefer broiling or grilling?"
No response. She just rocked slowly on the bench.
"Corn flakes or Raisin Bran?"
Confused smile, more rocking.
"Democrat or Republican?"
Again, nothing.
"Ginger or Mary Ann?"
Finally she just reached over and patted my hand. Then she glanced at her comrades in cookery as if to ask "Can we please eat now?"
With no names on the huts and no way of knowing who was with whom in the village, I wanted to pull Juan aside and ask him about the men-and-women thing. But I f
igured there was plenty else to learn before delving into private lives.
Now Lydia, she'd probably know ... if only by instinct.
Everyone stood, and a shaggy-haired boy asked a Spanish blessing. I peeked once-several of the adults had their eyes open and were just staring blankly at the ground, as if they either did not understand or did not care but simply were trying to be polite.
As heads rose, Juan grabbed a berry and flipped it underhanded atop the roof. I took a quick step back for a better view, and the red macaw snatched it clean. The bird wanted another berry, but everyone was seated now, and there would be no more charity.
Our lunch consisted of spicy soup, bites of fish, and boiled bananas. There was little talking during the meal, and when it was over, not a morsel was left on a plate. For dessert, Pink-over-Purple and the gregarious Plaid-over-Stripes served a fruit called mora. It tasted like a raspberry and, sprinkled with sugar, was quite good.
"More mora?" I asked.
"El Marshmallow mucho moral" said Juan. The kids laughed and rose from their benches. No one left a tip, and everyone cleaned up.
"What was that afternoon surprise you mentioned, Miss Kyle?" I asked, helping Juan stack dirty bowls.
Allie wiped the chin of a toddler and said, "Patience, Americano."
Patience ... a most elusive little fruit.
If authentic manhood precludes shell-hunting, then it most certainly precludes beading.
Beading. This was the recreational event of which she spoke-making funky strings of Amazon beads with five curious jungle orphans.
After lunch Allie and the women put the younger children down for naps. Then she came out in her Panama hat and escorted us to a structure she called the craft hut. It sat at the end of the village, below two towering kapok trees, its architecture even cruder than the dwelling in which I slept. No larger than eight by eight, the hut boasted front steps of cinder block, its bare wood walls interrupted only by three open-air windows, all of varying proportion and none fashioned with screens. Simple benches had been built into the four inner walls, and a weathered table stretched within a foot of the east and west ends. Atop the table, in dozens of shallow containers cut from brown gourds, wooden beads sat patient and diverse, many in earth tones, some fat, some raw, some coated with bright splashes of paint.
She and the children gathered around the table. I stood in the doorway, hands gripping the outer frame. "Maybe I should just go catch a fish or two and contribute to the evening meal."
"You will do no such thing," said Allie, setting out strings for necklaces. `Just have a seat and pay attention."
I sat in the far corner, glad my guy friends weren't around. "You know I can't do this and maintain my masculinity."
"No," she replied, "but you can help these kids learn a new skill."
When I grudgingly agreed to help, she sat the two boys on each side of me, the three girls surrounding her on the far side. My guess at ages produced a range of seven to twelve, though one could never be sure.
I turned a fat, wooden bead in my fingers, then dropped it back with its clan. "So the kids haven't done this, either?"
Allie arranged strands of string for each person at the table. "Those beads just arrived last week from Venezuela. A large Catholic church donated them. Pass me some of those cream-colored ones."
I reached for the container. "You didn't say please."
"Please and thank you."
After only a half hour, it became clear that we men were losing badly, both in terms of volume and pattern development. Pepe, the oldest boy, kept stringing thick, barrel-shaped bamboo beads one after another, a lone bright red one in the middle, until he had crafted something worthy of a Zulu warrior. His younger brother, Eduardo, employed the M&Ms' technique-whatever spilt out the bag would do; no order, just color.
Me, I just watched, masculinity still in my pocket, safely tucked between my comb and my worn leather wallet.
The ladies, however, led by young Isabel, had carefully laid out two distinct color schemes: cream with turquoise and dark wood, then natural wood with bone and deep red, alternating size, shape, and color. They strung two of one bead, then one of another, then two more of the first, until the string was fully covered, earth toned, and proportional. Then they switched to a three-one-three pattern, Allie tying off each necklace before draping it over a little bronze neck.
The first breeze of the day blew through the open-air windows, a brief but welcome zephyr to cool our humid hut. The two older girls had become like worker bees, silent and immersed in mass production, eight units each already complete, heaped on the table like colorful spaghetti.
Allie picked up one from the pile and inspected the design. "Good work, girls. We'll sell these in Coca's flea market. Buy you girls a new dress."
At that news the girls shifted into overdrive, beads bouncing off the wood floor like a rain of BBs.
"Y'all should make a necklace for Darcy," I suggested, watching Pepe tie a slipknot on his warrior beads. "Only takes one color."
Recognition widened Allie's eyes. "How thoughtless of us," she said. "Pass me those light green beads, Isabel."
Young Isabel reached for the container but stopped and said, "You not say please, Miss Allie."
"Please and thank you and you are so very pretty today."
Isabel beamed and handed her the beads. Allie winked at the little girl, then reached over and pulled the hair behind her ears. "You know what, Isabel? I just changed my mind. Darcy needs some variety in her life."
"What?" I asked. "You gonna send her something brown? Purple?"
"Nope. Since she graduated from South Carolina, we need us some good of garnet 'n black. In fact, Jay, we'll even let you string 'em up."
And on the eleventh day of November, I found myself in the craft hut of a remote Ecuadorian village, stringing a necklace of garnet and black beads for tall, blonde, lead-footed Darcy, who thought I was in New York City with all my black clothes.
The irony of it all.
Using a one-one pattern, I quickly crafted the thing and tied off the ends. No way was I autographing my work, but I did think it perfectly suited for Darcy to wear to fall football at Carolina. Though probably not with lime.
Pepe and Eduardo were picking out round red beads and firing them at a dragonfly on the hut's ceiling. I quieted them and said no more Zulu beads. Told them they needed to join the mass manufacturing movement and learn an ounce of capitalism.
Allie looked warily across the table at me. `Jay, promise me you won't teach them about stocks and Wall Street."
"I promise."
By late afternoon, the gourd containers were nearly empty, and before us lay enough units to drape each villager twice over-cream with turquoise and dark wood in one pile, natural wood with bone and deep red in another, the males' miscellaneous pile pushed to the side.
"How much do you think tourists would pay?" Allie asked, gathering inventory.
"I dunno ... three bucks each?"
"I'll charge five."
Isabel left the craft hut in a giddy skip. She had the one string of Carolina beads slung around her neck, hanging nearly to her belly.
Allie stood in the doorway and watched her go. "I'll swap 'em out after she falls asleep tonight."
The older girls cajoled Pepe and Eduardo to stack their necks with the day's production. The boys obliged, and soon the girls were heavily accessorized. Allie put her Panama hat back on and said, "Now, Mr. Jarvis, go ahead and admit to the children that this was far more entertaining than watching little stock numbers flash by on a computer screen."
I admitted to no such thing. I only asked her if she wanted to take a walk, just the two of us.
"I have to get the girls home," she said. "Clean 'em up and trim their hair. But tomorrow, Jay, you'll get a very different surprise."
From behind the hut, Pepe and Eduardo came bounding out with an old baseball bat and a pitiful gray softball trying to shed its stitching. They pointed across
the jungle, back toward the makeshift soccer field, and motioned that I was the designated pitcher.
Masculinity had returned, and I hoped the youngsters could hit a knuckleball.
After a dinner of thin soup and rice and one piece of bread with cheese, I served the children a batch of sugar-sprinkled mora. With kids seated around her atop the table and the harsh Ecuadorian sun now low and tame, Allie read to them from a picture book, the Spanish version of Noah. The kids were very curious as to how he got that many animals on one boat.
"Noah's boat was ... el grande," I said, standing behind them. Isabel, now wearing three strings of beads, looked up and frowned at my mixture of languages.
"Si, grande," said Allie, stretching her arms out for effect. Many questions followed, questions I could not decipher, although I figured from the gesturing that bathroom humor involving large animals was the obvious thrust of their dialogue.
Darkness soon descended over the outdoor tables, and on that night they let me light the two bamboo torches.
Very cool, being the bamboo torch lighter in a remote Amazon village.
The flames performed a slow dance, and everyone retired to their huts.
It was not yet 10:00.
I collapsed on my bed. By flashlight, I returned to Psalm 139, where I had unstuck the pages last spring in my initial search for Galatians. The psalm said how vast are the thoughts of God, and how, if I were to try and count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
I wondered what thoughts God had about my being here in this zany jungle, and what would be the take-away when I began life in Manhattan. I wondered what God thought about Manhattan, how it compared to this jungle so zany.
But sleep trumped wonder, so I left Manhattan and the counting of grains to him whose thoughts are vast. It was indeed an awesome thought ... the counting of all those grains.
Maybe I was but a single grain.
Granular Jay, the repentant grain.
Flabbergasted: A Novel Page 26
