"G'night, Juan."
"Sleep you well, El Marshmallow."
The red macaw squawked at dawn, and I craved a shower.
But there was only the cold kind.
`Juan, wake up," I said, watching a tiny critter flee under the grass rug.
"Como?" he said, turning over, eyes still shut.
I reached down to look under the rug. "Would the village like hot water?"
He yawned and reminded me of currency conversions and his salary of thirty dollars a month.
I sat up on the bed, digging into my wallet. "I've brought American cash, Juan, and would like to purchase a hot-water heater for the village."
Two minutes later, Juan was behind the wheel of the old pickup, his hair suffering a bad case of bed-head. Honking and waving me into the passenger seat, he seemed fully awake now. I grabbed three pieces of fruit from the outdoor tables and hopped in.
Back through two hours of potholes, past the wild monkeys, and up the jungled road, we reached the town of Coca. My travel guide said the town had only a few hundred residents until 1969, when oil was discovered. Now the population numbered in the thousands. But it was not without cost. The dusty streets had a light coating of oil, as did the stray dogs, the sidewalks, even the car hoods. Juan said the trade-off was for roads cut through the rainforest in exchange for a school in Coca and a medical facility.
He searched for a parking spot and told me he was okay with the trade. "But some native Indian say nada to oil company. Are angry ... throw rocks."
"At Texaco?" I asked.
"Si, throw big rock."
"At Shell?"
"Hmmm ... little rocks."
"At Hess?"
He hesitated a moment. "Not so bad. Build school."
"But overall you approve of the trade?"
"Is fair deal."
I felt a twinge of guilt for having traded shares of oil companies for profit, but capitalism confers a shifty set of values, and I was no exception.
In dusty, downtown Coca, Juan parked at a busy sidewalk, waved off two street peddlers, and pointed me toward the general store just past a whole-roasted pig hanging for sale beneath the awning. That pig looked in serious pain.
One lonely water heater sat for sale in the disorganized depot that served as hardware store, auto-parts outlet, and grocery market. Juan located the owner. I kneeled to inspect the water heater. Not that I knew a thing about them, but I found it had been manufactured in St. Louis and had no rust and only one dent, so I figured it would do.
There was a brief Spanish discussion over price, which Juan seemed to be losing badly-the mustached owner had the edge in both finger pointing and tone of voice.
"Quatro!" said the owner.
Juan pointed to the water heater, then to a shelf of candy, but the store owner gestured madly with his arms and pointed at my shirt.
I had worn a company T-shirt, with INVE$TMENT$ TO RETIRE ON embroidered across the front.
Too late.
Juan called me over. He was trying to convert the currency in his head but looked confused. With little hope now for negotiation, I pulled a wad of twenties from my pocket and handed half of them to the store owner. Suddenly he ran to the front door, pulled down the "Closed" sign, and grabbed the bottom of the water heater.
I lifted the opposite end, and together we shuffled out the door and onto the sidewalk, awkwardly loading the contraption into the pickup.
He shook my hand hard and said, "Have good day."
He did not sound sincere.
The owner then locked his door behind Juan, who, surprisingly, had his own armful. Juan set three full boxes of candy on the floorboard, then handed me a new soccer ball and a section of radiator hose.
"How did you buy all this?" I asked, eyeing his bounty.
"Was included in deal," he said, grinning.
Somehow, I sensed there would be more requests for shopping trips before I left Ecuador.
Juan cranked the engine, but I reached over and killed the ignition.
"Por que?" asked Juan.
"One second," I said, holding up a finger.
After jumping out of the pickup and running back through the fruit peddlers and past the whole-roasted pork, I rapped on the front door. "Por favor!"
The store owner looked through the glass, frowned, and unlocked his door. He opened it six inches and peered out.
"Your name wouldn't be Miguel, would it?" I asked.
"Si ... Miguel."
"I need to use your computer. You know ... Internet. Don't lie. I know you have one. You take dark chocolates for bribes."
He pursed his lips, then turned and looked at his clock. "Four minute," he said, pulling a shade over the window. "Only four minute. Then I close for day."
He led me to a back room cluttered with papers, canned foods, and miscellaneous auto parts. I sat down at the computer, logged on, and accessed my e-mail account.
I typed quickly, sensing Miguel looking over my shoulder.
Dear Steve,
It has been a very hectic and busy first three days. New York City is much different than you'd expect. There are vast, coconut frosted volcanoes in the distance and wild monkeys making outrageous swings from the Empire State Building. The insects on the subway are incredibly big, and a giant red macaw lives on the roof of my apartment. Food is cheaper than I thought, the menus less varied. And the Yankees aren't nearly as popular as the local soccer teams.
Last night I saw a play on Broadway; it starred a lovely actress who played a missionary, and the cast looked very much like Spanishspeaking Indian kids from some remote region of South America. They all wore funky jungle beads. The job training is going well. Mostly currency conversions and easy stuff like that. Great views here, and warmer than expected.
Black clothes going out of fashion. Sak's and Macy's both overrated.
Say hello to Her Limeness,
Brother Jay
I hit the send button. Miguel snickered, then asked about Broadway and if I had ever seen Gloria Estefan in concert.
"No, Miguel, I have not. But I have seen the light."
"De light?"
I logged off, rose to face him. "Miguel, there is one mediator between God and man and that is Christ and those aren't my words they're his words and the living words and the eternal words and those are the only words you're gonna need."
He pointed at the door. "Your four minute are up."
Back in the village, Juan and two of the older men wrestled the water heater into place at the rear of the largest and most updated hut, a long wooden dwelling that housed many of the young girls and, I suspect, Allie and the other women.
I still didn't know where she slept.
After a trimming of gaskets and a brief argument between two of the men, the water heater slid into place. I held the tools. There was a twisting of knobs, a tightening of screws, and handshakes all around.
But the cold was hot, and the hot, cold.
There was finger-pointing and the inaccurate hurling of three dirt clods. The older man pointed at me and said something in Quechua.
"What did he say?" I asked.
Juan stepped close to whisper. "Next thing we know, white man want cable."
My very different surprise began at 4:30.
We walked that steamy afternoon just the two of us-out past the banana trees and down the dirt road and past where the elephant ears shade the jungle grass. We heard a distant orchestra of birds, and every few minutes we stopped to splatter a neon insect.
With the village no longer in view, I heard drumming, deep, persistent drumming.
"Bongos?" I asked.
"You won't believe it," said Allie, pausing in the road to listen.
"Try me."
"Well, we get donations like boxes of clothes and tools and stuff sent in from churches who support this ministry, and it's always a big time for us digging through it all and last month we got a huge box from a high school boy in Atlanta who'd donated an ol
d bass drum like they wear in marching bands."
"Commas, Allie. Commas."
"Sorry. We gave the drum to Raul. He's a sixteen-year-old orphan with the mind of a five-year-old but a talent for music. He mostly keeps to himself. Carries that bass drum out into the jungle every afternoon. Don't walk, just listen."
I cupped one ear for clarity, since the engulfing vegetation was well over our heads. His rhythm pulsated around us, the beat resonating through rainforest, surround sound for the jungle.
"Can't we go and watch him?" I asked.
"No. He'll leave if he sees us. C'mon, I have something to show you."
We walked another twenty minutes. The drumming faded. Soon, she pointed between a dense tangle of vines to a path better suited for rabbits. The path led deep beneath the cover of jungle, and after another ten minutes of hiking, we reached a set of moldy stairs, endless stairs, a staggered equivalent to the curve of dreams. The stairs rose into oblivion at a steady pace, wrapped in wildness and supported by an ever increasing scaffold of wooden poles.
"This your tree fort?" I asked, amazed to find such structure in the midst of such remote locale.
"It's an observation tower," she said, looking skyward from the base. "It goes way above the treetops ... a South American crow's nest, if you will."
Penlights of sun hit the stair rail just over her head. Birds screeched and warbled from above, from origins deep in the greenery; muffled sounds, sounds of jungle, sounds of life-primal, sightless, and random.
"Who built this thing?" I asked, testing it with one foot.
"The scientists and the bird watchers. You know ... those opno ... orlamologists?
"Yeah, starts with an 0."
"Yeah, anyway, 237 steps. I counted 'em last month."
I motioned her to the stairway. "Shall we?"
"We shall."
The bird people had numbered every twenty-fifth step, so I had doubts about her math skills. At step fifty I stopped to admire the huge trunks of ancient trees, all wrapped in a creeping undergrowth.
"C'mon, slowpoke," she said, ten steps ahead.
At step ninety-nine, darker now beneath the canopy, she stopped and pointed to a thick, curvaceous limb. "Saw a snake there last time I was up here."
"What kind of snake?"
`Just a snake," she said, shrugging her shoulders and resuming her climb. "But it had a red stripe on its back and hung from the limb in circles, like four bracelets. I call it the Barbie snake."
At step 150, countless streams of sunlight sparkled and expanded, filtered in their passage through the moist, layered mesh. Wet leaves brushed our faces. My legs ached. At step 200, the muffled noises unmuffled, then we bolted past 225, and I inhaled the blue sky. The air had a minty flavor.
"Surprise," said Allie, panting. "We made it."
And I turned to see our molded stairs poking through leaves in a crude, angular sprout, as if man had tried his hand at creation but ended up a mere observer.
"How many times you been up here?" I asked, gripping the railing.
"Four. Even spent the night once."
Above the canopy of rainforest, I breathed deep from lofty layers of air. And again the volcanoes rose in the distance, full and frosted against the overarching parachute of treetops; and once again, the horizon, the inexhaustible horizon, was a dreamlike periphery, unbounded, unsolved.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke. Just absorbed.
Then, the earth moved.
"This thing'll sway a bit if we do this," said Allie, shifting her weight to and fro.
"Then let's do this." A tiny roof extended over the middle portion of the floor, like a hat too small for one's head. We centered ourselves under the roof, stood side-by-side, and commenced to rock the birdhouse. A right, a left; a right and a left.
The wooden tower, rounded off and bordered with abundant railing, moved little at first, but soon we had it in a slow, lethargic sway.
"I heard a squeak."
"Squeaks are bad," she said, now pounding from one foot to the other.
"That squeak was louder."
"Okay, let's stop."
That's what I'd missed when she left Carolina-the spontaneity. I wanted to kiss her, right there, in that moment, in full view of God and whoever else was out there watching, hidden in the canopy.
But instead, I chickened out and pointed north. "So that would be Peru over there."
"No, that would be Colombia," she said, resting her elbows on the railing.
"Of course, Colombia."
Two hundred and thirty-seven steps from the floor of the rainforest, there were no pelicans swooping low in quiet glides of unity, but rather a diverse and noisy collection of brightly colored birds, their size varied, their feathers a broad spectrum of grays and golds, reds and yellows, greens and violets and blues.
"That gray one is flirting with the yellow one," she said, leaning over the rail.
Beside her again, I followed the flight patterns. "No, the yellow one stole food from the gray one."
"Did not."
"Did too. I saw it."
We watched the two birds weave and glide for another ten minutes, until our pride demanded resolution.
"Definitely flirting."
"Definitely stealing."
With elbows on the rail, she propped her head in her hands. "You're just a visitor."
I mimicked her posture. "What's the name of that river?"
"Rio Napo."
"It's huge. Can we swim in it?"
"Not if you value your limbs."
"How about blind drifting in a dugout canoe?"
She glanced at me sideways. "Now there's a thought." She looked away. "Can you see the parrots?"
A putty-colored clay bank rose high and steep across the river, the pastel backdrop peppered with barely visible birds. I squinted hard. "How can you tell they're parrots?"
"They eat the clay. Good for their stomachs."
"Sick. I'd as soon eat beach sand."
With daylight depleting, Allie continued my bird education with a monologue about various species, occasionally pointing at some distant fowl and proclaiming it a lance bill, a white tip, a scarlet tanager. She had schooled herself in the nuances of her flightful friends, and a gentle confidence crept into her lecture. Only when she got to the largest birds of prey did she get animated.
"I haven't told you yet about the harpy eagle."
I turned and leaned my back against the railing. "Oh, lemme guess. National bird? Like our bald one?"
"Hardly. It's the largest, most aggressive eagle in Ecuador, in all of South America, really. Has thick, powerful legs. Giant claws too. And for food it snatches little monkeys out of trees. Can you believe that, Jay? It snatches little monkeys out of trees! Those poor monkeys."
"Yeah, poor little monkeys."
This monkey-snatching was obviously a sore spot with her. She stared out over the rainforest and said, "I've only seen one harpy my whole time in Ecuador. But next time I see him, I'm gonna throw something. Hard!"
"Poor little monkeys and eagles." And I scooted closer.
'Tis a regal feeling to look down at bird flight, the top colors of widespread wings sharp and distinct against the green floral canvas. The birds appeared to be in slow motion, the glide-happy birds, cruising around and below us in flights of leisure, flights of thievery, and okay, maybe even a few flights of flirtation.
"You understand my poem now?" she asked, gazing out across her boundless, very lush backyard.
"I thought I did, before it vanished in seawater."
"Which lines do you remember?"
"About your roots ..."
"That's all?"
Think, Jarvis. "Across your azaleas, prosperity winked?"
"Well, holy Elizabeth Barrett Browning ... the boy has a memory."
As light faded, I edged even closer. Our arm hairs flirted.
We stood on our Amazonian veranda through sunset, using the circular platform to observe and
absorb, to behold all that gives life to such a far-flung panorama.
For it was surely panoramic, and most definitely far-flung. As far-flung as my being there, given where I had been six months ago. Suddenly I was back on that sandbar, our flimsy floats anchored on the bank, her with a stick of driftwood, bent over and oblivious to me, the ocean, and everything else. She was carving words in the sand.
"I get it now, Allie ... your poem."
She leaned into the rail again. "I thought you would."
It was nearly dark as we descended the 237 stairs, darker still when we reached the base, and on our way back through the jungle, she reached for my hand.
The hand of a missionary-graceful, magnetic. I felt like reversing course, climbing the tower again, and asking her to dance. Just us, quietly twirling above the rainforest as moonlight soothed the leaves of a thousand Amazon treetops. Maybe someday.
We hardly talked, just strolled back toward the village in the twilight.
She squeezed my fingers.
I squeezed back.
A quarter mile ahead, the two torches were burning. We had missed dinner, and when we arrived, she let go of my hand and we departed into our respective huts.
It was Thursday, day four of my five-day visit to the rainforest. After assisting Juan in replacing the radiator hose, we were allowed two-minute hot showers while the children had their English lesson.
People will say a shower is just a shower, but until you've gone without a hot one for four days and have the grit of the rainforest between your toes and fingers, not to mention the blue goo of squished insects ... you haven't showered, you've merely rinsed.
"Nadal" said Juan, stepping out of reach as I showed him the fine art of towel popping.
He was mildly amused, but apparently towel popping was not a custom in the rainforest, either.
Juan joined me for the 2:00 lunch of soup, cheese, bread, and fruit. We ate on the steps of our hut, because the kids were cutting and pasting on the lunch tables.
Allie had them cutting letters from dark paper, then gluing them on white. I walked over to watch, and the kids were spelling hello and goodbye. Pepe and Eduardo were seated on the end, spelling potty.
Flabbergasted: A Novel Page 27
