I hear a crunch on the ground behind me.
“Imbabura,” Edgardo points to my right.
There, surrounded by mist, is the mountain I didn’t climb. It is the most gently sloped and least snowcapped of the mountains. Snow yarmulked.
“It’s beautiful,” I nod.
“I take this,” Edgardo grabs my backpack for me.
It’s a surprising act of either generosity or “I just this second remembered you’re paying me.”
“Thank you.”
I am relieved to not compound the thumping in my skull by climbing down with the extra weight. Edgardo unfastens his helmet and clips it to his own bag. Then he hands the pack back to me. When I don’t immediately take it, he gently rests it against my leg.
“De nada,” he says.
When we arrive at the car, I am somehow surprised to see it there, right where we parked it. Unlike Edgardo, I did not expect it to get stolen. But I am surprised to see it, magnificently unaffected by last night’s events. By the time I reach for the door handle, my body is almost as indifferent to Cotopaxi as the car is.
Meanwhile, the rap is back. So is the gas pedal. I would sooner drink a bottle of whiskey and run down a spiral staircase than get in a car with Edgardo again. But as I have neither at my disposal, I buckle up.
“Look,” Edgardo says, once we are at the base of the mountain.
“What?”
He ignores me as usual and stops the car. At first I see nothing. Then, on the hillside, meandering between sporadic shrubs, are seven spots. They’re moving slowly toward us. They are wild horses, mostly caramel and one black. As they get closer, I can see their manes are dreadlocked and tangled with unknowable debris. Some of their ribs show when they move. Edgardo gets out of the car to take pictures. He moves with stealth, trying not to frighten them. They remain calm but stop to munch on long grass while keep one eye on Edgardo. This is what he needed last night, an animal with monocular vision to watch his shit.
Our driver missing, Victor and I get out of the Jeep, closing our doors softly behind us. We lean together, watching Edgardo creep up on the horses, trying to crouch down and move forward at the same time. I have taken my gloves off and done the unthinkable: unzipped my jacket. Victor laughs at his friend under his breath and shakes his head. He cleans his Oakleys with his shirt, glares at the sky and says we have to get going. It’s going to rain again soon and the road to the highway will be covered in mud. Arms folded, I say nothing. I just left two days of malaria pills in a pile of vomit.
“He is heart sick” explains Victor, who puts his hand on his chest, concerned he got the word wrong.
“There is a woman and she will not call him. So he texts her.”
The idea of Edgardo living his life, eating, drinking, texting, going to nightclubs and flirtatiously sticking the end of his scruffy ponytail down women’s faces like a paintbrush, is strange to me.
“He lives with his mother,” Victor says, reading my mind about the rent, “but he want to move with this woman.”
“Does she respond to the texts?”
“She has a new boyfriend. Edgardo knows a little but he doesn’t really know.”
From half a football field away, the wind carries the sound of Edgardo telling the horses to be “tranquillo,” which they already are. They’re not running from him nor are they charging him. They’re just casually meandering away from this nuisance.
“Do you know this guy?”
“He is my twin brother.”
“I see,” I say with a “my wife is dead” level of energy, “that’s not very good.”
“No,” Victor laughs, and removes a mango from his pocket, “it’s not.”
He offers me a half the fruit and I accept.
This doesn’t make it okay. None of what has happened in the past 36 hours is okay. When Edgardo comes back to the car, I stare out the window, refusing to feel bad for him. The inexplicably German rap gives way to explicably German techno. It’s less of an affront to my ears. The German language and techno go together like peanut butter and jelly. I really don’t care who broke Edgardo’s heart or why or how badly. Furthermore, the idea that it was done over text only aggravates my casual distain. How grand could this alleged love affair have been? I am not sorry he is lonely. A lot of people are lonely. A lot of people are lonely even when they’re surrounded by other people. And yet, on the drive back to Quito, when Edgardo shouts the names of the mountains, releasing the steering wheel to point enthusiastically each time the road provides a new angle, as if I have not just spent the night on one of them, as if he has not told me a million times already, I crane my neck and look up and nod, sufficiently awed.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The names and identifying characteristics of individuals have been changed to preserve their anonymity. In addition, time lines and dialogue have been marginally adjusted.
Up the Down Volcano (Kindle Single) Page 4
