Couch

by Benjamin Parzybok

  Carlos and Julio joined them, and Julio affectionately patted Thom’s bicep.

  “Vamanos,” Carlos said.

  The boat was an oversized wooden rowboat with deep sides, a steep keel, and a big motor. They loaded the couch in, and Thom noticed Carlos squeezing its armrests, eyeing its frame. He wondered if this was curiosity naturally associated with crazy gringos carrying a couch across the delta or if something more was at play. They piled in, giving Julio a profuse round of thanks. Thom, for lack of the right language of gratitude, broke into a round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Julio grinned and invited them to hurry back, stay longer.

  Julio left and Carlos had stepped off the boat and disappeared. They waited. The water lapped softly against the sides. The boat was tied to a wooden dock protected from the surf by a rock jetty. They waited ten, twenty, thirty minutes, sweating in the sun.

  “Are we supposed to drive it?” Tree said, working a mosquito bite.

  “No. No.” Erik craned his neck about, searching up the dock impatiently. “He said he’d come right back.” Erik eyed the motor, began calculating a getaway.

  Thom’s crowd of children suddenly appeared on the dock, the younger ones demanding he fly before he go. They sat, bare feet dangling in the water. Two blocks away, the chaos of the market buzzed on.

  Then Carlos was back, full of cheer and carrying an armload of giant Ecuadorian cervezas, Pilsener, popping tops and passing them around. He hopped nimbly into the boat, shirt open to his belly. Like every other vehicle operator in Ecuador, he operated the engine at full speed.

  “Beer seems to happen here at any hour, doesn’t it?” Tree said, looking at his twenty-two–ounce bottle with mixed emotions.

  “Give it here, I’ll drink it.” Erik reached.

  “No, it’s cold.” Tree held it to his face, the glass dripping wet, sucking condensation from the humid air. Tree’s hair stuck to his face, and he incessantly writhed from his insect welts.

  Then there was the breeze of acceleration. The keel rose into the waves and bumped heavily. A low outcropping of land lay to their right.

  “Vamos alla?” Erik pointed at the land.

  “No, es la Isla Puná. Alla les llevo.” Carlos pointed into a horizon of water between islands: That’s where I’m taking you. Erik climbed a seat closer to Carlos.

  “He says Puná used to be a great island, but hardly anybody lives there now. The people who lived there invented the balsa.”

  “Balsa?”

  “Julio’s boat, the balsa-wood trunks with the sails. They sailed them all the way to Central America, farther. Nobody knows how far they went. They were here before the Incans, and when the Incan invaded, they facilitated trade between the Mayas and the Incas.”

  “What happened to them?”

  Erik relayed the question, and Carlos shrugged. “Desaparecidos.” Disappeared.

  The water turned murky and then red-brown as they crossed the outflow of a river, a brown sea brimming with city sewage and trash. Just as suddenly it turned blue again.

  Carlos passed around more beer, and Tree gave his to Erik, along with what remained of his first one. The beers had warmed in the bottom of the boat.

  They passed another great swath of brown and Carlos pointed to the left, the great city of Guayaquil.

  Thom stared up the river toward the city where they were to have met up with Jean and sighed. Erik’s worries were a moot point after all, he thought. There was just something about her—in only two encounters, he’d managed to manifest a crush. She had a nice mix of looks and smarts and wit but seemed, still, within range for a socially awkward but nonetheless nice fellow with moderate looks, extra-large feet, and a fair bit of intelligence. He swallowed tensely, hoping he wasn’t overexaggerating his qualifications. She wasn’t off the charts of attainability, anyway. He sensed she could be wooed into considering an unchosen. At least until she found out what I’m really like, he thought, with the antisocial tendencies and confidence lapses like a relief map of the Rockies. And then he wondered if he were really like that anymore or if that was another Thom, heavy and stuck in an office job he hated and arguing pigheadedly with his girlfriend about issues he knew he was on the wrong side of: whether to eat healthily, whether to have friends. He poured the warm beer down his throat and felt a tremendously peaceful buzz come over him. The noise of the engine all but prohibited conversation: the beer muted the anxiety of arrival. It was chilling to think of a people on balsas here five hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, how many years ago? The sea floor littered with skeletons and history. Had the couch been here before? Was this home? He leaned back against it and closed his eyes.

  Tree had made it clear that they were not to be dropped off in a town, that they were to avoid roads, but when Carlos drove the boat up onto a deserted beach with only strange, large-leafed trees and sand in either direction, Thom’s anxiety boiled over.

  “Tree? What about eating, sleeping, shelter, water?” Tipsiness aided Thom’s roll over the side of the boat onto his feet in the shallow water.

  “We’ll find stuff,” Tree said in a way that inspired no confidence.

  Erik paid Carlos. He was weaving, two and a half of Ecuador’s twenty-two–ounce beers down and another gripped in his hand, smiling and laughing. He and Thom flipped the couch off the boat and dropped it in the water. They struggled up the beach with it, stubbing toes and stumbling. Erik ran ten steps to the side, opened his fly, and pissed into the sea with numerous exclamations of relief.

  Then the three put their weight against Carlos’s boat and pushed it back into the water. Carlos waved a cheerful good-bye. “Suerte! Que les vayan bien!”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said luck. Which I think coming from him means I hope you fall into a hole.” Erik peeled off his shirt and slouched against the couch. “Oh yeah, this is the life! I want some ceviche or crab or langosta and another beer and half a dozen cigarettes and a woman and a hammock to lie in with her. And a foot massage. That cover the shelter, food, water thing?” He snapped his fingers. “Get that for me, Tree?”

  Thom giggled through a series of beer belches and lay down in the hot sand, unbuttoning his jumpsuit to his navel. A forgotten paradise, not a hint of civilization as far as the eye could see. What the hell were they doing?

  A somber Tree stood nearby, looking nervously at the tree line that came up to the edge of the beach. “Guys?”

  “Don’t answer him,” Erik whispered to Thom. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Thom was content to squeeze sand through his fingers, watch changes in the sole cloud in the sky, listen to the waves crash up on the shore, sweat into his jumpsuit. Maybe in a while he’d take everything off and go for a swim.

  “Come on, you guys.”

  “Tree,” Erik whined. “Can’t we just chill for a while, work off a buzz on the beach?”

  “We shouldn’t stay in one place,” Tree said.

  “Where are we going?” Thom said.

  “Into those trees.”

  Erik swiveled to face Tree. “Those trees up there, know what those are? Giant leaf, stubby little tree, appendages like a thousand penises. Those are banana trees. Know what it’s going to be like in there? The ground will be insanely muddy, it’s been flooding here like mad, it’ll be sweaty as hell, humidity like, like . . . I don’t know, like a whole freaking lot of humidity, that’s what it’ll be like, a lot of humidity, and there will be insects everywhere, and those insects will like you, they desire you, you are insect almuerzo, free delivery, get your Tree almuerzo delivered straight to your nest, or wherever the hell insects call home.”

  Tree stood uncomfortably, opening and closing his needle-nose pliers on his forefinger. “Seriously, though, we should go. Thom?”

  “Lo que sea mejor por el país.”

  “The country would be happier if we stayed here,” Erik said. “Country? Would you like us to stay on this nice beach for a while?”

  “Yes, y
es, I would,” Erik replied, not bothering to give Ecuador a different voice. “I would like that very much.”

  Thom laughed, propped himself up on elbows and looked lazily back at the trees. Where the unknown began. A beach was so . . . simple, graspable. Beyond the beach there was a labyrinth of banana fields and forests and jungles, where food was a puzzle, signs a conundrum. “What time is it?” he said, knowing none of them had a watch. His computer at the bottom of the sea or in a shark’s belly. His alarm clock . . . where had that gone? The Goodwill. He realized that the blue jumpsuit, the sandals made from car tires, and the one hundred and fifty dollars Tree had given him were the extent of his possessions. Robinson Crusoe, brain volunteered. Gilligan’s Island.

  “Maybe we should just take a quick break, Tree,” Thom said. “Just for a short while.”

  In front of him the horizon was empty but for the smudge of the island of the disappeared. Thom leaned back into the sand, closed his eyes.

  “I don’t have much time,” Tree said. He sat in the sand, working his pliers against another bite.

  “What’s the hurry? It’s not like we’re going to miss an appointment,” Erik said.

  “I’m going to get sick.”

  “Now? For godsake, go into the trees.”

  “Later.”

  “Oh. Everybody gets sick, bud. It’s a whole part of the exotic foreign experience. You’ll sit on the toilet for days. It’s great fun.”

  Nobody said anything. Finally Erik and Thom looked over at Tree. He sat cross-legged, bent over with his head in his hands.

  “Hey, Tree, we can go in just a second. I just wanted a minute or two to sit,” Erik said. “Can’t I freaking have a minute or two?”

  Tree nodded imperceptibly.

  “What kind of sick?” Thom said.

  “I don’t know.” Tree’s voice was muffled. “There’s a steep slope, it’s cold, there’s fog everywhere, you guys are exhausted from carrying the couch, it’s hard to breathe, there are lots of rocks, rain, I’m lying on the couch, you’re carrying the couch with me lying on it. Or the couch is on something and I’m on that. I’m . . . in a lot of pain. I’m scared. I mean I’m scared now. I can’t tell what’s going on with me on the couch.”

  Thom looked at Erik, who mimed a question. Crazy?

  Thom shook his head, gestured toward the trees, a silent Let’s go.

  Erik came to his feet, stretched. “All right, y’all, what do you say we get this show on the road. Don’t worry, dreamboy, we’ll keep you safe. Nobody wants to carry you on the couch, so it’s in our best interest.” He clapped his hands and looked down at Tree, saw him covered head to foot in insect bites, and a fear struck his gut. Yellow fever, dengue fever, malaria, or any number of other things. Maybe the boy really was going to get sick. Then a panic at the thought of this seer. What did he know of Erik? Did he know when they’d die?

  “What about me?” he said. “Do you see anything in store for me?”

  Tree squinted up at Erik. “I don’t answer questions like that, Erik. You know that.”

  “Well, what the fuck’s the use of it then? Come on, I’m getting irritated now. My ceviche never arrived. Let’s go.” He kicked sand toward each of his roommates, and they reluctantly got up. Tree and Thom hoisted the couch.

  “Boats,” Tree said.

  Thom looked up and saw that two boats had slipped into view and were pointed at their beach. “What do we do?”

  “Okay, run, hurry, hurry.” Tree ran his end of the couch up the sand toward the trees, pulling Thom after him. Thom looked behind to see Erik unsteady on his feet but following.

  III. Axis Mundi

  Being among the banana trees was like stepping into a steamy and heavily oxygenated greenhouse. Tree and Thom could barely keep their footing among the sinkholes, losing their shoes in the muck, slipping and falling, covered in it up to their knees, the couch changing color in the stew. Erik, cursing, led the way, trying to find drier ground, and then fell back to cover their tracks by laying down banana leaves. They pushed on for hours through the endless plantation, their arms aching, the couch light but ungainly, their optimism draining away. Erik took Tree’s end of the couch so Tree could slap at insects. Tree’s body was a map of red across his arms and neck.

  “Aren’t you using that insect repellent?” Erik dug his Ecuadorian loafer out of several feet of mud with a schlock! sound.

  “Shh,” Tree said. “Whisper.”

  “They must really like you.”

  “Listen.” Thom fanned his jumpsuit and took a bite of a mostly ripe banana he’d found on the ground. “There’s got to be a service road. Else how do they pick all these bananas?”

  “Huh.” Erik beat his shoe against a tree, dislodging chunks of mud. “I suppose. This is miserable. What have we come, a half mile?” He looked back in the direction of the sea and saw only endless trees. Was that the way they’d come? “I hope we’re not going in circles,” he said.

  “I hope it’s not fifty miles of this until some kind of road,” Thom said.

  “We have to stay off the road.”

  “Tree, we also have to be reasonable, practical. There’s no fucking way we’re going to get anywhere if we just keep going on like this,” Erik said.

  “I think we’re walking parallel to a service road,” Thom said. “Just let me scout a bit.” Before they could argue, he set off at a right angle, pushing through the giant leaves, watching warily for any lurking swamp animals. There had to be a road. Or did they just plow these trees down when they harvested? He heard a whop whop whop in the air, a helicopter. Please let it not be insecticide, he prayed and then wondered if it was looking for them. He pulled a shield of banana leaves in front of him. The helicopter hovered close and loud and then was gone. Plantation owner checking his crop, Thom thought. He hoped Erik and Tree had hidden.

  He trudged on and found a skinny dirt road running between the trees. It went one or two hundred yards and curved out of sight.

  Thom shouted back to Erik and Tree. Had he gone out of shouting range? He’d lost track. He walked back in the direction he’d come. “Hello?” He heard only condensation dripping from the banana leaves. “Hello?” Everything looked the same, trees and mud. Footprints, he thought, but couldn’t find any. He’d stepped at the base of the trees to avoid mud and left no prints, or perhaps he’d lost his own trail already. “Hello?” Silence but for the whine of a mosquito. He slapped at his arm and saw he had two bites already with Tree not around to divert traffic. Where were they? Surely I didn’t walk this far. He turned and walked at a right angle to his original direction, thinking he’d missed his path, calling. Those bastards, why wouldn’t they answer? He scratched at his face, thought he couldn’t have gotten this far off the route. He turned around and walked the other way, keeping the memory of the road on his right. Was it on his right? “Fuck!” he yelled and stood still, listening for anything, another mosquito, now four bites on his right arm, two on his left. His neck itched. He rolled his sleeves down and started walking again, picking up his pace, running when he could, slapping leaves out of the way. He flailed his arms around to keep mosquitoes away. And then he saw the ocean. He came to the edge of the trees, furious with himself. Why hadn’t they brought water or food? Why did they have to walk through the fucking banana plantation? He tried to calm himself, breathe. They’ll wait or go look for me or keep on. All three seemed hopeless. He walked along the tree line, and there was the service road. The same one? He ran down it, hollering as he went. How long had he been away now? A half hour, an hour? The road finally intersected with a larger dirt road. He turned left. What else was he supposed to do? When you’re lost in the forest, stay where you are, his meager Boy Scout experience dictated. But who would look for him here?

  He followed the road around a bend, and there not fifty yards away were Tree and Erik, loading the couch into the back of a fourdoor pickup while four men stood around and watched. Thom jogged up, relieved. “Hey. Uh. You g
ot a ride then?” he said, noticing Erik and Tree’s absence of expressions.

  “Thanks for bringing us the couch, Thom,” one of the men said in English. He wore a straw hat and had a friendly round face. He used a nightstick to tip his hat at Thom.

  He knows my name, Thom thought. He nodded at the man, feeling relieved the quest was over. They’d brought the couch to these men. He could go home. Turn back toward the sea, forget about adventuring and romance and being brave and quick and strong and everything heroic. He could eat out and watch movies and sleep in for days on end. He’d get a job and make his mom happy.

  “You’ve done a great job. Just follow this road here. You can get a bus in Naranjal. There’s a great restaurant on the main street, El Olvidor.”

  Thom nodded and smiled, his hand to his jaw, where his tooth had begun to hurt. He was hungry, he realized. He saw Erik’s shoes were on the ground, muddy and ruined. Tree was still wearing his. Zapato went brain, ever-ready to throw up useless information at inopportune times. A ruined zapato, and then in a memory of a memory of repetition, Thom repeated it. Zapato zapato, a clicking of the consciousness.

  They were being robbed.

  A volcanic rage rose up in Thom. He jumped toward the truck with a howl and threw the man closing the tailgate deep into the side of the road like a rag doll, howling to shut out the man’s voice. He jerked the couch from the back, knocking over Tree in the process. The man with the hat gave a nod and two men came at him, throwing punches. Thom watched his fists go up slowly, like watching a slow-motion nature shot of a bear seeking its nimble prey, a hundred pounds of bone and flesh on the end of each arm, like wrecking balls, he flung them and the men ducked. A pain in his stomach, his face, his kidney, the taste of blood in his mouth. He was blinded and falling and more pain, curling about the pain, his back, his head, every part of him beaten up.