I have a new addiction. It's the NFL Channel. Don't get me wrong, I don't plop down to watch old football games whose outcome I already know - unless, of course, it's the Broncos and they were winners - no, my jones is fed by feasting upon Top Ten Lists. This week I've seen the Top Ten Best Hands, the Top Ten Best Gunslingers and the Top Ten Best Coach's Meltdowns. (Even non fans must remember Jim Mora's "Play-affs? Play-affs?!) (Okay, maybe not.) The Number Ones in those categories were Chris Carter, Bret Favre and Mora. I don't know who does the judging, but it is fun to guess as the shows count down from 10 to 1.
Okay that's it for Sports. Now it's on to the Hard News.
Our lower level, which wasn't, now is. Guy in one of those machines with a plow on one end and a shovel on the other - you know what I'm talking about - came by and moved dirt around until the hillside was a playing field. Competitors from politics to business to tiddlywinks are always talking about wanting a level playing field and by George we have one. (It might be by Jorge or by Jose, but you get the point.)
Our next goal is a fence for the upper level, which, also, isn't quite, to keep the mutts from bringing home unwanted chicks. (I tried the same technique with my sons years ago, but they just climbed over.) Dogs have been on chains for awhile now and although they have adjusted, they don't look happy. Dogs gotta run.
I got interviewed by a North Carolina grad student about my health care experiences in Panama for a study about how ex-pats get along health-wise after leaving the U.S. For this I was payed forty bucks. I volunteered to be interviewed everyday, but apparently once is enough. Bummer. Anyway, the fast forty means there will be golf in the offing. Nice.
Today is Sunday and that means I'm cooking breakfast. Both Woowoo Charly and friend B "fix" breakfast, but I prefer to not break it in advance. I have to time the meal's arrival at the table to nine-thirty as Woowoo Chuck won't be moved from the couch until... I think it's "Meet the Press" is over. (I'm not sure because I'm busy cooking. I personally would prefer to be listening to the Top Ten Meals Consumed By Offensive Guards Before Super Bowls, but, you know, I've learned to share.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Brain Dead
Tom Robbins, the writer, says he finds sentences the most interesting thing in the world. My question is, when will Bush and Cheney get theirs and how long will they (the sentences) be?
RTGFKAR says that eating raw vegetables will give you cancer. He says "ask anyone who has cancer if they have eaten raw vegetables and they will tell you yes. So there you have it: raw vegetables = cancer."
With baseball season plodding along as it always does, and football season still a few weeks away, I have been contemplating starting a fantasy synchronized swimming league. I like those underwater shots of the legs pedaling away.
The creative part of my brain - admittedly a small part - is in a coma. My other brain parts, family and friends of the creative part, are standing by in silent vigil hoping for a revival. It doesn't look good though, the creative part just lies there staring at the ceiling, unmoving, no signs of life evident. Some of the other parts, tiring from the long wait, have gone out for a couple of beers, while others work on, keeping the body from going limp as well. The medulla oblong gotta do something but I'm not sure what. Frontal lobes dully. The matter that matters remains comatose, unable to crank out an original thought. Extreme measures may be called for. An intravenous scotch drip stands at the ready, but the decision making brain part says "not yet, not yet, there is still hope." Only time will tell.
RTGFKAR says that eating raw vegetables will give you cancer. He says "ask anyone who has cancer if they have eaten raw vegetables and they will tell you yes. So there you have it: raw vegetables = cancer."
With baseball season plodding along as it always does, and football season still a few weeks away, I have been contemplating starting a fantasy synchronized swimming league. I like those underwater shots of the legs pedaling away.
The creative part of my brain - admittedly a small part - is in a coma. My other brain parts, family and friends of the creative part, are standing by in silent vigil hoping for a revival. It doesn't look good though, the creative part just lies there staring at the ceiling, unmoving, no signs of life evident. Some of the other parts, tiring from the long wait, have gone out for a couple of beers, while others work on, keeping the body from going limp as well. The medulla oblong gotta do something but I'm not sure what. Frontal lobes dully. The matter that matters remains comatose, unable to crank out an original thought. Extreme measures may be called for. An intravenous scotch drip stands at the ready, but the decision making brain part says "not yet, not yet, there is still hope." Only time will tell.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Catching Up
What's it been Dear Diary, a week or more since I've made a note of this and that? Something must have occurred that was markable; maybe even re-markable. Can't think what though. Let me scroll back a bit.
Friend L was attacked and mugged by his own liver. He's doing fine now, contemplating a return to the golf course. It's my experience that even the orneriest of livers will behave if you're carrying a three iron. (In lieu of a beer can.)
An Indian neighbor waved me to a stop as I drove by his house. He told me my perro negro had killed six of his chickens. I paid him for the chickens and chained up my dogs. We are getting an estimate today for constructing a fence.
Another neighbor has created a Neighborhood Watch which consists of a lot of signs saying, essentially, burglars beware. Our Palo Alto neighborhood has not had a single reported burglary, but better safe than, ah...safe I guess. Our share of the sign cost was twenty bucks.
Finnegan, our Golden Retriever, had his huevos removed last Friday. While Raffi and Matti were out killing chickens, Finnegan was trying to hump them. I can't say for certain if he was successful, but there are a couple of chicks down the road that, when you throw them kernels of corn, they pick them up carefully in their beaks and bring them back to you.
Played 36 holes of golf last Tuesday and found a golf swing. It isn't mine, but it's a pretty good swing, so if it's still in my bag this week, I'm keeping it.
Read a book by Elizabeth George and plan to read more. Am currently reading a book about the Beatles and their era that I finding surprisingly compelling. Surprising in that I was never a fan.
Haven't written much of late beyond the story in the blog that precedes this one. I plan to correct that this week.
I can now do twelve push-ups and feel applause is due.
It has rained some. Sunny today though.
Friend L was attacked and mugged by his own liver. He's doing fine now, contemplating a return to the golf course. It's my experience that even the orneriest of livers will behave if you're carrying a three iron. (In lieu of a beer can.)
An Indian neighbor waved me to a stop as I drove by his house. He told me my perro negro had killed six of his chickens. I paid him for the chickens and chained up my dogs. We are getting an estimate today for constructing a fence.
Another neighbor has created a Neighborhood Watch which consists of a lot of signs saying, essentially, burglars beware. Our Palo Alto neighborhood has not had a single reported burglary, but better safe than, ah...safe I guess. Our share of the sign cost was twenty bucks.
Finnegan, our Golden Retriever, had his huevos removed last Friday. While Raffi and Matti were out killing chickens, Finnegan was trying to hump them. I can't say for certain if he was successful, but there are a couple of chicks down the road that, when you throw them kernels of corn, they pick them up carefully in their beaks and bring them back to you.
Played 36 holes of golf last Tuesday and found a golf swing. It isn't mine, but it's a pretty good swing, so if it's still in my bag this week, I'm keeping it.
Read a book by Elizabeth George and plan to read more. Am currently reading a book about the Beatles and their era that I finding surprisingly compelling. Surprising in that I was never a fan.
Haven't written much of late beyond the story in the blog that precedes this one. I plan to correct that this week.
I can now do twelve push-ups and feel applause is due.
It has rained some. Sunny today though.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Ketspaldigo
Inside Jack Boldin’s house, Jack sat quietly reading his account of what occurred on his ill fated venture into the Bolivian wilderness. The two investigators assigned to determine what had happened to Jack’s companions on that trip, listened attentively.
*
I stood waist deep in the Amazon muck wondering what the hell I was doing there. The part of me above water was no drier than that below, and the onslaught of insects to my upper half made total submersion seem almost a good idea. That’s a laugh, I thought. God only knows what horrors are under the surface. I looked ahead and saw my companions climbing out of the fetid slop onto marginally firmer ground, and I plodded and sloshed after them. We were all lost, had been for days, but figured a straight line following our compass would get us somewhere, to a village perhaps, or an actual river we could follow downstream, get us out of this shallow ooze we had been wading in and out of since leaving La Paz six weeks ago.
I was there in truth on a lark, a romp, a whim, and I had nobody to blame but myself. I had talked my way onto this expedition by footing the bill, or most of it anyway. An uncle of mine had died and left me a very nice chunk of change at roughly the same time my fiancé dumped me for another guy. I was seriously conflicted and, as they say, “At sea.” I needed to get away and do something, something different. A couple of friends of mine, Simon Elie and Robert Dana, had been talking about a certain adventure for years. When I offered to cough up the financing for the trip, we were packed and in flight to Bolivia before I could say…“We’re going WHERE?” Simon and Bob were veteran trekkers used to wilderness hardships. They had scaled mountains and mapped trails throughout most of the more rugged parts of North America. This, though, was their first foray into the jungle, and they didn’t seem to be faring any better than I was. Besides paying, I had also begged on board by promising to chronicle our adventure. Having been a journalist for a number of years, I had some writing skills. If I had known, however, in advance, even some of what I was to write – believe me – you would not be reading this now.
Progress in the jungle is a tedious and torturous thing. On dry ground, or should I say drier ground--nothing here is ever completely without moisture--you have to hack your way through dense foliage to create passage. When and where the water rises, the only choice available is to drag your soggy boots through the mud and slime and ignore the creepy feeling that the swamp is trying to pull you down. Boats, we learned quickly, are impossible. We had abandoned ours. They’re too heavy, too awkward. Too much time is spent untangling vines or dragging them off mud spars. Horses and mules don’t work either. They’re at the mercy of insects, poisonous plants, and packed they don’t do well in mud. And so we walked. On a good day we were able to cover as much as two kilometers give or take. Most days, though, far less. Like I said, it’s slow going in the jungle.
The plan was to follow the footsteps of a famous adventurer named P.H. Fawcett who had explored the Amazon on several occasions in search of an ancient civilization thought to be rolling in gold, a sort of El Dorado, if you will. Fawcett and his entire party, including his grown son, had disappeared on his last expedition and it was our hope to uncover what had happened to them. If we discovered a golden city along the way, hey that was all right too. Ours was not, however, a completely original plan. Other explorers had followed Fawcett’s route. Many of them--too many--had disappeared as well. What was unique about our plan--and don’t ask me why I agreed to this--was that we were taking only the same technology available to Fawcett when he entered the jungle during his several attempts to find the gold. No GPS for us. No fancy packs or dried foods. We were going to duplicate as closely as we could Fawcett’s last try, without, of course, the disappearing part.
It all went well for awhile. The initial route through the muck and mire was better now. Civilization had crept deeper into the jungle. Throughout the first week, we saw signs of farming, logging, and even a few gringo enterprises like hunting lodges. The natives we encountered were friendly, and many offered to join us as bearers. We declined their help, choosing to go it alone until we met an old man named Jango at a remote village on the cusp of the deep wood. He said he remembered Fawcett. He said he was a boy at the time, but remembered him clearly. He then gave us descriptions of Fawcett and his son that matched exactly those of photos we had discovered in our research. After asking the old man every question we could think of to verify his sincerity, we essentially deduced that he had seen the Fawcett party, but didn’t know much else. Until, that is, he told us he knew where Fawcett had gone and, for a price, was willing to show us. Now Jango was, as I’ve said, old; had to be ninety at least. His skin, lined and wrinkled from head to foot, covered little more than his bones. It appeared as though someone had wrapped his skeleton in the skin of a man twice his size. There were folds upon folds. He had hooded black eyes that were bright and alive, though, and as he spoke he surprised the three of us by jumping nimbly to his feet, waving his machete wildly in the air and trotting toward a path leading out of the village. “Come” he hollered, “I will show you.” We looked at each other and quickly agreed to meet his price. (It was trivial.) What the hell, was our consensus. We had a map, but a guide would surely be better.
And he was, for another two weeks. We were then a day or so beyond the place where the map of Fawcett’s last journey ended. Having by then consumed all our packed-in food, our diet now consisted of whatever we could pick or shoot along the way. We were each down about twenty pounds and looking almost as lean as Jango. We might have been thinner yet if he hadn’t taught us which plants were edible. The three of us were badly in need of a rest, and we told the tireless old man exactly that.
“One more day,” he said, walking ahead. “One more day.”
We reluctantly trudged after him.
Near the end of that “one more day” we stood looking across a field of tall jungle grass at what appeared to be a small, uninhabited village. To reach it we had to wade into the grass that was growing from a soft, sucking mud that clung to our boots and had to be scraped off every few steps. It was nearing dark when we at last dragged ourselves from the ooze and climbed onto the denser ground of the village. Too tired at that point to even put up our small tents, we pulled our insect repellant nets over our bodies and fell deeply asleep.
I awoke to the sound of Jango speaking a language that was something other than the Spanish he used with us. Pulling the net from me, I saw that we were surrounded by a dozen or so short, squat natives, wearing only unidentifiable animal skins that draped from their waists to about mid-thigh. Their bodies were covered in dried mud the color of weak chocolate milk and they held wooden spears taller than themselves at their sides. I poked my companions awake. Jango was talking and gesturing excitedly to the group at large, and several of them spoke back. The Mud People, as I’ve chosen to call them, did not appear threatening, but Simon, Rob and I clung tightly to the butts of our revolvers nevertheless.
When Jango finished what appeared to be a negotiation with the Mud People, they dispersed and he turned and explained the deal he had made. He would leave us now and return to his own village. A member of the Mud People would lead us on the next leg of our journey. We would have to think of something to give him in payment as they had no concept of money. Jango himself, however, would now take the money we had promised him. He further explained that the Mud People plugged their ears and noses and slept under a layer of mud. They breathed through hollow reeds like we’d use a snorkel. This way, Jango explained, they remained cool throughout the night and were not bothered by bugs. He also said that only a few times before had the Mud People heard of white men coming to their village. Their elders had rarely spoken of it, but when they did, they said the white men journeyed on to a place where they wouldn’t go. He called it “Ketspaldigo” or, as best as Jango could translate, The Hungry Forest. The elders also said not one of the white men had ever returned.
It’s not because we were arrogant or considered ourselves especially immune to danger that we decided to press on. There were two, we thought, good reasons to do so. The first was that we didn’t quite believe the spooky, superstitious prattle of the Mud People, and the second was simply that we had come too far to turn back. Our journey to this moment had been of interest but lacked conclusion. And so it was that the next day, rested and repacked with edible grains, shoots and dried fruits, we set off anew behind a Mud Man guide whose name we couldn’t pronounce. Didn’t matter, he wasn’t with us for long.
At the end of the day with the light fading rapidly and the night bugs closing in, our no name Mud Man stood pointing at the horizon where we could see tall trees clustered tightly together. Jungle, swamp, whatever you wanted to call the muck we were in, meet rainforest. We pitched our light tents and watched our guide slip off into the dark to find, we supposed, a puddle to sleep in. He seemed happy to be going.
That was the last we would see of him. In the morning we called out repeatedly and eventually fired a few rounds into the air to no particular avail. Our guide was gone. We were left with but one choice to make, forward or back. We packed our gear and set off to the forest. From where we stood it looked inviting, calm, serene. In the brightness of early day, it even looked dry.
Which brings me full circle to where I began, the being lost part. The part that even now, many months later, as I write it, rips me with a shudder of cold fear and disbelief. Yet I know it to be true.
The forest was there to our front. Right there. For three days we trudged relentlessly towards it, but got no closer. For three days we ignored the evidence of our own eyes, assuming there was some sort of optical trick, some play of light and shadow that deceived us and made us believe we were making no progress. We had to be getting closer, we reasoned. The landscape behind us changed with every step. We clearly were not locked in place. We must be moving forward.
But no, we weren’t. The forest remained there… in the distance.
On the fourth day we conferred. Something very odd was going on here. Perhaps, we thought, we had eaten something hallucinogenic. Maybe we were victims of a mass hypnosis or something not one of us could conceive. Whatever. We decided then and there to trust our compass and follow it AWAY from the mysterious, elusive forest. It was time to quit, we agreed, time to give up, to go home. We plotted a course and set out again. North I think it was, but that is of no matter. We weren’t going to find a village, a river, or a trail back to the Mud People. It was our destiny, as it had been for Fawcett and his party, to find the forest. Or, perhaps, more correctly, it was going to find us.
A reverse effect then occurred. As we retraced our steps away from the offending canopy, it appeared to come closer. When we looked back we could discern no movement, but each glance behind found the vine laden, towering arboles creeping nearer. Or so it seemed. We tried picking up our pace to distance us from its approach, but that served only to hasten the forest’s advance.
Finally, convinced we were mad, we turned and walked again towards the now looming tangle of tropic trees. This time it neither receded nor advanced. It was just a wood, quiet and still.
We entered through an archway of linked foliage high above us and felt immediately the cool of forest shade. We dropped our packs after hiking a short way in and fell back against the trunks of what were once ominous trees. Our sudden joy was palpable. We grinned at each other like happy children and then we laughed. Delirious laughs, belly laughs, laden with relief.
I realize now that it is almost funny how short lived such a feeling can be. As our laughter dwindled to chuckles and then stopped completely. We were unanimously aware of the sudden, omnipresent stillness. There were no bugs, no birds, no breeze to rustle leaves and fill the air with sounds of life. Our small human doings made the only noise at all. We gathered our packs and headed deeper into the forest, our follow-the-compass plan intact. As we walked, the vegetation around us grew surprisingly thick considering how little sunlight filtered through the forest canopy. We were no longer struggling to pull our boots from sucking mud, but rather yanking them free from small, clinging ground creepers. We walked in single file as that was all the room the forest permitted.
And now here is the part where you will think me mad as I often do myself, but it is the truth as I know it.
Simon, the last in line, seemed to be having the most difficulty. He was grunting with effort and, despite the cool of the canopy shade, he was perspiring profusely. Rob and I had grown used to his grousing and no longer turned to see what was wrong when Simon let loose with one of his frequent string of curses. We had gotten quite some distance ahead when we were suddenly startled by his terrified screams. We turned at once and saw him there a good stone’s throw behind. He appeared from that distance to be nearly enveloped in vines. We started towards him at a run, but achieved only about half the distance when the forest floor in front of us erupted with a huge fronds of wide leafed ferns. Our view was completely blocked, our path impeded. The last thing I saw before turning and fleeing after Rob--who had surely seen the same thing--was a small branch covered with leafy shoots cram itself into Simon’s mouth, silencing his cries. He was then pulled, or rather, abruptly flung backwards, into a great maw of densely leafed darkness.
We ran. We ran like never before. Adrenaline and its bitter taste of fear drove us forward and we fled through the forest, screaming like madmen. There were tentacles of something–we could feel them–grabbing for our backs, trying to find purchase, trying to slow us, to stop us. We ran, frantically, maniacally, flailing our arms at vine and branch, real and imagined that reached for us at every step. And then, quite suddenly, I realized I was alone.
Younger and faster of foot, I had gained substantially on my comrade. The forest was thinner here, the gaps between trees and plants wider. I slowed some and risked a look back. Rob was down. I stopped, fretful, my eyes wide, darting about, looking for the danger that was sure to find me. I was in an open area, several feet from the nearest shade of green. I could see Rob in a similar clearing. He was struggling to rise. My wits were shattered, but still I started towards him. I had to swallow my fear, I had to help him. A few tentative steps in Rob’s direction were all I needed to stop me dead, stop me cold. I was now near enough to see why Rob could not rise. The ground, the sediment, the debris that had fallen from the canopy above was coming to life. It had seized Rob at ankle and wrist and was pulling him down, back to the earth, to the soil where the young verdant shoots were growing rapidly to clutch and still his struggle. In less than a minute he was gone, consumed by a forest whose hunger was insatiable.
I turned and ran again. My heart pounded furiously in my chest, threatening to explode. I ran, I knew, for no purpose. There was no escape. The forest surrounded me, hovering, looming, waiting now, I imagined, for its final course. I was to be dessert. I laughed, I hooted, I hollered, but still I ran. I ran even knowing there was no hope.
And then, suddenly, there was. Ahead of me I could see an opening through the trees; a burst of sunlight that framed an arch to freedom. I was at the edge of the forest. If I could reach it, I would find the swamp; the wonderful, splendid swamp with its glorious mud and its biting bugs.
It was as if…no, it WAS… that the forest read my mind. Its efforts to catch me and hold me intensified. I was still running but the creepers at my ankles were growing stronger and it was harder and harder to break their grip. I was so near to the edge, so close to escape that I found a final expenditure of strength and tore across the living forest floor. I would make it, I would be free!
And then I was down. A step, no more than two from the swamp. I was going to dive, I was going to leap, I was going to hurl myself gleefully into the muck, but it was too late. I was down; too entangled to rise. I tried to crawl. I dug my fingers into the soil and levered myself forward, an inch, maybe two. It was no use, my hands were quickly encircled. I pushed with my knees, my elbows, the toes of my boots. Fear again giving me strength where I thought none existed. I gained not another inch. I knew then it was over. I was over. I lay there waiting to die. Waiting to be eaten by this monstrous, evil, sentient forest. Thin, reed-like creepers slid up my nose and found the orifices of my ears and throat. I choked and fought for air. Heavier, snake-like vines were climbing my legs and arms through my cuffs and sleeves. They were clinging tightly and they were sucking at my flesh. I cried out one last time and then my will to live trickled from body like blood from an open wound. My world went mercifully away.
*
What happened after that I only know from others. A daze, perhaps my mind’s attempt to save me from complete madness, clouded my mind, relieving me of memory until now, at the moment of this writing.
Jango had followed us to the forest. When I appeared at its edge, he had chopped me free with his machete and pulled me into the swamp. I had lain there for a day, he told me, before I was able to move. When I was conscious and ambulatory, he had led me back to the Mud People where I stayed for several weeks recovering from wounds I could not recall receiving. That the Mud People slept under water seemed a new revelation to me. I made my way, eventually, with Jango’s help, to his village, then La Paz, then home, where you find me now.
If this account sounds one of madness to you, in honesty, I can only further your assumption. For I must tell you, I sense the story is not at an end. There is unfinished business. I know it. I can feel it.
*
Outside Jack Boldin’s house, his lawn was growing curiously long, curiously fast.
*
I stood waist deep in the Amazon muck wondering what the hell I was doing there. The part of me above water was no drier than that below, and the onslaught of insects to my upper half made total submersion seem almost a good idea. That’s a laugh, I thought. God only knows what horrors are under the surface. I looked ahead and saw my companions climbing out of the fetid slop onto marginally firmer ground, and I plodded and sloshed after them. We were all lost, had been for days, but figured a straight line following our compass would get us somewhere, to a village perhaps, or an actual river we could follow downstream, get us out of this shallow ooze we had been wading in and out of since leaving La Paz six weeks ago.
I was there in truth on a lark, a romp, a whim, and I had nobody to blame but myself. I had talked my way onto this expedition by footing the bill, or most of it anyway. An uncle of mine had died and left me a very nice chunk of change at roughly the same time my fiancé dumped me for another guy. I was seriously conflicted and, as they say, “At sea.” I needed to get away and do something, something different. A couple of friends of mine, Simon Elie and Robert Dana, had been talking about a certain adventure for years. When I offered to cough up the financing for the trip, we were packed and in flight to Bolivia before I could say…“We’re going WHERE?” Simon and Bob were veteran trekkers used to wilderness hardships. They had scaled mountains and mapped trails throughout most of the more rugged parts of North America. This, though, was their first foray into the jungle, and they didn’t seem to be faring any better than I was. Besides paying, I had also begged on board by promising to chronicle our adventure. Having been a journalist for a number of years, I had some writing skills. If I had known, however, in advance, even some of what I was to write – believe me – you would not be reading this now.
Progress in the jungle is a tedious and torturous thing. On dry ground, or should I say drier ground--nothing here is ever completely without moisture--you have to hack your way through dense foliage to create passage. When and where the water rises, the only choice available is to drag your soggy boots through the mud and slime and ignore the creepy feeling that the swamp is trying to pull you down. Boats, we learned quickly, are impossible. We had abandoned ours. They’re too heavy, too awkward. Too much time is spent untangling vines or dragging them off mud spars. Horses and mules don’t work either. They’re at the mercy of insects, poisonous plants, and packed they don’t do well in mud. And so we walked. On a good day we were able to cover as much as two kilometers give or take. Most days, though, far less. Like I said, it’s slow going in the jungle.
The plan was to follow the footsteps of a famous adventurer named P.H. Fawcett who had explored the Amazon on several occasions in search of an ancient civilization thought to be rolling in gold, a sort of El Dorado, if you will. Fawcett and his entire party, including his grown son, had disappeared on his last expedition and it was our hope to uncover what had happened to them. If we discovered a golden city along the way, hey that was all right too. Ours was not, however, a completely original plan. Other explorers had followed Fawcett’s route. Many of them--too many--had disappeared as well. What was unique about our plan--and don’t ask me why I agreed to this--was that we were taking only the same technology available to Fawcett when he entered the jungle during his several attempts to find the gold. No GPS for us. No fancy packs or dried foods. We were going to duplicate as closely as we could Fawcett’s last try, without, of course, the disappearing part.
It all went well for awhile. The initial route through the muck and mire was better now. Civilization had crept deeper into the jungle. Throughout the first week, we saw signs of farming, logging, and even a few gringo enterprises like hunting lodges. The natives we encountered were friendly, and many offered to join us as bearers. We declined their help, choosing to go it alone until we met an old man named Jango at a remote village on the cusp of the deep wood. He said he remembered Fawcett. He said he was a boy at the time, but remembered him clearly. He then gave us descriptions of Fawcett and his son that matched exactly those of photos we had discovered in our research. After asking the old man every question we could think of to verify his sincerity, we essentially deduced that he had seen the Fawcett party, but didn’t know much else. Until, that is, he told us he knew where Fawcett had gone and, for a price, was willing to show us. Now Jango was, as I’ve said, old; had to be ninety at least. His skin, lined and wrinkled from head to foot, covered little more than his bones. It appeared as though someone had wrapped his skeleton in the skin of a man twice his size. There were folds upon folds. He had hooded black eyes that were bright and alive, though, and as he spoke he surprised the three of us by jumping nimbly to his feet, waving his machete wildly in the air and trotting toward a path leading out of the village. “Come” he hollered, “I will show you.” We looked at each other and quickly agreed to meet his price. (It was trivial.) What the hell, was our consensus. We had a map, but a guide would surely be better.
And he was, for another two weeks. We were then a day or so beyond the place where the map of Fawcett’s last journey ended. Having by then consumed all our packed-in food, our diet now consisted of whatever we could pick or shoot along the way. We were each down about twenty pounds and looking almost as lean as Jango. We might have been thinner yet if he hadn’t taught us which plants were edible. The three of us were badly in need of a rest, and we told the tireless old man exactly that.
“One more day,” he said, walking ahead. “One more day.”
We reluctantly trudged after him.
Near the end of that “one more day” we stood looking across a field of tall jungle grass at what appeared to be a small, uninhabited village. To reach it we had to wade into the grass that was growing from a soft, sucking mud that clung to our boots and had to be scraped off every few steps. It was nearing dark when we at last dragged ourselves from the ooze and climbed onto the denser ground of the village. Too tired at that point to even put up our small tents, we pulled our insect repellant nets over our bodies and fell deeply asleep.
I awoke to the sound of Jango speaking a language that was something other than the Spanish he used with us. Pulling the net from me, I saw that we were surrounded by a dozen or so short, squat natives, wearing only unidentifiable animal skins that draped from their waists to about mid-thigh. Their bodies were covered in dried mud the color of weak chocolate milk and they held wooden spears taller than themselves at their sides. I poked my companions awake. Jango was talking and gesturing excitedly to the group at large, and several of them spoke back. The Mud People, as I’ve chosen to call them, did not appear threatening, but Simon, Rob and I clung tightly to the butts of our revolvers nevertheless.
When Jango finished what appeared to be a negotiation with the Mud People, they dispersed and he turned and explained the deal he had made. He would leave us now and return to his own village. A member of the Mud People would lead us on the next leg of our journey. We would have to think of something to give him in payment as they had no concept of money. Jango himself, however, would now take the money we had promised him. He further explained that the Mud People plugged their ears and noses and slept under a layer of mud. They breathed through hollow reeds like we’d use a snorkel. This way, Jango explained, they remained cool throughout the night and were not bothered by bugs. He also said that only a few times before had the Mud People heard of white men coming to their village. Their elders had rarely spoken of it, but when they did, they said the white men journeyed on to a place where they wouldn’t go. He called it “Ketspaldigo” or, as best as Jango could translate, The Hungry Forest. The elders also said not one of the white men had ever returned.
It’s not because we were arrogant or considered ourselves especially immune to danger that we decided to press on. There were two, we thought, good reasons to do so. The first was that we didn’t quite believe the spooky, superstitious prattle of the Mud People, and the second was simply that we had come too far to turn back. Our journey to this moment had been of interest but lacked conclusion. And so it was that the next day, rested and repacked with edible grains, shoots and dried fruits, we set off anew behind a Mud Man guide whose name we couldn’t pronounce. Didn’t matter, he wasn’t with us for long.
At the end of the day with the light fading rapidly and the night bugs closing in, our no name Mud Man stood pointing at the horizon where we could see tall trees clustered tightly together. Jungle, swamp, whatever you wanted to call the muck we were in, meet rainforest. We pitched our light tents and watched our guide slip off into the dark to find, we supposed, a puddle to sleep in. He seemed happy to be going.
That was the last we would see of him. In the morning we called out repeatedly and eventually fired a few rounds into the air to no particular avail. Our guide was gone. We were left with but one choice to make, forward or back. We packed our gear and set off to the forest. From where we stood it looked inviting, calm, serene. In the brightness of early day, it even looked dry.
Which brings me full circle to where I began, the being lost part. The part that even now, many months later, as I write it, rips me with a shudder of cold fear and disbelief. Yet I know it to be true.
The forest was there to our front. Right there. For three days we trudged relentlessly towards it, but got no closer. For three days we ignored the evidence of our own eyes, assuming there was some sort of optical trick, some play of light and shadow that deceived us and made us believe we were making no progress. We had to be getting closer, we reasoned. The landscape behind us changed with every step. We clearly were not locked in place. We must be moving forward.
But no, we weren’t. The forest remained there… in the distance.
On the fourth day we conferred. Something very odd was going on here. Perhaps, we thought, we had eaten something hallucinogenic. Maybe we were victims of a mass hypnosis or something not one of us could conceive. Whatever. We decided then and there to trust our compass and follow it AWAY from the mysterious, elusive forest. It was time to quit, we agreed, time to give up, to go home. We plotted a course and set out again. North I think it was, but that is of no matter. We weren’t going to find a village, a river, or a trail back to the Mud People. It was our destiny, as it had been for Fawcett and his party, to find the forest. Or, perhaps, more correctly, it was going to find us.
A reverse effect then occurred. As we retraced our steps away from the offending canopy, it appeared to come closer. When we looked back we could discern no movement, but each glance behind found the vine laden, towering arboles creeping nearer. Or so it seemed. We tried picking up our pace to distance us from its approach, but that served only to hasten the forest’s advance.
Finally, convinced we were mad, we turned and walked again towards the now looming tangle of tropic trees. This time it neither receded nor advanced. It was just a wood, quiet and still.
We entered through an archway of linked foliage high above us and felt immediately the cool of forest shade. We dropped our packs after hiking a short way in and fell back against the trunks of what were once ominous trees. Our sudden joy was palpable. We grinned at each other like happy children and then we laughed. Delirious laughs, belly laughs, laden with relief.
I realize now that it is almost funny how short lived such a feeling can be. As our laughter dwindled to chuckles and then stopped completely. We were unanimously aware of the sudden, omnipresent stillness. There were no bugs, no birds, no breeze to rustle leaves and fill the air with sounds of life. Our small human doings made the only noise at all. We gathered our packs and headed deeper into the forest, our follow-the-compass plan intact. As we walked, the vegetation around us grew surprisingly thick considering how little sunlight filtered through the forest canopy. We were no longer struggling to pull our boots from sucking mud, but rather yanking them free from small, clinging ground creepers. We walked in single file as that was all the room the forest permitted.
And now here is the part where you will think me mad as I often do myself, but it is the truth as I know it.
Simon, the last in line, seemed to be having the most difficulty. He was grunting with effort and, despite the cool of the canopy shade, he was perspiring profusely. Rob and I had grown used to his grousing and no longer turned to see what was wrong when Simon let loose with one of his frequent string of curses. We had gotten quite some distance ahead when we were suddenly startled by his terrified screams. We turned at once and saw him there a good stone’s throw behind. He appeared from that distance to be nearly enveloped in vines. We started towards him at a run, but achieved only about half the distance when the forest floor in front of us erupted with a huge fronds of wide leafed ferns. Our view was completely blocked, our path impeded. The last thing I saw before turning and fleeing after Rob--who had surely seen the same thing--was a small branch covered with leafy shoots cram itself into Simon’s mouth, silencing his cries. He was then pulled, or rather, abruptly flung backwards, into a great maw of densely leafed darkness.
We ran. We ran like never before. Adrenaline and its bitter taste of fear drove us forward and we fled through the forest, screaming like madmen. There were tentacles of something–we could feel them–grabbing for our backs, trying to find purchase, trying to slow us, to stop us. We ran, frantically, maniacally, flailing our arms at vine and branch, real and imagined that reached for us at every step. And then, quite suddenly, I realized I was alone.
Younger and faster of foot, I had gained substantially on my comrade. The forest was thinner here, the gaps between trees and plants wider. I slowed some and risked a look back. Rob was down. I stopped, fretful, my eyes wide, darting about, looking for the danger that was sure to find me. I was in an open area, several feet from the nearest shade of green. I could see Rob in a similar clearing. He was struggling to rise. My wits were shattered, but still I started towards him. I had to swallow my fear, I had to help him. A few tentative steps in Rob’s direction were all I needed to stop me dead, stop me cold. I was now near enough to see why Rob could not rise. The ground, the sediment, the debris that had fallen from the canopy above was coming to life. It had seized Rob at ankle and wrist and was pulling him down, back to the earth, to the soil where the young verdant shoots were growing rapidly to clutch and still his struggle. In less than a minute he was gone, consumed by a forest whose hunger was insatiable.
I turned and ran again. My heart pounded furiously in my chest, threatening to explode. I ran, I knew, for no purpose. There was no escape. The forest surrounded me, hovering, looming, waiting now, I imagined, for its final course. I was to be dessert. I laughed, I hooted, I hollered, but still I ran. I ran even knowing there was no hope.
And then, suddenly, there was. Ahead of me I could see an opening through the trees; a burst of sunlight that framed an arch to freedom. I was at the edge of the forest. If I could reach it, I would find the swamp; the wonderful, splendid swamp with its glorious mud and its biting bugs.
It was as if…no, it WAS… that the forest read my mind. Its efforts to catch me and hold me intensified. I was still running but the creepers at my ankles were growing stronger and it was harder and harder to break their grip. I was so near to the edge, so close to escape that I found a final expenditure of strength and tore across the living forest floor. I would make it, I would be free!
And then I was down. A step, no more than two from the swamp. I was going to dive, I was going to leap, I was going to hurl myself gleefully into the muck, but it was too late. I was down; too entangled to rise. I tried to crawl. I dug my fingers into the soil and levered myself forward, an inch, maybe two. It was no use, my hands were quickly encircled. I pushed with my knees, my elbows, the toes of my boots. Fear again giving me strength where I thought none existed. I gained not another inch. I knew then it was over. I was over. I lay there waiting to die. Waiting to be eaten by this monstrous, evil, sentient forest. Thin, reed-like creepers slid up my nose and found the orifices of my ears and throat. I choked and fought for air. Heavier, snake-like vines were climbing my legs and arms through my cuffs and sleeves. They were clinging tightly and they were sucking at my flesh. I cried out one last time and then my will to live trickled from body like blood from an open wound. My world went mercifully away.
*
What happened after that I only know from others. A daze, perhaps my mind’s attempt to save me from complete madness, clouded my mind, relieving me of memory until now, at the moment of this writing.
Jango had followed us to the forest. When I appeared at its edge, he had chopped me free with his machete and pulled me into the swamp. I had lain there for a day, he told me, before I was able to move. When I was conscious and ambulatory, he had led me back to the Mud People where I stayed for several weeks recovering from wounds I could not recall receiving. That the Mud People slept under water seemed a new revelation to me. I made my way, eventually, with Jango’s help, to his village, then La Paz, then home, where you find me now.
If this account sounds one of madness to you, in honesty, I can only further your assumption. For I must tell you, I sense the story is not at an end. There is unfinished business. I know it. I can feel it.
*
Outside Jack Boldin’s house, his lawn was growing curiously long, curiously fast.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A Night Out
In case you didn't know: The best way to tell who loves you more, your dog or your wife, is to lock them both in the trunk of your car for a couple of hours. Then when you let them out, you find out which one is happiest to see you.
We went to an "event" at the Oasis Restaurant last night as part of our Wedding Anniversary celebration. (The other parts, for me, were eating popcorn and watching the Ladies U.S. Open Golf Tournament on TV and, for Woowoo Charly, the same only with the addition of reading about Johnny Depp in Vanity Fair during the commercials. I mean, Come On! We know how to Get Down!) The event was a dinner that included an appetizer, a main course and a dessert for fifteen bucks a head. Friends of ours, Gordon and Richelle, would be playing and singing during the meal. Alrighty then. We were a party of seven booked at seven. We arrived a little after six and found the place packed and over-booked. A large tent had been erected and tables set up under it to handle the overflow. Did I mention it was raining? Hard. I don't know how many people were there, but there were at least double the restaurant's usual capacity. Because of the rain, Gordon and Richelle, who were originally set up to play under a smaller tent amidst the tables, were driven inside for fear of electrocution; microphones and electric guitar being the danger there. No one outside the bar could hear them. We were eventually seated at a round table for nine that had three people already seated, meal underway. We were one seat short so we all scooched in. Four of us, after quite a long wait, were served our main courses. There were two menu plans and those of us who had selected the pork croquettes got lucky. The salmon choosers had to wait. Although we had not received our appetizers and bread rolls, we were hungry and dove right in, appetizers to come later. One salmon plate did show up followed by the appetizers. The two remaining salmon plates were brought to the table at about the time the six of us who had eaten were getting anxious about dessert. The fact that we were seven with six place settings also was problematical, but we had all gone to kindergarten and knew how to share. Friend B, who sat to my right, was notable for the neat bob and weave she was able to perform around a drip from the leaky tent. Gordon and Richelle came out and played acoustically at each table under the tent. For we anniversarians they sang a bit of Sade that was quite good. The night was not really a disaster - the food and conversation were good - just somewhat comical. RTGFKAR, Woowoo Chuck, friend R and I returned to our place immediately following the festivities for wine, cigars, more talk and rain watching. It was a happy 33rd.
We went to an "event" at the Oasis Restaurant last night as part of our Wedding Anniversary celebration. (The other parts, for me, were eating popcorn and watching the Ladies U.S. Open Golf Tournament on TV and, for Woowoo Charly, the same only with the addition of reading about Johnny Depp in Vanity Fair during the commercials. I mean, Come On! We know how to Get Down!) The event was a dinner that included an appetizer, a main course and a dessert for fifteen bucks a head. Friends of ours, Gordon and Richelle, would be playing and singing during the meal. Alrighty then. We were a party of seven booked at seven. We arrived a little after six and found the place packed and over-booked. A large tent had been erected and tables set up under it to handle the overflow. Did I mention it was raining? Hard. I don't know how many people were there, but there were at least double the restaurant's usual capacity. Because of the rain, Gordon and Richelle, who were originally set up to play under a smaller tent amidst the tables, were driven inside for fear of electrocution; microphones and electric guitar being the danger there. No one outside the bar could hear them. We were eventually seated at a round table for nine that had three people already seated, meal underway. We were one seat short so we all scooched in. Four of us, after quite a long wait, were served our main courses. There were two menu plans and those of us who had selected the pork croquettes got lucky. The salmon choosers had to wait. Although we had not received our appetizers and bread rolls, we were hungry and dove right in, appetizers to come later. One salmon plate did show up followed by the appetizers. The two remaining salmon plates were brought to the table at about the time the six of us who had eaten were getting anxious about dessert. The fact that we were seven with six place settings also was problematical, but we had all gone to kindergarten and knew how to share. Friend B, who sat to my right, was notable for the neat bob and weave she was able to perform around a drip from the leaky tent. Gordon and Richelle came out and played acoustically at each table under the tent. For we anniversarians they sang a bit of Sade that was quite good. The night was not really a disaster - the food and conversation were good - just somewhat comical. RTGFKAR, Woowoo Chuck, friend R and I returned to our place immediately following the festivities for wine, cigars, more talk and rain watching. It was a happy 33rd.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Alien Insight
A bright yellow, full moon assaulted my sleepy senses as I let the dogs out this morning. It was low in the sky, hovering just to the left of Volcan Baru. (I WOULD wax poetic if I COULD wax poetic, but we all know I CAN'T...wax poetic. This bit of universal knowledge, however, never gives me a moment's pause.)
And speaking of universal knowledge, we all know that full moons have an effect on tides, animals, policemen and their prey, my wife, poets, romantics and alien abductees. I think I might be one of the latter.
Every night, sometime after I have gone to bed and before I arise in the morning, there are blocks of time I can't account for. When I total up the time I spend going to sleep and add it to the time I spend dreaming, I frequently come up with hours that are completely missing. I mean they are gone! Totally! No recollection of them whatsoever! This and other clues say to me that aliens have drugged me or used mysterious hypnotic powers, taken me to their ship and conducted weird experiments upon my person. That, until now, I couldn't remember a thing about the abductions is clearly evidence that the aliens exist and are able to erase my memory. I say "until now" because lately I've become aware of clues that were right before me the whole time. Consider: For many years when I arose in the morning I would stretch and shake out a little, then drop down and do forty push-ups. I tried that yesterday and couldn't do five. Consider: For most of my entire adult life I weighed between 145 and 150 pounds. I woke up this morning and weighed 160. Consider: Every day my once brown hair grows increasingly grayer. Some parts are now actually white! Someone(something?) is messing with my internal dye. Consider: There are brown spots on my hands bigger than freckles. Where did they come from? Consider: I used to be five foot ten inches tall. Now I am five nine. Consider: My stomach has grown subtly and weirdly rounder! Has something been implanted? Consider: (and here is certain evidence)Sarah Palin.
I could go on with this litany of freakish change and freaky people - eyesight, hearing impairment, Rush Limbaugh, etc. - but it should be clear to you now, as it is to me, that I and others like me are the victims of alien interference and something must be done about it. If you or someone near you is experiencing similar symptoms, write me care of this blog. We must unite and put a stop to this madness before it is too late and the aliens have infected us all!
And speaking of universal knowledge, we all know that full moons have an effect on tides, animals, policemen and their prey, my wife, poets, romantics and alien abductees. I think I might be one of the latter.
Every night, sometime after I have gone to bed and before I arise in the morning, there are blocks of time I can't account for. When I total up the time I spend going to sleep and add it to the time I spend dreaming, I frequently come up with hours that are completely missing. I mean they are gone! Totally! No recollection of them whatsoever! This and other clues say to me that aliens have drugged me or used mysterious hypnotic powers, taken me to their ship and conducted weird experiments upon my person. That, until now, I couldn't remember a thing about the abductions is clearly evidence that the aliens exist and are able to erase my memory. I say "until now" because lately I've become aware of clues that were right before me the whole time. Consider: For many years when I arose in the morning I would stretch and shake out a little, then drop down and do forty push-ups. I tried that yesterday and couldn't do five. Consider: For most of my entire adult life I weighed between 145 and 150 pounds. I woke up this morning and weighed 160. Consider: Every day my once brown hair grows increasingly grayer. Some parts are now actually white! Someone(something?) is messing with my internal dye. Consider: There are brown spots on my hands bigger than freckles. Where did they come from? Consider: I used to be five foot ten inches tall. Now I am five nine. Consider: My stomach has grown subtly and weirdly rounder! Has something been implanted? Consider: (and here is certain evidence)Sarah Palin.
I could go on with this litany of freakish change and freaky people - eyesight, hearing impairment, Rush Limbaugh, etc. - but it should be clear to you now, as it is to me, that I and others like me are the victims of alien interference and something must be done about it. If you or someone near you is experiencing similar symptoms, write me care of this blog. We must unite and put a stop to this madness before it is too late and the aliens have infected us all!
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Return to the Abominable Doctor......
When I walk into his office, the Abominable Doctor Panagas is juggling scalpels. "Alo Meester Dough-Nahld Wall-tone" he says while making a behind the back catch. "Go een-to my lair, I mean my ex-ham-ee-nah-shone rum and seat on dee tah-bull." I do as instructed. He is armed after all. "Ah, dees one has to go" he says while poking at a spot above my left eye. "Lye beck and get come-for-ah-tah-bull."
Getting comfortable on an examination table is not really within the range of human possibility; especially when an MD of the slice and dice variety is hovering above you with a maniacal gleam in his eye. That's right, eye. Just the one. The other is pondering something distant, calculating perhaps, the sum to be billed. Nevertheless, I give it my best shot.
I always hate the next part because the first thing Panagas does is to cover my eyes with some kind of cloth. This is, I think, his way of ruling out my jumping up and saying "No way Jack, we're not doing that!" He then pulls a bright lamp over and I can tell that, because the cloth lights up and I have to shut my eyes. Chuckling quietly to himself, he proceeds. First there is the needle. He jabs that in three or four places around the offending area ostensibly to kill future pain. Current pain, that is the pain caused BY the needle itself, seems to be irrelevant. Well, to him anyway. After that comes the slicing and scraping and stitching, some of which does hurt, but when I scrunch up and make a through the teeth hissing sound, the doctor only pauses long enough to say "Duele?" (pain?)and I idiotically man-up and respond "solo un poco" which I think means only a little, but I know gets interpreted as "carry on I can handle it."
Fifteen or twenty minutes later I get to sit up on the side of the examination table and feel a big fat bandage. Yup, there's something new under there, but I won't get to see it for a couple of days. El Doak-tore then writes a number on a sheet from a sticky pad, tells me to come back in a week and I say gracias and leave to pay his Waiting Room Secretary Girl. When I glance at her and her big smile, I feel better. When I glance at the number on the sticky pad sheet I feel worse. (There is no shot to relieve this pain.) As I pull the twenties one after the other from my clip, I have to wonder... Why am I the one saying thank-you?
Getting comfortable on an examination table is not really within the range of human possibility; especially when an MD of the slice and dice variety is hovering above you with a maniacal gleam in his eye. That's right, eye. Just the one. The other is pondering something distant, calculating perhaps, the sum to be billed. Nevertheless, I give it my best shot.
I always hate the next part because the first thing Panagas does is to cover my eyes with some kind of cloth. This is, I think, his way of ruling out my jumping up and saying "No way Jack, we're not doing that!" He then pulls a bright lamp over and I can tell that, because the cloth lights up and I have to shut my eyes. Chuckling quietly to himself, he proceeds. First there is the needle. He jabs that in three or four places around the offending area ostensibly to kill future pain. Current pain, that is the pain caused BY the needle itself, seems to be irrelevant. Well, to him anyway. After that comes the slicing and scraping and stitching, some of which does hurt, but when I scrunch up and make a through the teeth hissing sound, the doctor only pauses long enough to say "Duele?" (pain?)and I idiotically man-up and respond "solo un poco" which I think means only a little, but I know gets interpreted as "carry on I can handle it."
Fifteen or twenty minutes later I get to sit up on the side of the examination table and feel a big fat bandage. Yup, there's something new under there, but I won't get to see it for a couple of days. El Doak-tore then writes a number on a sheet from a sticky pad, tells me to come back in a week and I say gracias and leave to pay his Waiting Room Secretary Girl. When I glance at her and her big smile, I feel better. When I glance at the number on the sticky pad sheet I feel worse. (There is no shot to relieve this pain.) As I pull the twenties one after the other from my clip, I have to wonder... Why am I the one saying thank-you?
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