Bigfoots in Paradise Read online

  Almost as soon as he’d left, his letters to me started to arrive about once a week, posted first from Baja and then Mexico City, and then from Belize and Managua and Panama, about a country a month. The envelopes were covered in bizarre stamps and Chuck’s typical brand of exotica—Tolkienesque runes, diagrams that could have come out of Lovecraft, glorious people both living and elegantly dead, strangely beautiful alien landscapes in the center of which, of course, stood Chuck. Every inch of the page was covered in Chuck’s calligraphic handwriting crammed in at different angles. There were sketches, too. Chuck’s wiggling feet sticking out of a Mexican dumpster. Chuck climbing a Mayan pyramid. Chuck in the back of a police car in handcuffs.

  Hugo made fun of them at first, and I did too. It was hard not to. They were diary entries more than letters—who he’d talked with, what he ate (and how he’d gotten it), where he’d slept and with whom—the myopic musings of Chuck Mustard off in the third world, a self-styled modern-day Central American Kerouac. Hugo read them aloud sometimes in his best Beat poet voice and we’d laugh through a bottle of cheap organic wine.

  After six months, even Hugo was hooked. And for me, it wasn’t just that Chuck and I had worked side-by-side for so long, or that I had a thing for him; rather, Chuck’s sincerity and his wide-eyed fascination with just about every detail of his journey pulled me in. He told a pretty good story too, it turned out—much better than Hugo. Both Hugo and I had our favorite scenes: Mine was the drunk Russian goth girl on the beach in Oaxaca; she pulled off Chuck’s clothes and slapped him and then swam off into the ocean. Hugo’s was the police raid on the drug dealer’s party in Quito; Chuck had to jump out of a third-story window and hide in a dumpster with a tiny Chinese guy who made them both some tea afterward.

  Every week for those two years, Hugo and I fell into this routine. I directed the volunteers and the daily orders. Hugo tended the livestock and struggled with his awful paintings. But then the letter would show up. We’d order Thai up to our apartment. We’d eat and drink too much. Despite my better judgment (and often to my perennial regret), Hugo would talk me out of my clothes yet again. And then, finally, we’d take turns reading.

  Last we heard, Chuck was moving through Ecuador and down into Peru. It was kind of rough, he said, with all of the coke moving upriver from Brazil, and with problems between the Indians and Canadian oil companies. (Canadians? we wondered. Really?) But while his drawings showed boys playing with toy cars and real guns, soldiers carrying crates labeled “cocaina,” and Indians coming out of the jungle with spears and bows, it didn’t seem to faze Chuck much. He’d met someone, he wrote. (And what else is new? I thought.) He was heading out through the Amazon by boat. He’d decided to stay awhile at some Indian village and help them out with some beekeeping work.

  And then, quite suddenly, the letters stopped.

  What could I do? I sent out a search party, and that search party was us.

  Hammock hung, luggage stowed, I felt no better sitting up on the roof of the boat with the other poor, travelling gringos. Was it the lack of sleep or the chicken and rice on a wilted banana leaf? I couldn’t tell. Everything had begun to shimmer. We passed through a bank of fog across the river, thick and hot and eerily silent, and when we emerged I saw us as one of Chuck’s drawings: Hugo holding court in the flare of his borrowed joint, his face like a red mask. A woman, Hecuba, with tattoos and piercings, slept sitting up. Her tall Wiccan partner—a restless treelike woman, who crossed and uncrossed her legs. Keith, with the accent from Kentucky and the beard like a dead cat, cleaned a camera lens large enough to suggest significant over-compensation issues. One moment it was bright and very hot. The makeshift blue tarps flapped loudly and the wind blew dead smells up from the brown river. Then the next it was pitch black. Men were gambling and shouting two decks below. Someone turned up a radio for a minute and the heavy hip-hop drumbeats echoed off the bank and seemed to come from everywhere around us before it crackled and went quiet. Stars flared and vanished in cracks between the low, running clouds and from somewhere I smelled chocolate and sewage and something thick and flowery like the corpse of someone’s grandmother.

  “Are you OK?” Hugo asked, and I nodded, meaning no, I wasn’t, not really.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Because you look kind of not.”

  “Pray, continue,” I said, waving my hands. “Bubbles. Multiverse. And, um, stuff.”

  “Sooo the question isn’t whether we’re alone,” Hugo said, nodding. “The question becomes whether or not our universe is part of an inflating series of largely identical Hubble volumes, see, or is it more chaotic and subject to erratic formation of embryonic bubble-microverses?”

  Hugo exhaled and gestured with his hands. “The implications, of course, are huge! If we believe in the mostly identical model, you could probably find a way to move from one universe to the next pretty easily—and, duh, most of those worlds would be pretty much like the one you’re used to. A micro-bubble, however, could be an entirely different prospect. Then, all rules would be off! Everything you count on could change in a heartbeat.”

  You do too many drugs, I wanted to tell him. You are a bad painter and a mediocre farmer of pampered pigs.

  Hecuba let out a prodigious snore. Hugo took it as encouragement and spun off in more random directions. I became convinced that there were no universes in which there would be a Hugo that that did not have an opinion on the vocal abilities of the Amazonian parrot and how that compared to the macaw across several parameters, including intelligence, playfulness and snugglability as a pet, as well as potential vocabulary, both speaking and understanding.

  A spider jumped onto my shoulder. I twitched and brushed at it, only to find it was the long fingers of the tall Wiccan woman.

  “You are seeking something, I think?” she said, in a lisping whisper. “Or someone, perhaps?” A silver pentagram swung in the deep hollow of her throat.

  “Yes,” Hugo called out in grand despair. “We’re looking for our dead mother, lost in the jungle lo these many years!” He offered up his joint but the woman shook her head.

  “Stop,” I said. “We’re really just looking for a friend of ours.”

  The woman studied us over her tiny spectacles with a knowing, self-important look. “I know this because I have a gift,” she said. She tapped her temple.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You can tell the future?”

  “Kinda,” she said. “But I also have the tequila.” She held up a cheap pint. “For the drinking.”

  I reached out with both hands like a baby grabbing for a sippy cup. “You are my new best friend.” The woman sat down and handed me the bottle. I helped myself. Her name was Sam, she said, and her wispy hair had mint woven into it.

  “Your friend, he is in the jungle somewhere?”

  “He’s CIA,” Hugo said. “He’s embedded with the Indians. We’re the backup.”

  “It’s better if you just ignore him.” I took the empty honey jar out of my bag and handed it to the woman along with a tiny flashlight. “Our friend Chuck was working with the Matses, we think.”

  “Did you know the Matses have this drug?” Hugo said. “They stake out this frog by its arms and legs, and then they scoop the poison off its back. Then they burn you and put the poison in your blister.”

  “That sounds unpleasant,” Sam said.

  Hugo nodded enthusiastically. “First you vomit,” he said, tossing the remains of his joint over the side. “But then you see God. Well, demigods, at least. Demons. Talking jaguars and stuff.”

  Sam blinked and then nodded. She looked down at the jar and read the label. “So you’re looking for the Río Momón,” she said. She handed back the jar. “Somewhere near it, yes.”

  “It is not so far from here.” She reached for my hand and studied the palm. Then she leaned forward, shone the light into my face, and studied it intently. Her breath smelled like onions. She nodded, frowned, and then switched off the flashlight and hand
ed it back.

  “Will we find him?” Hugo said. “Or will he be lost forever in the humid darkness?”

  “I hope you find someone soon,” Sam said to me. “You might not know it yet, but you’re pregnant, dearie.”

  “I’m . . .” I said. “Well.” I looked at both of them for a long minute, and then my stomach turned over, and everything I’d eaten in the last twelve hours was in the hoodie in my lap. “Thanks,” I said. I wiped my mouth. “I guess?”

  Hugo stood up and flapped his hands. “I’ll get . . . what? A towel?”

  “Don’t worry,” Sam said. She reached out and smoothed some of the hair out of my sweaty face. “It can be a very beautiful time.” She took away the tequila.

  I counted back days in my head, tried to do some hormonal math, but it was beyond me. I folded the hoodie over on itself and set it down on the roof and then stood up. Hugo moved to take my arm with one of his looks, but I brushed him off. If she was right, he’d done enough already.

  “I need the restroom,” I said, and made my way down two decks, past where the soldiers and the oil-company people crouched around two big spotlights that they were shining onto the shore. There were several sweaty white boys in bad, bright clothes pointing and then a lot of sweaty Spanish boys with guns, working the lights. One of the older white boys looked me up and down curiously and offered me his rum. He had blonde hair plastered against his forehead and dots of perspiration formed where his moustache was starting to come in. I took a sip, and he said something suggestive in Spanish. I shook my head, patted him on his damp cheek and went past him.

  I opened the restroom door, held my breath, stepped in. It was a tiny room with a hole in the spattered floor and a bare bulb swinging overhead. Through the hole I could see dark water rushing by. My stomach flipped again but there was nothing to bring up, so I folded myself into the cleanest corner and tried not to think about anything, which meant I ended up thinking about Chuck. The boat rocked and for a minute I felt myself falling across the surface of something. Was there a bubble universe where I’d just said yes and gone on his trip with him? That Kim would be a very different Kimiko from this one, raised in Cupertino by her thoughtful, hands-off parents. This Kim’s rebellions were relatively tame (tattoo, degree in art history), and her adventures up until now (living in Oakland, running a farm) were small and distressingly normal. That Kim would have awesome dreadlocks of her own—black and tangled and commanding. She’d have anime tattoos up her back and out her arms and giant hoops through her ears.

  I put my hand on my stomach but didn’t feel anything. A mosquito landed on my bare knee and I watched as it leaned forward and painlessly inserted its proboscis. I didn’t feel anything. Sometime later it pulled out and flew off into the night. I thought about that time I’d been out trying to get the new goats to breed. I hadn’t thought it’d be a problem: Traalfaz, the black and white buck, usually had the opposite issue, mating with composters and spare tires and bales of hay, generally when I was giving a retailer tour. But this time he stared back at the doe and then at me with confusion in his devil-like eyes. You could play him some James Brown, Chuck said, coming up behind me. Maybe he just needs a glass of wine, I said. Or some demonstration? surprising myself. I’d been flirting heavily for weeks, with no luck. I didn’t turn around, but sighed a little and leaned back against him. Well, I don’t have any wine . . . Chuck said. Where had Hugo been? Somewhere off ruining another canvas. Chuck had slowly lifted up the back of my skirt and had run his damp, compost-covered hands all over my ass.

  Someone knocked at the restroom door. I assumed it was the oil company boy, or even Hugo, and ignored it, but the knocking didn’t stop. I stood and flung open the door to find Keith-the-Beard looking back at me. He took a step back. “Sorry!” he said. He waved his hands in front of him and backed away. “Sorry, little lady! Take all the time you need.”

  “It’s all yours,” I said. “Such as it is.”

  “I wouldn’t want to miss more about the, uh, mapinguari. Is that what he called them?” He squinted an eye and shrugged in a what-the-fuck gesture. “You with that guy?”

  “Oh fetid, one-eyed beast of legend,” I said. “Only with knowledge can we expose thee!” He looked at me sideways. I tipped an imaginary hat to him.

  Back on the roof, the sky had continued to clear but the air still felt heavy and wet. The river had narrowed, and the trees and vines had begun to reach out toward the boat. Hugo was in a debate with the women about the potency levels of foreign versus US domestic marijuana, a topic this time on which he actually might have been an expert. My hoodie lay just where I’d left it. I picked it up and carried it to the back of the boat and shook it out over the rail, but it slipped out of my hands. I didn’t hear it hit the water, but after a moment I could see it floating downstream, arms outstretched, the UC Berkeley bear catching the light of the moon.

  “Sorry,” someone said. “About downstairs?” Keith-the-Beard appeared at my side. He offered me his flask; I took a swig and coughed. “Bubble-Up and Southern Comfort,” Keith said. He nodded as if I’d said something. “I don’t drink, but when I do it’s the good stuff.”

  “That’s . . .” I said. “That’s just foul.”

  “I know, right?” He grinned, exposing stained teeth. He shifted the big camera around his neck and leaned on the rail. A cloud of bats flew over and off down the river. “You OK?” he said. “I mean, no offense? But you look . . .”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I just need some sleep.”

  “Don’t we all,” he said. “Did you get a decent hammock? This guy at the station took me out to see his brother in the country. His hammocks were shit. I feel like I’m going to fall right through it. You think there’s someone on the boat who might, um, share?” He squinted at me in a way that was meant to be a wink.

  “For the sleeping?” I patted his arm on the rail. “If I find someone, I’ll be sure to let you know.” Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I straightened up and turned and saw Hugo, pointing toward shore, but then something smacked the side of my head.

  For a second I thought he’d hit me, though that would have been very un-Hugo. But no, he was staring at me and whatever it was that flopped against the back of my neck.

  “Dude,” Hugo said, after a minute. “There’s, um, a bat in your hair?”

  I could feel the wings smacking against my shoulder and the tiny claws scrabbling against my scalp. Of course there was a bat in my hair. I jumped up and down and shook my head, but couldn’t dislodge it.

  “I thought that was like a myth,” Hugo said, blinking and swaying on his feet. “That they got stuck like that?”

  “Well it’s not a fucking monkey back there!” I could feel the weight of it holding on. I looked at Keith and Hugo, who were both watching me hyperventilate.

  “Did you know,” Hugo said, “that there are more than nine hundred individual species of bats along this river, including an actual vampire bat?”

  Reaching back with both hands, I got hold of something furred and paper-like and tossed it out over the water. The bat dipped, caught the wind, and was gone.

  “Bloody hell!” called Hecuba across the roof. “You go, girl!”

  “Did you want something?” I said to Hugo.

  “Yeah,” Hugo said. He pointed over the railing. “There’s, like, an Indian?”

  Over on the shore, spotlights from the lower deck had converged on a man. His face was painted bright red around his eyes and on his forehead and cheeks, and there was some sort of tattooing around his mouth that made him look like he had giant teeth. One hand held a spear. The other flipped us off. The boat turned toward shore and the engines cut, and there were angry shouts from down below. A radio crackled something urgent in Spanish that I couldn’t catch.

  I looked at Keith-the-Beard. “Did we have another stop?”

  He shook his head. “Look, whatever happens, stay together, and stay with the boat.”

  “What do you mean,
whatever happens?”

  “I’m just saying.” He frowned.

  The boat bumped against the dock and a few boys jumped out to wrap the moldy hoops of rope around the pilings. Hecuba and Sam joined us at the rail. A few more boys jumped out with their guns held in the crooks of their arms and approached the Indian, who turned and ran up a path into the jungle. One boy shouted after him in Spanish, and then they all ran off into the jungle after him. More boys piled onto the dock and shone lights and shouted.

  “Bloody drugs!” shouted Hecuba. “It’s all these bloody drugs!” She pounded her fist on the rail, and tossed back the last slug of tequila.

  “Quiet!” Keith-the-Beard hissed. He had angled his camera at the dock, and was trying to take pictures without anyone noticing.

  “Fuck off, Yank!” She waved the empty bottle in his direction. Down below, one of the soldiers looked up at us and spoke into his radio. From the path came the sound of a shot. We all jumped. More soldiers and oil-company people ran up the path after the Indian. “Not good,” said Hugo, shaking his head. “Those guns they have there? Those are definitely MGP-87s—those things pump out like eight hundred rounds a minute.”

  Keith-the-Beard looked skeptically at Hugo and frowned. Behind us, on the ladder, a soldier called out and gestured. “Vengan por aquí,” he said carefully, waving us over. He led us down a deck to the middle of the ship. “Esperen aquí,” he said, and pointed to a space between rows of oil-company crates. He mimed crouching down. The radio at his belt crackled, and he picked it up and spoke rapidly into it. Then he ran off toward the stairs, followed by more of the boys. Their footsteps thudded up the dock. From the jungle there was more shouting in Spanish and Quechua and then the boat was strangely quiet. I looked at Keith-the-Beard, who looked at Sam. Sam looked at Hugo, who said: “Did you know there are more than twenty different species of piranha, and that most of them are vegetarian?” Hecuba tipped the empty tequila bottle over her mouth, frowned, and then rolled it away down the deck.