by Thom J Poore
The boys walk out into the bright sunshine, nursing killer hangovers. Pedestrians shield their mouths against the thick, noxious fumes flowing from the exhaust of a battered taxi. Carlos leans out of the driver’s window and waves enthusiastically to the boys. Karl hurries down the hotel steps and clambers into the back seat, relieved to be free of the intimidating city street. Emilio casually takes his time, stopping at the taxi doors and leaning on the roof briefly, drinking in the hectic, exotic atmosphere.
“Ah, my boys! How are you today? Did you sleep well? You’d like the airport, yes?” Says Carlos, pumped with coffee and a lust to drain as much money out of the never-ending stream of tourists who infiltrate his city.
“Didn’t sleep so well, Carlos! And yes, to the airport please.” Emilio yawns, rubbing his forefingers over his eyelids in a futile attempt to snap out of his lethargy.
“You're not going home already, are you?” Carlos peers at the boys through his dusty rear view mirror, concerned with losing custom.
“Not yet pal, we’re flying to Iquitos, have you heard of it?”
“Does a penguin shit ice cubes? Of course I bloody know Iquitos. I’m born and breed Peruvian. I take a million tourists a year to the airport to travel over there.”
“So what the hell is Iquitos like, Carlos? It sounds like you’ve been there before.” Inquires Karl in an agitated state, unnerved by where he is headed.
“My cousin lives in Iquitos! It is one of the biggest cities in Peru and the Amazon jungle sits right on its doorstep. It’s a beautiful place to visit, you boys will love it, just stick together and be sensible!”
“That really doesn’t make me feel any better!” Karl tugs at his collar to release trapped heat from his polo shirt.
“Shut up, Karl, you’ll be fine! Why do you have to worry over every little thing? This should be the greatest experience of your life!” Says Emilio without empathy.
“This is not little, Emilio! This is huge for me! It’s a big deal! And besides, I’ve already had the greatest experience of my life! It was at the Rhode Island Holiday Inn, when I beat Denzil Knight in the under eighteen hot dog eating challenge. That day will live on in my memory forever.” Karl looks out of the open window in a reflective daydream, smiling while reminiscing, distracted from his paranoia. After a quiet, thoughtful and unusually sedate journey the cab pulls up at Lima airport. Emilio hands Carlos 25 sole, more than the fare. Looking at the generous offering and jumping to the conclusion that he has a pair of trust fund teenagers in his cab Carlos has an idea.
“You know what you boys really need when you get to Iquitos is your own personal guide.”
“How much, Carlos?” Inquires Emilio with limited enthusiasm as he glances at Karl and rolls his eyes.
“For you, a very special offer! You pay for my flights and give me three hundred sole per day. And you have a deal, greatest guide in all of Peru.” Carlos points his finger up into the air momentarily before stashing the notes Emilio has handed him with the rest of his money.
Emilio hesitates for a moment, considering the proposition. He thinks about syphoning the money off his dad’s credit card, but dismisses the thought quickly, as he knows he’d have a hard time explaining where all the extra money had been spent, plus he’s only known Carlos for five minutes.
“One hundred sole a day and maybe I’ll think about it.” Emilio figures he could possibly afford to pay Carlos with his own money, which he’d saved for the trip.
“One hundred! I make more than that driving my taxi. It has to be worth my while, there is no room for bargaining.”
“Oh, there is lots of room, Carlos.” Emilio opens the rear passenger door slowly.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t see where.” Frowns Carlos, as he stows his black metal cash box back under his seat.
“Right here in the back of your taxi. We're leaving.” Says Emilio, as he and Karl both vacate the taxi rapidly.
“Fine, you’ll both be eaten alive then!” Carlos taunts the boys inoffensively.
“Look, we appreciate the offer Carlos, but the plane tickets cost me nearly three-hundred sole and I’m financing this excursion out of my own back pocket.” Emilio pokes his head in through the open front passenger window.
“I understand, and remember, any problems over there, you call me.” Carlos looks intently at Emilio.
“Cool buddy! Adios!” Emilio appreciates the gesture and gets the feeling Carlos genuinely cares.
Carlos drives off and the boys turn to face their images in the enormous glass exterior of Jorge Chávez International Airport. They walk into the main lounge, which is swarming with people from all nations. Karl stops amongst the crowds of passersby to appreciate the impromptu performance of a couple of young buskers, one with an acoustic guitar and the other playing a pair of bongo drums. Emilio’s focus is distracted by an electronic departure board on the far wall.
“So! It looks like we haven’t got a flight for an hour, plus my stomach’s rumbling. What does that equal, Karl?”
“That you need to take a shit.” Karl grins.
“Real classy, Karl. No man, I’m hungry.”
The boys walk down to the check in desk and pick up the tickets that Emilio has pre-ordered. Whilst Emilio is checking the tickets over and working out which departure gate they need, Karl heads for a nearby fast food restaurant. A spotty sixteen-year-old girl stands behind the counter. Dressed in a bright yellow uniform, it looks as though she eats more burgers than she serves. Looking at the array of different burgers on the menu Karl makes an arduous decision.
“I’ll have the bacon double cheeseburger.”
Emilio saunters up to join his friend, scratches his head and agrees with Karl’s order.
“Make that two.”
The girl grits her braced teeth, while playing with her greasy locks of auburn hair, which should be tied up beneath her bright red cap.
“I’m sorry, we're still only serving breakfast. You’ll have to choose from the breakfast menu.” She smiles cynically.
“Why does your company do that? I don’t actually like anything from your breakfast menu.” Emilio reacts with frustration.
“I don’t make up the rules, I just work here. So are you going to order anything or not?” The burger girl looks at the queue beginning to mount behind the indecisive pair of time wasters.
“Ok, just give us a couple of your breakfast muffins.” Emilio sighs.
They take their morose looking muffins and start eating them on the move.
“Hey, check out the side of this muffin, from a certain angle it looks like Jesus.” Points out Karl, practically shoving his muffin into Emilio’s face.
“What makes it look like Jesus?” Replies Emilio, squinting at the muffin, trying to see what he is being shown.
“Well, this bit looks a bit like a beard, and this part looks like an eye.”
“My Uncle Joe’s got a beard Karl, are you sure it’s not an image of him? You really need to lay off the caffeine, brother.”
Karl childishly sticks his tongue out at Emilio as they make their way toward the departure lounge. As they walk, they pass another giant digital display. This one has a list of destinations and the types of aeroplanes that are traveling there.
“Tans Boeing 737 to Iquitos, that’s the plane we're catching, right Emilio?”
“Sure is.”
Almost unable to control his curiosity Karl starts inquisitively putting the aeroplane information into the web browser of his phone again. A list of related results is returned, with one standing out a mile. Halfway down the long hall Karl stops suddenly in his tracks, turning to Emilio he reads from his phone loudly.
“Listen to this! Wednesday the 24th of August 2005. 41 people were killed when a Peruvian airline on a domestic flight crashed in a
jungle region. The Tans Boeing 737 aircraft came down while attempting an emergency landing. Are you hearing this? There’s no freaking way you're getting me on that plane!”
Emilio stands with his hands placed on his hips tapping his foot like an impatient parent. He looks back at Karl, who is rooted to the spot, head buried, reading the information on his phone.
“Relax, Karl, it was an isolated incident, it's perfectly safe. Look around you. These people aren’t worried. Just look at that little girl over there laughing and playing; she’s not scared.”
“That’s because she’s not aware of her impending doom!”
Emilio lunges forward and tries to snatch the phone from Karl, but Karl has a firm grip and is reluctant to give up the gadget without a fight.
“Give me the stupid phone, Karl. You're reading way too much into all this, it’s totally irrational.”
Karl is resisting so much that Emilio loses his footing and falls to the floor, dragging Karl down with him. The boys scramble around, tussling for control. Elbows and knees fly as they try to prise the phone from each other. An elderly couple step past them, disgusted by the boys’ antics as they tumble around, childishly cursing. Emilio pinches Karl’s clutched hand as hard as possible with his sharp nails. Karl gives a piercing, feminine scream as he relinquishes the phone, turning to shield his hand as he examines the freshly inflicted wound. Standing up and dusting himself down Emilio reads further into the page Karl was quoting from.
“Look, it says here it was a matter of unforeseen bad weather! Look how clear it is today, there’s nothing to worry about!”
Emilio tries to drag Karl up from the floor, but Karl resists, pushing Emilio away.
“Come on, Karl, the plane is going to leave in 20 minutes and we need to get in our seats! Do we really have to go through this every time, just because you’re scared of flying? Look, it’s going to be fine, just hurry up.”
“Dude, that was a cheap shot! You drew blood, and anyway, I’m not scared of anything.” Says Karl adamantly.
“Oh yeah! Well then you hide it pretty badly!”
“I flew to Peru just fine! It’s just that this particular flight path and plane has had some bad luck!”
Karl slowly gets up from the shiny beige floor and stands looking down the hall at the departure gate. He begins to shiver; his stomach starts feeling heavy and nauseous. He burps loudly, and Emilio catches a waft of bile as it floats past his nostrils.
“Whoa buddy, is that you? Are you feeling ok?”
“I feel fine, it’s just trapped wind. Wait here, I gotta take a leak!” Karl remembers the toilets the pair walked past a moment ago.
“Ok buddy, you do what you gotta do.”
Karl starts walking toward the toilets, not wanting to give away how worried sick he actually is. He would run if wasn’t being watched by Emilio. He enters the unoccupied toilets and runs for the cubicles. He throws up on the floor just before he makes it to the first door. Crouched over, holding his stomach in relief, Karl stares at the foul smelling lumpy muffin mess on the floor. As he’s looking down, he notices that a blob of the sick has stained his white sneakers, which concerns him more than the act of throwing up. Karl heads over to a row of grey sinks below water-stained mirrors, without even considering cleaning up the mess. Gazing into one of the mirrors he splashes cold water onto his face, and speaks loudly to his reflection in the mirror.
“Come on Karl, get a grip! It’s just like sitting on a bus. So what if it flies like thirty thousand feet from the ground. They have parachutes, right!” His terror counters every reassurance. “Yeah, but what if the parachute doesn’t open, what then?” He splashes his face again with cold water in an attempt to flush the idea from his mind. As he looks back up at the mirror, he sees a strange orange lump in his hair. On further investigation, he realizes that he smeared a trace of the sick through his hair when he was doubled over. He quickly fills the sink with tepid water and keeps his finger firmly pressed on the soap dispenser, which releases a floral-scented liquid soap. Once the sink is full, Karl bends over and submerges the top of his head to wash his greasy vomit-tainted hair. As his head is under water a tall, bespectacled businessman walks in, and slips slightly on the pool of sick. He shakes his boot and walks on toward the urinals, staring strangely at Karl as he passes. Karl comes up from the sink and empties it, before turning to discover the only way to dry his sopping wet hair is by stooping under the electric hand dryer. The businessman shakes himself off in the urinal behind Karl and walks straight out of the toilet uttering as he leaves. “What the hell’s wrong with your generation?” Karl comes up from beneath the hand dryer with mildly damp hair, and addresses the closing door.
“There’s nothing wrong with our generation, at least we wash our hands after we take a slash! Nasty!”
Karl makes his way back to Emilio. By the time they reach the departure lounge Karl is feeling sick again.
“Emilio, I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Give me a break, Karl.”
Emilio is starting to get fed up with Karl, whom he feels is dramatizing every situation. Two beautiful young women pass in front of the boys, destined for the same flight. Emilio suddenly has an idea that may help him get Karl onto the plane without having to put up with further moaning. Emilio walks up behind the girls and calls out to garner their attention.
“Excuse me, ladies!”
The older of the two girls, a tall and friendly brunette, turns and stops. “What’s up?”
“Sorry to bother you, but you see my friend Karl here is scared of flying. And I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind setting his mind at ease and confirming that there is, in fact, nothing to worry about.”
The brunette smiles sympathetically at Karl. “Yeah, I understand, it can be a bit nerve wracking at times, especially if you don’t fly much. But we’ve done this trip three times now and it’s absolutely fine. Right, Ashlynn?”
“Oh God yeah, I hate flying, but the more you do it, the easier it gets.” Says Ashlynn, who is shorter and more curvaceous than her friend.
“Sorry about my friend wasting your time, you see he’s using me in a pathetic attempt to stop you girls, so that he can chat you up. I fly all the time, I love it, now if you good ladies will excuse me, I have a plane to catch!” Karl desperately tries to cover his embarrassment by deflecting the situation back onto Emilio. He walks off confidently towards the waiting plane. Emilio is left on his own with the girls for a brief moment.
“Thank you ladies, it did the trick perfectly. I suppose I’d better go after him! Hopefully I’ll catch you guys on the plane.”
The girls giggle, taking an instant shine to Emilio. He catches up with Karl, who’s already boarded, and is sitting wide eyed and bolt upright, trying to pretend he hasn’t any problem with flying.
“Ah, there you are buddy, you know those two girls were so hot!” Says Emilio.
“Yes, they were, and hopefully now they think you’re a complete dick!”
“I don’t know about that, Karl, they were extremely talkative, wanting to know what my name was and asking where I was staying in Iquitos and everything!”
“You can stop the act now, Emilio, no one’s listening!”
The girls walk into the cabin and take their seats, just two rows behind the boys, on the opposite side of the plane. Emilio turns round and waves. Ashlynn winks back at him. Karl turns in his seat, watching astounded as the girl acknowledges Emilio in such a manner.
“How the hell do you do it? That is ridiculous! I was gone like 5 minutes! Please don’t talk to me for the rest of this flight, Emilio.”
Karl sets himself stubbornly in his seat and starts doing some controlled breathing. He is determined not show any outward sign of fear, aware the girls are only two rows behind him. As soon as the plane is up in the air Emilio gets out
of his seat. He walks over to the girls and invites himself into the vacant chair beside them. He enjoys their company for the next two hours, completely ignoring Karl, who is unable to muster the confidence to get out of his seat and join them.
Chapter 7: Iquitos - The jungle city