Uncomfortable about the upcoming talk of how I had chased away Bronx’s only neighbor, I shuffled down to the creek and squatted on a rock, taking pulls on my beer bottle, flicking ashes nervously. After Bronx finished combing down the donkey, he sat on a crate by the door to the house.
“Hey, Deets, come on and join me for another beer.”
I pulled up an old, rickety chair, and Bronx clinked his bottle against mine. “To Mai. She’s great, ain’t she?”
“Yeah. I guess I blew it.”
“Look, I don’t want to know the precise details but fill me in generally. I’ve got a good guess what happened. When I talked to Mai, she looked bug-eyed, so I knew you had upset her. She’s been my neighbor for six, seven years now, so I more or less filled in the blanks on the walk up the valley. When she told me I had to get the white devil out of the valley, I agreed. You, being that shapeshifting demon, I imagine, probably are anxious to be cast out of here.”
I took a drag off my cigarette, rested the beer bottle on my knee. “Yeah, it’s a nice place to visit, but I guess I’d better get back to the world.”
“So why didn’t you listen to my advice about Mai?”
I didn’t answer him—just smoked and drank for a few minutes while I thought about hiking alone again.
“Hmm, back to the crazy world—it’s been awhile,” I said reflectively, watching a parakeet jittering and weaving from one foot to another on a branch.
“I don’t miss it.”
I thought of asking him why he was out in this wilderness by himself but instead answered his earlier question about heeding his word.
“Oh, man, so about Mai. She came up to cook dinner, and her kid went out to play. She started patching up my wounds and...” I took a drag off my smoke and then tilted the bottle back as I prepared myself to confess. “Well, if I remember right, she took off my shirt to work on my back. She did a good job too. I think most of the infections are clearing up.”
Bronx shifted. A rusty wire on the crate squealed. “Yeah, she’s good.”
“Anyway, she got me to strip as she worked on my legs.”
“Ah, Jesus.” Bronx scratched at his eyebrows as he lowered his head. I could see he was about to interrupt and finish the story for me, but he decided to clamp his mouth shut.
“Well, it’s not what you think happened.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I made a move on her. And, I mean nothing really happened, but she freaked, smacked me one.” I rubbed my jaw. “Then she ran home, pissed. Really pissed.”
“You kiss her? Maybe let your hands wander?”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to know the details.”
“It’s just I know her, let’s say, her history. Hell, Deets, I live alone out here. She’s my closest neighbor. A bit wacky, but we trust each other. I’m not judging you.”
We both looked down towards her house, as if apologizing to Mai.
“Well, I goofed things up.”
“All right, I get it. You thought she was inviting you. You made a move on her. Okay, I’m guessing you did nothing much more than that. It took me some figuring in near similar situations with her to realize that she’s really childlike when it comes to men.”
“What, really? Y’know, I feel sick about it. Back in New York, I would’ve brushed it off and been partying the next night.” I blinked in surprise, as if I had just recognized myself. Placing both elbows on my knees and staring at the ground between my feet helped me to concentrate on the turmoil that had transpired because of my actions. “I took her flowers the next day. Told her I was sorry. It seemed to freak her out more. Then she was gone.”
“Freak her out? You said that word before? What’s that mean?”
“Act all abnormal. Scare her in this case, I guess.”
“So the flowers spooked her? Well, she’s probably only been down to the road once in her life. Maybe half a dozen times been to a store that’s about a day and a half hike. She’s lived here alone or with her grandmother for probably twenty-five years. Her cousins and sister, who she sees once in a while, only live two, three hours down this same path. They’ve barely left the valley either.”
He opened two more beers and handed me one.
“Point is, she doesn’t see things the way people with modern lifestyles do. How many times have you seen magic symbols scrawled in those alleyways of New York?”
I looked at him sharply, warily, searching for any signal that he knew the answer to his question.
“Think about it, Deets. She digs up plants around here for food. She plucks leaves for medicine, or maybe magic. Fruit, flowers, roots, a garden—these are her means of survival. So, you go trotting up to her, holding out some flowers, all romantic and sorry. Well, hell, she has no inkling that flowers are your symbolic gesture that you’re contrite. She looks down her path at some big-dick, white devil that she first saw as a walking bush spirit up near the peak, and he’s holding out flowers, and she’s analyzing those plants and their usage and what kind of magic you may be using with them. She thinks you’re after her, so she probably believes they’d do some terrible thing like put her to sleep or under your spell, and then you’d seduce her or turn her into a pasty-skinned, naked-loving demon just like yourself.”
“Hmm.”
She lives in a world as weird as mine.
“Look, look up there.” He pointed to a group of trees across the small valley and halfway up the nearby hill. “Two eagles.”
“Yeah, I saw one yesterday.”
“Makes it all seem worth it.” He looked like he was staring off at something other than the birds. A thought or memory, maybe.
“Ha. If somebody asked me if I wanted to go through what I’ve been through to see two birds, I’d tell them to take me to the zoo.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean.” He ran a hand through his graying hair.
We watched the birds, forgetting our lives for a few minutes, admiring theirs.
“So, when I first arrived here, the house behind me didn’t exist. Just the fireplace and a tin roof, the remains of a deserted cooking shack. I straggled up here, looking pretty much like you did. Mai’s grandmother patched me up. I helped out with hunting and clearing land and put together scraps of whatever to build this place. Maybe two years after I got here, Grannie went to her death bed. Before she passed, she made me promise that I’d watch over Mai. I suppose she was giving me her blessings to be with her daughter.”
Bronx was loosening up with the beer, telling me about himself. It was comforting to finally gain his confidence.
“Sometime after Grannie died, Mai ends up pregnant. Not me, but I’ll get to that. Poor girl’s crying and doesn’t understand what’s happening to her body. There’s an old guy, kind of creepy, lives down in the pastureland. He’s the local witch doctor—has lots of influence along the creek. He tolerates me because I keep him supplied with rum and cigarettes. Anyway, he shows up and takes Mai away. When she finally comes back, she’s pleased as hell that she has a baby. I find out from the old shaman that Mai didn’t know what intercourse was or that she could get pregnant from it. So Mai had no idea what happened, but it was pretty obvious the old fart was the father.”
“He still come around?”
“Not much, but it’s damn spooky when he does. She was probably visiting with him today. No other reason she’d be that far down the valley.”
One of the eagles let out a piercing screech. I lit up another cigarette. Bronx cleared his throat, then continued talking.
“Hard to believe a woman wouldn’t understand her body in that way. We’ve come across each other bathing numerous times, so I’ve got some insight into what transpired between you two. Basically she’s always shy about herself. Nothing wrong with that. She’s extremely curious about me—has even asked me what I u
se that thing dangling between my legs for. Difference between you and me is, I never tried anything. Age and experience, I guess. Anyway, I picked up that she didn’t understand I was capable of doing what the old man had done with her, so I restrained myself. With a stranger, her innocence could be trouble. Hell, of course I’ve been tempted, but there’s a little shack up the side of the valley where I can be entertained.”
“You mean she’s slept with the old guy, is familiar with the parts, but doesn’t realize other men have, uh, the same physical attributes or desires?”
“I’m guessing so, but not only that. I’m thinking, maybe she just doesn’t fully understand you’re even a man.”
“The tree creature. That could explain her curiosity.” Perplexed by the assumption, I scratched at the top of my head with one finger. “It’s hard to grasp that she might be as innocent as a young child about sex. She definitely wanted to, um, uh… examine me though.”
“Could be as simple as ‘Do tree demons have dongs?’, but there’s another angle.” Bronx turned his head and spat contemptuously before continuing. “I’ve lived around here for awhile. Talk is the old witch doctor’s got quite a lot of night companions. Mai’s nothing special to him. Damn soulless bastard.” Bronx eyed the eagles as they leaped from the branch they were on, flapped upwards, then glided down the valley. “Anyway, I’ve got a strong suspicion he’s got Mai bamboozled, has his way with her by convincing her it’s part of some magic he’s working up. So, could be sex is a ritual for her to help the shaman.”
“So I didn’t fit into her concept of it.”
“That’s probably right. My bet is she was surprised when you made your move, and more so if she had stirrings within herself. Sex with the shaman is helping him with his spells and the right thing to do. You turned out to be an out of the ordinary risk to her role.”
I reflected on her murmuring to herself before she lifted the cloth off my groin. Had she been seeking strength or maybe praying before surrendering to her curiosity? Telling her son to leave the room or covering me when I stripped could have been precautions against bad magic, but the desire to know each other that passed through us when she looked in my eyes seemed a genuine physical fire.
“So her discovering I had the equipment and, uh, looked ready to make magic shook her. It could have been dangerous. A great taboo.”
“Nothing like New York, heh, Deets?”
I looked down the trail to where Mai, presumably, had scratched the enigmatic symbol from Monster Alley into the dirt.
“Actually, it’s just about the same.”
Chapter 27
We ate hot dogs along with some canned vegetables, placed the leftovers in a glass jar, and left it in the stream to stay cool. We drank too much.
“Where did you get the beer? And cigarettes? If you were going back to civilization, why didn’t you take me with you?”
He popped the cap off another beer, looked at me with blurred eyes. “I didn’t go into no city. Or near any store or the road. Mind your own stinking business.”
“Where did you buy this stuff? I could’ve gotten out of your hair and not messed things up with Mai.”
“Your presence would’ve screwed things up for me.” His voice turned belligerent. “And I’m telling you to shut up about where I get my beer.” He kicked at my chair. “Or your menthols.”
“What’d you do? Trap some birds or animals and sell them?”
He was on me quickly, roughly, knocking over the chair. I fell onto my back as he gripped the collar of my shirt. “Who the fuck sent you?”
“Sent me? What do you mean? I told you how I got here.”
He pushed himself away, sitting back on his crate. I righted the chair, and we drank under the aura of his quick temper in silence.
Why had that one question about animal trapping triggered such a violent reaction?
Sometimes I couldn’t help but do foolish things. With each swig of alcohol, I questioned whether I should be drinking with Bronx. But overindulgence and risk-taking had always held my nature captive, and it was just another night of insecurity like so many of the others in these mountains. It felt normal.
Hours later—a drunken midnight—we stumbled away from our seats, talking nonsense.
I stepped behind the house and pissed on his cages. Bronx joined me. “You’re full of shit. You didn’t get lost in the damn jungle. You were looking for me.”
“Well, I found you.”
“Fucking neighbor fucker.” He let out a long exaggerated burp. “How can one twerpy artist from New York screw up this neighborhood in less than a week?”
We zipped up and staggered aimlessly.
“Hey, man, do you… Hic… know Doctor Steel?”
“Doctor… who? Sounds like a comic book character.”
“Ha, ha. I’ll tell him.”
He pointed in the direction of Mai’s house with his bottle. “You really screwed up with that woman, you prick.” Bronx mumbled to himself, then cursed angrily into the night. “Hey, whore, c’mon home. Alone this time. Damn slut, you ruined everything. It wasn’t all my fault.”
My mind was sloshed with beer, but I knew he wasn’t talking about Mai. Bronx’s rant was the first crack in any revelation of his past and possibly a clue as to why he was hiding on this jungle mountain.
“Let’s go down to the whore’s house. You think you can make her happy. She’s never happy. Always has to fuck, fuck, fuck. She’s never home. Always with some other guy.” He rocked unsteadily and tossed his bottle into a thatch of bamboo. “What’s with the long hair, Deets? If that really is your name.”
“I kind of doubt yours too, Mister Bronx, hermit of the Andes.”
“You ever love a woman? I mean, really be in love with someone?”
“Yup. I wish I could’ve done things differently. I really blew it.”
“I mean, not like a good lay, but really care about who she is and what she does. Damn, we had it all.”
I tilted my bottle back, missed my mouth, spilling beer onto my shirt. “I forgot how to drink.”
“Let’s go look for women.”
“It’s too dark. Can’t see nothing.”
He leaned against my shoulder. “Too dark to drink.”
“Why are you hiding?” I didn’t care about the danger in the question.
“I’m not hiding. You just can’t see nothing.”
We weaved down the track towards Mai’s. Bronx’s anger and heartbreak echoed around the valley. He boomed about prostitutes, invoking crude and violent threats—“Shove it to all of them. To you too, and always her.”—then turned maudlin as he tried to drink away a woman who had shattered him.
“Man, you cracked bad somewhere in your life. What’s that guy’s name? The round dopey-looking simp? Yeah. Humpty Dumpty, didn’t know how to put all the pieces together again.”
“Ha, ha. And you. No American has got a good reason to be in this jungle. Unless you’re that demon tree dong man or a CIA plant. Ha, ha, tree, plant.”
“Not you too, man, with the CIA crap.”
We stopped near Mai’s path and weaved unsteadily. I lit a match to study the objects and scribblings of her spell.
“Look, there’s that lady saint with the roses.” Bronx danced a little jig in front of the talismans strung across the walkway, taunting me. “Ooh, do you feel possessed, Deets? You fool, you shouldn’t have tried to get beneath her skirts.” His body twirled in a clumsy circle while he tilted his head back and yelled at the sky. “This voodoo won’t get you love. She put a spell on you. You’re ruined for life. Ha, ha. You’re ruined for life just because of a lousy one night stand.”
He lost his balance and fell to the ground. I tried to half-catch him and half-get-out-of the-way but ended up stumbling and flying onto my ass next to him.
We lay on the jungle pa
th, laughing and howling.
“Ha, ha, a one night stand. One night and one lamp on a stand and your life can change, Deets.” He snapped his fingers awkwardly and ineffectively at me. “Change like that. Just like abracadabra and kisses too. Poof, everyone’s somewhere else. You’re ruined by it too, Deets, you tree demon—wrecked by magic.”
The realization of who Bronx was blasted through my drunken mind.
Abracadabra… magic mountains, broken lives… and kisses too.
I rolled away from him and vomited. I held myself on hands and knees and muttered, “I know who you are. I know who you are.”
“And the kisses are all gone, just like that.”
“I know who you are.” I said emphatically.
He put his arm around my waist and we lifted ourselves up.
“Me? Of course you do. Who do you work for? It’s just like the CIA to mess things up and send you in on the wrong side of the mountain. Lucky you’re alive. You know I don’t grow the stuff for you no more. I’m happy with the animals. It’s no risk, mostly legal. We’re done. I showed you the growing grounds and routes. What do you need me for?”
“Listen, it’s not really believable. Listen.”
He started laughing, “Ha, ha. I know it’s not. You still need me to guide the runners. You got lost and practically killed on a run gone wrong. Or were you looking for me? That’s it, right? You didn’t just stumble onto me. You lunkheads figure out where I live?”
“What are you talking about?” I wanted him to reveal anything about himself now. Now that I knew who he was.
“Mother bastard suckers, we made a deal. I did what you wanted. Then you cut me out of the traffic and tossed me the animal trade contact. And now, what? You pulling my feet out from under me again?”
“Who’re you talking to?”
He screamed at me, “This is my life you’re messing with.” He lunged and grabbed my collar, yanking me off balance, then walked me with rough tugs and pushes towards the stream. Being considerably larger than me, and now suddenly remarkably agile, Bronx stymied my resistance easily. My feet flew out from under me, and he dragged me to the embankment.
Magic (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 2) Page 17