THE DEVIL’S TICK
My father resumed binge-drinking that winter. He slept cradling whiskey bottles, which he bought in bulk from duty-free stores at the border. Once again the plants in his garden died in synchrony with his slumber. His starving larvae stacked themselves into squirming mounds, rolling out of their enclosure to survive.
I flew to San Diego to celebrate Christmas Eve at Abuela Carolina’s house. My father stayed in Rosarito. He ignored my calls. In the morning, he awoke to an intolerable pain in his chest. He felt he was having a heart attack. He dragged himself out of bed, pulled on his motorcycle boots and collapsed on the floor. He tried to crawl to his bike, to drive himself to a hospital across the border. But he couldn’t move. He thought he would die on the floor of the Rosarito beach house, alone, reeking of whiskey.
The strength of his battered body saved him yet again. He called me to recount the experience. I thought of his grandfather, Antonio, who had crossed the border for medical help before dropping dead in a U.S. hospital. He was roughly the age my father is now. The parallels scared me. Why are you crying? Papi asked with disgust. I’m not afraid of death, Jean. I’m ready for it.
When I visited again, I saw the black tomatoes sagging on their trellises. His backyard was a mess of dirt mounds, trash crates, cluttered carts and rotting plants. He refused to go near his larvae, certain the sight of their dead masses would crush him.
* * *
•
I find a hasty, typo-laden transcription I made of one of my father’s drunken monologues. I had tucked it away, pained by the phone conversation, forgetting it until now. Better than anything I have ever written, it captures our relationship. In the document, our urgencies merge us together into a single being:
Because there’s a cross line Thats hwy I wanted to have a long talk with u…Dont be fool dont be fooled dont be fooled by stupidites by simple explanations ‘Ur father was an acoholic and he overdrank he died this and this and that was the end of it’ dont be fooled. Just even if it takes u years, years to try to become yourself more of an expert on what things dont be fooled that I die today or tomorrow or 10 pm or 9 pm by the simple explanation that I was consuming excessive alcohol dont be just dont be fool by simple explanations. And try to understand more deeply what cuz thats the way I feel ok? What is happenign to me is something more. Than a simple answer. Ok? Im a very strong person u know physically ive always been and I mean just because this fuckin domino fuckin trip is not gonna u might the impression taht yeah he flip cuz he was toppled away. Its not as simple as that. Its a very complex. And all im askign is for ou to not be. That . Complacent with the simple explanation that everybody gets complacent. With the simple explanation. If im talking to u today and tomorrow im not or whatever just try to we might not even find out in a month or a week or three months try to understand ok. Try to understand its a very complex. Its a very complex very super complex system. In this life system. Like ur mother would think like ur mother would say she would disregard everything and explain everything if I die tomorrow ur mother will have a very simple and very symptomizing u might say explanation and thats it and period just dont fall for that. Its not sentimentalsim just try to undrestand try to undrestand and dont just fall for hte simple go for the simple explanations that most ppl would give u especially your mom. Especially your mom ok?…Ur my journalist ur my record keeping ur my secretary.
* * *
•
In February 2014, I hired a moving van to ship my motorcycle and seven suitcases from Mexico City to the Yucatán Peninsula. Tienes que regresar al agua. I had decided to take Norberto’s advice literally. I had to return to the water.
I swam in the Caribbean and obtained an open-water diving certification, fighting panic all the while. I dove more than thirty feet deep, swimming over palatial coral and caves of eels and stingrays. Electrically colored parrot fish moved their lips as if speaking to me, and sparkling schools of sergeant majors nibbled my palms. I could hardly enjoy the beauty because of my fear. When I wasn’t in the sea, I typed from sunrise to sundown. I studied the Tarot. I did a remote reading for Papi, a three-card spread examining the past, present and future:
PAST
Eight of Pentacles.This is the story of a man who subjected himself to intense, focused, solitary physical toil. He came very close to reaping the fruits of his hard labor.
PRESENT
King of Cups. This is the story of the utmost masculine confronting the utmost feminine. It is the male archetype immersed in the world of emotions—floating on the surface of the sea. He straddles the border between spiritual and material. All the power of the world lies in his hands.
FUTURE
The Devil. This is the story of a man whose destiny will be determined by whether he can embrace the parts of himself he has for so long inhibited. He has become a carnal creature because of blocks and fears. He must stop suppressing his human nature.
* * *
•
At a museum in Mérida, Yucatán, I discovered the Popol Vuh, the K’iche’ Maya creation story, The Book of the People. It is often referred to as the Bible of the ancient Maya because it contains some of the few existing clues about the first sacred texts of the Americas, most of which vanished in the fires of the conquistadores, who believed that the strange hieroglyphs on bark codices were dangerous and demonic lies.
In the story, twin warriors—the sun and the moon—are summoned to the underworld, Xibalba, where their father was defeated long ago. The twins follow the road to Xibalba and pass rivers of blood and pus as well as the “midst of many birds.” In the paragraphs of the Popol Vuh, I saw the slimy white trails of the caracoles my sister and I abused as little girls, the strange elixirs of our puberties, the midst of many cockatiels. I read on. When the twins reach Xibalba, they enter six houses and battle darkness, razors, cold, jaguars, fire and bats. They defeat the gods of the underworld and are reunited with their father. They attempt to resurrect him, but to do so they need him to speak the names of his limbs. He remembers only the name for his mouth. In the next scene, the gods of creation make humans out of maíz. Scholars disagree about whether the twins succeeded in saving their father, but most believe he was reborn in that most vital crop, which provided the raw material for humanity.
Lurking inside the structure of the story, I felt, was a magic spell. Across cultures and generations, magic spells have shared a salient characteristic: their use of metaphor—written, iterated or performed—to achieve a desired end. The tale of the twins was the metaphor I needed to resurrect my father. With the ropes of letters and the chains of ink, I would capture the vastness of the indomitable incomprehensible. I could change the world without touching it—like Juanita, whose name Mexico bestowed on me, who gave my father hair as black as ink.
* * *
•
The Yucatán Peninsula is made of porous limestone. Flooded caves and sinkholes known as cenotes permeate the landscape. The ancient Maya believed cenotes were literal doorways to the underworld, Xibalba. For them, the underworld was analogous to the past—to swim in their waters was to travel through time.
I learned that my apartment in Playa del Carmen was less than a mile from a cenote, and drove my motorcycle east on Calle Juárez until I saw the sign on my right: “Chaak Tun.” I parked the bike next to a dusty iguana that stared at me with one eye. I pulled off my helmet. The cenote was empty except for a single employee, who led me down a gravel path and into the warm and humid cave. The opening looked like the gaping jaws of a magnificent hellscape, a scene straight from the dreams of Hieronymus Bosch: long, dripping stalactites like rows of dripping fangs, fiery orange light dancing on the blue water. The silence and stillness were total, enveloping me with a uterine beckoning. Bats flitted across the ceiling. I dove into the water.
* * *
•
On the vernal equinox, I hitched a ride to Chic
hén Itzá, where at sunset, shadows formed on the main stairwell of the largest pyramid, El Castillo, in the shape of a serpent: the ancient Maya god Kukulkán, their version of the Mexica’s Quetzalcóatl. According to legend, Kukulkán flew into the horizon to speak to the sun. The sun burned his tongue to punish his impertinence.
On the way to the pyramids, I stopped for a swim at the cenote Ik-Kil: a true sinkhole. The green earth opened like a terrestrial throat ending in blackish-blue waters. Foliage hung from the mouth and grew on the damp fertile walls. The water was crowded with swimmers celebrating the equinox. The atmosphere was joyful, almost fantastical. I dove into the water and swam toward the center. The cenote was so deep that I could see nothing but dark blue water and inky catfish near the surface. Their slick tails slapped my legs as I swam. Waterfalls poured down the lips of the cenote. The water embraced me; the equinoxial sunlight bathed me. I threw my head back and floated, letting the waterfalls splash my face. The green was so green it throbbed. The screaming of motmot birds resonated with strings in my meat, made my blood pulse in synchrony. The wetness was baptismal, sensuous, female. I felt at home. I felt at home in the fertile climate of my mother. For the first time since Los Tuxtlas, I felt no fear as I swam. I was deriving strength from my flesh, from within my vulnerability.
* * *
•
In the first week of April 2014—almost exactly a year after my father received the fake kidnapping phone call—I got a call from Papi. He told me he had taken the miracle mineral supplement (MMS): essentially, bleach. In the instructions, the consumer is told to “activate” the supplement with citrus juice, producing chlorine dioxide equivalent to industrial-strength bleach in the stomach. It is sold as a cure for HIV, cancer, malaria. The Food and Drug Administration calls it poison. My father had decided to use MMS to eradicate his mysterious illness.
Papi was incomprehensible. He told me his tongue was swollen and white. He repeated over and over again something about a dream. I asked him what the dream was about, but he merely chanted some version of the following: Twenty-five years ago, I had a dream. A very vivid dream. I had a dream in which it was like a revelation. It was a very reveal-evant dream. He went on like this, voicing new details with an excruciating slowness, until finally I understood: he was referring to the dream that had left him paralyzed with fear as a young man, the prophetic one so awful he had blacked out its contents. He claimed to remember its contents now: he was going to die this season. For the first time in my life, I hoped with all my heart that my father was insane.
“Papi, you’re not going to die if you stop poisoning—”
“Jean. Jean. I’m just trying to explain to you what happened to me so we can psychoanalyze me.”
I took a deep breath. I was speaking before I was aware of what I would say: “In the Tarot, the death card does not necessarily prophesy literal death. It just means the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. Maybe your dream means that you’re going to be reborn. In this life. Maybe all of your psychological pain is going to disappear.”
He was silent for a moment.
“Okay. Okay. That makes sense. I hope you’re right.”
I asked him to go on Skype and video-chat with me. He stuck his tongue out for me. It was large and white, a drowned man’s tongue. I fought back my tears.
“I am totally…” my father said, struggling to find the next word, “totally, totally…totally…totally, totally, totally…totally…”
He repeated the word several more times.
“I don’t want to say glad, ’cause that would be a stupid…miss. I am totally fuckin’ grateful—and it’s not the word to describe—I am totally grateful that you are my daughter, Jean. I am totally grateful that you are the way you are. And that I can communicate with you.”
He continued: “If I die in the next fuckin’ week, or the next month, be kind enough to bury me in San Francisco. There’s a cemetery there where there’s no tombstones. No fuckin’ nothing. And you just…you just kick me over the side, all right? I don’t wanna be lowered like fuckin’…royalty. Just push me over like a dump. Like a stone. Cuz that’s all I am.”
“That’s not true. You’re a human being. And a father. And a son.”
“Not anymore.”
He had had another dream the night before. That’s why it was so hard for him to express himself about the dreams: there were two he wanted to tell me about. His poisoned brain couldn’t separate them. The night before, he had dreamed of eating at an extravagant seafood restaurant. The fish he was eating were alive, but they felt no pain as he ate them. Then the manager of the restaurant approached him and informed him he had won a prize. He handed him a bundle so large he could hardly wrap his arms around it. Everyone in the restaurant stood up to shake his hand and congratulate him. Then a woman appeared. She kissed him on the lips.
“It was a stupid dream, Jean,” he said suddenly, full of contempt for himself. And then, breathlessly, with a shred of hope: “I want to go back to that dream.”
I burst into tears, telling Papi I wanted him to live to see his grandchildren.
“What if I tell you I’m not going to live to see your children, Jean? What if I tell you I am going to be reborn as one of your sons? We all die someday, Jean. You’re going to die, too. And I am going to be by your side when you do.”
Please let this be mindless, substance-induced babble, I prayed as my father spoke. I would rather have an insane father alive than a prophetic one dead.
I called Abuela Carolina and told her I believed my father was suicidal. My grandmother visited him with my aunt Aimee. They cooked for him and kept him company. Papi promised to stop drinking. He did not.
* * *
•
Memory has no specialized lobe, sulci or gyrus in the brain. It functions through what neuroscientists refer to as “long-term potentiation,” an increased tendency for signal transmission among neurons that fire together. Those tendencies are stored as invisible neuronal patterns prone to reactivation as recollections. Those patterns are the gravity of human consciousness. The neuroscientist Patrick McNamara points out in The Neuroscience of Religious Experience that humans can trigger religious experiences through a process McNamara calls “decentering”: taking the self “off-line” by dissolving one’s sense of boundaries—in other words, pushing past the patterns that glue our minds together. Some people can get lost in interior netherworlds. But narrative has the power to bring them back, he says. Like memories, like dreams in REM sleep, stories can integrate. They create new webs of neuronal connections, like the lines connecting stars in a constellation. The lines are not real, but lost sailors can see them. Those imaginary patterns guide them through the darkness.
I cannot solve the mystery of my father. I cannot save him. He is the one who must remember the names for his limbs. I can only trace my relationship with him. I prefer to believe in shamans than in lunatics. It is the great gift of my Hispanic heritage. I cannot look at the world and see mere chemical imbalances. But no human mind converses in waves and particles alone. Its native language—subjectivity—is eccentric. Brains are mystical. They perform alchemy in a place no one can measure. Yet the stories they yield exert as obvious an effect as gravity.
* * *
•
“You should be a shaman,” I tell my father.
“I am a shaman” he says. “I am a shaman.”
* * *
•
Papi swells to the size of a solar system. The rings of Saturn adorn his pinkies. Comets crown his head. Spells spill from his mouth like rivers. He grows. Black holes blow out his pupils. Whole galaxies entangle in his beard. Wormholes spin on his lashes. He breathes the fog of nebulae. He curls his fingers; space curves like VHS film; time rewinds and rewinds and rewinds.
* * *
•
In 2013, I read an article by a woman named Eleanor Longden in Scientific American Mind. She described hearing voices in her head—innocuous commentaries about her actions. When a friend told her to see a psychologist, these auditory hallucinations turned sinister. She was diagnosed with Schizophrenia.
She discovered Intervoice, an online community of voice-hearers who reject that diagnosis. They believe abnormal perceptions become maladaptive only due to negative social feedback—that the label of “sickness” is a self-fulfilling prophecy rooted in fear. Instead of trying to suppress their so-called hallucinations, the Intervoice members listen to them, mining them for metaphorical rather than literal insights. Longden learned to think of her voices “not as symptoms, rather as adaptations and survival strategies: sane reactions to insane circumstances. The voices took the place of overwhelming pain and gave words to it—memories of sexual trauma and abuse, rage, shame, loss, guilt and low self-worth.” When Longden began paying attention to her voices, they taught her to cope with her past.
* * *
•
Choose the best answer for the following question from among the choices provided. The Eleanor Longden story provides evidence for which of the following phenomena?
The power of placebos
The existence of magic
Both of the above
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