It’s loud in your ears. X becomes noise, a clarion sound turning around on itself, stumbling, dancing the way it chooses to dance until it’s not X at all. It’s a wild horn that takes a deep breath and grabs you like it’s got you by the tail. Notes rise and fall, the horn is in charge, and you can’t say no. You can’t say no. The sharp chords, the knife on your belly, won’t let you say no. You don’t have a clue why this is happening or how you’re going to get home. This is unknown territory, a commotion of highs and lows, total nonsense and bedrock truth.
You clench to hold your body together. He snarls at you to tell him it feels good. You say nothing.
He demands you tell him how big he is, how unbelievably big.
You tell him he’s big.
He kisses your breasts, plays the knife over them. He tells you to turn this way, turn that way. It’s awkward with your hands tied, and you can’t move freely, so he unties you.
Do you have a husband? he asks.
You say nothing.
In the periphery of your vision you see green. A wild of green. Forest green leaves, sea green water, moss green barks of trees, yellow green shimmery sand, greens without names they’re so particular to themselves. The black green curves of striated roots seem to beat like a subterranean womb. All around you is a mash of sand, snakes, mosquitoes, night bird calls, rhythmic waves, grasshoppers, and tall billowy green grass defending itself with sharp edges. You can hear the cries of the ground’s hard bones: skull, teeth, long bones, ribs.
Nothing seems to last long and nothing is over quickly. You have no sense of time. Time is the size of each moment.
He wants to hear how good it feels.
You tell him he’s big.
He’s angry you won’t say it feels good, a lie you refuse.
MYTH. When he was a teenager, the jaguar man wanted to grow bigger. He stole money from Abu and bought a small vial from the bush doctor. He drank the medicine and stared at himself waiting for something to change.
SOUVENIR SNAPSHOT. A male jaguar behind a female as if ready to mount. His open jaw bites at her neck.
You can’t feel his hands or the sand and branches under your neck and back, the vines like fistfuls of hair. You can’t feel him pounding into you. You can’t feel his mouth rub against the grain of your skin.
FACT. A jaguar’s rough tongue can peel skin away from flesh and flesh off bone.
You feel the sensation of the knife at all times. You feel it because you have to know where it is, but the nerves that register pain have turned off to assist you.
TRUTH. The knife is the worst part of the night.
The knife is the worst part of the night.
For a moment when he forces you on top of him and slightly outstretches his arms, you think, Grab the knife and plunge it into his throat.
Another woman in this situation might do it, fight. Somehow take possession of the knife. At least accept the risk of trying. But you, the thought makes you weak not strong, a fragile leaf in his fist.
The thought makes me weak, not strong.
You don’t realize it yet but you have a powerful secret weapon. You’ve been falling in love, your heart is wide open. Wide enough to fit the only two men you know in this country: the one waiting for you at the cabana and this one in front of you. Wide enough to fit your mother who you want to hear from you again. And suddenly for the boy in the lifeboat with the tiger. The boy survives because he believes he will survive. The boy turns his fear into strategy. You remember this from the chapters you read today. The boy stops willing the tiger to die and lives with the tiger, in spite of the tiger, because of the tiger.
You’re in your own lifeboat (knife, power, anger, beast), the discordant notes of it crystal clear. You need the jaguar man to be okay.
I need the jaguar man to be okay.
You can’t rely on simple definitions. You may have entered the jungle with easy labels stuck to your chests. Hello, my name is right. His name is wrong. My name is good. His name is bad. My name is you. His name is he. But now you and the jaguar man are in a mixed-up state of we. One can’t be okay without the other. You must embrace the man, do what his pain is begging you to do, not only for your own survival, but also for his. This thought flashes through your mind as you drift over yourself, watching the hideous knife stroke your terrified breast.
You and the jaguar man, horrible as it is, are in it together.
It means X.
X means two strangers shouting for help in private ways.
You want X to be over but you don’t want him to die. You want him to heal.
I want him to heal.
For a split second you see him, really see him, not as he is now, you see underneath the violence of his life all the way to the crux of his nature where he is what you are. Where he is what I am. It’s a fleeting insight but it’s enough to guide you. You see what he’s desperately trying to see in himself: he’s not a bad person.
This shot of compassion slides through your body on an invisible thread. You use it to untwist your animosity and take the next full breath, bolstering your strength.
Instinctively your prayer shifts from you to him. God, please love this man so much right now that he softens enough to let me live. God, please love this man. Please, God, please. Love him. Please.
Maybe there’s a God who answers certain urgent prayers in bolts of lightning, burning bushes, or angels somersaulting in the air. But it seems more likely messengers deliver powerful love, and there are only two of you on this pitch-black remote stretch of beach. Him with the red bandana, the knife, the anger, and pain. And you. Only two of you on this thin strip of X between the road and the Caribbean Sea. The compassion, the unbearable love he needs right now, can only come through you. You are the only possibility of an answer to your own prayer. God, you, and the man in the mash-up at the edge of the sea where bramble attacks sand on one side and water caresses it from the other.
What category of love is this? It’s not romantic or familial, not love for a friend; it’s not even agape love for all beings. This love is particular to him, jaguar love, love of survival, love born in snarls, love with teeth.
God, love this man. Love him. Please.
You don’t realize its full effect yet, but this moment’s compassion changes you forever. While the jaguar man hammers at your flesh, your unthinkable love for him carves a gash much deeper in your core.
NINE
The first rule of scuba diving is never hold your breath, the diver says. Diving underwater is its own world with a different atmosphere every 33 feet. The farther down you go the greater the pressure squeezes against your body, like a balloon or a chicken egg. If you hold your breath your lungs won’t equalize. They’ll compress. Ascending is even more dangerous because if you hold your breath your lungs overexpand and burst.
The jaguar man tells you to wash in the sea. You think he’s clever to wash away evidence. Maybe he’s done this before. You step into the water. It doesn’t feel warm or cold. It’s not even wet. You walk forward until the water is waist-high. Then you turn to the jaguar man and say, Okay! Bye! Like you’re dismissing him. Why do you say this? It makes no sense. Where do you think you’re going? Where do you think he’s going?
He’s angry you said goodbye. He doesn’t like your tone. He’s in charge, not you. He wades into the water toward you slowly. Your fear comes to life, more than before. You think he’ll drown you. You think he’ll hold your head under until your body goes limp, then drag you back to shore or leave you to bloat in the water.
FACT. Jaguars are excellent swimmers and will leap into water to catch prey.
SOUVENIR SNAPSHOT. Jaguar emerging from the water with a lily on its head.
But he doesn’t touch you. He washes himself as he watches you wash. When you’re finished you both step back onto the sand. You put on your shorts and T-shirt and carry the rest.
He says he’s not a bad person.
You say you believe him.
<
br /> He guides you down the road, away from the van. He says he’ll leave you at the far end of the road so it will take longer for you to get help. You feel a glimmer of hope. Maybe he’ll leave now. Maybe he’ll give you the van like he said he would. You walk on the dirt road, numb to the rocks and thorns under your feet.
When diving at night you can lose your bearings, the diver says. You can think you’re closer (or farther) than you are.
The jaguar man is calmer and asks you questions, sizing you up, taking his time. Where do you live? How old are you? He’s curious about you. Is he figuring out if he can trust you? What to do with you now? Does he want to connect?
What’s your name? You tell him the truth. He’s already seen your traveler’s cheque, it doesn’t make sense to lie. Like a bully on a schoolyard, he makes a pun of your last name. Oh, so you’re “nothin’.” This angers you. Of all things, this. You lash out in defense of your name. No, not nothing. Not nothing.
Who’s with you on vacation?
No one.
You’re on vacation alone?
Yes.
Who do you know in Belize?
No one.
What are you going to do when you go home?
I don’t know.
Who are you going to tell?
No one.
Who’s with you at your cabana?
No one.
Are you going to call the police?
No.
Why not?
I gave you my word.
Who do you know in Belize?
No one.
What are you going to do when you go home?
I don’t know.
Sit on your bed and cry?
I don’t know.
Sit on your bed and cry?
Yes.
FACT. It’s easy to predict the movement of one pendulum in motion. Add a second pendulum and their swings become dependent, chaotic. Even slight changes in one lead to inevitable changes in the other. You can guess what might happen but you cannot be exact.
He suddenly tires and slumps. He says he considered killing himself today. This gives you insight. His pain is that severe. He’s at the end of hope. He says he feels better and X calmed him down. He knows it was a bad thing to do but he’s not a bad person. He wants to do things differently, but everything keeps getting fucked up.
You say you’re sorry.
He says don’t pity him. He says he’s forced to do this.
You say things can get better.
He tells you don’t say what you can’t prove.
You ask if he prays.
Your own relationship to prayer is tenuous and haphazard (usually reserved for desperate times and, lately, some kind of big love). You’re not sure how prayer works but you don’t believe there’s a separate entity out there that answers pleas. You suspect more likely the energy of your focus draws things to you. So you don’t know why you ask if he prays, it surprises you when you say it, and it’s the wrong question. He hates religion, the rules, the preachers who pretend to care, they took his son, the preachers and the cops, they’re all the same, a $10,000 fine for a joint, and now they took his son.
He asks if you know Psalm 121? No, you don’t know it. 122? You don’t know that one either. He can’t remember the number of the psalm, the famous one, the one a lot of people use for a baptism—his son had that psalm.
You haven’t memorized any psalms.
What kind of Christian doesn’t know the Bible? he yells.
The jaguar man is furious you can’t recite a psalm. He tries to recall the words of his son’s psalm but he can’t find the line.
Later you will look up Psalm 121, New International Version.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
You listen to him rant. You give him time and space to talk. You hold your backpack, hat, and bikini and listen to the man who just X riff on the sadness of his life. Palm trees shake, frogs squeeze their lungs to sound their calls, and grasshoppers rub hind legs against wings. The jaguar man becomes part of the soundscape: a competition of grumbles, grunts, a static buzz, caws and creaks, the scrape of palm against palm, the whoosh of wind, and slap, slap of the sea. His knife keeps an unsteady beat in the air as he waves it in front of you, crushes rhythm.
He asks if you pray.
This morning’s prayer, for an experience of love so big you’ll have to change your life to comprehend it, flashes through your mind. You think of the diver and wonder where he is, but you don’t have time to linger on the thought. The jaguar man is waiting for an answer.
You tell him yes.
You offer to pray for the jaguar man. This surprises you too. It’s not a premeditated offer—nothing with the jaguar man is premeditated—you’re living moment to moment. He tells you people pray for him all the time, and it doesn’t make any difference, nothing helps. He stares at you.
Are you going to report me?
No.
He doesn’t believe you. You tell him you know he’s a good person, if he lets you go you won’t report him.
Prove it, he says. You want to pray for me, go ahead, pray, not like the preachers have my whole life, make it real.
That’s what he tells you. Make it real. He transfers the knife from his right hand to his left and extends his empty hand. He wants you to hold his hand. He actually wants you to hold his hand.
MYTH. Balam stretches inside the jaguar man, a second breath, out of sync with his own breathing.
TRUTH. The jaguar man can violate your body, but he cannot violate your core. You are who you are, who you are, who you are. He cannot touch you there.
You put your things on the ground. You shut your eyes to find power deep inside you. A surge of feeling expands your heart. He wanted to kill himself this morning. You don’t wish that pain on anyone. Pain so great he can’t contain it in his body, and he’s thrusting it on you. You shift your feet so your weight is evenly balanced. You hold his hand and take a breath. You’re not sure how to start the prayer. The trees and waves and the moon in a thousand pieces whisper, Go on, if he cares about life, any life, his own life, maybe he’ll care about yours.
You let your compassion for this man fill you. Love gives you strength that mixes with your fear and what emerges is a power that enables you to see beyond your circumstance.
QUESTION. If you care for your enemy, is he still an enemy?
Dear God, you begin, but you don’t hear the words you speak. Your prayer is outside words, outside your body. You can’t feel your hand holding his. It’s a long prayer. You respond to everything he’s been ranting about. It’s not fancy but it’s genuine. You pray that he’ll feel better. You pray that his life becomes manageable. You pray that he will experience love and forgiveness. You pray that his relationships improve with his son and ex-wife. You pray for his troubles with the government to end. You pray that he’ll have the will and desire to live.
Amen.
Amen.
It works. He softens.
That was a nice prayer, he says.
FACT. At a certain speed and frequency, two individual waves that are moving along the same medium in opposites directions overlap and cancel each other out. They produce a standing wave with several still points.
Silence between you. Then ange
r.
Was that real? Was that from the heart or were you pretending?
It’s from the heart, you say calmly, soothing his erratic heat.
That touched me, he says, simmering now. A lot of preachers have prayed over me. You’re the first civilian. That touched me right here. He points to a place below his heart. It makes me want to vomit.
A purge, you think. He wants to purge.
He reaches out to feel your chest. Your heart beats in triple time. You think he’ll be furious that your heart is racing, but he tells you his heart is beating like yours.
He considers driving you home.
You pick up your backpack, hat, and bikini.
He says you’ve shown him a good time and he doesn’t want to leave you in this place where it’s not safe.
TEN
Then the jaguar man’s conscience kicks in. Fire of a two-headed dragon. He feels guilty. He shouldn’t have brought you here. He shouldn’t have X. He tells you he’s not a bad person, he’s an outlaw, the government makes him do bad things, he’s pushed, he can’t think of anything else to do. His conscience agitates him. In a split second he becomes enraged, his full body threatening yours, mouth open, teeth bared, a new wind strengthening his storm, pushing you backward down the road farther away from the van, the knife under your chin, anger recharging him. The night’s strange music shifts, screeches, screams. He panics. He knows what he’s done is wrong and he needs to get rid of this, of you. The knife on your throat is lengthwise and ready.
The knife on my throat is lengthwise and ready.
He turns his wrist, and the knife’s sharp edge bears down.
You tell yourself to not get cut.
The knife is poised against your artery.
Do not get cut.
He hisses at you to convince him that you won’t tell a soul. Swear you won’t report me! Who do you know?
No one!
Convince me! he screams. If you report me I will track you down and kill you! I have ways to find you! Convince me!
Everything in your world is upside down and backward, and you’ve lost the ability to discern real from unreal. He tells you he will hunt you down and kill you with such force it locks in your mind as fact.
The Jaguar Man Page 5