Nightlife

by Brian Hodge

  On Friday he came across a great shrine in the sky, atop a pole. He puzzled over the name several times, yellow letters on red background, knowing it to be familiar. Then he could have danced for joy. Here it was, a place heard about even in the mission school of Esmerelda. Mythical. Wondrous, by all accounts. McDonald’s. No doubt the spirits had led him here.

  He entered, hoped he was reverent enough. Watched from the doorway for several moments. The people lining up at a silver altar, leaving one at a time with trade goods. He could handle this easily. He got in line. Read the menu, overwhelmed. So many cryptic choices. He frowned warily at the figures of Hamburglar and Grimace and Ronald. Probably demons who inhabited the back dwellings. He placed his order by parroting the man directly before him.

  Kerebawa carried his Big Mac, large fries, and medium orange to an empty table, uncomfortably wedged himself in one of the little seats. He withdrew the wad of green tobacco from his mouth, oblivious to the disgust of others when he rested it beside his meal. He watched those around him, quickly caught on to the latch mechanism of the Styrofoam box. And found within it the most slimy, repugnant pile of food he’d ever seen. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought the meat a fresh kill. Probably during the act of procreation, given the amount of white ejaculate it dripped.

  Appearances were deceiving, though. He liked it. Liked the fries. Loved the orange soda. The sole thing he found mystifying were the two grubs in the bottom of the bag, or whatever they were. Tough little creatures, like wide, flat worms. Kerebawa tried to eat one whole, found it unappealingly tasteless. He fought it, and finally his teeth pierced its hide, and ketchup squirted across his cheek. Disgusting. He wiped away the blood of this vile creature and left the other one alone.

  He slept where he could, striving for optimal safety. In an alley the first night, surrounded by bushes the next. On a deserted stretch of beach the next. Once a grizzled man tried to sneak up and steal his cloth bundle, but he awoke and seized a rock he’d laid at hand and smashed it across the man’s jaw. He found blood and a tooth left behind the next morning. Each night he yearned for the sounds of home — the crackle of his family’s fire, the banter within the village before everyone fell asleep. Good-natured insults sometimes, long-winded dissertations on how the Yanomamö were the center of the universe other nights. He missed the cries of animals in the jungle darkness, night predators and their prey. Instead, all he had were auto horns, near and far, and frequent bursts of what passed for music in this world. And predators of another sort.

  But mostly, he just walked. Up and down the coastline, miles and miles and miles. Looking for the giant canoe called Estrella.

  Whenever he came across a possible marina, he wandered along its docks, eyes scanning each boat. The smaller ones, with the cloth sails, he paid little attention to. According to Hernando Vasquez, Estrella was a monster, docked at a bayside marina.

  Perhaps the most distressing of all, though, was the ineffectiveness in his use of the ebene powder. While it had tranced him into knowing the proper directions for travel in the forests and jungles of Colombia, he no longer saw his spirit hawk circling the skies. Try as he might, it had deserted him in this land. Kerebawa couldn’t so much articulate why as know it intuitively. He was too far from the jungle, and its mysteries were not nearly so much a part of this world. This world had forgotten much.

  Which left him to rely on his own senses.

  Estrella.

  He had combed the marinas, looking at the names painted on the huge boats, ever since reaching the bayfront on Thursday afternoon. They looked much alike, white vessels, mostly, occasionally pale yellow or gray or blue or brown. Moored beside the docks stretching out into the gentle sea.

  The sky overhead a tiny secondary city of rigging and masts. Prosperous-looking people coming and going, who either ignored him completely or looked at him with undisguised disdain. Knowing he was not one of them.

  Kerebawa didn’t know how many miles he had covered by Saturday morning. Despite the shoes, his feet ached as though having traveled over rugged jungle terrain, pierced by thorns. And with the white seashell towers in the distance behind him, he felt cold over not having found his prey.

  Perhaps he had come upon its home at the wrong time, perhaps its owner had taken it on a voyage and would return. So he turned around, ready to trudge back the way he had come. And walk this course up and down as many times as it would take.

  Kerebawa found his quarry on Saturday evening, not long before the sun turned red and bloody in surrender from the sky.

  Estrella was moored at a marina in Coconut Grove, one hundred and ten feet of gleaming white luxury yacht. Sleek, streamlined. A smaller upper level and the larger deck-level structures were windowed with dark wraparound glass that defied any attempt to see inside. It looked to be all backswept lines and sterile planes, with red and black trim. Estrella — Star.

  Logistically, its location was prime. For his purposes, at least. At this particular marina, the crafts were large and their spacing ample. Privilege breeds privacy. It was moored parallel to a long dock, thirty yards out from shore. Shoreline itself was a long paved stretch with a low wall running its length, plenty of room for cars to be parked. Further inland was open ground, lush green grass and stands of palms, a darkened bone-white building. He faded back to the trees, glad to feel a bit of nature underfoot.

  His warrior’s resolve and patience had won out once more. But, as before, the battle was just beginning. Now he had to open himself to understanding the lay of the land. And the enemy.

  Within a stand of palms, he set up a fireless camp, taking cover behind a fat clump of bushes. Tomorrow would be long and tense. The nerves before the raid.

  And as night fell deeper over Miami, he leaned back against a tree. Peeled off shoes and socks, dug his feet into cool grass, and eased his eyes shut in relief. He ate a leftover banana quickly going brown in the peel. Next, Oreo cookies.

  Nightfall, time to think. Kerebawa still felt unclean from the lives he had taken back in Medellín. Ten men’s blood on his hands, and upon returning to Mabori-teri, he had not had time to go through the ceremony of unokaimou, the ritual of purification for having killed.

  A Yanomamö with blood on his hands, upon returning from a raid, would be cloistered within a shabono, sealed off from the rest for a week by palm leaves. He would use a pair of sticks to scratch his body. Food would be brought to him, but he could not touch it with his fingers to eat. Instead he would have to bring the food to his mouth with more sticks. Once the confinement was over, the purified killer would take his hammock used during the raid and his scratching sticks, carry them out of the village, and tie them to a tree. And here would hang his sins, now separate from the sinner.

  The way things looked, he would remain impure for a long time to come. But a wise warrior doesn’t waste time fretting over what he cannot change.

  Instead he leaned back to gaze up at the moon. Like all Yanomamö, Kerebawa felt a special kinship with it. A kinship that uneasily remained even though the Bible stories and lessons from Angus had taken root.

  The moon was an ancestor of sorts. Periboriwä, the Spirit of the Moon, was one of the first beings on earth. No one knew where the first beings had come from. They were simply there, at the beginning of time. Periboriwä had been a meat-hungry being, with the annoying practice of descending from the sky to eat the souls of children. Once, an irate pair of brothers retaliated by firing at him with bamboo arrows, one of which found its mark, hit his belly. And much blood spilled to earth, growing into men as it hit the ground. Most of the Yanomamö of today were descended from the blood. And with this blood as their birthright, they had no choice but to be fierce and make war.

  Did it look down upon him, notice him? Think him a worthy successor to the heritage? He often wondered these things.

  Once Angus had pointed into the night sky, pointed at the moon. Told him of men from America-teri who had sailed far past the earth and land
ed on the moon, even walked across its face. This was hard to conceive of, but he believed the Padre. And ever since he had to wonder about the abilities of white men. If they had the power to walk across the face of your ancestor, what did that make them? Sometimes this was an infuriating thought. Other times, terrifying.

  Sometimes it bothered him, knowing he had no choice but to live up to the dictates of the past, of the blood running inside him. Such a conflict with the lessons he had learned from Angus and the other missionaries at the school in Esmerelda.

  Thou shalt not kill, they had all taught.

  But was it his fault, then, if his blood made him do it? Angus would never come right out and answer that. Kerebawa thought he had his answer weeks ago, during the raid on Iyakei-teri. After all, even Angus had joined in the killing, though he took no glory in it. The others, even headman Damowä, had praised him for it. But in those moments when Angus had spoken his last, a true Fierce One in their eyes, Kerebawa had felt coldness within. An additional sorrow that had had nothing to do with his dying.

  For he had found no pleasure in watching Angus kill. Even when you cannot completely agree with a friend’s ways and thoughts, there is something very sad about seeing him betray his beliefs. As if a part of him had died long before his heart ceased to beat.

  Enough. Wise warriors didn’t concern themselves with doubts, not when they needed all their courage.

  So he lay upon his side and curled up, one hand resting beneath his cheek. And he whispered a litany of the night, taught him by Angus when he was a child.

  “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…”

  Sunday.

  Kerebawa rose just before the dawn, and at this hour of the lazy May morning, he was just about the only thing moving close by.

  It was to be a day of silence, of stillness. Watching. He didn’t find it wise to sit out in the open and do so. As long as he had kept on the move, when searching for the yacht in the first place, it hadn’t really mattered. Now, though, while stationary, it seemed a good idea to remain hidden, lest uninvited trouble come along. And in the bushes, the view of Estrella was poor.

  No problem, though. Not when he could go up.

  Kerebawa relieved his bladder and bowels in the bushes, then prepared himself. Tied his cloth bundle with twine to hang from a shoulder. Lashed shoelaces together and tossed them over the other shoulder. Looped his quiver and machete around his neck. The bundle of arrow shafts and the bow itself would have to stay behind; too cumbersome. He stowed them beneath brush, out of sight.

  The trees he was within were very robust and bushy at the top. He scaled one’s seventy feet with the agility of a monkey, pulling with callused hands, pushing with callused feet. Even if the fronds didn’t completely conceal him, the risk was low. Few people ever looked much more than a foot or two above their own eyes.

  Kerebawa balanced himself at the top, stabilizing by planting his feet on either side of the crown, at the juncture of the fronds with the trunk. He plucked free a few leaves, tucked them in shirt openings to better conceal himself, and even so, he still had a splendid view of the marina in general and Estrella in particular.

  He shared the palm top with a myriad of other living things. Beetles, roaches, spiders, centipedes, more. Few people realized how much lived in the top of a palm. Occasionally he felt something scuttle over him or inside his clothes, but it was of little concern. A Yanomamö was used to such things. The leaves thatching the roof of a shabono generally grew infested with such things over time. Occasionally it would be so bad that the constant scurrying was like the rustling of leaves in the wind. Movement from below — say, getting out of a hammock — would startle them, and in their scurrying to safety, a shower of vermin would fall on the unsuspecting Yanomamö. That was why shabonos had to be rebuilt every couple of years, sometimes burning out the old one first to kill the infestation.

  Dawn became morning. Morning brightened into day, and the sun beat down, arced across the sky. Before him, overhead, behind him. Boats departed, docked. People traveled far below, wisps of conversations drifting up to him. And through it all, he shifted to remain as comfortable as he could.

  And he watched.

  Keeping tabs on the Estrella was far less interesting than had been his watch over the home of Hernando Vasquez. Much less to actually pay attention to.

  Still, there were occasional comings and goings. At midday, a couple of women emerged onto the rear deck, nearly naked, drinks in hand, and lay beneath the sun in long chairs. Their skin glistened as if wet. He noticed four different men throughout the day, two of whom left for a while in a car, then returned with sacks. Food, perhaps, and Kerebawa’s stomach rumbled in envy. He ate more Oreos, and that helped. For the most part, they were faceless as well as nameless. He kept them apart only by the colors of their clothes.

  Nevertheless, as had been the case in Medellín, it was easy enough to tell the headman from the warriors. Luis Escobar’s identity was obvious. He moved differently from the other three, he ordered them about. He carried his authority like a crown.

  From here, at least, Escobar looked substantially younger than Vasquez had been. He was a dark-skinned man, with very black hair. Most of the time he was visible, he wore blue slacks, no shirt. No shoes. For a time, he dragged out his own long chair and lay between the two women on the rear deck.

  Like the tides, the day moved on, and afternoon became evening, and evening deepened toward night. Shortly after dusk, Kerebawa removed his palm-leaf disguise, strapped his belongings on again, and descended the tree. Safely within his fortress of bushes, he removed his clothes and shook out the bugs that had nestled within them, swept them from his body. He stretched cramped muscles, massaged out a day’s worth of kinks. Then lay in the cool grass and let it tickle his body, leaching out the heat he had absorbed through the day.

  He urinated, having managed to do so only once since dawn, and that cautiously down the side of the palm.

  And once again on the ground, he waited for the dead of night. Catnapping to feel refreshed.

  Well past midnight, Kerebawa stole out from his hideaway. Eyes and ears alert. Close by, at least, the marina was quiet.

  He readied for war. Restrung his palmwood bow. Lashed three war tips to arrow shafts. These he would have to make count. Given that he was about to turn amphibious, he couldn’t carry everything. Not only that, the water would wash away the coating of curare on the tips. While dried, curare could remain potent for twenty, even thirty, years. Take it swimming though, and that was that. So tonight, accuracy was more important than ever. Last, he slung his machete around his neck.

  Again he stripped, peeling down to his waistcord.

  And he was off.

  Kerebawa ducked to lower his silhouette, padded north a bit, keeping to darkness and shadows as best he could. A silent predator the likes of which Miami-teri had never seen. North, until he was nearly two hundred yards up from the Estrella. Didn’t want to enter too close to where it was moored. Even if they weren’t visible, Escobar would surely leave a guard or two on duty.

  He placed a coiled length of twine in his mouth, then stole across the open distance and slipped over the retaining wall and into the sea. The water was bracing, refreshing. Holding his bow and arrows in one hand, he sidestroked a lazy path from shore, leaving only his head above water as often as he could. He had entered between two yachts, slipped back south along the first one, then onto a second, and so on. Letting the currents help pull him along. Entering to the north was far easier than impossibly fighting the current had he entered to the south.

  Kerebawa took it slow, quiet. A murky shadow on the water as it rippled, dappled by splashing moonlight. In the approaching distance, the Estrella was a ghostly white galleon.

  When he reached it, Kerebawa braced himself against the starboard side, opposite the dock. Palm on hull, he treaded water and slipped around aft. Beneath the rear deck, past the opening for the inboard engines. On ar
ound to port. Here, on the yacht’s left side, was where it was moored, drifting gently alongside the dock. Intermittent lines tying it secure.

  He looked down its length, and from this water-level vantage point, the craft looked enormous. No gangway left in place to link it to the dock. As he had expected.

  He kicked south a few feet to the pier, heavy pillars thrusting up from the sea, crisscrossed with support beams. Here he lingered, braced against a beam. Had to be careful with his bare feet. Beneath the water, the beams felt alternately slick and slimy, then hard and crusty enough to cut. Barnacles.

  Kerebawa slung his bow down over his head, letting the string cross his chest from right shoulder to left hip. He spat the twine into his hand and uncoiled it. Looped it around his middle and used it to bind the arrows, now poisonless, to his back. There. He was as secure as he was apt to be.

  And then he looked up. No palm tree had ever looked this tricky.

  He inched himself up on one of the pier’s diagonal crossbeams. Moving slowly, letting the water slide gently from his body instead of splashing. His body was like a compressed spring with tension. He tried to keep most of his contact with the barnacles to his hands and feet, but even now, his calluses had been softened by the water. He felt tiny cuts in a few places, stinging salt water. Once he was above the barnacles, he removed the machete from around his neck and held it in both hands. Rocking the blade into the beam to give him a cross-strut to hold to and pull himself along. Progress was agonizingly slow, but silent.

  Finally. A few feet above the water, and now within reach of one of the mooring lines. For a craft this size, they were heavy, a nylon cable over an inch in diameter. He grasped it, gave an experimental tug, found it held fast. At both ends.