Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
We all doubt ourselves. Doubt we're attractive, strong, or kind. Maybe we don't know the depth of our depravity or the pinnacle of our actualization, temptation and hardship as sure as the tides, defining us, changing us, preventing us from fully defining ourselves. And as the tumult of what life has to threaten us inevitably comes into play, as the house we've built is blown away like leaves or loved ones, what's left is the foundation of our values and the fortitude of our conviction.
After all, how well would know ourselves if we weren't tested?
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present:
It couldn't have been more perfect. It may just be the bipolar aspects I bring to the table, but a thunderstorm is the closest thing I have to a spirit animal.
I know what you may be thinking: "A thunderstorm is not an animal."
My response is this: "Don't miss the point, ya smug prick."
There's something about the rumble of thunder, the wrestling of wind, the rain flogging your face, washing away inconsequential worries and replacing them with little bites of liquid pain and pressure.
After the night I'd had, this seemed to make a profound sense. It wasn't a hurricane, just a proper act of nature reminding all of us exactly how small we are and what it is we're up against.
And what's more, it was a poetic precursor to my own Test.
Everything was working out. Breakfast was somehow more delicious, as was the lunch that followed, spent with the mist spraying wantonly while I sat under the awning of the cabana, finishing American Gods and drinking Tona at my leisure. Life was good.
Then it immediately wasn't.
Remember the steak I'd ordered the day before? There was a touch of foul, devilish deviance that had staked claim to my innards, gurgling and bubbling like a volcano or a military coup. With speed belying the blanket of luxury from moments before, I went to the seashell encrusted restroom and will not elaborate from there.
I'd visited a doctor before I'd left. I had the medication. Also, I had a far, far more terrible case when I was in Kabul, guarding the embassy. Still, though it wasn't of much of an issue, it was kind of a "fuck you" from the God of Shitty Coincidence and Good Stories. He'd been tailing me for some time.
He was about to shake my hand.
I was leaving in two days, back to Managua and my next adventure. So that night I decided to go back out to the black rock jetty and offer a prayer of gratitude to whoever might be listening and bask in my last bit of time in paradise. After a couple of hours, I heard a commotion rise above the crashing waves, beckoning me from roughly 50 yards away.
I approached to a scene that immediately set me on fire. A man in his early twenties, tight curls of a small afro leading to a face that was mostly white teeth, and from there the body of a man that lived on the beach of a third world country, semi-muscular and semi-lean, wearing sandals and white cut-off jeans, lit barely, and therefore fiercely, by the lamps on the outside of the cabanas. He was standing there, arms folded, obviously angry, as Cassie's mother lit into him with the tenacity only a woman of her age could muster.
Then he turned, and with a finger less than an inch from her face, he began screaming obscenities in both broken English and Spanish, leaning over her as though she were his abused child, devoid of any aspect of decency, respect, or humanity. I took note of this as I approached, realizing that this isn't normal in any society. This was corruption that's bred through power. Power through friends or family, weapons or drugs, he either thought he had power or he knew it.
The mantra kicked in: This is not my country. This is not my country. This is not my fuck that. I'm doing something about this.
I didn't warn anyone. Didn't threaten. I had all the confidence in the world. I was going to handle this judiciously so as not to ignite whatever "power" he may have, but still remove him from the property. So I simply walked between them and asked what was happening, a slight smile under a brow furrowed with intent.
He began to explain that his three brothers had gone out fishing earlier that day and hadn't come back. My eyes widened, I'm sure, the violent train of thoughts derailed by a shock of surprise, coupled with genuine concern for this guy. If I'd lost my siblings to the sea, there's no telling how I would act. But Cassie's mother had other ideas.
"He's lying! He does this every couple of weeks! He comes by here and demands money!"
At this he reached for me, presumably to put his hands on my shoulder, a gesture reinforcing his sincerity through physical interaction. I wasn't going to be touched. That would start it. So I caught his hands and quickly let them go, not inciting violence but also staking my space.
That's all it took.
He began screaming, threatening to murder me, threatening to rape and kill Cassie's septuagenarian mother.
That was it. My mind went violent. When that occurs, everything becomes clear and my thoughts become more calculating and arrive much quicker. It's just what happens. So my thought process, in a couple of eye blinks, was like so:
This man had to either be taught a lesson or killed. Given escalation of force, death doesn't seem to quite fit the crime yet. Take an eye, rip off an ear, cut his Achilles tendon or break one of his legs. Or a combination. Skies the limit. Just leave him ali- shit. He could return with his family, friends, or weapons. And what's worse, I may be gone, leaving Alesandro to face his worst nightmare, his innocent impotence to action becoming his tragic demise. So I had to kill Adrian. But what are the laws in this country? Would that threaten Alesandro and Cassie, along with her parents? Conversely, what if I wasn't "caught?"
Immediately after I'd reached the point where murder was the only option, Cassie showed up, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me behind her.
"You're only going to upset him further. I know how to handle him. Go away."
I looked at her, confused and almost hurt that I couldn't apply my moral rigidity/flexibility toward bettering their lives on the whole. I was a Violent Man and a Good one. They didn't need to be told that. I could just show them.
But the look in her eye was both angry and concerned, not that I would leave, but that I would stay. So I left and got Al, who's a tall man, potentially intimidating, and should know when his wife is dealing with a psychotic islander potentially hopped up on cocaine.
Al snarled to himself "Adrian."
He darted out the door, only to return five minutes later, scared off, like I was, by the two angry women whose glares were as bad as any gun muzzle. So, frantic and angry, Al vented every cuss word he knew in English, and several in his mother tongue, each curse leading me toward a better idea of who this "Adrian" pile of shit was.
He was, in fact, part of one of the four big families that pretty much ran Big Corn Island. He'd "fathered" two children through rape, was consistently on drugs and booze, harassed everyone, and came to Al and Cassie's once, maybe twice a month, sometimes two days in a row, and he would threaten to rape and kill everyone until they gave him the equivalent of ten US dollars. Then he'd leave, only to do this again and again.
Let me make something clear and with all drama aside.
You kill these people.
You take them out of the world.
After about fifteen minutes, Al and I both went to check on the two Warrior Women. I stayed roughly twenty five feet away, smoking a cigarette in the shadow of the cabana, waiting patiently for potential to become kinetic.
He would gesture at me from time to time, but no violence happened. Instead, after about an hour of posturing and what I could only assume were dire threats, he left, promising to return and kill me.
I smiled, adrenaline and confidence pushing out of me like an aura made of pitch. And I made myself a promise, not a doubt in my mind and prison be damned.
Tomorrow, when he returned, I'd stab him in the heart and throw his body into the swamp fifty yards away.