Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
It was a time of renewal, a Spring of potential in a trip that had turned into a snowballing catharsis. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, indeed today would be fantastic where yesterday was terrible!!! The world lay prostrate like a magic carpet, its colors and textures more wild than any imagined fantasy.
Behold, ladies and gentlemen, my chariot!!! Behold...
Ten thousand feet in the air and I could feel my soul s t r e t c h as it tried to come to terms with leaving Big Corn Island for the Nicaragua mainland and Managua. The farewell from Cassie and Al was a cold one, the moment resembling a stew of mixed emotion congealing more slowly than the hard skin of hospitality under which it lay.
The previous evening had solidified the couple's perspective of me, the violent American who couldn't let good enough alone. The diluted, deluded killer with a heart of fool's gold.
It hurt thinking about it, but not as much as the thought of me leaving a potential threat to return to them on a monthly basis. I will forever wonder what the outcome would have been, were I to kill that man who had threatened people I held in such high regard. Instead, they probably still have to deal with him.
So, miles into the air, I tried to refocus my attention on the present and future, rather than dwelling on the past. By the way, this is a great defense mechanism, so long as you can pull it off.
Problem being: It takes practice...
Anyway, I decided, as I often do, to strike up a conversation with a stranger. There are a lot of people that find this attitude obnoxious. Luckily, the very action of talking with those people immediately filters them.
It turns out that the kid sitting next to me, the 19-year-old Australian that was 130 lbs soaking wet, had flown to Nicaragua for a similar purpose as mine: to find whatever it was he was looking for and, failing that, to at least find out what it was he was looking for in the first place.
And best of all, he spoke English!!! Hooray!!!
He was a fantastic single-serving friend. The conversation was just what I needed. A little positive reinforcement coupled with raunchy tales of debauchery and drug-use.
We discussed how he'd chosen his particular path to be more carnal in nature, where "learning the native tongue" had a far more dubious connotation.
I mean alright... okay... sure, man... do... do whatcha do... man...
By the time we'd left the plane, both of us had made a friend that neither would ever see again. Pepper your life with enough events like this, maybe you can die happy.
I remember the last he said before we went our separate ways. We'd met back up at the baggage claim, where he saw how I'd packed for the entirety of my journey.
"That's what you brought for the whole trip?!"
"Yeah, brother. Told ya. I packed light."
"You're fucking crazy, mate."
No arguing that. A smile of acknowledgement and "You take care, brother."
"Yep. Catch ya on the flip side!"
And who knows. Maybe he will. It's a crazy world.
And nothing will remind you of that fact like the city of Managua. Back to the traffic, where laws are merely suggestion. Back to the bodegas and roadside shops that sell live chickens, sunglasses, and bootleg DVDs all on the same shelf. Back to the misspelled English advertisements, meticulously correct graffiti, and the shouting of citizens at one another through car and bus windows.
And what was worse (or better, depending): It was Easter week. That's right. Easter lasts a full week and in that time, the entirety of Nicaragua goes loopy.
Bus schedules are left to chance and hope, food is either plentiful or gone with no in-between, and no one has time for a tourist.
Who could blame them? I mean, those are tiny Jesuses with wiry mustaches. And they're all thrilled to be there.
I found this out the hard way, having to pay $20 for a five minute cab ride to my hotel, y'know, because I'm a rich American, only to show up at a hotel with one person working the desk and one security guard on post. I'd booked the hotel a couple of days previous, so checking in was easy enough.
I then requested that they call another cab so that I could get some food and cigarettes. They informed me that there were no more taxis available. I tried to explain that I arrived in a taxi and he stared at me like my dog does when I complain to him about my day. Devoid of care, waiting patiently for his opportunity to do nothing. I needed food. I needed a lighter for my cigarettes. Hell, I needed cigarettes.
"Necessito comer, por favor. Necessito fuego para mis cigarillos. Necessito cigarillos tambien."
The response was a slight head tilt and shrugged shoulders.
I was exhausted. The journey to Big Corn Island had been extraordinary on too many levels for me to fully comprehend at that moment. If I couldn't have food or cigarettes, at least I could get some sleep.
"Mi cama, por favor."
He brought me to my rented room, luxurious by casual standards, but standard by luxurious ones. A queen sized bed, air conditioning, and the sweet respite of American television. I understand that this may be viewed as trite, but hearing the English language spoken when you haven't really been able to speak it for a couple of weeks... it's a nice reminder of the familiar.
As I sat on the bed, removing my socks from sweaty feet, one of them stuck to an insect bite I'd received while eating on the beach by the cabanas where I had been staying. Pulling the sock off quickly, it almost ripped a cratered scab that had formed, indented by tight, healing skin smooth and new.
And with that, feet free, television on the American channel (I believe I was watching The View, or something else innocuous), sweaty shirt cooling my torso as the air conditioning poured over me, I laid my head on a pillow that beckoned me quickly to a gentle slumber.
As I reached that plain, that place where the land of reality touched the ocean of dreams, my bed shook, as though someone were softly coaxing me awake.
I'm sure that, in my somnambulence, I murmured something like "No, mom... School is closed today..." or "Not now, darlin'... The aliens have my passport..."
Then four demons, each grabbing a corner of my mattress, tossed me into the sky, my abrupt realization/waking moment taking place in mid-air.
This image, taken from Ghostbusters (tm), has very little to do with the moment described. The person responsible has been beaten to death with his own shoes. Now back to the post...
The walls of the room moved closer, then farther in rapid succession, the bed shifting under me as I bounced on the mattress, looking to the ceiling, expecting it to fall on me at any moment.
I remember getting angry and thinking "Not this way, goddamnit. I'm supposed to die with a weapon in my hand, fighting against the inevitable tide of human evil. Not a fucking earthquake!"
It wasn't a huge one.
6.2 on the Richter Scale.
But enough for me to think about my own demise again. Then some pure, poetic understanding happened. The incredible feeling of it, the Act of God, the force of nature required to move tectonic plates with such power, left me awed.
In an instant, I realized that dying from such a thing wouldn't be so bad.
Don't get me wrong, it would still lead to death, but you wouldn't be alone. You'd feel the undeniable presence of something greater than you, as I felt at that moment.
Later that evening, after the entourage of aftershocks had made their presence known and faded, once again, from the present, I laid my head back down on that soft pillow, reading an unabridged copy of Dune I had traded Al in exchange for American Gods.
At some point, the sentences I was reading shifted into the sudden realization of just how much of an adventure this trip had been. How many wild, good people I was able to meet. The perspectives in which I'd shared. The food and view, flora and fauna, geography and history. So much in only a couple of weeks...
I didn't know what would be next.
Had I, I might not have done it.
But then it wouldn't be worth writing about.