Piranha - Page 3

The next day we visit a village that is celebrating the rains. Men and women parade around a pole, stagger, sleep on the ground. Children squat to pee on the grass. Angel takes me over to an old woman sitting cross-legged in a corner. He scoops up some lumpy, white, yeasty liquid from a pot near her and offers it to me to drink. “Masata,” Angel says, “from manioc.” Women chew the roots for days and spit them into the clay pots, he explains. The saliva enzymes ferment the liquid. I grimace. It is the first time I hear Angel laugh.

We take a long boat ride and hike to see the Yagua Indians. The elders don the traditional grass skirts for visitors, sell amulets and bowls and belts. Children swarm around a tourist who hands out rubber bands. Tiny hands pull at the bag and yellow, red, green, and blue rubber bands spray all over the ground. The children scramble like pigeons in a park. I search my pack for something to offer. Cough drops and a Wash ‘n Dry are all I have. Someone gives them gum and they throw the wrappers on the ground. The ladies in the group cluck, and instruct the children to pick up the papers. Roldan talks with the Indians, jokes around with a blow gun. I look for Angel. He is leaning against a tree on the edge of the opening, watching.

“It’s a shame,” one woman says about him. “He’s an intelligent man.”

“So good looking too,” another says. Even the older, married women with their retired doctor and businessman husbands fantasize. One woman is paying Angel an extra $20 to take her to hunt for tarantulas. The other women ask to come, and Angel leads five of us into the jungle. He stops, tells us to cut our lights, be still.

“Listen,” he says. We stand in complete blackness. He scans his flashlight across the path, finds a hole in the ground and shoves a stick into it. A tarantula comes crawling out, furry and fat, like a pet.

“Touch it,” he says, but we are afraid of its bite.

For the remaining nights Angel and I meet. On the last night, sheets of rain pour down on the palm thatch roof over our heads like bullets. I feel warm air from his nose on my throat. Outside the rain stops, and the insects and owls and night creatures call with urgency.

At the airport, Angel hugs me. I leave him my money, my flashlight, my day pack, not much, but things he can use. I put my address and phone number in the pack. On the plane I stare out the window, the sharp peaks of the Andes like knives that could cut into the silver belly of our plane. I dream that I return home pregnant, don’t tell anyone, just let the life grow inside me, and then push and pull into this world a half-wild child. Tiny, brown, a swimmer, a small fish in a wide river, a dolphin child, a piranha like his father.

Maureen Stanton lives in Sanford, Maine. Her essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction and The Sun. She has published a series of humor columns in Comic Relief and Funny Times, and is currently working on a collection of essays and a novel.