T. Boyle - T. C. Boyle Stories

What could I say? We stood. I answered her with the vilest string of expletives I could dredge up (nineteen words in all). She caught me off balance, I tumbled back into the bushes, sat studying the shift of her buttocks as she stalked off. A spider the size of a three-egg omelet darted down the neck of my shirt. I crushed him against my chest, but his bite was like an injection of fire.

Afternoon

“Been holding out on us, eh?”

“Look, I just had the one tin — you can search through my bags if you don’t believe me. Go ahead.”

“Damn straight I will. And I got a good mind to send you down the road with that freak-faced cat fancier too. You’re sure as hell no part of this society, buddy. You never say a damn word, you don’t toe your line, and now you’re sequestering food…. You sure there’s no more of it?”

“No, I swear it. I just picked up the one tin at Rio — the label caught my eye in the snack shop at the airport.”

The pilot’s eyes are razors, his jaw a saber. He thrusts, I parry. He paws through my things, sniffs at my sport shirts, pockets a bottle of after-shave. The big fist spasmodically clenches and slackens, bunching the collar of my shirt. The professor looks on, distant, serene. The mime is busy with his writing. Andrea stands in the background, arms crossed, a tight snake’s smile on her lips.

Evening

Trees have fallen on trees here in the rain forest. Mauritia , orbyguia, Euterpe , their branches meshed with wild growths of orchids, ferns and pipers. Stands of palm. The colossal ceibas, Para nuts and sucupiras with their blue flowers high in the sun. I am feeling it, the rain forest, here in the gloom below. Sniffing it, breathing it. In the branches, tail-swinging monkeys and birds of every stripe; in the mold at my feet, two tiny armadillos, tough and black as leather. They root round my shoes, stupid piglike ratlike things. I bend toward them, a drooping statue, slow as the waning sun. My hand hangs over them. They root, oblivious. I strike.

The big one squeals (faint as a baby smothering in the night), and the smaller scuttles off, more ratlike by the second. Suddenly I am stamping, the blood pounding in my thighs, my shoes like hammers. And then I am sitting in the wet, the spiderbite swelling like a nectarine under my skin, mosquitoes black on my neck, my face, my arms, the strange crushed thing at my feet. I want to tear it, eat it raw, alone and greedy.

But I will take it back, an offering for Andrea’s cold eyes and the pilot’s terrible jaw. I will placate them, stay with the ship and the chance of rescue — I will shrink, and wait my chance, sly and watchful as a coiled bushmaster.

Night

I am excited, brimming with expectation — and yet stricken with fear, uncertainty, morbid presentiment. I have seen something in the bush — two eyes, a shadow, the hint of a human form. It was not the cat man, not the English/allergic man, not Tanqueray. I have said nothing to the others.

Tonight there are just three of us in the familiar dormitory: the professor, the mime, myself. A single stumpy candle gutters. The door has already closed on the pilot and Andrea. Outside, the leaves rattle with the calls of a thousand strange creatures, cooing, chattering, hissing, clucking, stirring wings, stretching toes, creeping beneath and scrabbling over: a festering backdrop for those pathogenic eyes in the bush.

Morning

Andrea, in bad humor, portions out breakfast — leg of armadillo, (charred scale, black claw), imitation roquefort dressing, a half-ration of water and sour mix. Apiece. She holds back the tail for herself. The mime, in tights and pancake, entertains us with animal impressions: walrus, swan, earthworm. Then he does a man shaving and showering in a flurry of interruptions: the phone, the doorbell, the oven timer. The professor laughs, a weird silent Scandinavian laugh. The pilot and Andrea scowl. My face is neutral.

Suddenly the pilot stands, cutting the performance short. “I’ve got an announcement,” he says. “We might as well face it — this crate’ll never fly, no matter how heroic the effort on the part of the prof and me.” He hangs his head (think of Christ, nailed to the cross, neck muscles gone loose, his moment of doubt and pain) — but then suddenly he snaps to attention and glares at us, his eyes like the barrels of a shotgun. “And you want to know the reason?” (He is shouting.) “A cut-and-dried case of desertion, that’s the reason. Plumface goes and disrupts the community, lets us all down — and then, as if that wasn’t enough, he makes off with our tools out of sheer spite…. I’m not going to kid you: it looks pretty grim.” (Christ again.) “Still, if we stick together—” (here he pauses, the catchword on all our lips) “—we’ll lick this jungle yet.

“Now listen. Rummy and Sneezes have been gone for nearly twenty-four hours now. Anytime we could hear those choppers coming for us. So let’s get out and clear ‘em a landing strip, back to back, like a real community!” Andrea applauds. I seethe. The mime looks like a cross between the unknown soldier and Charles de Gaulle. The professor works his mouth, searching for a phrase.

Outside, just beyond the tail of the plane, is a patch of partially cleared ground, a consequence of the crash. In the center of this patch — undiscovered as yet by any of us — are two freshly cut stakes, set in the ground. On the tips of the stakes, like twin balls of flies or swarms of bees, poise the heads of Tanqueray and the English/allergic man, dripping.

Afternoon

A quickening series of events:

— The Discovery. The professor faint, Andrea tough as a kibbutz woman.

— The Discussion. The pilot, our leader, punches our shoulders in turn. Slaps our backs. He has decided to abandon the plane in the morning. We will walk back to civilization. In charade, the mime asks if we will not all be decapitated during the coming night, our blood quaffed, bones gnawed by autochthonous cannibals. The pilot steps into his cabin, returns a moment later with a pistol the size of a football. For hijackers, he explains.

— The Preparation. We pull down the life preservers (a rain of scorpions and spiders, birds’ nests, strange black hairs). They are the color of the rain slickers worn by traffic patrolmen. We will each wear one, insurance against bottomless swamps and angry copper rivers. In addition, we are each provided with a crude walking stick cum club, at one end of which we tie up our belongings, hobo fashion. The provisions are slim: we divide up nine individual packets of sugar, six of ketchup, three rippled pepper shakers. Each of us takes a plastic spoon, knife, and fork, sealed in polyethylene with a clean white napkin.

— The Plan. We will live off the land. Eat beetle, leech, toad. We will stick together. Walk back. A team.

Evening

The mime has fallen sick. What could it be but the dreaded jungle fever? He writhes in his seat, raves (in pantomime), sweats. His makeup is a mess. The professor tends him, patting his head and crooning softly in Norwegian. Andrea and the pilot keep their distance. As do I.

We do not eat. We will need what little we have for the road. Still, around dinnertime, the pilot and Andrea mew themselves up in his cabin: they have their secrets I suppose. I have my secrets as well. As the cabin door eases shut I slip out into the penumbra of the forest floor, ferret through the stalks and creepers, dig up my hoard (the seven shiny survivors) and silently turn the key on a tin of baby smoked oysters. I pack the rest among my underwear in the tight little bundle I will carry with me in the morning.

Later, we discuss the mime’s condition. He is in no shape to travel, and yet it is clear that we cannot remain where we are. In fact, all of us are in a bug-eyed rage to get away from those rotting heads and those terrible shadows and eyes, eyes and shadows. And so, we discuss. No one mentions community, nor refers to the group constitution. The pilot puts it to a vote: stay or leave. Mime or no mime. He and Andrea vote to leave at dawn, regardless of the mime’s condition. If he can accompany us, fine. If not, he will have to stay behind (until we can direct a rescue party to the plane of course). I do not want to stay behind. I do not want to carry the mime. I raise my hand. And the professor makes it unanimous, though I doubt if he has any conception of what the vote involves. Aside, he asks me if I can direct him to the library.