By Darren Kaminsky
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Darren Kaminsky's novel, Sugar Spun Sisters, appears in serialized form every Monday right here on Me Three. The story follows the lives of five twenty-somethings living in Washington D.C. As far as the editors are currently aware, none of these characters work in politics.
Chapter Forty-Three
September 15
They’d been going from mountain village to mountain village and sleeping where they could. Some of the villages had bars, none had hotels. Sometimes there was a contact person in the town, but most of the time no one. Some people wouldn’t even open their doors for the pale giants. They slept on dirt floors, on the floors of churches, in the dirt behind cantinas, on the flatbeds of old trucks.
They’d gone to one town where a former student of Nell’s grandfather or father was helping to excavate a mass grave. They’d been allowed to stay in a church in the town. After it got dark, they were sitting in the church drinking. They’d bought a bunch of beer and some tequila and, in the high altitude, they were drunk quickly. Nell went out of the church to use the outhouse and as she walked through the grass she could see, in the near distance, a troop of people walking through the trees single file singing a communist marching song. Rifles were slung across the turtle hump packs on their backs.
Nell had sunk down to the ground, knowing that she’d probably already been seen and that the lights in the church were also visible. They could have already shot her or burned the church down and still might or might just keep walking.
A week later they were done and split up and she’d gone to Lima and then hitched a car to Cuzco to see the ruins and stand in the Inca capital where she felt ashamed to speak to people in Spanish and stayed silent when people talked to her.
Back in Lima, she’d met some Australian kids who rented a car going to Bogota. There’d never been a plan for her to go to Bogota, but there was a ride so why not? The roads were terrible and pitted. One highway came to a dead-end right in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t even a turn-off, just a concrete barrier and they’d had to cross a grassy median to the other side and drive 50 miles to take a different route. On their printed map, the highway had gone all the way to Bogota.
In Bogota, she’d checked her e-mail and there was one from Roger, a tall Kiwi guys she’d registered voters with. He was in Caracas, but wanted to meet her in Guatemala City at the home of a friend of his. 48 hours from now. She was supposed to meet him in 48 hours. There was no way she’d get there in 48 hours.
She’d gone to the bus station, “a giant concrete monstrosity like a big wheel with cracked spokes.” There was no bus directly to Guatemala City. How long will it take me, she’d asked. The guy told her 6 days.She’d gone back to her hostel feeling defeated and ready to send Roger an e-mail telling him that she couldn’t meet. But, at the hostel, there was a group of missionaries getting ready to leave for San Jose. They’d planned on getting to San Jose in 3 days, but were caught up in the idea of getting her to San Jose in time to give her a chance to get to Guatemala City in 48 hours.
“It’s funny,” she said. “In your regular everyday life, you could, at any point, get on a bus or take a plane and just go somewhere random. You could just get lost. You could. No matter how much money you have, there’s always a way. You could go anywhere at anytime, you just don’t. You tell yourself that you need more money or to pay for this or that so you don’t. But, when your life is just getting on buses, just traveling, you can’t stop. You’re compelled to keep going.”
They’d driven all through the first night. The roads were terrible and almost every time she fell asleep, they’d hit a pot hole. When it was light enough to see, she’d looked out the window to see that they were driving on the edge of a mountain road and looking off she could see deep green trees and a wide brown river so misted over that it was like a river of clouds. Beyond the river, and in the distance, there was a black pillar of storm clouds. The storm clouds were over Medellin, one of the missionaries had told her, but they weren’t going anywhere near there.
The road leveled off and they made better time and 28 hours in, they crossed into Panama. The terrain was lush and the roads were better. As they drove a flock of blue and red parrots flew by, then a swarm of yellow hummingbirds. At the Canal, they’d lost an hour waiting for a tanker to go through, but almost made it up, between there and San Jose, since the roads were so good.
The missionaries were divided about whether to keep going. They really needed to stay in San Jose so on hour 35, she’d thumbed a ride with two business men going to San Salvador. They were in suits, but still seemed sketchy to her and kept looking at her funny. “I thought they might be cannibals or rapists,” she’d said. But her face was sunburned and covered in infected bug bites. Some of the ones on her neck were almost the size of quarters and were open and oozing. So more likely than them being cannibals, they were probably scared to death that she had the plague.
In San Salvador, she’d thumbed a large open truck. On the back were two more missionaries, and three migrant workers. Two of the workers, a couple, carried a wooden cage with 2 chickens inside. One was named Lunch, the other was named Dinner. They’d speak to Lunch and Dinner in baby voices as if they were pets or small children.
The missionaries didn’t say much to her. They were from Iowa and so happy to talk about America in English and didn’t mention a word about religion.
She’d gotten to Guatemala City on hour 50. The pollution was terrible and she coughed after every breath. She was covered in bruises (the truck had had no shocks) and nearly passed out when Roger had opened the door at his friend’s house. She’d slept on the sofa for almost 2 days straight.
What about border controls, I asked. She hadn’t mentioned being stopped once. “We were stopped, but we just gave them money,” she said. “There wasn’t one at the border of Columbia and Panama. It was too obscure a road.”
Roger had told her that it makes a great game, racing for certain cities, seeing if you could evade border controls. “Border jumping,” he called it and thought that Nell had invented a new sport. Nell thought that most people wouldn’t be able to handle the bruises.
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Darren Kaminsky is a writer living in Brooklyn. He can be contacted at sugarspun @ bigbagoftricks dot com.
© 2006 Me Three
