The Gringo: A Memoir (16 page)

This is cruel and unusual
.

You’re losing control. Reel everything in your life back in
.

TAKE CONTROL.

Love
.

YOU ARE LOSING YOUR MIND
.

I am losing my mind
.

The soul has left the body. It might come back. “Rahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh zooooooooooommmmmmmmm!”

YES. IT’S ALL TRUE.

Someone from across the room: “Grigs, man what do you want to talk about that would cheer you up?”

“Tom Wolfe.”

“Who the hell is Tom Wolfe?” They all laugh like hyenas sucking on helium.

Philistines! Fuck!

Darkness. Vines. Washington, D.C. Amsterdam. Africa. Ocean liner. Oil. Dictators. Bananas. Mustaches. All the mouths you’ve ever kissed. All the drinks you’ve ever drunk. All the steaks you’ve ever sliced. All the sidewalks you’ve walked. All the swear words you’ve ever said. All the people you’ve hurt. All the times you’ve cried. When was the last time? Crying in the shower in high school. Crying in the middle of the night in college. Crying in a therapist’s office and not wanting to talk about it. Feeling it bottle up in the bottom of your throat. A girl touching her hand to my chest and feeling it go down down down. Golfing. Driving to the mountains. Crossing the border. Cormac McCarthy. Seagulls. Natural History Museums. IMAX films. Wind chimes making you feel lonely. Hot tubs in the snow. The view of earth shot from the moon. Launching into outer space.

A million more thoughts. It goes on and on, motherfucker. Yeeeeessssssssssssssssss . . .

Eric Clapton’s autobiography. Bob Dylan’s autobiography. My autobiography. Bill Clinton. Kofi Annan. Cape Coast. Magellan. Apollo. Zeus. Corsica. Portugal. Sailboats. White. Deep blue. Bright orange. Blood red. Pitch black. Mustard yellow. Hot. Cold. Drowning. Planting a root. Twenty years. Twenty three and a half years. And what have you done. People who don’t know what you’re going through. What you’ve been through. Where you’ve been. The places you’re going. People always disagreeing with you. Whale watching. Polar bears in the zoo. Lawrence of Arabia. East Asia. Long ropes. Medicines for pain. Medicines for the cold. Medicines for malaria. Medicines for pain in the balls. Doctors with pens in their pockets. Doctors sliding across the floor on wheeled chairs. Love at first sight. Yossarian. Britain. Twisted ankles. Playing baseball in the heat. Not getting strikes called. Teachers telling you that you’ll be successful. A teacher on the playground saying you were a bad kid. Having to tell a teacher why you missed the exam when you were too depressed to get out of bed. Missing your ride to school. Planes crashing into buildings. Fuel-efficient cars. Politicians. Liars. Newscasters. Cheaters. Brains colliding inside helmets. Dairy Queen. Strawberry-banana smoothies. The Alamo. Mount Rushmore. Newport. Florida. Crows. Thanksgivings with family. The giant willow tree in the backyard. The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Van Morrison. Mowing the lawn in the morning and the way the cut grass smelled. A fly buzzing over your head when you wake up. A guitar that feels great in your hands. Naked bodies. People embarrassed of themselves. People being self-conscious. Orchestral music. Plays. Stand-up comedy. Dressing up in a suit. The time your grandpa looked at your mom and called her his baby girl and you smiled to think that she was still somebody’s baby. The elephant painting. Wild tusks. Whooooooooooooooo
.

ARE YOU STILL SCARED
.

Not so much. It’s slowing down
.

YES IT IS. AND YOU’RE GOING TO MISS IT
.

This is just a time and I’ll get through it.

You don’t even know if you’re talking about this instant or something bigger.

Maybe it’s one and the same
.

IT’S SLOWING DOWN.

A little bit of bliss comes on.

It’s 10:45. The darkest part is over. I feel embarrassed and self-conscious. All these people think I’m some sort of freak.

Still a million thoughts. I kinda feel empty. I kinda feel sorry. I kinda feel glad and happy. I’m not even sure what happened.

I thank Katie for bringing me the milk. “This is true. You understand people. You understand things.”

The belts and axles that make a car go are slowing down in my head. The film reel of images is slowing down. Sighs of relief. The big machine in the sky is turning off.

Listen to some Kings of Leon. Some Gershwin. Some Tom Petty. Let it wash over you and cool you down. Eat a bagel. Drink some juice. Rub your toes together for a couple of hours straight. Lay on your side. Keep your eyes away from the TV screen. Block out all the hideous laughter. Exhale deeply. Ignore everything else. Take off your shirt so your chest can feel the coolness. Lights are off all around now. No one else understands the music but it’s okay. Close your eyes and know that love is somewhere around you. Somewhere in you. The thoughts are slowing down and you’re taking them where you want to take them. You’re getting through this. Good job. You fought like a lion. Ohhhhh. Remember the Roman Coliseum. Ahhhhh. Sweetness. Milk and honey. Parades. Spring season. Let it all out. Freud. All your kind professors. A bar where you can drink a gin and tonic and hear yourself think. Love is—yes, it’s all around; maybe not right here right now, but you’re never far from it.

Everything’s going to be okay. I am here now
.

“I feel it,” I whisper.

Yes, you feel it
.

Maybe you don’t understand what any of this means
.
Quiet. This is peaceful. You’re going to forget about everything that doesn’t matter.

Things aren’t so cold anymore. The night is still. Out across the valley, the sky is dark but the streetlights glow like small fires. There are no more battles in the silence. Hush and wane. The candles are blown out. The music is turned off. A layer of ego has been peeled away.

Feel the coolness.

Feel the way the storm moves through and out your body. Hear the way we say the things that aren’t there.

There’s a wild buffalo spirit inside you.

CHAPTER
30

I
got back to my site on November 2. Around then I started working with the Department of Environment at the municipality. This came after an aborted attempt to work with Raúl, the womanizing former mayor. When everyone at FODI was fired, Winkler suggested that I help Raúl with his new foundation, which had some sort of environmental theme to it. My work with Raúl lasted exactly two meetings. In the first, he invited me to an “important session” he “needed me for” on a Saturday. I sat and listened as he talked to a group of tilapia farmers for over three hours; my only contribution was when he told me to go downstairs and across the street to fetch everyone some water.

The other meeting took place at his house between the two of us. During the conversation, he winked at me as he admitted he was using the foundation to launder grant money he received through his brother who worked in the provincial government.

When I decided things weren’t going anywhere with Raúl, I went into the municipality and introduced myself to the new mayor and told him why I was there. He brought me to the environmental department’s head, a small round man with thick glasses named Benito, who then introduced me to the rest of the department.

Benito told me I could help them with a watershed project near Zumbi. They were planning to clean up one of the river systems that started up in the hills to the east and fed down to Zumbi and the Rio Zamora. The project included working with the communities along the river to plant trees and build fences to help reduce the pollution runoff. When I told Winkler about it over the phone, he practically squealed with joy.

After many days and weeks of being told to come back tomorrow, I finally went with two engineers from the Department of Environment to the community where they wanted to start the watershed project. We hitched a ride in a dump truck and wound up the tiny dirt roads for forty-five minutes. I didn’t do much talking at the meeting other than to introduce myself as a Peace Corps volunteer and say that I’d be assisting with this project. About fifty people from the community arrived and crammed into one room of the local schoolhouse.

The municipal workers explained the project and invited audience members to talk about goods and services their community lacked. People raised their hands to cite everything from a soccer field to a health clinic.

Then a man with one ear filibustered for the rest of the meeting. Standing at the back of the room, he talked without pausing or really even making a point. People started to leave. He went on for another half an hour and the meeting ended with a whimper. The municipal workers and I hitched a ride back to Zumbi.

MIDWAY THROUGH NOVEMBER, WINKLER CAME
down to visit my site. We met with Benito and he told Winkler all about the watershed project. Afterward, Winkler seemed happy. He told me he thought Peace Corps volunteers who worked in offices every day were the only ones who mattered.

A week later, I went back to the municipality and found out Benito was no longer working there. The watershed project had been canceled, someone told me. I turned around and walked home.

CHAPTER
31

I
n those days I walked the streets feeling like a shell of a human. The sweltering, dusty streets were chipping away at my soul, little by little. I woke up every morning glued to the mattress—unable to wake up at a reasonable hour and too lethargic to roll out of bed. Sometimes I embraced the loneliness, like somehow it was making me tougher or, in more masochistic moments, like it was making me stronger because the lonelier you are the more you know what dying feels like. But mostly it was just dull, hot loneliness. I was too tired to do anything and too depressed to even jerk off (a phenomenon I’d only experienced once or twice before in my life). My lungs were full of lead.

I thought I was losing my mind—literally. I’d be walking around or eating or—worse—just lying there
thinking
and my mind would start racing so fast that I wasn’t sure I could ever get it to slow down again. And this was happening more and more every day.

One night, too tired to cook, I walked a hundred yards down to one of the roadside restaurants and ordered another plate of tasteless carbohydrates. I looked at the table and it didn’t feel right. I looked at the people around me, and their shiny faces were smacking on food and talking but I couldn’t hear the sounds. I looked at my hands and they trembled. My heart now pumped so hard I was afraid it would tire out and stop, leaving me on the floor dying while other patrons assumed I was another drunk just taking his time crawling out the door. And this time my mind really raced until I thought I’d spend the rest of my sad life muttering incoherently to myself, unable to keep pace with the million racing thoughts.

I stood up to go to the sink in the corner and splash water over my face. I ended up getting my whole head wet. I returned to my table, where I sat down and realized I couldn’t breathe. I looked down at the food and up at the wall—I thought there was something significant about that spot on the wall: fading yellow paint to the left of the TV that blared home video–quality
telenovelas
while the other eaters chomped away at chicken bones with their bare hands and mouths wide open. The spot on the wall led to another million thoughts at once. Now my heart really wanted to lurch out of my chest and onto the plate in front of me.

I got up from my untouched chicken and rice and made it out to the street where I felt like I could finally take full breaths. I turned the corner and made it down to the dark abandoned streets away from the center of town. I looked side to side and up at the blank sky to make sure I was alone. No one was near me. Finally, I felt my heart winding down like a giant machine being shut off after revving at full throttle. The beats were slower but each hit hard like a big drum. My mind came back down from above and reentered my skull. I thought I’d be all right. I decided people were the problem.

Thus began a period of instability in which I was sure that being in the presence of more than one person at a time would cripple my ability to function on any level. I feared getting on buses because if I had another attack of anxiety, I’d have nowhere to go. If I did leave the relative comfort of my bedroom, I’d view any group of people as a gang of bloodthirsty killers. I was too tired to talk to anyone. I was too angry and upset to spend much time outside my room. My nuts and prostate were once again flaring up regularly into debilitating and gut-clenching lightning bolts of pain.

After a couple more weeks of this, I called the Peace Corps medical office. The person I actually spoke with was a temporary doctor from another Peace Corps country who was filling in while our doctors were in D.C. for a conference. I told her all about it. She told me the usual doctors would be in contact with me when they got back in town.

I never heard from anyone.

ON DECEMBER 1, AFTER FIVE
months with Graciela and Consuela and a total of nine months living with Ecuadorian host families, I was finally able to move into my own place. I’d found a bungalow apartment just off the square in the center of the town. On one of my last days at the house, I said hello, as usual, to Consuela’s handicapped sister, who’d never acknowledged me and usually stared at the ground whenever I passed. But this time, out of the blue, she looked up, stared me right in the eyes, and said with a lucid smile, “
Buenos días, ¿cómo estás?
” I stared back in disbelief because first, I was too shocked to even respond, and second, it was exactly like the scene out of
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
when the big Indian who everyone thought was mute all of a sudden says thank you to the Jack Nicholson character, who of course can’t believe his ears. The next time I saw Consuela’s sister, I said hello again and she went back to ignoring me and scavenging for rocks in the yard.

Consuela’s kids—especially her youngest, whom I got along with—were sad to see me go. Consuela told me, with a wink, to make sure I stopped by and visited as much as I could. I took four trips carrying my belongings three blocks to the other side of town and came back for the last time to drop off my old set of keys. Graciela waddled out into the yard and snarled, “Did you leave the sheets?”

“Yes, I washed and dried them—they’re on the mattress,” I said.

I thanked her for sharing her house with me these last months. I told her to take care and enjoy the holidays. She stood there silently and stuck out her hand for the keys.