Death at Iguacu

THEY WERE NEAR THE BORDER of Argentina and Paraguay right where the seven places of darkness come together at 25°41′43″S Latitude and 54°26′12″W Longitude. Every night James Faron tried hard not to remember the awful attack, but each time he closed his eyes it was as vivid as a dream. How the two big, black cats had killed his Brazilian guide, Enrique, along the shore of the Iguacu River. He watched as they ate his hands and feet and then sopped up his blood like it was bitter stew. All around the riverbank these wild colored birds squawked and screamed and whistled the whole time until the attack was nearly over; after which came a strange silence like when God is suddenly present after a hard rain.

Enrique had the blackest mop of hair James had ever seen. His body flailed up and down, his black hair elegantly flapping in the breeze as the two big cats stood over him with their mouths clutched to his neck. James had heard his cries all the way back at the tent. It had been like the cry of a thousand men dying all at once.

For twenty years James had been a scientist and environmentalist. He had wanted to do something important with his life; to leave something behind. Usually he lived in the sublime confines of Yale University. For years he had spent time in the jungles of South America. There he had studied the effects that deforestation had on the rain forest. The poor from Argentina and Paraguay methodically had been cutting the jungle down for years. But James had never heard the cry of a man like that before. And he knew it was his fault.

James ran from the tent to the riverbank but could do nothing. Enrique, still alive, but badly injured, had a gaping hole in his torso where his ribcage was exposed. Both his feet and hands were already gone. And then out of nowhere the two big cats turned and ran straight for James.

He froze as he turned to his left.

Behind him there was nothing but jungle. In front of him there was the enormous watery green arm of the Iguacu River. Only a short distance downstream the river lurched forward, falling into a lush, tropical canyon where these massive cataracts fell sideways in every direction from over three-hundred feet up.

James felt a large paw bat at his thigh. A second later he could feel the hot breath of one of the panthers on his bare legs.

Quickly, he dove into the river.

Within a moment its dark current began to thrash him downstream. Suddenly he felt relieved.

When his head bobbed up from the water he looked back. Right there some twenty feet behind him was the bobbing heads of both panthers that were in the water with him now.

The massive falls of Iguacu were only a kilometer away.

James tried to swim further downstream to get away from the two big cats. But they swam almost in sync right behind him. He swirled around and around like in a whirlpool. He didn’t know what to do next. If he stayed in the water the three-hundred foot drop of the falls would almost certainly kill him. If he swam back to shore he feared he would have the same fate as Enrique. He couldn’t understand it. Two big cats like that usually never left a kill. But there they were, their brilliant eyes staring at him like he was next.

He remembered his ex-girlfriend back at Brown University—her name was Cesca. He remembered her being such a beautiful girl; that rare girl who accepted him for who he was. But her sophomore year she tried to kill herself. Swim! he just kept thinking. Just keep swimming! Don’t give up!

Everything happened fast after that. The roar of the cataracts became louder.

The cats swam across the currents to get over to James now. The sky had this surreal arching rainbow strewn across it. It struck James how cruel this rainbow seemed. He could feel the cold water soaking through his clothing now. He could hear the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Suddenly, the two big cats splashed in the water about two feet away. He could see their big blue eyes. He felt their breath on him. He felt the touch of a paw again! A brush of whiskers! Teeth on him!

He heard the deafening roar of the waterfalls now. He could feel the watery darkness of the river swallowing him whole; it was cold, stoic, as dark as the inside of a coffin.

This thought of his mother and father back in Connecticut came to his mind. He thought of his friends back home; he thought of his life back at Yale. He thought about who would take care of his English terrier, Buster, and his black cat, Midnight. He thought of his twelve-year-old niece, Gale, and how he wanted to see her graduate. He thought of his ex-girlfriend, Cesca, who he knew was still alive somewhere out in California; maybe it was Santa Barbara. He thought of all the work he had done all those years at New Haven. How no one would know about all that work now. He thought of every thesis that he had wrote and his 401k; all the beautiful afternoons he could have taken off that now somehow felt left undone. And how none of it mattered anymore.

The white heads of the waterfall were only fifty feet in front of him now. The two big cats were right there too. He could see this haunting shade of blue in one of their eyes as he looked back at them; these blue demonic eyes that stare at him like they were the most unnatural thing in the world. And then everything went black.

*****

James awoke back in New Haven, Connecticut at exactly 5:59 a.m. He had set his alarm clock to go off at exactly 6:00 a.m.

He was soaked from the terror of reliving his nightmare. Over the year he had relived it over and over again. It had been six years now. He knew no one would believe the rest of it. You can never tell anyone, he always told himself.

He got up out of bed, had his usual cup of coffee, got dressed, and then went down to Yale to prepare for his 9:00 a.m. Environmental Studies class. He thought about telling his students that day; telling anyone who would listen. Maybe it would mute the black hole of all those nightmares. He didn’t know. There was no guidebook. No form to fill out to ask God to help. Once upon a time he would have just blurted it out to anyone. But he knew there were a lot of people out there now who all thought of themselves as these spectacular gurus, philosophers, trailblazers, and miracle workers, but at age 45 James knew now that most people, himself included, knew diddly-squat.

He watched the brick buildings pass by outside his car. He stopped to let some junior high school students cross the street. He knew he would never tell anyone about that last day in the jungle, how some of it, maybe more than he wanted to admit, was completely his fault. How he had emphatically told Enrique that big cats weren’t interested in humans. How they had no use for a gun while camping near Iguacu. He was a professor. He had studied ecology, anthropology, biology, climate change, and he had a masters from Brown in both political science and business. Who was a mere peasant like Enrique to tell him anything simply by his own observations? James was confident that everything he had studied back in the lab was true .

James sat in his rose colored Regal T-Type watching the youthful smiles of those young men and women. He thought about how his students at Yale weren’t that much older than these kids.

He drove forward, turning his radio up, listening to the Great Lake Swimmers singing Easy Come Easy Go, anything to drown out the screams still ringing in his head: the sounds of Enrique, his guide, being eaten alive. The two big cats being so beautiful, the rainbow sheen of their black torsos sparkling in the sun as their paws shifted one way and then another. He kept thinking about that in between the thoughts of Enrique screaming at the top of his lungs.

… Later he was in the river again going over the falls.

He sat in his car in the middle of the street as he remembered waking up on the sandy beach right below the giant falls of Iguaçu.

He woke up and the two big cats were both laying there with him, both unconscious—he could see their torso’s rise and fall with every breath. He was surprised when he noticed how dark it was out now.

He quickly got up, grabbed a long vine, hesitated as he looked back at the two cats laying there, pulled his knife out from its sheath, cut the vine, and then cut it in two.

He ran over to the first cat. He gently kicked it to see if it would move.

When it did nothing, he bound its front paws together; and then did the same to its back legs.

It slowly began to move, sinew by sinew, muscle by muscle, bone by bone.

James was breathing hard now. His throat hurt and his chest felt like it was going to split open like he had been in too much salt water. He kept telling himself it was no different than slaughtering a pig. He had to do this now for Enrique. He had to make him whole again.

He tied the legs of the other big cat and then tied all four limbs together.

He collapsed on the sand, half in water, half on beach, the giant waterfalls roaring all around him amid a vast, wet, green junglescape.

He looked up and saw the moon and a thousand stars and mist flowing overhead like clouds.

The cats began to stir; and this is when he did it.

He pulled out his old camping knife and he cut open their bellies, like two big rucksacks spilling open.

Both of their stomachs and intestines came seeping out like fleshy white and red waterfalls.

James watched as the eyes of the two big cats stared up at him. He had not counted on their eyes reminding him of God. They looked at him like they had these human traits: sadness, fear, hate, envy. And even though they had just killed his friend he felt pity for them.

Sitting there now in his car he saw someone on the sidewalk, a man about fifty, heavy, a gut hanging over his belt like a sack of marbles. A cacophony of car horns rose up from behind James.

He rubbed his eyes and he told himself that he had to go ahead and teach his class, but it was killing him inside. He was afraid to tell anymore. Even a therapist. He dreamed of telling someone now. He thought if he told someone he could justify it and he would be able to sleep again at night. No more sleeping pills. No more going to bed with Johnny Walker. No more counting backwards or praying or thinking about ending it all.

Tell someone, this voice whispered to him.

Sitting there in his car he felt like one of those two big cats was right on top of him now.

He remembered pulling out the limbs of Enrique, first the hand and foot from one stomach and then the same from the other. It took James 12 hours to walk back to the riverbank where the body lie. There James gathered the corpse on a blanket and placed the hands and feet he had recovered back where they were supposed to be. He then strung it all up in a tree. After that he went for help.

Back in New Haven James found himself at an intersection waiting for the stoplight to turn green. He had often wondered whether the brutal thing he had done had been the right thing to do. Maybe it was why he had done it that bothered him most.

Suddenly, the stoplight turned green and he slowly drove his car forward, the warm breeze of New England streaming in from the driver’s side window, the piping smell of Pepe’s pizza sparking his senses, his hand turning the car radio back on.

… He thought of Cesca’s smiling face and his student’s sprite and wild enthusiasm and his mother and father who were both still alive, living down along the south coast of Texas. And he pressed on; but he kept thinking about Enrique long after that, because he knew he had left nothing behind.