Summer of '69 // Chapter 4

On the eighth cord pull the first dark cloud of dismay crossed her otherwise sunny sky. The genny had never let them down, but it had never taken Ari more than four pulls to get her running. Ari tried to laugh it off, placating her, but by somewhere around the twentieth unsuccessful pull even Ari showed distress. To alleviate the anxiety and to unload unnecessary added duress to her husband’s task, Rebecca had occupied herself with nearby menial tasks. Folded in a hopeful bundle on their picnic table: a hairbrush and a newly-opened bar of soap. Ari worked in quiet, disassembling the genny’s motor.

At last she said to no one in particular, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ari, hunched near the generator, shirtless and in cutoff jean shorts, said, “I’m going to clean the spark plugs, baby.”

She shook her head and smiled despite the disappointment. She watched her husband’s lean back, his tanned skin, the way he was hunched with the knobs of his spine showing and the curve of his ribs. He was drenched in sweat, and he looked really good. She didn’t know any other man in her life who could be kind and caring, ace an algebra test, and also live in the jungle and dismantle an old generator. All so his lovely wife could have a soak.

She rubbed her neck and lifted her face to the cloudless sky. On steel braces over the roof of their original cabin, a squat receptacle in rusting metal collected the rainwater that provided their running water, the gravity giving them decent water pressure out in the middle of nowhere. She could have a regular shower. It wasn’t like the water was freezing cold or anything. And sometimes she liked a lukewarm shower; it felt refreshing when your skin was baked by the sun. But what she’d looked forward to today was laying in the old tub they had—a disused cattle trough—and letting the hot water ease the kinks out of her muscles. A woman in her twenties shouldn’t ache like she did.

But there was something shameful about standing around and, though she said nothing to Ari to motivate more speed from him, she couldn’t help feeling like a noodge, like an old yenta from the neighborhood who’s never satisfied, working day after day like the endless tide against stone to erode her husband’s masculine essence.

She leaned on the cabin wall and watched Ari work, watched the sun-dark skin ripple on his lean muscle, the shimmering angles of his shoulder blades as his strong arms worked. She got an idea that would be a suitable replacement for the bath that wasn’t to be.

It was the kind of idea best expressed with appropriate flair, so she sauntered his way, getting close behind him until her shadow crossed his busy grease-smudged hands. With her palms on his shoulders, Ari paused work, knowing something was up. She got close to his ear, whispering from behind, “You know what would be really nice today?”

“A working genny?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, soft and slow. “But you can fix that old green monster anytime, big boy.”

“Big boy?”

She ran her hands in gentle swoops from his neck to his shoulders. “I bet we could get real clean under the waterfall,” she said, low and sultry, “wash away all our sins.”

* * *

They loaded the Mazda up with a cooler and some towels, and she made peanut butter sandwiches and wrapped them in wax paper to keep them clean and bug-free. A couple of Cokes and their plastic transistor radio were their luxuries.

Then, ten minutes down the rutted road, they saw a familiar figure trundling a bicycle over the soft red earth, every once in a while, craning his head to peer into the leafy roadside rainforest.

Rebecca drew her feet down from the black vinyl dash. “Is that Oro?”

Ari said, “Of course it is.” He sped up then slowed as they drew nearer, coming up alongside Oro, who turned now to see who was driving, putting a hand over his brow to shield the sun from his eyes.

Ari leaned forward, foot on the clutch, and shouted through Rebecca’s open window, “Hey, what’s happening, my man?”

Oro let his bike lean against his hip and then lowered to the open window. “Big cat just now, too bad you miss it, Rebecca.” He smiled wide, eyes on Rebecca, playing up her fear of deadly jungle cats.

She said, “Are you serious?”

Oro couldn’t tease her too long, giving in already and shaking his head, almost lamenting teasing her at all. “No, no. Bird. Turkey.” He reached into his back pocket and showed them his slingshot. “It was going to be dinner.”

Rebecca held a hand over her chest in a pose of relief, sagging into the passenger seat.

Oro said, “What are you guys doing?”

Ari said, “We’re taking the afternoon off. Heading to Millionaro for a swim. You up for a swim?”

Rebecca’s eyes widened, but she showed only a polite smile. She said nothing to encourage Oro.

“What, me come with you?”

Ari said, “If you’re not busy.”

Oro laughed, gave no answer, but wheeled his bike in a big circle and lifted it into the empty bed of the Mazda.

Rebecca whispered to Ari, “What the heck are you doing, man?”

Ari’s smile faded and he frowned, trying to figure out why she wouldn’t want Oro to come. “What’s wrong?”

Ari wore a pair of tattered jean cutoffs and worn-out espadrilles, and she wore a sundress and a pair of sandals. That was it. No underwear, no swimsuit. Ari still didn’t get it, looking at her with a measure of worry and puzzlement.

She whispered, “We don’t have swimsuits.”

“Oh,” Ari sighed, seeing it now, returning to his side of the cabin and looking out the windshield trying to think. He rubbed his grip on the steering wheel. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”

“Make swimsuits out of leaves or something?”

Ari gave her a lazy-eyed response to her sarcasm. “We’ll stay under the water.”

“I’m not going into the water with my dress on, Ari.”

“Look, we’ll— Hey, there he is, come on in, buddy. Rebecca, open the door for Oro.”

Rebecca’s smile returned, and she levered the door handle and Oro took the door from her. She scooted to the middle and Oro got in the tiny cabin, squashing her between two hot-skinned men, both of them shirtless and wearing cutoff jean shorts.

Oro hooked an arm out the window, showed them both a huge and honest smile. “Perfect day for a swim, huh?”

* * *

The whole rest of the drive to Millionaro, she jostled and rubbed against both men, the three of them jammed in the pickup’s single bench seat like sardines—her squished in the middle. She’d look at her bare knees beside Oro’s, their thighs rubbing with the Mazda’s movement over deep ruts. His knees big and bony, hers slender. Her skin tanned but looking light against his darker color. Oro had Nigerian ancestors, his lineage maybe mixing with Mestizo, or local Indians. At home with her pasty New York friends, she would have the darkest skin.

But being the middle sardine made her feel safe, and she liked that a lot. One time ten months ago that she still hated to think of, they ran into a band of Guatemalan soldiers. The soldiers had made them get out of the truck and stand at the side of the road. They went through their stuff inside the truck, and two others stood guard over her and Ari. Then the lead soldier went through a charade of questioning them. But she and Ari had pretended not to speak much Spanish at all, and because of that the surrounding men felt comfortable saying to each other dirty things about her body and what they would like to do to her and talking about what she would sound like during sex. Ari had remained stoic and seemed agreeable with the lead soldier, fumbling in his poor Spanish though he spoke it fluently. The soldiers departed without doing them harm but it had left them both rattled. Then she discovered her agreeable husband had his knife hidden in his hand the whole time after they’d been removed from the truck. Ari’s hand was shaking with fright when he showed her, but she knew he would try to kill those soldiers to protect her.

On the bright side, nothing bad happened to them, and she found out that afternoon that afraid-for-your-life sex was the best sex of all. They’d floored the truck back to the camp after the encounter and couldn’t even make it, stopping half way home to fuck on the very seat they were all sitting on right now.

With Ari and Oro on either side of her, she felt protected and cared for. Both men cared for her; Ari loved her deeply and Oro cherished her friendship and honored it every time they were together.

While the radio blared static and Spanish music and the truck rattled and rocked, she rolled her head to Oro and smiled. Oro returned the smile, big and honest and happy.

There was no reason for her to be uptight.

Now she smiled at Ari, but his eyes were on the road as they began to ascend the last climb that would take them near the shallow bowl beneath the falls at Millionaro.