Iquitos, Peru: Ten Proofs of the Existence of God (and why He lives in IQT)

Ten Proofs of the Existence of God and His Residence in Iquitos, Peru.

Folks often stop me on the street and ask me puzzling questions about stuff, and I, being a writer and general thinker who has an answer for almost everything, say stuff about stuff. This is why I am so often thought of as a genius. Thus, I am the man to provide to all skeptics the definite details that prove the certain existence of God and further to prove that He lives in Iquitos, Peru. I have such solid proof below that even the repulsive atheist Richard Dawkins, who used to be so cool when he was one of Hogan's heroes, will have to agree with us.

In ten points, here's the proof:

1. Definite proof of the existence of God is that God invented lamp posts. Iquitos has many lamp posts, and because of frequent power outages there is no other use for them than that I can use them to hang my enemies. I haven't hanged anyone recently, and this proves that I have no enemies. God prevents people who piss me off from living here. God must live here because the same people who piss me off would piss Him off, too.
   
   
2. Definite proof of the existence of God is that when I drank the last bottle of diet soda anywhere in the city a few months ago all that was left worth drinking was chocolate milk. I live between two nearby supermarkets. Life could not be this good without a loving God caring for us. God must live here because, even though it's often impossible to get a loaf of bread or a can of beans or many other common items at the store, there's usually chocolate milk. If not, then sometimes I have to drink rum. This proves the existence of Satan.
   
   
3. If Satan exists, God must too because one cannot exist without the other. It's just good science to know this. We know that God exists because when ayahausca users puke all over the bathroom floor, God usually moves them out of my building after a week or two. Since the pukers come from all over the world and then go home, God must live here to get away from them.
   
   
4. The women of Iquitos are goddesses. This proves the existence of God because the guys here are all butt-ugly and there isn't one I would date no matter how desperate I am. Which is to say, how desperate I would be if I weren't a hulk and a chick magnet. God must live here, because I'm not getting any action, and who else could be? It's gotta be God. 
   
   
5. The climate of Iquitos is year round hot and sticky and makes one sweat so badly that when people start throwing rocks at God because he missed maybe a day or two or so in taking his laundry to the wash-fold-dry for a dollar mat, stuff just goes right through Him. I'm not so lucky.
   

   

   Cover graphic, Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close

   
   

   
   

6. There are exactly and always one zillion mototaxis being chased by packs of howling feral dogs in Iquitos, and they all run back and forth under my bedroom window at night as soon as I lie down to sleep. When one actually wants a mototaxi to get to an important meeting, it is certain to break down on the way. This is not a problem because there will always be at least four more within fractions of an inch from wherever one steps out from the first. That one is not continuously killed proves the existence of God. This proves that God lives here because He hasn't been killed yet either.
   
   
7. God exists and lives in Iquitos because Brian, the scamming drug addict, continues to live here without being nailed to the closest two pieces of wood and sent down river. With the frequent lightning storms that knock out the electricity and Internet all the time, it is a true miracle that Brian has not been blasted by a bolt. Only God's neighbourly intervention can account for the continued life of Brian. 
   
   
8. Bureaucracy in Iquitos is so worthless that one cannot get a jaywalking ticket or otherwise be pissed off by the government over nothing, like being way overdue on the visa. Nor can one get anything else done with government. This is sort of like heaven. God must live here because he is spared the embarrassment of having to flash bogus id. at a nosy cop or to have to lie to an intrusive tax booger. 
   
   
9. We know the truth that God exists and lives in Iquitos, Peru because He and I and we can sit underneath an open window at a cafe on the malecon by the river and smoke an organic Amazon Rainforest mapacho cigar, and when some neurotic U.S. Coastal smoke nazi complains about it, we can say our shaman demands we smoke it for spiritual health reasons. It's got to be about the only place on earth God can sit with his mates and have a drink and smoke a cigar without being harassed to tears. Life is good. Why would God live anywhere else?

Uh, oh!

There's one more proof of God's existence and why he lives in Iquitos, but I can't recall it right off. If you know, please let me know and I'll try to include it in my upcoming book, Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close, a history of Iquitos and its people. Meanwhile, consider being endlessly entertained and highly informed by my latest amazingly good book, D.W. Walker, An Occasional Walker, available at amazon.com.

My book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Iquitos, Peru: Taters and Gators

Joeri has had some incredibly bad luck recently, starting with a pick-pocket gang stealing a staggeringly large amount of cash from Joeri's shoulder bag, followed by a middle-aged Spanish scammer helping himself to a thousand euros that Joeri believed the man was going to repay. And recently, at a rave party where Joeri was acting as D.J. at an all night bash after an evening of ayahuasca drinking, someone used Joeri's computer and picked up a virus that wiped out the hard drive. Joeri is currently kind of screwed because his parents are refusing to send him money to return home. You talk about yer bad luck totally undeserved.


I'm lucky. Joeri, as one sees immediately, is a lot of fun to hang out with. Sometimes hanging out with Joeri takes me to places I might not go to myself, such as a dining palace down the dirt road from the low end of town by the docks, to a place that is more than a simple hole in the wall with a rusty tin roof over it. No, this place has chairs, two blue plastic stools, actually, and four broken wooden chairs, one of which with the legs cropped severely is placed outside on the narrow sidewalk and is reserved for the fat shirtless forty year old cafe owners' son who is kind of retarded and sits drooling on his chest outside and we shouldn't talk to him because he's 'unpredictable.' Back inside, the dining room table has a plastic tablecloth cover dotted atop with assorted plastic margarine tubs filled with pickled onions in water and bug-speckled hot sauce for our dining pleasure. Somehow, in a city of half a million people, Joeri found this place to dine at, and it only costs three soles for a dinner of chicken foot soup, entree of rice clumps, roasted cassava chunks, spaghetti clunks, and potato chunkettes, all this with chewy grilled bush meat balls, washed down with a carafe of semicoloured jungle juice. I will say this: "Yum. Yum."

I say this because today with Joeri it's no mystery what we will eat. It's a special order: We're having taters and gators.

Joeri is dressed to kill as we head out for alligator dinner.

Joeri and I head out on foot for dinner across town, a long stretch down some rough roads, some roads not roads at all but simply extended six foot deep trenches in the dust with piles of black-beetle swarming wood rubble and smashed up concrete blocks marking a wide path down street sides where adobe brick houses abut the narrow, broken sidewalks cluttered with curled up sleeping dogs that twitch and whimper in their dreams. Joeri happily scampers over and around all this mayhem of squalor and I follow behind, Indian file, as we make our way to dinner at a place so secret that only six people have ever been known to enter. How the hell does one find a place like this? I guess one has to ask around.

Joeri stops to talk to a local about restaurants

I give Joeri credit: The man is not shy. He talks to people who would know about a restaurant like the one we are off to for gators.

And being fastidious about both dining and attire, he double checks. 

Joeri is dressed for dinner this day in a fine India cotton wrap-around and a heavily embroidered twisted cotton thread multicoloured open neck vest that shows off his collection of necklaces from Asia. Joeri stops a second time on the sidewalk to chat up a drunk laying passed out in a door way. Joeri is grinning as he lays down beside the poor fool  and I take a picture. Joeri is almost always grinning, and it's because he is almost always pretty happy. Today he is especially happy because we're going to the restaurant for a special feast.

Joeri is pretty happy even when he tells me about the Satanic Oil Companies that are causing chem. trails. He would be angry about the injustice of it all, but he kind of forgets that part as I point out a poster hanging on a wall inside a house with a window ajar just a crack that allows me to spot some nifty looking leftard art work. We walk back a few paces and twist our necks to peer into the crack to get a better look; and when I take a flash photo the home owner springs into action and opens the door and demands to know what's going on, which gives Joeri a chance to spring too, right into the man's home where the three of us stand around and start talking about social justice and I look at pictures and nod and smile while Joeri gets the man's phone number and email address to further carry on the revolution. The jittery home owner eventually ushers us from his very stylish home with modernist posters done quite tastefully, his carved wooded chairs arranged pleasantly around a superiour sound system on polished earth tone floor tiles, crystal glasses gleaming in a sparkling liquor cabinet just this side of the pastel coloured room divider that opens through a clever archway to a designer kitchen beyond.

Jungle, Not Oil, for the People

It's not like we got the bum's rush or something, it's that we have a date with a gator. That's why we found ourselves abruptly on the walk in the dust with dogs.

The Rocket Propelled Spear of the Amazonian Struggle against The Hated Oil Companies

The guy with the nicely framed posters in parchment tone paper of a graphic "Stencilled Dignified Amazon Warrior in Profile Holding a Rocket Propelled Spear of Aboriginal Resistance Against Yanqui Imperialism and Oil Company Greed" over a huge red and dripping blood-like blob was very likely envious of our up-and-coming contact with authenticity at the restaurant to eat us some gator. But fuck him, he's not invited. I say, 'Let him eat steak!' 

Our Destination and Our Destiny

As Joeri and I make our way down the last wooden plank that leads from the edge of the concrete sidewalk to the dust hole that is the street and then up a pile of broken bricks to the restaurant I am atremble, my quivering knees shaking from pain, the excitement too much for my weak condition in this state of dry mouthed gourmet anticipation. I pause for breath, taking in a deep gulp of baking asphalt burning at the next corner on an iron brazier as sweating men huddle around waiting to place their pieces in pots over the blazing open fire to melt.

I pause a moment to take in this blessed life of barefoot children playing with an empty two litre soda bottle they kick back and forth amidst the dust sheltering bent nails and broken glass, and I am near brought to tears of joy as I see two little kids using a broken piece of plank set over a shattered concrete block from which they make a teeter-totter till an older kid comes racing at them, and as they flee this rolling juggernaut he uses the board as a ramp to fly high into the sky on a tyreless bike soaring.

OK, so he fell over sideways and hurt his head a lot when he connected with some hard stuff laying buried in the dust. He got up and went bleeding to the shady side of the street to vomit, proving he still had some sense about him. Life goes on. Except for our gator, lying dead on the grill.

Too Exclusive for Diners' Club Cards

Gawd, I am such a guy for a meal sometimes! When I saw again the sign over the door of our restaurant, big block numbers, "941," painted on a piece of wood nailed to the open door vent, well, my heart leapt up like a lonely Romantic poet wandering. Dinner time.

It's an art.

It's not just the food that makes a dining establishment unique: it's the attention to detail in the surroundings, the ambiance, the care one takes to decorate a space with, let's say for example, the application of paint to a damp wall, a fresco, if you will, depicting a jungle scene of a foreground tropical tree from which leaps down vertical a kind of two dimensional rectangular jaguar skin into a village of malocca huts wherein on the banks of Rio Tranquillity sits a medium house-sized mermaid with hips so wide that jaguar is gonna feast for a week. It makes me hungry just looking at it all. Next to painting, a photo of ma and pa hang in a metal frame, a smiling couple from a happy time when Junior was a still baby retard and not the frightening, hulking thug he is today. There's something of an art collection on that restaurant wall by the burnt-out grill by the table with an upturned stool laying on it like a dead cat stiffening in the sun by a dirt road in the weeds. There's a motor scooter parked in front of a rusty propane tank, and a splotchy haired rabbit eating black bananas in a cage jammed against the crumbling adobe wall. There is a message, too, a felt marker message scribbled on the wall by the picture of smiling mom and dad, a message of greeting and sweetness, I am sure, and definitely not an angry screed by a psycho with a knife. In sum, it is a veritable mise en scene of post modernist angst. It's a kind of Marcel Duchamp picture of "Peru Poverty." Interiour design by Chez Che.

The rest of the shit piled up against the dining room wall is just garbage. Only a philistine would think that is an integral part of the artwork. It's there to sort out the enlightened intelligentsia from the bitter clinging trailer trash who know no art. We laugh at them. At least, I do, I who can smell sizzling gator on grill, the pungent aroma of fishy lizard frying in his fat. Today we dine, and dine in fine.

Interiour Design by Chez Che

I once used the facilities at the back of the place, so we need not revisit the scene that is the kitchen. Suffice it to say that is from where mamacita emerged with our plates of gators and taters, that meal we waited for so long in cramped anticipation.

Diner is Served!

Being a pig who can eat a horse, I wolfed down my gator and guzzled my jungle juice and hit the door for a choking black mapacho on the stoop and a leer at the forty year old barefoot honey in the faded cotton print dress who lives next door. I figured there wasn't much else to do since Joeri passed out almost instantly on the bench after eating and didn't move for over an hour even though the local television station was showing a talent contest of comedians and singers from near-by Amazon villages.

Dag checks out the babe living next door.

Now, look, we're all adults here, and all of us know that if you fill a man's belly with gators and taters the next thing you know is you've got a man with a mind filled with thoughts of love. Being that I'm a gentleman and I do respect ladies to a high degree, I considered cutting out a sizable chunk of plastic table cloth of a floral design so I could roll it up conical and present it like a flower bouquet to the babe who lives in a cubicle with a dirt floor in the paper thin wood walled warren next door. I could have easily had a piece of the table cloth. Mamacita and papacita had long ago left the premises for church, and I had the place more or less to myself, Joeri being passed out and Jr. being rapt in a trance by the television gods; but I figured any babe whose previous boyfriend has presented her with such a uniquely re-configured nose was probably satisfied with things as they are, and I showed up without any further flower ado. Ah do, a do dah. It's the gator in me.

Jeori woke up when I went back an hour later. He'd been having a dream. I figure he's lucky. I figure we're lucky. It's a special order. We eat them 'fore they eats us.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Angel goes to Hell

I was walking down Nauta street just down from the Plaza de Armas in Iquitos, Peru a few days ago during a lovely mid-morning of bright sunlight and a bit of a breeze, stepping over the wild mangy dogs laying curled up asleep in the middle of the road after their nights of mad howling and furious chasing of round and round pop-popping mototaxis, the non-stop barking hounds bringing me out of my place bullwhip in hand to whack at the foul air and send the yelping strays scurrying for cover under plastic chairs occupied by nervous street vendors huddled at plastic tables set out on the street as they wait for customers to buy food cooked on propane heated grills settled helter-skelter in the paper and plastic litter amid the wide grease-stained lane, when, as is usual, the lane was choked with daytime vendors spreading out like the seasonal overflow of the Amazon bursting its banks, street vendors flowing around the established cafes and sundry businesses that anchor the handidcraft braiders and minor flotsam of micro-commerce of the street scene, gaudy Shipibo native ladies in their sellers' layered gaudy 'native' costumes, and mingled in with the locals and the usual suspects, the usual assortment of Argentine drop-out hippies and the sort of embarrassed and too-eager-to-please well-to-do ayahuasca tourist crowd looking for cowbone-jewelry-with-beads necklaces amid the embroidered blankets the ladies occupy themselves with pricking and pulling daily for a living. Nauta St. is a bit festive in the day, a crush of people to wend ones way through, to nod at and smile and say hello to on the way to have coffee and a pleasant sit in the shade in sight of the river and the far jungle beyond. I usually walk in the middle of it all because the malocca stands by the old church on the left are an open invitation to sit and waste much time cooing at babies being breast-fed by young mothers looking for husbands and, failing that, pressing one to buy a blanket or a necklace, of which I have no real need for any. And to the right, the sidewalk is too high to climb with any sort of grace, the street having sunk over the hundred years since it was first made, now the sidewalk being so high it's near impossible for the old likes of me as one needs also climb over the schoolchildren and card players crowded tight along its narrow passage. Thus, inside this phalanx of business and idleness and heat and sweat, I make my way to the Malecon, to climb finally through the crowd of pop-corn and candy vendors sitting on the lowest ledge framing the street toward the river to relative easy walking and a few short steps to the freedom of Bill's cafe to have a coffee and find out the day's local news from expats discussing each other and tourists in for a day or two before jetting off to Miami or Cuzco or to venture into the wilds of a luxury ayahuasca lodge “with plumbing fixtures so nice they are better than what I have in my own home, and I'm a millionaire,” as the truth-seeking package tour group smile in supreme satisfaction and lean forward earnestly and say, “But what about the VISIONS?”

So, there I was, making my way through all the folks and dogs and litter when I heard Angel shouting at me in his whiny little snotty voice of repellent self-pity that makes me want to punch him. I mean hard. And there he was, waving in the crowd a few feet away, looking up through his thick dark eyebrows, catching my eye and turning away so as not to look at me further, shifting his eyes to look at anything other than anyone he ever speaks with. There he was, and coming at me, almost excited in a weasel way that is so right for him, his shoulders slumped and his eyes ever glancing to see see if one is going to hit him unawares. “Look at this, sir, what I have here,” he said, holding up a badly crumpled oversized FEDEX envelope its original owner was clearly upset at receiving. I could see that Angel was happy, in spite of his permanent scowl and puppy dog look to match it. There was something about the lips, not a smile, exactly, but a sleazy imitation thereof that is the best Angel can manage that gave his game away. I stopped only because I had a feeling that for once I could listen to him, if only briefly, without hearing how badly the world treats him and how unfair everyone is with him and his poor honest self only trying to make an honest living.

For the first time since I have know Angel I saw what in others would be the open mouth of a puking ayahuasca user vomiting, but that on Angel was a genuine smile. Yes, he was happy in a real way, and I rose to the occasion and was friendly. He held up the envelope and showed me the whole thing as if it had been hand delivered to him by God. He looked away and smoothed out some of the wrinkles, and then he carefully extracted the white sheet therein, holding it in one hand life like the Statue of Liberty cradling her book as she looks out over the land of the free beyond New York Harbour. Angle was clearly pleased and happy. “Read this,” he said politely, though in a tinny voice that begged for a sharp slap across his sour looking face. And I read it. I was astounded.

Iquitos, Loreto.

15/4/13

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Having resided in Iquitos for a period of almost a year it has been a pleasure to have had the opportunity to work with and come to know [….] Angel [….] during that time.

As the holder of a doctorate in the field of tropical ecology I have been impressed with Angel's knowledge of the local environment, willingness and desire to learn further and excellent English skills.

I would recommend Angel (as I have come to call him) to any prospective employer in the eco tourism field and add that I have found him to be reliable, trustworthy and capable of performing well without supervision.

Yours Faithfully,

Dr. Adrian Walker

Now, I didn't conclude from the letter Angel held so lovingly that I had been mistaken about his character. Nor did I think Adrian had lost his mind. I thought rather that between them they had decided to do something as positive as possible to help Angel get something like an honest day's work, however long that would last before he was fired if not arrested. And because the letter was probably the only nice thing anyone has ever said to Angel in his miserable life, I was happy for him. He was maybe staring at my shoes as I congratulated him on his good fortune to have found such a person to write such a great letter, and I was genuinely pleased that he too was so happy with it. He was, in fact, very proud of that letter, and rightly so. I went away smiling, thinking how good it is to be alive in such a fallen world where small things make so much difference. Angel is a shit, in my humble but highly informed opinion, but every man has a right to something good if he earns it, and obviously Angel had done something good. I felt good. It was a fine letter, and one I would like to have myself were I worthy.

Later that evening I made my way to the malecon cafe for the 7:00 nightshift to join the crowd of redneck beer drinking ruffians I am proud to call my friends, and I ordered the usual Shirley Temple and made myself some space at the patio table amidst Bill and John and Dave and Mike and Chuck and, there he was, the white-haired, lobster-faced Adrian, looking like a reasonably fit Amazon Santa Claus, beaming bright. “Nice letter for Angel,” I said, seating myself and finding space for my feet under the table already crowded, all of us turning in unison, leering and drooling as Vanessa, the hottest girl in Iquitos, came up to take my order. But I was taken by Adrian's smile, he being right pleased and glowing. No wonder, given his stellar good deed in writing such a letter for Angel. Adrian pulled out a sheet of white paper from his case and passed it over to me and said, “Sign this.”

I read the page he passed, and I signed on happily. I haven't felt so good in years.

TO WHOM IT SHOULD GREATLY CONCERN

Having known [….] Angel [….] for 12 months or more, we, the undersigned can state that we have found him to possess the drive and motivation of an Amazonian river turtle, the conscience and trustworthiness of an Anaconda, and the reliability and enthusiasm of a senile sloth.

It is thus our considered opinion that Angel would represent a major liability to any company foolish enough to employ him. However, deportation to an Eastern European bloc country with a strong welfare system would be desirable as his chronic incompetence syndrome may be recognised and suitably rewarded with both money and moonshine.

Yours Faithfully,

Adrian Walker et al. 

This distracted us for a while from our usual racist joke telling, our leering at young women passing by, and our sneering contempt for obvious homosexuals. We laughed ourselves silly because we knew that Angel would react like a snivelling little puke when he saw it. Just the thought of him reading the last letter had me laughing so hard I snorted my sarsaparilla all over pooling beer foam on the round wood slat table top. So, we had our laugh and went back to the serious business of drinking and ogling Vanessa as she lounged at the balustrade bisecting the walkway between the patio and the malecon. I remembered some jokes from grade six and made myself momentarily popular till Bill outdid me altogether with a joke about-- well, I can't say what. Not allowed beyond the confines of our table, even in Peru. Another successful evening, regardless.

Next day I saw Angel lurking in front of my place, and since I was going out I stopped and asked him how he was doing. He was nearly sick, I could see just by looking at the top of his head as he again probably stared at my shoes. He then whined that the guys had made fun of him. “Why did they all do that?” he cried. “I didn't do anything to them. Why do they always pick on me?” I told him to man up, and I went to the malecon for coffee. Adrian was there, and I heard the story, so sad, of Angel's reaction to reading the second letter. We all knew how Angel would react, but the degree, as I heard later, was so good that I can only hope for a long life that I will someday see such a thing in person.

Angel sat in at the table with the guys and was beaming, having at last found the recognition and respect he so dearly desires from hard men mostly 50 years older than he. Adrian presented Angel with the second letter, which Angel read slowly, over and over and over for 15 minutes, dead silent, stunned, incapable of moving his head from the letter. Finally, acording to Adrian, Angel slowly stood up, looking at no one at all, and said, “Thank you, sir, for the letter.' He walked away, devastated.

I have no sympathy for Angel at all. He has enough for himself to last at least a lifetime. And now he misses out on reading the letters of recommendation we are all demanding from Adrian for ourselves. I want one really nasty, but I fear that Adrian isn't capable of it. None of the guys are. Only Angel could write a truly nasty letter, but he would never dare. If he did, it would fall far short of humour. So, we can end here on a happy note, that Angel is using his charms on those who find him charming, six year old “girl friends” who like him just fine, so he says to me out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes darting around, his face twisted into a frown, and his body slouched and slight amidst all this vibrancy in the sunlight by the Amazon.

Most of us think this place is Paradise Found. Angel? Just about the rest of us are all daemons, 'cause we think it's pretty funny: Every day Angel goes to Hell.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Iquitos, Peru: The dirt on garbage

My latest piece is now showing at Bill Grimes' Captain's Blog at Dawn on the Amazon. It's all about garbage.

http://dawnontheamazon.com/blog/2013/04/17/iquitos-peru-a-really-dirty-story/

Feel free to leave a comment at Bill's place.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Wild, noisy sex in a cheap hotel late at night: Francisco Rides Again

 

Francisco Rides Again, Part One.

In a better world I should be able to expect a vast outpouring of sympathy when I publicly report that I have a cracked rib. I'm not holding my breath. In fact, I try, but not because I'm waiting for public concern to ease my pain. It's hard to breathe and hard to believe that I hurt like this. I'm not supposed to have this kind of injury. It's almost comically unfair, and I would indeed laugh at anyone else like me in my condition. But being me, I hope for sympathy.

Pepe and I had been hanging out for a week or so in Lima at the cheapest dive in the centre of the city this side of Rimac River, beyond that the ghetto area often spoken of as too dangerous to venture into. I've been there often and I like the area, so Pepe and I went walking to search for an apartment and make it official. We found a place both beautiful and astonishingly cheap, even by Peruvian standards. I looked forward to some good living as a middle aged guy in a state of comfort in my twilight years. But Pepe couldn't manage the rent there and decided to move on to some paradisaical village north where he could work and sleep on the beach, living as a Party Organiser, drinking and dancing the rest of his life away in bliss at this tourist hot-spot of drugs, booze, too much sea food, and loose women dancing all night. So we parted and I remained at the cheap hotel in downtown Lima, residing now with two ladies we had the acquaintance of there, one of whom was taken with Pepe's seriously good-looking self. He had spent his time with her flirting while I gave deep thought to philosophical concerns about the profundities of nature and life itself as the work of the gods. After all, I'm an old guy. What else could I do? Pepe, not as old as I, thought about a job so he could have some money of his own, and thus we both ignored the lady in question. Then Pepe left for his beach under the sun.

With Pepe's departure, the lady in question, a lady with a severely broken nose, confided in me one evening that though Pepe is good-looking he is an eternal boy and not the kind of real man she wants. She suggested we go for a walk and talk about him and then go for a drink and forget about him.

It was late when she invited me out, far past my bedtime, but I said yes to a walk to the Plaza de Armas in central Lima where the lights of the city and the crowds of strolling young people and cuddled babies always cheers me up or cheers me upper if I'm feeling really good already. So Neza and I took a walk and talked, and she suggested we go for coffee at the upscale square close by the Plaza, Bolivar Square, where the hotel I like and dream of staying at looks down on the world in quiet splendor. I want to stay at that hotel but I can't really do so without cutting into my savings so deeply that I would have thereafter to live on the beach with Pepe and hope for fish to wash ashore to feed me on. But the lad and I did sit in at a fancy disco sidewalk cafe, me having coffee way past 9:00 p.m and she ordering a litre of beer though I am close to a foot taller than she. Then, talk, talk, talk. It was a joy to sit and listen to her talk, though she speaks no English and my comprehension of Spanish is sometimes poor, hampered further by the blare of disco music and the noise of young people seated all around us laughing and shouting, tentatively touching, whispering loudly into each others' ears, laughing over nothing at all. We sat close because the place was crowded, and I recalled those long-ago years when I too could date girls just like the young men around us were dating. Neza and I laughed about something, perhaps about the youngsters in love. I whispered, I can't recall what, and she brushed some dust off my pant leg so I wouldn't look like a bum in front of all the well-dressed kids around us. There were moments of silence between us, but unlike those young people we sat amongst our silences weren't awkward for us, especially not for me, my mind turning to Leibniz's writings on monads and his wonderful speculations about the nature of the universe. I can't begin to approach calculus, but much of Leibniz's other work is a joy, and I enjoyed my silent moments with Neza because of it. I found myself so pleased with the evening that I ordered yet another drink for Neza. I usually don't drink coffee after 6:00 p.m. because it keeps me awake all night and I have to go to the bathroom continually; but I decided to be a crazy kind of guy and a daring one just this once. I ordered a second cup of coffee. I can't believe that I do these things. And at my advanced age! I'm so wild sometimes.

It was seriously late when the lady and I made our way through the crowded disco cafe and away from the throbbing music and overheated young people swaying in the night, Neza having to hold onto me to ensure I didn't topple over and break my hip. We stayed that way till we crossed the square and made it safely to the far side, she perhaps needing my assistance in the crossing as badly as I needed hers. Though I can be a gentleman at times I am never a good navigator, and thus we were soon lost in Lima, me making us a wrong turn on the way back to our shared hotel. I apologized for our reckless perdition and explained that I don't know the city in the night. Thus, lost and possibly at risk to the dangers of the darkness, we walked on becoming further lost and me confused till Neza took us around a corner to a dark street and a doorway crowded with young men milling aimlessly under a dim light at the entrance of a night club I couldn't make out the nature of at the time, though I was slightly suspicious when I saw that many of the men were wearing make up and were French kissing as we passed them by and entered the ballroom where I stood waiting for Neza to return from the ladies' room. I waited a long time, there being no urgency for me since I had just used the men's room at the last disco cafe. As I waited I found myself some person of interest to those denizens of the gay ballroom, young men eyeing me and giggling, whispering to each other, leaning close and holding each other to keep them steady. Then Neza came and took my arm and we left the boys behind leering and laughing.

Still lost we asked for directions to our admittedly cheap hotel, asking two seriously long-term ladies of the night for directions home, one lady in particular looking me over without the slightest interest but with some clinical intensity. With directions to our hotel we carried on and made it to the hotel without further encounters. Relived, I asked Neza to my room for a drink, this being the first time I can recall and perhaps the only time in my life that I had a bottle of alcohol in advance of nothing much at all. I'd bought a bottle of rum only because it was so cheap at $4.00 a litre. That and that the bottle came from Cuba, a sinful purchase on my part, me thereby helping support a terrorist police state oppress its people further. That and the fact that I seldom drink alcohol and felt like doing something so crazy that I would be able to look back at myself some day and see a man who broke all his own rules one night and didn't care. So the bottle of rum was in my room, unopened and unloved till I invited Neza for a drink. She accepted my offer, though I told her I was very tired and still somewhat sick from the recent bout of flu that had swept over Lima leaving most of the city coughing and sneezing and otherwise ill. But for sickness from germs I felt suddenly that alcohol would be a good disinfectant, and rum the best of all, so Neza and I got into it and cured ourselves of many ills all at once.

It might have been halfway through the bottle when I first had to use the men's room, only then realising that all that time since I'd left the disco cafe I had been walking around with my zipper open.

To cut short this tragic story of my pain it wasn't long before the lady and I found ourselves dancing naked and pissed in my hotel room. I stumbled and fell backward on the bed, bringing the lady down on top of me, thereby getting a palm press that cracked my rib.

In a better world I think I could expect some deep sympathy from the general reader here. As this world is cruel I won't hold my breath. So I suffer in silence and write no more of my pain.

Francisco Rides Again, Part Two.

I'd listened all night to Neza carrying on about an old lover named Francisco. I'm not the jealous type, and I had my own concerns at the time, so Francisco could be a happy memory for the lady and she would be a happy memory for me as well. But as I heard the hated name of Francisco ever more frequently and loudly I became competitive and somewhat determined to rid her of his name and memory. I could be memorable, too, I concluded, and thus I redoubled my efforts to please her. That worked eventually as the name of my most hateful rival dissolved into moans and groans of the good kind.

A knock at the door at 3:00 a.m. interrupted my concentration and I hastily put on a towel and answered to find a sheepish but angry man who asked me outside into the hallway above our courtyard. “Por favor,” he said, “the noise is so great that no one in the hotel can sleep at all. The noise, Senor Francisco....”

I was confused, of course, when Neza asked what the visit was about. I told her we might make less sound and more fun. “Oh, Francisco, I cannot help it,” she said with a grin.

Now, how on earth Dag came to sound anything like Francisco is way beyond me, but here and now I am known as Francisco to everyone in the hotel and the neighbourhood at large. I'm still the same tired old man with a cracked rib, but I've got a cosmically ironic name to prop me up in the night and to give me strength where otherwise I might have failed.

Francisco rides again.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Your Iquitos, Peru

Posting is light here because I am busy nailing down the final details about a few remaining buildings and some local family histories still on my to-do list about Iquitos, Peru.

Bill Grimes, owner of Dawn on the Amazon cafe at the corner of Nauta along the Malecon Tarapaca, has posted at his blog a piece on the riots in Oct. '98 in Iquitos. This side bar piece at Bill's blog is part of a longer piece on Gustave Eiffel's Iron House, a famous landmark in the city. The story is a small part of a chapter from my up-coming book, Iquitos, Peru: Almost Close. You can read the excerpt at the link below, and there are many other stories about Iquitos by a range of writers and travelers at Bill's blog.

http://dawnontheamazon.com/blog/2013/04/01/iquitos-peru-black-days-red-nights-riot-1998/

Dawn on the Amazon

If you or your family have anecdotes to share about Iquitos' history, if you or they or someone you know or heard of way back when, has a story to tell about Iquitos, feel free to let me know, either in person or via email here.

What was it like to live in Iquitos when you were growing up? Did your grandmother tell stories about her life here? Did your family have someone interesting to the whole world? You might be surprised at who that someone could be. Let me know and I'll see if I can fit in a story or more about the history of people and times in Iquitos.

Tell the story, and maybe we can tell the world.

Dag,
Iquitos, Peru.
March 2013

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Iquitos, Peru: A world turned upside down

"It's a good life if you don't weaken."*

I don't get it that so many people in Iquitos, foreigners and locals alike, get so nervous that their worlds are turned upside down. What's not to love about that? Total chaos is something one seldom has a chance to experience, and when it occurs, it's such a great mix-up of the mind that when it finally settles, nothing is ever the same again. All the rusted and crusty anchors are lost, and the chains drag along freely as if there will never be an end to the drifting from one strange port to the next if one even ever finds shelter from the flowing river of confusion in the darkness as the rudderless ship of ones life is storm-tossed and one lives with the thrill of being washed overboard as one slides feet first, belly down across the slick wood of a skewed deck, scratching slimy wooden planks with broken fingernails in the mad hope of stopping the slide over the rails of ones own boundaries and faces a drowning embrace in the cold and alone of life.

'WOW. I'm going to die.'

And to end slapped against broken bars and tangled dangling like the stinking strings of a rotten mop head yanked about and sloppy. How cool is it to never again know certainty or familiarity and the bitterness of predictability. To risk the reach for love and know not whether it will be to touch, to hold a human hand, or feel the sting of a striking serpent or the blaze of a burning brand. To not know if one will be hurt-- perhaps even to death. To know not a thing from moment to moment but that one is free from all that one can recall, that safe and satisfying routine of dullness that drives one to tears of despair and beyond. To speak and to find no one knows what you say, that your language is meaningless, and theirs is foreign to you and you are stupid in your inability to understand anything people are shouting, shouting, shouting at you. That you are lost and have no idea where you can go to lie down and rest and you are exhausted and want to lie down anywhere at all without being attacked; and that when you are hungry and your belly hurts and you are dizzy from it you won't know where to eat or what or if you can at all. If not cheated you might be poisoned, and tomorrow what will you eat? Perhaps all of life now will be one of hunger unsatisfied, a longing never ended. To know that no one is your friend, that maybe you are going to be murdered and you can't do a thing to protect yourself because maybe you're really wrong and you can't shout and ask for help because no one cares anyway and maybe they want to kill you. You, lost and alone forever with no one ever to count as a friend. What a great life is chaos in a world turned upside down.

I met this fellow who was a priest and who is now a man of his own on his own as a Catholic who has his church and a family and a place in the world and work and community in the world. We chatted some about a mutual acquaintance who is deliberately at odds with the world, a man who probably doesn't even care that it's so cool, and who thus loses it's beauty and charm. We talked about the expat. life.

I do think the tropics make people a bit unstable in their emotions and a bit susceptible to rapid mood swings-- you know how the weather changes here-- I've observed it with locals and with imported foreigners. A regular regime, eating and sleeping well, staying informed and in touch with your roots, these things can help a bit, but sooner or later, mild eccentricity and mood swings sets in. Mix that with drink and or drugs and you have a dangerous cocktail.

I've done a fair bit of work interviewing potential missionaries, NGO volunteers, seminarians, and priests and nuns who have suffered prolonged stress or trauma and or culture shock, and these signs are symptoms of not coping very well with having your world turned upside down in coming to a different hemisphere, different climate, language, value system, legal system and culture. 

"You can’t conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the ... appalling ... strangeness of the mercy of God."*

Yes, they are lucky to have such a life. How great is it to slide away in the wash without even faith to cling to. How raw, how rare, how fine is it to be so alone that even the oceanic is but a black vast endless emptiness of nothing at all but more of the same forever laughing delight. To look at it and feel the terror and know it is all and ever. Such a life. No faith, no grace, no agape. Solo, hero, going down and down. A world upside down.


*Graham Greene, Brighton Rock. (1939)

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Love the smell of Iquitos in the morning.

Is there anything so far beyond likely about Iquitos, Peru that it's just impossible to think of it without laughing?

"Iquitos by Alain Delon is a Woody Chypre fragrance for men. Iquitos was launched in 1987. Top notes are coriander, green notes, mandarin orange, fruity notes...."

www.fragrantica.com/perfume

OK, a middle age French movie star promotes a perfume -- for men -- that's named after the city of Iquitos. My mind races to Belen market. I am a bad person. Maybe I should mentally wander to the water-frontage at dockside Punchana. No, that would not make me a better person. I should think.... Well, this is the Amazon, and this is a city in the jungle. Suddenly I'm confused about how to think of this fragrant city. Its jungle perfume? I am lost. Maybe this explains why I am not French. Or why I  am not a movie star. Or maybe it explains why I'm not rich. Or maybe it explains something....

I give up. I didn't get that the babes are all crazy about snakes. Women. Perfume for men. Anacondas. The world is too mysterious for me. I know nothing.

"Named after a notoriously seedy and dangerous city in South America, as Alain Delon explained it ...."
www.basenotes.net


Seedy. That might be the word I would use. But I'm not much French.



Product Information

Turn on your masculine charm with the Alain Delon Iquitos fragrance. Starting off with ginger, mandarin, and cardamom, this Alain Delon men's eau de toilette gives you an irresistibly spicy fragrance. With a heart of rose, cedar, vetiver, patchouli, and sandalwood, this Alain Delon fragrance offers floral sensuousness. For a strong woody scent, the base of the Alain Delon Iquitos fragrance is made of musk, amber, and leather. The unique shape of its bottle makes this Alain Delon men's eau de toilette look great on your dressing table. Wear this Alain Delon fragrance to make a lasting impression on women.

(ebay.)

No, I mean it. I definitely really give up on trying to understand French movie stars selling perfume to men. I smell like Iquitos already, and though it's not exactly a bad thing to smell like motor exhaust and jungle rot and deodorant, maybe I would call my scent something less French than "perfume." I might call it something more macho, like "Man's Fragrance." Because I want to make a lasting impression on women who gaze doe-eyed and horny as they scan my dressing table.


Iquitos Perfume: So French. So Jungle. So Iquitos.

I think I'm gettin' it.

"Barfo," he said with a grin and a wink at the sexy babe lounging by the dresser.

"Snaky Barfo perfume-- Ez for zee mans."

She swooned, overcome by my masculine odor, and collapsed on or near the bed. 

Iquitos. The smell. Man perfume.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Dag Walker, American Writer, goes to prison at Iquitos, Peru

I was prepared to meet rapists and killers and drug lords inside El Penal when I entered the local prison at Iquitos, Peru. I was ready for almost anything, but I was not expecting what I actually encountered: Real fear. I met a man so evil he put the general population to shame, and he scared the hell out of me.

Guard Tower at the entrance to El Penal, Iquitos, Peru

I know a lot of people, and a lot of people of wildly different kinds. I know so many different kinds of people because I am mostly, though not always, unafraid of meeting people no matter who or what. Most people prefer, I think, to stay among their own kind, as it were. I don't have my own kind, so I move freely among all sorts. I know, for example, Thomas, the guy who tinted himself blue; I know Juan who offers to pimp 12 year old girls; and I sit some evening with the foul-mouthed pensioners who talk about niggers without a pause. I know a girl from the Caribbean, peasants from Lima, jungle dwellers who live in the universe of spirits and magical monsters; and I know the professional class in Iquitos to a fair extent; scientists, architects, and lawyers. I know some of the Old Family members of the monied class. All I like just about everyone I meet. I like most of them because, each in his or her own way, they are decent folks. Some only sort of. I like them on a scale. But even when I don't like people I put in as much effort as I can to find out about them. It's why I spent so much time, effort, and a lot of money over-all going to prison. I was prepared to meet truly evil people in the maximum security wing of El Penal, Iquitos, Peru. I met only one such, and I am sick over it. I can't say I wish I hadn't met him like that. Travelling is what I do, and I do so to meet the truth head on, to find out about stuff and people, whether I like it or whether it makes me ill in the mentals. Man, I could have stayed home and been a normal guy and none of this would have happened. But then, none of this would have happened. Now I know what an evil man is. I met him at El Penal. I have to say, it wasn't any fun.

I don't want to make too much of this. The man I met is basically harmless, like the rest of the men I met at El Penal. He's not going anywhere, not bursting out to do things that will shock the century this early on and for the duration. He's just a guy I met in a cell and he can't do much to anyone at all. Nevertheless, the man is as evil as any man I have ever met, which is not to say I've met anyone anywhere near as bad as the worst are. On the possible scale of things, this guy is likely pretty small. But he's bad enough to my mind that I get sick just thinking about him. He's in a category of his own in the prison I was at. The others there are simply not of that kind. There's a good chance that I would like a lot of those little criminals I met at El Penal. I assume they would like me too. I don't think there's a great lot of hope in finding out. I'm not a prison kind of guy. I'm just curious in a stupid kind of way. 

My curiousity leads me to look into the pits of evil, and in that I see sometimes things man is not meant to know. I long to know. I know now that now I know.

At El Penal visitors must accept a dress code, those who hope to enter in. Long pants, no stuff: no belt, no watch, no wallet, no camera, not a cell phone, no things and stuff. To carry on past the first refusal one meets those who check, where one signs ones name and shows ones passport, mine being Canadian this day, all my stamps long expired. Then, another checkpoint and another declaration of intent, (“I'm a tourist, senor,”) having forgotten the name of the man I was going to see. And at the third checkpoint, having been chatting about stuff, I said, “I'm a journalist on vacation teaching school at a church, senor. I'm here to see Jose, a friend of a friend of mine, you see. ” The pat-down in the plywood shed and then I'm off for my duck tattoo and next I know, new ground, I go to prison proper at last, the gates shut behind me, a scrum of tiny, ragged prisoners frantically thrusting out their hands toward me in the hope I will choose one of them to be the one to buy a gum chicklet from. I see this now, but I didn't see them then. I'm in. At last I am in prison at Iquitos, Peru. I am particularly happy as I walk past the gruesome bleeding Jesus mural on the peeling concrete yellow courtyard wall. I make my way to the cluster of men standing out of the sun under the staircase that leads upward to the sound of a church service in session.

I'd cancelled my trip numerous times when men had cancelled me and left me alone when I wanted a back to my back so we two would have a fighting chance at living as we battled our way to freedom from the killer gangs inside. But inside alone I met the crowd and waded in alone and smiled because at last I was in prison. I told the men around me as I waded in that I needed a guide to tour me, and one came forth, I can't recall his name. My guide was a tiny man with green pants tied up with string around his waist and a faded shirt too big for him, his black plastic glasses and rotten red teeth making him look less than brutal. His name was something or other. He was small and timid. As I towered over him and held my money tight in my hand I asked what was he in for and for how long. He said he was a rapist and he was only two years into a ten year sentence. But of course he did not say, “I am a rapist and I have to spend another eight years of my life in this prison.” I don't know if he is a rapist. I know he is in prison for rape, two years into ten. He seemed indifferent, though I saw the spark of life in his eyes when I gave him my handful of coins and he bought a small plastic sack of popcorn from the concession stand by the stairs leading to salvation in the church upstairs. He doled out a popcorn to some of his mates. Some hands remained empty and went into empty pockets. Minimum security. The guards outside the bars and the metal doors didn't bother looking in. Just around the corner I saw the hallway leading down the corridor lined on both sides with cells, and I took a walk, leaving my guide to chew.

I could hear faint sounds of Spanish evangelical preaching, a man in a black suit saying. There was no music, not the gospel I love so much at church. I heard it, loud and strong, the congregation singing enraptured with the choir, “I have walked in moonlight; I have walked in starlight. Lay this body down.” There was no music from above, only the sound of noise coming from the television at the front of the long corridor leading down the length of the life of men in cells, a video playing macho men acting. Thin men in old clothes sat with their heads tilted back to look up at the ceiling to see the video they'd probably seen every weekend for years on end, and one man drooled as down the length of the corridor men sat on hard plank benches and stared into space in the direction of the video screen. The row on the left, the row on the right, spaces open for cell doors, and I followed a bent old man carrying a five gallon white plastic bucket of rice and gravy for sale at four-soles-a-dish-for-eight, the number of men usually to the four bed cells, though often now there are twelve. There are over 900 men in El Penal. Per bunk, two nose to toes, and four on the floor. I found myself humming, which is maybe why I smiled as I walked down the corridor, glancing into cells, saying hello to every second man, nodding to the others and I nodded and greeted left to right, men is cells sitting by concrete walls six feet high and topped with open spaces of encased steel bars to the twelve foot ceiling from which hung shiny plastic fans wobbling lazily over boxes of stuff crammed tight in every open space, boxes of – I have no idea what. Perhaps I should have dumped some boxes on the floor and kicked the stuff around till I had a good look at it all. But I was feeling good, starting to strut as I strolled the aisles of listlessness and dejection in halls of gray concrete and steel bars, jaunty as men looked up as I made my way down the hall speaking a word or two, some men looking at me expectantly and hopeful of some word of recongnition that they might hold onto at night in the privacy of their minds, running over the sound of my voice, having a conversation with me till they fell asleep. I could hear the music in my mind, and I moved with the groove. I told – whatever – to take me deeper in, that I wanted to see medium security. He looked at his tennis shoes and shuffled forward to the next gate and then took me down some broken pathway through a thicket and into tall grass where beyond he claimed was a vegetable garden in the hole that looked to me like a bomb crater. “There are chickens there, too,” he told me. We bribed the guard and entered in to see medium men identical to minimum men in an identical setting, men sitting beside men for years sweating.

I told my guide to carry on, to take me to maximum security. I know now but I didn't know then because I wasn't paying attention that he said, “No.” We left for the high pale green grass around broken wooden shacks that are the communal kitchen and wood-working shop beyond which is Maximum Wing of El Penal.

Somewhere in the shade in a maze of falling down shacks sat two female employees brilliantly beautiful with whom I stopped to flirt and stare at. We were interrupted by a fat man in filthy rags who shouted and what's his name moved me on to talk briefly with this cook swarming with flies before dinner. I got my fill of it and demanded we go on to the heart of the worst of Maximum Wing in the worst prison in the Peruvian Amazon. “They take drugs there, senor,” he said. I'm not easily offended. We went in, bribe paid, my guide now broke and carrying himself a lot less lightly.

I won't say nothing scares me, a lot of things do. But I'm not at this late stage of my life afraid of death. I've seen so much of it that I hate it, but I have no fear of it. It takes away my friends and I can play with them anymore. But I'm not afraid. Nor am I afraid of pain, because I know that when it becomes too great I will die, and that death will be for me one of those fleeting moments about which I will be curious. I can be afraid, though, of lesser things.

We entered the maximum security wing of El Penal and as I entered I heard that music louder still, “Lay my body down.”

Almost immediately we met the drug king, a young man covered in prison tattoos. He claimed to be a Kung Fu fellow, and I pretended to kill him with a blow to the side of the head. I asked him about cocaine, and he said he had marijuana, though all he could do was show me a tattoo of leaves. I sat down beside him and asked the guy, I can't seem to recall his name, about the old man across from us, a man in his 70's, and I asked just how dangerous is this poor bastard, and – the guy – he said the old man is the father of the younger man looking at me. I said hello to them both, and the old man looked so sad he is the word triste, and his son held his hand. I stood up and turned and walked into the cell behind. There he was, the only man in the whole place who truly scared me. I found myself leaning forward to attack him, my mind agog, and my body like a gushing flood of fire.

I saw his face in a sheet of dull gray steel, his features twisted in the warp of twisted metal. I saw the face of evil.

I have walked in moonlight.

I have walked in starlight.*

So far as bad men go I am not the worst, and maybe not so bad. I'm not a thief or a rapist or a murderer like some of those men surrounding me at maximum wing, El Penal. I don't do the ordinary things of a common criminal sitting for life on a wooden bench as prisoner at El Penal.

There is a judgment; and the man who is knowingly indifferent to the Good condemns himself and rejects his own pardon.

I backed out of the cell and I looked over those whithered wisps of men in their faded, ragged clothes, their faded faces cast down and crumpled, crushed and the dried liannas hanging in the jungle far away where they would have had a kind of freedom that lives in a bound universe of daemons and monsters and death from above they know not why. No more in the luscious green sit those passive actors on the concrete sidelines of all for their lives, ant-swarmed, crackling reeds waiting for nothing at all because there is nothing at all but waiting. I saw those men benched and apathetic; and as they sat on wooden benches staring at reflections on the wall from a fire that isn't real either, I realised that for me there is no escape. Because I am clever and competitive and strong I would within days ride like the devil over those men and rule them and rule the keep and make it all my own. In that prison corridor I saw that for me there is no way out. “Whither I flee Myself am Hell.” I would rule me there.

This scorpion life looks at the reflection of the loving God and in rejection sees reflection, his own true self. The vanity of the man is that in looking at the Good he sees himself alone. I'm not so bad as some, though I might be worse than others, but that is not close to the point. I know that which I am not, and in knowing and not caring, there I am afraid. I know all this; and knowing it I look away and walk away. I have walked in moon light; I have walked in starlight. When I reach out my arms in the grave I know I will reach out for the man in the darkness whose evil knows no bounds. He is me, the most evil prisoner I know.

*xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/twh/higg.html

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Iquitos, Peru: Juan Maldonado, more than just a con artist....

Juan Maldonado is the guy I go to for things I'd be embarrassed to ask anyone else about or for. Juan is the kind of guy in Iquitos who does anything, more or less, for a buck. If I want to sneak into an abandoned and condemned building, I go to Juan to arrange it. If I want to buy another driver's license so I can drive sort of legally, I ask Juan to do the paperwork for me and then stand in line for me for days at a time till my smiling face graces officialdom's paper pile with my new permit to scoot around lawfully or so. If I want ... well, I don't want, but if I did, Juan would be the guy to go to for it. Yes, half the time he takes whatever taxi fare I give him to get him on his way and I don't see him for a day or so and never get my money back. He's a low-rent scammer, a con man. But, like most people who know him, I like him. And I find out more about him, of course, as I get to know him. Much of what I learn about him makes me wish I never met him. And then he turns out to be an artist. A con artist, yes, and deeply so. He also draws pictures.

Juan had me laughing out loud when we tried to go to prison. Juan told me in the mototaxi on the way, "I have lots of friends there. I know everybody." He didn't know who to talk to to get us in, but it was a good time anyway. And I will go to prison at Iquitos in spite of Juan.

Of all the things I could say, and some of which I have said, the last thing I would have dreamed of saying about Juan is that he's a poet. He is. I would not have guessed. He might not be Rod McKuen, but he is a poet nonetheless.

Juan owes me 20 soles, about $7.00 or $8.00, so until he pays me back, this poem stays up. You don't have to know Spanish [below] to get a sense of what he's on about and how well he does it. This is my revenge on him:

I AM IN THE TRAIL OF WHAT WILL HAPPENS AND WILL FEEL

THE TRAIL GO TO THE HEARTH OF THE AMAZON JUNGLE

AND ITS CONTINUE THE FELLINGOF THE BITTERSWEET TASTE DRINK

THAT IS EXCITING MY BLOOD,MY CURIOSSITY,THIS MAGIC DRINK

AND I LISTEN FAR THE GRADUAL WHISTLE OF THE CHAMAN

AND PENETRATE DEEPER THAT SOUND IN ALL MY SENSES

IN CHORUS WITH THE SOUNDS OF THE CHACAPA,AND BUZZ THE AIR

INJECTING MEDICINE AND WISDOM WITH MELODY

AND WHEN THE ICAROS GO,GO OUT FROM THE SHAMAN HEART

IMPREGNATING THIS NIGTH WITH GOOD AND BAD SPIRITS

FULLING THE TEMPLE WITH DIVINE RESOUND

EXPELLING TO THE MALIGANT SPIRITS AND THE EVIL

I FEEL THE VIBRATE CARESS THAT ENVELOPE MY BODY

AND I AM STEPING ON GREEN BRIGHNESS OF LIVING JUNGLE

ZIGZAGGING LIGTHS,COLORS DRAGON FLYS

OBSCURE ANACONDAS ON FLUORECENSE PETALS

I AM IN THE CENTER OF A MULTITUDE OF SPIRITUALS ORBS

DRESSED WITH WHITE PONCHOS

THAT FULL WITH THEIR SHADE THE SPIRIT OF THE PRESENTS

DANCING SIDE WAY AROUND THE TEMPLE AND WHISPING

SINGING THE MAGIC ICAROS TOGATHER WITH THE SHAMAN

WITH THAT SPIRITUAL POWER,DOMINATING THE ELEMENTS

MOVING WITH CONTINUE MOVEMENT,VIBRATE MUSIC

THE ICAROS FROM ARCANE ORIGIN,MILLENNIUM OF YEARS

I AM LISTENING THE ICAROS IN MISTIC DIALECT AND PURE

THAT CURE THE SICKNESS AND SPELL

ICAROS THAT BORN FROM THE ELFS SOUL

FROM THE MILLENARY FOREST WITH COLORS LEAF

I SEE SPARKING LIGTHS ON MY CROWN HEAD

THAT ARE DISSAPEARING,THEY ARE VERY REMOTE SOUNDS

AND THE RESOUNDDIND WHISPER OF THE JUNGLE

OF THE JUNGLE ELFS,YACURUNAS,MARMADES.

WHEN I OPEN MY EYES I SEE MY SHAMAN IN THE MIDDLE OF DARKNESS

WITH THE PENETRATING STARE OF ANCESTORS KNOWLEDGE

AND HE IS SMOKING MAPACHO ON MY CROWN HEAD

PROTECTING MY BODY OF ALL THE WICKEDNESS

THIS AMAZON JUNGLE WORLD WITH SECRETS

CUSTOMS,MYTHS,LEGENDS,AND MISTERY

I AM PART OF THIS WORLD,I DRINK THE AYAHUASCA

I AM A SON OF THE MOTHER AYAHUASCA

AUTOR, JUAN N. MALDONADO ROMERO

Pay up, you sneaky little bastard or I'll keep publishing your poetry!

"Juan Maldonado's Deepest-Jungle Thoughts"
  

La energia de la selva es misteriosa,es vibrante

no se muere ,no se apaga,pasando por ella se siente

del murmullo de las hojas al recibir un viento fugaz

nacen melodias misticas,para no ser olvidadas,jamas

Las lupunas gigantescas,con sus ramas y aletas zigsagueantes

protejen a las semillas,flores a la tierra ,a las lianas

dando sombra a sus retoños,sosiego a las serpientes

recibiendo fuertes lluvias y calores ardientes

Los tunchis y espiritus de las plantas estan felices

reciben el aroma y el polen de sus ancestros

bromelias flores silvestres y orquideas de todas las matices

regando sus nitidos colores y alumbrando a los espectros

Las plantas y arboles tienen su propia energia

su sensibilidad,su espiritu,tienen vida misma

tienen dones curativos,poderes mortales,tienen carisma

tienen sus guardianes los nativos,que por la selva dan su agomia

La energia muscular de los animales ya descansan

y se acerco la noche de grillos,,ayaymamas y tetricos gruñidos

el acertijo de ellos es sobrevivir........unos hombres se acercan

estruendos disparos y los debiles caen otros cantan sus quejidos

Animales de la selva que lloran.........vienen los mitayeros

caminando en los aguajales buscando y matando

y las plantas gimen....vienen los petroleros...vienen los madereros

diezmando,depredando,cortando,talando

Escucho los lloriqueos que vienen del monte virgen que se quejan

 veo a los seres desolados,ya no vuelan los chinchilejos

las hogueras de nuevas chacras,los afixian,los alejan

y las armas,son las motosierras,que ya oyen a lo lejos

Cuando antes caia la huarmi lluvia,en esta floresta encantada

todo era alegria,y jubilo.....ya no.....solo pena profunda

y en la orilla de la colpa,en el centro del poema ,estoy por llorar

sintiendo las ramas crujir,viendo las aguas de verde brillar

Recordando la majestuosa biodiversidad de la amazonia peruana

todavia hay orgullo de lo que hay,llenando el espiritu con alegria

cuando habian mas ramas,para los monos,saltando de buena gana

y ver volar a los huacamayos con sus gritos,dando la bienvenida

AUTOR, JUAN MALDONADO ROMERO

Pay up, you sneaky little bastard or I'll keep publishing your poetry!

Oh, but he did. I have seen now for the first time in my long life the face of true unhappiness. I might have threatened to cut Juan's finger off with my hunting knife, and that did prompt him to pay me, but he was so unhappy when he gave me a 20 sole note that I thought he'd be sick.I don't mean throwing up,  mean mentally sick. This caused five or six of us sitting at a cafe on the Malecon Tarapaca to laugh at him and to examine the note to see if it's counterfeit. We laughed and all Juan could do was look at the bill and wish he could grab it and run. Juan is a starving artist. I should maybe feel bad, but I kind of just don't. I'll subsidize the arts in some other life time when I'm not a starving artist myself:

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

One final word on this: Juan stormed around the Malecon for a few days in a big sulk over having to pay back the money be borrowed from me. He was big-time pissed off. The folks around explained to me that when one lends Juan money it's not expected that he will pay it back, and they were surprised that I even asked. I didn't ask. Juan felt it was in his better interest to pay me. But what has me howling is that Juan plopped himself in a chair and announced to all around that from now on he's not going to borrow money from any more gringos. Fortunately for all the gringos in town, this doesn't mean Juan won't borrow money from them: it means he won't borrow money from me. Juan was announcing to all that I am a worthless son of a bitch and to show how steamed he is about me making him repay his debts Juan said he would cut off all gringos to teach them a lesson. He won't borrow money from any of us. So there.

This raises a problem for me that I've been concerned about for a week or so, i.e. that I am a scary guy. Over a couple of dollars that I don't care about at all I am willing to do terrible things to a little guy like Juan. Cause it's not the money.
The man owed. For that I would have scorched his earth. I'm a nice guy. Imagine what happens to people when we get angry and we aren't nice guys. We nuke 'em. Yes, they would nuke us if they could, but we can. We do. All the bluster and bullshit doesn't mean a thing if you don't have the brain power to follow through. We are often smart, and that's what makes us scary.

To make things right I'm going to offer Juan a loan. And when he finally relents and says he'll take it, then I'm going to change my mind. I'm not going to hurt him, but I can't stand it when people fuck me over.

We are not Peruvians. I live here thanks to the good nature of the people. I am not one of them, never will be. I am grateful to them for allowing me to be among them. But I will never be a Peruvian.

And no, I am not going to taunt Juan. My concern grows as I live among Peruvian that I am harder than they. I am not going to be a Peruvian, and it makes me examine my character in light of others. That would be about me, not about Americans in general.

In contrast to my kind of bad and Juan's kind of bad, I look at two people who are good in their various ways, Captain Bill and Allan, whom I have for no good reason taken to calling Alice. It just pops into my head and out of my mouth every time I think of him. Note to self, Dag: Write about honorable men. The world has many of them. I know a lot of good men and women here. It shakes me, and it makes me wonder why God blesses me to have such friends.