“El Rabio”

Saturday 6-4
Hello again white pages. I’m writing this on Sunday for Saturday because I came seven hours away from dying yesterday, I was a little busy. I know I need to write this now or I’ll start to forget certain details so, here we go.

I woke up at 5:30 for my 6:00 breakfast. The air in Lima is always wet and sharp in the morning; it is incomparable to any type of Alabama morning mist. The morning mist in Lima is tainted from the 8 billion people who live here and curse it with their waking breath, it curses them back with sharp gray stings of water on their, our, faces as we leave the shelter of the tin roofs and adobe walls. As I walked into the kitchen, Madre Tula scolded me, again, “¡Estás tan flaco como un frijole mi amor! Ven. Ven aqui. ¡Comé!” Which, if you forget your Spanish years from now when you are reading this basically means she thinks I’m too skinny and need more meat on my bones. Madre accomplishes this by feeding me, every single morning, a piece of torta, a bowl of cualquier con fruta, and a ham and quail egg sandwich. It’s always delicious and yesterday was no exception. The NesCafe coffee yesterday burnt my tongue. I gulped it down in a heated hurry because of how tired I was. I gave Madre un besito and left to walk down the street to get the girl interns, Dylan and Lindsay, from their house so we could catch a combi (bus) to Salamanca to work the yard sale for our church with our missionary leaders, Mike and Lauren Ferry.

We made it to the yard sale safe and got straight to work. There was already a huge line of locals waiting to be the first ones in the gates to buy what the American missionaries were selling. After setting up tables and moving hundreds of boxes for about an hour Lauren came sprinting up to me and said, “You got bit by a dog?” I tried to laugh and make a joke about it being just my luck but she interrupted, “This is really serious, Cyril. This is a dang big deal.” I was instantly immersed into a stage of cold adrenaline as she continued, “Cyril, you need to go to the hospital. NOW. People die from this. We’ve had to send interns home for the rest of the summer for scratches from dogs in Salamanca.” She continued to tell me that I needed to catch a combi and find the nearest hospital immediately. The sides of my vision were clouding black and I sat down, I was suddenly very cold.

I think I was in shock and my brain was trying to refuse what it was being forced to process. Rabies. Rabies? Really? That **** dog. It was foaming and all the locals ran from it. I don’t know why I thought if I just stood still it would run past me. I remember the locals screaming Spanish, Quechua, or Aymaraat at me that I was helpless to translate with my two semester of Spanish at Auburn. That **** dog was brown and its lips were foaming. After I kicked it off me and climbed up on a wall of someone’s house I remember wiping the foam off my bloodied legs. Why the hell did I not think, “Oh, that’s probably a bad thing, right?” No. I was just too embarrassed by having made a ****** spectacle of myself in front of the locals to even think about the inherent dangers of rabies.

“Cyril?” I remember looking up from my racing thoughts. Somehow I had ended up sitting on the ground with my head in my hands. I was shaking as I looked up and saw Mike, Lauren’s husband, offering me a hand. He asked me to try and remember exactly what time I got to Salamanca yesterday and when I was attacked. I thought about it and remembered I was running late so I kept checking my watch. It was around 3pm. “****,” Mike said. When you hear a missionary cuss is when you know you’re totally ******. “Stand up, come on.” He helped me to my feet. “Cyril, listen. If you don’t get the first booster shot within 24 hours you die. There is nothing anyone can do. You have about seven hours left. You need to hurry, don’t be scared.” When he said that I remember laughing. Mike gave me a concerned eyebrow furrow as he led me, by the arm, over to one of the other missionaries working the yard sale, Mrs. Sarah. He explained the situation to her and I watched the Peruanos spilling in the gates and milling through the rows of tables and missionaries selling old books and trinkets. One lady that walked in had a monkey with yellow ears on her shoulders. I remember worrying it could be rabid too.

“Cyril?” Mrs. Sarah smiled at me, “You’re going to be okay honey. Lets go.” We left the yard sale. I remember anxiously watching the monkey sitting on the ladies shoulder and as we walked past it, it **** all over her and started to rub it in her hair. I swear it was smiling at me. Mrs. Sarah hailed a combi and we headed for Clinica Anglo-Americana. The taxi driver asked if we were okay and Mrs. Sarah told him about my situation. He fingered the rosary hanging from his rear view mirror and said over and over again, “Dios mio…pobre, pobrecito.” I understood that much Spanish. Even my taxi driver thought I was going to die.

We pulled up to the hospital and told the guard with the AK-47 why we were there and he waved us in past the spiked metal gates. Inside the hospital looked more like a bed and breakfast than the place where I would be given a second chance at life after rabies. The walls were whitewashed and the Untied States, Peruvian, and British flags draped down from three golden flagpoles by the front door. There were beautiful pink and yellow flowers everywhere that scared away the painful Peruvian morning fog that permeated my memory of the rest of that morning. We paid the taxi driver; he patted my hand and drove off.

Inside, I was encouraged to explain why I was there—in Spanish of course— to the friendly nurse waiting in the entrance. I was furious. Time was wasting; it was not the time for me to practice subjuntivo or pluscuamperfecto. I mangled out a few awkward sentences and the nurse’s jaw dropped. Mrs. Sarah erupted into belly bursting alto laughter. The rest of the waiting room was empty. I was so confused, terrified, and angry I didn’t know what else to do except sit. So, I sat on the closest wooden bench and felt a tear peer over one of my eyelids. Mrs. Sarah and the nurse were twittering in rapid Spanish and I kept thinking, “Six hours. I have six hours left to live by now.” Mrs. Sarah walked over, put her arms around me and explained that I had told the nurse the reason I was in the hospital was because I killed a dog in the streets yesterday. I smiled.

“Señor Blythe?” A doctor appeared and frantically motioned for us to come into his room. I walked in and it looked just like any other doctors office except the tray of scalpels, huge needles, tweezers, and vials of purple medicine beside the bed that he motioned for me to lay down on, “Acostarse.” Mrs. Sarah told me to relax. Humorous. The doctor and his two nurses wiped down the bite marks on each of my legs with three pungent and strangely colored gels in quick succession. I swear I hear a sizzling noise. The doctor picked up the scissors and I winced, but he only used them to open up a white packet from which he pulled out a huge thick roll of rough, wet gauze, which he used to wipe my legs clean. It numbed my legs. Then, of course, he grabbed the biggest needle on the table and used it to stab both legs; directly into the bite marks. If he hadn’t already scrubbed them so hard they were scab-less the needle would have cracked the crusted scabs back to flowing red. Rabies vaccines are not fun.

After a few more vials of life were shot into me the doctor wrapped up my legs in weird smelling gauze I was told not to shower and that I had to return to the US within 3 days to receive a “monohemoglobin shot” that they didn’t have in the hospitals in Lima at the time. I sat up on the bed and asked Mrs. Sarah, “So, am I going to live?” She smiled and nodded her head and the nurse answered, *“Si, mi amor, por supuesto.”

—for Mariel



She sells 2 sole paltas beside street  
vendors who whistle at crop-top-clad girls,
spewing profanities complete
with broken English. She has four girls
hungry at home. They dream of science, stars,
constellations that spiral and sparr
with particles that make us what we are —

interrupted by howling dogs, the 5
AM tamale man, and stray **** crows.
Amid dust-clouds of Zona D, the sun arrives
over the peak Luis claims once exposed
his innocent eyes to an angel: one
tale of faith raised on culture come undone
presently. Poet Andrea Gibson

writes, “I said to the sun, ‘Tell me about
the Big Bang.’ And the sun said, ‘it hurts to
become.’” At dusk, Mariel takes a Combi out
sixteen stops from Quince, up 302
steps to a turquoise shack and a red rose
garden, and plants avocado seeds at her toes.
Poco a poco, se anda lejos.

Ketchup and mustard
Cancelling each other's finest
So what, it ain't bad
But it weren't us the slightest

for some reason,
unnown yet
i am sitting here
hot coffee in hand
transfixed by the
memory of a day
lifetimes ago.....

when i took a wrong turn
seeking a small town... and
a cobbler of  soft leather shoes...
instead i found myself
on a bush track, far too
narrow to turn my combi
van around
forced to travel on...
getting further and further
along

until, abruptly the track widened
and the most gorgeous vista
appeared
green grass, sedges and spinfex in waves,
led down to a billabong, eucalypt gums,
ghost and red,
large in size and old in years
dotted the irregular,
ameboic shape

and the water,
so clear, so clear, so clear
reflecting the cloud dusted sky,

to one side the face of a gorge, ochre red rusted
crazed weith black cracks
and green whiskery growths,
on which rock wallabies fed.
unafraid of the big lemoned
wedged combi, who sat
monolithically in their environs.

as  i disembarked,
up from the grass thicket, one thousand and one (i counted) budgerigars alight and took to the wing,
in a swirling mass of
god's whimsical glory.
the sound, a deafening
chirk-chatter and whoosh
as they, in sychron,
wheeled and turned flew over my head and back into  the bush.

needless to say, i never bothered to buy those soft
leather shoes.....

when the world,
was much younger
and i was a stupid-crazy
girl-ly-chick, enamoured
with her youth.

i drove, a sunshine,
lemon, yellow bottomed, white pith on top combi van. coyly, cloyingly named Mello Martha.

it was...surfboards and swimsuits,
egg and bacon sangers,
early morning breezes,
after a blitz at the breadbox.

before... changing into
the structured, tortured baby, bank teller blues,
in the back,doors left open.

it was... rockin, knockin,
***, on credit,
to a promised future,
alluded to, but postponed,
for the moment.

it was... bruised back and
grazed knees,
harder, deeper oh god!
oh god! please... faster, fucken frenzies,
on a saturday night.

it was....running away to nowhere,
to find myself,
then finding me,
running away from,
the self i didn't want to know.
noway, nowhere, nohow.

it was... a barrel of monkeys, a barrel of laughs,
a keg of beer,
a box of wine,
under the crowded stars.

it was.... a roadtrip,
up the coast,
midnight bonfire,
midnight munchies,
playing hunches,
exploring reefs and reefers and such.

it was...far from family
and church rules,
a friendly rebellion,
of loud, proud youth.
totally and brazenly,
uncouth
it was... wham! and m.j.
cindy and boy george's culture club ,paperlace,
billy idol and the beach boys.
sung with abandon,
at spinal tap level eleven.

it was... peaceful, quiet, sleeping grace.
insanely in love with...
i forgot his name.

it was.... the birth of bodaciously me.
all brass hair and bosoms,
wild and carefree.

it was ....so long ago,

it was... yesterday night,

when i saw... Mello Martha's identical twin,
stopped at a traffic light.
it was... sunshine and lemon, bitter and sweet,
as she sailed off, down the street.
i sat and watched,
wist, full of recollect,
far and away, from my presently minded place...
sitting in, the driver's seat,
of my mom-blue subaru.

You go strains of mad when...
...Ambition becomes Eating Your Own Hunger Pains
With savaged pride you feel that all you need to achieve in life
Can be done faster with gold and good courtship
You croon apologies to your ideas and hope they stay.
They don't stay.

You go strains of mad when...
...Demonic intercession is hailed as miracle
You pay your division of a vast tithe into coffers you never see
and watch with shame and awe at a penetrative truth
working noisily behind curtains.
This polls well.

You go strains of mad when...
...Dust and diamonds are sold as combi-packs,
**** comes in boxes of strict six; for illustrative purposes, if you want four you've got to sell or discard two for your reputation.
There's no loyalty card or price-break on bulk.
I'm flat broke.

You go strains of mad when...
...A nobody sketches you with disarming accuracy
Their medium is a third hand snipe relayed with bitter remove
No more the taut nymphette lounged aground, on the rocks
The naked crystal uniform of your debtless regime, gone.
You're a shirt and name-tag girl now.

You go strains of mad when...
...Pockets burst outside the Church yard sale
The Ministry guilts you into buying all the furniture and music
moving it one piece at a time into your life until
suddenly you have a Church to burn
Just in time for winter.

my mother is losing her words
or at least, misplacing them
(there may well be,a great pile of them, lying around
lauguishing, somewhere)
her mind is slipping,
on it's weary and
hard-work-worn cogs.

she sometimes has difficulty,
grasping new concepts,
or attatching two thoughts,
coherently together.
and sometimes the blankness behind her eyes
reaches the horizon and beyond.
(and scares the very dickens out of me)

we have lots more, doovers
and thingies and whatsits,
in the house...
and usage of these and other,
all purpose words,
that lead to subtle guessing games,
has increased manifold,
creating  conversations,
that drift, into the territories of
"remember the kid with the
doover thingies,
red....on his head.... on his head" !!!
(the boy with the beautiful
red curls and corksrew ringlets)

perhaps having been,
away and now returned....
i see this more  clearly.... whereas, whilst, living
with it daily.
....you just compensate ... and move on.

my brothers  do not want to know this.... and nor does she want them to....
they,
have busy lives.....
(note the irony lost and languishing here)

i am concerned,
and speak to both her doctor and the bluecare nurse,
who comes to  help with her abulutions and dresses the abrasions from her latest fall.

they say things like,
she is, within the healthy range for her age, 85.
however, there is marked
depreceation in certain areas.....
we need to keep an eye on her...
( and i am reminded of my old combi, sad but true)

in the meantime...
mother, no longer does the cryptic crossword, citing it as mere balderdash(these days)
and we often find the daily
incomplete...

My name is Sora Sore.
I can't take it anymore.
My eyes are drowning deep.
I couldn't get no sleep.
My neck is in a knot.
And it hurts a lot.

I'm too messed up like my mattress.
But I can play a role, I'm an actress.
And I like it, it's not an act when I'm in it.
Especially when I sing it.

But it burns on my head.
Every day and night in bed.
I've been hanging around like a zombie.
A living dead combi.
I can't take it no more.
I am Sora and I am so so so sore.

Wearing my body.
Wearing it out completely.
I carry it to my grave.
Tossing it through another wave.

Please don't judge me for getting affected.
For being on this earth but not really connected.
Laying inbetween too worlds and painful sensations.
The creatures poking at my skin, the latest manifestations.

The earth can have my body back.
I'm am Sora and I crack.
I'm a zombie.
A living dead combi.

I'm ok.
Just another day.
I'm Sora Sore.
Just a little bit more.
Sora Sore.
Until I'm not there no more.

Goose, force-fed,
eyed me in pain
as they poured down the grain
heavy as lead

horse snorted and heaved
panted to breathe
as rider pulled tight
reined in with might

child wide-eyed
with innocent wonder
suffocated, tied,
till they go under

(fed like a goose
head in a noose
squeezed nice 'n tight
it doesn't seem right.)

till as a zombie
they stumble and fall
automated combi
with no recall

of who they are
'neath the exterior
'neath false coiffeur
o' Mother Superior.