Category: Writing

“Jonny, you ass, I told you to stop at the Loaf and Jug on the way home, and get me my Lights!  What am I supposed to do now?”

I pushed the screen door open from our piece of shit trailer, and let it slam behind me, yelling over my shoulder.  “Oh I don’t know, Mom, how about walking up there yourself?”

“What you say?”  She feigned a hearing problem.  This is what she did, always manipulating the hell out of me.

“I said that maybe you SHOULD GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO IT YOURSELF.”  I yelled back at the trailer.  Fuck this.  I flipped a lone solitary bird over my shoulder and walked away.  I heard her yell something, but I didn’t bother listening.

Right back atchya.

I headed to the Meet.  That was the nickname for a portion of a small creek that bent its way this way and that through our shit county, and had a small deep area the local kids hand commandeered as a private swimming pool for the baking Oklahoma summers.  The Meet was where we smoked, acted older than we really were, and occasionally drank ourselves stupid with 3.2 beer.  I had a small band of friends, all resident fuckups of the Rez, and had been across the bench with more than a few times.  We were real winners.  In other words, total fuckups. The only girl was Sesame, but she was probably tougher than all of us boys, she didn’t put up with shit. Jack was my best friend and had a thing for thrash metal, long hair down his back, a leather jacket hanging nearby to at least show how metal he was.  Benny was a fucking retard, but we didn’t tell him that, and he went along with it.  Hanks was the asshole of the group, but he was great to have around in case some older kids or adults came around to fuck with us.  He was built like a tank, he knew it, and loved rubbing our faces in it.  Except for Sesame, who didn’t put up with it.  I swear to god, one time, she yelled at Hanks for being a rude fuck and hit him so hard, he lost a eye tooth.  Yeah… no one has fucked with Ses since that.

We put up with Hanks, Ses is a walking legend, Benny has a heart of gold, and Jack was the smart one I guess.  I brought nothing but a mouth and mountain of problems on my shoulders.  I guess that would make me the funny one, but then again, maybe I was the pity case and I just didn’t know it.   You can’t be too introspective about these sort of things, because more times than not, you are wrong.  People are complex machines, sometimes they don’t understand how they tick.  I was so twisted up inside, I barely had the ability to cry in front of others.  Wait a minute.  Was I the retard?

Great.  Now that makes Benny the misunderstood one with a heart of gold.  Grand.

Everyone was at the Meet already, and by the time my mind caught up with my legs, I was already catching bits of laughter and conversation that I wasn’t paying attention to.  I spread my arms wide as I dropped into the gully and yelled, “Your Chief has arrived.”

“Chief what?  Dumbass?” Yelled Ses from the water.

“Uh, yeah, Chief Dumbass?” Hanks laughed with a slight sneer.  My theory is he had a thing for Ses, but didn’t tell her or anyone else, and just hoped she would come around on her own.  Probably was afraid of her too.  That could be a bit of it.

“Oh, real original Hanks.  Your shirt must be too tight, it is cutting off the air to your brain.”  I shot back.

Benny smiled, then frowned, then smiled, and settled for not saying anything.  He hugged me as I got the tree and sat back down to look into the water.

“Heya Benny.  Don’t stare too long, the catfish don’t like it.” I smiled down at him. “Where’s Jack?”

“Jack is over there taking a piss.”  Ses called.  She pointed at the other bank with a grin.  “But he has been over there so long, he is either rubbing one out at the sight of me swimming, or taking the largest shit of his life.”

“Oh fuck off, Ses!  I am pissing…  Leisurely!”  Jack yelled from the bushes.

We all laughed.  I took off my shirt, shoes, and my walkman and jumped into the water with my cutoffs still on.  Ses was splashing about in the deep area, but I just wanted to cool off.  Oklahoma was hot, dusty, and hot.  Not necessarily in that order.

“Come on Benny, jump in.  You are sweating staring at the water.” I yelled.

Benny shook his head and mumbled something. I swam over to the bank next to his little lookout and looked up at him.

“What’s wrong, Benny?” I said more quietly.

“The water, Jonny.  Its talking today.” He smiled slowly.  “I am having a hard time hearing it, but I am getting bits and pieces.”

“Oh yeah?  Whats it saying today Benny?”  Benny was special, but I don’t think he was dumb.  His thoughts just moved in different directions.

“Saying something about your Grandfather.”  Benny said.

“My grandpas have been dead for a long time, Benny.  My mom’s dad died before I was born, and my dad’s dad passed when we were in first grade.  Remember?  We all went to the funeral.”

“No, not your grandpas.  Your Grandfather.  The water won’t say much else.  Just says he is on the Butte waiting for you.  …Find the wolf.  Yeah, definitely, find the wolf.”

“That sounds pretty crazy, Benny.” I laughed nervously.  “You feeling ok?”

“Just what I am hearing, Jonny. Tumbling Raven to the water, following the old one.  Grandfather.  Yours.” He pointed at me. “You need to leave.”

“Leave?  Benny, I just got here. Was going to swim with you and Jack and Ses and even Hanks for awhile.  I have a tenner, thought I would buy us a bag of burgers later.  Come on in Benny.  You are sweating yourself silly.”

Benny’s eyes went wide. “Oh, no Jonny.  You have to leave today.  Now would be better.”

“Why Benny?  Why today?”

“Because Ses and Jack are going to drown and Hanks is going to blame you.  No one is going to believe you.”

“What?!”  I turned around, and realized that I hadn’t heard Ses or Jack or Hanks.  I called, “Ses?”

“SES!  JACK!” I shouted.   I looked all over the bend, but I didn’t see them. Hanks was climbing back down the hill from the edge with a water case in hand.  His face looked troubled.

“Have you seen Jack or Ses?” I yelled.

“No.  I was at the truck grabbing my jug. Why?”

“SES!  JACK!” I yelled as I swam out to the deep part and took a deep breath. I ducked under and kicked down as hard as I could.  The water here was only 10 to 12 feet deep, but the water was full of silt and impossible to see through.  I pushed my self down, blindly grabbing around, hoping to snag something that resembled an arm or a leg or something.  I kicked my way back up and took a deep breath.  Hanks was still standing at the edge looking at me with something weird on his face.  I couldn’t look any closer, so I took a deep breath and kicked back down.  My fingers brushed something to my right.   I kicked over and felt an arm.  A hand.  I grabbed it and pulled up hard.  Something was pulling on it from the other side… I couldn’t see or feel what it was.  I found the bottom with my feet and pushed up as hard as I could, grasping the hand with both of mine.  As I cleared the water, I pulled the person up to my chest and saw it was Jack.  His long hair was plastered all over his face and chest.

I dragged him to the bank as quickly as I could.

“Hanks you GODDAMN IDIOT, help me!  Now!”  I yelled.

He finally started moving and grabbed Jack, pulling him from the water like a canoe.  For once I was glad he had all those ridiculous muscles.   I pulled myself out and pushed down hard on Jack’s chest.  I pushed as hard as I could and water spouted out from his mouth.  I bent over, cupped his chin and his pinched his nose and exhaled everything I had.  He coughed, vomited out water all over the bank, and started breathing.  His eyes fluttered and he kept retching, but at least he was breathing.

“Oh thank god. Hanks, come on, we have to find Ses.” I said. “Benny, watch him.”

Hanks just stood there, gaping like an idiot.

“WHAT THE FUCK, HANKS, COME ON!”  I yelled.

“I don’t know how to swim, Jonny.”  He said quietly.

“WHAT!? You have been swimming for years.”  Then it dawned on me that I had never actually seen him in the deep water. “Fuck.”

I swam back out to the deep, and dove again.  And again.  And again.  And again.  I would move over every dive, hoping against hope.  I was running out of time.  I had ran out of time.  I dove again.  Then something grabbed me.  I almost screamed under the water.  It wasn’t a hand, or a claw, or anything like that.  It was the water.  It was an undertow.  A heavy hand, like gravity, but sucking, pulling, and keeping me from the air above.  I panicked for a second, then stopped fighting it.  I was pushed along for a few seconds.  I waited until I found a pause, but the water was vicious. My lungs were burning, my vision behind my eyelids was full of creeping red.  I finally found a small chance and pushed up as hard as I could.  I broke the surface and took a huge ragged breath, only to get half of it in water and being drug down again.  Then I knew. Right there.

This is how Ses just died.  Jack must have got caught on something.  A branch or rock or something stuck in the silt.   But I was in it.  It had me.

I pushed myself hard.  Started swimming with it as best I could, angling for the surface.  I broke the surface again, and was able to take a breath.  And I saw her.  Face down.  At the bank.

I felt the current let go and I literally crawled my way over to her.  I felt almost dead… my breaths were ripping harsh breaths, stinging my lungs, while my eyes felt raw from the silt.  I was feeling broken and helpless, my heart was flayed and laid bare.  We were past the bend.  No wonder I hadn’t heard her.  I pulled myself up to the rocks and dragged her floating body over to me.  I flipped her over slowly.  She was gone, and no amount of CPR was going to do anything at this point.

But I tried anyway.  I pulled her onto the rocks, half way submerged up her shoulders as she laid there.  I pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed, and blew, and pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed, and blew again.  I think I screamed.  I think I screamed a lot.  It kind of blurred together.  I lost track.  The screaming, the crying, the horrible sensation of rage at the cruelty of everything.  I pushed down hard on the third set, and felt some ribs crack in her lifeless body.

She was blue.  And white.

I felt a shadow from the top of the high bank fall down on me.  I turned and saw Hanks looking down.  His eyes said everything, and Benny had already told me.  But he said it anyway.

“You… murderer.”

“I tried to save her, Hanks.”

“Bullshit. You pushed her under.  Didn’t you?  Jack probably saw.  You pushed him under too.  Then you change your mind when I catch you going over the story with Benny.  Think your secret is safe with that retard?  Just wait.  You fucked up when you saved Jack.  I am going to get the Deputy. Don’t you dare fucking move.”

“That is insane, Hanks.  Why would I kill my best friends?  Benny and I were talking, Jack and Ses got pulled under!”

“Yeah right.  You told Benny about the drowning, he was agreeing with you.  You saw me and dove under.  You pull Jack up, you go back out, you dive under and don’t come back.  Then I hear screaming, I come over here to find you hovering over Ses’s dead body.  You sick fuck.  I am going for the Deputy.”  His face disappeared.

I looked down at Ses and pushed her raven hair out of her eyes.  They were closed, thank god.  I touched her cheek and started crying again.

A few minutes later, another shadow came over the edge.  It was Benny.

“Benny, oh thank god.  We have to lift her out.  I don’t think I can swim back with her body.”

“Jack told me to find you.  I found you.”  Benny smiled.

“Benny, did you hear me?  We have to lift her out of here.”

“Water told me not to, Jonny.  Water said she was safe.  Water told me to tell you to run. Run right now.  So I brought your stuff.”  Benny said.  He tossed my shoes and shirt and my walkman into the water next to me. The walkman shattered when it hit the rocks, and my shirt and shoes immediately were soaked.

“God dammit Benny!  Listen.  The water did not say anything to you.  The water can’t talk!  Ses is just laying here.  Come on Benny!”  I yelled.

His eyes started to water and he sniveled.  He turned away, and I heard him sob. “Run, Jonny. Run.”

So I kissed Ses on the cheek as gently as I could and pushed myself back into the water.  I floated downstream for an hour, then crawled up the other side.

And I ran.

I was born under a tin roof, in an ugly bathroom adorned with long outdated seventies décor. If full size toilet covers were manufactured, like those squeaky plastic furniture covers one would see in any old lady’s house, the toilet I was brought into this world on would have had one.  I wish I could say I was born on a dark and stormy night, but in reality, I was born in the middle of a typical summer Tuesday, to a half-drunk mother and a essentially non-existent fully-drunk father. The sky was blue, the sun was hot, and the reservation in Oklahoma was my new home, as I had been recently evicted from my cozy warm place inside my mother.

The mobile home I was born in, festooned with fake wood panelling, lacquered veneers, and ugly formica countertops had the thickest, nastiest orange shag carpeting the world had ever seen.  Honestly the whole thing should have been burned down.

But that could be said about a lot of the homes sitting on the Rez.  Each had its own problems, both structurally and socially.  Some were falling apart on the outside, some were falling apart on the inside, and most of them had occupants falling apart themselves for different reasons.  Divorce, Alcohol abuse, substance abuse, unemployment, and a general malaise infected everything around the Rez… it was inescapable. It stuck to you.  The flypaper of the Rez always hung on.

I was infected myself.  All those obligations of culture hung like a necklace that nobody wanted to wear.  Heavy, awkward, and only earned you odd stares in the streets offrez.   It is a stigma.  We are a strong people.  Deep down, we truly are.  But we were broken, and rebroken, for two hundred years, faced extinction and genocide, and something like that sticks with you.  It binds us together and makes us slaves to our past.  People look at the black slaves out of Africa that were forced onto American shores, forced to work, forced to eat, forced to sleep, raped, beaten, and killed in order to maintain an order of life and civilization in the rural south. But they rarely talk about the entire race of people that lived in those lands before the Europeans ever landed.

I see the country we live in celebrate black history month and I laugh bitterly.  …Not to discount their struggles.  But their ‘race’ was never threatened with extinction.  Horrible transgressions against their humanity, yes, but not ethnic cleansing levels of transgression.  You live here, you get it.  You understand it.  Conform, forget your past, adhere to the American way of life, and be damn happy about it.

I am really getting off track.  This is not a soapbox.  This is a story.  But you need to understand where I was born, and where I was raised, in order to understand what happened on the Butte.  I can’t go to the mesa and ignore the path up its side.

My name is Jonathon Tumbling Raven Smith, a Chocktaw by my father’s line, and Cherokee by my mother’s.  I probably have a slew of other tribes in my bloodline, that’s how things work out these days.  I am probably Chickasaw, Osage, Ponca, Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, Kaw, Seminole, and every other tribe that was corralled into the borders of the Oklahoma Territory.   I don’t think anyone could really keep track, given the circumstances, and the life on the Rez.  Some really value their family trees.

Whatever, man.  My family tree is a burnt out stump at this point.  My family is me, my dog, and his fleas.  I left home when I turned 16.  Maybe I should start there.  That is a good place.   And every story needs a good place to start.

The last infection was minor this time, but I wasn’t sure how it would affect my other health problems.  My eyes were still fuzzy from the virus, and the lesions on my legs were still pretty painful from the bacterial infection I had a couple weeks ago.  I was not sure if I was going to be able to keep pulling my time in the lab.  Every time I picked up a sample, I somehow picked up a lesser version of the same illness.  I followed lab protocols, I double gloved, wore a splatter shield with a breathing mask and eye protection.  My coveralls were always new and my apron was the heaviest gauge I could lift.  But somehow, every time, I got sick.  As if proximity was enough.  Considering very few of the pathogens I worked with were even communicable, at least over the air, it was an impossible thing.  No one else in my lab became ill.

I am probably the worst hypochondriac in the world.

…And I was quickly coming to the conclusion that working in the CDC was probably a death sentence.  Psychosomatic illness with lesions and symptoms is a real feat!  I should be in a record book somewhere.   Study measles, I get a strain of something that looks like measles.  Study pox, I get something that looks like pox.  You get the idea.

So why am I writing this down?   Why am I documenting the odd conditions that I find myself in?  Well the next sample that I am assigned to study is a very strange one indeed.  I have been reading the encounter team notes, and to say the least, this one is odd.  It is a virus from Brazil, communicated into the village by one of their hunting parties.  They were unsure of where they contracted the virus on their foray into the jungle, but they had come back with a particularly nasty little friend.  It wasn’t deadly to most, but ended up culling about 10% of the population in the village, usually the eldest.  It is labelled N54-220, and it exhibited very powerful flu like symptoms in most cases, including vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills, muscle spasms, seizures, and occasional memory loss.  What is interesting about N54-220 is the fact that it didn’t just cull 10% of the weaker, older people, it improved another completely distinct sample, roughly 5% of the village.

For example, out of 100 people, 10 died, and 5 became healthier.  Not just more healthy… they appeared to be younger, faster, stronger.  One 35 year old man, Patient S, was able to pull entire trees out of the ground.  Not just small little saplings, but full size mature trees.  He was able to jump over rivers that required bridges, he was able to lift boulders that five men would struggle to roll.  A superman.  A very short, very powerful, tanned tribesman in the middle of the rainforest.  Weird, right?

I wanted to start this log of my personal activities as I studied N54-220.  For the world’s worst hypochondriac disease researcher in the CDC, what were my chances of picking this sample up and having it affect me?

Hypothesis:  I will study N54-220 and I will experience flu like symptoms which will result in death, normalcy, or… superman.  Or, nothing will happen, because I am a damn hypochondriac and will be following infectious disease protocols.

Day 1.  I am sitting at my bench, using my headset with the audio recorder on my phone, under all my gear. I have the sample in the hotbox, vialed up in a suspension isolate.  Today, I move the samples to dishes for growth and propagation study.  I have my transfer syringes, moving the samples to the dishes and the sequencing kit. So far, no affects noted.  No breach in protocols, with a clean transfer.

Day 2.  I woke up feeling ill. My back hurt and I was achy.  I came into the lab to review the results at my computer station.  I will stay out of the hot lab today.  Not taking chances.  Paperwork today, if I feel better tomorrow, I will suit up.

Day 3.  Definitely sick.  Called in.  Again.  I am going to get fired for the rate I burn up sick time.  Getting fired from a government job takes some real commitment. Ha.

Day 3, entry 2.  Woke up from nap with seizure.  Pissed all over my bed and floor.  Spent 20 minutes cleaning it all up and then took a shower.   Feel worse.

Day 3, entry 3.  The diarrhea and vomiting started.  Cleaning out GI tract seems to be prime directive of illness.

Day 5.  Have not been able to move until today.  Crawled out of bed, into shower, drank my body weight in water, crawled back to bed.  Try to enter log tomorrow.

Day 6.  Woke up feeling much better.  Fever must have broke last night.  But that is not the interesting thing.  I had a dream about my hypochondria.  In my dream, I floated up out of myself, and was able to inspect my own fevered body with cold precision.  I analyzed my body, clinically documenting my condition in an abstract way, like one talks about the weather or the condition of a worn deck.  I looked down into my cells and noted that I was a mutant of sorts, able to infer biological conditions from my environment as a survival mechanism.  My immunological response was to emulate the biological contaminant before it made me a host.  I had the world’s first proactive immune system.  I wondered at it, watching my immune system build strange proteins and RNA strands, and letting the results run rampant, only to be trounced by the very system that deployed them.  What a strange dream!  It felt real.   I feel so good I should be able to return to work tomorrow.

Day 7.  I returned to work, feeling healthy and happy, and found my samples sequenced with the reports awaiting my review.  I dove in.  The pathogen N54-220 was a virus payload, related to the influenza virus strain that came out of China this year.  It shared a significant amount of payload material, but I could not determine anything outstanding from the results that would explain the observed behavior in the wild.   In a moment of playfulness, remembering my dream from yesterday, I grabbed the edge of the worktable I was at and twisted my hand up to see what would happen.  I bent the table. Twisted the metal lip almost a full 45 degrees. It felt like a twisting a twist tie on a bag of bread.  I pushed it back, giddy.

Day 7, entry 2.  I went to the gym today.  I have never been to a gym in my life, so I tried the Y.  All the free weights scared me a bit, so I headed to the machines.  Bench press was first.  I put the stack at 100lbs and pushed it up without any effort.   I bumped the weight by 50 lbs and tried again.  No effort.  I bumped the weight another 50lbs, tried again.  Same result.   I maxed out the machine at 220 lbs and did not even struggle.  I moved to the free weights, asked a couple larger guys for some tips and how to measure the weights.  They looked at my razor thin frame, all 150lbs of it, pasty white skin, and smiled at the “nerd” while they explained it all.  One guy laughed when I loaded the bench bar with four 45lb plates on each side.  Then they shut up when I busted out 10 repetitions.  I was too conspicuous.  I won’t go back.  I need to study this away from curious eyes.

Day 8.  Work went well today.  I studied three new arrivals without much fear or worry.  I don’t know why.  I feel… different.

Day 9.  I went out for a run today.  I have never ran a mile in my life.  In high school, I always had a doctor’s note. Today I ran at least 20 miles.  I did it in a single hour.  That clocks out to a 3 minute mile.  I felt like I could run faster… when I was done, I was sweating, but not uncomfortable or feeling ill.  I think I laughed all the way home.

Day 10.  All my symptoms and illnesses are gone.  My skin is clear, the lesions are completely healed.  My muscle mass appears to be unchanged, although my body weight has increased by forty pounds.   I feel as if I look the same in the mirror.

Day 15.  I spent the last week testing my limits.  I do have them, but they are hard to reach.  I think I need to go to Brazil. The desire came on me suddenly today.  I feel a compulsion to meet the others.  To… talk to them.  I don’t know why.  I filed a field request with my supervisor, but I am leaving regardless.  My flight heads out in three days.  I am packing everything I need and donating the rest.  I feel like I am not coming back.

Day 18.  This is my last entry in America.  Brazil or bust!

Day 20.  I rode the bus to the final point I could from the airport.  I hired a guide in the local village, Tom.  (If his name is actually Tom, I would be surprised.)  But he speaks English and knows where I want to head.   My CDC badge has gotten to the right places so far, I am trusting Tom to take me the rest of the way on foot.  He estimates about a day and a half to the village I am looking for.  We are starting our hike early tomorrow morning into the rainforest.

Day 22.  We walked all the way alright.  I arrived feeling fit and healthy.  Tom was amazed that I handled the hike so readily.  I waved it off.  Waiting on the path, about five minutes from the village, we met Caua. I felt as if I knew him.  Tom helped translate with Caua… he knew I was close, he could feel another “Sobre” close by.  I could not get a translation from Tom of what Sobre meant.  In Spanish, it was a preposition meaning ‘upon’.  I did not press it with Caua.  There are seven Sobre in the village and I was to join them.  Caua sent Tom back home and took me under his care.

Day 23.  Tomorrow Caua and the other Sobre are going to take me into the bush.  We all feel the pull.  The jungle calls us.  We yearn to go.  The Sobre will not be coming back, they are giving their belongings to others in the Village.  I hear it now… the song.  It pulls on me, caresses me.  It sings a call to action, a call home.  It is getting stronger, every moment.  The jungle calls us.  The jungle… is asking us to be something more.  And I am the key.  I am the key to saving everything.

This will be my last entry.  I don’t know why… but the sense of immense purpose makes me calm.  I am not worried about what the future holds, because I will be making it.  That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Maybe.