Jungle Cats,
[Being chapter 8 in the tale, the only way was east.]
So… Gio had a little freakout.
He had just purchased the most awkward lapdance of all time. He was nervous. Twiddling with something in his left hand and barely looking up. The stripper spent most of the thumping and monotonous song dancing over me. I kept trying to move her toward him in slight but direct little shoves. She would follow my lead and hover her tiny white ass above his face for a second or two before it quickly made its way back over to me. This would happen several times throughout the dance. She was maybe nineteen.
By the end of the song, this little Mexican stripper with plump cheeks as pink as her lacey panties was sitting between the both of us trying to make small talk. I could see the look on Gio's face during the whole ordeal: a mixture of equal parts fear, confusion, and that Catholic guilt he just couldn’t seem to shake. I saw him talking to her with resignation. The look on his face was precious. I felt like I was a zookeeper watching a child handle a snake for the first time. I wanted to lean over and tell him she’s sway more afraid of you than you are of her.
The song ended. Pink-Panties shook Gio’s hand and gave me a big hug and then scurried off to join her coworkers who were all lounging on the sofas that lined the neon glowing dance floor. In the blasting light, their silhouettes looked like jungle cats hanging from the tops of trees. Bored out of there minds. Gio leaned into me and asked if he had done something wrong? I laughed and told him no, that was plain fucking weird. To be honest, I have no idea what the fuck just happened, I said.
He put his face in his palms. I probably made her uncomfortable somehow, he said. I’m always fucking doing that. God, I’m such an awkward dude. Only I could ruin a lapdance. He gave me an absurd smile. The Corners of his mouth were pointed upward but his eyes were drooping and sad. I just really fucking hate myself, Hahahaha — ha!
He drank his beer and we just stared at each other. Neither one of us knowing what to do next.
A stripper with cheetah-striped panties was walking by and I touched her lightly on the wrist. Over the loud music and the language barrier, I told her about Las Vegas. She loved that and proclaimed that if I was going to be a dancer this summer then I might as well be a dancer right now and pulled me up toward the stage. She said this less with words and more with specific micro-expressions, gestures, and sounds. If you’re really listening, you hardly ever need words.
I looked back at Gio. He was just sitting there, kind of twiddling his thumbs, trying not to look bored and completely out of place. I wanted to be a good person but as a general rule, I don’t pity anybody. Especially friends.
Gio looked up at me and asked if we go could go? Sure, I told him, but I want thirty minutes to dance. Cheetah-Panties held out her hand. I took it and followed her toward the pole.
Looking out from the stage I noticed that the club was deserted. Devoid of anyone but the jungle cats, Gio, and myself. Save one man throwing pesos and dollar bills on the stage who was drunk and getting drunker. The boy in the corner was still getting his eternal lap dance from Camo-Panties. Only it was more than a lap dance. She was straddling him in his solo booth just dry humping to the music. Tits bouncing in his face to the beat, a big smile full of braces on her face. How much was he paying her?
That was probably the kind of dance Gio thought he was going to get when the club promoter came up to him and sold him on the Idea. He was this tall skinny dude with a perfect haircut and manicured nails. He looked like Ricky Martin and Renaldo had a baby. I wondered how much it would cost for me to get a dance from him.
He grabbed Gio by the shoulder like they were buddies and gestured to all the lions and cheetahs and panthers and lynxes laying about the club. Any girl you want, he said. Just point her out to me.
Gio had a look on his face like there was a pop quiz and he forgot to study. He glanced over nervously at me. I just shrugged. Gio was not impressed, that much was clear but he felt pressure to make a decision. He nervously pointed back to Camo-Panties and the manager shook his head and smiled at Gio’s naiveté. Anyone but her, he said.
Many of the girls had run to the back of the line to excitedly point at Pink-Panties. She seemed shy. As shy as someone can seem while standing in the center of the room with just a few thin pieces of fabric protecting (but also highlighting) their pussy, their nipples, and their asshole. They raised their eyebrows and silently yet emphatically pointed at her like this was a middle school ball and she was the girl who was too shy to ask her crush to dance.
But she didn’t have a crush on him. She didn’t even know him. So what was going on? Maybe she was the new girl, maybe she wasn’t entirely thrilled to be here. Maybe she’d taken this job out of some sort of desperation and her new sisters were trying to help her get a little cash on this cold, slow night. I’d never find out.
Gio looked panicked and confused. He pointed at Pink-Panties, paid the promoter, and she slowly came over. Now we all know the result. And after it was over Gio began to escape into himself and stare off into the distance as he tends to do.
I try to accept my friends as they are, but I never try to coddle them. And if Gio felt lonely then that was alright. But I don’t delude myself. I can’t fix anybody else. I’m fucked up and depressed. Full of social anxiety and fear, too. And I don’t expect anybody to fix me. At that moment I wanted to dance and Gio wanted to sulk and twiddle with his hands. So that's exactly what we did.
Once on the pole, I completely let go. I don’t remember what moves I was using or even what song was playing. I just remember the flow of it. That it was easy. Knowing immediately that I would be good at this. Excited about Las Vegas and the journey I had ahead. A summer dancing, then back to the Netherlands, then South Africa to do research. But I wasn’t thinking about any of that just then. At that moment I was lost in the music. All the jungle cats crowded around me on the pole and cheered me on. I felt happy.
I swung my legs around and flung my head backwards to slide down the pole upside down. I looked towards Gio’s booth and I knew right away that something was off. He was moving his right hand up and down as he spoke and stopped to nod like he was listening to someone there at that booth. But there was nobody there. Just the empty seat where I was sitting. In his left hand, he was twiddling with something. He’d been doing that all night. What did he have?
I hugged my new cats goodbye and grabbed Gio by the hand. I didn’t know why, but I was suddenly terrified. It was time to go.
Ok, let’s get out of here.
Okay.
Who were you talking to?
That priest, Junipero. He’s been following us all night. He had some things he wanted to tell me…
I led him out of the strip club. He felt heavy. He was following the tug of my hand but he didn’t look where I was pulling him. Not once. His head stayed cocked in the direction of that empty booth. I pulled open the red curtain and yanked Gio out onto the street. He covered his eyes as they adjusted to the millions of bright lights on the street around us. Then, the freakout began.
Oh my god! They’re fucking everywhere!
Gio! What the hell are you talking about!?!
Big Green eyes! The big green eyes, they’re fucking everywhere! Can’t you see them?
He pointed at the street lights and the screens with naked dancing silhouettes. He pointed to the eloteros and the donkey that was painted to look like a zebra. Each time it was the same thing: Big Green eyes, Big Green Fucking eyes! I can’t get away from these Big Green Goddamned Fucking Eyes!!!
I kept pulling him by the hand down the street. I was afraid of where he would go if I let him loose, but he didn’t resist. He was sluggish. Terrified, but completely resigned to the fact that he was already doomed. I was grabbing him by his left wrist. I don’t know why but I didn’t want to touch the hand. I can’t explain it but it felt like the hand was already dead.
When we passed under that giant silver arch with the huge clock on its screen reading 11:31 he pointed up at it and screamed so loud I thought he might go hoarse.
See? Its watchful eye is upon us! There is no escape!
Then he suddenly crumbled into himself and got real quiet. I took him to the bus -stop where he proceeded to lay on the floor and stare up at the sky while muttering this song to himself over and over again:
I don’t want to let you go,
But it hurts my hands to hold the rope…
I practically carried him out of the late-night taxi van and onto our street. For such a skinny dude that fucker is heavy. He wanted to sit down on the curb for a minute but I wouldn’t let him.
Come on, I said. Our house is just up the block. We made it about halfway up the street, just about where that red-brick castle was when I noticed someone standing in the center of the street with her arms crossed and impatiently tapping her flats. It was Stacey the witch, our landlord.
¡Oye! There you are. It took you long enough.
Listen, Stacey, Gio doesn’t feel so good. He’s really drunk and we need to take him to bed. I didn’t know why she was there and at this point, I didn’t care.
You’re right that he’s drunk. But you’re drunk too and you don’t look like that. Plus, I already told him, he can’t come into my house again.
What the fuck? Why not?
Because he took something that doesn’t belong to him. This poor house already had a broken heart, but he had to go ahead and steal it anyway.
I looked at him and he was just sitting there motionless on the curb humming that same song to himself:
In youth I had an even keel,
But now I’m not sure what is real...
Stacy what the actual fuck are you talking about??
Do you remember going into this house?
Umm, yeah we went there this morning.
Do you remember what happened there?
Ya, Gio really wanted to see the inside of it. We went for two seconds until the dude who owned it started being really creepy and asked us if we wanted to see what they do in his ‘tower.’ So, I told Gio we had to get out of there before I was murdered.
And did you go up into the tower?
Absolutely not.
You’re wrong. You did, you just don’t remember doing it. Time and memory are strange enough already but in that house…things work a little bit differently in that house. Time is like confetti in there.
Stacy! Gio is really drunk and my fucking arms are getting tired from propping him up so can you please stop talking crazy and just help me take him home?
You both climbed up that tower but whatever you saw up there obviously served no purpose for you or you would have taken something, too. But little fuegito boracho over here saw something he liked a lot: The house’s broken heart. He wanted it and he stole it while nobody was looking.
She had anger in her face. But not the kind of anger you have at someone you hate. The kind of anger a mother has when their son has done something really fucking stupid and they are scared for him.
…What did he steal?
Something he’s already been clinging to for most of his life, she said. And she pointed to his left hand. Clutched in a death grip as he rocked and sang to himself quietly. I tried to open it but he wouldn’t budge. I had to sit him down on the cobbled street and he landed on his ass with a thud. I pried and I pried and I pried on his hand but he wouldn’t let go.
Let me help you with that, Stacey said.
¡T I I I I I I I I N G!
On her fingers were little golden bells and she slammed them together so hard that I could see the wave of sound fly out from them and envelope around us in concentric circles. Like someone had thrown a rock into a lifeless pond.
Then, Gio’s hand opened like a door, only I wished it hadn’t. I didn’t scream when I saw what I saw, but tears just started falling down my face like someone had stabbed the ducts and were bleeding me out to dry. I felt a sadness I hadn’t felt in years and I forgot about all the joy in my life. I forgot about dancing with the jungle cats or stumbling into a drag show, or how adorable Gio can be when he wants to tell you about the bass guitar and just goes on and on like words are going out of style. Looking at him now I felt emptiness. Just complete emptiness.
At the center of his palm was this shiny little stone the shape of a broken heart. Deep pools of black ink were puddling on the lines of his palms and seeping into his veins. From there, the black muck ran up his arm and directly into his heart. With his pale winter skin against the moonlight, he looked dead. I felt so sad looking at him but I didn’t want to look anywhere else. I felt cold. I felt like death. I liked it.
Wow, I thought. I really fucking hate myself. I am a terrible person.
Stacey didn’t speak. There was no noise except the waves crashing a quarter mile west. That, and Gio’s voice quietly singing in the night.
How darkly the Dark Hand met his end…
He was withered and bony, exposed for a phony,
But we heed the last words that he penned:
Haste to disgrace a traitor, do not wait till later.
I don’t think that you’ve got to pretend,
I see God in birds and Satan in long words…
Listen Calluna! Snap out of it!
Stacey had been talking to me for a while. How long, I couldn’t tell. But I had no memory of what she said. I realized I'd been singing that same song with Gio on loop for who knows how many times. It felt good to sit and sing and be miserable with him. Stacey shaking me back to life felt cruel. Like I was a child being ripped out of bed in the middle of the night.
I’ll explain everything but there’s no time right now, Mamacita. It’s almost the witching hour and it’s a full moon. We need to get into that house right now.
What?
You heard me.
…But that’s breaking and entering.
Don’t worry, we won’t wake him up. But Fuegito needs to give back what he stole. And you and I need to protect him. He’s too weak to do this alone right now.
He can’t go in there like this! He can barely walk.
Oh, I can help with that. Fuegito! Chh-Chh!
Gio broke his sluggish trance and looked directly up at Stacey like a dog waiting for his treat. Then, with definite purpose, she slammed her fingers together and the soundwave took to the air like snow.
I saw something start to spark and burn and simmer in the air above him. This was the first time I’d seen it. But maybe it was there all the days I’d know him. Maybe I just kept forgetting about it. But as I looked at it, the black feeling started to fade and I felt warmer.
It was a little green flame floating over his head.
