Issue #20 (2011) PDF - myweb - Long Island University

when my uncle added four or was it five more kids to our group. I can‘t remember now. He didn‘t
mention them on the trip from the city; in fact, he hadn‘t said much of anything to us. My uncle‘s
wife was with us as well as a friend of his who was a dentist. His wife‘s name I don‘t care to
remember, and she didn‘t deserve to be called aunt and as for the dentist, I will call him Angelo, for
he would be my angel.
A short dark skinned man wearing cutoff shorts and a loose fitting t-shirt that at one time
must have been white took us all to a short pier where several large motorboats were tied. He was
scary to me at twelve, because his skin was so leathery and his expression blank. I stared at him and
wondered what was out there to make him look that way. The humidity was intense. My clothes
were stuck to me already, so if I got wet in the boat it wouldn‘t matter. In fact, I hoped that I would
get wet. It would have been a relief from the heat. I was looking forward to the beach. The pier
was at the edge of a river, which in city terms must have been at least three or four blocks wide.
―Are we getting on those boats‖ My sister asked our uncle. She started to cry. She was
afraid of boats, or was it the water
―Yes, yes,‖ he said waving her to go get in, as he turned to supervise the loading of the
boats. His wife went with him leaving us with Angelo. Angelo was about thirty something years old,
he had fair skin with dark hair that he wore with slightly longer sideburns and a mustache. He
wasn‘t that much taller than my sister who was five feet seven inches tall, but he was thinner than
my uncle who had a few inches of a spare tire hanging over his waist. His wife was overweight as
well.
―I help you,‖ Angelo said.
―It‘s not that she can‘t get in, she‘s afraid.‖ I said and stepped down into the boat.
―Oh, no worry, Safe- good boat,‖ Angelo said in his broken English attempting to soothe
her nerves.
―You gotta get in, you can‘t stay here. Who you gonna stay with.‖ I said.
With a little bit more coaxing, plus the fact that there was no staying behind, she got in and
sat next to me. Our group filled two boats, the cutoff shorts man got in with us and another similar
looking man wearing similar looking clothes climbed into the other boat to drive. Angelo and a
couple of the children sat at the other end of the boat we were in. The river was the most beautiful
thing I had seen up until that day. I had never seen so many trees or smelled air so fresh-full of the
scent of the grasses, leaves and the river water. We had left cars and their exhaust far behind. There
was nothing but trees of enormous height and width lining the banks of the river. Occasionally
other boats, some smaller, would pass us. The people on board stared at us city people with our
brightly colored clothes and our suitcases and supplies packed up high in the boats. My suitcase
especially must have been a curiosity I had a pink plastic suitcase, which was suited for a twelve year
old, but not for the jungle. As we continued on the river, it began to narrow. Our boats passed
several small shacks built on stilts directly on the waters edge. There were naked children swimming
and women wearing what only looked like nightgowns or housedresses looking out at them and at
us.
I don‘t know how long we were out on the river; no one kept track of the time. I heard the
boatman talking to my uncle again. He said we would be stopping soon. We had started to see
many more shacks built closer together. The boatmen pulled the boats up to a few wooden planks
sticking out of the riverbank next to a house. Where‘s the beach Maybe my uncle didn‘t tell my
father the truth. Maybe we weren‘t going to the beach at all.
In this village, we would spend the night I heard them say. My uncle didn‘t mention this,
either. We could all have been led to our deaths in this dark and putrid place. We had no clue to
what was going on. My uncle and his wife offered us no consolation, no explanation as to where we
were actually going or why we had stopped.
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