Of Pisco and Peru: Iquitos Pt. 8

Linda’s voice sounds tired. “What is it this time?” She sounds like she has loaded up her mouth with an entire pack’s worth of gum.

Drawing by Danilo D’acunto

Uh oh, this is the big one.”What do you mean?”

“Your excuse. What’s your excuse for a life, today?”

“Excuse? I don’t make ex —”

“What is it?”

“Uhhhh, I’m a. . .” My neck tenses. “Exploding Head Syndrome?”

Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

Linda. “You’re mumbling again, Doug. What was that?”

“Uh. . .”

“Make it good. You’re gonna need it.”

With a thud, the waitress plants the vinaigrette bottle next to me. “Here you go, hun.”

Linda’s voice. “It doesn’t matter at this point, Doug. Larry’s pissed. You’re far gone.”

I mouth Thank You to the waitress.

“Namaste.” She briefly bows, cradling her hands to her chest, then bounds off.

Is this what I’ve been waiting for all this time? Waiting to walk on a life’s moments edge. I had done this to myself but didn’t have the strength to see it all the way through. I needed an ally, someone like Linda. Someone to watch me set the trap, then kindly watch me fall into it.

“Thanks for the truth. Thanks for being kind and caring, Linda.”

“Well, sometimes kind and caring Linda has to be a witch.”

“A good one or a bad one?”

“Bad, but it’s for your own good, Dougie.”

It’s like making silly faces at myself in front of a firing squad, then asking a dearest friend to pull the trigger. So sorry about Old Duck’s demise.

My magic marker drops. I stare at my fingers, smudged in dead black ink.

What will this be? A longtime, patient wait off my shoulders or an economic death sentence?

Linda’s tone ticks up a notch. Impatient. “Well?”

Peering at my notebook's wrinkled pages, the only excuse left unscratched out in big, black lettering: Cargo Cult.

At this point why not? Nothing to lose. My mouth curls to a smile. “Ah, funny story. I, ahhhh, you see. . . I’m on an island in the South Pacific.”

“An island?”

“Yes. You see, I. . . I’ve been abducted by a cargo cult —”

The frenetic gum-chewing stops. “A cargo cult?”

Shaking my smudged fingers, I stare at my hand likes it’s been dismembered. “This is legitimate. I swear.”

“Let me get this straight: you want me to go into Larry’s office and tell him you absolutely, positively can’t come into work today because you’re trapped on Gilligan’s Island? Is this a joke?”

Photo by Michael on Unsplash

I gulp. Doomed. “Shit, shoot. Forget about that last one, Linda. Please. I haven’t joined a Cargo Cult. For what it’s worth, I think the tropics are overrated!”

CLICK.

“Linda? Hello, Linda?” The harshest delusions to give up are the ones we create for ourselves. “Crap!”