by Daniel Cano
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| A well-armed adversary |
Exhausted,
showered, and finally under the sheets, I was just about to turn off the light
when I saw it, a scorpion, looming large and casually strolling across the
cabana’s wood floor. Oh no, that’s not what I needed, not now, after trudging all
day from one archeological site to another and listening to professors discuss
their work, the heat doing its thing, pounding overhead and pressing in from
all sides, first rain then sun, and the warm, tropical air too hot to
even put on our plastic ponchos.
I was deep
in the Belizean jungle, a preserve where scientists from different American universities
came and brought students to conduct research. Really, I was just along for the
ride, accompanying twenty-five students on a study abroad program, to expose
them to something different, like what archeologists do We’d already eaten dinner in a cafeteria on the
compound, emptied a few bottles of wine, and discussed the day’s events, both good and bad. I
overheard two girls say they wished they’d gone on the study abroad trip to
Paris, instead.
After, as we had walked back from the cafeteria to
our individual cabanas, across long grassy knolls, we spotted movement, like
the earth was slowly undulating. Man, was I that tired that my mind was playing
tricks on me. A professor who had invited me on the trip, an anthropologist,
stooped down and set his hand on the grass. When he stood, he held out his
hand, palm up, a large tarantula on his fingers. “They’re everywhere,” he said.
He had us
look closely at the grass. Under the moon’s dim light, the shadowy creatures,
scores of them, moved about the lawn. “They rarely bite, and they’re not
poisonous,” the teacher said, as he tried convincing us to pick one up. I
passed, but a couple of students knelt, placed their hands on the lawn, and stood
up, a hairy spider sitting in their palms. Let me out of here. I want to sleep.
So, now a
scorpion in my room, and as tired as I am.
Spiders and
critters are plentiful out here. This is their home, the jungle. Each night, since I arrived, I
heard movement in the thatch roof above me. Also, before I'd doze off to sleep, I'd hear the sounds of a struggle, crunching and crackling coming from the
bathroom. In the morning, bits of wings, scales, and blood formed blotches around
the shower drain.
“Yeah,” a
staff member had old me when I had asked. “Insects crawl through the plumbing and
make their way up to the drain, where they fight it out. The bigger insects eat
the smaller ones. It’s like that every night.” So, before I headed out in the
mornings, I turned the shower on to wash it all away.
The
scorpion wasn’t moving. It stayed right in the middle of the floor, like he
owned the place, which, in a way, he did, indigenous to the land. I was the
interloper, coming in to disrupt, and, in some ways, conquer his way of life. Foundations pour millions
of dollars into this preserve, so it will never again be the same, even
after we all leave, and wide swaths of archeological digs scar the land where
ancient Maya once roamed.
I was so
tired, I couldn’t deal with It. Maybe once I turned out the light, I told
myself, creature would just go away. I closed my mosquito net around my bed and tried
to sleep, still convincing myself the venomous scorpion would find his, or her,
way out like she found her way in. I turned a couple of times. I knew it was
still there. I could sense it. I tried putting it out of my mind. Then I thought,
dang, my mosquito net touches the floor. What if the scorpion, armed by nature
with various spears and arrows, finds the netting and climbs up into my bed?
I turned on
the light again. It hadn’t moved. I sat up, swung my legs off the bed, and
slipped my feel into my shoes. I looked around the room for a weapon of some
sort. The scorpion jammed. He headed for a dark corner. I was getting
desperate. No weapon. The broom. I saw a broom somewhere, in the bathroom, in a small closet. Too much commotion for the scorpion.
I knew I
had to move slowly, or it would find a sanctuary where I couldn’t get to it. The
broom’s bristles would sweep the creature out, but they would be useless in
combat. If I was going to dispatch my prey, I’d have to crush it with the tip
of the broom handle, the wood, rounded part. The scorpion got wind of my plan
and scampered under a cabinet, a few inches above the floor. It was dark under
there. I could see it, more like a shadow.
I placed my
weapon under the cabinet, slowly, trying to avoid detection. There was just
enough space under the cabinet, but it was an awkward angle, and I couldn’t get
enough force behind the broom. The scorpion moved to a place harder for me to
see it. My weapon was useless, the scorpion taking advantage of the field of
battle.
I thought
about going back to bed and forgetting about it, but I already tried that. It
didn’t work. How could I sleep knowing that valiant adversary, armed to the
hilt, was still there, waiting for its chance to strike?
Okay, I was
told, for most people, a scorpion’s sting doesn’t kill. It’s painful and can
make a person really sick. Not only that, but they don’t strike unless
provoked. Should I just get back into bed and forget it all, and was the
trade-off worth it? What? Now I was negotiating with different sides of my
brain. No, I had to kill it. This is my cabana. Okay, fine, but it's on the scorpion's land. Again, I searched for a weapon.
Nothing. The room was bare except for a desk and a few books. I looked over at
my heavy hiking boots, and the solid heel, but no way could I get it under the
cabinet. Maybe, if I moved the cabinet…but then, the scorpion would split. It
was pretty damn fast. Hell!
On the
desk, next to my own paperbacks, and a journal, another book, one of those large,
heavy picture books, the kind they have in hotels. You know the kind, thick, and
filled with locations not to miss while on your visit. Slowly, I sauntered to
the desk and picked up the book. It was definitely heavy, and the spine hard, wide, and flat. I hated the idea of using a book for this purpose, killing an insect
on its home turf, mind over matter, in a sense.
I went back
to the cabinet, down on my knees, and took a peek. The scorpion hadn’t moved. I
laid down the heavy book, flat on the smooth wood floor. I took aim. I couldn’t
angle the book. It had to be a straight shot. I only had this one chance, but I
wasn’t happy about this, any of it. That scorpion had a right to live. Crap,
but so did I. So, I heaved the weapon, the spine hitting flat against the
baseboard, the scorpion between the two. I thought I heard a crunch, but maybe
it was my imagination.
When I
removed the book, I saw what looked like blood on the spine. I thought of
wiping it clean, but the book had become a weapon of combat. I decided to leave
the blood. I placed the book back onto the desk, next to my writing material.
What I can’t remember is if I went right to sleep, relieved I had
vanquished the enemy, or if the entire episode had bothered me. I think I slept
well, no longer fearing prey in my bed. It was the way it all happened that has stayed with me, a book as a weapon against our most primitive nature.
