Crazy for the Storm

The song came to a fluttering close. Total silence. My embarrassment was amplified by the twinkle in my dad’s eye. The vaqueros looked fed up. I was ready to make a run for it and looked to my dad for a sign.

Impervious he curled around the guitar and began to strum anew.

Dad, I implored.

He ignored me and began to sing.

I leaned in closer.

Dad…

He closed his eyes and continued to sing in Spanish. That’s when I caught Papaya staring at my dad’s shoulder and neck. Drops of sweat percolated on his skin and glinted in the firelight. She slid her half-veiled eyes toward the fire seamlessly, as if they had been looking there all along. My dad was oblivious and he sang in a booming voice and I checked to make sure the vaqueros weren’t approaching. One of the elders joined in and the youngest vaquero looked bewildered.

At the end of the song everybody except the vaqueros clapped. I was astonished by what I had witnessed—my dad had taken the only thing he had, a guitar, and axed his way through adversity. I marveled at his spontaneity, his grace under pressure, the way he transformed the situation—bleak and irreversible—into something beautiful.

My dad sang a few more songs and near the end of the last one he stood up and trailed away toward our hut, his music fading with him. When he called out Buenos noches, I got up and went after him.

We rested on our blankets.

Is everything okay now? I said.

Yep, he said.

A rush of jealousy took me off guard. As awed as I was with Dad, suddenly I wanted to tell him that Papaya was bored—she ignored your fingers plucking the strings, your fancy Spanish lyrics, the sweat on your skin.

What? said my dad.

I didn’t say anything, I said—so bitterly that it made him ask if I was feeling okay.

I rolled away from him without responding. I couldn’t do the amazing things he could do. I could never have Papaya. For an instant I wondered if that was the real reason that the villagers were pissed off, that he had done something with Papaya. Imagine being so nimble, so charismatic, that there was nothing anyone would ever put past you. I rolled even farther away and slept on the dirt.

At dawn we scoped out the surf and it was clean. The waves were too small for my dad but he hooted after each ride anyway. He never gets bummed about things the way I do, I thought as we drifted on our boards waiting for a set wave. He always finds something cool, some little treasure. That’s why everyone—including girls—likes him.

I rode on the back of my dad’s saddle. He carried his guitar in one hand and I carried my suitcase. We followed Ernesto along the trail. All the mud had dried in slabs, burying the smaller plants here and there, and I thought we were pretty tough—as opposed to lucky—to have made it that day when we arrived in the storm. After five minutes of bouncing it felt like the suitcase was going to tug my arm out of the shoulder socket. I thought about Dad always seeing the beauty in things and instead of complaining I said,

Wow. So many kinds of green in the jungle.

Dad glanced back at me, more curious than impressed.

The tarp had dried in a messy crinkle. Mud encased all four wheels of the truck and the chassis was flush to the ground. The washing machine’s bulge made me realize that I had completely forgotten the original cause for our journey to Mexico.

Ernesto tied the horses to the bumper. My dad put the truck in neutral and Ernesto hawed the horses. Their great necks drove them forward. Haw. Haw. When the wheels cracked free they spit tiles of mud across the trail. Ho. Ho. The horses reared and stamped their feet.

The mechanic appeared, walking down the trail with a toolbox and a crowbar.

What’s that thing for? I said, pointing at the crowbar.

I don’t know, said my dad.

The mechanic wore a collared shirt and jeans and sandals and he spoke to Ernesto and my dad listened. The mechanic got under the truck and went to work. He chopped at the undercarriage with the crowbar and mud cakes sprayed out from under the truck. My dad handed tools to the mechanic and took them back from the mechanic. Every few minutes Ernesto rode up the trail to check the highway, worried about federales I guessed. I swatted mosquitoes and was careful not to complain.

An hour later my dad started the truck and drove it a few feet forward, then turned it off and got out. He peeled off several paper bills and the mechanic took them and said nothing and left. My dad put the guitar and my suitcase in the cabin and locked the door. He helped me onto the horse and we followed Ernesto back to the village.

It started to rain late in the afternoon so my dad went to talk to Ernesto about leaving sooner rather than later. I wondered where Papaya was and I walked up and down the dirt path saying Adios to the kids and their mothers, all the while looking for Papaya.

My dad returned on horseback led by the youngest vaquero. I handed my dad the surfboards and he set them across his lap. I got my foot in the stirrup and he helped me up. He waved and thanked everyone and they all waved back without speaking. I waved and hoped to spot Papaya. Nada. We trotted into the jungle and something squeezed my heart. I wondered if my dad had said good-bye to her secretly.

The rain was steady and weak and when we reached the truck the ground was beginning to soften. My dad spoke to the vaquero and he waited and my dad started the truck and drove forward. The tires only dimpled the ground. The traction was fine. My dad thanked the vaquero and he actually smiled and shook my dad’s hand. Then my dad’s horse followed the vaquero around a bend in the trail.

We have to wait until dark. Right? I said.

Yep.

We stood there and he handed me water and I chugged it down. My dad dug his toe into the softening dirt. There sneaked in the notion that if the rain got much harder we might get stuck again, and even if we made it onto the highway it would be hard to see. Then his head moved as if remembering something. He reached into his pocket.

She made this for you.

He handed me a puka-shell necklace. I slipped it over my head. The shells were cool on the back of my neck.

We stood under the drizzle and let the mist coat our faces.

When we came out of the jungle backward and jolted up the embankment and reversed onto the highway it was pitch-black beyond the headlight beams and raining hard. My dad rolled down the window and stuck his head out and we crept along slowly. At the first sharp turn in the road the slashing rain took the shape of a roadblock and I gasped and my dad hit the brakes.

God dang it, Ollestad.

Sorry, I said.

We went through a dark little town made of corrugated tin. An hour passed and there was nothing except the edges of the jungle and the rain splattering on the road. I finally relaxed.

We spent the night in Sayulita, sleeping in the truck. As the sun rose we entered Vallarta and my dad got a