Fate is a Route

Sugar found that he was not being permitted to leave Coatzacoalcos by the gang he had become a part at the cantina. Don Marcello arranged a hunting trip for him with two brothers, Enrique, or Ric, and Tomas, or TT. They sat outside the first morning of his stay sitting on two brown horses with a third saddled pinto waiting for Sugar. The brothers wore short brimmed conical straw hats that Sugar had seen around but never before arriving in Coatzacoalcos. The three horses were good quality breeds and full of spirit. His horse was named Tupac, after the rebel who fought the Spaniards and Tupac was a rebellious stud who saw every female as something to push at and mount regardless if she was hitched to a buggy or a stage coach or just grazing. Sugar had to keep watch ahead not only for the holes in the roads in town but if there were any females approaching or nearby.

They made it out of town to a small shack aside a thick river. They dismounted with Ric smiling and nodding his head to signal that he felt this is to be a great experience for Sugar. TT smiled and slowly shook his head at this brother’s anticipation as though it was just a normal day’s outing.

There was a dark skinned man sitting by the river with his back against the shack wall. The shack was made up of rough planks and the man looked like a human equivalent of rough planks with stained shirt and trousers and very dirty bare feet. He was older judging by wisps of grey stubble on his face and his hair was almost a wavy silver-grey that blended with the shack’s veined bleaching. He did not turn at their approach but sat looking out at the river. Both brothers took off their hats and lowered their heads in a half-hearted bow.

“Don Chevalier?’ TT addressed the man quietly as though not to awaken him though it was evident that he was wide awake. They stood facing his side. He didn’t move.

“Don Chevalier, …” TT spoke in another language and Sugar could only hear a few words that sounded like deep accented Spanish. TT was bowing his head several times while delivering his speech but the man never moved except to blink a couple of times.

When TT stopped Don Chevalier turned to look toward Sugar. There was wrinkled skin that was both dark brown and reddish. His deeply black pupils were surrounded by grey and the eyes did not look directly at Sugar. Sugar felt that Don Chevalier was blind. ‘Do you speak English?’ Don Chevalier spoke his English with an accent from England.

Sugar stepped back in surprise. “You speak English.”

“Of course I do since I was raised in England, East Anglia to be exact.” Don Chevalier continued, “I studied at Cambridge before the American Civil War. I am from France, Brittany.”

“Oh… sorry, but you have caught be by surprise and I sort of have to catch up.’

Don Chevalier laughed from his stomach with his head hitting the wall of the shack. He then shook his head. The brothers did not speak English and looked back and forth at the two men, both attempting smiles to be a part of the levity of the moment. Don Chevalier stopped laughing quickly and took on a serious expression. He rose unsteadily as one would after sitting for a long time. A stick that was propped against the wall next to him was grabbed and arranged for his grip. Sugar had automatically offered his hand forgetting that the man was probably blind but it was passed without notice as Don Chevalier started walking along a foot path toward the other side of the main road and to the Gulf of Mexico just past dense shrubbery. He turned his head and stopped.

“Are you coming?’ he spoke in English. 

“Yes.’ Sugar answered.

“You walk ahead of me and just follow the path. If you have a shirt on button the sleeves. There are mosquitoes.”

Sugar walked ahead, turning to see the brothers settling down near the horses and staring back at them. TT nodded and gave a warm smile. Don Chevalier grunted and nodded his head for Sugar to keep going. He did not use the stick in a poking blind man’s way but used it in a definite hiking way with deep hits to the soft soil and a cadenced march forward. Sugar had to move a little faster not to be run over. They walked silently for about a half hour until the brush gave way to a dark sand beach and the placid steel shining waters of the Gulf. Don Chevalier moved on past Sugar to the water’s edge. It lapped quietly and was sucked into the course sand with tiny hisses. The breeze was light and the sounds were only the movement of brush and the sighing of water. Don Chevalier stood facing the Gulf and Sugar moved to his side.

“Take your boots off.”

Sugar wondered how he knew he was wearing boots, but sat on the sand and unlaced his boots, taking them off and peeling off his heavy socks, placing them in the boots. Don Chevalier did not turn but as Sugar put the second sock in the boot, the old man laughed. 

“You are a very neat man. But, you are neither black or white and that is strange. You came a very long way to look for yourself but you are not defined? It is a wonder. I love wonders…”

Sugar stood up, “What are you showing me here? They said I was coming on a hunting trip.”

Don Chevalier turned and Sugar noted that he was a few inches shorter than he was but stoutly built. The breeze moved his shirt against the side of this body and framed a muscular physique. Sugar studied the man. He face was lined with a worried forehead and laugh crinkles aside his eyes. The lips had upturned endings and his chin jutted forward. The whole face had hairs in no particular order but showed that he cut them every so often. The features presented a handsome structure and the eyes were the focus. His eyes looked as though they were a part of somebody else’s face but found themselves on Don Chevalier.

“Is your first name Don or is it a title?”

He smiled. “You are examining me? Well, it is both. My pre-name is Donald and I am addressed by the people here as Don as a title. Anything else?”

“Are you blind?”

“I am almost completely blind as far as ocular vision goes. I mainly see greys with contrasts of black and white. You are a grey and that is interesting, like a blank page with edges of my vision showing roughness etched in black, as though something is waiting to come in. I wash my feet here by simply rubbing them sideways in the sand where the water laps. Then when I have a hold or it has a hold of me I bend down and scrub the mud off with more sand like this.”

Don Chevalier squatted with his trousers touching the water and began pulling sand up past his ankles and rubbing this skin until the mud disappeared. He did this all the way around his leg from left to right. Then he did the same with the other leg. When he had finished he breathed in deeply and exhaled with a bright smile that deepened the crinkles at the edges of his eyes.

“You try it.”

Sugar was wondering what this was all about but bent and rolled up his trouser legs and squatted, not getting this trouser bottom wet and began pulling the sand up to clean his ankles and feet. 

“You did not rub your feet in the sand and water.”

“Oh. Okay, I’ll do that.”

“No, next time you can start from the beginning. Continue to wash.” It didn’t seem to be an order but it was stated as a sort of continuum of his description of how to wash your feet in salt water.

When Sugar was finished he copied what he saw Don Chevalier do and breathed in and exhaled out and he felt himself relax as though he joined the old man as a friend or something.

“You make mistakes, my friend. You left that woman who was your support. And, before that you left that man who you know you should have be-friended but did not. He is a desert man. You looked at him and said things that were bad to him. Why is a question that you have to carry with you on this little trip you are on.”

Sugar’s mouth was open.

Don Chevalier spoke to the water, “He is Bear Clan.”

“What is Bear Clan?” Sugar looked around as though the answer was somewhere near. “Are you some kind of witch doctor?”

“Witch doctor… interesting concept but no, I am a shaman… that is the English term for what I have been called upon to do. Locally, they have taught me to be an akin, pronounced ah-k-in. I am also a Chilam, like a prophet. You see, I was born in France but my parents were from Haiti and they were seers, both of them. We lived in Anglia with other seers and I inherited that talent that became a wisdom. At Cambridge I studied the philosophies of the cultures in the English Empire and somehow I found myself here. You will find the knowledge that lies before you will channel you to an oasis where you will become the true spirit that you are.”

“That was a lot. You are called a what?”

“An Akin.”

“And what do you do?”

“Another funny question. I am doing what I do. And, this is for you. We tempt our minds with thoughts we keep in a box that we open too seldom. As with the sand cleaning you have to start at the beginning. I know you and I like you. You have so much to give, young man. Life is too limited for you to waste it wandering around in airs that you cannot begin to breathe. Time is a wholesome awareness and you are too wise to not use it to fill your life. There is an oasis for you in the desert and with your friend the desert man of the Bear Clan. You are to learn to be of the Bear. The Bear offers everything to you as it comes to pass.”

Sugar looked down at Don Chevalier’s feet. He looked at his own feet. For a moment he was confused as to which were which. The water had gone away from both and the beach was now a hard clay. They were standing at the hut again and TT was walking the horses over with Ric already mounted. Sugar looked down at his feet but they were booted and laced. He looked up at TT and the pinto and over to Don Chevalier, who was seated with his head leaning back against the hut.

TT handed the reins to Sugar and shook his head at Sugar’s confusion. 

“Do not worry, my little friend. Do not worry. It is time for us to go.”

“But, what just happened? Did I fall asleep?”

TT grew a puzzled expression, then smiled. “You do not know? That is good. Please say thank you to our Akin and give him something that means something to you that you have in your pocket or on your body. He will really like that.”

“We did walk away into the bush, the savanna, yes?”

TT looked at Sugar again as though it was a strange question. “Sir, we have to go. I will give Don Chevalier my hat if you have nothing to give him.”

Sugar twisted and pulled his ring off his baby finger. It was a diamond ring set in a gold circle and always reminded him of San Francisco where he won it in a poker game. He would twist it sometimes when he needed assurance. Maybe that was why he was twisting it off now. He gave the ring to TT but the man shook his head and nodded toward Don Chevalier who was not looking at anything but the play of light on the mirrored sea.

Don Chevalier turned his head as Sugar knelt beside him holding the ring at the old man’s chest level. The old man looked different. He looked like many of the older Mayans Sugar had seen in the village but not the man he had just walked with. This man was not Don Chevalier but something in his being said that he was. The old man looked down at the ring and gave a bright smile showing brilliantly white teeth and young, pink gums. He was nodding at the ring and Sugar offered it up closer to his face. The man’s smile turned into a pout and his eyebrows worked their ways into a worry. His greying eyes looked at TT then at Sugar then back to TT as he spoke in the language that Sugar could not understand. 

TT was nodding and nodding vigorously at the man. He opened his mouth to speak to Sugar but just shook his head and pushed the reins toward Sugar.

“We must go now.”

“What about the ring?”

TT swung up on his horse with wide eyes. “Come, we must go.”

The old man was re-adjusting his sitting swinging his legs over toward Sugar. His eyes were globes set onto his face, not in his face. The wavy hair of Don Chevalier had become straight and hung in strings down this man’s face. Sugar backed away and the pinto pulled him back further. He put the ring back on his finger and twisted it while mounting and followed his two companions at a trot back onto the trail. Mosquitos came in a swarm at the riders moved away and as the old man rose holding a snake that had been a stick. The old man slowly bent and let the snake free to slither toward the horses, making the pinto rise up and cry out. Sugar pulled the reins, taking his eyes off the snake and settled the pinto again, then kicked his flanks and they rode off. He turned to look back and saw the old man and a young woman standing and waving goodbyes.

Something was wrong, Sugar thought. I am going crazy. Maybe this is the real side of life he thought. The pinto was dodging branches and increasing speed. Sugar pulled on the reins again and slowed him to s trot. The shack and the old man and the woman were gone into the wildness of his vision and the thickness of the scrub. The boys were waiting. They turned and moved off with Sugar following with his thoughts on what had happened. His thoughts on if this was real life and what was before was all somebody’s dream. Maybe he was in somebody’s dream. Maybe it was time for him to grasp what was at hand in this real world. A branch slapped him hard and he fell off the pinto and lay in a soft blend of dark green leaves and powdery dried leaves with tiny flying things reflecting the sunlight that was hidden behind more leaves on trees and bush. The tiny flying things were welcoming Sugar.

“Can you recognise me?” a voice softly purred.

“Yes.”

“Your eyes are still closed. Can you open them and look at me?”

“Yes.” Sugar opened his eyes easily, surprised at how easy it was to do. The face in front of him was of a white man with balding hair.

“Don Chevalier. He is near?” he said to the white man.

“Who?” the man turned and spoke to somebody, “Who is he talking about?” There was a mumbled reply from a woman’s voice. “Do you know where you are?”

Sugar looked around to see a small dimly lit room with flies on a white wall just sitting there waiting.

“Where am I?” he asked, surprised at how easy it was to say words that were in his head.

“My name is Major Reynold. You are at the Marine Corps barracks sick bay.”

“Marine Corps. What is the Marine Corps exactly?” How wonderful it was to be able to speak the words that are in my mind, he thought.

“They brought you here and we think they said you were wandering through that jungle out there and spoke American, so I guess they thought we would take care of you. They thought we had coloureds in the Marine Corps and since you were an American… well, we will take care of you because you are American, even if you are a coloured.”

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