Diary of a Heretic

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Stigmatic
2008-03-15 21:19:00
1. The shop’s closed this week. 2. Since it’s being gutted. 3. So we can expand and renovate. At the moment Mad—“What the fuck do I have to fucking do to get through to you fucking morons?”—Mike and his chain-smoking demolition crew are knocking down walls, ripping up floors. The sound of their saws alone—three circular metal-eaters—sends an oscillating circuit of pain through my teeth. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] In less than a week Carlos has changed the map. He —I mean, we—have bought up all the property on the block. The dress shop, the dry cleaner’s, and the nail salon. Two days of negotiating with the store owners, a twenty minute conversation with the town supervisor, and off we trotted, Carlos in suit and tie—his waist-length hair cut above his jawline!—and me in a sweater vest and chinos, to sit in a stuffy office above...

Projections
2008-03-14 03:00:00
“Faking it,” I tell Carlos, “only has to happen once. Then it’s part of the entire texture. The whole thing would be over.” “What are you talking about?” “What scares me. You know, act euphoric and you feel euphoric.” “Malcolm, I’ve waited all my life for this! Don’t get squeamish. Take a pill.” [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “If I wasn’t a little scared, I don’t think I could do it, Carlos.” “Where’s Maggie?”  he asks. “Talk to her. Because right now, I’ve got to work.” “Sure, but what you’re setting up, the big financial picture, et cetera, scares me, too. What’s happening with your projections, Carlos?” “Oh please. I understand every factor here and I am not going to blow it.” “I want some idea, though. I want to meet the accountant.” “The accountant!” Carlos scoffs. “You are defining a sacred,...

Delirium
2008-03-12 02:51:00
Okay, so not every minute of every meeting is that sublime.  Certain gestures and set arguments can dominate.  Not to mention the ego rush:  For now, I am very hot. Very high on my ordinary body. Who wouldn’t be? [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Everybody rushes in already stoked.  Before they even sit down, they’re half lit with the Ray of Light they need so bad, and that I’m so famous for giving so, so well!  I open my mouth and they’re ready to lie down, open up, no holds barred.  We’re naming abstractions, “spiritual enlightenment,” “enduring faith.”  Hard to know how much is real, how much a mass hysteria. But what if I’m faking it? Even though I am on guard all the time!  Watching for tricks of light, layered space, even as I’m getting off.  Because everyone else flies into delirium as if never before. (To b...
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Sublime Forces
2008-03-11 03:10:00
Occasionally, I still panic. A momentary relapse.  But once I’m out there, arms spread, hair streaming, Truth and Light lifting me up, up, up, I can do no wrong.  Spiritually, I somersault as Sublime Forces play tag in my veins.  And the crowd, whether in Skokie or Wicker Park, the De Paul area or U. of C., is right there with me.  We’re all laughing and crying with joy! [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Sometimes I go too fast;  I’m overcome from the start. But then, with a wince, if I concentrate, if I fix myself, I can get it back.  Often, I focus on one person.  Our eyes meet.  There is a shiver.  A sigh.  I catch it and lose it, and then magically spin from my solar plexus.  Who needs to say anything?  The whole building, every floor and ceiling, beam and board, reverberates.  “What else is there?”&...

Mirror, Mirror
2008-03-10 02:46:00
This evening, after the éclair and before dinner, I slipped up to the apartment to do the souped-up stair machine I bought last week.  With all the metaphysical energy I’ve got resonating, I’ve decided to work on my cardio-vascular system before and after all performances.  I’m starting to look pretty good. The big change came the minute Carlos stopped force-feeding me.  Right away, I dropped five, maybe even ten, pounds. So, when Maggie knocks on the apartment door, flouncing in, to perch on the coffee table, I get flustered and blush. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “Don’t mind me,” she says. “Breathe!” “What?” “No need to suck it in anymore, Malcolm. You’re starting to look almost normal. When someone gets that fat within a few weeks—I mean, hour by hour, gaining weight right in front of my eyes—maybe it likewise just melts off onc...
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This Benediction Thing
2008-03-09 03:15:00
It’s taken me a while to notice, so thrilled have I been, so wrapped up in my newfound skills—but:  Carlos, Stephanie, Maggie and her “occasional boyfriend,” Lyle (whose existence makes me sick with jealousy)—all treat me with a hesitant politeness and weird respect.  Of course the regulars and newcomers are deferential.  Last week, old Mr. Downey and old Mr. Hedlund actually declared they would retroactively pay full price!  But I said, no, no, eighty percent from now on was plenty. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] For a while there, Carlos approached me as if on bended knee.  But he’s adjusting.  After each show, he hugs me gently, tells me how fantastic I was, and always asks, Can he do anything for me?  Would I like him to stick around? “For what?”  I laugh.  Once, after an especially ecstatic performance, I re...
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Better Than Sex
2008-03-08 04:03:00
It’s all that matters. It’s better than sex. It’s who I am.  Why I’m alive. It’s music; it’s dance; it’s dross transmuting not just to gold, but more:  through time and beyond, constantly sculpting it.  No kidding. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Wednesdays now, and Saturdays, I stand on a stage at the Y or another community center, and on Tuesdays and Sundays, I hold court at the shop.  For the moment, I have this incredible gift.  It’s not something I expected or worked for.  It just happened.  I bend, whisper, sing, shout—and a radiant light surrounds and then emanates from people, glimmering and glimmering.  Outside the wind blows; waves crash upon the shore (and presumptuous as it sounds, I can tell), trees tremble and leaves and dust swirl about the streets.  While inside, hearts and minds spring wide open.&n...

Suddenly I'm Off
2008-03-06 03:32:00
 My sister has invited me to visit and sent me a plane ticket. So suddenly I’m off to see her, after two years in which I didn’t see her; or my niece, who’s five years old.  This next week I’ll post revised episodes from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. 

Through Life and Death
2008-03-04 04:36:00
Emma and Scott knew each other’s minds and hearts after that. The stationary but deceptive sun and sky and the ocean’s depths and shallows shifting beneath the waves affected them equally. When they first stumbled from the ocean onto the shore, their existence changed. Holding each other, they had silently acknowledged that from now on time occurred as before and after. They had witnessed Charlie, a man they both loved, disappear suddenly, swallowed by the ocean or—going solely by what they had seen—just as possibly extinguished between rays of sunlight or subsumed by a passing cloud. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Their shared bewilderment at what was obvious (Charlie was dead) and what just might be plausible (in movies the drowned man survived) altered their lives. Striped by the shade from palm fronds, they had clung to irrefutable logic—Charlie was gone. It was either that or dive back into the ocean, determined to fi...
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Begging For Faith
2008-03-03 03:30:00
Everything I said at last night’s meeting was true. I said: “You can’t give up. No matter how often you pray for the experience—no matter how often you think you’re there, it’s finally, finally happening—only to discover that it was just a presage to transcendence and not the thing itself, you have to go on.  You have to keep wanting it.” [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “Because,” I said, “there is no alternative.  Other than to spend your life blotting out basic questions.  Ordering yourself to shut up, don’t think!  How are you going to suppress everything you wonder about?  Everything you dream?” “Either,” I said, turning off the mike, my voice big with inherent reverb, “you’re fiercely seeking a spiritual awareness that never comes, that almost comes, that fools you into believing it’s almost, almost here, and then,...
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Too Much Fun In Public
2008-03-02 06:27:00
Last night marked the ninth meeting of Religion Without Rules.  Except for the first two meetings, with Connie Llewellyn, Victor Smith, Maggie, and then Carlos—I still do all the talking.  Last night the crowd overflowed the shop.  People milled about the sidewalk, while Louie Duvall set up a closed circuit TV outside.  We reap more money all the time, which I find so disturbing, I just let Carlos handle it. But when I mount the dais and face the crowd, I don’t know, I just go into this mode that feels so fantastic, I’m amazed no one’s tried to lock me up.  (Yet.) (To be continued) [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
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Against the Tide
2008-02-29 05:43:00
Scott dove and swam and dove and swam, bellowing, “Charlie! Charlie!” in the glaring air and bubbling out “Charlie! Charlie!” underwater, where the name took shape as a watery roundness, more visible than audible. The ocean roared in his Scott’s head and drowned out his shouting. His lungs seized up momentarily. He held his head above the surface while he scanned the rippling crests. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] A bird flew overhead and its shadow moved as a fast, fluid semi-darkness between Scott and the horizon. Not fully aware that he was chasing the insubstantial silhouette of overhead flight, not fully aware of anything but Charlie and the ocean, Scott raced with drastic speed toward a barely perceived phantom. The hint of his friend’s strong, black shirt-covered arms whirling in the distance vanished before Scott was conscious of not really seeing them. After a while, he rested again, to tread and breathe. His hea...
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The Infinite Ocean
2008-02-28 03:50:00
Scott woke hung over and alone. Emma was teaching her last morning yoga class. Charlie had disappeared. Scott leaned over the upper deck and shook out his sandals, sending a scorpion falling to the ground. He needed to patch up things with Charlie. Emma wouldn’t trust him until he did. From her perspective, Scott hadn’t defended her by punching out Charlie, whether what he had said insulted her or not. Scott had lost his grip on some grudge. And, he and Emma and Charlie were leaving for Chicago tomorrow.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Scott didn’t understand the dynamics himself. He’d never been in love before and his friends teased him like high school kids. Ha-ha, will you look at that? Thirty-four year old Scott as eager and silly as an overgrown puppy. When they weren’t laughing at him, his friends said he’d dump Emma tomorrow. A dead-wrong appraisal and they knew it. But if they kept warning Emma about how bad he was, sh...
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The Labyrinth
2008-02-26 02:57:00
Certain experiences never go away. Extraordinary things can only happen outside ordinary time. Of course, they’re past—over and done. And yet, at unexpected moments, they re-emerge as immediate as ever. Emma knows what I mean. It happens to her, too. We race through our days, but sometimes, when we stop to look at each other, there it is—this hideous mystery from years ago. We hug each other for protection, staring at what’s still going on right in front of us.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Not everyone, she says, experiences this. Some people cope better than others. They can lock practically every heartbreak securely in the past. Yesteryear’s terrors never come up. Some people’s minds develop solid mental walls. Internal doors and dead-bolts protect them from the rushing galactic wind that cries with lost names and past voices. It’s not really a choice, Emma says, whether you relive the dire past or store it so that i...
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A Blow to the Head
2008-02-25 04:15:00
Since Carlos began ignoring my existence, I’ve been eating almost nothing. But tonight something happened.  One minute I stood downstairs, staring at an Amaretto cheesecake. And the next, quivering from head to toe, I was allowing myself a little sliver .  .  .  which, as it dissolved in my mouth, awakened an overwhelming need to go on allowing myself little slivers until the whole sweet rich thing was gone. Dazed, almost drugged, I tromped upstairs, demanding he tell me what’s wrong. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “Wrong?”  Carlos shifted in his chair—my chair. “Yeah, what’s wrong?” “Well, let’s see.”  Staring at the ceiling, he tapped his temple.  Then he made a frame with his fingers and squinted at me.  “When you ask, what’s wrong?” Carlos said, “are you inquiring about my health?” About to walk awa...
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Baptism by Humiliation
2008-02-24 04:39:00
Baptism by Humiliation.  Enlightenment through Remorse. A honey-soaked voice-over follows me around, testifying to all that I endure. The Prophet Rises Before Dawn, Cleanses and Girds Himself.  In Perpetual Hunger, He Imbibes a Scalding Elixir, Waits on Customers, Calls on Suppliers. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]To get through the day I imagine myself playing an exalted role of the insanely exalted role Carlos was fattening me for.In a Shaft of Light The Prophet Concentrates on Everyone’s Pain and Suffering, Everywhere. Extremely juvenile, I know, but the game comforts me. Carlos acts as if as if I’m no longer present.  He makes donuts, cakes and pies early and phones realtors later, looking to buy a space that would combine living quarters for seven, hold activities for two hundred, and show off a glorious, new bakery. Meaning whenever the subject of m...
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Overheated
2008-02-23 04:35:00
Give me the slimmest hope that Emma might allow me to steal her away and upstairs, and that’s where we’d be—by ourselves.  But she’s so beautifully dressed and so obviously eager to enjoy Charlie and his farewell dinner. Whenever she moves, her iridescent dress casts a mirage, making my eyes shut. Meaning, I can’t look at her and maintain. We sit at the table, sip our drinks and pass around an array of olives and small plates of bright sauces smeared on little breads or crackers. Charlie says, “Just a minute,” and returns with another plate, decorated with freshly grilled mushroom caps.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “What do you think, Scott?” Emma squeezes my leg under the table. “Isn’t this amazing?” I nod. “You’re an amazing cook, Charlie.” Emma bites into a brown cracker smeared with orange. “Mmm, yummy,” she says. “Let me guess. Baby carrot, cinnamon, coriander, mango, and, um, black pepp...

Intimacy Issues
2008-02-22 05:26:00
After the beach, Emma and I shower and she hurries to the upper deck, telling me to wait. Charlie’s listening to his iPod, singing “Get Up, Stand Up,” off-key, while spooning garlicky stuff into mushrooms. Charlie claps my back, lights a joint, and hands it to me. “Borrowed a blender from Pascal. Mondo piña coladas before the tapas.”[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] The kitchen opens from a half-wall (for electricity) letting in a garden overlooking the bay. So Charlie and I lean against a counter covered with carefully arranged food, sharing   a smoke and staring at the horizon.  “Emma,” I call up to her, “what’re you doing?” That’s how uncomfortable Charlie makes me. Especially with all this effort going into his special dinner. Without Emma deflecting his energy, I edge away. “Give me five minutes,” she calls down. Holding in the smoke, I turn away. Exhaling, I close my eyes. Maybe if I get hi...
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Never Jealous
2008-02-20 03:32:00
Our last week here Emma’s teaching only one yoga class. Mia’s training another teacher to take her place in the late afternoons. After brunch we go back to bed, same as always. At four or five, we put on some clothes and, now that she’s not teaching, just hang out—her and me. Charlie makes dinner. Emma enjoyed learning to cook from Pascal but Charlie said he wanted to learn, too. Now that he has, he’s convinced Emma to let him do it. He needs the practice.[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]“Practice for what, Charlie?” I have to ask. “You’re not opening a restaurant.” No need to say, Guaranteed disaster. His focus shines wide and innocent, and then slightly insulted. “I’m not,” Charlie tips back his head, sniffing hard, “opening a restaurant, Scott. I hate restaurants. I want to cook for my family.” “What family is that?” “All right,” he says, “let’s say friends. Like you and Emma.” He register...
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Religion Without Rules
2008-02-19 04:39:00
After the crowd filed out in an excited hush, Maggie and Stephanie and Carlos and I stood still for a while in the suddenly quiet, suddenly empty shop. Maggie swept the floor. Stephanie aligned the tables. Carlos locked the doors. I shut off the lights. We drifted upstairs, drank wine and listened to Tibetan bowl music. Stephanie, as usual, couldn’t stand to ignore the obvious. She wriggled big wads of bills out of her apron pockets. “Here,” she said, “let’s talk about this.” Swearing to stick a needle in her eye, she said “my followers” had taken it upon themselves to press money on her. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “We need to put the money into a special account,” Carlos said. “I know you don’t want to call it a religion, Malcolm. But it needs a name. For the bank. For the I.R.S.” “What do you have in mind, Carlos?” “It’s your call, Malco...
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Spellbound
2008-02-18 03:45:00
A hundred times a day I pat my pockets for credentials that don’t exist. The ground beneath me rushes up. The audience: Wait a minute! Can you believe I’m now calling them the audience?  The whole point was that each person—not just me but each person—was supposed to go to the mike and say what it is that matters most.  Remember? That was the primary goal! [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] But two minutes into my spiel, the audience became my followers. And in less than no time, I succumbed to their applause. I looked out on what seemed like an ocean of people swaying to the sound of my voice and waving their arms. In my mind, lavender-colored fog swirled at my feet; a profusion of lighters illuminated the darkness.  And miracle never ending, tomorrow night (we’ve decided to go for Wednesdays and Saturdays) I’m scheduled to give—and to get—more of the s...
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Voices, Visions, Aches and Pains
2008-02-17 06:00:00
I raised a palm, stopped, and whistled softly, opening my eyes wide, casting pale lightning throughout the room. “This is not a rhetorical question,” I said. “I’m asking you about wonderment. Some of us are prone to visitations, even though we’re all-too-familiar, as subjects and witnesses, to pain and suffering. Be brave,” I said, lovely ripples running over my body, the swell of my flesh buoying me along, “We’re bereft of faith because the forms are old.  They no longer refer to us. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “And yet,” I said, “there is a world apart from this. We still believe in Omniscience and Omnipotence. We still even worship It. Or we would if we could figure out how to do so without groveling. “It’s something we do to our bosses, for money, for job security.  But treating God with the same smarmy self-abasement we use with the...
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Just A Warning
2008-02-16 05:14:00
It’s still dark out, but time to get up. I ask Emma if she wants to travel, and she says, “I’m ready to go home.” “I’m ready, too. Ready to do something. But what?” She wraps her arms around me. “Don’t worry, Scott. It’ll come to you.” “It hasn’t yet.” “You weren’t looking.” She slips out from under the mosquito net, bends from the waist and shakes out her hair. “I’ll tell Mia before class that we’re leaving in ten days. That’s enough notice, don’t you think?” [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] I don’t tell her that ten days’ notice before we leave will surprise Mia much more than us leaving. That in the past I’ve left with one of Mia’s yoga teachers on no notice. An hour later I’m teasing out a song I half wrote in my head just after the concussion. It’s a chase song, with a hide and seek rhythm—snare and release, snare and release. I play it on the guitar and then experime...
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Mr. Charlie
2008-02-14 04:16:00
Emma’s pulling on her yoga top, bikini bottoms, and a sarong she cut to knee-length. “You’ve got to talk to him, Scott. Everyone loves Charlie because he loves it when they laugh at what a lout he is.” “Yeah, but this is different. Pushing me so hard.” “You’ve still got to tell him,” she says. “Obvious and obnoxious—that’s his whole thing.” “Emma’s right, Scott.” We didn’t know Charlie was drinking a beer in the hammock right beneath us. But so what? [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] He calls up at us. “If I’m crowding your little love boat, either get used to it or throw me overboard.” Fuck him, then. I jump down from the ladder’s middle rung. He’s sucking on an Imperial when I flip the hammock. The bottle flies off the deck and he scrambles onto his butt. “Scram, Charlie. I mean it. Spend the night at the yoga farm. We’ll talk tomorrow.” “Scott, I was fooling around.” He ex...

So Funny It's Awful
2008-02-13 04:36:00
After Emma’s morning class, a few girls—this new group’s from Seattle—mill around to ask her about shoulder alignment or hamstrings. Emma doesn’t look at me, focusing only on the girl she’s talking to. I’m leaning along the edge of the deck. Without moving her head, though, Emma lifts a curled hand, her index finger bending my way, hello. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] It seems like a long time, but I’m sure it’s not: Her yoga class disperses. It’s lunch time and the smell of Pascal’s cooking makes me weak. “You’re back early.” She stands on tiptoes and kisses me long enough to create a little excitement. Stepping back, she frowns at the gash on my forehead. “I had enough.” I was about to tell Emma how much I had missed her but she glances over her shoulder and I decide, better not. “Where’s Charlie?” “He stayed there,” I tell her. “We’ve rented the place for four more days.” No ...
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Concussion
2008-02-12 05:06:00
The next thing I remember is Pedro, a local boy about sixteen who’s Charlie’s main supplier here. “Mister Scott!” Dark wet hair hangs over his anxious face. He’s crouching beside me, his surf board in the sand behind him. “¿Como está?” [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] I sit up, dizzy and disoriented, but aware enough to turn away while vomiting. After I’ve wiped away any trace of undigested salt water, Pedro taps my shoulder and holds three fingers in front of my face. “¿Cuántos?” He points to the boulder, which, judging from the pain, caused my brain to bang back and forth against my skull. Pulling his hair off his forehead, Pedro traces a slanted line, indicating the gash on mine. I touch it; the cut isn’t bleeding, probably because it’s deep. Pedro looks around for my surf board. I shrug, not important. He drapes my arm around his shoulder, which grazes my upper ribs. “Gracias,” I say, because, the gro...

This Week's Recorded Idiocy
2008-02-11 02:44:00
I’ve discovered I can fly! I am flying now. After a lifetime of fear, it turns out that none of my inadequacies matter. I soar over and under the backs of clouds. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here  to read the previous one.] The New C. of C. convened. The shop was packed. I wavered, cold and numb, on a ledge. The crowd below blurred to a pattern of colors; their voices rose, then fell silent. I took a breath, my mind shut down—and I jumped. But instead of plummeting, I floated. My hands fluttered and words spun from my mouth in fanciful loops. I’m not sure how long I spoke or what I said. But it seemed natural, or no, supernatural. As if the reason I was born really was to say what I said! Who would have guessed? Well, Carlos. Carlos guessed against the odds. I mean, what could be more unlikely? Coax me from the boat and I’ll walk on water. Toss me off a cliff and I’ll sprout wings. Shove m...
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Valentine's Day
2008-02-10 04:00:00
I got back late. Carlos said, “already five pm,” and he told Maggie and Stephanie to mind the shop. We were going upstairs. “Don’t disturb us,” he said. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here  to read the previous one.] They scoffed. “Don’t worry.” Inside the apartment Carlos already had candles burning. The waning winter light faded behind sheer curtains I didn’t recall hanging there. We drank Grande Dame Clicquot. There was a wheel of runny cheese, which I scooped up with toasted rusks. Undoing his hair, Carlos sat close to me on the sofa. He crossed his legs and draped an arm around me. “You know what’s going on, with us and the meetings, but more between us, is fantastic. As if, heaven sent.” Patting my knee, he rose and slipped into the kitchen.   The champagne bottle was wrapped in a towel and clumsy me spilt some.  Carlos appeared, put a tray of chocolate strawberr...

Blue Womb
2008-02-09 03:42:00
Charlie and I take the ferry across the bay and settle into the same rental house as last year. We surf with the same crew as last year. Our house is the biggest and the closest to the water. So we host the same parties where everyone plays poker after dinner. Emma never questioned it. Of course, she didn’t factor into our ritual trip. Wouldn’t go if I begged her. But it amused her that I needed to talk it through. “When the situation’s obvious, Scott?” She smirked and gave me a little shove. “Going off will be good for you. You and Charlie.” [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] The word on this year’s breaks and swells is no exaggeration. Pavones’ lineup outdoes what you see on videos. I surf till about ten. When the sun hits a certain angle, I quit. Eat, rest, and read my Russell Banks novel until late afternoon. I catch the just-before-dark waves. By then Charlie’s exhausted. He always goes full on the first two day...
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Plunge Pool
2008-02-08 03:02:00
“That’s hilarious, Charlie.” “How many times you gonna say that? We haven’t seen Corcovado since we were kids.” “We weren’t kids. And we got lost at every turn. Remember? The tide came in. The heat made you puke. We barely survived.” “We barely survived! You’re a phobe, Scott.” [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] We’re climbing upstream toward the waterfall. Charlie’s baiting me. He barely survived. I did okay. Riptides, crocs, sharks—nothing scared me then.  Ground tremors, collapsing cliffs, no worries. Why go through the trouble of living except to take it all in? Twelve hour trek through untainted rain forest. Downpours and killer sun. Hideous energy. Like those tiny, freaky frogs blinking and then pop—gone from the world.  He collapsed when we got to the camp didn’t get up for two days. So we never tried it again. Not in ten years. Charlie’s tugging my arm and splashing water. Tries t...
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