Uncivilized

  He didn't say this with any animosity, only with a kind reminder that I was here as his guest but, more importantly, as a family member. That caused a weird stirring of emotion within me that I quickly tamped down. Randall then told me he had more money than God, and that he would take it as an insult if I didn't take advantage of his hospitality. He said it would be a means to help honor my parents for all the wonderful joy they provided him throughout the years they knew each other.

  That made me feel like shit, so I took the credit card and shoved it in my pocket, even as I hated being dependent on Randall for my security. As someone who devoted much of his life to helping to provide for the welfare of an entire tribe, it galled me to be given something that wasn't earned.

  The next day, Moira took me to a mall, which had so many stores to shop in that my head was spinning, and we purchased my very own laptop. I spent a lot of my free time on it, looking up everything from music to books to yup... more information on sex. If I was going to take advantage of my time here, I was going to try everything I possibly could with Moira.

  Speaking of Moira, I sit up from my bed where I had been perusing the wonders of Amazon--the online store, not the rainforest region--and walk into her room. She said she had some work emails to catch up on, and it's getting late. I'm feeling the need to fuck her, which is an almost constant craving I have when she's in the immediate vicinity.

  And even when she's not.

  I see her sitting at a small desk near the east window of her room, reading something on her screen.

  "Still working?" I ask as I walk up behind her.

  She gives a little jump but turns to me with a smile. "All done. Just reading an email from my sister."

  "Sister?" How did I not know she has a sister? Maybe because I never asked her.

  "Yes... Lisa. She lives in North Carolina, and we were trying to coordinate a visit while I'm here."

  "Can I meet her?" I ask, because now I find myself even more curious about Moira. She spends all of her time devoted to me, yet I shamefully haven't shown much interest in her outside of getting her naked.

  She smiles at me as she stands from her chair, arching her back, which pushes her breasts out, and immediately... I want to fuck her harder than I had planned. "Sure. Maybe we can go this weekend if Randall doesn't have any major plans."

  Reaching out, I pull Moira into my arms and lean down to put my nose in her hair. It smells like apples and sunshine. "Are you close to your sister?"

  Leaning in to rest her cheek on my chest, in a move so unbelievably sweet it makes my breath catch, she says, "Yes. Very close. She raised me after our parents died."

  I jerk backward slightly and look down at Moira, who turns her face up to me with question in her eyes.

  "Your parents are dead?" I'm even more ashamed I didn't know that, particularly because it's something we have in common.

  "My dad died when I was thirteen. A heart attack. And my mom just two years later from cancer. Lisa's five years older than me, so she became my legal guardian."

  "I'm sorry," I tell her sincerely. "I had no idea."

  "It's okay," she says as she squeezes me and steps back from my embrace. "I guess we have something in common though, right? Parents dead when we were children. Raised by someone else."

  I think of Paraila, and the care and kindness he showed me when my parents died. I was distraught, miserable, and had lost all hope. But he immediately took me in and became a parent to me in every way. Much like I'm guessing Lisa did for Moira.

  I take stock of my feelings... and try to remember the incessant rage I had felt when learning I would be taken away from my tribe. How my world had turned upside down because I was through with having that type of upheaval in my life. I had been through it once, and I didn't want it again. I remember the day that Paraila told me I was to leave.

  The air was oppressive... heavy... as I made my way through the jungle. My feet were light on the rotted leaves, and I efficiently dodged roots and vines that curled and wound their way across the narrow path. The trail wasn't much more than trampled vegetation and broken palm fronds that hung limply from when I had hacked my way through that area earlier in the day. I had made the three-hour trek from our village to the Pesapan River where I'd hoped to hunt some caiman, as the alligator meat would be sure to bring a smile to Paraila's old, wizened face. He was too old to hunt anymore and depended on me or the other warriors to feed him protein. His wife, the mean old goat that she was, fed him plenty of bread and plantains, but he needed more than that as he grew weaker with age.

  I didn't have any luck finding a lazy caiman, but my load returning was heavy. My machete was strapped across my back to free my hands. In one, I carried my bow, quiver, and arrows, and the other held a quick palm-frond basket I wove after killing two snakes so I could transport them back home. They would make a satisfying meal for Paraila.

  The walk back to the village didn't take as long since I had already cleared my path on the way to the river. I stopped once to sip some water from a standing puddle of rainwater and eat some bread that Paraila had pushed into my hands before I left. His wife had baked it the day before on her large, clay plate. I wasn't offered any then, and never would have been offered any since, but Paraila had taken it when her back was turned and gave it to me with a wink.

  Had it not been for Paraila all those years I lived with the Caraica tribe, I would have been dead long ago. And not just from the anaconda when I was twelve. I would have starved to death, having been abandoned by my parents' death. I was a white boy in a brown man's world, an outsider that would never be accepted. I was too different in skin color and eye color. I shunned their spirits and gods, preferring to read the Bible that my parents left behind when they died.

  No, had it not been for Paraila's kindness, I would not have survived the first few weeks after my parents' deaths. He fed me from his plate, even as his wife grumbled. His own sons were grown and married, taking multiple wives as was the custom in the tribe. While there was no distinct leadership among the Caraican, Paraila was the oldest and thus carried a certain level of respect. While the majority of the tribe wanted to cast me out and leave me to die, Paraila refused, moving me into his longhut with his only remaining wife, S'amair'a. His others had all died... malaria, bite from a bushmaster, and old age. In that order.

  While I had Paraila's protection, he couldn't be around at all times to stop the abuse I took at the hands of the other members of the tribe that I endured those first few years. I was different from head to toe and, further, I was with missionaries that were trying to convert the heathen Caraicans. That did not make me popular.

  Make no doubt, my family was tolerated in the village because my parents came into the Amazon rainforest with marvels from the modern world. Weapons that included machetes and knives to make our hunting easier. Simple things like scissors to cut hair and steel pots to cook in. Those items were graciously accepted by the tribe and, in return, the people would listen to my parents as they read from a Portuguese-translated Bible. The Christian word was never really accepted, but at least the Caraicans knew how to humor my parents. They listened with a smirk on their faces. They even attempted to learn some of the English words my parents tried to teach them. But I could tell... but for the gifts my parents brought, we would not have been welcomed.

  I was seven when my parents decided I was old enough they could bring me to Brazil on what was their third mission trip to convert the heathen Indians. At first, I was marginally accepted by the children in the tribe. I was shocked that everyone was completely naked, and I was made fun of for the little cargo pants and button-down bush shirts my parents dressed me in to ward off the mosquitos and ticks. Even my little hiking boots were met with sneers, and I was taunted for not having the r'acha to go barefoot in the jungle.

  I was strange in comparison to the brown-skinned, black-haired children. My hair was chocolate brown, but my eyes were the palest of blue. I looked just like my mother
, or so I seem to remember. I wanted to belong so bad that we weren't settled into the village more than two weeks before I came running up to my mom, buck ass naked, followed by a gaggle of other kids.

  "Momma... can I go play in the river with the other children?" I had asked her.

  She blinked at me in surprise and asked where my clothes were.

  I had told her simply I wanted to be like the other kids, and they didn't wear clothes. She looked at my father with concern, but he shrugged his shoulders. He was busily building our own hut from bamboo and palm, wanting to assimilate as much as possible with the tribe. It was time to ditch our three-man tent we had been sleeping in.

  "Okay, Zacharias. Go play, but be careful."

  I jumped for joy, and we all went running off. Our village was located just forty-five meters off the Amazon River at that time, and there were rumors that we would be moving soon as loggers were getting closer and closer to us. The Caraicans were private people and while they accepted gifts from my parents of machetes, pots, and medicine, they didn't want the modern world encroaching on their life.

  We were playing in the shallow water, pushing at each other and squealing, when a plant would brush up against our ankles. We knew the dangers of alligators, snakes, and piranhas, so we weren't too eager to go very deep.

  One of the other children gave me a push backward, and I fell on my butt in the water. When I came up spluttering, he looked at me and pointed at my penis. Then he started laughing. The other children ventured forward and started laughing as they looked at that little part of me that made me different from girls.

  I didn't understand what was to laugh at. Sure, it was different from theirs. Their penises had darkened skin that covered their little roots entirely, just the head peeping out sometimes. Mine was completely naked, with no protective covering to hide it. I came to learn a few years later from one of the missionary priests that I had what was called a circumcised penis. He explained that when I was a baby, a piece of skin had been removed at my parents' request. It was for health and sanitary reasons, but that the Caraicans didn't practice that custom.

  I was laughed at a lot after that, but I secretly snickered to myself. I was cleaner than they were and, when I reached the age where I could take my first woman in the tribe, I realized that they liked my penis a whole lot more than they did the uncircumcised boys. Not only was it clean and beautiful--or so they said--but it was much larger and felt better than the others did.

  Finally, I made my way into the village just as the sun was starting to set. We had been in that location for a little over six months, having diligently cleared out a portion of the jungle within which to set up our new home. We moved about every two years, either because the soil was depleted from our crops or because the deforestation was moving closer to us. I didn't really care for this place because it was so far to the river, where over the years we'd learned to trade goods with other tribes and explorers.

  The village was quiet, as I knew the other warriors had gone on a tapir hunt that would last a few days. I didn't go with them because Paraila wasn't feeling good, and I didn't want to venture too far away. Over the years, my skill as a hunter had surpassed most of the other tribe members, and I gradually started to become accepted, even making strong, bonded friendships with some of the men. After I went on my first raid with them at the age of seventeen, and put my life on the line for our tribe, I was then fully accepted as a real member of the Caraicans by everyone, except for S'amair'a, who hated practically every person.

  "Paraila... I'm back," I called out as I approached his hut. There were no walls... just a steepled roof of thick palm to keep out the down-pouring rain. I had a much smaller hut right beside his, so close that I could lay in my hammock while he laid in his, and we could carrying on a conversation.

  I didn't see S'amair'a around, and I assumed she was tending to the crops. Paraila lay in his hammock, his tired eyes smiling at me in welcome.

  "What did you bring an old man this day?" he asked me in Portuguese. While the Caraicans had their own language, it was mostly dead, as they had started taking up the Portuguese dialect almost seventy years ago. Some words were still revered and used, and Paraila had taught me many of them, but for the most part, we spoke in Brazil's native tongue.

  "Two small boas... are you hungry? I'll prepare it."

  "No, my cor'dairo... we'll let S'amair'a cook our meal. You rest as you have hunted all day."

  My heart warmed over his use of the word 'cor'dairo'. It was something he had called me since adopting me.

  I dropped the palm basket near the dying fire and sat on the dirt next to Paraila's hammock. He was getting so old that he spent a lot of time there, and it burdened my heart.

  Speaking softly in Portuguese, I asked, "How are you feeling today, Father? Can I get you something?"

  His hand reached out and patted me on my head. "You make me happy, Zacharias. I need for nothing and you provide for me and S'amair'a well, even if she is too much of a shrew to admit it."

  I laughed softly and he responded in kind, sharing in a private joke at her expense that we would not have dared to voice if she was standing here. S'amair'a tolerated me and grudgingly accepted my food gifts to her, but she made Paraila suffer under her sharp tongue because of his love for me.

  "We need to talk man to man," Paraila said. "Father Gaul should be returning soon, and there is something I need to tell you before he gets here."

  My heart leapt with excitement because Father Gaul was an interesting man. He started coming to our village when I was fourteen... on the verge of becoming a man in the Caraican world. He and Paraila taught me what being a man means--Paraila from the Caraican point of view, and Father Gaul from a modern, religious view.

  For example, when I reached fifteen, I would be allowed to take a woman. Paraila taught me all about how this was done within their customs and which women were available to me. Father Gaul taught me about abstinence and unwanted pregnancy, but I scoffed at him. Paraila assured me that the women who were available for sex drank a vile brew of a certain tree bark that would prevent a baby from forming. Father Gaul scoffed at that and told me it was better to abstain.

  I laughed behind his back and, the first time I had sex, I soon realized it was the best feeling in the world. I wasn't about to stop. I never told Father Gaul that, though.

  "Father Gaul has been gone a long time," I mused. While the Caraicans were slightly more open to the prospect of conversion to the Christian word, they still worshipped their own spirits and deities. Father Gaul would come and spend a few months with us, and then he'd move on to another tribe. He single-handedly kept me up on my English-speaking skills, as he was the only one that spoke my native language that we ever saw. He also brought me books to read and taught me how to do basic math. He taught me history and geography of both the old and new worlds. He told me I would probably need it one day, but I wasn't sure why. I had everything I needed to know to live my peaceful but sometimes solitary life.

  "Yes... he had to make a trip back to the United States on an important matter," Paraila said.

  "I'll make sure to hunt something good for his arrival," I replied as I leaned back on the dirt ground and rested my head on my hands.

  "He's bringing some other people with him," Paraila said, and his voice sounded hesitant.

  Shrugging my shoulders, I responded, "No matter. I will provide plenty of meat for his guests."

  "These people are coming for you," Paraila said and his voice was so soft, I'm sure I didn't hear him right.

  Pushing up from the ground, I looked him in the eye and saw fear, sadness, and regret.

  "What do you mean coming for me?" I asked with my own level of fear about ready to cause my heart to jump out of my chest.

  Paraila reached his hand out again and patted my head. Then he dropped it to my shoulder, giving me a squeeze. His eyes were sorrowful but determined. "It's time for you to go back home... to where you belong."

/>   Blinking my eyes, I look at Moira's sweet face and try to draw upon the rage and hurt I felt when Paraila told me I had to leave.

  It's gone. Absolutely gone. I can't pull up even a shred of bitterness within me. There are other emotions still there. Longing for my home and a deep and abiding love for Paraila. Those won't ever go away, but I suddenly realize... I am actually grateful now that I have come here and experienced this journey.

  As Moira's green eyes watch me with curiosity, I realize... it's due solely to her.

  Chapter 20

  Moira

  "So what did you think?" I ask Zach as we get back into the black Range Rover that Randall loaned us for the length of our stay here. He has several cars that just sit in a huge, climate-controlled garage detached from his mansion.

  "It was interesting. But I don't feel any affinity toward it," Zach says as he buckles his seatbelt.

  We had just exited the church I had chosen to take Zach to for a Wednesday evening worship service. We were both dressed casually in jeans and had eaten at a pizzeria close by for dinner before it started.

  "You sound a little bit disgruntled," I observe.

  Zach shrugs his shoulders. "I didn't know what to expect, but it just seems foreign to me. I mean... I remember some of what my parents taught me about Christ, and I listened to Father Gaul's teachings, but I just don't have any real connection to it."

  "It's understandable," I tell him as I reach over to squeeze his hand before I start the car. "I think faith takes practice and you really haven't had that."

  "It's just not my type of faith," he asserts.

  As I pull out onto the highway I ask him, "What is your faith then? What do you believe in?"

  Zach is quiet for a moment as he stares out the car window. Finally, he says, "I believe in myself, and I believe in my tribe."

  My heart sinks a bit hearing this because those are clearly Zach's two main loyalties. Every day that goes by, I fall further under his spell. I want desperately for him to stay here because I've become fiercely attached to him in the short time we've been together. It's not just the unbelievable sex, and the sad realization that when he goes, I'll never have something so amazing ever again. It's because as I've gotten to know Zach, I've come to understand the purity of his soul and appreciate the courage with which he has faced this new life of his. He's kind, patient, and curious. His laugh comes easily now, and when those blue eyes turn my way, whether it's in lust or levity, I immediately fall slave to the power he holds over me.