-I-

We set off on patrol the next morning. The chief showed us the proof of invasion in this part of the forest-open lands, improvised roads, beer cans brought by outsiders along the roads (alcohol was forbidden in the territory). They talked about how the government and the police did nothing to chase down the invaders, always using the kick-the-can approach to deal with the issue.

The indigenous chief shared the inside dope on his experience with the invaders throughout the years. "When I asked the police for help, they sent me to government officials. When I went to the government, they sent me back to the police. Only several times they helped us. Two years ago, federal police raided illegal gold mine and burned their bulldozer. But they kept coming back."

As we drove back to the Kamaiurá village (it was dangerous to stay here for too long), my view was full of desiccated brown land. It was hard to picture that this place was once lush with trees.

A lone humongous tree with a stretching wide canopy stood as straight as a pole a hundred feet away, with the gray sky as its backdrop. The perfect straightness of it made it seem manmade. It towered over every tree I had ever seen in my life.

Zack gasped beside me. "Isn't that the Brazilian nut tree, Professor Chaves?"

Chaves turned his body to the right. "The King of the Rainforest. Yes."

"Never thought I'd get to see one. Awesome." Zack rolled down the heavily tinted window and leaned over, snapping pictures of the lone tree.

"I ate the nuts once. They're sweet," I said.

"It's endangered and against the law to cut down," Jona told me. "But that hasn't stopped the illegal logging. Although it grows in all nine Amazonian countries, nowadays it's only abundant in Bolivia, and maybe in Suriname."

Chaves added, "It's young. Circa seventy... eighty years. It can live as old as five hundred years, but I doubt it'll survive another ten. It's dying and we can't do anything to stop that. It'd take at least a decade to recultivate this area. It can't survive that long. It needs an untouched environment and certain species of insects to pollinate its flowers." He tsked. "A tree that big isn't made to live an isolated life like that. It needs a support system from the forest."

Jesus. Never thought I would pity a mere tree.

Chaves then got into the nuts and bolts of the forestry subject with Jona and his students. To save myself from further tediousness, I wore my earphones and jotted down the conversation of the tribespeople I recorded last week. It was more of a personal note than for my research. The language was fairly easy to learn, and I would know enough to converse with the people in a week or two. But it wasn't an easy feat to jot down the notes with the bouncing pick-up though. Every dot became lines. My handwriting read more like Chinese chicken shit than chicken scratch. But I soldiered through.

Some time had passed without me realizing it until Jona shook my forearm. Another hand kept the door open. I took off my earphones.

"Passamos a noite aqui." [We're stopping here for the night.]

I looked over his shoulder and realized that everyone was now walking toward a spavined diner. Cars and trucks were parked willy-nilly along the shop lot. "Onde estamos?" [Where are we?] I rubbernecked and scanned the road we came from.

"A cidade por onde passámos ontem." [The town we passed yesterday.]

"I thought the chief can't stay in this town."

"This morning, Aarón said the storm is coming, remember? He's obviously right." He nudged his chin upward.

I scanned the drab sky. No sky visible. Only dense, low, gray clouds as far as the horizon.

"And the chief said it's dangerous to travel when it's raining. Flash flood happens around here. He got no choice but to stay. It's safer here for us."

Tsk. "As if it's safer here with assassins out there to get his ass." I stepped onto the paved road. Cool gale hit my face the same time thunder hit my eardrums. The smell of everything undesirable wafted through my nostrils. Dump, cow dung, chicken dung, human sweat, spices.

Jona turned and started toward the diner, but stopped abruptly when more than ten mountain motorbikes almost knocked him off his feet. "Holy fuck."

Dust clouded my sight of the assholes for a few seconds. "Look out for traffic." I grabbed his shoulder and waited for the busy road to clear, which was full of motorbikes and old jalopy trucks. "And don't curse either. It doesn't suit your mushy face."

"Oh, come on." He raised his arms in frustration, but his lips tweaked upward. "Stop calling me that!"

I smiled. "You were the one who described yourself as mushy. But seriously, don't curse."

"What are you? My brother?" He rolled his eyes as we passed a closing watermelon stall. Its white tent slanted at a dangerous angle from the incessant gale. All the stalls were closed from the whirlwinds.

"You're not much older than my sister. So... not so farfetched." Sister. I need to call that stupid Milada.

His shoulder stiffened; he turned. His eyes looked evil and... sad? "I'm not a girl." He pushed his hair from his eyes.

"Now I'm really sure that you learned English in Japan. Jesus. I didn't say you are like my sister."

Jona took off his glasses, rubbed his eye with the ball of his hand, and entered the flies-infested diner. He was a conundrum I couldn't wrap around my head. His mood changed like Ohioan's weather.

I scanned the shoplot and saw a small internet café. Instead of suffering from diarrhea from the unhygienic food, I decided to upload my research data online, and perhaps transcribed my handwritten notes.

"Luuk, where are you going?" Chaves called when I was about to cross the deserted road.

"Internet café," I answered without looking back.

"The storm is brewing outside. You should stay indoors."

"Internet café is indoor." Tsk.

-II-

I stared at the ancient, huge gray box called the computer. The desktop couldn't stop flashing and glitching every other second. The internet speed gave me a headache. I rubbed my smarting eyes. After two hours, I only managed to upload fifty less-than-1MB data.

I kneaded my stiff neck and scanned the suburban store. This place looked as if it hadn't caught up with time since the 1990s. Taxidermy mounts were displayed on the opposite stained-white wall, creating eerie, lifelike shadows next to them. Exotic birds, pheasant, deer head, raccoon.

For the last two hours, I was the only customer. The other nine computers around me were as dead as the mounted animals.

Rain fell hard outside, and the wind whistled through the rattling door. I had no plan to go to the motel for the night and shared a room with them. The internet wasn't a luxury here, so I should use this chance to do my works, even though I was wading through sewage here.

As soon as I placed my fingers on the keyboard again, two gunshots boomed and cackled through the rain. My spine straightened up. The sound was near. Barely a mile away.

"Rotzak." I cursed. I extracted my pen drive from the CPU and phone charger from the plug next to me. I was just about to stand when the shop owner shouted to her teenage son.

The lanky, tall boy slammed down the yellow shutter gate and locked me inside with them.

"Espera! Não pode me ver?" [Wait! Can't you see me in here?] I willed my pounding heart to calm down.

She's just a shop owner. She won't harm you.

The old woman spoke in a horrendous dialect of Portuguese. With a pale yet calmed face, she told me the invaders were murdering people again at the gold mine, and that they would come to this town later for trading.

So I told her to let me out. It would be better to stick around with the research delegates than staying here with strangers. My heartbeat picked up at the thought. And my thought drifted to Jona for a millisecond.

"Deixa-me sair. Vou ficar com meus amigos no motel." [Let me out. I'm going to stay with my friends at the motel.]

She said she would not risk it and for me to just pray that my friends would stay in their room.

After five wasteful minutes of me almost losing my temper and prying the door with my pocket knife, she gave up and let me slip through the small opening of the door her son opened. She cursed me throughout it. They shut the door before I could even straighten up my back.

Harsh, cold rain dribbled onto my face. Hard. The previous miasma of dirt mixed with dump next to the shop lot was nowhere to be detected. The town was empty and dark, with no street lamps. It looked like a ghost town. The deep darkness blinded me.

"Luuk!" A hand on my shoulder.

My body jolted together with my heart. I looked around so fast, my neck made a creaking sound. My fist tightened around the knife. "Fucking Jesus!" Then I saw Jona. "What the hell... Don't sneak up on me like that! I almost stabbed you. Fuck." I folded my knife and pushed it into my windbreaker's pocket together with my charger and pen drive.

The flashlight in his hand illuminated his face. He looked over my shoulder with a frown on his forehead. Water flowed down his hair in fast dribbles. It covered his left eye. "Sorry, but you've been away for almost three hours. Then I heard the gunshot. Where were you?"

I wouldn't even ask how he knew I wasn't in the motel. Did he wait for me? Stalk me? Come to my room? Why is he worried about me?

My fingers had the most bizarre, galvanic reaction. They twitched to push his hair aside. There was an appeal I couldn't name. It was far from infatuation, yet so tangible, and it transcended logic. I wasn't up for soul searching at the moment, so I dismissed the useless infatuation and answered him. "The internet café owner locked the door after the gunshots. I couldn't go out." I took the flashlight he gave me. "What are you doing out here? It's dangerous. Where are your glasses? Where's your boyfriend?" I pulled him toward the motel.

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"Aarón was dead asleep. Even an earthquake won't wake him now. And I... don't know. Couldn't find my glasses. I ran out as soon as I heard the gunshots. I thought... My student would regress when he heard loud noises. I thought... you..." He looked down and said sorry.

Before I could question his confusing set of answers, another round of gunshots sliced through the rain.

Tsk. "Come on. They're coming."

He gasped so loud as if he just resurfaced from underwater. "They are?"

"I hope not. The café lady told me." I pushed the motel's glass door.

It didn't budge.

So I tried pulling.

It didn't move.

"Why doesn't it open?" Jona asked in a small, quivering voice.

"Why? Because like the woman, they are fucking selfish and just saving their backs." I banged on the door for a minute. Water kept splashing on my face, but nobody opened the door. It was dark inside. "Call Chaves. Or your students."

He gasped again; he looked down. "I don't have my phone with me."

Annoyed, I gave him my phone. He tried to call Chaves five times, but the man didn't answer.

"I told you. Even an earthquake won't wake him."

"Your students?"

"I don't remember their numbers."

"Great. Ain't the two of us just had the shittiest luck?" I looked at Jona who was now drenched to his shoes. "That fat pig saw you went out?"

Jona wiped the rain on his face and scrutinized me. As if he finally understood English, he said, "Un, the receptionist told me not to go out."

"Yet he locked you out. Oh, I would love for the invaders to shoot him up his hole."

"Luuk, don't say that. Let's just... Let's just find a shelter, okay?" He shivered when the thunder roared, and bent over to pound on his injured leg.

The cold is hurting him.

Scanning the town, I remembered something when I saw the yellow truck. "You didn't lock the truck this evening, did you?"

"No, I didn't. We were the last ones who got out. Not sure if they locked it after." He hissed when he straightened his back.

"Come." I guided him to the truck.

The ground had turned muddy. Water thickened in my boots. The cold was as extreme as the heat this afternoon. The prickly wind could only be fifty degrees today.

Jona tried the truck's doors. "They're all locked," he shouted against the downpour.

"Yeah, that's pretty obvious, Sherlock." Looking down, there were a lot of broken branches scattered over the muddy road.

"What do we do now?" Jona looked around.

I picked the one on my feet. "Hey, Jona. Shine the light here." I bent the two feet long branch. It looked frail, but the water made it less brittle. I took out my knife. "You know, when I was a kid, my brother gave me a Swiss Army knife. He told me: Brother, keep this, but don't hurt yourself with it. Then he taught me how to use it." I slit the branch clean of any leaves and cut it into three ten-inches parts. "How to pick a lock, how to unlock doors, how to stab and slash better."

"Jiu-Jitsu doesn't teach you how to stab people. Your brother sounds... well, nevermind." He looked down.

"This may come as a shock to you, sensei, but any martial system can teach you how to use a knife for fighting, in almost all forms. The only difference is that you will need a knife in your hand. Now hold these." I gave him the branches and pulled the upper edge of the truck's door. It was slippery but workable. The truck was old, so the body wasn't as sturdy as a new truck. It was easy to shove one cut branch into the gap I made, keeping it agape.

"I never knew we could do that," Jona said. "Awesome."

"Pull the upper edge for me. This is too slippery." I rubbed my wet face. The rain was only getting harsher.

He put his flashlight on the roof of the truck and pulled the edge of the door agape with both hands. He had small hands as a man. I thought he was cute.

Cute? What the hell...

As I was shoving the longest branch between the gap to push the open button on the car door handle, from the window's reflection, I saw headlights swept us. A truck stopped nearby.

"Luuk, they're coming here," Jona said. "What do we do?"

I shoved the branch deeper and the door clicked. The alarm blared. I opened the door, shoving the branch sideways. It took me ten seconds to locate the fuse box in the dashboard. I pulled out the fuse for the alarm, and it died down. I kept the door open and turned around. My heart pounded looking at the three men who were approaching us.

The rain was pounding on the roof, but the men were near enough now that I could make out every sound they made. They laughed and talked in Portuguese. Relief flooded my chest. They were petty criminals from their conversation about how gold is better than sex. It was about as exciting as watching paint dry. I wasn't even sure if they were the ones who shot the gun earlier, but they were clearly not nocturnal promenaders either.

"Short of staying mute, there's little else we can do." Holding Jona's arm, I whispered, "If they asked you anything in Portuguese, pretend you don't understand them. Try to speak whatever language besides English and Spanish. You know any?"

Jona looked at me. "I am Japanese."

"I don't know Japanese." I clicked my tongue. "Any language I know."

"Well, I... studied French. But I'm not fluent."

"Good enough."

Flashlights shone on us. Water splashed with each step they made. They stood in front of us, looking at the truck, and then to us. Their backs were against the headlight, and I didn't actually want to illuminate their faces, so I didn't know what they looked like.

The short man who held the shotgun then spoke, "Este não é um lugar de férias. O que estrangeiros como você estão fazendo aqui?" [This is not a vacation spot. What are foreigners like you doing here?]

His partner asked him whether we could understand him or not.

"Désolé, nous ne parlons pas Portugais," [Sorry, we don't speak Portuguese,] Jona said.

He sounds great.

"Des Français ? Je n'ai jamais rencontré un Français dans cette partie de la forêt," [Frenchmen? I've never met a French guy in this part of the forest,] the one beside him said.

Jesus Christ. Fuck French for being a lingua franca.

"Ah, quelle coïncidence. Vous parlez français." [Ah, what a coincidence. You speak French,] I said, pretended to laugh.

"Bien sûr. Je viens de Guinée." [Of course. I am from Guinea.]

It was dark, so I could barely see his skin color. "Bien sûr que oui." [Of course you are.] I nodded, still forcing myself to smile.

He stepped closer, and my heart double-timed. I grasped the knife in my fist.

He asked, "Que faites-vous ici? Connaissez-vous le propriétaire du camion? Qui êtes-vous?" [What are you doing here? Do you know the owner of the truck? Who are you?]

I glanced at Jona. From the way he planted his feet on the ground, I knew he was ready for any physical confrontation. I held his arm.

I laughed. "Non. Je suis chef. Nous faisons de la recherche sur de nouvelles recettes. Ce Japonais ouvre un restaurant à Manaus." [I don't. I'm a chef. We're researching new recipes. This Japanese man is opening up a restaurant in Manaus.]

"Chef? Cuisinier? Vous essayiez de voler le camion." [Chef? A cook? You were trying to steal the truck.] He laughed.

"Non. On a perdu la clé, et le motel est fermé." [No. We lost the key, and the motel is closed.]

"C'est?" [It is?] Whatever the reason was, he was distracted by that.

I nodded.

He stayed silent for several seconds, perhaps staring at us. Then to my relief, he turned, telling his partners what I told him.

We stayed silent, listening to their movements despite the interminable rain. Then the sound of growling engines segued into unimpeded heavy raindrops.

Jona climbed into the back seat. I entered the passenger's side diagonal to him and extinguished the flashlight.

He sniffled.

"You're crying? It's not that scary."

"I'm not crying. It's cold." He sighed, locking the door. "And that was scary. I've never seen a shotgun that close before. I thought you're afraid of people or something like that."

"Stop assuming." Tsk. "As long as I understand them and they don't suddenly announced that they're gay, they don't scare me."

He slumped back onto the seat and groaned. He took off his shoes and socks. "Fuck."

"Why?" I turned around. It was dark now that the truck had driven away, but I could make up his figure.

"Charley horse." He moaned in pain. "I haven't felt good since... yesterday. The rain fucked with it." He sat on his right leg, pumping it. Both hands grabbed the seat in front of him.

I removed my boots and socks and threw them on the passenger side. "Move." I pushed him and maneuvered my way to the backseat.

"The hell is wrong with you?" He whimpered when his back hit the door.

"You have a smart dirty mouth when you're in pain." I kneeled on the seat and pulled his leg. "I told you not to curse at me."

His toes were almost parallel to his shin. I could almost feel the pain in my leg. I pushed his toes with my shin, putting weight on them. I massaged his calf; it was as hard as a rock. It was dark, but I felt a hypertrophic scar lined his leg, wider than my hand. His skin crawled from gooseflesh when I traced the long scar with my thumb. The fine hairs on his leg prickled my palm. He couldn't stop writhing. He moaned in pain, he leaned on his elbows, he squirmed. It had been a minute, yet his cramp hadn't subsided.

"You told him I'm opening a restaurant in the city?" He laughed despite the pain. "That's a witty lie."

He was better at French than I expected. "I couldn't think of something else that sounded less suspicious. The other choice was telling him we were looking for a make-out spot."

"That's... an awkward reason," he said.

Yes. I wished I hadn't said that, because the silence was too awkward, it was killing me.

"How awkward it is for a gay man like you?" I pulled his toe.

He moaned and grabbed my shoulder. "What?"

You're too close. And for the love of God, stop moaning.

My stomach squirmed from the same feeling I experienced as a hormonal teenager when I watched people make-out in movies. But that was as far as my sexual life went. I never had any sexual relationship with anyone-never cared to.

Jesus. What are you even thinking right now? He's a fucking guy.

"Did you shave? It's weird to shave your leg as a man," I said to distract myself. "You have a weird fetish."

It took him two seconds to respond. "What?"

"Your leg is too smooth for a guy."

Goddamnit. Stop it.

"Are you... seriously talking about my lack of body hair right now, Professor Smit?" Jona sniffed.

I could almost hear the subtext in his voice: Are you a pervert?

He touched my shoulder as his support and shifted under me. I could feel he shivered, hard. "I'm feeling feverish. I don't do well with rain."

I took a deep breath to calm the sudden sexual-ish whirlwind in my stomach. "How's your leg?"

"Painful still, but no cramps."

I unzipped my waterproof windbreaker and took it off, together with my dry undershirt; only the hem was wet.

"Why... Why are you taking off your clothes?" He shifted away from me.

"Oh, Jesus. Relax. I'm no homo like you. Take off your shirt, dry your hair, and wear this before you die under my watch."

Looking reluctant, he took the shirt I offered him. His back was on me when he took off his wet shirt. He ruffled his damp hair, sneezed again, and wore my shirt.

To save myself from further awkwardness, I decided to ask the question I had been keeping to myself for the whole day. "Why did you lie to me?"

The leather creaked when he turned. "What do you mean?"

I leaned back and zipped my windbreaker. "You said you're not gay. But I saw you and Chaves kissing last night."

I was met with stony silence. Only his blocked nose whizzed.

When I saw them last night, I thought I would hate him for lying to me. I didn't understand why I was okay with him being homosexual (I didn't even understand why I had the sexual-ish emotion), and I didn't plan to find out the answer. "My instinct is never wrong. Why did you lie? I don't get it."

"Then you can't trust your stupid instinct." His voice was sturdier than I thought it would be. It even had a degree of candor in it.

I stared at him. My sight had adjusted to the dark. I could make out his features, but I couldn't guess his expression.

"Guess I can't even trust my eyes either after I saw you two sucked each other's throat?" I said.

"For the thousandth times, I'm not gay," he said in a lackadaisical response.

"So you're playing the sexuality card with me? You're not gay but you're... what? Pansexual? Demisexual? Asexual? I hardly think so. I'm not quibbling over newfangled terminology with you. The only way you're not gay is if you tell me you're a girl, which you're obviously not."

He was quiet again. Then he unlocked the door. "Whatever you want to call me. You must have countless adjectives to use as a polyglot."

I pulled his arm before he could go out into the rain and wet my dry shirt. "I just want to know why you lied to me. I don't care diddly squat about your sexual preference. It's the twenty-first century."

"That's rich coming from a homophobe like you," he shouted.

"Don't shout at me, kid. And I know this may sound farfetched, but I'm willing to make some concessions when it comes to you. You're different."

He sighed and asserted: "Just let it go, okay? He loves me. I might sound like a whore right now, but I was just helping him jerk off last night. It doesn't concern you a bit."

Unnamed emotion rose in my chest. It was bitter. It didn't concern me, true, but I didn't like something about it. I couldn't put a finger on what exactly it was that I didn't like.

"Helping him with your body? So he took advantage of you," I said.

"Como é que a conversa foi aí parar?" [How did that even come up?]

"Because that's a geyser of nonsense. Why would he let you do that if he's a good friend?"

"Maybe I'm the one who is taking advantage of his love toward me? That is a possibility too, isn't it? So don't you judge him. If I could help him with such a menial thing, I would do it a thousand times over. He is my best friend."

"I'm surprised you consider it menial. You have such an unwholesome relationship."

He turned to leave but stopped. He held his calf. "Fuck this cramp."

"Just stay. It's raining." I sighed and pulled his cramped leg onto my lap and locked the door again.

"No, don't bother." He pulled his leg.

"I said, stay." I grabbed his calf, and he shouted in pain. "See? You can't even walk. You'll just drop dead out there from pain and fever."

"I'm sorry," he said after a minute or so. His cramps relaxed under my palms. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I didn't lie to you. You just... won't get it." He looked down, and his damp hair covered his left eye.

Again, I had the deviant urge to run my fingers through his hair. So instead, I loosed off my hairband and ran my fingers through my hair.

There are a lot of things I don't understand about you. A lot of things I don't understand about myself either.

What are you?