Parts 13,14
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
1. Quechua is also known as 'Inca' and was the language of the pre-Columbian Incan empire (so guess where this is going, he he).
2. There are now about 14 million Quechua speakers in five countries throughout the Andean mountains.
3. The Quechua here is spelled the way Graham heard it, not the way it is properly spelled, which just looks confusing. (Giles-like linguistic lesson ends now.)
4. Saw an Andean folk band busking in the street, got totally transported back to the Andes for a moment, and this part just hit me. So I was standing in the street, grinning like a fool, and my friend asked me what the silly smile on my face was for … here it is:
*****
Part 13: Mana
Hanging out at the Espresso Pump had become almost a ritual. Maybe they were both some kind of caffeine freaks, because they generally went straight from the coffee to Graham's room, and clothes were off within seconds, amid laughter and kissing, and desperate exploring again of each other's bodies, ending up on the floor in some position or another.
Thursday night, so music. The waitress / bus-person / m.c. went to the mike and introduced the folk band for the night. "Tonight, Direct from the Andes, Pesadilla Andina." followed by scattered clapping.
Xander was only half aware of her, he could the little stage in the corner of his eye as he looked at Graham's eyes, as he talked in a low voice about almost walking in on Riley and Buffy that afternoon, laughing at himself, Xander studying every line on his face as he laughed.
The band came out, some South American thing, thought Xander, as he saw the ponchos they were wearing and those funny little bitty guitars, and the pan-pipes. OK, South American folk music, not high on the list of things to go for, but at least not the Nova Scotia bagpipe trio doing swing like last week, or Giles doing Clapton unplugged.
With his back to the stage, Graham was oblivious, still chuckling about the look on Riley's face when he caught him and Buffy in near flagrante in the hallway. Xander nodding agreement, grinning, "Yeah, ole Riley has the patent on that 'deer caught in the headlights' look."
Then the band struck up the first chord of the song. Dissonant chord. Loud. Startling. Drum starts beating slow even rhyhm, guitars strumming. Pan-pipes playing, a kind of haunting slow lament.
Graham's face froze.
"Hey!" Xander asked softly, wondering if he has just said something stupid … or stupider than usual.
Graham didn't react. He stared into the near distance over Xander's shoulder. His shoulders were completely tensed. Xander could tell something was really wrong. "Graham. Graham."
No response.
"Wanna go?"
Graham nodded once. Quickly, Xander stood up, and breaking their unspoken rule on no public displays of affection, put a hand on Graham's arm and gave it a squeeze. "Come on."
Graham stood up. The blood had drained from his face, leaving it taut and without a hint of emotion. Xander kept his hand on the arm. Graham walked out of the coffee bar like a zombie. Xander led him back across campus towards Lowell House. He put a hand on Graham's shoulder. It was tensed tight.
"Bad memories?"
"Yeah."
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Can't." Graham was looking straight ahead, not focusing on anything. Xander looked at his face, studying it.
"Can't, because its secret Commando-guy stuff or can't because…" his voice trailed off. Xander was finding all this beyond wiggins territory and well into freaksome. Graham's never reacted like this. To anything. Fearless in the face of demons from hell, and scared shitless by a folk song.
Graham lost his staring contest with the universe and looked at Xander… the sadness in his eyes breaking Xander's heart…"Both."
They waked the rest of the way in silence.
When they got to his room, Graham just curled up in bed. Xander hesitated. Should he stay or should he go? Graham was obviously not in any mood for the rolling on the floor thing. He sat on the bed, leaned over a bit, and gave Graham's neck a very gentle massage. The guy's muscles were tight as a drum. Whatever was bothering Graham was clearly serious. He didn't respond at all to Xander's touch. Maybe that wasn't what Graham wanted or needed.
Xander took his hands away.
"Don't go." Graham whispered, pleading, but not moving a muscle.
"Not a chance." Xander crawled into bed, and pushed his chest against Graham's back, pressed his body against Grahams, and put an arm across his chest and hugged him very gently.
The two just lay there. Xander really had no clue as to what was going through macho-guy's head. He just knew that he'd do anything to make it better if he could. Hating the helpless feeling. Really glad that Graham had asked him to stay, as if Xander's just being there was a help.
"It's OK, Graham, it's OK," he whispered softly as he pressed his cheek against Graham's back.
"I'm OK … I'll be OK. Just … don't go." Barely audible, barely a whisper.
"Not goin' anywhere."
Graham didn't move. He just lay there. He very slowly relaxed. Xander could feel each muscle group slowly relax, one by one. He just held him. Graham eventually fell asleep. Xander held him for a while longer and then drifted off himself.
Only to be jolted awake. Graham was thrashing and shouting, pleading, "Mana! Mana! Mana!"
Xander sat up, staring at the look of sheer horror on Graham's face, and shook his shoulders.
"Graham, wake up! Come on, wake up!" Graham was breathing hard, almost panting. He opened his eyes, recognized Xander and grabbed him and hugged him with a violence and desperation that Xander had never felt before. Xander just hung on to Graham for a minute.
"Nightmare, huh?"
"Yeah" Graham didn’t losen his grip. At that moment Xander realized that there was a downside to a boyfriend this strong.
"Graham? … Graham?" barely a whisper, but getting worried.
"Yeah?"
"Need to breathe now."
Graham losened his grip and looked at Xander and whispered, ashamed -- and not just about the squeeze. "Sorry." Graham just stared at the ceiling. No movement. No starting to talk. He was still breathing a bit heavily. Heart racing.
"S'alright."
Xander looked down at him, thinking. He ran his his hand along Graham's far shoulder. "Ya remember I told ya I'd been with a guy before?"
"Yeah."
"That was my bud, Jesse, the one who got vamped. -- a pause, a lump in the throat -- I had to stake him."
Graham looked up at him. He swallowed hard. "Jesus!" He said, truly shocked. "I had no idea, man."
"I had nightmares about it for months. Still have 'em sometimes. So, I kinda know the nightmare thing."
Graham rolled on his side, towards Xander, and pulled him back down to the pillow. Faces inches apart. He ran two fingers along Xander's jawline, staring into his eyes. That look of terror in Graham's eyes hadn't faded completely. He swallowed hard.
"I was eighteen. In the marines maybe four months. They asked for volunteers for an 'insertion', a mission to another country. Secret commando stuff. I was first to volunteer, figured I had something to prove." Graham's voice was soft. He was whispering, "We were supposed to kidnap this drug lord, bring him to Miami for trial. He had this fortress type place way up in the Andes mountains in South America, where they grow all the coca for making cocaine."
Xander nodded. Andes folk music at the expresso bar. Check. "Yeah?" he encouraged.
"So we were were 'chuted in, and within an hour, got ambushed. Most of my squad bought it. I got captured. Drug lord turned me over to some peasant guerilla types he was in league with."
"Jesus!" said Xander. He looked at Graham. His first thought was torture. Fuck! If anybody had hurt Graham, he was gonna jump the next plane to Andes-land and kick some Andean (or is it Andanese?) drug lord butt.
"And they… hurt you?" suggested Xander, not sure if he should be asking this.
Graham shook his head. "No, not really. Kept me tied up for about a week. These guerilla guys were just kids. Their leader was the oldest, and he wasn't any older than me. Got marched to this little coca-growing village way up in the mountains. I was more a hostage than a prisoner. I was just a grunt, a soldier, I didn't know anything. No reason for them to even question me. They ended up exchanging me for the drug lord's cousin who was in jail States-side."
Xander rolled on his back, and pulled Graham half atop him, so Graham was lying face down, his head on Xander's chest, looking at the far wall, eyes wide open. Xander was running his hand through his hair, softly, gently.
Graham's cheek was pressed into Xander's chest, arm holding Xander's side. Feeling Xander's warmth: Xander's right hand on his head, his other arm resting on his back, just barely moving, reassuring.
"The people in the village were just peasants. Dirt poor. Living at 14,000 or 15,000 feet. Man, I thought I was in shape, but when they marched me up, I was completely out of breath after every hundred meters or so. Just the altitude, less oxygen, y'know?"
"They must have had orders to keep me tied up, cause apart from that they were really pretty nice to me. I started to getting altitude sickness, from just the lack of oxygen. They called it 'suruchiki'. I had the most serious headache I have ever had in my life, and I was shaking like a leaf, and just puking up everything. The guerilla leader guy had them give me this herbal tea stuff… pretty sure it was coca. Anyway it fixed me up. And the girls in the village would take turns coming over to feed me, always the same potato and vegetable soup."
"Yeah, I bet you were a big hit with the girls." Xander grinned at him, tousling his hair affectionately.
"The older women were always kidding them, the girls were always giggling, and calling me 'suldadu-cha', 'soldier boy'."
Xander repeated 'suldadu-cha' to himself, thinking it had kind of a cute ring to it, especially the way Graham said it. "So bread and water diet, except that it was potato and water."
"It was the same food that they ate. And they didn’t really have any food to spare, but they always gave the first bite of food or drink to this earth-mother goddess, always. The girl who was supposed to feed me would come over all giggly and take a spoonful of the soup and pour it on the ground. And the first time one of'em did it, I looked really puzzled. And she said "Pachamama pa", and I shook my head to tell her I didn't understand. And she looked sort of shocked, like I was some kind of mental defective, or worse. She thought a moment, and then smiled at pointed at this old woman, who was clearly her mother and said "mama". So I nodded and repeated 'mama' cause that was pretty obviously 'mother'.
"Yeah." Xander agreed, running his hand through Graham's hair.
"And then she moved her hand to indicate the whole village and the mountain and the valley below, and said 'pacha", and I shook my head, and she thought a second and then brightened totally and pointed up and shook her head, y'know, 'Not pacha' and then pointed down and nodded and said "pacha". And she did that twice, and I got it: not the sky but the earth. So I nodded at the ground and said "Pacha". And she grinned and giggled and nodded and then repeated "Pacha-mama" slowly and then "Pachamama" all run together. So 'Earth Mother". And I nodded and grinned that I got it. And she took another spoonful of the soup and poured it on the ground, and said "Pachamama pa", which I figured meant that it was for Pachamama, like an offering."
"Language learning the hard way, " joked Xander, gently running his hand over Graham's back.
"Mainly I was worried that she was gonna give all the soup to Pachamama if I didn't figure it out fast. 'Cause I was really hungry. So I was motivated."
Xander chuckled, and continued to caress his back.
"So it was all potato soup, minus the earth-mother goddess tax?"
"Yeah, and the occasional guinea pig."
"Guinea pig?"
"Yeah. They all had'em in their huts, kept 'em as pets, till they roasted 'em and ate 'em."
"You *ate* a guinea pig?"
"Yeah -- guerilla leader guy gave some of his one night."
"and…"
"I was so hungry, it was the best thing I'd ever eaten."
"No wonder you never complain about the cafeteria food." Without seeing the guy's face, Xander could feel Graham smile a little, he felt just a touch of the tension in his body dissipate.
"The worst of it was not knowing what was going on. I figured they weren't gonna kill me if they were gonna feed me, cause there just wasn't that much food around. But I couldn't talk to 'em."
"They didn't like give you Spanish for Commando-guys in 12 easy lessons before you left?"
Another easing of the tension in Graham's body. Almost a chuckle as his torso almost convulsed. "Yeah, they did, but nobody really spoke Spanish. Spoke Quechua, local Indian language."
Something clicked. Xander ran his hand through the commando guy's hair gently. "OK, suldadu-cha, you were sorta screaming something in your sleep. What does 'mana' mean?"
Graham's head snapped up. Every muscle in his body tensed again. He stared up at Xander, pure unadulterated terror in his eyes: "'No.' 'Mana' means 'No'."
*****
Part 14: Tinku
Xander runs his hand through Graham's hair.
"Go on." Xander urges.
"OK, so I was tied up on the dirt floor of the head guerilla guy's hut. Basically just waiting and not knowing what was going on."
Graham snuggles a bit as he puts his head back down on Xander's chest. Xander holds him, thankful that at least Graham was finally talking, hoping he was hiding how freaked he was and praying that he could handle whatever was coming.
Graham took a deep breath, and the rest of the story just spilled out… Night was the worst. It was really cold. And quiet. I would lay awake just shivering and being really hungry. Somewhere in the middle of the third night I heard this howling, not human, and like no animal I'd ever heard, way in the distance, way up the mountainside. It seemed to go on forever. It was the scariest sound I'd ever heard. Guerilla guy got out of bed and grabbed his rifle. It was pitch dark, no lights, no candles, no fire, no nothing. So I could only hear him go to the door and call out something to the guerilla on guard. The two were talking in Quechua, just above a whisper.
They kept repeating this name, Sebancaya, and it sounded like they were really scared. And when the guerilla leader guy walked back in, I asked him "Que pasa?" , What's happening? figuring he'd know that much Spanish. He was silent for a minute looking for the Spanish words and then said in his thick Quechua accent,.
"Sebancaya chica quirir, la eligida"
Sebancaya want girl, the chosen one.
And he was scared. He just kept shaking his head and repeating "mana alyi, mana alyi-punichu," which I figured meant it was not good by his tone of voice. I asked him who Sebancaya was. And he tried to explain it to me. But I couldn't understand anything, except that Sebancaya had to do with the howling thing and the mountain, and it wanted this chosen one girl, and that it was really not good.
Then he came over and just hugged me for a second, and patted the back of my neck as I was kneeling there on the floor, and then he told me to go back to sleep, or I guess that's what he told me, cause he sort of gently pushed me back down on the dirt floor and then went back to bed himself.
The next morning, the entire village was all abuzz. The women were messing with this milky liquid stuff in these big cauldrons, and it smelled pretty rank. And the boys brought in this baby llama, and the girls spent hours dressing it up in this really elaborate girl's clothing. And people were chatting and laughing, but everybody was really tense.
And in the middle of the afternoon, it began. One of the old women came out with a bunch of stuff, and began this chanting thing. Burning insense and coca leaves, tossing whole cigarettes on the little fire, and pouring some kind of alcohol from a bottle onto the ground, and the people stood around chewing coca leaves and watching, and taking turns going to the fire and pulling the smoke from the insense onto their heads. And people kept repeating prayers to Pachamama, the earth mother goddess.
And then the older women starting handed out tin cups and tin bowls of the cheecha, the liquid in the huge pots, this kind of corn beer. And everybody would pour a little of it on the ground, and then just toss the rest back, and hand the cup back, and it would get refilled and given to the next person. The guerilla leader guy brought me a cup, spilled a bit on the ground, and whispered something about 'Pachamama', and put it to my lips and had me drink it all. A couple of the girls came over and did the same, always pouring the bit on the ground before letting me drink. And it must have been pretty powerful stuff, 'cause I was really feeling it, and y'know high altitude gets you drunker faster.
So these guys pulled out this beat up guitars and and this huge skin-covered drum, and wooden flutes and those pan pipes, like at the Espresso Pump, and they started to play. And everybody kept drinking and started to dance, but they really just kind of stood around and shuffled their feet and swayed back and forth in time to the rhythm. And two of the older women came and got me, my hands still tied behind my back, and dragged me into the dance, and sort of jostled me until I started to do the shuffle feet dance too. Guerilla leader guy kept giving me more sips of cheecha. And this just kept going until it got dark and we were dancing next to the fire they had built in the middle of the village.
And then the old woman, the one who was doing all the chanting, yelled out something and everyone stopped cold. And the guerilla guys went and got the baby llama, all dressed in girl's clothes and brought it to the old woman. She picked it up, held it tight under her arm and held it over the little insense fire so the smoke surrounded the baby llama, and then she poured some alcohol from a bottle onto its head. And the llama was bleating away, and then she pulled out this machete, and with one motion, she just slit its throat, and then walked around the village sprinkling the llama blood around. And then they wrapped the llama up like it was a mummy and put it on this wooden table or alter, along with bottles of alcohol, packs of cigarettes, and bags of coca leaves.
And I was pretty much trying to keep my cool. Cause I'd never seen anything like this before. OK, I was pretty freaked out, and, yeah really drunk. And they kept referring to the baby llama as 'the chosen one'. I figured that they were using a baby llama instead of a girl, and hoping this Sebancaya wouldn't notice. But from the looks on the little girl's faces, it was like they really had just sacrificed a girl.
The old men took chosen-one llama-mummy and the bottles of alcohol, and the packs of cigarettes and the bags of coca leaves up the mountainside that night. I don’t know if they buried it up there or what.
And anyway, everybody in the village looked really relieved, and everyone went around hugging each other, and patting each other on the back. And guerilla leader guy, who was pretty drunk, came up and gave me this big hug, and called me 'suldadu-cha', and made me drink another cup of the cheecha.
And basically everybody got back into party mode, and the band started up again, and everybody danced. Then the girls started chanting "tinku! tinku! tinku!", and everybody moved to the sides, and the guerilla leader guy went to the middle and slung his rifle over his shoulder, outside the poncho he was wearing. Then he slung the front of his poncho over his shoulder, so his arms were free.
And the band started to play the tinku, this sort of marching song. And the guerilla leader guy jumped forward one big step in time with the music and then more steps forward, and then steps back, did that twice and turned slowly around 360, then raised his arms, kinda like a bear, and made these three big steps forward, like the bear attacking.. Then the other guerilla guys joined in, lining up in pairs behind leader guy and following his steps. I just stood there watching…
Graham hesitates. He swallows hard. Xander rubs his neck, feeling the tension. "It's OK, Graham, it's OK," he whispers soothingly. Graham lets out the breath he's been holding. He continues, his voice a bit softer, less sure of himself. "It was beautiful, Xander. It was just beautiful. It was clearly this warrior's dance, a soldier's dance, and incredibly … sexy in this really macho way. And I couldn't take my eyes off the guerilla leader guy. The way he moved. Like he had this power to protect me and protect everyone in the village form whatever this Sebancaya was.
And everybody in the village stood around clapping and moving their feet in time to the rhythm of the tinku, the song, and watching the guerilla guys dance. And when it ended, the guerilla guys all pulled out their rifles and then shot off a few rounds, and everybody cheered like crazy.
People started drifting off to bed, or just passed out where they were. Cause these people really socked it away. And guerilla leader guy came over with this big grin and put his arm around me and asked "Tinku alyi-ki?" and I knew that 'alyi' meant 'good', so I just repeated 'alyi' and nodded and grinned back. He hugged me again, and he was leaning on me cause he was pretty drunk, too. He sort of led me back to his hut.
We walked in, and I don't know, maybe the cheecha or seein' him dance or all the hugging, but once we got inside, I kinda nuzzled his neck. I kinda had to lean down to do it, cause he wasn't very tall, none of 'em were.
So it was pitch black inside the hut. He took hold of my head with both hands and asked "suldadu-cha?" in this really questioning way. And the only thing that came out of my mouth is 'yes sir' and then I repeated it in Quechua, 'ari, sinyur.' And there was this hesitation while he held my head, and then he kissed me.
Xander's face freezes on hearing the 'yes sir.' Suddenly he understands where this is going. A shiver runs down his spine. Sebancaya isn't the only thing Graham's dealing with here. He runs his hand over Graham's back as soothingly as he can.
OK, I was 18, and I had never been with a guy, never kissed a guy, and off the football field never been hugged by a guy until that day. And I guess it just all came out. And I kissed him back with a vengeance. Ok, my hands were still tied, and I was really drunk, and when he let go of me for a sec, I kinda, well, I fell down. And I was on my knees, and I rubbed my face against his crotch. And he was totally hard.
And he whispered 'ay, suldadu-cha' in this really sweet voice. And he threw the front of his poncho over his shoulder and pulled down his trousers, and fed me his cock. And, yeah, I was pretty drunk and I don't remember much, but I definitely went after the cock and was sucking it for all it was worth, and he was standing there going "Ari! Ari, suldadu-cha! Ari!", ya know 'yes, yes, soldier-boy, yes!'
I don’t know exactly what happened, but suddenly I was on his bed, face down, and he was pulling my pants off. And I knew what he was going to do, and I was suddenly scared shitless, and my hands were still tied. And he climbed on top of me and pushed it in and started to fuck me. And it was pretty brutal, cause it was my first time, and he was just drunk and ramming into me, and I could barely speak.
And I wanted to tell him to stop, I wanted to tell him 'no!', to yell out "Mana!" but I couldn't, and he just kept fucking me and he was whispering 'ay, suldadu-cha' in my ear as he lay on top of me, humping away.
And he came inside of me, and then just passed out, and my arms were trapped between my back and his body, and my cock was rock hard, and I basically couldn't even move, but I sort of ground myself against the straw matress, and I finally came, and then I basically passed out, too.
The next day, I woke up with the biggest hangover of my life, and really sore in places, and he was there standing looking down at me, and he had this silly grin on his face. And he leaned over and kissed my cheek really softly and said good morning or something, and called me 'suldadu-cha,' and helped me get my pants back on, and brought me more of the coca tea and held the cup while I drank it.
Anyway, the llama sacrifice thing must have worked, cause I never heard the howling again. And a couple of days later, the drug lord's goons came for me. They marched me down the mountain, put me in a jeep, and two hours later I was on a cargo plane heading for the US base in Panama. I found out in Panama that I had been traded for the drug lord's drug dealer cousin. And when they debriefed me, I told'em about Sebancaya and the sacrifice and all. I guess the demon experience is why they eventually transferred me to the Initiative.
Graham, clearly finished, just lies there not moving. Xander somehow knows his eyes are open. Xander holds him. He has been more than just a little freaked since the first mention of Sebancaya. Been getting the whole goosebump thing going. At least, it wasn't a real girl that Graham saw sacrificed. Xander couldn't even bring himself to think about the rest. "Sounds pretty freaksome."
Graham says "Yeah, it was, it all was. The howling, and the whole Sebancaya demon thing and the sacrifice of the baby llama, and everything. But really, the part that freaked me the most, was how I felt when the guerilla leader guy was doin' it to me. I just couldn't deal. I knew I was supposed to make him stop or at least tell him to stop. I was supposed to want him to stop."
Graham looks up at Xander for the first time since he began to tell the story. Xander sees that he is close to tears. "But I didn't want him to stop, Xander. I wanted him to fuck me. I really wanted it."
Xander runs his fingers along Graham's jawline, and nods slightly, barely moving his head. "I know, Graham, I know."
*****
Quechua glossary (just in case it's not clear)
alyi - good
alyi-ki? - was it good? 'ki' indicates a question
ari - yes
ay! - Oh!
-cha - indicates 'little' or affection
ch'alla - ritual spilling of alcohol as offering to Pachamama
cheecha - homebrewed corn beer
coca (cuca) - the plant from which cocaine is made. In the Andes, coca leaves are used for making tea, for chewing (you get a slight buzz, but mainly you just feel less tired and less cold), and in all incantations. You never ask a god or spirit or a saint for anything without offering alcohol, tobacco and coca.
cuy - guinea pig, usually eaten roasted
mana - 'no', or 'not'
pa - for, it comes after, not before as in English 'Pachamama pa' = 'for Pachamama'
Pachamama - 'Earth Mother', goddess central to Quechua life Pay Canada-manta ichas. Maybe he's Canadian
-punichu - ending meaning "really" or "very"
Sebancaya - Buffyverse Quechua/Inca sacrifice-hungry demon (Inca Mummy Girl)
sinyur - sir
suruchiki - altitude sickness. Not fun. 'soroche' in Spanish
suldadu - soldier
suldadu-cha - (my) little soldier, soldier boy
Tinku - Tinku is a kind of marching song that village warriors play and sing on their way to battle, and the dance/march that goes with the song. A Tinku is properly this highly ritualized village-versus-village mock battle, whose purpose is to spill blood to make the earth fertile. Tinku battles still happen and villagers do occasionally die in them.
Parts 15,16
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