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Jumping off.

It was sunny but I was shivering. I stood at the far end of the skyscraper pier in the south of Puget Sound, waiting for my turn to jump. All around me were teenage boys from Scout Camp waiting for the famed pier jump. Each pair arrived at the end of the line and the lifeguard’s countdown started: Three… two… one… jump!

One boy jumped, his friend didn’t, teetered at the edge trembling with fear. No matter, the lifeguard had a long stick and bumped him in the behind—hard. The boy tumbled down into the frigid water and I could hear him smack the surface, but I couldn’t see. I could only hear.

We had been earlier coached to wear sandals to protect our feet. I was wearing sandals. To not dive unless we knew exactly how. No diving for me. It would be cold and we would have to swim to the boat, as a test. I could swim.

But what if I was afraid? Would I have the courage to jump? They said it was forty feet and the water would be so cold. The line was shortening every minute, and I was nearing the edge. We jumped in pairs and each of us was negotiating with each other who we would be jumping with. Soon it was my turn to go.

###

The airplane began to descend. It punctured the clouds like a dull knife, and as the gray mist evaporated a great green mass appeared beneath me, intertwined with the heavy cord of huge, brown rivers. Our approach continued and the metropolis Belem came into perspective, an urban jungle of towers and trees and organized streets.

The flight from Miami seemed almost entirely populated by Brazilians, who anxiously prepared to land and disembark. We touched down, a rough landing. All around me was spoken Portuguese, and I understood very little of it. I grabbed my backpack and made my way out of the airplane door and a wave of heat and humidity assaulted my senses and my skin. I’d arrived. I wandered through the small airport and caught a taxi, climbed into the front seat.

“Where to my friend?” said the cabbie. He was large, wore khakis and aviator sunglasses, was at least 60 years old.

“A hostel in the Nazare neighborhood,” I said. “ It’s next to the Radisson Hotel. I think I have the address here…”

I shuffled through my papers and my phone for the correct address. The taxi driver looked over at me, then nodded and replied. “I got it then, let’s go.”

We drove past enormous trees and the new cycling infrastructure lining the roads of Belem. I reached deep inside the aging gray folds of my brain, grasping for words I hadn’t spoken in years. I hastily repented of my failure to study and prepare for the trip. Sentences eventually turned into broken conversation.

The aviator-wearing cabbie gave tips for where to go: the newly redeveloped docks made for tourism. There was even a new brewery.

He also asked me if I was alone. Yep. Then he told me to be careful.

My time was up. After two days in Belem, it was again time for me to jump off the edge. I stood on the sidewalk waiting for Liana, my Uber driver, who would take me to the docks to catch my boat. I walked down the block to find her gray Chevy parked behind a delivery van and I got in.

Liana was in her 60’s, had wrinkled caramel skin and yellowing eyes. Her big smile matched her voice, radiating warmth.

“You’re going to the bad port?” she said. “That’s a dangerous part of town.”

“Is it?” I said. “That’s what another guy told me. But that’s where the boat is. The good port didn’t have a boat today.”

“I don’t even like to leave my neighborhood,” she said. “I don’t know how you’re doing all this traveling, how do you do it? I can’t even imagine going to another country.”

She muttered the phrase again: can’t even imagine.

“It helps that I speak the language,” I said.

She eyed me in the rear-view mirror. “But you speak all rolled up!”

I laughed, then she did too. That’s my favorite phrase to describe my floundering Portuguese. Or maybe it just describes my English-tinged accent; I’m still not sure.

We kept talking while she drove me to the Port, this particular pier ironically named Secure Port. She told me about how she watches TV and there’s never anything good on, only bad news. She wished me well on my trip. She told me to be careful.

I piled out of the car with my backpack and looked around. The early afternoon sun beat down. There was only a series of tall brick walls and big metal doors, big enough for trucks to pass through. There were no numbers or words or signs. A group of men stood around listlessly, red-eyed from drink and poor sleep. Liana hung around in her little Chevy. She was ready to defend me from whatever danger appeared.

I knocked on the closest warehouse door, no answer. I looked around, disoriented. A pickup truck creeped up behind me on the sidewalk, honked. A stooped-over black man peeked out from a door ahead, saw me with my big backpack and the pickup lording over me. I quickly walked in while the aged door guard went to fully open the gate for the truck.

A narrow passage between two warehouses led towards the river. I looked back and saw that Liana’s Chevy was gone. All around me were men carrying boxes and forklifts motoring about. Each dockworker eyed me in his own turn, but none spoke. I reached the end of the pier and saw my boat to the right, the San Marino II. Three enormous long-haul trucks were parked with their trailers backed into the wide mouth of the boat. All around me men worked with handcarts, muscles, and forklifts.

There was no visible gangplank. I asked how to get on the boat. A man pointed around the trucks. I walked around, there was a tiny passage and a narrow gangplank. I thought about Liana’s words: be careful. I swept the plants past me and stepped over broken bricks and under the truck’s rear-view mirror, then up the uneven gangplank.

Now on the boat, I faced pallets and pallets of limes and tomatoes and bags of onions, and the men who were moving them into place. I was in the way. A sweaty and frustrated workman put down his handcart and pointed towards the stairs. I climbed up and met my home for the next three days: a bare expanse of hooks for hammocks and wooden pallets to place our bags, presumably protection for when it rained. There were no windows, only rolled up blue tarps that could be unfurled when more protection was needed.

I found a spot on the wide expanse of red metal floor that seemed good. Hung up my hammock, arranged my things on the pallet. Two old men were next to me, napping and swinging in their hammocks. We were early. I tried to settle in to my new home.

I had plenty of time to think about the recent days. Not even a week before I’d been in Los Angeles, going about my life of riding my bike and going to work and the beach and seeing friends and family.

Now I had jumped off into something entirely different.

I was at the mouth of the Amazon, about to travel upriver for three entire days. I hadn’t spoken a word of English in what felt like forever. In my ears rang the voice of Liana, also the old cabbie, and yet another guy from the hostel: be careful, it’s dangerous.

###

It was my turn. I stood at the edge of the pier, staring down to the distant seagreen water floor. It looked so far. I shivered, despite the sun. I glanced back towards my friend at my side and then the lifeguard with his stick and a whistle in his mouth. Three…

Would I jump? Would I be okay? Two…

My heart was beating fast. Two distinct and competing fears battled inside of me. One, the physical fear of jumping forty feet into freezing seawater, and two, the sociological fear of being hit by the stick and seen as fearful by all the other boys. Not that the stick would hurt, but being seen as weak—that would be excruciating. One…

I looked down again. My chest clenched with the writhing tendrils of horror, grappling my lungs and my heart and my throat. The whistle sounded: jump!

I didn’t look at the boy next to me, or the lifeguard with his stick. I looked down at the water and I stepped off the edge. A full second passed as the water rapidly rose to meet me. I smashed against its turbid surface, my entire body now immersed in the frigid Puget Sound. Every square inch of my body stung with cold. I flapped my arms and kicked and worked my way to the surface, brushed saltwater from my face.

A man in a boat yelled, waved for us to swim. I looked up to where I’d jumped. It seemed so high. Two boys stood at the edge peering down at me, the sun hanging in the sky above them. I had done it: I’d jumped.

I started to kick and move my arms.

I swam.

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 (next) | PART 4 | PART 5