Of Pisco and Peru: Lima Pt. 1

‘Islands in the Stream.’ What kind of sick bastard plays that song? At this hour? Rolling over, I fumble for my phone. Eleven AM? Already?

Easing off the hotel bed, my skull feels like an egg cracking. Too much blood throbbing to the temples. Whatever happened, it was rough. I’ve got a bad case of the blurries, but when I reach for my glasses, they’re broken in half.

Strange.

I pull on my wrinkled ‘Lake Titicaca: making immature geography students giggle since 1538’ T-shirt and slip into the bathroom. I’ve found the culprit.

The maid did it. She looks like someone’s kindly aunt, lost in her job, swaying her hips happily to The Bee Gees while whistling and wiping down the mirror. How did she get in here?

Must’ve forgotten to put out the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.

Rummaging through my toiletry bag, I find my backup pair of ugly, horn-rimmed glasses. There. That’s better. Dammit! The white blur on the counter is the blow-up ‘Love Ewe’ doll. I stuff it behind my back just as the maid turns to me, startled.

I smile and wave with my free hand innocently. “Hola.”

“Hola.”

“Uh. . .” Facing her, I shuffle my feet and point toward the bedroom area.

“Vamos a. . . Chau. Chau.”

She looks at me while dusting and politely smiles, then turns to dump the bathroom trash bin. I bolt away, passing the egg-shaped jacuzzi, filled to the gills with a green, brackish boiling cauldron of liquid soaps, shampoos, and conditioners.

Still cradling the ‘Love Ewe,’ I’m shocked as I head out to the open living area and bedroom. Bananas, placemats, and cutlery have been tossed around like I decided to play an impromptu game of disc golf by braille. The curtains and chairs are piled up on the sofa like a children’s play fort, flanked by a massive beeramid. The only item left in the minibar is a half-eaten jar of peanut butter.

But the bed is of particular concern. Pillows are wrapped inside sheets, raising the suspicion that during last night’s blackout, I had asphyxiated a small body there, right next to an unidentified wet spot.

The maid’s moving about in the bathroom. Probably checking out the Guernica tableau around the jacuzzi by now. Gotta ditch this ‘Love Ewe’ bomb. I pull back the clump of bedsheets.

What the f — ?

It can’t be!

The dwarf is lying buck naked, his face a deep blue with an evil expression staring back at me. What the hell? “You can’t be! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuckedy, Fuuuuck!”

Hearing the maid coming, I stuff the love doll next to the dead dwarf and cover them up just as she rolls her cleaning cart into the room. She nods at me and then looks around, her smile fading as she sees the Fukushima disaster she’s been charged to clean.

Time to do damage control. “Uhhh. . . Limpiar, uh, clean, uh, mas retarde. Mas retarde por favor!”

She raises her voice, yelling at me in Spanish.

I grab the cleaning cart and race towards the front door. She follows at my heels, screaming, “No. No. No. No. No! ¡Ya pues!”

“Sí. ¡Yeah piss! Sí. Sí. Sí. Sí!” I brace my whole less than buck-fifty and give a mighty heave. The door slams against the wall, knocking off pieces of drywall as I push the cart out into the hallway with all my might. The kindly maid catches up, cuffing me in the back of the head while cursing at me in Spanish. As she struggles to turn the cart around, I give a wave and veer back towards the room. “Sorry. Gracias.” Secure that damn door shut.

Whoops. Open it back up again. Gotta turn that ‘Por Favor, No Molestar’ sign around. Back inside with the door bolted shut, I wanna give Gus a swift kick in the balls for convincing me I’d be fluent in a month.

A deep sigh as I make unsteady, anemic footfalls towards the bed. With a burst of energy, I pull back the sheets like I’m taking the corpse by surprise. Nothing new. Dead dwarf. Freshly drowned. A gaping knife wound in his throat.

I place my hand over my mouth and gag as the smell hits me.

“Can’t be.” It’s repulsive, but against every cell in my body screaming at me to keep away, I bend down and reach out. Lightly touching the right cheek with my fingertips, the dwarf’s head bobs to the left. Phlegm and bile ooze between my fingers as I stare blankly. That settles it. This is real.

“Fuck me.”

Unmistakable. The buzzing starts. Whether it’s inside my skull or somewhere out in the world, it doesn’t matter. It’s there. My face twitches as I stare at the shadow emerging from the dwarf’s right ear. I’m clawing at my own neck, my face consumed in a bout of nervous tics.

The noise grows, a shrill symphony of feasting bugs buzzing on violin strings throughout my ears, beyond my reach.

I want to turn away from the face but can’t. Yellow bile retches from my mouth. All I can think about is piercing my fingers through my cheeks and scratching my skull clean out.

The fly emerges from the dwarf’s ear. Pounding decibels engorge my ear canals. I feel my eardrums ripping apart. Briefly, I shut my eyes and turn in circles, but the hell won’t go away. I give in to a final stare at the dead dwarf as the fly takes off like a jumbo jet turbine, overpowering my ears and frying my brain.