Indy and the Amazonian Shroud (Part 5)

The boat left the dock and the three men began their journey down the Amazon and into the jungle. Rick sat on a 5 gallon bucket, and cracked a beer. He looked around him, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that only a couple hours earlier he was taking a shit in a Circle K bathroom in Texas. Indy heard the sounds of the jungle, the birds and the monkeys, the wind blowing through the leaves and the water rushing past them, and he looked up, seeing all the leaves and vines, the birds flying by. He was feeling very similarly to Rick, struggling to believe where he was and what he was doing but also understanding that he needed to embrace this moment, this adventure. The future needed him, and he needed this, and he wanted to make sure he embraced this.

"Hey, look, an alligator!" Rick interupted Indy's thoughts.

"It's a black caiman" Indy said passively, not annoyed, just correcting out of instinct.

"Yeah, a black caiman, that's what I meant!" Rick replied with a chuckle and a slap on Indy's back. "Can you believe the future sent a couple of old timers like us out here to save the world?! I was just sitting here thinking how..."

"unbelievable this all is?"

"Yeah, exactly! Want a beer?"

"Sure, why not."

"How about you Paul?" Rick held up a beer looking at their driver.

"Yes, thank you." the young man with a strange accent replied.

Rick tossed one to Paul, cracked one and handed it to Indy, and then cracked another for himself.

"Here's to saving the future, and having one last big adventure before they throw us into nursing homes!" Rick said with a chuckle.

"Cheers to that!" Indy replied and the three men tapped their cans together and drank them down.

Indy hadn't had cheap beer in as long as he could remember, and he remembered why, but at the same time he felt like the overly carbonated, very watered down beer fit that moment well. He finished it down with a swallow and then had a very satisfying belch.

There was a 55 gallon drum with some boards laid across the top for a table. There was a deck of cards on the table. Rick and Indy sat down. "play some cards?" "Sure!" Indy opened the cards and started shuffling and then dealt them out to himself and Rick.

"Would you gentleman like some chow? We've got a way to go down river, probably won't get to where we need to be until tomorrow morning. I'll cook something up for us." Paul asked.

"Sounds great!" Rick responded and he cracked a couple more beers, handing one to Indy.

The evening passed with lots of reminiscing and laughs. Paul made them a fantastic meal of fish and plantains. The three continued drinking and playing cards until well into twilight. After a few beers, Indy took out his flask of scotch and began passing that around between the three of them.

Rick and Indy laid on the deck looking up through the trees and vines at the night sky.

"Rick, I gotta tell you something," Indy felt the alcohol starting to convince him to share his feelings.

"Yeah, whatever you want man, you know what they say, what's said in the rainforest stays int he rainforest, or something like that!" Rick replied.

"I was always jealous of you." Indy confided

"Jealous of me! That's insane! I was always such a clown, such a hack, you were everything I wanted to be and never could! All my brashness was to make up for the fact that I felt like an imposter."

"You have always come across as very comfortable being yourself and being excited and enthusiastic about what life is bringing your way. I would have loved to enjoy my celebrity status but I just, I guess I was scared that people wouldn't really like me, or they'd reject me once they knew me. I guess I always just felt like it was safer to reject that stuff instead of risking being rejected by them, but now here I am, near the end, and I feel like I wasted so much. I never really enjoyed what I accomplished because I never dared to. I could never start a family because I was afraid of being left, left by my wife, disregarded by my kids, it was easier not to go down that path, but now I have nothing. Lots of people will remember my name and the things I found, but nobody will remember me and who I was as a man."

Rick didn't respond right away. you could hear the crickets and the night sounds of the jungle. The jungle is a 24 hour store, it just has different customers at night than it does during the day. Still loud, still busy, but different.

"Indy," Rick's eyes were welling up, but Indy couldn't see that. "everything you were afraid of is everything that happened to me, everything that I fucked up is everything you were afraid to fuck up. Everyone loved me, I was on the cover of magazines and newspapers, little boys wanted my autograph, young women wanted to be in my company. I had a wife, I had a son, I had a family. I had it all, and... well... it was never enough, and I wanted more, and I lost all that I had trying to get more. I liked the attention from the ladies, I liked that they thought I was this celebrity. At home I was just Rick, but out there I was RICK O'CONNEL THE MUMMY SLAYER! I started to resent Evy for not treating me like who my big stupid ego thought I was. So, I started to spend more time with these girls, like a jackass, and Evy is too strong of a woman to put up with that shit. She left me, but I thought I was finally free to live it up. Alex stuck by me through all that. He still thought I was a superhero. Eventually the girls stopped being interested, they started following younger and fresher guys, the magazines stopped asking to interview me, kids didn't know who I was or want my autograph anymore. I was angry, angry at them for forgetting me, angry at myself for pushing away Evy, the best thing that ever happened to me, just angry that things were changing. I started drinking more, and doing less, and being more and more angry. Alex couldn't stand to watch me fall apart, so he stopped coming around. I don't know, I think you may be better off not having to know how shitty it is to have had it all and lost it. I have nothing to envy."

They sat silently.

Paul interrupted. "Night cap, gentlemen?"

"Yeah, why not, thanks Paul." Indy replied.

He and Rick sat up and each took a swig off the bottle Paul had produced.

Indy woke up with his head ringing like it had been split with an axe. He thought to himself that he was getting too old for nights like last night. He tried to gain his bearing, squinting against the morning sun. He went to wipe the sleep from his eyes. He couldn't get his arm around, it was held back, but what did he get tangled up in, some kind of rope? He was poked not too gently in the side and heard some talking he couldn't quite make out. He must have been too out of it still to understand. He tried to focus on the voice to make out the words but soon realized it was not speaking English. Something was off. He finally started to gain his sight, He saw a native standing above him with a spear. He wasn't tangled up in ropes, he was tied up. Oh shit. The guy above him obviously wanted him to stand. He got to his knees, and got smacked in the back with the stick end of the spear.

"Jesus, alright, I'm getting up."

He finally got to his feet and another native grabbed the ropes holding his hands back and started pushing him forward. The boat was against the shore. Rick was in front of him being offloaded. Where was Paul?

"Good morning gentlemen!" Paul said from behind him. Indy turned around. Paul sat at the table with his feet up and a mug in his hand. "Hope you had a good sleep. You two wouldn't stop going on about a last great adventure, well, I think it's safe to say this will definitely be your last, hopefully it's as great as you hoped, we probably won't be seeing each other again!"