Free Night of the Jaguar by Michael Gruber

obscenities, and Scotty looking contemptuous and self-satisfied, and the Professor looking stunned, and the tears running slowly down Jenny’s face until he couldn’t stand it anymore and threw a flowerpot against the wall. In the stunned silence following this act he stomped back to their cottage cursing. Then the sound of the slammed door.
    “He has to go, Rupert,” said Luna in the echo of that sound. “I mean it. He’s a lazy son of a bitch, he does nothing but lay around and smoke dope, he’s a disaster politically, and this last stunt is completely unforgivable. Jesus! We could have learned so much from him, we could have given him shelter….” She raised her eyes to heaven and clenched her fists in frustration, not a pretty sight. To Rupert she said, “So? Can we please get rid of him?”
    “What about Jen?” This from Scotty, earning a sharp look from Luna, who said quickly, “Oh, Jenny’s fine. No one has anything against Jenny.”
    Jenny snuffled and said sulkily, “I’m not staying here without Kevin.”
    “Whatever was meant to happen will happen, Luna,” said Rupert in his calm, maddening way. “And if the few of us can’t live here together peacefully, what hope is there for the world at large? Isn’t that right, Nigel?”
    After a brief pause, Professor Cooksey said, “Quite,” excused himself, and went back to his workroom.
    “Well,” said Rupert, “let’s all take some time to calm down, shall we? Jenny, could you…ah…deal with that plant?” And they all disappeared to their various lairs, leaving Jenny alone on the patio, staring at the shattered pot and the smear of earth on the bloodred tiles.
     
    Night. Moie lies in his hammock high up in a great fig tree in Peacock Park in Coconut Grove. He watches the moon come up from the sea. He sees that Jaguar has nearly returned from his mother, and by this sign he calculates how long it has been since he left Home. He recalls the word lonely, feels the feeling it represents, wonders if he will return there, and also wonders a little about the Firehair Woman, and if he will see her again. He has her smell in his nose and can easily find her, he thinks, even in this place of unbearable stench. If it is necessary.
    But now he tests the air for another scent, one he acquired earlier in this strange day, that of the man Fuentes. He had not understood what the Monkey Boy had said to Fuentes, but the meaning was perfectly clear, as was the response of Fuentes. He feels Jaguar’s anger building in him and feels a faint sadness for the man, as he sometimes did when they gave a little girl to the god. Some things are necessary, however. It is not for him to judge. He chews some more of the paste he has prepared; after a few minutes he feels the god start to take hold of his body. Moie has never discussed this event with anyone. He has never known anyone who carried Jaguar except for his old teacher, who has been dead for years, and even when he was alive it was not something they discussed, any more than they concerned themselves with the circulation of their blood.
    Moie feels numbness begin in his hands, his feet; the waves of numbness flow toward his center and meet in a certain spot in his belly. Sounds and smells fade; his vision grows dim, contracts, goes to black. Now he is out of his body and can see again, if dimly. He sees his body there on the tree limb, perfectly inert, its arms and legs hanging down. He regards it with only mild interest, no different from the interest he takes in the bark of the tree, its leaves, the little insects of the nightcrawling among them, the motion of the moon through the clouds. He is free in nature, indifferent to and perfectly accepting of its benevolence, its horrors. In this state of profound detachment he observes Jaguar unmake nature. First there is a man in a tree, and then there is some kind of event (not really, because event implies duration, and this occurs outside of normal time), and then