Not with a Bang, but a Whimper (1)

This story recounts the final days of the Amazon through the eyes of the region's most enduring legendary being, the river dolphin, who changes into human form for seductive purposes.

Beto held Vanessa’s hand as he watched the savannas of dwarf palm trees roll by through the windows of the beat-up cab. Now in human form, Beto, a dolphin capable of human appearances, was glad he hadn’t drowned Vanessa the night before at the fiesta in Soure, the largest town on Marajó Island. He was glad he hadn’t delivered her, gasping for watery breath, to the City of the Deep at the bottom of the Amazon River. His laziness had granted him some extra time with the mark, and Beto was relishing every second. But it wouldn’t be long now before he’d exchange his humanoid body for the manly torpedo of a dolphin, with its muscular fins and massive sex organ, its ineffaceable smile that was more like a leer, and its phallic snout that never failed to intimidate, if not completely terrify.

“You’ve been to Pesqueiro before?” Vanessa asked him. It hadn’t been easy to convince her to go to Pesqueiro, the name of the beach that would serve his purposes perfectly. Beto knew this from the preparations he’d made in Belém, the big city on the other side of the river mouth.

“This is where my family comes for the holidays,” Beto said, which was a bald-faced lie, because he didn’t have any family except maybe for Cobra Grande, the great snake who ruled the City of the Deep. He was a father of sorts, the logical implication of his being the creator of everything, which included Beto, “born” in 1616, the same year Belém was founded, or so the story went. Belém, which had been little more than a village at the time, was now home to over three million people, and growing fast.

“It’s nice to have family traditions,” Vanessa said. Beto felt relief that the diminutive Vanessa, a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty, was showing no suspicions whatsoever. In fact, it felt like they’d done it a hundred times before, hire a cab in Soure to bump their way down a pot-holed road, on route to a secluded beach beneath lavas of tropical sunlight. And yet, as natural as it felt, Beto knew it wouldn’t be long before he’d take Vanessa in his arms, tease with a kiss, then drown her.

Three painful weeks had passed since he’d first spotted Vanessa walking the streets of Belém. He’d followed her to the wharf, where she’d boarded the boat for Marajó Island, evidently returning from a shopping trip. He’d hurriedly bought a ticket and climbed aboard, sitting close but not too close, and settling in for the three hour trip to Soure. But as they passed Cotijuba Island and chugged onto the tan waters of the bay at the mouth of the river, he wasn’t able to find the magical incantation of his opening line, the one that would initiate the process of sweeping Vanessa off her feet. Beto, the master seducer, had balked, breaking Cobra Grande’s cardinal rule, which was that you always at least tried.

Beto’s failure wasn’t for lack of charm or self-confidence. He was one of the lucky ones who, upon assuming human form, took on exceptionally good looks, almost a Brazilian Valentino. At least that’s what the women told him before he drowned them. He prided himself in this, and in his always impeccable choice of clothing, the tropical chic of the white fedora and polo shirt, and the contemporary flare of Banana Republic khakis. Beto was a bit of a dandy if the truth be known, but that was how the job got done.

Nor was Beto’s problem a case of an underlying dissatisfaction with his role in life as a male boto, a dolphin who populated the City of the Deep with unsuspecting female humans. In fact, Beto loved his marks in every way, shape and form, big-breasts, little breasts, boney and fleshy butts. He loved tall women, short women, lippy twenty-somethings and stoic matrons, long hair, short hair, dimples, frowns, it didn’t matter. Beto had learned that his eclectic tastes reflected an existential preference for the fairer sex, and that it was the company of women he relished, their gentle ways and fragrances, the lilt of their voices and their easy tears, their sympathy for those who suffered, their hearts as deep as oceans and as passionate as passing storms.

Beto had come to realize that this, perhaps, was part of the problem. His sensitivities to the grandeur of women had made him see those he’d successfully seduced as victims, not as beneficiaries of his well-schooled charm.

Still, it wasn’t as if what Beto did wasn’t for a good cause. By Cobra Grande’s teachings, Beto and his fellow dolphins drowned human beings, both men and women, for their own good, to elevate their consciousness by indoctrinating them into the mysteries and magics of the Amazon. The drowning was temporary, too, just a ploy to get them down to the bottom, not to mention that they were released after seven years, always. But the humans didn’t like it at all, which wouldn’t have mattered much if they didn’t return to where they’d come from, which in Beto’s case was usually Belém.

A hundred years earlier, bumping into someone he’d seduced was rare, and Beto didn’t think much of it if they shouted obscenities at him, or started running. But now, after 20,644 seductions, which amounted to about one a week since 1616, there were whole neighborhoods populated by women whom Beto had carried off, especially in the Comercio district, where he’d done a lot of his hunting. If Beto so much as set foot in one of its clothing stores or snack bars, the projectiles would start flying, mango pits, beer cans, pineapple heads, coconut rinds, anything they could get their hands on. No one was ever happy to see Beto, and quite to the contrary.

20,644 seductions and not a single thank-you. Beto had lost the messianic zeal of his early days, when seduction had been nothing less than the initial step of a spiritual apprenticeship. He was depending on Vanessa to help him find what he’d lost, the ardor of his youth. He was depending on Vanessa to help him save the only world he knew, the Amazon and its one true City of the Deep.