Campero’s Last Wave

More than a hundred people file slowly along the beach, mournfully following the gold-hued casket carried on the back of an old pick-up. An unusual vibe fills the air; simultaneously electric with expectation and heavy with sadness. While sweeping my cabin, I hear the singing. Some of the women and children carry flowers; limp bouquets of tropical flora plucked from the riverbank. Cristian and his wife, Nereyda, cross the creek behind the crowd, stragglers in the rear. Kelly, Cristian’s niece, and I join them on the tide-swept beach under the cemetery where they stop to rest.

Nereyda urges Cristian to head up the hill. He wants to hang back just a bit longer. Soon, Papa, the town drunk, stumbles over the sand, waving a bottle of Caña Manabita in our faces, leaning over us, staring and salivating. He mumbles unintelligibly, making no sense. Cristian yells in protest. An exchange of harsh words rattles around the cove.

“Leave my family alone! We want to enjoy the peace and quiet for a moment,” rants Cristian, exasperated. “Everyone on the hill will be crying. It will be very sad. Now, I have you in my face, a useless annoying drunk destroying the tranquility! Find someone else to bother!”

Cristian rises abruptly and stomps toward the rocks, Nereyda hot on his heels, and Kelly following close behind. Already on my feet, unable to endure drunks, I’m quickly moving away. We scamper over the rocks and climb up the steep muddy track.

Inaccessible on the high tide, the local cemetery sprawls on a hilltop overlooking Mompiche. The town’s deceased share the best views for miles around. When we arrive, the graveyard is full. Kids play on shiny tiled graves. Clusters of people gather, some near the coffin, others higher on the hill, and more below resting on the bluff.

Clothes are bright and summery. Black isn’t a feature color. Purple tank tops, orange shorts, a red skirt, green trousers. I’m wearing yellow shorts and a white top. No shoes. Nothing in my hair. I hadn’t planned to attend, but here I am, on the hill with everyone else, sipping tepid beer and enjoying the spectacular view of the village and the wide bay beyond.

The mood isn’t as sombre as expected. A man holding a boom-box plays loud mournful music. Draped across the coffin, Campero’s mother cries out of control; wailing and weeping, lamenting her loss. Esmeraldas is the corrupt town president. Inconsolable, she has to be carried away. She’s surrounded by good-willed people trying to help, but no one can bring back her son.

Campero’s body was found in the river at the back of Johnny’s house two days previously. The first popular rumor stated he’d been smoking basuko; a derivative of cocaine, and decided to go swimming. Many questions about Campero’s sudden death remain unanswered. It was known he frequently used base. But how would an otherwise healthy surfer accidentally drown in a shallow slow-flowing tidal river?

Campero’s demise is the first drug-related death in the village; an event half-expected for a long time by many, and not at all surprising to some.

“Maybe this will show these people how dangerous base actually is,” snaps Amy, a North American whose husband is a recovering base addict. “Someone had to die from it eventually.” After large bruises are found on the back of his head, the second rumor to circulate is that he’d been murdered.

“Esmeraldas made a lot of noise about that Spaniard, Paco, dredging sand from the beach. She protested to the authorities and Paco had to stop. Campero was killed to send the family a message,” Carlos whispers ominously.

The rumor mill grinds out its muck with little regard for the truth. This latest theory smacks of Mafia hits and wild conspiracies too dramatic and far-fetched even for a tiny coastal fishing village.

“You could easily get away with that kind of stuff out here,” says Ethan, a regular surfing visitor. “Who’s going to investigate the death some junkie who supposedly fell and smacked his head?”

In fact, I wonder if the Mompiche police are capable of investigating anything beyond what’s in their lunch bags every day.

“He was caught stealing from the base dealers,” Christian reports. “Somehow he found their hidden stash. They whacked him, left some drugs on the riverbank to make it look like he overdosed, and then got out of town.”

Apparently, the local base dealer left Mompiche around the same time as Campero’s last heartbeat.

“Are the police searching for him?” I ask.

Nobody knows. The rumor mill doesn’t process facts.

Even after asking several people, I never find out Campero’s age. Someone tells me fifteen or sixteen. Doña Rosa says nineteen. Chapica says twenty. Someone else says twenty-two. Whatever his age, he was a young man.

As I observe the mourning villagers at the cemetery, I hope that at least one of the young local boys using base will realize its dangers and have enough nous to stop. Otherwise, Campero’s death is a complete waste.

The CD jumps around, disrupting the heart-wrenching song, and the boom-box fades out of ear-shot. Silent and grim-faced, the grandmother lights candles around the coffin. There is no formal ceremony. Chelo, a fisherman friend, says there will be no priest. Even for its tiny church, Mompiche has no padre. People are scattered casually over the hilltop. Sitting, standing, sprawled in the grass, lying on crypts; chatting, drinking, laughing, crying. Except for the crying, the event resembles a village picnic. Esmeraldas’ lament brings tears to my eyes. Such a sad moment seems incredibly private. For a moment, I feel like a voyeur. An intruder.

On Friday morning, after the body had been recovered from the river, Roberto had suggested I go and look and take photos of the cadaver while they were loading it into the truck. Refraining from macabre outbursts of curiosity, I’m content to remain an unobtrusive observer.

No breeze touches the north side of the hill. The air is humid and heavy. Women flip small rags around their faces, cooling themselves, alternately using the same cloth to wipe tears and shoo flies. Hot sticky children run around in circles. Some kids sit near the coffin wiping tear-streaked faces while the men still building the crypt rub the last of the mortar over the bricks and smooth it down.

Papa staggers in, dramatic and theatrical, arms waving, shouting and crying, his bottle lost or forgotten. As he pushes through the crowd, yelling and gesticulating, no one tries to stop him. When he reaches the coffin, he stands still, silent for a long moment, hand on his heart, and grieves a fellow surfer. Then, he walks away. After a few minutes, he’s back, sitting on the ground beside the coffin, shouting and crying once again. The children who’d been there earlier are gone. Unable to bear it a moment longer, one of Campero’s brothers flees down the hill, craving solitude, desperate to be alone with his grief.

Just when I think I’ve seen everything you could see at a funeral, the blue uniformed Bon Ice man steps over the rise in his clownish getup. Customers clamor at his round blue cooler, pushing him to and fro as they demand frozen refreshments. Distributing icicles hand over fist, the putrid stench of the corpse doesn’t seem to put anyone off eating. Resisting the temptation, I hang back even though I’m hot and thirsty. The local surfboard shaper, Figu and Cristian dive into the fray. Suddenly, waving us out of the way, half a dozen men carry the coffin toward where I’m sitting with Chelo, on top of a cement grave. As the casket careens towards me, I quickly sidestep and plunge into the rowdy Bon Ice crowd. The men begin opening the coffin. I spin back to Figu, not wanting to look at the corpse.

“Please, buy me one, Figu!” I plead, imitating an Ecuadorian for the very first time.

Handing me a cola-flavored icicle, he fights his way out of the crowd. I stay a moment to swap the cola flavor for a red one. Soon, the whole hilltop is littered with transparent plastic Bon Ice wrappers. Mine goes into my pocket after I suck it dry. Emerging from the crowd, I see the coffin again, wide open, with people crouched around it, looking inside. The stench is overpowering.

“They’re burying him after two days because of the terrible smell,” Chelo informs me.

There is no morgue in Mompiche. Nor a doctor. The closest is the hospital in Muisne, an hour away. Campero should have been on ice. Apparently the family couldn’t afford to send him to the morgue, or have him examined by doctors. There are no medical examiners or funeral directors, so there isn’t a drip of formaldehyde in his body. The police don’t want to get too involved either.

The previous day a collection for the burial is taken up around the town. A mob of a dozen tiny round women, somewhat aggressive in their approach, run around goading money from the townspeople.

“We need to collect something from you to help pay for the funeral,” states the tight-lipped, unsmiling group leader, flicking her pen sharply onto the clipboard she holds tightly in her right hand.

They seem accustomed to intimidating people into coughing up a handful of cash for their cause. Contributors’ names are added to the list, eliminating the need for any further monetary harassment. Maybe it’s grief, or shock, or possibly even a hint of disgust at the thankless task of having to wheedle money out of unusually miserly people, but the women seem angry. Forceful and furious, they clearly do not want to be messed with.

“We’re working right now,” Efren says, not looking at them, up to his elbows in fishing nets and king prawns. “Come back later when we’ve cleaned up.”

“I don’t have anything in my pockets,” shrugs Nerih plucking a large blue sand crab from the net. “We just got back from fishing.”

“Ya mismo,” offers Efren, looking up briefly and nodding before shifting his focus back to the nets.

Miffed, the prickly group leave without collecting a single penny from any of the dozen or so people hovering around the boat.

“Freeloaders,” mumbles Efren as they move away. “They just don’t want to spend their own money.”

The shiny gold coffin lined with white satin clearly isn’t cheap pine, or even bamboo as would seem practical and economical for a poor family.

“Do they bury people vertically in the United States?” asks Jota, Nereyda’s younger brother.

“No, I think they bury them horizontally, just like we do,” replies Kelly, uncertain.

“In wartime, I think they buried people vertically,” Chelo adds.

“When I die, I’d like to be cremated,” states Figu, handing the beer bottle to Cristian. “Burn me with my surfboard and stick me in a hole up here so I can keep an eye on the surf forever.”

“Yes,” I agree. “And plant a native tree on top of me so the ashes fertilize it and recycle me back to nature.

It is said that being born and dying are the only two things in life we truly do alone. Being born, no one knows us, but they embrace us and love us anyway. By the time we’re ready to pass on, we’ve amassed a vast collection of family and friends. Even so, not even the closest of those dearly beloveds is clamoring to join us in death.

“Let’s go together, it will be fun!” no one suggests.

“Hey! I want to come with you!” no one shouts as we take the last step of life, totally alone.

Two plump doctors appear, slipping and panting their way up the steep path. Medical examiners. White gowns. Latex gloves. Sharp scalpels. In front of the whole crowd, they kneel by the open coffin and perform a perfunctory autopsy, whispering quietly to each other as they work. Men, women and children observe as the doctors examine the bruises on the back of Campero’s head. They take blood samples to test for drugs. They bag and skin and hair samples.

Racing against the incoming tide, the lid of the coffin is lowered once again. Rotting corpse smell hangs like a thick blanket in the sultry air. Several people cover their noses and mouths with their shirts. The merciless mid-morning sun beats down on bare heads. Women spin their little colored rags faster, circling closer to their faces, fighting flies and heat, averting the putrid odor.

The grieving mother wails louder. The sound rises to high-pitched screaming as the gleaming coffin slides inside the brick and cement grave. As she’s dragged away once again, Campero’s brothers and sisters weep loudly, broken-hearted and angry. The scene is tragic. Youth cut down by stupidity. An unnecessary waste. The living suffering needlessly. A wave of sadness catches at the back of my throat. Hot tears threaten and are quickly choked back.

Two thoughts hit me simultaneously; Who am I to cry for a boy I don’t know? Who wouldn’t cry when faced with such anguish?

Young children frolic at the fringes of the crowd, oblivious to the dark mood. Dogs snooze undisturbed in the shade. A handful of local surfers pass large brown bottles of warm beer from hand to hand, each taking a respectful sip, chatting quietly. Stumbling across the hilltop, Papa bellows rage and grief. Below, the sea creeps forward, surging over the rocks, gradually engulfing The Point once more, returning to reclaim the beach.

The vault is sealed with bricks and a thin film of mortar. It will be tiled later, and embellished with a plaque. Gradually people begin to trickle down the path, a mobile celebration of vibrant colors and ongoing life, leaving young Campero alone to begin his eternity on the hill above the point break.