Townsend Montilla

The screaming of a name fills the terminal. Augusto turns in his chair even though it does not belong to him, he turns praying his name will be called next, for he cannot stay. He wipes off the droplets of sweat seeping onto his boarding pass, he cannot let it smudge. The airport is a glass bird house. Confined. September’s humidity haunts every corner. No air. No power. Augusto cools himself with a piece of cardboard handed to him by the gate attendant. Everyone wishes to fly away and return when home is hospitable again. Hurricane season migration. Augusto has no love for the season, but he respects its signs.

Among the glistening bodies bouncing towards the attendant, Augusto recognizes the nest of hair covering his cousin’s Julio bald spot. He jumps in line to ruffle his cousin’s hair. They hug. They list the living and recall the lost. It’s the first days after the hurricane. The attendant cups her mouth, yells that only those with tickets remain in line. 

How are you getting off? Julio asks, as he takes a seat next to Augusto’s luggage.

My manager in the states bought me a ticket. You?

I'm waiting for a seat, Julio says. 

An agent calls a name. No intercom. Necks pop up like cautious waterfowl. Many wander. No ticket. No luggage. Others balance towers suitcases on carts. Many will fly, names will not be called.

Julio to New York. Augusto to Orlando. 

The hurricane sends us across the mainland, Augusto says. Would have been cheaper to walk out during the storm and let the wind carry us over.

It’s only the mainland for the colonies, Julio says. When do you plan on flying back? 

If I don’t find a new position first, when there’s electricity and no lines, Augusto says. You?

After I see some old college friends interested in our predicament.

Investors? I could use some new clients. 

No, but they have interesting ideas of what is coming next. 

Sounds like bad investors, Augusto says. Julio doesn’t smile.

An agent calls for Augusto. The cousins agree, it’s only a season. El Temporal.

Augusto wanders through Fort Lauderdale airport. Late October. Two months since the storm. A connection to Atlanta. Delayed. He flips through a magazine he will not purchase. An article on his home, on his storm. Supplies lost in the waters of ineptitude. Of Hurricane Alley. Of the Bermuda Triangle. Of the Caribbean. The U.S. President will not call the storm a catastrophe. Another net of suffering sprung upon those previously sparred, jolting against each other for survival. Middle-aged men, women, children all hang in lines. Lines for gas. Lines for water. Lines for empty supermarkets. Heat strokes. Hearts burst. Deaths labeled indirect because their bodies were soaked in sweat instead of rain. Businesses recover slower than self-inflicted wounds. Too many bottles. Too many pills. Too many names. Heavy, humid bodies. Saliva puddles on the floor. Augusto’s pocket rumbles. A body found. An uncle. A wake.

Back to the island. It’s November. The visit coincides with Augusto’s new position, new clients. In Miami, the cousins find themselves flying out of the same gate. They fly to the same funeral. To drink from the same pot of reheated coffee, to eat the same stale cookies. To hear the same cries. The cousins laugh, they’re both here to mourn and labor. Augusto avoids mentioning his newest potential client—cryptocurrency miners on the island. Puerto Rico is a new capital, in every sense of the word. The cousins wander, waiting to be called.

I have been working with a Caribbean coalition, Julio says. 

You have always been the political cousin, but never the politician. 

Too stagnant of a service for me. But this coalition of mine, we are forming a resistance. 

To what? 

The next big storm. San Felipe, el Tercero. 

El Tercero? What happened with the other two?

1876. 1928. Both ravaged the Caribbean, Julio says. 

If they were so terrible, why wasn’t the name retired?

The first never hit your mainland. Not their storm. Not their name. The second was named Okeechobee. 

Bigger than María? 

It will need its own category. The islands need to be ready for the end, prepared for the after.

What comes after?

Hurricanes spin money as much as wind and water, primo.

You can’t control the wind and rain, Augusto says, you control the money.

But what if we could? Unconsciously or not, the gringos fuel the climate, they fuel our hurricanes. But what if we could stop the winds? Julio asks. But it’s impossible to think so far ahead when we’re always being forced out.

By the wind? 

We are flirting with diaspora, Julio says. Soon none will come back. 

Brain drain, Augusto scoffs. 

Most people leaving are blue-collar. The comfortable rarely leave their homes, Julio says.

You don’t even own a collared shirt and you flew, Augusto says. Julio laughs.

Have you heard of these FEMA Air bridges? Julio asks. 

Augusto admits he has only heard of FEMA handing out containers filled with Skittles. The pair meander through a newsstand, Augusto listens as he makes a purchase.

FEMA airlifts people off to the outskirts of Orlando. A bridge to an ash-filled motel, Julio says. That’s why we are building our own bridges. This coalition. A chain of islands. Antillas, Caribbeans, and Americans. Trying to break a narrative. How about you, cousin? What work do you bring back to the island?

Augusto gives in, explains cryptocurrency. Decentralization. Peer-to-peer. Block chain. Julio nods, while Augusto tastes the rainbow. 

They will not speak at the wake. They pay respects on different days. 

Augusto’s clients want personal solar panels. A growing market in Puerto Rico after panels pumped life into isolated towns after María. Augusto talks of tax breaks to suit their libertarian fancies. Doesn’t mention how the breaks are for Americans flying in, not for the native flock. 

Another flight back in January. New clients. More miners are flying in. Augusto will roost with them. His mother’s house still has no light. Augusto sees Julio passing through TSA in Orlando. His nest of hair blown away. As he passes through, Augusto recalls reading past the business section in a Hudson News in December, Julio on the third page. Handcuffed in the Dominican Republic. Black eyes. Charges: eco-terrorism. 

He gets through before Julio. Looks back towards trouble becoming louder, becoming political. He calms Julio, the TSA officer sneers. Julio does not thank Augusto. 

How do I always find you whenever I travel? Augusto asks. 

You run from the island. But she hauls you back, hauls us together. 

Still chasing storms, Julio?

Better to chase them than to let them mow us down.

How are you even here? Last I heard you were arrested in the D.R., Augusto says.

I swam free, Julio chuckles. Those constraints don’t irritate me as much as your collars.

If I didn't want to come back, I wouldn't.

Your face is easy to read, you’re hassled by the chain around your neck. You don’t want to be here. Two hands spin us up into the air. We can’t decipher whether we’ve always been subject to torrents, or if they’re born of our own oscillation. 

You are just like this island. Irritations and confusion. Bad news. Bad business. 

That’s why I like you, primo Julio says. It is all business with you. 

Bullshit, you hate business. 

I understand that some businesses are necessary, Julio says. Like your solar panels.  You know we should drive to some towns that are interested. Are you free this week?

Augusto says no. That he is leaving too soon. It’s a lie. No time, Augusto says. 

Of course, primo, Julio says, until our next encounter, Augusto. 

Shapes swim in the terminal’s abstract carpet as he walks to Terminal D. He is still hungover from drinks with his clients who are as young as their money. D once held the largest airlines but now mostly holds lighter carriers off to the Antillean islands and for Augusto’s cheap flight. 

Augusto spins bottles of duty-free rum, squeezes foam neck pillows he will not purchase. A figure sprints past the glass of the Duty-Free. El primo, Julio. Augusto follows him into the bathroom. Julio fills the stalls with cigarette smoke. Without functioning smoke alarms, Terminal D’s bathrooms are the smoking area. Augusto sits his cousin in the handicapped stool.  

The diameter is widening, Julio says. The coalition believes if we do not move faster, we will all be uprooted. 

By what? Your storm. Your Felipe…the fourth?

The third. It’s a plot, not just a storm. The global north is generating hurricanes, forcing us out of our homes and into their systems. 

You sound insane, Julio. Why would someone create hurricanes? Augusto thinks of technology and investments.

They want nothing left. We worked the land, now they just want the earth. I do not want to be a victim of this blackened world. 

Who is doing this Julio?

I have been searching to discover whether it’s conscious. Whether they’re vultures or not. 

What do you mean? 

It could be a historical progression. A loop. It's bound to happen here again. Julio lights another cigarette. The coalition, we are binding ourselves together. Forming a net against the storms. I am off to Cape Verde for a summit. 

Why is your coalition’s summit in Africa?

The same wind that flies the desert’s dust over an ocean and clogs your nose every summer. The same winds that brought Columbus and slaves ships. Cape Verde is where the cold winds of the Atlantic and the hot air of the Sahara meet. Where the eyes of hurricanes flicker. I don't know what we will find, I don’t know if I will ever return to the Caribbean. 

Layover in Miami. Overnight dreams, terminal armrest pillow. The cleaners wake him. Augusto asks a fellow straggler to watch his luggage while he hunts for breakfast. Nothing open. An open space reveals an exhibit by a Miami university: Taínos, the Antilles’ first people. More placards than artifacts. Augusto chuckles. Realities transposed into a distraction. Airports hold residues of the rushed and the remains of the trapped. Perfect place for miniature museums. 

One wooden toad: a zemi, agents of causality. Each zemí icon has a power, either highly beneficial or extremely dangerous for human society, the placard reads. 

A plate depicting a hurricane. Juracán. A Taíno word. A Babel-like punishment. They dared to christen destruction and destruction didn’t appreciate the title. Cursed them to relive the winds every other season. 

The placard explains mythologies of hurricanes. One version: a male god of storms, Juracán, the storm itself. Another version: Guabancex’s gift. Next to the placard sits a feminine zemi idol. Guabancex: goddess of chaos, distortion, transformation. The Cacique of Wind. The lady of storms. Beside her sit Guatabá and Coatrisquie, her male attendants. Wind and water. In other myths Guabancex and Juracán are blended, aligned as if an orisha saint.

A plate depicting a face with swaying hands, each in the shape of an S. The arms act as tops, revolving the counterclockwise gales from old worlds to new. Augusto imagines the Taínos hiding on the peeled mountainsides. Praying to Guabancex and Juracán for an end. Not getting one. 

Augusto kneels to tie his shoe. Behind the white pedestal of the stone Guabancex zemi, he sees a light brown corner: a manila envelope. He picks it up to hand it to an attendant, but when he flips it, he sees his name in Sharpie. This must be Julio’s doing. Playing games. The note is handwritten, rushed. The paper smells of tobacco and salt. 

Augusto,

I fear I have been caught in my own net, Primo. Busy circling theories I have flown too

close to a yellow truth. There are meanings we have lived and will live again. If you

are reading this, the coalition is testing you. Do not fear them. I have spoken highly of

you. Of your resourcefulness. You need to help them bring power to the Caribbean.

Help stop the disconnection. They will contact you. The winds are changing fast. We

must be ready for the next season. My wings have been clipped, I can no longer fly

home. There are instructions on the back of this paper. If you do not wish to assist,

please destroy this after reading. 

-Julio.

Julio’s final request is the easiest. Augusto crumples the letter. To the trash. He returns to his luggage. Three uniformed men hover over it. The stranded traveler is gone. One man goes through it slowly. 

Excuse me, Augusto says. These are my things.

Sir, we must allow the police agent to complete the bomb search. Your luggage was reported as suspicious.

By whom? I was just in the exhibit for a minute. 

Are you trying to cause a commotion, sir?

I just want my belongings.

Is this all your luggage? Did you bring these through airport security? Did you pack them yourself? 

Yes. Yes. Yes. 

Sir, remain calm. We will need to detain you briefly and review your items. You will not miss your flight. 

Flight missed. Breakfast neglected. Four hours. The police bring in a specialist. He asks about Augusto’s repeated fights between Puerto Rico, New York, and Florida. Threaten to deport Augusto back to Puerto Rico. Tell him his only way out is to call the Puerto Rican consulate. His license reads resident of Florida. He explains that Puerto Rico is not a county. El Estado Libre Asociado. The free yet associated state. Julio’s oxymoron state. A Commonwealth. US Territory. Colony. The specialist asks if he knows Julio Gutiérrez. 

He feigns ignorance. Photos of him in various airports talking to Julio hit the table. Fuck.

Augusto Montesa, what do you know of Cape Verde? 

Starved and exhausted, Augusto does not give a response rapid enough for the agent.

It is where your friend here was last heading, the specialist says. We need to know what he has said. What did he find in Cape Verde?

The air is stale in the center. Augusto hears airplanes touch the sky. Comings and goings. He thinks of the wind and the drag. Two hands spinning in the air. The weight of air, even when calm. Augusto says he does not understand, but he can now see the links in Julio’s chain. He gives the specialist and the police nothing. They take his time. 

After the specialist releases him, Augusto strolls his luggage back to the exhibit. He rifles through garbage. Finds Julio’s crumpled message. Augusto sinks the letter back into its envelope, knowing he has found his own link in the chain. A terminal attendant tells Augusto the time for the next flight to Puerto Rico. He must be ready for the arms of the storm to spin, ready for the next time he is pulled back towards his cousin Julio.