12/18/2010 - Santa Rosa, Bolivia: The Terminator

My blog, my opinions. Tough shit.

Now this whole fiasco starts off with another bad idea. Here it is: don't go into the amazon jungle with five bottles of rum and ton of pent up anger. The results are far from delightful. Four bottles should just about do it.

The night began pretty well, since everyone is happy to be where they are. Watching another perfect amazon sunset with a big cold beer. At this point I've got my Danish girl, Teresa, our chick twinsies: Ariel and Christina, and BJ. Since it's our last night in the jungle, we all have plans to go big. Usual hilarity, drinking, toad taunting, and general goofing around ensues. All pretty normal, until the night starts winding down. Teresa and I are the last to head off to bed, and we see Christina outside of the room looking tired. After a giggly discussion we find out BJ and a Ariel are hooking up in the bed next to Christina's. She outside trying to wait them out. Then while us three are chatting Ariel comes out. Shocker! It meant that the dirty French couple in our room were hooking up the whole time. We also find out BJ threw up inside the dorm. It's an interesting turn of events for the night. So we get all chatty and giggly and razz passed out BJ about how he threw up in the room, how he didn't want sex, and how he's been a bad drinker since the dress incident in Panama.
Now what happened next I remember vividly. I hear the door open, and all of a sudden I get kicked in the back. I turn around to find the three girls scattering, as BJ is furious and yelling at me from the top of the stairs. He comes down on the jungle lawn and it starts getting intense because he's physically pushing me. I resist the urge to fight back, and I apologize to him because really I shouldn't have talked some shit about a good friend to some people I really don't know as well. It's to no avail, there's nothing I can do calm him down. He keeps pushing me, then while Christina and I are still trying to smooth the situation out. BJ starts slapping and punching me. That's it. I've resisted enough, I've told him repeatedly that I didn't want to fight him, but I'm done. He's going to meet my fists: Jack Johnson and Tom O'Leary. I take a wide stance, place my right leg behind his left, and give him a nice right cross across the jaw. He falls and is shocked to find we're actually into it. Christina, god bless her, is still helping, and pins BJ down temporarily and tries yet again to talk some sense into him. As this is happening, I walk away with hopes that it's over. I talk to the other poor girls that are watching two close buddies duke it out. I apologize because really, it's partly my fault. In hindsight I shouldn't have let up and really should have straight kicked the shit out him while his drunk ass was down. Would have saved me some trouble because I had no idea what was coming up next.

Then as I'm walking it all off by the river, BJ's back and is even more pissed because I "sucker punched" him.  I explain that I didn't sucker punch him because he was assaulting me. At this point the whole camp is awake, because there are only screen doors and he'd been yelling for a good time now. The guides are out and trying to calm the situations too, but there's no stopping BJ. Too much anger he needed to let out at me. Next up round two. I resist again, but I'm getting pissed. This is absurd, he was physically trying to hurt me, so we scrap again. BJ's too drunk to land any punches while I'm fighting back, so he does the only thing he can. He lowers his head and goes for my hips and a tackle. I keep my balance this time, steady myself with my left arm, and throw as many hard right uppercuts into his face before we topple over. We wrestle, and he gains dominant position, but I've got a good grip on both of his wrists, so he's not going to land any haymakers while I'm on the ground. Thank goodness for me, the tour guides are there and break it up before my grip slips away. We both talk more shit, and I walk away. Again.

This where it all becomes clear. I'm avoiding BJ because I'm totally over it. I lay in a hammock, and the yelling harassment continues. He's so wound up, that he talks shit on me for the next half hour or so. Everything from the women I see, to the amount of money I spend, blaming me for our accident, and even fucking motorcycle maintenance. Everything over the last four months that's ever pissed BJ off is coming out in the jungle. Whatever, I can handle it. He's still fucking pissed and continues to yell for me to come be a man and fight him. Again. I'm not having it, so I stay low with false hopes that things are going to blow over soon. Then he starts picking on Christina, Teresa, and Ariel. That's it, yell at me all you want, but don't pick on innocent girls. I come out again because things are heating up between BJ and Christina. So I emerge and try to calm him down and apologize. Surprise, surprise nothing works, and he wants to go again. We yell at each other for a bit, I mean what the fuck is going on? "BJ what are you? A fucking terminator? Calm down man." Again it turns to blows, then to wrestling. I just miss out on a sweet sleeper hold because we're sweaty and winded. He's a better wrestler, so he gets top position, and I finally let him know I'm done.


Hasta la vista. Baby.

We both get up tired, and it finally appears this babies temper tantrum is about done. I'm so over this, like I have been for the hour or so he's been on terminator mode, so I tell him four months was a good run and walk away for good. All in all the next awkwardly silent morning, I find I took some good punches to the face. I've got two black eyes, a broken nose, and a nice cut under my right eye.  BJ is pretty fucked up too, he's got some bruises on his face, his shoulder is so whacked out he can't even put his own shirt on, and he also has a very visibly broken pinky finger. Serves him right.


Damage.

I've realized that all these issues could have easily been solved with a serious discussion that never happened. A deep pent up anger isn't healthy, and obviously didn't turn out well for BJ as he lost a good friend that night. I'm done traveling with him, I don't need anything like that in my life. It was totally unacceptable behavior, drunk or not. I simply will not tolerate that kind of shit, so I'm now headed to the end of the road solo. Man breakup complete.