Limekiller!

DRAGONS IN SAN FRANCISCO — A SEQUEL

“What shall I bring you back?” I’d asked.

“Bring me back an iguana,” she’d said.

Thus spoke Avram Davidson in “The Iguana Church”, an excerpt from his unpublished travel account Dragons in the Trees.

I have a confession to make. I am She who asked for the iguana. I didn’t really expect to get an iguana. Anyway I was thinking of the little green ones from the pet store, not big wild Tiger Iguanas.

It was the mid-1960s. Avram was traveling in British Honduras (now Belize), and young Ethan and I were living in a Victorian flat in Bernal Heights in San Francisco, where I was writing and teaching. One day we got a notice to pick up a package from an obscure location, I’ll spare you the details. The sender was Avram in B. H., so off we went to fetch the package. It was made of rough wood, about the shape of a big guitar case. It didn’t rattle. Something inside scrabbled. Something alive.

The paperwork said Iguanas. Nowadays we’d probably be cited for a wildlife violation, but back then I was still thinking maybe a nice little pet for Ethan. Fortunately we had the sense to open the box in the bathtub.

Out from a tangle of leaves leaped two angry wild beasts; the great black and yellow striped he-Tiger, who filled most of the bathtub, and the smaller grav-striped she-Tiger, who flicked her tongue, rose up on all her claw's, and bared her teeth at us like a miniature angry dinosaur.

An unexpected surprise. We threw some ripe bananas in the bathtub, prayed they wouldn’t scramble out, and tried to figure out what to do next. Next was that little Ethan was now afraid to use the bathroom, so we had to go to a neighbor’s.

Some fine fannish friends helped us get a very large mesh cage, the kind used to transport big dogs. We propped the cage over the bathtub with some fruit inside, and eventually lured the dragons in. Resourceful are us. We put the cage next to a heater, and plied the dragons with fruit. They huddled near the heat and glared at us. Clearly this relationship wasn’t going to work.

Another friend gave us the phone number of a herpetologist at the Aquarium in Golden Gate Park, which happens to have a well- designed iguana exhibit. We phoned. Yes, they would take the dragons! We took the cage to the Aquarium, and they all exclaimed that this was about the biggest and finest he-Tiger ever seen in these parts.

Avram Davidson, mighty hunter and protector of endangered wildlife.

We went to visit the dragons at the Aquarium sometimes, and they seemed quite relaxed, perched on big branches. At least they didn’t glare at us anymore. Eventually we lost track of which were our dragons, and which were other acquisitions. I don’t know the lifespan of Tiger Iguanas, but drop by the Aquarium next time you visit San Francisco. Maybe they are still there.

Later we traveled down to British Honduras, by train through Mexico and the Yucatan, so Ethan and Avram could be nearbv. I got to see the Moho River for myself.

Ethan and I lived in a tiny cottage, with no electricity or running water, on a long palm-fringed sandbar called Gales Point, surrounded by a large lagoon. We drank rainwater collected in barrels. In our front yard was a giant mango tree twined with white orchids. Our neighbors were a matriarchal Afro-Creole family; Miz Jane Garnet and her daughters, and their boyfriends and children. Jane’s consort was a silent one-legged man, who had amputated his own leg with a machete after a snakebite in the bush. Miz Jane adopted us. I brought her cloth and sugar and rum from Belize City, and she gave us fruit and fish and bush-food. Miz Jane was famous for her armadillo in Spanish sauce.

Nearby was the shabby hut of Brother John, the nearly blind old bushdoctor. Brother John made drums out of rusted tin cans and deer-hide (he gave me one that I still treasure). At night, Brother John played his drums hypnotically, and chanted Afro- Creole invocations to the healing saints and African spirits. Avram visited Gales Point to listen to Brother John's lore.

To reach the Moho River, we had to take the twice-weeklv mail- boat through the mangrove swamps to Belize City, an all-day trip. Then the big ramshackle packet-boat down the Caribbean coast, to the southern town of Punta Gorda, an overnight journey. The comforts on board were minimal. A roach filled “cabin” to stow your gear; bring your own bananas.

In the darkness before dawn, the packet boat gave a sudden lurch — and stopped. Were we sinking? No, but we were stranded on a reef, and had to wait for the tide to come up to depart. There we sat, with the boat sort of tilting to one side, watching an astonishing red sunrise. Then villagers from the town of Placencia appeared in dories, with bunches of sweet ripe bananas for the passengers, and ropes to pull the stranded boat off the reef. The boat was made of old peeling wood, which looked like it could splinter at the least pressure. But when the tide came up, they gently teased the groaning packet boat off the reef, and down we sailed to Punta Gorda Town, just a day or so late.

In remote PG town, in the south between the Guatemalan and Honduran borders, we were met by Avram’s friends, the Zuniga family, who were Caribs or Garifuna, an Afro-Indian blend. They had helped Avram buy a sort of homestead title to a property called Moho Bul, and they were looking after the land. We were there to see it, swathed in mosquito netting like Katherine Hepburn in African Queen.

Yet another boat trip, this time a motorized dory, along the Caribbean coast to the mouth of the Moho River. Then up a lazy river, through endless shades of green, to Moho Bul. It was beautiful. Ten acres cleared and planted with mangos and alligator pear (avocado) and citrus and all the wonderful tropical fruits, and rice. Forty more acres of bush with stands of old growth mahogany trees. A mud and thatch hut, and even a dory tied to a little dock. Moho Bul had everything. It also had mosquitoes. Many mosquitoes. The British were doing some mosquito abatement in the settled areas, but not at Moho Bul.

It was too late to sail to the Iguana Church, so I never saw it, alas. We swam in the warm green Moho River (later we heard rumors of alligators) and feasted on mangos and other ripe fruit. Then it was time to sail back to Punta Gorda Town. Bv the time we reached the Caribbean, the sun had set. That night there was a phosphorescent sea, and the water glittered and sparkled like a thousand galaxies.

Later, Avram left British Honduras to write his immortal Limekiller stories. B.H. became the independent nation of Belize, famed for its Mayan ruins, beautiful barrier reef, and ecotourism. The elder Zunigas died, and the family dispersed. Nobody took care of Moho Bul, and it reverted to bush. The old growth mahogany trees were poached, and the Tiger Iguanas were hunted to near extinction (except perhaps for one pair of senior citizen Dragon-Tigers, comfortably retired in the San Francisco Aquarium).

Recent reports have brought better news. A Mayan family now lives at Moho Bul, with some help from an aid group. They are keeping the planted area cleared, and keeping their culture alive. Now there are fruit trees again at Moho Bul, and a thatched hut, and a dory tied up to the little dock. Mayan children, and turkeys poke around in the dirt. I suppose the mosquitoes are still there too. It’s a timeless place. Drop by and see it yourself, next time you’re down that way.