Jennifer Furner, "Female Stamina" (creative non-fiction)

JENNIFER FURNER | FEMALE STAMINA

We entered the busy restaurant and walked right past the host stand to the first table inside displaying a sign on it with our tour group logo. The restaurant walls looked to be made of plaster or some type of adobe, and I could see bricks in the ceiling above me. The front of the building had large wooden beams across the ceiling, and colorful flags and piñatas hung from them. This place wasn’t air conditioned, and it was ninety-five degrees outside, so I pulled an elastic from my purse and collected my hair in low ponytail as our guide disappeared for a moment.

A mariachi group entered the establishment mid-song as our guide returned with bottles of beer, already wet with condensation. As I took a sip, I looked around at the dining families—the restaurant was full of adults and children for a Thursday night. One of the waiters, an older man, balanced a full margarita on his head; he blew a whistle to the beat of the band. This restaurant was a neighborhood party, and everyone was invited.

The guide looked at us, waiting for our opinion of the beer. Chris and I both hummed an “mmm” as we went to take another sip. Our guide stepped away to place our order, and when he returned, he had a strange gadget in his hand—a type of a battery. It had two cables snaking from it, and both ended in metal cylinders. A sly smile came across our guide’s face as he began to explain, in good English and with a thick accent, what it was.

“So, uh, this is a game we like to play. This box generates electricity, and you hold onto the handles, and then you move the dial up higher and higher and see who is the first who cannot hold on any longer.”

In other words, they were going to intentionally electrocute themselves. I looked at our guide and his two friends across the table through squinted, doubting eyes, but they all smiled back at me excitedly, as if they couldn’t wait to play.

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Chris and I had come to Cancún to celebrate our ten-year wedding anniversary. We were interested in relaxing, yes, but we were also interested in eating the best and most authentic Mexican food, so we registered for a food tour. We were the only two to sign up to play the game that night, so our guide brought along two of his buddies to fill up the table; we were able to chat with three local men all night long and trusted them to show us the real Cancún.

Apparently, “the real Cancún” included playing a game where people electrocuted themselves.

“Here, we show you,” our guide said. He took one of the metal cylinders in his hand and gave the other to his buddy next to him. The third man held each of their free hands, so he would feel the electricity, too. The guide turned on the dial. “We usually start at five,” he said. The dial went to the halfway mark of five; it could go as far as ten. The men laughed nervously through their smiles.

It had been a while since I found myself the only woman in the company of a bunch of men. In high school, that was my normal clique. I liked hanging out with the guys. They were less dramatic than high-school girls; they just wanted to joke, have fun, laugh. I had found it necessary every now and again to forget about the complexities of growing up female and instead be one of the boys.

“Are you ready to go more?” the guide asked his friends. They nodded enthusiastically, and he increased the dial to six.

“Ooh!” they all said, clearly feeling the increase of discomfort.

This was our fourth stop on the tour. We had already devoured pork tacos and brisket tacos. The third stop had been for “mystery” tacos; our guide said he’d tell us what they were after we had eaten them. The squishy consistency gave it away: it was obviously some of kind of offal, but I bit into it without hesitating. When the guide revealed they were “head tacos” (beef brains, eyes, and cheeks), I didn’t flinch. “I figured,” I said, and took a swig from my bottle of local beer. The three men nodded to each other, as if I had

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just been initiated into their group.

Now we were at our last stop, but it wasn’t the food that was shocking this time. “More?” the guide said. They nodded. Up to seven.

I swear I saw all their eyes slightly bug out from their heads. But still they smiled.

“More?” the guide said. They nodded. Up to eight.

The man all the way on the left, the one holding the free hands of his two friends, closed his eyes and shook his head. “Okay, okay, stop, stop,” he said. And they all laughed as the guide turned the machine off.

“See? It’s fun,” our guide said. And my husband and I stared blankly at him, not sure how it had been fun. I wasn’t even sure how it had been a game. I suppose the one man lost because he gave up first, but what had the other two won? Bragging rights, I guessed. “When we bring this out at bars, people always want to play,” the guide continued. “Even the waiters want in.” Then with his sly smile again, he looked at us. “You want to try?”

I looked at my husband skeptically. I didn’t want to be rude and refuse, but I also wasn’t sure I wanted to “play.”

My husband threw up his hands immediately. “I’m good,” he said, excusing himself from participating. I’m pretty sure his refusal was just because he didn’t think the game looked like fun. But he was also a slender man; his muscles were toned, not bulging like the other guys at the table. Perhaps he was intimidated; perhaps he knew he couldn’t compete. Not that the game took physical strength, exactly, but it seemed obvious to me that they were measuring and comparing stamina and all that implied.

Our guide looked at me. “You know, a lot of times, the women can go longer than the men. Women are usually very good at this game,” he told me, gesturing the cylinder in my direction.

Well, now that was a direct challenge, wasn’t it? Here I was

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at a table with three bulky men, the physical embodiment of the Mexican machismo stereotype, essentially daring me to test my will against theirs. Could I tolerate the pain or the discomfort of being electrocuted longer than they could, these three men who played this game regularly for fun?

There was no way for them to know what kind of pain and discomfort I had already endured in my thirty-five years of life. I had a good idea why women could usually outlast the men in this game. We tolerate pain in unique and varied ways from the time we are born until the time we die, ways these men could not even imagine. They wanted me to prove how tough I was, and I decided to show them.

I gave my own sly smile to our guide and said, “All right, I’ll do it.” His eyes lit up. He looked to his friends. “You want to do it again?”

The man who said to stop during the last round wasn’t interested, but the other man, a bald Mexican version of Mr. Clean, was ready for another go. He held a cylinder, the guide held a cylinder, and I held their free hands.

“We’ll start you off easy at one,” the guide said, and moved the dial very slightly.

The electricity was instantly flowing under my skin. It felt as if every atom in my body had begun to vibrate, as though bees were buzzing just outside my ear. It didn’t hurt; it tickled mostly.

I hate being tickled. But I smiled as they had done before.

“More?” the guide said. I nodded. He increased the dial to two.

The vibrating became faster, the buzzing, louder. It wasn’t painful, but it was uncomfortable, not unlike a pelvic exam. No pain, but certainly pressure. A sensation these men didn’t have to put up with regularly, like I did. I smiled anyway. “More?” the guide asked.

I nodded. Up to three.

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The same sensations, only more now. “Ooh!” I shrieked, playing it up, and the men laughed.

“More?”

I looked at Chris, whose smartphone was up in front of him, recording, and gave him a wink. “I can take it.” Up to four.

With the increase, I felt the impulse to clench: clench my hands harder around the hands of these men, their hands larger and stronger than mine. Clench my abdominals, as I did when I felt a severe menstrual cramp coming on. I smiled through my clenched teeth.

“More?”

I nodded. Up to five.

My arms shook uncontrollably, as my legs had done in labor when my cervix started to stretch. Still, I smiled.

“More?”

And I nodded. Up to six.

There was still much more my body had suffered: five hours of pushing in labor, surviving and recovering from a C-section, surviving and recovering from an oophorectomy after a cancerous tumor was found on my ovary. I was used to discomfort. I was used to going on despite it.

I was confident I could make it to ten.

But I wasn’t playing along to prove anything. I was playing along to joke, have fun, laugh.

So instead, I screeched and shook my head. “I’m good,” I said, and the dial went back to zero.

The Mexican men around the table smiled and nodded at me, impressed with my effort. I enjoyed being “one of the boys,” but they didn’t understand that in order to be truly strong, you need feminine strength.

My husband patted my shoulder and told me, “Good job.” He

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was not surprised I had lasted. He has seen a lot of my pain. He knows my true strength.

As I chewed my final taco, the meat and corn tortilla melting together in my mouth, I sat satisfied: satisfied with the tour, the food, the company, the fun, but most of all, with my female stamina.

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