The Dung Beetles of Liberia

by Daniel V. Jr. Meier

  To get to the office where a Liberian pilot’s license could be issued, we had to walk down a side street, go through a very dark room, then climb a ladder to an upper room where an extremely gaunt man in his sixties took my twenty dollars plus the obligatory small bribe Paterson had warned me about. They called it “dash” or “Saturday.” The way you did it was to say something like “Hey, let me help you out” or “Here’s your Saturday.”

  The gaunt man typed out the license using an old Underwood typewriter. It was a small piece of paper with two misspellings. He wasn’t the slightest bit interested in seeing my US pilot certificates. He handed the piece of paper to me, and I was a licensed pilot of the Republic of Liberia.

  Paterson then took me around to complete the rest of the required tasks. He knew the system very well. He had, by this time, already spread the necessary dash. Absolutely nothing in government took place without dash. Sometimes the official would say, “You gotta help me. You gotta help me small.” The bribes weren’t big—a dollar here, five dollars there—but they were omnipresent.

  The officials knew that our bribes would be bigger than the locals, so we were escorted by a large man in an official-looking uniform to the front of the lines. The lines were incredibly long, but no one protested our preferential treatment even though they would probably be there all day. When all this was done, I was at last able to go to work.

  CHAPTER 3

  LIBERIA

  A lot of wealth was pouring into the country, mostly from international corporations. The national transportation system was still largely underdeveloped. Most of the roads had been built by international mining, timber, and rubber companies. These roads served the companies as well as the people of Liberia and were not paved. During the wet season they often became impassable. There was one national airline, Liberian National Airways, but it flew only to a few nearby destinations outside of Liberia.

  There were basically only two ways to get around in the country: by boat, which took days and days, or by aircraft. The airstrips at the iron mines were carved out of the jungle, leaving a surface of laterite, which is an aluminum and iron based red gravely soil natural to Liberia. This type of soil was very hard on airplanes.

  After a short time on these airstrips, the inboard wing sections above the wheels and tail surfaces became covered with dents and cracks. Wheel fairings were not used because they would not cover the oversize tires necessary for these rough field operations. The air service companies were always buying airplanes to replace those irreparably damaged by the soil. The average useful life of an airplane working in these conditions was three to four years.

  I met Deet at the operations office at ten the next morning. The office was a rectangular structure built of concrete blocks that had been sectioned off to provide a waiting room and a sort of administrative office with a transceiver, a small briefing room with a telephone, and a workshop that also served as a hangar. The briefing room had an old National Geographic map of Liberia taped to the wall and a blackboard nailed next to it. Next to the briefing room was a toilet labeled “WC” with an actual flushing commode. A paper sign was tacked to the door that read in bold black letters:

  PLEASE DO NOT THROW CIGARETTE BUTTS IN THE PISSER. IT MAKES THEM SOGGY AND HARD TO LITE.

  Deet was lounging in one of the overstuffed chairs in the waiting room looking over a well-worn map.

  “Come vid me to de briefing room,” he said. Once there he pointed to a place on the map marked with a red map tack that was about sixty miles up the coast and ten miles inland.

  “Dis is vere ve are going. It’s a Protestant mission and, like most of dese places, a little village dat doesn’t have a name yet has grown up around it. De old missionary lives by himself. De vife took off years ago. Dey said it vas vit one of de local boys, but I don’t know. Ve supply dem vid vhiskey, cigarettes, scheisse paper, some girly magazines, and occasionally some food und medicine. Paterson und his boys vill load de stuff, und ve vill pick up de list from Mike in de office.”

  “Aren’t we going to do a weight and balance?” I asked.

  “A vhat?” Deet shouted with a short laugh. “I haven’t done von of dose since I got here.”

  “Then how do you know that the airplane is not over grossed or within CG?” CG, or center of gravity, is important. If an airplane is loaded aft of the published CG limit it becomes unstable, pitches up after takeoff, stalls, and augers into the ground. No amount of correction will save it. If the airplane is loaded forward of the CG limit, it will be difficult or impossible to rotate off of the runway. If the plane does get off it will very likely pitch down, out of control, nose first into the ground.

  “Dis is a Cessna von eighty. You can’t over gross it and you can’t get it out of CG. At least no one seems to have done it so far. Besides, if it veighs too much it von’t fly. Simple, ya?”

  “What about weather? Can we call flight service or does the company have its own weather service?”

  Deet laughed again. “Look outside. Dat ist our vetter service.”

  Mike was in the office smoking a cigar. He looked up when we came in, then handed Deet a piece of soiled paper.

  “Is that the manifest?” I asked.

  “Yep, it’s all in here,” he said. “And, Deet, make sure you get paid before you let them unload the stuff, and for Christ sake don’t bullshit the new guy. And get him back safe. And no side trips to see one of your whores.”

  On the way out of the office Deet stopped, turned to Mike, clicked his heels, and saluted. For a moment the old Luftwaffe professionalism came through—even though I knew he was doing it in mockery.

  We walked out to the airplane. Paterson had just finished the loading. He was dressed in his usual pressed faded white shirt, soiled tie, and creased trousers, and his shoes were polished to a high gloss. Deet handed him the manifest. Paterson looked it over carefully, glanced into the cargo bay, signed the paper then handed it back to Deet.

  He smiled at us. “Have a good flight, gentlemen.”

  Deet waved him off. “You’d sink dat black owns de company de vay he struts around. He doesn’t own scheisse. I sink he even stole dat bicycle he rides to vork.”

  “He seems very efficient to me, and proud of his job. Who does own the company, by the way? Mike?”

  “I don’t know how much Mike owns, if any, but he ist de boss. De Honorable Williams owns at least fifty-von percent of dis company und several oder operations on de field also.”

  “Is the Honorable Williams a pilot?”

  “No, but I tink he likes airplanes, und I tink he likes pilots. He likes to come out here und vatch takeoffs und landings, den go over to da airport bar und hang around vit de pilots. It’s de law, you see. At least fifty-von percent of any companies licensed to vork in Liberia has to be owned by a Liberian. Dat vay de Big Men are sure to get deir cut. Mike says it’s just von of de costs of doing business here. I don’t tink Honorable Williams paid a pfennig. De oder owners simply signed over fifty-von percent to him und dey get vat’s left over. It’s still a lot of money.”

  I looked at him.

  He continued, “Dese airplanes make over a tousand dollars a day. Fur most of us, dat ist a lot of Gelt.”

  The Big Men, I was to learn, held and controlled most of the wealth and sources of wealth in Liberia, which meant they also ran the government at its highest levels. It was easy to identify them as they were always immaculately dressed and were referred to as Honorable rather than Mister. Most of them could trace their ancestry back to Liberia’s original settlement, descendants of former American slaves.

  The Big Men tended to be well educated, many having gone to secondary schools and universities in the US or Europe. When they spoke to a European, their English was quite proper, but among themselves they spoke a version of English called Merico, an English-based Creole language. It sounds like English spoken with a Louisiana accent. They were Christian and most supported, as well as attended, the Episcopal Church.
President Tubman himself was a devout Methodist.

  The income gap between the Americo-Liberians and the native Liberians was enormous. I thought it strange that a population of former slaves would establish a system of government and social organization that mirrored the system that had enslaved them.

  “Do you have much time in de one eighty?” Deet asked as we walked up to the airplane.

  “I have a lot of time in my father’s Aronica 7AC and some in a Cessna 140.”

  “Hmmm,” Deet muttered. “Dose are small, tame airplanes compared to de von eighty. Vell, dey are all tail draggers so you should not have much difficulty.”

  He opened the doors and checked the cargo, which was piled to the overhead. He pulled at the cargo fasteners then tossed the manifest inside.

  “Vell, it all seems to be here. Follow me around on de preflight, den ve’ll get dis baby started and go.” Deet looked up at the distant sound of an airplane engine. “Dat’s Joe. I flew him over to Robertsfield to pick up a replacement airplane. I vunder vhy he is so late getting back?”

  We watched as Joe entered the downwind leg; then opposite the approach end of the runway, he did a tight descending 180-degree turn. We could hear him pushing up the power.

  “He’s going to beat up de field. De Gott-damned fool,” Deet shouted. We watched as Joe, in the new Cessna, roared down the runway just a few feet off the surface toward the other end of the runway. The airplane then abruptly pitched up and rolled to the left, and moments after it did so, most of left wing broke away. The airplane rolled inverted and dove, nose first, into the ground. It hit the ground near some palm trees and flipped nose over tail until it came to rest in a tangled mass of metal and undergrowth.

  I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of my stomach problems.

  The airplane had snapped an unmarked communication cable at the end of the field. The severed cable whipped across part of the airfield like a scythe. It wrapped itself around the propeller of a parked plane, narrowly missing a man standing next to it.

  “Gott damn!” Deet shouted. “Come vid me!” He started running and I ran with him, not knowing what he had in mind. We ran up to a Land Rover that had African Air Services painted on the doors.

  “Get in!”

  I jumped into the passenger seat at the same time Deet started the vehicle, put it in gear, and spun off down the runway toward the wrecked airplane. We bounced over the dirt ridge at the end of the runway, throwing clouds of red dust in the air as we slid to a stop near the wreckage.

  Deet grabbed a fire extinguisher from its attachment on the floor of the Rover and leaped out. I followed, not knowing exactly what I was going to do. When we reached the airplane, Deet immediately began to spray the partially exposed engine with the fire retardant. The air was heavy with the smell of hot engine oil and aviation gasoline.

  The plane was almost unrecognizable. The engine had broken away from its mounts and the fuselage looked like a crumpled mass of aluminum foil. The tail section had separated and lay some yards away. The right wing had also broken off and lay bent and twisted near the fuselage. The cockpit, including the cargo area, had retained much of its shape, which it is supposed to do by design, but it was clear that Joe was trapped.

  His seat belt had failed, which, considering the force of the impact, would not have helped him anyway. He was pressed up against the instrument panel. The yoke had pushed his chest in. His seat was on his back. I could not see his lower arms or hands.

  Things started to become very distant to me. “Let’s get him out of dere,” I heard Deet say as if from a long way off. After that, I could see Deet speaking, knew he was shouting, but I could not hear him. I saw him tearing at the door of the airplane, but I was unable to move. I could only watch Joe, trapped in that twisted mass of metal, his body trying to breathe through his bloody and mangled face, the exhalent forming bubbles in his blood. His breathing was labored, mechanical, like machinery still running after the switch is turned off.

  Deet freed the door and pushed it open. I stepped back, and we carefully pulled Joe out and away from the wreckage. Joe was breathing in short, hard bursts now. Then, he stopped, there on the ground, where we placed him. His body was all broken up inside, and he couldn’t be revived.

  I became aware of Deet shaking me by the shoulders.

  “Vat die fuck is vrong vid you?”

  “I’ve never seen a man die before!”

  “Scheisse! Scheisse!” Deet said looking past me toward the airfield. I turned and saw a crowd of local men and boys running toward us. Most of them either worked for someone on the airfield or simply hung around and hustled jobs where they could. As the crowd neared, Deet reached behind his back and pulled out a semi-automatic pistol. He aimed it at the oncoming crowd.

  “Stay avay! Stay avay!” he shouted.

  “We come to help, boss. We all come to help,” a couple boys shouted back.

  “You come to rob him. I know vat you come for.”

  “No, boss! No!”

  They had stopped now. There were about twenty of them, but it seemed like more. They started to form a semicircle around us. Deet was moving the gun from side to side.

  “I swear to Gott, I blow your fucking heads off if you come closer.”

  At this moment an old Chevrolet pickup truck skidded up next to the group, spraying dust and red gravel as it slid to a stop. Both doors flung open and Mike and a man in a police uniform got out. The policeman had his gun out. He fired it into the air once and the group of locals backed away.

  “What the hell happened? What the hell happened here?” Mike shouted, looking at the wreckage. “Is he dead? Is he dead? Goddamn it!”

  “Ya,” Deet said, “he ist dead. Part of de left ving came off ven he pulled up.”

  “I warned him about playing cowboy,” Mike said. “I warned him, Goddamn it, and now he’s gone and destroyed a perfectly good airplane. Do you people think I can continue to operate like this?” He looked at Deet. Deet put his gun away behind his back and under his shirt. Without direction, we walked over to the remains of the left wing. Mike knelt down beside it, looking at it carefully.

  “The wing’s been cut, severed as cleanly as if someone had done it with a jigsaw.”

  “I tought he knew about de communication cable dat was put up yesterday,” Deet said. “I’m sure I told him about it.”

  “Well, he obviously didn’t know, or he forgot, and, of course, it wasn’t marked. TIA, TIA, this Goddamned place. I swear!” Mike said. He stood up slowly then walked over to the group of locals. He called several out of the group by name and told them to get the body and place it in the bed of the pickup. He handed the policeman some dash and instructed him to keep the wreckage clear and asked him to wait until he returned. He then motioned for us to get into the Land Rover and follow him.

  We all drove back to the hangar and, once there, put Joe’s body onto several boards that had been placed over a couple of sawhorses. We covered it with an extra canvas tarp that had spots of paint and oil on it.

  “I’ll call Nathan,” Mike said, “and see if he can fit us in. There just aren’t enough undertakers in this country.”

  Paterson was in the hangar replacing the tools that his boys had left on the floor. Mike told him to put the tools in the truck along with an axe.

  “We’ll salvage what we can,” Mike said to Deet. “I know it’s not easy, but you do need to make the flight to the mission.” They looked intently at one another for a few moments then Deet nodded.

  “Okay, Mike, you’re de boss.” Deet motioned for me to follow.

  “Wait,” Mike shouted. “Do you know whether he had any relatives?”

  “I tink so,” Deet said. “A modder and a sister back in Germany, but I am not sure. It would be in his folder?”

  “Yes, yes.” Mike said. “I’ll check that; see if they want his body. If not, we’ll leave him here in Liberia.”

  We walked over to where we had left the airp
lane and finished our preflight inspection. There was a control tower at Spriggs-Payne. They would clear us to take off and land, but they had no real air traffic control responsibilities. Their only purpose was to keep a record of the air service companies operating into and out of the airfield, which included my company, then send them a bill for takeoff and landing fees.

  We were cleared to takeoff, of course, and Deet slowly pushed the throttle to full power. The Cessna accelerated slowly at first, then faster, until I could feel the characteristic lightness of an airplane as it neared flying speed. Then there was that magical transition when an airplane rises up from the ground and is borne on the air.

  We passed over the wreckage. Paterson’s boys were busy chopping up the wreckage and loading parts into the truck. We did a climbing turn out toward the beach. I could clearly see Monrovia from the Cessna’s right-side window. Deet turned to the right again and flew along the beach for a short distance.

  “Dis country has some beautiful beaches. So far, dey’re untouched and dere are houses you can buy or rent right on de beach. Monrovia, as you can see,” he said, pointing, “is right off de nose. And dere is de Saint Paul River.”

  As we flew over Monrovia, Deet turned to follow the river.

  “Das is vere all de Big Men live,” he said. “Dey all have big houses dat look like dose Southern plantation houses in your country. Honorable Williams has one of dose.”

  “Do you know which one it is?” I asked.

  “Nah! But it is von of dose.”

  As we followed the river I could see large, modern mansions with hints and traces of Greek revival architecture. They were surrounded by large manicured lawns with outbuildings, stables, and barns. There were a few people sitting in outdoor chairs who looked up as we flew over. Some waved. Then we climbed and flew along the river for about forty minutes.

  “Remember dis,” Deet said, pointing to a peculiar twist in the river. “Note your time und heading und maintain dis heading for fourteen minutes. You have de airplane.”