by Chris Abani
Everything was thickly coated with dust before he was summoned to clean. He not only had to dust, but also had to move things and sweep under them. The trick was to pack them back precisely where and how he had found them; otherwise he would not get the reward: crumbling, stale, rice-weevil-infested cookies that always left him feeling cheated.
“What did you say?” his father asked.
“Uncle Joseph raped Efua,” Elvis repeated.
“Who told you?”
Elvis was silent. He couldn’t tell his father that he had seen it happen. Not once, but several times. Nor could he tell him that it had started a long time ago. How could he? That would mean having to explain why he had never brought it to his father’s attention before now. It also meant that he had to face up to parts of himself he didn’t want to. This last time, just a few days before, Uncle Joseph had been so rough, slapping Efua around. Even though she was visibly hurt, with one eye closed off, everyone just assumed that it had been a disciplinary beating that got a little out of hand. That happened sometimes, and so no particular attention would be paid to it. Elvis had deliberated whether to tell his father for a long time. And now he did not want to talk about it any longer. Something in his father’s tone and manner brought it home to him. This had been a mistake.
“Who told you?” his father repeated, voice hard.
“She did,” Elvis lied.
“Has she told anyone else?”
“No, sir. Just me.”
His father nodded and reached under his pillow, beckoning Elvis over at the same time. Elvis approached slowly, nearly pissing himself when he saw his father’s old service revolver appear in his hand. The smile was tender as his father placed its barrel against Elvis’s temple.
“If you ever repeat what you have told me now, I will blow your brains out. Do you understand?” he whispered, his face so close to Elvis’s ear, Elvis felt stubble graze his skin. Elvis tried to answer. He even opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His father twisted the gun barrel hard against his temple and said harshly: “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Elvis croaked, farting simultaneously.
His father smiled, took the gun away and, with his back to him, said:
“Get out, stinking liar!”
Elvis stood still. He heard the words but did not understand.
“Get out!” his father shouted.
Coming to life, Elvis bolted for the door. He fumbled with the lock for too long, and his father was behind him. Elvis’s fear spread wetly down the front of his trousers as a slap connected to the back of his head. There was another silence and Elvis froze, unable to look around. I’m dead for sure now, he thought. Instead, his father leaned over and opened the door.
“Stupid as well,” he muttered as Elvis raced out.
He circled the house all day, far enough from his father to avoid any direct contact or conversation, yet close enough not to be missed. He haunted the edges of the mango and guava orchard his father had planted in a fit of hope when Elvis was still a toddler. “My Elysian Fields,” he had called it.
But here in the orchard, nature had its own designs, and whatever the initial order or plan had been, it soon gave way to a tangled mass of red and white guavas, oranges, mangoes, soursops and bright cherry shrubs. Squirrels outnumbered the fruit, it seemed, and Elvis was reminded of his early childhood when he had hunted the squirrels with the intensity usually reserved for bigger game, armed with his unpredictable catapult that backfired with the sting of rubber or, worse, the lumpy pain of a stone.
Shady and cool, the air was heavy with the scent of rotting fruit and the buzz of tomb flies. The orchard had spread from the west side of the house, where Elvis and Felicia’s room was, all the way around to the front. It had been cut back several times, but the odd guava and mango tree survived in the front yard.
He had brought his mother’s journal with him and he turned the pages, reading with difficulty the curved, spidery handwriting. All these recipes, and yet nobody he knew cooked from recipes. That was something actors did on television and in the movies: white women with stiff clothes and crisp-looking aprons and perfect hair who never sweated as they ran around doing housework for the husbands they called “hon.”
Bored, he closed the book and distracted himself by peering through the window, watching Felicia change. Hidden by the thick foliage, he was invisible. The occasional glimpses of bra, breasts, panties and the anticipation caused his sex to throb. He knew it was wrong to lust after his aunt, but he couldn’t help himself. As soon as it was dark, he slipped out, confident that his father would soon go out and not miss him.
Elvis was headed for the local motor park, where silent westerns and Indian films with badly translated English subtitles were shown after dark. He hardly went to these anymore, preferring to attend matinees in the new Indian cinema, but he was broke. Besides, at thirteen he was far too young to be out alone at night, and his father would kill him for sure if he found out. But the thrill of it was enough to make him disregard the risk, and he felt that it was a secret easy enough to keep. There was no danger of running into relatives there—at least not relatives his father fraternized with. Free movies in the dusty motor park were beneath them.
The films were shown courtesy of an American tobacco company, which passed out packets of free cigarettes to everybody in the audience, irrespective of age. That was half the fun; what could be better than free cigarettes and a free movie? If they could get that here, in a dusty end-of-the-highway fishing town, they thought, America must indeed be the land of the great.
While he waited for the main film to come on, Elvis wandered over to where some of the older boys were playing a game of checkers for money. At fifteen and sixteen, with no parents or interested relatives, these boys eked out a living, either as apprentice mechanics or motor-park thugs. Elvis idolized them and wished he could live their lives. Tonight’s main gamblers were Able-to-do, an apprentice car mechanic and part-time muralist, and Confusion, a sprinter, who made a living playing football for the town’s team.
“Come on, scram!” Able-to-do said to Elvis. “Do you see any other children here?”
Elvis hesitated. A record store about a block up from them was open late, and two huge speakers propped its doors open, throbbing loudly with Isaac Hayes singing the “Theme from Shaft.”
“Well, well. Dis one has heart,” Confusion said.
Elvis glowed. Confusion was his true hero. Of all the people he knew, Confusion was the only one who dared to try and make a living at something he loved. That, coupled with the way these boys adopted such confrontational nicknames, defying a culture where your name was selected with care by your family and given to you as a talisman, was the thing rebellion was made of, as far as Elvis was concerned.
“He will soon have a broken head. Heart or no heart, he should not be here,” Able grumbled.
“Don’t be so hasty, Able. Everyone has deir uses,” Confusion said. Turning to Elvis, he held out some money. “Go over dere and get us a couple of beers.”
Elvis headed off in a trot.
“And make sure dey are cold!” Able shouted after him.
When Elvis came back with the sweating green bottles, Confusion let him keep the change. He watched, fascinated, as they both opened their bottles with their teeth. They were deep in an argument about the merits of John Wayne versus those of Actor. Confusion was squarely on the side of Actor, whom he believed to be a true hero.
Elvis loved Actor too, and thought he had the best role: part villain, part hero. Women preferred him to John Wayne and men wanted to be him. His evil was caddish, not malicious, and Elvis knew that though most people dared not step out of the strict lines of this culture, they adored Actor. He was the embodiment of the stored-up rebellions in their souls. But as with all things here, even these archetypes were fluid. Halfway through a James Bond film, Dr. No could change from Actor to John Wayne in the viewer’s minds, and James Bond could become Actor.
“Dat John Wayne is suspect O! Hah! Me I think he is just establishment guy O!” Confusion said.
“How can a rogue be a hero?” Able-to-do countered. “In your small town or dis one, eh? Impossible. Anyway, John Wayne always wins.”
“No sir. How many bags full? None. Actor is simply de best. And remember, in every cinema, average bad guy and even John Wayne can die. But Actor cannot die.”
From the sound of the crowd in front of the makeshift screen, Elvis figured the main feature was about to start and scampered off. He scanned the crowd. The audience for the most part comprised those of the working class that didn’t find their release in religion: motor-park porters and touts, market men and women, the usual motley mix that was the large yet invisible heart of any city. The mostly illiterate audience was unable to read subtitles, but Elvis knew they did not let that ruin their fun. They simply invented their own stories, resulting in as many versions as there were people. Still, for him, it was magical.
The screens were dirty, hole-ridden, once-white bedsheets stretched between two wooden poles. The projectors, archaic and as old as many of the silent stars, sounded like small tanks. Moody, they tended to burn films at the slightest provocation, melting the plastic into cream-and-brown cappuccino froth. They vibrated so badly, the picture often blurred and danced insanely from side to side, sometimes spilling out onto a nearby wall.
At first, Elvis found it was dizzy work just trying to keep focused, until he learned that the popular trick was to sway from side to side while squinting off to the left. Barring the occasional bout of motion sickness, this worked quite well, and Elvis often wondered what it would be like to stand above and look down. He was sure the crowd made quite a sight: hundreds of people swaying from side to side, chattering away like insane birds, worshiping their new gods. They drowned out the commentary provided by the projectionist, who, undeterred, continued his litany on a battered megaphone.
As the film opened, Elvis read the title under his breath. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He smiled. This was a good one, plenty of action, though it started slowly, with two men waiting for a long time, one of them occasionally glancing at his watch, before shooting at each other. It didn’t seem like a terribly efficient way to kill someone. As soon as the last note of the watch died down, the projectionist was off:
“Actor is shooting John Wayne Wayne has dodged Oh No! Actor is down actor is down actor’s horse is down Oh No! John Wayne is in action John Wayne is a powerful medicine man He cannot be killed by bullets Oh Look! Indians are running running with many cutlasses and knives bows and arrows they are dodging bullets too as Cowboys fire them …”
The projectionist’s monologue would have been the same if it were an Indian movie, except of course the characters and the stories were different, most of the time anyway. But on the nights the projectionist got drunk, genies rode horses in pursuit of cow-rustling mermaids, and Ganesh sported six-shooters and the name John Wayne, while the Duke morphed into Krishna or the big-belt-buckled, flared-pant-bottomed star of one of Bollywood’s finest productions. Elvis tried to smile, but the projectionist was so loud, he annoyed him. Suddenly, all around him, the audience’s voices rose in argument. Here we go again, he thought.
“What do you mean she poison him? I say she is a witch. Witches don’t just poison ordinary poison, dey use magic poison.”
“Shut up! You always like to show you know something even when you don’t.”
“Keep quiet! Some of us are listening!”
“Listening? To what? Look at dis old goat! Who is talking to you?”
“Goat! Where is de goat? Are you confusing dat horse with a goat? I don’t see any goat on de screen.”
“See Actor, see Actor!”
“Dat’s not Actor, dat’s John Wayne.”
To Elvis, the plot lines were simple and were about the eternal struggle between the good of John Wayne and the evil of the villain, known simply, mysteriously yet profoundly as Actor. John Wayne acting as the villain in a film was Actor, and Clint Eastwood as sheriff was John Wayne. These films showed another aspect of that eternal war Father Macgettrick told them was being fought daily between the fallen angels led by Lucifer and the army of Christ, commanded by the armor-wearing, sword-wielding Archangel Michael. And just as in that story, the hordes of demons were dark-skinned.
Running the length of the motor park was a low cement wall where Elvis and his friends usually sat smoking and trying out conversations from the films. American English was exotic and a treat for the tongue, unlike the stricter grammar of England’s English, which they learned at school. Whistling a tune from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Elvis strolled over and took his place on the wall.
“Elvis, enjoy de film?” Hezekiah asked, passing him a cigarette. Elvis accepted it in spite of the lit one smoldering between his fingers.
“‘Darn these here rustlers.’ That projection man, why must he talk even when the film has sound, eh? ‘Shuh likes you, Annie,’” he nodded, sucking on the cool menthol smoke.
“Yup,” Titus agreed. “Rawhide. ‘Reach for it, sonny.’ You know dese people don’t hear American.”
They puffed and squinted off into the night, afraid of being caught smoking by the adults.
“‘If you want to shoot, shoot, don’t talk,’” Obed said, getting up and walking off.
“Yup,” Hezekiah agreed.
Somehow it all made sense to them, like some bizarre pig latin. And there was a power in the words that elevated them, made them part of something bigger.
It was late as Elvis snuck up the back path to the house. Thankfully the window he had propped open with a dry cell was still ajar. As he approached, he thought it odd that all the lights were still burning. They ran on a generator that his father shut off when the nine-thirty news was over. After that, it was back to kerosene lanterns like everyone else.
Elvis wasn’t sure how late it was, but he had left the motor park at ten and it was a good fifteen-minute trip, even at a fast jog. He paused in the shadows of the guava trees out back. Had he been found out? Was his father sitting on his bed right now, waiting for Elvis to climb through the window? Was he weighing a cane to beat Elvis with, seeking the balance of its heft, trying its springiness against the air and whining mosquitoes?
Elvis’s mind raced. Best to carry out a proper rekky. That was one of his favorite words, learned from Uncle James, who had been a captain in the Biafran war, where he’d carried out many recon missions, or rekkies, and who was forever carrying out, or asking someone to carry out, a proper rekky.
Melting from shadow to shadow, Elvis approached the front yard, pausing to note several unfamiliar cars parked there. The front door was wide open and light from inside spilled out, cutting a swathe in the darkness, patterning the parked cars with shadows from the hibiscus shrubs that grew along the front of the house. Voices raised in argument spilled out onto the wood of the veranda, which, adjusting in the cool of night, creaked in response. These were all good signs. It meant his father was still up because he had guests, not because he had found Elvis out.
Curious, and using the hibiscus as camouflage, he peered over the windowsill. His father, Uncle Joseph and several men he did not know were arguing. In the corner, tied hand and foot, was his cousin Godfrey. Watching over him, eyes alert and hard, was another cousin, Innocent.
While Godfrey, Efua’s brother, was his first cousin, Innocent was one of those relatives that English terms could not properly identify in the tangled undergrowth of the Igbo extended family: distant enough not to be a real cousin yet close enough to be a brother.
Elvis absently wondered why Godfrey was tied up. No doubt the heated debate revolved around him and was probably an attempt to come up with a suitable punishment for something he had done. Godfrey was a real troublemaker, and his fighting and stealing shamed the family. There were few crimes more heinous than bringing shame to one’s family, and Elvis was used to seeing him tied up and beaten.
Well, that settles it, he thought. He was not about to miss a beating, seeing as he was not the one getting beaten. Beatings were Uncle Joseph’s specialty. He had an unerring accuracy with the cane, which meant that it landed on the same welt repeatedly until you felt like a hot wire was buttering through your flesh. And he always sent you out to cut the cane for your own whipping.
“A bad cane doubles de punishment,” he would call out cheerfully to your dead-man-walking figure.
Retreating to a tree that afforded a direct view into the parlor from a comfortable yet out-of-sight perch, he settled down to watch. Plucking a guava, he wiped it on his shorts and bit into the sweet flesh. Around him, in the other trees, he could hear bats feasting on the ripe fruit. They kept away from his tree, repelled by his human odor and the scent of cigarettes.
He must have dozed off, because the muffled sound of people talking underneath the tree woke him. Innocent and Uncle Joseph were huddled in some kind of negotiation. Though he could not hear the words, there was something sinister in their manner that disturbed and frightened him. Sitting, barely daring to breathe, he strained to hear, but their voices were too low, as though the men were afraid the shadows might hear. The conversation was short and both men returned to the parlor, but not before a bundle of money changed hands. Shortly after, Innocent and a now untied Godfrey walked out and headed quickly into the night.
Climbing down, Elvis hastily worked his way around to the back of the house. He was just about to climb in through the window when he heard his father calling his name from the open door of the bedroom. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he stared straight at him, but his father had no idea that Elvis was outside, only a few feet away. Changing tactic, Elvis stumbled around to the side door, yawning.
“Yes, sir,” he answered.
“Where have you been?” his father demanded, filling the doorway. “Why are you not in bed?”
“I went to piss, sir.” Elvis’s face and eyes were still sleep-swollen from his nap in the tree, and it was an easy sell.
“Get back to bed now, stupid child,” his father snarled before heading back down the corridor to the parlor. With each step his disposition changed, until with a cheery “Where were we?” he returned to his guests.