by Nick Lake
The houngan leaned forward. His breath was like something physical in the van.
— All you gotta do is bring me some whiskey, he said. And some money, maybe.
— He doesn’t need it, said Biggie. Shorty be blessed already. Dread saved his life – died right on top of him. Truth?
— Truth, I said.
— He’s that kid? said the houngan. Shit.
He held out his hand, and I shook it.
— You’re a legend in this part of the Site, he said. Is it true that Dread had a thousand holes in him when he died?
— I guess, I said. That’s what my manman says.
— And the dude still lifted a tank off of Shorty here, said Biggie.
It’s weird, the way everyone knows the story, not just me and my manman. I never get used to it.
— Stone-cold gangster, man, said Biggie.
— You Marassa, too? said the houngan. I heard Aristide took you both from your manman his ownself.
— No, I said. My sister is gone. I’m just me. I’m nothing.
The houngan nodded. He went over to the shelf – it didn’t take him long, it was only one step to the other side of the truck – and he touched the jar. Then he kicked some stuff out the way, cleared a space on the floor.
— You’re ready for this? he said to Biggie. This could be intense. Ogou is . . . Ogou is fierce. You’ve been smoking weed, playing with Baron Samedi and Dread’s bones. But this shit is heroin.
— Heroin is my shit, man, said Biggie. I been dealing with heroin since back in the day. Boston came into our territory. We got to wipe them out.
The houngan nodded again. He got out some chalk and started drawing a veve on the metal floor of the van. It was delicate, quick, and I didn’t expect that this wreck of a guy could draw like that. Then he poured some kind of powder on the floor, and he took up the drum and started to dance. As he danced he sang:
— Attibon Legba, ouvri bayè pou moin!
Ago!
Ou wè, Attibon Legba, ouvri bayè pou moin, ouvri bayè!
M’apè rentrè quand ma tournè,
Ma salut lwa yo.
Manman dragged us to a load of ceremonies, so I knew what he was doing. He was calling Legba to open the gate between our world and the world of the lwa. Legba doesn’t open the gate, nothing comes through.
The houngan beat and beat on the drum, singing that little song over and over again. I started to get a bit freaked out. Usually, when this kind of thing went on, the houngan switched over pretty quickly to some other lwa. Usually, there wasn’t this electricity in the air – I could feel it crackling in my ears, running like shivers on my skin. The smell of the houngan was gone. Now the inside of the van smelled like gunpowder and sex and flowers. It was like the walls were closing in on me, and I turned to Biggie and he looked like he just saw a ghost.
Suddenly, the houngan stopped. There was silence, but it was like the silence you get before thunder, or before a dog barks. Then his head snapped round to look at me, and his eyes weren’t his eyes anymore, but were like gates that have been opened, and there was emptiness on the other side of them, and it made your head hurt, like when you think about how big infinity is.
— What do you want? he asked, and it wasn’t his voice – it was something that echoed.
The houngan, or whatever it was, wasn’t looking at Biggie, he was looking at me, but it was Biggie who answered.
— We want Ogou Badagry, he said. We want to go to war. We need his help.
— I am the crossroad, said the houngan who was Papa Legba. You are at a crossroad. So you get me.
— Yes, said Biggie. But can you bring us Ogou Badagry? We need war in our met tet, we need to be strong . . .
He tailed off, cos the houngan had turned to look at him, and Biggie got a load of those eyes.
— No, said Legba.
— No?
— No.
He touched Biggie’s head and Biggie shivered.
— You are full, Legba said. You have a dead man inside you.
Then he touched my head.
— And you are empty. You were Marassa, now you are nothing. You are half a person, but you won’t be for long. The ceremony has already been completed. It was completed many years ago. Ogou Badagry is not for you.
— But our enemies, said Biggie. We need to destroy our enemies.
— This one knows how, Legba said, touching me again. This one can destroy anything, if he wants. He can build things, too, but it’s up to him what he does.
I felt like I might pass out, but I dug my nails into my palms. Papa Legba is the crossroad, I thought. He can find anything, and give anything. He can return things that are lost.
— Will I get my sister back? I said to the houngan who was Papa Legba.
— What the fuck are you talking about? said Biggie. What the fuck is this?
The houngan looked at me.
— I don’t know what you’re talking about, he said. I don’t deal with that door.
— What door? I said.
The houngan shook his head.
— I don’t . . . This is all . . .
The houngan’s voice was back to normal now; it didn’t echo anymore. It was like a dub mix had stopped and we were back to the normal song. He slumped to his knees and the old eyes fluttered open, the bloodshot ones, not the ones that were blankness forever.
— What happened? the houngan said to us.
— I don’t know, said Biggie. You were Legba, I think. He said that I was full. He said Shorty was half a person. You know what that means?
The houngan looked at me and he frowned.
— No, he said. But it doesn’t sound good.
He turned as if we were done.
— Hey, asshole, said Biggie. I’m not paying for that. Give me the money back.
The houngan shook his head.
— I did what you wanted, he said. Not my fault the lwa didn’t help you.
— I didn’t want bullshit talk, said Biggie. I wanted protection. Aggression.
The houngan shrugged.
— Take it up with the lwa, he said.
— No, said Biggie. You take it up with the lwa.
He took out his Glock.
— Wait, said the houngan. You need me.
— No, I don’t. You already gave me Dread’s maji. Anyway, you called me an asshole. It’s a matter of principle, you get that?
He emptied the Glock into the houngan, and the guy got thrown back so far he knocked down all those shelves, including the one with Dread in it, and it smashed as it fell on him. The powder went all over him, but it was too late for him. He was dead.
— You can destroy anything? said Biggie to me. Better come up with something quick, then.
The weird thing was I did think of something.
After we went to the houngan, everything sped up. Ever since Legba touched me it was, like, I don’t know, it was like there was a door that was open in my head, and all kinds of stuff came through. I went out on patrol, and I helped Biggie put charms on the roads that led into Solèy 19, and I helped him sort out some guys who’d been short on their payments, and all the time it was like I was in this completely different place, where there were a lot more trees and shadows.
I’d also been having this weird dream about a castle and a carriage. It gave me an idea. I had it all worked out.
— Listen, Biggie, I said one night. I’ve got a plan for how we can take out Boston.
— What? said Biggie. Like, all of them?
— Yeah, I said. All of them.
We did it at night. Biggie wasn’t so happy about giving up his whip, but I told him:
— If we pull this off, you can have as many cars as you want. We’ll own the whole Site if we take Boston out. Think about it. You want to sell half the heroin in the Site, or all of it?
He gave us the car.
I told you I was the Mechanic, right? Show me a broken engine and I would fix it, no matter if the engi
ne was in a car or a chainsaw.
So, I got this servo mounted to a gun in the back. I had a remote control in my hand, like the ones you get with a toy car. That was the hardest thing to find – we had to cruise pretty much a whole day through the Site, asking people. Kids don’t get toys in the Site, but eventually we found some kid who had brought his from the country when his parents moved to Port-au-Prince to get better jobs – and ain’t that a joke, like they say in the songs? We paid him 50 dollars for it. So now I’d got the servo out the toy car, you get me? And it was hooked up to this AK in the back of the whip. Packed into the trunk and the footwells was a load of dynamite, grenades, and rockets. I couldn’t believe all this stuff when Biggie showed it to me. He said it was from Aristide, from when he wanted the gangs to secure the country for him, but Biggie said he never knew what to do with that shit, so he just left it in a shack.
— That stuff is dangerous, he said.
— Yeah, I know, I said. That’s the point.
So, whip, servo, gun, explosives. The rest was just ghost-riding.
Some of the guys, they didn’t like it. They said that Biggie shouldn’t be listening to me, that I’ve had crazy shit in my head ever since we went to see the houngan.
Lil’ Wayne said right to Biggie’s face:
— Boko ba w pwen, li pa di w domi nan kafou.
It’s an expression everyone uses, and it’s kind of perfect for that moment and for Biggie, I guess, cos it means, even if the houngan gave you a protective spell, there’s no need to lie down at a crossroad. Meaning, we were going to get ourselves killed.
Biggie, he just looked long and cold at Lil’ Wayne.
— We’re still alive after this, you come and tell me that again, he said.
So that was it. We talked about it for a bit, and then we were just doing it. We got the car ready, the explosives, the guns, and we did it.
We were at the end of the street that leads to Boston territory. We knew that the Boston leaders were sleeping there tonight, cos we put some shorties on the case. Shorties look the same, running around, playing games. Boston crew can’t tell a Solèy 10 shorty from a Solèy 19 shorty.
I was hoping Marguerite was there, too, and I was hoping I didn’t kill her. I was feeling sick. My whole stomach was tight, like a bag packed with weed. I know I’ve killed people, and you probably think I’m an evil person, but the truth is I only did it to find Marguerite. I only joined Route 9 cos they’re the other power; they’re the only ones who could help me destroy Boston and get her back.
So this, right here, this was the moment I had waited nearly half my life for. This was the moment when I might be reunited with my twin.
Biggie raised a hand to say go.
I leaned down and started the engine. I jammed the brick on the gas pedal, just so.
Tintin pushed past me and adjusted the steering wheel a little.
— Better, he said.
The car rolled forward into the night. It crossed a line that none of us had ever crossed, and then it was in Boston, just like it was nothing at all, even though to us it was in another world. It cruised straight, ghost-riding, smooth like silk.
It passed the shack where the Boston chimères were sleeping, and I gripped the remote in my hand. I pressed the lever forward, and the servo engaged, and the AK in the car fired.
Ghost-ride drive-by.
All hell broke loose.
Guys started spilling out of the shacks and they were unloading at the car. I saw that one of them was limping, blood pouring from his leg. People were screaming. I thought, shit, I did this. Then I lifted up my gun, cos some of them had seen us and they were starting to fire at us. Biggie went down on one knee, his Tec-9 spitting fire.
For a long moment, I was just frozen. I’d never seen or heard so many bullets. The whole street was locked in a full metal jacket; the air was brass casings and steel-tipped; it was on fire. It was fucking crazy. I tried to call out, but bullets are faster than words, and I was just standing there in the middle of all that metal death.
I thought, I’m going to die.
I thought, this was a bad idea.
Then I saw her. Marguerite.
She was running out of a shack, screaming with fear. She had no gun in her hand, and that was good, I thought – that way Tintin or Biggie or Mickey wouldn’t shoot her. Mickey was limping bad, but he was there anyway.
I started to move toward her, but not too close. I had to catch her with my eyes, otherwise this was –
She turned, looked at me. She was heading to the chimères who were shooting at us and the car, but she stopped.
— Run! I screamed. Run! Away from the car!
She stared at me.
— RUN!
Some of the Bostons turned to me and started shooting, and I threw myself to the ground. I thought, shit, they see it now, they see the trick. But they didn’t move.
She moved, though – I saw her run in the opposite direction, further into Boston.
I thought, oh thank you, oh thank you, oh thank you.
Most of the Bostons, they were shooting the car. That was good. That was what they were meant to do, cos if they kept shooting it, then –
BOOM.
It was the middle of the night, but suddenly it turned to daytime, and there was a sun burning in the street. Stuff flew in all directions – pieces of car, a seat went over a shack. There was a sound in my ears like that electric tingling you get when you put your head under the water of the sea – the sound of the fish moving, I guess. I put my finger to the side of my head. I felt hot sticky blood on my cheek; it seemed it was coming from my ear. Where the car had been was just black scorches. One of the shacks fell down completely, a crash of sparks and corrugated iron. The air was filled with the smell of burning.
I realized I was doing nothing, so I raised my gun and fired into the storm. I didn’t think it mattered, though, cos there couldn’t be anyone still alive there.
I hoped that Marguerite had got far enough away.
There was dust and smoke everywhere now, and some of the shacks were burning. I walked forward, holding my gun in front of me. A man on fire came stumbling toward me and I shot him without thinking. A moment later, a bullet hit my arm and I screamed, but I kept walking. It was hard to hold the gun in my hand. I held it anyway. I was only half-conscious of people running here and there, of bullets flying. Most of the bullets were ours, I think. The Boston crew wasn’t a crew anymore.
I was through the smoke and in clear air when I found her. She was huddling against a broken bike, watching the flames. She was so beautiful and so vulnerable. She was the only thing pure and uncorrupted in this whole slum.
— Marguerite, I said. Marguerite, it’s OK.
I held out my half of the necklace.
— See? I said. See, I still have it. Where’s yours?
I was looking at her neck to see if she was wearing her necklace.
She stared at me, fear and horror on her face.
— What are you talking about? she said. Who’s Marguerite?
Then
— All France comes to Haiti, said Toussaint. France has been deceived, and she comes to take revenge and enslave the blacks once again.
— You do not know that, said Jean-Christophe. It may be that they come in –
— In peace? In hope of friendship? No.
Toussaint was examining a new French fleet through his spyglass as he spoke. Some fifty vessels were anchored in the bay of Cape Town, their cannon trained on the town, their decks teeming with soldiers. The town itself, on the flanks of the hill, had seen a resurgence, he noted, after its burning not so long ago. More was the pity – it would be unprepared to withstand another fire so soon.
All morning they had watched the maneuvers of the French ships. At first, Toussaint had taken their movements for hesitation, but Jean-Christophe explained how the ships had to tack against the wind, and employ other such maritime tactics, in order to get into position and lan
d.
However they viewed it, there were many men with guns on board. They intended to invade.
— If Bonaparte wanted peace, he would not have sent this fleet against us, Toussaint said. I fear he means to take the country by force.
He had thought the island rid of the French, but now a new commander had taken over the Republic, a man named Bonaparte, martial by inclination, a genius on the battlefield, according to rumors. It seemed that Bonaparte wished to reclaim Haiti.
— The new French ambassador, Leclerc, says he brings you gifts, said Jean-Christophe.
Toussaint laughed. These French seemed to think that the free blacks had no notion of classical antiquity. Did they believe he had never heard of Troy, of the giant horse given as a gift to the Trojans, its wooden belly full of enemy soldiers? He had used this stratagem himself, or tantamount to such, when he took Guildive from the English.
— Leclerc lies, he said.
When the news of the fleet’s arrival had reached him, Toussaint had immediately ordered the withdrawal of his key advisors, and most of the army, to Dondon. The French could only be sending ships for one reason.
He had sent Jean-Christophe to take charge of Cape Town, with just enough troops to discourage the French from landing, even if they couldn’t hold them long when they did. Leclerc had landed in a small rowing boat, reminding Toussaint of the previous time the French had tried this chicanery. He had asked Jean-Christophe for permission to land the ships, saying that he bore a proclamation from Bonaparte declaring Haiti free, and offering troops to help maintain the peace, as well as rich gifts as a mark of their friendship.
On receiving the envoy, Jean-Christophe did exactly what Toussaint had told him to. He told Leclerc that Toussaint had retired to the interior, that he could not allow the ships to land, and that the soldiers defending Cape Town had been instructed to defend their liberty with their lives.
Leclerc had not been pleased. He had arranged for his proclamation to be published covertly, and many of the whites had been impressed by its assurance of their continued liberty. They had beset Jean-Christophe, supplicating him, urging him to allow the French to land, to accept their help and friendship.