Now Is the Time for Running

by Michael Williams

  I hold Innocent’s hand tightly to show him that I am not afraid. Captain Washington is trying to answer them all at once, but they do not listen to him, they push at Innocent and me, wave their sticks in front of my face. Their eyes shine with anger. Their smiles are cruel. Grandpa Longdrop said you can always see a bully a mile away: he’s the one who has a crowd around him and a smile on his face.

  The house is too small for all of us. Some of them stand on the chairs; another has turned over the table. Two more Green Bombas have come through the kitchen door.

  Captain Washington tries to block the leaders from getting to us. He pushes them back, shouts at them to leave us alone. They do not listen to him. None of these boys is older than Innocent, yet they do not listen to the best policeman in the district. What has happened to this place? Do the young people no longer respect their elders?

  They poke Innocent with their sticks. He tries to swat their sticks away, but they laugh at him. Their laughter is hard, like plates breaking on a cement floor.

  I can see what is happening. They want us to join them. We must become part of Chipangano. They want us to round up dissidents and take them to Commander Jesus. The commander wants more blood in his drums. He wants us to do his work for him, like the soldiers did in Gutu. They will take Innocent away with them and put him into green overalls. They’ll turn him into a Green Bomba. They don’t understand that he isn’t like them. Without me, he will die.

  Now I must think quickly. Captain Washington cannot help us now. He is no longer in control in his own house. I hate to do this to Innocent. He’ll be angry with me afterward—very angry. But I have no choice. It is the only thing that will save us.

  I put both my hands on my head and start chanting the old song that Grandpa Longdrop taught me, just as his grandmother taught him when he became a man. I feel Innocent freeze behind me. He did not understand the song nor its meaning, and when it was sung he lost himself. He was afraid then, to leave Amai, to leave his home, and the elders of the village decided that Innocent could remain uncut. Innocent never went into the bush to become a man.

  “No, Deo!” he says, more frightened by what I am doing than of the Green Bombas. He knows what will happen to him.

  The room falls silent. Everyone has heard the song and not heard the song. It is a song from long ago, from the old days. You think you know it, but you can’t remember it until you hear it sung. The song is born in your bones—some can sing it, but few can understand it.

  I am one who can sing it. I step forward. The Green Bombas stare at me, their sticks raised ready to strike. Amai used to sing all the time. Not this song, but others. I know each Green Bomba’s amai did too. They know this song in their bones. I sing out loudly. Clap my hands together. Stamp my feet several times.

  The song takes me over. My voice is no longer my own. It belongs to the song now. The Spirit song I sing will show them what Innocent really is.

  I ignore the look on Captain Washington’s face. I turn toward Innocent and sing to him. His eyes are wide as he watches me. He is still, staring at me, listening. He cannot ignore the song. His eyes start to roll in their sockets. He flicks his head back, and all that can be seen are the whites of his eyes. He lets out a growl. It is not a human sound. He moves forward, following the song. His head winds like a snake. He stands on his toes and lets his hands drop to his sides. He drops his jaw, and his mouth falls wide open. He growls again, shudders, and then groans.

  Spit drips to the floor. His eyes roll in their sockets. He is lost to us now. The song has done its job.

  It is always terrible to see Innocent when he has one of his fits. When he gets them it reminds me why I have to be with him, always. People are afraid of Innocent when he becomes like this. They think he is possessed. They think that the Spirits have taken over his body. They do not know what to do with the person that is not a person anymore. In my family we know how to deal with Innocent in these moments. They are only a part of who Innocent is.

  The Green Bombas back away from Innocent. They are scared of him now. His face has changed. His lips twist and curl inside out. His eyebrows shoot up, then down again. He looks more animal than human.

  I hate to do this to him. He will be exhausted for many days afterward. Grandpa Longdrop says that he lives four days in twenty minutes with all the muscles and energy he uses to keep himself from leaving us.

  I stop singing.

  My brother is lost to me now. I have pushed him into a place he hates to go more than anywhere else in the world. He no longer sees any of us in the room. Once I asked him what happens to him when he has a fit. Where does Innocent go? He said it was like seeing himself from a great height. That he looked down on his body and could do nothing about the terrible things it was doing. He said that sometimes he would like to just fly away, but he knew that if he left his body, it would die without him. He said he didn’t want to be without a body. It was the only one he had. He said having a fit was like a bad dream that hurt him in his sleep. That is why Innocent always sleeps so well. He has no nightmares while he sleeps; he has them in the daytime for everyone to see.

  Innocent drops to his knees. Soon he will collapse onto his side. I have only a few minutes before he is in danger of swallowing his tongue. This is when he needs me the most. I have to hold his head in my lap and stick my finger in his mouth to hold down his tongue.

  “My brother is ill,” I say into the faces of the Green Bombas. “He is crazy. A dog bit him.” I lie, but I don’t think Innocent will mind.

  “Rabies!” cries one of the Green Bombas and steps back in fear.

  I nod and look sad. “It’s worse than rabies,” I say. “He was born this way, but when the dog bit him it made him even crazier.”

  They have no reason not to believe me.

  The Green Bombas are not smiling anymore. Nor are they angry anymore. They mumble, and some of them back away as if they are looking at a monster. They are nothing but stupid children afraid of a grown man who is having a fit on the kitchen floor. He can do them no harm, but still they are scared of him. The two Green Bombas who came in through the kitchen door have already run away. The others are backing out of the front door.

  “Let’s go. These boys are no use to us.”

  “We will be back to see you, Captain Washington.”

  “Make sure these two are gone when we come.”

  “Remember Operation Win or War.”

  The Green Bombas leave, and we are alone.

  I have forgotten them already. I am with Innocent. I hold his head in my lap and force his tongue down. He tries to swallow, but my finger in his mouth stops him. I feel him go weaker. I stroke his head. The trembling slows. He sighs deeply, as if the nightmare is over. Slowly, Innocent returns from the land of his nightmare. He will be asleep soon. I rub his back in the way Amai used to do and feel his breathing becoming normal.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting with Innocent, but when I look up I see Captain Washington at the table, drinking his booze and looking at me.

  “You can do that to your brother?”

  “I don’t like to, but it was all I could think of.”

  He helps me carry Innocent to the couch. We cover him with a blanket. He is sleeping now as if someone had knocked him over the head.

  “You can’t stay here, Deo.”

  I’ve worked this out a long time ago. Of course we can’t stay here. Other Green Bombas will come here and try to recruit Innocent. They will hurt him. I won’t be able to play the same trick twice.

  “I know.”

  “You must go to South Africa,” he says. “It’s the only safe place for Innocent. And for you too.”

  Go to South Africa. It is a thought bigger than what happened in Gutu, bigger than living in Bikita with Captain Washington, bigger than any thought I have ever had before.

  “You can get a lift with one of the trucks. I know someone who can take you. He is leaving early tomorrow morning. The Green Bombas w
ill come back,” he says.

  Captain Washington goes to the window and looks out on the street. Far away I can hear the sound of angry bees. I listen more carefully. It is not angry bees. It is chanting and the sound of drums beating somewhere in the night.

  “That is the pungwe. I have to go. To not go is to suffer a beating. They have started, and they will go on through the night. You will be safe here. I will wake you and take you to the driver of the truck in the morning. You don’t have any shoes?” he asks, looking at my bare feet.

  I shake my head.

  “I’ll see what I can do. You can’t go barefoot to South Africa.”

  Go to South Africa.

  I nod at the captain. My tongue feels like a flat tire in my mouth.

  Captain Washington drinks one more glassful of his booze and leaves. Innocent is snoring quietly on the couch. I listen to the chanting, the drums, the shouting. There is no sound like it—not angry bees, but angry people.

  I gently lift Innocent’s head and slip a cushion beneath it. I pull the curtains aside and look out onto the street. Empty. No one around. I feel I am the only person in Bikita. I go into Captain Washington’s room and lie down on his bed. I look up at the ceiling. My mother used to come to this room and sit for hours and talk with the captain. I feel her spirit close to me now.

  Go to South Africa, she says.

  8

  TRUCKING

  I wake up with a headache. The truck cabin is hot and stuffy. Innocent’s feet are up my nose, and they smell bad. I try to move them away, but there’s no room in the sleeping cabin. Innocent grunts and shifts slightly. He is listening to his radio with a faraway look in his eyes. Around his neck is a pair of brand-new sneakers that Captain Washington gave us before we left. I quickly check that I still have my sneakers. I put them in one corner when we got into the truck at four o’clock this morning. They are where I left them—their new smell makes me smile. My soccer ball is in the other corner, still fat and round and stuffed full of money.

  Captain Washington was almost crying when he hugged me good-bye early this morning, after helping me get Innocent up into the truck. I also wanted to cry.

  “You’ll be all right. South Africa is a better place than here,” he said, handing me a new pair of white sneakers. “When you get to Beitbridge, you must find Mai Maria. She will look after you. You’ll be all right, you’ll be all right.”

  I wished he would stop saying we’d be all right. He sounded like we wouldn’t be. I remember Amai saying the same thing, and nothing was all right. The captain spoke very sternly to the driver about looking after us and making sure that we got safely to Beitbridge. The driver shrugged, nodded, threw down his cigarette, climbed up behind the steering wheel, drew the curtain of his cabin shut, and told us to go to sleep.

  It didn’t take long before we were driving out of Bikita, and then pretty soon we were fast asleep.

  Now I pull open the curtain to the cabin behind the driver. The sun is bright. I check the clock on the dashboard—it is late morning. I must have slept for a long time. The truck driver is crouched over the steering wheel, staring at the road. Every now and then he blasts the horn at goats, children on the side of the road, or some slow car. He seems to be in a hurry to get to Beitbridge. He hands me a bottle of water.

  “Stay behind the curtain,” he grunts. “Military roadblock in ten minutes.”

  I drink from the bottle, hand it to Innocent. He turns off his radio and puts it away in his Bix-box. He drinks, hands back the bottle. I can see by the way he looks at me that he has something important to say.

  “Are we going to see him?” he asks.

  I don’t know what he is talking about. Innocent takes out the photograph he showed me under the baobab tree. “Are we going to see him?” he asks again. “In Goodwood.”

  I look closely at the man hugging the boy Innocent. There is no chance that we can find him in South Africa. I wouldn’t know where to begin to look for him.

  “Yes,” I say and hand him back the photograph. “We’re going to see him in South Africa.”

  “See-aye-eight-three-two-seven-five-six-one-three,” says Innocent.

  “Huh?”

  “The truck number,” he says.

  I ask him for the photograph again and look more closely at the picture. Amai, my father, and Innocent are standing in front of the truck. They are blocking the registration number.

  “You remember the number of his truck?”

  Innocent nods slowly.

  Another thing about my brother: he eats numbers. Any number, anywhere, and in whatever order they come to him, he swallows them and never forgets them. He says numbers are his friends, and they run around in his brain like children. They make patterns in his head, and he likes to play with them. I don’t know how he does it, but he can add and multiply faster than an electronic calculator. Grandpa Longdrop said that sometimes people like Innocent get extra gifts when they are born. With Innocent, it’s numbers. Amai said it’s what makes Innocent more special than anyone else.

  “See-aye-eight-three-two-seven-five-six-one-three,” he says again, pointing at the truck.

  “Okay. Good. That will be easy then,” I say, handing him back the photograph. That’s the thing about Innocent, he’s always got a surprise up his sleeve. Sometimes he can be a pain in the ass and a lot of hard work, but I’m very lucky to have him for a brother.

  “And Grandpa Longdrop shouldn’t complain to the president. I’m feeling a lot better now,” he says.

  “No, I’m sure he’ll be very polite.”

  “The president is a very busy man. Lots of operations going on,” he says, smiling.

  The truck bumps as we go over another pothole. We bounce about on the bunk bed. Innocent hits his head. “Operation Fix the Road or Else,” he says.

  I shake my head at his joke and then laugh out loud. Innocent can do that to you, make you laugh until your sides hurt. He points at me, shaking his head. I have to wipe away the tears of laughter from my eyes.

  The truck driver gears down. “Here’s the roadblock,” he says. “Stay hidden. Climb into the hole behind the bunk bed. Quickly!”

  I pull the cushions to one side in the middle of the back section of the bunk. Behind the bunk bed is a small space. Innocent crawls through the back of the bunk first. I grab my soccer ball and the sneakers and follow him. The space smells of gas. There is barely room for one person. The driver shuts the panel. I hear him put back the cushions.

  “Stay quiet!” he hisses. He sounds scared.

  The engine of the truck is turned off.

  On my side of the hiding place, there is a small hole that brings in a little light and air. My ears hum with the sudden silence after the noise of the engine. Innocent has both his fingers in his ears. His eyes are shut tight. He doesn’t like the dark.

  “Remember we don’t want the soldiers to find us. They will take off your clothes again,” I whisper to him. “We must keep very quiet.”

  I don’t know if he hears me with his fingers in his ears, but at least he is still.

  I peep through the hole. I can’t see much—uniformed men, a small group of people with bags, parcels, and suitcases. I hear voices.

  “Open up!”

  The side of the truck is struck with something made of iron. Innocent jumps. I grip his arm to keep him quiet.

  The driver is being questioned.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Beitbridge. Then Musina, then Polokwane.”

  “And inside?”

  “Empty. I’m returning in two weeks with corn.”

  The doors of the back of the truck open. Somebody climbs in, thumps around, making a lot of noise in the empty truck. There are a few crashes as boxes are kicked around, overturned. Each thump makes Innocent jump. He presses his fingers deeper into his ears.

  “Shhh,” I whisper very softly, stroking Innocent’s arm. “It’s going to be all right.” I sound like Captain Washington.

&
nbsp; The back door of the truck is slammed shut. I strain to hear what is being said, but the men have moved away.

  I have to pee. I have to pee so badly. I cross my legs and squeeze. Peeing now would be very stupid. I imagine the soldiers seeing my pee running from underneath the truck, making a little river at the soldiers’ boots. I imagine them beating the driver, scrambling into the back of the cabin, and pulling us out of the hole. This thought makes me have to pee even more. I’m worried about Innocent. He won’t last long in here.

  Then I hear voices again, louder. Someone is groaning. Someone is pleading. The voices sound very frightened. Through the small hole I see a khaki uniform.

  “What kind of shirt do you like to wear? Long sleeve or short sleeve?” This is one of the soldiers. He speaks loudly for all the people waiting around the truck to hear. It seems a funny question for a soldier to ask.

  Nobody answers him.

  “Answer!” he screams. “Long sleeve or short sleeve?”

  I hear someone answer. It is a man’s voice.

  “Short sleeve,” he says.

  Why do they scream so? Why are the soldiers asking what type of shirts people want to wear? I look through the tiny hole.

  Blood on the ground.

  Commander Jesus must be collecting blood for his drums. They will find us. Take us to Commander Jesus. He will remember Innocent struck Commander Jesus’s hand. We will die. I start to shiver. Innocent’s eyes are wide with thousands of questions. I can no longer say it will be all right. It may not be.

  The cabin door opens.

  This is it.

  Long sleeve or short sleeve? What will I answer?

  I hear someone heave himself into the truck and sit down behind the wheel. The door slams shut. The engine roars into life.

  We are moving slowly forward, moving through the roadblock. Then the driver shifts gears, and the truck picks up speed and rattles down the road. The driver must be in a hurry; we fly over potholes and get bumped around. The gas fumes fill up the space. Innocent starts coughing.