Johnny Mad Dog

by Emmanuel Dongala

  Why was he running away? And what did he have beneath the blue tarp? Weapons, no doubt. A man with a clear conscience doesn’t run away.

  Since you must never hesitate when you’re in enemy territory, I fired—or as former leader Rambo liked to say, “squeezed off a round”—into the vehicle. I think the bullets must have claimed some victims in the crowd nearby, but as I’ve learned from the Europeans and Americans, this was known as “collateral damage” and you can’t have wars without collateral damage. Every innocent person killed was an unfortunate mistake or collateral damage. My shots must have hit the driver at the moment his foot finally released the clutch, for the car made a quick swerve before stalling. In the blink of an eye, the people around the vehicle scattered.

  I approached the scene. I looked through the shattered windows. Five bodies: a girl, a boy, three adults, including an old woman, all covered with blood. An elite marksman like me rarely misses his mark. Yet the left-hand door of the car was open—one of the passengers had no doubt pushed it open in an attempt to get away, before being cut down by my shots. Tough luck. You can’t run faster than a bullet from a Kalashnikov. There’s no escape from Matiti Mabé, the leader of the Roaring Tigers.

  I pointed my gun at two men in the fleeing crowd. Immediately they threw down what they were carrying and raised their hands in the air.

  “Get over here! Move!”

  They came toward me, trembling. They thought their last hour had come and that I was going to send them into the Great Beyond, to the fair land of their ancestors.

  “Take those bodies out.”

  They dragged out the five corpses and laid them on the pavement. Then they stood looking at me. I had a gun in my hands. They had nothing. I had life-or-death power over them, and they knew that I knew it. The slightest pressure on the trigger would spell the end for them. I was so glad to have a command vehicle that just then their lives weren’t worth the honk of a car horn. So I told them to get lost. I’d never seen guys take to their heels so fast.

  Right away I began an inspection of the overhead rack by lifting a corner of the blue tarp. A quick glance showed that there was no trace of weapons. I did, however, spot a leather sofa, a large television, and a fridge amid the pile of stuff. Funny how people always manage to cling to their possessions even in times of crisis. Then came the inspection of the interior. There was blood everywhere, especially on the driver’s seat. I found a blanket under the tarp and covered the seat with it. I told four of my commandos to get in the car with me, and the instant they jumped in I took off like a rocket, tires squealing. We had to bottle up the enemy with all possible speed, which meant barricading the other exit from the Huambo district.

  I don’t give a damn whether anyone believes this or not—but from the height of my new command vehicle, despite the immense crowd of fleeing refugees, I recognized her right away. Lovelita! Lo-Ve-Li-Ta! A name that I had given her, a name I’d stolen from a song on the radio, a name more beautiful than the too-common “Lolita,” a name that sings all by itself. And to pronounce it, ah—the tip of the tongue just touches the ridge of the palate for “Lo,” the teeth press firmly on the cushion of the lower lip for “Ve,” the tongue tries to push its way past the teeth for “Li,” and finally the tongue strikes the ramparts of the teeth, “Ta”! Lovelita—my doll, my sweetheart, the girl I love the most out of all the ones I’ve loved. Of course she’s a Mayi-Dogo—that is, from the same ethnic group as our enemies the Chechens—but that doesn’t prevent her from being beautiful and from being loved. Besides, she didn’t choose to be born a Mayi-Dogo. Do you know anyone who chose the hour, the tribe, and the village in which he was born? Lovelita! I recognized her first by the way she held her head, then by her favorite red bandanna which was tied around her short hair. She was wearing the jeans I’d given her. There was no doubt she’d been walking for a long time, since at this point she was very far from her house.

  She was fleeing like all the others, a large bundle on her head. Fleeing from what? Fleeing from us, the Mata Mata, who were going to wreak devastation in her home district of Huambo. I had to rescue my girl.

  I braked abruptly, and when the refugees saw us come to a halt they began to run away because they thought we were going to fire on them. Lovelita threw down her bundle so she could run more quickly. I honked loudly several times, but she didn’t understand that the signal was meant for her. I had to jump from the vehicle and clear a path for myself by firing a few rounds into the air. I must confess she didn’t recognize me when she saw me approach. She was afraid, I suppose—she thought I was one of those brutes who wanted to rape her. Come on, Lovelita—a guy doesn’t rape his girlfriend! I could understand why she didn’t recognize me. I was dressed in an outfit she’d never seen before.

  Admittedly, I cut an impressive figure. I wasn’t wearing the leather jacket that I put on every time I went into battle and under which I hid my fetishes. On the contrary, I wanted to display them so the guys under my command would clearly see that I was armored against the enemy just as effectively as Giap. Accordingly, I’d chosen the most powerful of all my T-shirts—the one that bore an image of Tupac Shakur and that I’d enhanced in a special way. I’d glued and sewn onto it numerous bits of mirror, not only because the tiny mirrors would blind the enemy troops by reflecting the sun into their eyes, but also because they would deflect the oncoming bullets. I was wearing my cowrie-shell necklace, to which I’d attached three little sacks containing various fetishes; one of these had the power to make me invisible. I wish I owned a fetish that, like Giap’s, could transform bullets into drops of water—but that would come someday; you can’t have everything all at once. Oh, and I’d also tied a red cord around the biceps of my right arm. I topped off the outfit with a dagger, a pistol, and two grenades, firmly attached to the belt that held up my olive-drab military pants. Of course she could never recognize her boyfriend dressed like this.

  “Lovelita, it’s me—don’t be afraid!”

  She didn’t seem to get it. I turned the visor of my cap around so she could get a good view of my face, and repeated:

  “It’s me!”

  She recognized me then. Her fear changed into boundless joy. I pulled aside the two ammo belts I wore across my chest, to make a space where she could hug me and press her tits against me.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  No time to look for her bundle of things. We ran back to the 4×4, whose motor was still running.

  I told Stud to move to the back so Lovelita could sit next to me. I’d already asked her to put on combat fatigues. There was only one spare pair of boots, which luckily fit her. She put them on, and fastened a wide belt around her waist. I gave her one of the two extra Kalashnikovs we had, and showed her how to fire it. The first time she let off a round she nearly fell over backward and dropped the gun, because she hadn’t expected such a strong recoil. But after several volleys she felt reassured and confident—in fact, she was as excited and happy as a child. I was proud of her. She fired one last round and we got into the car. There were several cassettes in the glove compartment. I chose one by Papa Wemba, and we set off again just as the music began drifting from the speakers.

  Little Pepper and Stud, sitting on opposite sides of the 4×4 and leaning out of the broken windows, kept firing into the air to clear a path through the crowd as fast as possible. We’d gone no more than a hundred meters before we were in fifth gear and the speedometer was up to a hundred kilometers per hour—so quickly did the refugees make way for us, despite the welter of those who were falling down, those who were trying to get up, those who’d been cut down by stray bullets, and those who were seeking refuge in side streets.

  The road chose to curve slightly at the precise moment I floored the accelerator. Instinctively, I stomped on the brake and the car began zigzagging dangerously. It was the end—we were dead. A rollover, and we’d be nothing but a heap of bloody metal and bone. But no, all of a sudden the 4×4 just began ambling along li
ke a horse, its rear wheels lifting off the road a few centimeters. They came down with a thump as soon as I—still in a panic—took my foot off the brake and accelerated, again instinctively. The vehicle shot forward.

  Suddenly, a mind-boggling sight: a girl pushing an older woman in a wheelbarrow. Stupid cunt! Instead of using her head and staying where she was, on the left-hand side of the street, she decided to run out in front of my command vehicle at the very instant it was bolting ahead. You think I’m going to brake for you? What an idiot! Again I hit the accelerator. She shoved the wheelbarrow into a thorny lantana hedge and threw herself after it, probably taking a few of the bullets that Stud fired in her direction, while the wind tore the kerchief from her head and made it twirl through the air like a great green snake. We laughed and sped past.

  “Wait! Stop!” yelled Stud abruptly.

  Without thinking, I braked as hard as I could, though I had no idea why he wanted us to stop. The brakes made an infernal squealing.

  “Back up—back up quickly! I saw a weapon lying in the street. I think it’s a machine gun.”

  I threw the 4×4 into reverse and we shot backward like an arrow. Stud jumped out. I told Piston and Lovelita to stay in the vehicle and I jumped out, too, followed by Little Pepper.

  “I was right—it’s a gun!” shouted Stud excitedly.

  I came up to him and took a look. Incredible. From its squarish lines and curved stock, I could tell right away it was an Uzi.

  “That isn’t a Kalashnikov,” said Stud. “Must be Chinese.”

  “It’s an Uzi,” I said, “a Mini Uzi. An Israeli gun. If the Mayi-Dogo militias, the Chechens, have Israeli instructors, we’ll really have to watch our step.”

  I explained to them why we needed to be even craftier than the Chechens. In Raid on Entebbe, the Israelis had successfully carried out a commando operation on a target located more than a thousand kilometers from their home base.

  Stud handed me the gun and I set about examining it, first of all pulling out the cartridge. In contrast to our good old AK-47s, the Uzi had its cartridge in the grip. The thirty-two bullets were all there. Whoever had tossed away the gun had been in such a hurry he hadn’t even taken out the clip. I replaced it, released the safety, and fired off a volley. That first round threw me off balance, and if I hadn’t been so experienced I would have fallen over. Didn’t know Uzis had such a kick.

  It was then that Little Pepper, expert tracker that he was, flushed out a Chechen spy. Was this perhaps the one who’d thrown down the weapon before running away and hiding? Little Pepper brought him to us. Actually, he was just a kid. He carried an old rusty basin filled with fruit that he insisted he was planning to sell. He was weeping, begging, crying, “Mama! Mama!” Those charades don’t work with me—kids are often used as spies. He was a Mayi-Dogo spy, probably trained by the Israelis or the Palestinians. I whacked him with the butt of my gun and he went down. The little weasel then turned to Lovelita, who had joined us, and tried to play on her tribal sympathies by telling her in heartrending tones that he knew her, that they were from the same neighborhood, that she was his big sister, and other bullshit. But my Lovelita isn’t a tribalist and refused to fall into the trap. I was proud of her. The kid didn’t catch on and continued to pester her with his whining. I’d had enough of it, and taking up my Uzi with one hand I fired two bullets into him—without killing him, though. I let Little Pepper finish him off, as a reward for flushing him out. I picked up a banana, peeled it, and ate it. It tasted good. The others set about gathering the rest of the fruit, while Lovelita, fascinated by the Uzi, amused herself by firing off volleys.

  “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s go,” I ordered.

  We headed back to the car, Stud in the lead, followed by Little Pepper. I brought up the rear, just behind Lovelita. She’d given me back the Uzi and had only the Kalashnikov, carrying it easily, the strap slung between her breasts as if she’d been doing this all her life. Stud reached the 4×4, opened the door, then closed it again with a slam. He went back to the corpse of the little street rat and gave it swift kick in the balls. Just a kick. The act was unexpected and made no sense. He came back laughing, and the whole bunch of us burst out howling, unable to contain ourselves. I started shaking with hiccups, while for some reason Lovelita’s laughter turned into racking sobs. Only Piston, who’d stayed in the car, didn’t laugh. He gazed at us with a puzzled air, as if we’d suddenly gone mad.

  We calmed down. I wanted to please Lovelita, so I told her she could drive. She got into the driver’s seat and asked me to change the cassette. I took out the cassette of Papa Wemba and put in one by Koffi Olomide. She said she didn’t want to listen to Koffi, and I suggested Tshala Mwana. She was going to say yes when she saw a cassette by Mbilia Bel. “Play that one for me,” she said. A guy ought to know how to satisfy his girl. I immediately put the cassette into the machine. We slammed the doors and she took off, singing the lyrics in Lingala along with Mhilia Bel as if she were singing them to me:

  Yamba ngaï

  Na yi maboko pwelele

  Motema na ngaï ya pembe

  Yamba ngaï na marriage.

  Receive me

  I come to you with open hands

  With a pure heart

  Receive me in marriage.

  I hadn’t been mistaken. When we got to the end of the avenue, a large number of people—surely including some Chechen militiamen—were fleeing toward the river. We had to stop them. Quickly we got out of the car. Lovelita remained at the wheel.

  “Back up!” I shouted at the crowd.

  We fired into the air to get the hordes of refugees to turn around and head in the opposite direction. This was tougher than we expected, and we were afraid of being trampled. There’s a strange phenomenon that often occurs: when people are too frightened, they actually lose their fear and can behave with an audacity that even the boldest of men would consider suicidal. Like that runty fellow whose muscles were a joke but who refused to obey our orders. “Turn around!” Piston yelled at him. Instead, the man continued to run forward, wild-eyed, as if he hadn’t heard.

  Piston got mad and was on the verge of clobbering him with the butt of his gun. With surprising quickness, the guy grabbed the weapon from Piston’s hands and hit him on the head with the strength of an ox. Since Piston had no hair to blunt the effect of whatever might fall on his head, he crumpled under the force of the blow. The incident galvanized the crowd, which came rushing at us. At that moment, I think Stud and Little Pepper panicked. They began firing on the refugees. For good measure, I tossed a grenade. Boom. Screams of pain and panic. Only then did the crowd begin to back up and flee in the opposite direction. It was a horrendous stampede.

  I felt my hands trembling with rage, or perhaps with retrospective fear. Then I calmed down. Piston wasn’t dead, and his head wasn’t cracked, either, as I’d thought. Hardly surprising, since as a result of being exposed to the worst sorts of weather without the protection of a thick mat of hair, his bald head had become harder than a coconut. As leathery as a tanned hide. But there was no time to lose—we had to pursue the refugees in order to drive them toward the barricade where the rest of the unit was waiting.

  My cell phone rang. I jumped.

  “Hello?” I said, bringing the phone to my ear.

  “Turf?”

  It was Giap. Now, this is what modern technology is all about. You can’t wage war without good communications. A leader must be reachable at every moment. I was the leader, so it was important that I be consulted on the current status of operations. Giap was fully aware of my importance and especially of my intellectual gifts—my ability to come up with winning strategies and devise the most cunning traps. All the same, I wished he’d stop with the “Turf” business, which lowered me in the eyes of my troops. I wished he’d call me by my real nom de guerre, which was Matiti Mabé, the evil weed that can mess up your head with a single puff of smoke, transforming the stars in the sky into millions of glowing, menacing
owl-eyes in the darkness.

  “Turf!” thundered the voice, impatient because I hadn’t responded immediately.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, to placate him.

  “What the fuck are you doing? I hear there are hundreds of people fleeing toward the embassies. What are you waiting for? Stop them! Don’t you know that once they get there, we can’t neutralize the militia fighters that are hiding among them?”

  “No one’s fleeing toward the embassies—they’re heading toward the river or toward the forest. That’s why I’m setting up barricades here to—”

  “You got shit for brains, or what?”

  His anger made the phone vibrate in my hand.

  “But . . . but . . . what did I do?”

  “What did you do? You’re incapable of controlling your zone, stupid! Go immediately to the other end of the district and neutralize those refugees. Let them run off into the woods, for all I care, but keep them away from the embassies! You got that? What on earth made me choose you as a leader? Turfha!—I should have given you a lawn mower, or a bunch of sheep to graze on you, rather than give you command of a unit! Who’s there with you?”

  “Uh, Little Pepper, Piston, and Stud.”

  “Stud is with you? He’s the one I should have chosen to head the unit! Go on, get to work and prevent those refugees from reaching the embassies. Move your ass!”

  And bam! he hung up. The village idiot.