IN THE WORLD BELOW by Nathan Oates
Just as Alain had promised, roadblocks had spread out overnight from Cité Soliel. Each time they approached one of the rubble heaps Alain took one hand off the wheel and draped his gun out the window for the gangs of men to see. Most seemed not to notice, and those that did lifted their hands to wave, then took the chance to scratch a cheek, or rub an eye. Once they were past, Alain sped up so they jolted and shook over the pitted road.
An hour ago, Donald had had to basically drag his son, Peter, out of bed and now the boy was staring into a book, head shaking so his chin kept disappearing into his swollen, acne-splotched neck. A T-shirt with black and white stripes that looked like a cheap Halloween costume was stretched tight over the boy’s jiggling breasts.
“What are you reading?” Donald shouted over the rush of air through the windows. The boy’s head wobbled up, his brown eyes stared blankly for a moment, then he held up the book.
“Is that for school?” What Donald really wanted to say was, Put that goddamn book down and look around. You’re in Haiti. This is history.
But Alain was already slowing for another roadblock, at the base of which was seated a little boy, surely not older than ten, with a long black gun nestled between his legs like a napping dog. The boy smiled when Alain waved: a dark face full of flashing teeth.
As they sped up, Alain reached across the car and slapped Donald’s arm. “You see, didn’t I tell you? It’s the morning shift. They save it for the drunks and kids.”
“You’re right. Of course you’re right,” Donald said, flinching in anticipation of another slap that didn’t come.
Alain adjusted the gun in his lap, as though it was a favorite kitten. He’d probably been carrying it the entire time Donald had been in Haiti, though he hadn’t noticed any bulge in Alain’s immaculately fitted Italian suits. But then maybe Donald was simply naïve, just another know-nothing administrator who spent his days in his office at Georgetown University surrounded by wealth and priviledge.
They were driving up to Alain’s chateau in the mountains where they could wait out “the situation,” as everyone had taken to calling it. When, last night, Donald had suggested they might try to get on a diplomatic flight to Miami, Alain had protested. “Things aren’t that bad, yet,” he’d said, waving a hand as though clearing the slightest puff of smoke. Behind him, the TV showed mobs of men with machine guns down at the docks, jumping and firing off rounds. “This is all just a show. They’re too stupid to manage anything real.” The television’s focus zoomed past the men and out to the long, stiff aircraft carrier with its lines of spidery helicopters.
The carrier had slipped into the bay two nights ago and Donald and Peter had gone up to their hotel roof deck first thing the next morning for the view. A woman in a floral pantsuit had clutched an enormous leather handbag to her chest and said, “Oh, thank god, they’re here.” As though nothing could possibly go wrong if the U.S. Navy decided to invade Port-au-Prince. As though there was any chance they’d actually invade. The ship, the “action,” was simply posturing and intimidation and it made Donald’s job impossible. He’d come to try to obtain visas for twenty-five Haitian students studying at colleges around the U.S., but the State Department so far refused to grant them. For three days Alain had driven Donald from one office to the next, where bureaucrats – or, more likely, CIA – had watched him beg, then said there was nothing they could do, but he really should consider getting out of Haiti as soon as possible. Was he aware how bad things were about to get? He’d wanted to ask if his stupid American life was worth more than twenty-five young men and women? Twenty-five of the smartest and hardest working students in this country, students who could, with education, with contacts, come back and help rebuild this . . . But, apparently, once the engines of the warships were warm, nothing mattered.
Peter peeked over the top of his book out the window. They appeared to be passing a landfill. Two children picked their way over a mound of trash, bending now and then to fish things from beneath their bare feet. Lines of black smoke knit loose weaves over the neighborhoods. It no longer seemed plausible that he’d begged to come on this trip. Had he really said, “But that’s what I want, Dad. To see that kind of place. I mean, that’s what the world is like, right?”
He’d only said this because he’d known his father would never refuse such a plea: he was always yakking about how screwed up everything was and how lucky they were, especially Peter, even though he was a fat, friendless high school junior who’d just bombed the SAT. Lucky, lucky, lucky. At least those kids, picking around in the trash, weren’t aware that their lives were shit. They probably just thought that’s what life was like. Meanwhile, Peter was doomed to a life that’d never be what he wanted, just like his father. Not that his father was honest enough to admit this. His father had always been delusional and just look at his friend, Alain, draping his gun, like a shiny penis, out the window. The guy was pretty obviously a gangster. But, then, thank god he was there. Imagine if his father was driving. They wouldn’t have gotten past the first roadblock. Those men would’ve stepped into the road and hauled them out of the Range Rover, into the suffocating heat. They’d have been forced to their knees and the men would’ve been screaming in that awful patois, and Peter would be slapped, his pockets pulled out, the watch ripped off his wrist. Then one of those kids would’ve stepped up, his bare feet slapping against the scalding concrete, and, smiling, the boy would lift his gun and push its greasy muzzle against Peter’s slick forehead and he wouldn’t even hear the shot.
Peter’s fear was too palpable to pretend it wasn’t there, but he didn’t want his father to know about it, so he tried to pretend he was doing fine, instead of basically shitting himself all day and night.
On his first full day in Haiti, three days ago, he’d wanted to see something of the city. Before heading off with Alain, his father had warned him not to go too far from the hotel. “Out of the good neighborhood,” was how he’d put it, but it was hard to see what that meant when Peter went out through the gliding glass doors. Maybe he’d meant out of the area where there was nothing but high stone walls topped with barbed wire, or glass, which made the whole street feel like a prison. Even there, though, Peter had been afraid. There were vendors who shouted at him in the French that bore no resemblance to what he’d learned in school and men in jeeps swerving close to the curb, as if trying to run him down. Worst of all were the soldiers, many of them younger than Peter. They looked as though they were considering whether they should beat the living shit out of this fucking American kid in his jeans, his Nike tennis shoes, that ridiculous fanny pack (which he’d worn ironically, but as soon as he was out on the street it was clear this was no place for irony). Two blocks from the hotel, he’d stopped to catch his breath. A mistake. One of the soldiers across the street noticed him. The soldier was tall and thin and no older than sixteen. His blue uniform didn’t fit: baggy pants were cinched up around his narrow waist and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up several times. He smiled at Peter and waved. Peter couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel his legs. Smiling, the soldier thrust a finger up his nose, the smile mixing with winces as he dug around, then he slowly drew the finger out, bringing with it a sagging line of glistening mucus. He held the finger up and grinned, then, before Peter could turn away, unzipped his pants and pulled out a wrist-thick dick. After waggling it at Peter, the soldier pissed a loud, thick stream into the street. Peter finally broke his look from the soldier and ran back to the hotel.
Since then he’d spent almost all his time in his room, with occasional trips down to the lobby, where he pretended to read the newspapers. Twice he’d gone to the restaurant and ordered cocktails, charging them to the room, eavesdropping on the American businessmen who leaned close over their tables. Probably they were CIA. Or mercenaries. He tried to track the particularly nefarious faces, but they all seemed to blur together: big, square heads with military haircuts and wide shoulders, as though they were all former college football players.
The second time he’d been in the bar, sitting against the wall that smelled like cigarettes, trying to read The Plague, his father had come in with two men. They ordered martinis. Seen from a remove, it was clear that his father was the little man, the powerless one, short and pudgy, with a coating of office fat. A few long strands of his white hair were draped over all his shiny scalp. Tortoise-frame glasses slid down his nose and he squinted instead of pushing them up. While the men sipped their drinks, his father had talked on and on, surely one of his boring stories.
Frustrated at not being able to hear, Peter eventually got up and walked right past the table, but still his father didn’t notice him. “It was at these ruins outside Damascus,” his father was saying. Peter had heard this story many times: how his father had been jumped in the ruins by a couple of crooks, but he’d kicked one in the stomach, and the other had run away, terrified at the American’s unexpected bravery. Each time he heard the story Peter rolled his eyes, but he always listened, hoping to catch his father in contradictions that’d prove the story was a lie. But he never found any kinks and sometimes wondered if maybe it was true. Or maybe his father was just a terribly precise liar. Or, maybe, on some level, his father believed all his bullshit was true.
Now, in the car, Peter tried hard to focus on Camus’s sentences and though they seemed simple enough, he had no idea what they meant. He turned the pages. He wanted to appreciate the irony: reading The Plague while trapped in a dying city, but any pleasure he might’ve felt was diluted by the fact that he wasn’t anything like Camus’s doctor. But that wasn’t Peter’s fault. What could he do? His father said, We’re going up to the chateau, and was Peter supposed to stay in the hotel alone and write about the events and maybe meet a correspondent for The New York Times in the lobby and over dinner show the man some of his writing and the guy would be so impressed he’d fax it back to the office and they’d print it? Or maybe the journalist would be a woman and she’d be so impressed that she’d come up to his room to work over a few edits and they’d lean together over his pages and he’d put his hand high up on her thigh so he could feel the pulse of a deeper warmth just inches away and she’d turn to him, eyes fluttering shut, and they’d roll back onto the sheets.
He covered his erection with his book and rubbed the pages in a slow circle.
When Donald looked back again, his son seemed to be sleeping, just as they were given an open view of the city, penned in by the aircraft carrier.
“These roads,” he shouted. “They’re almost as bad as D.C.” Peter might’ve cracked an eyelid, though he couldn’t be sure.
“Oh, come on!” Alain shouted, speeding up. “Don’t insult my country.”
Donald laughed and stared at his son – the boy’s eyes were clenched shut – then turned around to find that trees had swallowed the muddy, gutted road. Branches slapped against the windows like frantic, scrabbling hands.
* * *
Disgusting, Peter thought, as the fridge exhaled cool mist into his face. The top glass shelf brimmed with cheeses and vacuum-packed meats. The next shelf was devoted to a cluster of foggy bottles of exotic beer and wine. Alain had all this, while kids had to pick through garbage until they were handed guns so they could scare all the Americans badly enough to allow them to think, See, there’s really nothing you can do to help. Better just let them rot.
His dad was always going on about helping, but, really, when the world was like this, when it was full of guys like Alain, how could you possibly help? Over the years, Peter had met many of his father’s students. They were always polite, intelligent, and gentle, pulling him into elaborate dances that made him blush and trip, asking him all sorts of questions about his high school – that rich, elitist, Jesuit place full of meatheads his grandmother paid for – and somehow managing not to appear bored by his surely incoherent replies. Then they’d graduate and another crop would arrive. But what good could education do anyone in a place like this? This country was obviously totally fucked.
Alain led them out onto a slate patio that overlooked Port-au-Prince. Vertigo surged through Donald’s gut. The city was a smear in the morning haze, as though someone had tried to erase it.
“Coffee?” Alain said, clapping his long hands. “Or, maybe you’d like to rest?”
“Coffee sounds good,” Peter said. The boy was squinting, as though he’d spotted something below.
“Actually, is there a phone?” Donald said. Alain was acting like they’d skipped out on work to relax. Meanwhile, twenty-five young men and women were about to be shipped back into the hands of the Macutes. Some of them would be killed immediately. Others would disappear. But if they could just hold on for another year, Aristide would be back.
“Sure, just inside there,” Alain said, as though it was a stupid question, then turned to Peter. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Just black,” Peter said, grinning, as though this made him a man.
Donald watched his son and Alain sip coffees as he dialed. They should’ve stayed at the hotel with the other Americans and the international press. What did he really know about Alain? Only that he was from a wealthy family and, in addition to running a series of gyms, he worked in “protection.” The first time Donald had come to Haiti, Alain had picked him up at the airport – somehow plucking him from the crowd of dazed passengers – and asked if he could run a quick errand before going to the hotel. “It’ll just take a minute. And you’ll see something of the city,” he’d said, already driving out into the suburbs. Eventually, they turned in through the high iron gates of a grocery store, guarded by men with machine guns. Pulling around to the loading dock, Alain left the Range Rover idling as he leapt up onto the platform and shouted at an obese man in a tent-like T-shirt. Alain cuffed the man on the side of the head, then grabbed his shirt and pulled him close. Shining lines of sweat ran over the man’s cheeks and his big eyes seemed unable to blink. When the fat man waddled into the store, Alain turned to Donald with a bemused smile, as though stuck in line at the post office. The fat man returned with an envelope, which Alain glanced at before cuffing the man’s head once more. As he climbed into the SUV, he held the envelope open so Donald could see the thick stack of twenties. The only explanation Alain had offered was, “In this country, if you want to get something done you always have to do it yourself.”
At least Peter had no idea about the reality of the situation. The boy probably just admired Alain, thought him tall and handsome and strong, unlike his droopy, bespectacled father, worrying over the calling codes.
“I mean,” Peter said, “what I really want to do is travel, you know? Through South America.”
“Like Che!” Alain said, smiling over the rim of his tiny cup.
“Well,” Peter said, spilling coffee down his chin. “I don’t know about Che. I mean, I’ve read The Motorcycle Diaries – “
“Of course, of course,” Alain interrupted, laughing.
He couldn’t tell if the man was mocking him, or if that smirk was just permanently lodged on his face. At first, when Peter met Alain, he’d thought he was an idiot. But, Peter had to admit now, Alain seemed to actually know things about the world. He had an edge that wasn’t immediately apparent, but which, once you spotted it, seemed very sharp and hard. Or maybe that was only in contrast with his company, these two lumpy Americans. At least Peter was young. He could change. At least he wasn’t ruined and trapped like his father.
“But, yeah,” he said. “I mean, I guess kind of like Che in that I want to really see the countries you know? Not just the tourist routes.”
Alain was smiling at him, as though he saw through the thin fabric of Peter’s idea of himself. But maybe he also saw (as his father never could) that ultimately Peter did genuinely want to see the world, and that this desire was something in itself. And rare. Alain might be a corrupt aristocrat, but Peter couldn’t help but admire him. Compare him with Peter’s father, whose starched white business shirt was sagging with sweat. His father’s mouth worked noiselessly at the phone he clutched with both hands, as though it was a wriggling bird. Then look at Alain, with his shining black skin, his muscular arms, his perfectly fitted suits, the white collar of his shirt startling against his black skin, staring out at the ruined city below, completely unperturbed by anything.
Alain said he’d done something like that, though he’d gone to Africa. He said he’d accidentally crossed into Uganda and had been picked up by soldiers on the side of the road. “They drove me around a little, then dropped me off at a whorehouse. They wouldn’t leave until I went inside. When I was in one of the rooms, a soldier came and watched at the window.”
Peter could almost feel the legs of a whore wrapping around him – a Chilean whore, or maybe, Brazilian. Of course, no matter how much he might travel, he’d never end up like Alain. First off, he’d never be able to just go around paying whores and feeling OK about it. But goddamn did he want to. He really, really wanted to.
“More coffee?” Alain said.
“Actually, I’m kind of tired.” Why did he say this? Was it even true? He didn’t want to go inside. He wanted to stay out here talking with Alain, having a real conversation for once. But now, as usual, he’d fucked it up.
“You remember where your room is,” Alain said, flipping a hand at the glass doors. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt beneath the sleeves of his suit coat and went inside. Peter stayed out on the patio, letting heat settle over him in layers until his arms were slicked with sweat.
Donald tried to finish up his call as Alain slid open the glass door. He hadn’t wanted to call Margie. He should let her worry: wasn’t it her favorite pastime, fretting, nibbling at Donald and Peter’s relationship until he felt awkward around his son? What does she say about me?, he wanted to ask. He wanted to tell his son not to listen to her, wanted to say that there was always another side to the story, if you just listened.
Alain stood just inside the door, close enough that he could surely hear everything.
“I told you, everything is fine. Don’t worry.”
“I just can’t believe you took him down there. What do you think you’re doing? You’ve always thought you’re some kind of stupid hero, but now you’re bringing Peter into it and I don’t – ”
“Right, right,” he said. “OK, well, he’ll give you a call.” Donald hung up the phone and said, “Peter’s mother.”
“Does she work at the office?” Alain said, glaring at the phone as though Donald had smeared shit on it.
“I just wanted to let her know where we are.” As soon as he said it aloud, the stupidity was obvious: they were on the brink of civil war and Donald was clogging up the lines, costing Alain a fortune.
“And did you talk to the office?” Alain took a step closer, closing Donald into the corner.
“Oh, yeah, nothing they can do, of course,” Donald said, and then tried to laugh, though it came out as a croak.
Alain pointed at the phone. “Next time you talk to them, be sure to tell them how helpful I’ve been. How I’ve taken care of you.”
“Oh, I did. And I can’t tell you how much – ”
“Because, I expect a little something more, for all this.” Alain stepped closer, breath whistling out his nose. Beads of sweat had gathered on his upper lip.
“Right, I mean, of course. Of course they will.” Through the blood rushing in Donald’s ears, his own voice sounded like the whine of a distant automobile.
“Good. Because I’m not some asshole who works for free, Donald. But you know that.”
“Of course. Of course you’re not. I mean, I know that.”
Alain walked into the kitchen and jerked open the fridge. Donald’s legs felt stiff and his hands were shaking. He thrust them into his pockets, but they didn’t stop.
* * *
Jungle might not be the right word, Peter thought, glancing back at a corner of the chateau, but the tangle of trees, vines, and brush certainly looked, at the very least, junglesque. Probably, though, it was just a forest. Ahead the path narrowed into thicker foliage (thicker jungle).
Sweat ran out of his hair and into his eyes. Probably he wouldn’t feel so shitty, if he hadn’t let himself get so fat. But after he’d been cut from the freshman soccer team he’d thought, Fuck this, you ignorant assholes, and stopped running, stopped doing much of anything except reading and writing and eating. It’d surprised him how good it’d felt to gorge until he was swollen and puffy, sprawled on his bed, filling a journal.
Out the window of his room at the chateau he’d seen a meadow higher up the mountain, and that’s where he was trying to go, though now he wasn’t sure if this was the right direction. But if he could get there, he’d walk quickly and grass would whip against his legs . . . Jessica should be with him, his best friend, the girl he wanted to marry, though often it really felt like all he wanted to do was fuck her. See, he told himself, forcing himself to start jogging, you’re disgusting. This is why you’re alone.
He didn’t notice the man on the side of the path, half-hidden by the heavy growth, until he was right next to him and then Peter’s legs twisted and he fell into sticky, clawing branches and mud. Peter rolled over, letting out a low, guttural moan. The man moved onto the trail and stood smiling down at him, only a few rotten stumps of teeth in his gums. The man’s arms were bare – his shirt was chopped messily away at the shoulders – and a puffy, jagged scar ran down one forearm. The man stepped toward Peter and started speaking, gesturing wildly with his hands.
“What?” Peter shouted, scooting away through the leaves. “No, get away!” The man’s voice got closer, as though he was bending over Peter, who had rolled onto his stomach and scrambled, pressing his face into the wet muck and finally letting out a long scream. When he looked over his shoulder the man was gone. Blobs of light blinded him for a second. “Hey!” he shouted, but there was no one. Don’t chicken out, you pussy, he thought and wheezing, close to tears, got to his feet. He went carefully up the path, unable to catch his breath, looking to both sides and behind him, holding to the thicker trees for balance. If he hadn’t been going so slowly, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the hut.
The walls of roped together sticks leaned in a clear patch on the steep slope, clinging to the ravine. The metal sheets of the roof drooped like wet leaves.
A little boy, in just a frilly woman’s blouse out the bottom of which poked his stick legs, came around the corner, chewing a bright green stick. The boy picked through the debris – a bashed in bucket, more metal sheets – until he cleared a bare patch of dirt on which he turned around twice before flopping down. Once seated, he began humming, a high, clear pitch.
Peter stepped off the path, toward the hut. Finally, the real Haiti was right in front of him. These people, this little boy, were the ones who needed the real help, not the rich kids his father brought to America. And Peter was here. He could help. The boy hadn’t noticed him, was busy sketching on the dirt with a stick, chewing now and then on the other end. Peter checked his pockets and of course he’d left his wallet behind, and his fanny pack, so all he had was his little leather bound journal, which fit tight in his back pocket, and the fancy black pen his grandmother had given him for his birthday last year. It was the pen he always used when writing in his journal; he’d already replaced the cartridge twice, but he pulled it out and held it in front of him, taking a few more steps off the path.
“Hey,” he said, shaking the pen. The boy didn’t hear him. He was humming loudly and bobbing his head.
“Hey, you,” Peter said, louder, and this time the boy looked up, his humming stopped. It was as though it had been coming from a radio whose cord had been pulled.
The toes of the boy’s feet were terribly splayed, and thick yellow calluses covered his heels. His legs were lined with small scratches, red ridges rising on his black skin.
“Do you want this?” Peter said, waggling the pen between two fingers. “Don’t you want it? It’s nice, here, take it.”
The boy leaned away, but stayed where he was, bringing the stick to his mouth and chewing with his few crooked teeth.
“It’s for you,” Peter said. He tried to smile and nodded. “It’s a gift, for you. Here, you can have it.” He stepped closer stumbling over one of the metal sheets so it clattered.
Out of the corner of his eye, in the dark of the hut, shapes moved. A voice snapped. The little boy looked at the doorway. A hand appeared on the doorframe, long, brown fingers. Peter still held the pen in front of him as the hand turned into an arm and then half a face, yellowed eyes staring at him. Taking a deep breath he threw the pen at the house and turned and ran up the hill to the path, falling to his knees, clawing through the thick branches to the path. As he ran his ankles wobbled and his breath burned, but he managed not to fall until he reached the chateau’s groomed yard.
* * *
Once dark had fallen, Alain took them out on the patio for drinks. The flagstones were bathed in floodlights around which bugs swarmed, casting wild shadows. Alain poured four fingers of whiskey into three glasses and set the bottle at his feet. The city below was lit up, vague blobs of light, a few headlights on the roads, and beyond the city, out in the bay, sat the brightly illuminated aircraft carrier, an enormous yellow 69 on its tower.
Donald watched his son choke down a mouthful, but said nothing. Since that confrontation in the living room, Alain had been acting as though he was fed up with these two Americans. He’d tossed a frozen pizza in the oven and then “went out for something,” not returning for hours. Chewing the icy crust, Donald had tried to make conversation, but Peter had been his usual, petulant self.
Now the boy, who’d showered and changed into a v-neck sweater that showed off the white lump of his sternum, would get drunk and act like an asshole and chat up Alain, who – there was no point in pretending any longer – was little better than a gangster. The man had changed out of his suit into a tight-fitting, shiny black T-shirt and gray wool pants. Instead of wing-tips, he wore elaborate black leather sandals. Alain clearly saw himself as one of those who could get what they wanted by force, and of course he thought this because it was true. When Donald got back to D.C., he’d terminate the man’s contract.
Now that they were all seated, Alain was staring at him from across the patio as though he knew exactly what Donald was thinking. Even when Alain lifted his drink he didn’t look away. Donald smiled stiffly and blinked out at the lights, heat rising through his neck. When Alain stood, he flinched, but the man just went inside without a word.
“Nice view, isn’t it?” Donald said, lamely.
“What?” The boy was clutching his drink as though he was dying of thirst.
“The view, it’s nice.”
“Whatever you say, Dad.” The boy shook his head as though this was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.
Donald was trying to think of something to say besides, Fuck off, Peter, when the floodlights snapped off.
Whiskey sloshed over Peter’s hand in the sudden dark and he almost called out, but, thank god, managed to squash the impulse. In the dark, the lights of the city seemed very close. He had a terrible feeling that those people he’d seen in the shack, the man with his scarred arms, the face in the doorway, were coming through the forest for them, gripping machetes, shoulders hunched as they slipped into the dark house, pointing to the shapes on the patio. Footsteps sounded behind him and a hand came down on his shoulder.
“I thought this would be better. And I have something special for you.” The hand lifted from Peter’s shoulder and a dark shape passed before him. The eruption of static startled him – more whiskey slopped onto his hand – and then he spotted a small, red dot and, in its glow, Alain’s face. “With this, we can listen in.”
“To what?” Peter said, hating the wobble of his voice.
“Your Navy,” Alain said. The radio sputtered and a voice came through clear for a second, then faded. “They don’t hide their signal. But why should they? There’s no one here but a bunch of stupid Haitians.”
Donald wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh, but his son, apparently, thought it funny enough to giggle and this drove Alain on. “That’s right, Peter. We Haitians, we’re a truly, very stupid people.”
The static screamed out of the radio and then an American voice with a thick Southern accent came through, reciting a series of numbers before ending with, “Over.” Donald strained to make some sense of it. More numbers, a brief sentence, one of which seemed to have to do with location.
“Are they in the city?” he said. The lights below wavered and seemed to shift with the wind, as though everything had become unmoored and was mixing.
“Of course they are,” Alain said. “They come and go wherever they want.” Donald’s eyes had adjusted somewhat to the dark and he could make out shapes: Peter’s round torso, and Alain’s face, lit like a mask by the radio’s red light.
After a few minutes of listening, Donald thought he could make out the point of the military chatter. There were three, or maybe four, voices. One kept calling himself Eagle’s Nest and another was obviously Alpha Team. After a while, Alain confirmed all this. There were recon groups in the city, checking out the situation and identifying the locations of the Macutes.
“In case they want to invade,” Alain said. “But then they should just blow the whole place up. Better for everyone, am I right?”
“Well, that’s what we’re good at,” Peter said, surprised at the volume of his voice.
“Exactly. That’s why you’re so rich, right? Because you blow everyone else up?”
“Anyone, everyone, bomb, bomb, bomb,” Peter said. Sitting there in the dark and talking like this was thrilling. Peter was on Alain’s side against America, against his father, against all the bullshit of his life. Fuck America. Fuck his school and the goddamn SAT. It was all imperial violence. He got to his feet and went to get more whiskey. As he bent to grab the bottle he sensed Alain leaning forward, perhaps with a balled fist, ready to strike. Peter’s legs felt heavy and loose, as though his bones, wet sand, had fallen into his feet.
Donald watched his son return to his seat, slurping at his refilled glass. Those soldiers down there weren’t much older than the boy, but were from a whole other world. They were brash and wild and capable and direct, while Peter felt entitled to complain endlessly. He knew nothing about life. Everything had been handed to him and he picked over it in search of a flaw. When he was younger than Peter was now, Donald had sold papers on the street and worked for the park service and waited tables and worked in a book store all to make enough money so he could go to college, and once there, he’d worked sixty hours a week at similar, crappy jobs. Peter’s one job in sixteen years had been at the local country club. He’d lasted three weeks: according to Margie the boy had come home early one day, weeping, saying the other guys were bullies and he wasn’t going back.
Donald had had such hopes for this trip. He’d connect with his son. He’d show Peter the truth of his life, his work, how vital it was, that there was a whole world out there, available with a little effort. Peter had spent most of the flight down reading, but Donald had managed to instigate a brief conversation about where Peter might go to college. The boy had said, “I’m thinking, I don’t know, maybe California. You know? I want to get away from D.C. To see new stuff.”
At that moment, Donald felt this was a part of himself rising up in his son. Margie wanted the boy to live at home when he went to college, probably to the University of Maryland, or Catholic, or George Mason, somewhere within forty minutes, so she could keep him in her clutches. But with his father’s help the boy could get away, find himself, shed this ugly, moping solipsism. But, that hope had gone sour over the course of the trip. Every night after his meetings, Donald had come back to the hotel room to find Peter passed out on his tangled sheets in his boxers, the air sour with alcohol, a vaguely sexy movie flickering blue light.
Now Alain was telling the boy about his time in the army, about the time he’d had to put down looters after a hurricane. “Wow, that’s incredible,” Peter said, his voice full of the admiration Donald longed to have directed at himself, though he knew it never would be again.
The back and forth between Alpha team and Eagle’s Nest was interrupted by a series of thuds and then a new voice came on, screaming.
Voices piled atop one another. Someone said, “Fucking shithead,” and then there was another round of shots.
“What is that?” Donald said.
Through a clatter, a man managed to scream out that he was pinned down. “You’ve got to send someone to fucking get me. You got to send somebody fucking right now.”
“We hear you, Beta,” Eagle said. “We are assessing your position.”
Peter held his breath. Adrenaline ran up and down his arms, catching for a moment in his neck before spilling into his head. He imagined himself back in Port-au-Prince, weighed down by fatigues, body-armor, a gun, moving in formation, scanning the rooflines, the alleys, and then there’d be the whistling hiss of the bullets striking the wall, dust and plaster ricocheting into his mouth and eyes. He’d lift his heavy gun to his shoulder and pull the trigger and the dark shape he’d sighted atop the building would disappear into a blaze of fire.
After another series of shots, Beta started screaming. “They know where I am, you fucking pieces of shit! Get me the fuck out of here. Now, get me out of fucking here.”
“Who is that?” Donald said. Still, Alain ignored him.
Eagle told Beta to stay where he was – “No shit, you asshole!” – while they tried to get a vehicle out to him. “Try harder,” he screamed.
“You poor Americans,” Alain said. “You are so brave behind your guns. But alone, you are like babies. Each of you, a trembling little baby.”
It was terrible to hear that tone – the same tone Alain had used in the living room, the same tone he’d surely used with that man on the loading dock. Alain could step across the stones and stick a knife in Donald’s neck and he’d never see it coming.
“That’s exactly right,” Peter said. “Bunch of stupid bullies.”
“Who love to kill the Haitians. Brown people. Anyone, as long as he’s brown. Am I right, Peter?”
“That’s right. We’re a bunch of dumbshit racist pigs. Pigs, Alain. Someone needs to come and bomb the shit out of us,” Peter said, nearly shouting, his voice slurred.
Alain laughed wildly. This was why they’d sheltered Peter. This was why Donald and Margie had hidden him away in the suburbs, in private schools, in the idea that he was smart, special, lovable. Because the alternative was a world of men like Alain.
There were more gunshots and more obscenities screamed by Beta until finally Eagle said, “Beta, there is no vehicle available. You’ll need to get yourself out.”
“Myself! You motherfucking ass-shit-whore-fuck – ” He went on that way until a new voice broke in.
“This is Sleeping Cobra. I have your position, Beta.” There was an accent in the voice, a lilt, Peter thought, much like Alain’s, as though he was both here with them on the patio and also down there in the city. Peter tried again to imagine what it must be like to be pressed into a doorway with gunfire coming down on you. Would he feel totally removed from himself? Or would he feel the sick uselessness of his flabby arms, his fragile jawbone, ready to shatter?
“Who the fuck is that?” Beta shouted. “Eagle, who is that?”
“We read you, Sleeping Cobra. Please state your position,” Eagle said.
“I see you Beta, and I see the hostiles,” the Haitian said.
“Who are you, asshole? Eagle, who the fuck is this guy?”
Eagle demanded verification of identification from Sleeping Cobra, but the questioning was smothered by a series of explosions. Peter leaned forward, heart pounding, sure he should be able to see what he was hearing. The lights below pulsed and wavered, betraying nothing.
Beta was screaming again, his voice trembling with tears and Eagle demanded to know what was going on, but both were drowned by another series of concussions.
“You’re clear now, Beta. You can move,” the Haitian voice said.
“What the hell is going on?” Beta’s voice was cracked and small.
“Stay where you are,” Eagle said.
“The hostiles are down.” The Haitian voice was calm, as though reporting the weather. “You can move.”
They listened for a moment more, but neither Sleeping Corba or Beta said anything. Alpha team began reciting coordinates again. Alain turned the volume on the radio down and laughed. “You see, Donald, what I am saying? You need us, you Americans. You need the Haitians.”
“It’s true,” Donald said. He was shaking too much to sip the last of his whiskey.
“Who was that guy?” Peter said. “I mean, that Cobra guy, who was he?”
He felt stronger, having heard that, than he had since, well, ever. Ever in his whole stupid life. And he knew whose fault that was. The man responsible for making him afraid was sitting a few feet away. How many times had his dad done that little shake of the head: No, son, that’s wrong. You don’t know anything. But the truth was now clear – his father was the one who didn’t know anything. His father was the idiot, the liar. This was the goddamn world. Men blowing each other to shit in the streets. Finally, he wanted to shout. Finally the fucking truth! Peter could stand up and go over and punch his father in the face and the stupid ass old man would never see it coming.
“He’s like me,” Alain said. “A man who saves Americans who don’t deserve it.”
For the first time since they’d come out onto the patio Donald was glad for the darkness. Soon, the people below would come up the mountain after them – the Macutes in their pick-up trucks, the little boys with their guns, eyes bloodshot, bare feet slapping on the asphalt, as they went house to house, dragging people screaming into the streets, prodding them with the butts of their guns, then making them kneel in the shrubs. Then they’d step quickly up behind them and hack through their necks with a machete. But maybe with the lights off they’d pass right by Alain’s house. The dark pressed on his chest like a stone, but it also concealed him from the world. And it concealed his son, his son who hated him, his son who would go back home and brag about this trip to his friends, distort it, bend it so that it meant almost nothing, so that it became just another trial in his endless litany of self-pity, his son who sat slumped now in his seat, panting heavily, like an old, dying dog.
Nathan Oates has had short stories in The Antioch Review, Witness, Fugue, and The Best American Mystery Stories.