The Dung Beetles of Liberia

by Daniel V. Jr. Meier

  “Then you must be a busy man.”

  “Yes, yes I am. Monrovia is, as you Americans say, a happening place—lots of foreigners, lots of money, and lots of things valuable to the West.” The major had a military bearing—square shoulders, direct eye contact, and a firm jaw. His wife looked European and watched me carefully as the major probed. “You know,” he continued, “there is a lot of traffic going through Monrovia in the way of escaped criminals and others wanted by your government and mine. There is a pipeline, so to speak, from Europe to South America directly through Monrovia.”

  “Why here? Why Monrovia?” I asked.

  “Just look at the map,” he said. “This part of West Africa is the closest geographical point in this hemisphere to South America. It’s a relatively short flight and, as you probably know, Liberia is, shall we say, very liberal in its treatment of—”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” I interrupted. “I do contract flights to the mines and missions, but I haven’t seen any German war criminals on my airplane.”

  “Yes, but your colleagues—some of them have very interesting histories.”

  “I didn’t know that it was a war crime to fight for one’s country.”

  “Oh, but it is if you murder innocent civilians or unarmed prisoners of war.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Major, but the former Luftwaffe pilots that I work with here were just very young men fighting in the air for their lives. And, really, do you think it’s appropriate to talk about such things here?”

  “As you wish, my friend,” the major said. “But I would like to meet with you later, at your convenience.”

  “I don’t think I can help you, Major. If you’ll excuse me.” I looked at his wife. “Nice to have met you, ma’am,” I said. She smiled without parting her lips.

  I made my way to the bar, hoping to get as far away from the major as I could. The bartender was a local who spoke German and English very well. I asked for a gin and tonic and in a few moments he had it sitting in front of me—an excellent job. From my position at the bar I scanned the room for Ana. I saw her chatting with an older couple. I made my way toward her through the growing crowd of guests.

  She smiled at my approach and introduced me to Sir Reginald Hooper and his wife, Alice. Sir Reginald was an executive with British Petroleum.

  “Well young man,” he said, extending his hand, “Ana tells us that you’re a pilot.”

  “Yes sir, I am,” I answered giving his hand a couple of light pumps.

  “Did you fly during the war?”

  “No sir, I was only six months old when Pearl Harbor was bombed.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said laughing with just a little bit of embarrassment. Alice laughed too—a very restrained, controlled laugh. “All you flyers look so young. Some of our RAF chaps from the war look like they haven’t aged a day.”

  “That’s from flying Spitfires, sir. They fly very fast you see and, as you know from Einstein’s special relativity theory, the faster you go the slower you age.”

  “Really!” Sir Reginald said looking genuinely astonished. “Do you think so?”

  “Oh, without a doubt,” I said. “Take jet pilots for example. Their airplanes fly much faster than Spitfires, so they age much slower. Surly you’ve noticed how young those guys look.”

  “I never thought of it that way, young man, but you may have a point. Yes, indeed you may have. I’ll have to see about taking flying lessons.” Sir Reginald waited politely for the laughter to die down. “Well, it was lovely to meet you, young man, but we must be moving along—lots of people to see. Cheerio.” Mrs. Hooper smiled at me and blew a slight kiss at Ana.

  “Did I scare them off?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I doubt that Sir Reginald knows much about relativity, but he is a specialist in public relations and schmoozing politicians. I think this party is an opportunity for him.”

  “Ana, I’m sure there are a lot of interesting people here, but this will be our last night together.”

  “Let me say hello to a few more and then we can go.” She touched her index finger to her lips then touched mine.

  The next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, I took Ana to Robertsfield and watched her get on an old DC-4 bound for Cairo. She had said that I could meet her in Germany any time I wished. I didn’t answer. There was, of course, Jenny, and my behavior with Ana had not been exemplary. I had convinced myself that I would never see Ana again—that is, until I saw her climb up the stairway and disappear into the aircraft cabin. I found myself clutching the paper on which she had written her address with great care.

  CHAPTER 12

  JUJU

  I had a flight scheduled in the morning, so I drove back to Lilly’s. It was a few days before Christmas. I picked up the latest copy of the Washington Post lying in her living room—it was several days old—and saw that it had snowed in Washington. There was a picture of the Capitol building taken from a snow-covered mall. In Monrovia it was 85 degrees and steam was rising from the streets after a recent shower.

  I had tried to make it a point not to drink before 6:00 p.m. except on celebratory occasions, but I needed something to dull the pain of Ana’s departure. I mixed myself a large gin and tonic, flopped in my stuffed chair, and stared out of the window trying to imagine snow falling outside. Eventually, I fell asleep in the chair and the empty glass slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.

  Later that night I was awakened by screams and shouting. It was like emerging from a dream but as I sat there, fully awake, I realized that the commotion was coming from just outside. I quickly stepped out into the hallway. Boarders and staff alike were running toward the back of the house. I joined them. There was great confusion going on in the backyard, focused around a group of people crowded around a tree. I pushed my way through the group. One of the house boys that I recognized was propped up against the tree. The lower part of his body was covered with blood. His abdomen had been slit open.

  “It be de Leopard Men,” someone in the crowd said.

  “Bad juju,” another said.

  Others mumbled, “Ya, bad juju.”

  Lilly came running out of the house. When she saw what had happened she started yelling and pulling at her hair. “Zhey killed Josef! Schijt! Schijt! Zhey killed Josef and I have already paid him a month’s wages in advance.”

  One of the roomers standing near me whispered, “That’s Lilly. Always concerned about money. It’s not like she has a problem. There are always three or four more boys waiting to take his place.”

  As I stood there trying to process what was going on around me, the police came and looked over the scene. They questioned Lilly for a few minutes and left. After Josef’s body had been taken away I learned from Miguel, one of the Spanish pilots staying at Lilly’s, that around Christmas time a group called the Leopard Men, also known as the juju people or Heartmen, would capture young men or teenage boys, kill them, and cut their livers out. They would then eat the raw livers during a ritual meal for society members. They believed that eating the boys’ organs would restore youth and sexual vigor. Miguel believed that most of the Leopard Men were witch doctors.

  “Until now,” Miguel said, “I thought the Leopard Men were just a myth. But it’s true. And I now believe the other things that I was told.”

  “What other things?” I asked.

  “That all the locals truly believe it. They tell their children, ‘Watch out for the Leopard Men! They will get you when you walk alone!’ Also that your best friend could be a Leopard Man and you wouldn’t know it.

  “It’s a very secret organization. The local papers don’t report on the Leopard Society, but everybody seems to know about it. You will never find anyone who admits to being a member or even to publicly admitting that such an organization exists.”

  Miguel assured me that the society wasn’t interested in white boys and, as he was quick to point out, I was too old anyway.

  Just when I was beginning
to think I understood the Liberians, something like Josef’s needless death would shake me to the core, leaving me confused and unbalanced. For me, everything was unexpected. One day there was a group of men and women dressed in green palm fronds dancing happily down the street. I never found out why, but I think it was a happy event—what they call good juju. Another day there was a group of pubescent girls tied together, naked from the waist up with the upper part of their bodies covered in white clay, being led by a black man in western dress. The girls were silent and solemn. Was it a rite of passage? Were they on their way to being sold? Again I never knew, but I think that was definitely bad juju.

  There had been a series of thefts from a local post office, so a witch doctor was summoned by the post master. He was a small, shriveled man with snow-white hair and watery, yellow eyes. He was there to sort out who was stealing mail from the post office. The police knew well the power of juju. They lined up all the post office workers, generally referred to as boys. Any native man who did manual labor was call a boy. There were five of them in t-shirts, shorts and sandals, standing up straight. The police made sure that they stood straight.

  The witch doctor slowly walked in front of all five men and locked eyes with each one.

  “Okay boys,” he said, “which one o’ you be de rogue?”

  No one moved.

  “I smell a rogue here, an’ I know one o’ you is it.”

  Still no movement. The witch doctor had an iron pot filled with white hot charcoal. He stuck his panga (African machete) in the pot until in glowed with heat. Then he smeared a patch of white clay on each of the workers’ legs. The witch doctor then pressed the flat blade of his hot panga hard on the leg of each man where the clay had been smeared. You could see the smoke and hear the flesh sizzling, but each man stayed absolutely still—until he got to the fourth man. As the witch doctor approached, the man screamed and tried to run away. The police caught him and brought him back. The man admitted to the thefts. This was juju. Everyone believed in juju.

  CHAPTER 13

  I PUT YOU DOWN

  We were well into the dry season in Liberia and could expect good flying weather most days, except for when the Harmattan wind hit. When conditions are right, it blows down from the Sahara Desert and brings a blinding, choking dust that looks more like a yellow fog. It grounds everything that flies—even the birds. It gets in your throat, clogs your nostrils, and contaminates the food and water. It penetrates anywhere there is a chink big enough for a microscopic particle to get through.

  This gritty veil of dust could wax and wane with any particular day or hour. It could roll in at any time during the dry season, and all of Monrovia would be forced to wait it out. This time it came up as I was headed to the airfield. I quickly turned and started back for Lilly’s. By the time I got there, I was in need of a bath and change of clothes.

  The next day, after the Harmattan wind had passed, it was an unusually perfect flying day—clear with unlimited visibility and temps in the mid-seventies. Paterson and his boys had cleaned most of the grit from the airplanes. The rollers had my airplane loaded by the time I got to the airfield. It was a parts delivery to a new gold mine in the area of Gbarpolu in the northern part of Liberia. It was one of the few mines in Liberia that wasn’t an open pit. The gold miners of Gbarpolu burrowed tunnels to get at layered veins of glistening wealth buried deep within the mountains.

  I checked the load manifest, did the weight and balance calculations, and was on my way to the airplane when Deet stopped me.

  “I heard about de boy. A terrible ting vhat des people do to von anodder. Look, some of us are getting togedder and renting a house on de beach. Vould you like to join us? You can get avay from Lilly’s. No more boys vid der livers cut out und room enough to entertain a lady now and den. Vhat do you say?”

  “Can I let you know tomorrow?” I said, holding up my weight and balance data sheets to show that I was busy and in a hurry.

  “Ja, sure, no problem. I’ll tell dem to hold it von more day.”

  “Thanks,” I said and walked to the airplane. It was overloaded as usual and the takeoff had to be done carefully—nursing the struggling craft off the runway and accelerating in ground effect until I had sufficient speed to clear the trees at the end of the field.

  The trip went according to plan without a single glitch. On the way back I couldn’t resist playing with a few clouds. I circled the fluffy columns, looking down the sides of these white towers as though skirting the side of a mountain, occasionally climbing steeply up and over the tops then down the side and, puff, into the column itself. Then, enveloped in white mist for a few moments, I would pop out of the other side to see the green-and-brown checkered ground thousands of feet below.

  All good things must come to an end, however, and soon I was back at Spriggs-Payne completing the paperwork. When I had finished and everything was signed and sealed, I jumped into Junebug with the intention of asking Deet to show me the house. But, since it was late afternoon and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, I drove to the Gurley Street Bar. I was enjoying some corned beef and rice with a nice cold Coke when Colin, my new best friend from my last visit here, and a couple of his friends dropped into the empty chairs.

  “Hello mate,” he said. He then introduced his friends, Ozzie and Simon. Ozzie was a white Kenyan with reddish hair, pale blue eyes, and leathery skin. He wore the usual khaki shorts and open shirt. The corners of his eyes were wrinkled from squinting, and he seemed to squint now from habit. His eyes locked on to you and did not let go. I was never clear as to what Ozzie did except, I was told, that he sometimes worked for Max, the guy who “gets things done for people.” I assumed that this was a bit exaggerated but, nevertheless, close to the truth.

  Simon was an Australian and had that happy, smiling, welcoming nature of many Australians. He was an “importer/exporter.” His taste ran a little loud as he wore a bright Hawaiian shirt, long yellow, slightly stained trousers, and leather sandals. Colin introduced me as “that young American pilot who’s taking a fucking from McCoy.” The three of them were on their way to a party and wanted me to come along as their token Yank. The US army had a survey team based about twenty miles outside of Monrovia, and Colin had heard that they gave great parties with lots of food and drink.

  I gulped down my corned beef and Coke, paid the bill, and followed them outside. The wind had picked up and dust and bits of trash were being blown around in swirls. I could see lightning in the distance but couldn’t hear the thunder. Colin managed to hail a taxi and we all piled in—Colin in the front seat while I sat squeeze between Ozzie and Simon in the back. The driver was a big man, probably a Nigerian since they controlled most of the taxi business in the city. He acknowledged Colin’s direction with a nod. He didn’t speak.

  We started on our journey to the survey station. Dust and bugs were sticking to the windshield and the wipers were smearing the accumulation into a thin opaque film. Colin withdrew a flask of whiskey from somewhere, took a pull on it, and passed it around. After a while, when we were all beginning to feel a little happy, Simon started singing bar songs. Soon, we had all joined in, except for the cab driver.

  We had gone about fifteen miles and were well into the second verse of “Waltzing Matilda” when the cab driver pulled to the side of the road. We were far outside the city and it was pitch black but for the occasional lightning flash. I thought he was going to complain about the singing. Colin looked up and asked the cab driver what was wrong. No answer.

  “What’s wrong?” Colin repeated.

  The cab driver said, without turning his head. “I want more money, mon, or I put you down. I will put you down, mon!”

  “What? What did he say?” Ozzie demanded.

  The taxi driver folded his arms and stuck out his chin. “You got one minute, mon, or I put you down.”

  I later learned that this meant that he would put us out of the cab. Ozzie must have thought it meant something else. I saw his hand
move quickly. It was dark in the back of the cab, but I could see the reflection from the gun as he pulled it up and placed it next to the cab driver’s ear. I forced my head down behind the seat, and then there was a flash that momentarily lit up the cab and an explosion that deafened me. There were the sounds of braking glass and crunching metal.

  I waited for a few moments, dreading what I might see. Slowly I looked up from behind the front seat through the thinning, drifting gun smoke. The taxi driver was gone, and the windshield was missing. I thought I saw the taxi driver running down the road, but it was only for an instant. Then he disappeared in the darkness. My head was ringing from the discharge of the weapon.

  Ozzie got out of the cab. “Would you look at this shit!”

  Then the rest of us jumped out of the car. “Hey, mon!” we all started to shout. “Where are you, mon? Come back, mon!”

  “I should have known better,” Colin said. “Those Nigerians, they like to use intimidation to jack up their fares.”

  Ozzie shrugged and put his gun back from where he had retrieved it. We were all soaking wet from sweat, and the bugs were beginning to annoy us. We found the windshield. It had a bullet hole in it and it was cracked throughout like a jigsaw puzzle. The cab driver had apparently pushed it out and scrambled out over the hood to escape. Amazingly, it was still more or less in one piece, so we wiped it off and placed it back in the windshield frame and drove off.

  I thought the lightning flashes I had seen when we left the city might have been dry lightning. They weren’t. And after one particularly heavy discharge, which sounded more like a high intensity explosion, it started to rain in torrents. The windshield leaked around the edges where we had tried to press it against the ruptured sealant, and water poured in through the bullet hole, but it did keep the heavy rain from pelting us. Someone said something about it being the dry season and we all laughed and continued to sing “Waltzing Matilda” until we got to the survey station. Ozzie decided to leave the keys in the cab with the engine running and took bets on how long the cab would be there. The car was gone in about thirty minutes.