by Billy Kring
Selvin walked closer, angling to the side so he could get a good look at the boy’s face. The boy raised his head, and Selvin almost stopped breathing. The boy was maybe eight or nine, and very tall, with eyes as gold as coins.
Selvin told Malice, “Looking at him was like looking into the eyes of a leopard.”
She said, “And he has no one?”
“His parents died in the hurricane last year. He was an only child, and now lives on the street.”
“Are the dogs his?”
“No. At least I don’t believe so. They are strays, all of them.”
“But they follow his commands.”
“I would say that, yes, they do.”
Malice nodded. “You’ve done well, Selvin. Arrange for travel, and bring several of the Tonton Macoute from Pètionville to go with us, in case of trouble.”
“When do you wish to go?”
“Tomorrow, or the next. Make the arrangements and let me know. I’m curious to see this boy with the eyes of a leopard.”
“I will make arrangements immediately.”
“Selvin, how is the boy called?”
“He said his name is Marc Dessaline.”
They left Port Au Prince the next day, travelling west through Carrefour on Route Nationale 2 and paralleling the shore before the road curved south and intersected Route de L’amite, which took them on a weaving, climbing route into and over the mountain ranges between Port Au Prince and the southern shores of Haiti.
They could see the turquoise waters in the Bay of Jacmel after topping out and descending the southern slopes of the mountains, with the town of Jacmel huddled around the entire bay like hands around a cup. Route 208 turned west, and the caravan of Tonton Macoute, dressed in their official dark blue uniforms, straw hats and sunglasses, knew they would be in Bainet in a short time.
People in Bainet grew wary as soon as Malice and her vehicles drove into town. To see the Tonton Macoute en masse like this meant trouble, and maybe the worst kind. Selvin drove to the part of town where he last saw the boy and parked on the street.
As the vehicles emptied, people on the streets moved away, going into houses or into alleys, out of sight of the Boogeymen and their terrible, beautiful female leader, whose reputation was known all over the country.
Malice stood in the street and waited for someone to approach, but no one came. A goat wandered by, and several chickens, but no people. She cupped her hands around her mouth and said, “Come out, I have questions. If you do not come out, I will send my men in your homes.”
Several men appeared and walked to her. She said, “I want Marc Dessaline, the boy. Where is he?”
Two of them didn’t know, but the third man pointed down a dusty side street and said, “In the trees where the road ends. I have seen him there.” Selvin drove in the lead as they bounced over potholes and fist-sized rocks until the road deteriorated to two ruts through short grass to end at the tree and brush line. Selvin turned off his key and they exited again. He pointed and said, “There.”
The boy crawled out of a crude shelter made of limbs, and thatched with leaves and pieces of plastic sheeting and torn garbage bags. Several dogs flanked him. Malice instantly noticed his eyes, like fresh honey in a jar as light shines through it. The boy’s face hinted of handsomeness in the future. She said, “Marc Dessaline, I’ve been looking for you.”
He wasn’t afraid of them, Malice noticed that at once. Watchful, yes, but no fear. He said, “Why are you looking for me?”
“I wish to take you with me, to give you a home.”
“Where?”
“Port Au Prince, the big city.”
He considered it. “To live with you, in a house.”
“Yes,” she said, “A big house.” She felt his questions before he spoke, and she answered before his mouth opened. “I am lonely, I have no one, the same as you. I can give you a home with all the food you wish, and clothes. You will have a bed to sleep in, with covers and soft pillows, all in your own room. There are books to read, many of them, and a pool to swim in, if you wish to.”
Marc considered it for a minute. “Can I bring my dogs?”
Malice looked at the three skinny mongrels beside the boy. She had no love for dogs. “No.”
Marc took a deep breath and nodded. He walked to her and said, “Do you have a shotgun?”
Malice looked at one of her men, who returned with a pump shotgun. Marc held out his hands and the man gave it to him. The men glanced at each other and kept their hands close to their sidearms.
Malice showed him how to work it, and put one in the chamber for him, showing him the safety and explaining how it worked.
Marc walked back to his dogs, had them lay side by side with their heads almost touching, then he backed three steps, raised the shotgun and killed all three dogs with a single shot. He walked to the man who gave him the shotgun and held it out, saying, “Thank you.”
He stepped to Malice and said, “I couldn’t leave them alone; they would not make it.”
“I understand,” she said.
Marc reached and took her hand, “I’m ready now.”
~*~
Marc didn’t talk on the four-hour trip to Port Au Prince unless someone asked him a question. But he watched and listened, paying special attention to Malice.
When they reached the large white home, Malice led him in and showed Marc his room, and then let the boy roam the grounds at will. He checked the pool, the garden, all the other rooms except the one Malice told him not to enter. During the following weeks and months, Marc explored beyond the home and became familiar with the area. At night, he read until falling asleep, usually with the book on his chest.
Malice would leave during the day, and sometimes did not return for several days. He didn’t mind being alone because it gave him time to think about things, and most importantly, how to continue this new, rich life. The key to it all started and ended with pleasing Malice, and he catalogued what actions he or others did that pleased her, and how much they pleased her. He kept track of even the smallest things.
His desire to learn everything about her almost resulted in his death when he noticed the door to the forbidden room was slightly ajar. He knew Malice had left, and he was alone in the house. Marc stood at the opening a long time, then he put his hand on the shiny brass knob, hesitated, and pulled it shut.
Malice watched the boy from her hiding place within the walls. The eyehole was hidden in the ornate frame of a large painting that hung in the hall directly across from the forbidden room. She had made this his ultimate test. When Marc closed the door, he passed. If he had entered, the boy’s life would be forfeit. Those were the harsh, unspoken rules Malice created for him. She was pleased with the golden-eyed boy, and soon she would reveal many things to him, including all the magic behind the now closed door.
When Marc turned twelve, Malice took him into her bed. A month later, she took him with her to Fort Dimanche, the fearsome prison where political prisoners were kept, and most never left. Malice gave him a quick tour, and the first thing Marc noticed was the smell. He soon learned why as they entered the cell area. The prison fascinated him, and during the ensuing years, Marc would wander through it at all hours, remembering what he saw.
The cells, made of metal bars, were three feet by three feet by four feet, with concrete floors. Any elimination or urination was done on the concrete, for there were no holes. Some cells contained three people, others one or two, and the sexes didn’t matter, as men and women were inside together. If husbands and wives, they were placed in separate cells, and their male cellmates often repeatedly raped the women, all of this done in plain sight of the husband locked in a nearby cell.
Marc was first given the tour at the time the prisoners were fed. He watched as the guards carried large pots of gruel to each cell and another guard dipped out a cupful or two and poured it through the bars onto the concrete floor, then moved to the next cell and repeated the feeding. Prisoners
jostled for position as they licked thin liquid from the rough concrete until it was all gone. Everyone pled for more, and rarely, a second helping of gruel was splattered on the cell floors.
Once a week, the guards brought down fire hoses and used them to wash down both the cells and the prisoners at the same time. Most prisoners tried to get a few precious gulps of water as the torrent hit them.
If a prisoner died, their body might lay and decompose in the tropical heat and humidity for several days to a week before being removed.
Because it was full of political prisoners, there were many interrogations. The prisoners almost looked at them as a relief, because they were taken from the cages and could stand erect. Except when Malice conducted the questioning. No one wanted to leave the safety of the cages when she was in the dungeon.
The first questioning Marc witnessed was with Malice. A pregnant woman was brought into the room and Malice asked her in quiet tones about her husband’s treasonous activities against Duvalier, and where he was hiding. The woman said she did not know anything about that, or where he was.
Malice motioned to the guards to take off the woman’s clothes and lay her on a table. After the woman was down, Malice asked again, and the woman said she did not know anything, that she was innocent.
Malice slipped on a pair of thick gloves and went to the corner of the room where there was a small metal trashcan with a lid. She pulled off the lid, reached in and pulled out a live rat.
The pregnant woman screamed and tried to get away, but the guards pinned her to the table.
The rat bit the thick glove and struggled to get free as Malice carried it to one of the gruel pots and dipped it in the liquid. She removed the wet, dripping, squirming rodent from the gruel and carried it to the table.
Malice said, “Open her legs.”
Marc didn’t turn away as Malice pushed the rat into the screaming woman, then forced her to sit up on the corner of the table so that her legs hung off each side. Malice said to Marc, “The rat cannot escape now. You understand this?”
“Yes. It should be effective.”
The pregnant woman screamed and sobbed and began talking. When she gave Malice the information, Malice said to the guards, “If the rat eats its way free, let it go and take the woman to her cell.”
One of the new men said, “If she is dead?”
“Take her to her cell. Do not ask me to repeat myself ever again. Do you understand?” The guard nodded, too frightened to speak.
By the time he was fourteen, Marc was six feet two inches tall and weighed one hundred sixty pounds. That was the year he started interrogating prisoners. Within three months, those in the cages avoided his eyes, and if he stopped at a cell, the prisoners inside began to cry. Malice told him, “I am proud of you, my young one.”
Marc found more independence and Malice encouraged him. He traveled to different areas in and around port Au Prince and visited with people, learning what he could from the locals. He often spent the night in such places and would walk through the communities and countryside at late hours to see what the darkness hid. The one thing Malice insisted was that he was always armed, but discretely.
The commune of Cabaret was one such place. He heard that a powerful bokor named Hercule Ismera lived there, a bokor who made zombies and kept them for slaves. Marc waited until night to walk to the man’s home at the edge of the forest, a long mile from other homes. As he approached, he heard something at the back of the man’s soccer field-sized property. It sounded like someone was digging.
Careful to move quietly, he circled the house to find the source. The moon was bright and Marc made out shadows under the trees as he finally located the sounds. Two men stood by a mound of dirt and one tossed a shovel into the grass, then both dropped into a waist-deep hole and bent over.
A crude wooden casket emerged, and the two men pushed it up until it rested on the dirt mound. Marc edged closer and watched from behind the trunk of a large catalpa tree some twenty yards away from the preoccupied men who were busy prying off the top of the casket. Several nails creaked as they came out, and within five minutes they had the casket lid off and lying on the grass beside the mound. One went to the head of the casket and the other to the foot, then both put their arms inside and lifted a body from it. Marc saw it was a young man about his age, and tall, like him, but dead. The two men put the body on the grass and straightened. The younger man said, “Hercule, this boy is in the grave for fourteen days; you can do this?”
Hercule said, “Bring me the gunny sack, and don’t break the bottles inside. Hurry.” The younger man trotted to a nearby shed, went inside and returned to the grave at a trot. He extended it to Hercule, who put the sack on the ground and opened it, taking out the contents and placing them along the edge of the dirt mound. He took a sprig of stiff grass, opened a bottle and put the base of the grass stem inside, then drew it out. He leaned over the body and pushed the stem between the dead boy’s lips, running it back and forth, then he threw the stem away.
They waited five minutes, then Hercule said, “Ringo Bazin, rise.” The boy stirred, and in the next half hour jerked and moved in spasms until he sat upright. Another ten minutes and he staggered to his feet.
From behind the catalpa tree, Marc watched as Hercule put this Ringo Bazin boy through a number of movements until the boy appeared able to function. Hercule said to his younger friend, “He will work at anything you show him how to do. He will not complain, and eats very little. You now have your zombie slave.”
He said, “I will pay you the thousand U.S. dollars tomorrow.”
“Then tomorrow you may take him.”
“But, I wanted to take him tonight.”
“He is my slave until one thousand dollars crosses my palm.”
The younger man thought a moment and said, “How do I control him?”
“Speak to him. He understands, in a limited way. Anyone can control him, he has no resistance.”
“How will I keep someone from taking him?”
“I will teach you that when I have the money.”
The younger man said, “Can he ever become truly human again?”
“He can come close, with the right ceremony and potions.”
As they talked, Marc eased from behind the tree trunk and stepped closer to the boy Ringo. Ringo’s head turned slightly and the glazed eyes looked at Marc. A single tear ran down the boy’s cheek. That was enough. The two men still hadn’t noticed Marc. He walked towards them, hands in his pockets and said, “I believe I’ll take the boy.”
Both men jumped at his voice and turned to face him. The younger man snorted, “You’re just a boy yourself.”
Marc pulled the Walther PPK from his pocket and shot the younger man twice in the face. The shots snapped like weak firecrackers, and the man fell backwards into the grave.
“Hercule, tell me how to keep Ringo so no one can take him from me.”
Hercule was angry, but noticed the expensive clothes this tall young boy wore and thought there was still opportunity to be had. He said, “What do I get for this?”
“Your life, how’s that?”
“I have spent many valuable hours on developing him, I deserve something.”
Marc shot him and Hercule flopped into the hole to land on top of the other man. Looking into the grave, Marc said, “If you had been less greedy, you would still be alive. I hoped to visit with you, learn from you. Pity.” He put the pistol in his pocket and took the shovel to begin filling in the grave.
Ringo put out a tentative hand, Marc looked at him, then handed over the shovel. Ringo filled the grave, then stood there, holding the shovel, still as a statue.
“Ringo, leave the shovel here.” Ringo placed the shovel on the grass. Marc picked up the gunnysack with Hercule’s powders and potions and said, “Come with me. My mother is a great sòsyè and will know what to do for you.”
Ringo followed Marc away from the bokor’s house as Marc said, “I have a feeling we a
re going to be great friends, you and I.”
~*~
Malice was shocked when the zombie walked into her home. Marc explained what had happened, and he left nothing out. He added, “There is something with this boy that connects with me. Stronger than anything except my feelings for you, Mother.”
Malice paced the floor, saying, “I’m not sure I can bring him back. I don’t know what Hercule Ismera used, what incantations he uttered. He was a powerful witch, Marc, and that power makes his spells vigorous and hard to counter. I might do more harm than good.” She looked at him, “I still don’t understand how you bested him. He kept protection spells around him all the time. He was famous for that.”
Marc indicated Ringo, standing still and silent against the wall, and said, “How can you do more harm to him than what has already been done?” He placed the gunnysack on the table, “These are what Hercule had with him. The incantation I do not know, but what I do know is that you, Malice, my amazing mother, are greater than any of them. You can do this.” He walked to her and hugged her. With his height, Malice’s head rested on the fourteen year-old boy’s chest. He said, “No one is your equal. No one. Please, do this for me.”
Malice released from the hug and looked up at the tall boy, “I will, on one condition.”
“Yes, whatever it is.”
“You will begin training to become a bokor.”
Marc smiled, “I am ready.”
Malice sensed that he meant it, was eager for it. She said, “Bring Ringo and we will begin.”
The initial treatment took a week to begin as Malice mixed and prepared the materials. She took Marc deep into the southern mountain range, into what was left of the forests. She harvested plants, and as she did so, told him about each one, and their properties, and how those properties differed between the rainy and dry season.
