City Beasts

by Mark Kurlansky

  “What is this Blan up to?” asked Kola, a short stocky man with a powerful body, shirtless, like Jobo, sitting under a leafy tree, on the stripped-bare engine block of a long-dead car. All the other parts had been sold and someday the block would be, too. He dug in the earth with a trowel and pulled out two small green Coca-Cola bottles, felt them to see if the ground had kept them cool, dusted them off with his thick but skilled fingers, and handed one to Jobo.

  Jobo smiled. “What do Blans want? He wants a vodou ceremony.”

  “A vodou ceremony?” Kola’s face had a wide, toothy smile. He rubbed his belly. He was proud of his belly because he was the only one in Joli who had one. “San dolar. Tell him there is a nice ceremony for a hundred dollars. For one-fifty I can show him something special.”

  Jobo nodded.

  “But what does this blan want? Is he bringing blan doctors and their medicines?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But I wanted to talk to you about your medicines.”

  “You need a powder, Beau?”

  Jobo looked at the ground and shook his head.

  “Do you have money for my powders? What do you need? A rash, a headache, a fever, the stomach? What would you like to do?”

  “You know my aunt’s baby died today?”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know how much meat Madame LeChat has? Do you know? Anpil, anpil. Three big freezers. It all goes to that cat. If she died, everyone in Joli could eat meat for three weeks.”

  “Yes, but for a great lady like that, that koute chè. Do you have that money?”

  “No. But if I did, you could help me?”

  “It would cost less to kill the leopard. Then she wouldn’t need the meat. Maybe you could take it.”

  “I don’t just want the meat.”

  “What do you want?”

  “M vle jistis.”

  “Ah, justice. Justice costs. Justice is very expensive.”

  * * *

  Izzy was pacing the porch, almost the same strides as the leopard, but he didn’t realize it. Something about that leopard pacing made him restless. That and a harsh cry from upstairs from time to time. “Jobo! Jobo!” Finally she came downstairs and out onto the porch. The light from inside was shining on her. She was wearing a long silk shift and he could see that there was no shape to her body—just long and thin. He also saw through what was left of the makeup that she was a bit older than he had first thought.

  “Have you seen Jobo?”

  “He went to the ougan to arrange a ceremony for me.”

  “The oun?”

  “Kola?”

  “Ah, the bòkò, Kola.” Then her emerald eyes darted past him. It was Jobo coming back. Izzy sensed that he should retreat to the other end of the long tiled porch.

  “Jobo,” she called out. “Jobo, viens ici! Viens!” She spoke in that melodious high pitch used by Frenchwomen when calling their pets.

  And he did come and she put her arms around him, her cardboard gray hands looking bright against his black back as she dug her black polished nails into his skin.

  * * *

  DeeDee, can you help me?” asked Jobo.

  “What do you need?”

  “Money.”

  DeeDee laughed.

  “I need to pay for something very expensive. Just one time I need some money. I can work.”

  “Why don’t you ask the blan?”

  “This is not blan’s business.”

  DeeDee understood and told him that he was loading a shipment of mangoes on the NANH late that night.

  “I’m not sure I can get away at night.”

  “Late late. I am paying very well for this particular shipment—of mangoes . . . Give her a lot of champagne.”

  “Mais, oui.”

  * * *

  DeeDee paid off all the port officials with money from Madame Dumas, and the NANH untied and set her bow northwest to round the peninsula and head to Miami. The mangoes helped the ballast, but the freighter was still sitting a little too high in the water. They had to hope there were no storms. Izzy was surprised when he inspected that the mangoes were just piled in the hold without any crates. “It will take forever to off-load,” he complained. DeeDee shrugged.

  Then Izzy noticed they were off course, but DeeDee explained that they had to make a quick stop. “To take on more ballast?” asked Izzy.

  There was no answer, but DeeDee was busy navigating. They dropped anchor by a reef—a strip of white sand and a grove of palm trees in the middle of the turquoise sea. Izzy saw nothing heavy to load on the boat.

  Then the crew lifted the cover off the hold and Izzy was astounded by what he next saw. Haitians came crawling out from under the yellow mangoes, like an infestation exposed to the light. Men and women, one child of about eight. They were almost naked, one man was completely naked, and they staggered up, their limbs stiff and their eyes blinded by the hot light. They were hurriedly helped to the beach on their uncertain legs. There were eleven of them, including three that were dragged and appeared to be dead.

  Shouting erupted in Creole. Arms flayed the hot air angrily. They were saying, “This is not Miami. You took our money.” Some pleaded, “Please don’t leave us.” But DeeDee insisted that this boat was too big to bring them in and that small boats would come tonight to drop them on the Florida coast.

  Izzy was angry and fought with DeeDee all the way to Florida. DeeDee’s answers made no sense to him. “Why are we doing this?”

  “Because we can’t bring them into Miami.”

  “Why were we carrying them at all?”

  “They needed the help, Izzy.”

  “I have to tell the Coast Guard. They’ll starve in that place.”

  “No. It’s all arranged. Boats will come for them tonight.”

  “They said they paid. Who got the money?”

  “The mango growers.”

  * * *

  They tied up on the Miami River. But they could not go back to Haiti. There was a coup d’état. Little Haiti was intoxicated with news. A new government was being formed. There were curfews. There was rioting in Port-au-Prince and Gonaïves. In Gonaïves a mob attacked the NANH warehouse, took everything, and then tore down the building, a chunk at a time, with rocks and machetes. People were singing a song as they worked, “Pa vle gwo nen”: We don’t want the big dwarf. After a day all that remained of the two-story building was a few steel reinforcing rods sticking out of the ground.

  DeeDee vanished and it was said in Little Haiti that he was now an official in the new government. Izzy hadn’t realized he was involved in politics. He had never seemed interested in anything but commerce. Then a man approached Izzy alongside his boat on the river. Izzy recognized him. He was usually in Bermuda shorts with an “I love Miami” T-shirt, a Marlins hat, and a camera. But this day he was wearing a suit and showed Izzy something that said he was an FBI agent.

  * * *

  Kola had a new Coca-Cola cabinet. It was red-and-white metal with a glass door. A stray rock from the riot had dented one side, but the glass door was intact.

  Of course, it didn’t keep anything cold, because Kola had no electricity. But it was a good cabinet and he kept it behind the temple and stored his bones, herbs, potions, and powders in it. His Coca-Cola was still in the ground where it was cool.

  Soon Madame Dumas began experiencing something completely new to her. She started to sweat. Even in her air-conditioning she was sweating. It poured out of her forehead and ran down her fine cheekbones, and from under her arms down her sides, a rivulet flowed to the small of her back, and from under her breasts sweat soaked her stomach. Her pink silk shift had turned cranberry with wetness. And as the sweat poured out she became weaker and weaker—while Jobo watched.

  Madame Dumas collapsed on the living room floor and crawled to the table where she kep
t her sunglasses to cover her eyes. But she could not find the glasses. She looked up at Jobo with her arm reaching toward him. “Jobo, aide-moi.” Help me.

  He only stared at her.

  “I need a doctor.”

  “I can’t get a doctor. The roads are closed. The coup.”

  “Oh, yes, the coup,” she muttered, as though there was a secret irony to this that only she could appreciate. “Then the bòkò. Can’t he make a powder to fix me?”

  “Mais oui,” Jobo answered, appreciating his own secret irony.

  “Vas-y. Get something!”

  Jobo left and did not come back for hours. When he did, Madame Dumas was not sweating anymore. She was stretched across the cool floor tiles—dead.

  Jobo unceremoniously removed all her clothes and carried her out toward the leopard cage. He opened the door to the cage and dumped her on the floor. The leopard, who had not been fed in three days, was so startled that he stopped pacing. He walked over to the body and sniffed it as Jobo started to close the cage. Suddenly the cat leapt over Jobo, knocking him over and off the porch, and went into the bush, over the wall in graceful flight, and was never seen again. He might have run to the arid desert in the northwest and managed to find a way to survive there. Or maybe he ran along the Artibonite River to hide out in the mountains above the valley, where many Haitians have also hidden.

  The leopard had left Jobo with the question of what to do with the unwanted remains of Madame Dumas. While he was contemplating this dilemma someone started clanging the locked iron gate. Jobo ran down and saw Kola framed in black iron snakes. He explained that Madame had a family that wanted both the house and the body. They wanted to bury it in France, but Air France had suspended flights because of the coup d’état.

  “Eh, oui,” said Jobo, who had never seen an airplane close up, with feigned comprehension.

  “Poutan!” shouted Kola, raising his stubby index finger to make a point. “However,” he translated, carefully pronouncing his English syllables, “I told them if they want to come get the body in a week or even two, I can use magic to keep the body in perfect condition.”

  “Magic?”

  “Mais oui. And you have that magic in your house. It is the magic of meat.”

  Now Jobo understood. “And they will pay?”

  “Gwo nèg koute chè,” Kola said. You have to pay a lot for an important person.

  Jobo smiled, “Anpil, anpil dola?”

  “Anpil. Very expensive.”

  After Kola left, Jobo went back to the cage and picked up Madame. She still had not stiffened much. He emptied one of the big top-loading freezers and dumped her, where she landed in a most undignified pose and was petrified in ice just as she was to be thawed and served up properly by magic at the right time.

  Jobo was right. Once the freezers had been emptied the people of Ti Morne Joli ate meat for three weeks. Many became sick because they were unaccustomed to such a rich diet. But it was not likely to happen again.

  * * *

  It was Damballah who finally confronted Èzili, bribed her with dresses and bracelets and pink elixirs until she set free the leopard. The leopard ran and ran and ran as though he could run all the way back to Africa. But there was the ocean there now. He ran so hard that he turned into a man. That was the first Haitian and that is why Haitian people always struggle so hard to be free.

  * * *

  I want to talk to my lawyer,” said Izzy.

  “I think you need a new lawyer. He’s been arrested. Seems you were just a small part of the operation.”

  Izzy thought, They arrested the Anglo. Isn’t that something? They got the Anglo. Then he said, “Why do you say that the goods were stolen? Everything was paid for.”

  “We were watching you. What tipped us off was that you had Coca-Cola machines. You can’t buy them. Only the Coca-Cola Company owns them. You’re not the Coca-Cola Company, are you?”

  COYOTE

  The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of want . . . lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding deserts, along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit and the raven, and gets an uncertain and precarious living, and earns it.

  —Mark Twain, Roughing It

  Part One: Stalking in New York

  What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

  Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

  —Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”

  If he wasn’t so old-fashioned, none of this might have happened. They were all cutting across Putnam County, heading east toward Connecticut for some turkey hunting. They had done this before. Only, he was different from the others. He was a little smaller and not at all like the new coyotes that were moving into New England. They all had wolves in the family, and he did, too. His grandfather was a wolf—his father’s father. But he took after his mother who was pure coyote. He was small like her and he didn’t like moving in crowds and didn’t want to hunt with a pack. As far as he could tell he was faster and smarter than most anything he wanted to eat, and he preferred to travel alone and live by his own wits, which was the old-time coyote way.

  So as they headed east toward turkey land he spied a raccoon off to the right and ran after it. He easily ran it down and ate it. Later he found its mate and ate her, too. That night he feasted on a small white-tailed doe. Why did he need to belong to a pack?

  It got better and easier as he got into Westchester. This was stand-up territory. Stand-ups were the one animal he always avoided. They were very slow, but they were smart and knew a lot of tricks. It always seemed to him that stand-ups thought like coyotes. But they had a lot of dangerous equipment. No animal had as many different ways to kill you as a stand-up.

  Now, down in the stand-up land where they built huge nests there were still plenty of raccoons, rabbits, deer, and a lot of dogs and small cats. But the stand-ups put food out in barrels—meat, fruit, vegetables. There were a lot of things you couldn’t eat. Metal and paper, but the barrels were also so full of food that he didn’t have to hunt if he didn’t feel like it.

  It was a good place, and he declared it some nights on a black rock with flakes of schist that sparkled in the moonlight. Some of the more knowledgeable people who knew a coyote howl when they heard one would shudder. The dogs all knew and tried to tell their owners, but all the barking only served to help cover up the coyote howl.

  And then one night after howling the coyote trotted through paths and roads without seeing a single stand-up and he came to a wide, empty bridge and trotted across until a stand-up came out of a very small hut and made strange high-pitched sounds and held out a paw toward him.

  This seemed strange, some kind of trick, and he ran quickly past her.

  Joyce Canara thought it was strange, too. She did not know much about wildlife, since she had only been out of the Bronx two times to Queens to apply for her job unless you counted her tollbooth, which was technically on the Manhattan side of the bridge. But that dog was not just a dog. There was something tough and wild about it, like certain boys when she was in high school that had a look and you knew to stay away from them.

  She had been on this toll for only two months and she didn’t like being there at night even though there were two other night toll collectors and a policeman on duty. Since there were no cars coming she went up to each of the toll collectors and the cop and asked them about the dog but no one had seen it. This confirmed her fears. She could be mugged, murdered, or kidnapped and the others wouldn’t see it.

  She told the cop, a ten-year veteran who had worked his way to this easy night job, which he intended to sleep through until he got promoted to an easy day job, that “a wolf just entered Manhattan.”

  “A wolf,” he said, without believing her.

  “Yes, a wolf. I just saw it. You should call someone.”

  He shrugged, his palms up, as though pleading to a god,
and with deliberate slowness, just to let her know what he thought of her emergency, he called Emergency Services and reported that the toll collector “claims she saw a wolf run across the bridge into Manhattan.”

  * * *

  This is how it begins, thought Arthur Mintz. And then he added silently, Or really how it ends.

  He was standing in front of the refrigerator, door open, staring at the well-lit contents, hoping something would remind him of why he was there. He could not even remember walking to the refrigerator or even opening the door, which must have been a very recent event. He had no idea what he had come to get.

  It would get worse. His beautiful Anna, whom he married forty-eight years ago last February 16—Anna who was so much younger than he, who looked up to him and admired him—Anna would one day realize that she was now married to a fool. Once she knew, his life was over.

  There was a soft nudge on his left calf. It was Freser, the red-and-white Cavalier Prince Charles spaniel, chubby and round as a seal. Freser had mastered the trick of flipping his leash off its hook and carrying it in his mouth when he wanted a walk. Arthur clipped the leash on his collar and they walked to the door. With weather like this, taking Freser for a long walk was the best part of the day for both of them.

  He knew exactly what the weather was like because the windows were wide open. Anna insisted on keeping the windows open. She said that it let the “smell of aging” out. She said it as though it were his smell, but in truth she was trying to keep the smell off her because, though younger than Arthur, she could feel old age nipping at her heels, too. That was why Arthur angered her. Arthur knew that she was right about the windows, that there was a certain smell to old people’s apartments because they did not open the windows. Opening and shutting windows was too much of an effort, but also old people did not want strong winds blowing through their home, disarranging things and creating disorder. Arthur was already having that feeling. After all, it was hard enough to remember where things were without the wind moving things around.