“Why’d you leave?” Henry reached over and covered my hand with his good one. The warmth of the contact helped eliminate some of the empty chill filling me at the sight of hundreds of homeless people.
“I’ve never gotten a straight answer. I don’t know if we left because Mom and Chuck’s relationship wasn’t working out and she wanted to go back to the States or if it was too hard to manage a seven-year-old with diabetes from a run-down clinic in the CAR. I know that their divorce was final not too long after we left.”
He squeezed my hand, and we waited for the train of refugees to walk past.
Chapter 7
HENRY DECIDED he probably wouldn’t lose his hand. Actually, he said the swelling and discoloration weren’t getting worse, which amounted to the same thing. “The antivenin doesn’t actually heal anything,” he told me when I asked. “It just keeps it from getting worse. The rest will have to heal on its own. We caught it soon enough, and the bush viper didn’t get much of a hold. He was a young guy, not that it makes a difference.”
“How do you know it was young?”
“He wasn’t very big. Maybe a foot and a half. The green bush vipers get over two feet long when they get older.”
I measured out a foot and a half and then two feet in my mind. The snake may not have been python sized, but surely it was longer than a foot and a half? I’d have said four or five feet. Then again, I’ve heard people who found themselves at the wrong end of a gun sometimes thought the barrel appeared bigger than it really was. Maybe it was something like that. “How do you know so much about snakes? About the animals in general, I guess?”
“I like them.” He shrugged. “So I learn as much about them as I can. Books, people, wherever I can get something new. The camp is near the Lobéké Preserve, and there you can see some of the big animals, you know, the gorillas or giraffes, lions. The ones people go on vacation to see. But there’s so much more here.”
“Like talapoins and lovebirds.”
“And green bush vipers and giant baboon spiders, and a dozen species of antelope, tree frogs, and hundreds of other things.” I would have said his eyes sparkled in his enthusiasm if it weren’t such a girly thing to think (even though they did). He gestured broadly with his hands and smiled as he listed off the many creatures and plants that could be found in Cameroon and the places he’d like to go to study others.
“Why don’t you go to school for biology or zoology or whatever?”
And, like a pricked balloon, he deflated. “College isn’t in the cards for me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, shielding it.
“Why not?”
“Are you kidding? What, you think I finished high school while living on the streets? Most universities require a high school diploma, with maybe a few extracurriculars thrown in.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that he wouldn’t have finished high school. He was so smart, so confident, that even after his story, it never crossed my mind. “Couldn’t you get a, you know, GED or something? I can’t imagine you’re worried about passing the tests. And I’m pretty sure doing missionary work in Africa would trump any extracurricular activities offered at most high schools.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He tried to sound casual, but he kept his eyes cast down. “I like what I’m doing here. I have a purpose. I’m doing something worthwhile. I think I could be very satisfied here.”
I flexed my hands and adjusted my grip on the steering wheel. Because they were stiff from driving, not because I wanted to reach over and hold his hand. To comfort him. Definitely not to reassure him. No way. “What about you?”
He lifted his eyes from his boots to look at me. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sure you get some satisfaction from doing for others, but what about you? Will you be happy doing this for the rest of your life? I mean, the people you work with will change constantly, and the people you help rotate in and out just as frequently. Don’t you want something more… permanent?”
“Your dad’s been doing this for over twenty-five years, and he seems to be doing okay.”
“Yeah, but he was married for a third of that time, and if he gets lonely, he’s got other options. Unless Yaoundé and Doumé are more liberal than I think they are, I don’t think you can go into the city to get laid when you need to… connect with someone. And even if you could go to the university area for a hookup, would you? I mean, even with condoms, how safe is casual sex around here?” Personally, I figured it was dangerous enough to keep my pants zippered up until I stood on American soil again.
His jaw clenched and he glared at me.
“Speaking of which,” I said, noticing the turnoff for the next highway, “is Chuck sleeping with Mrs. Okono?”
“What? Why would you….” His mouth opened a couple of times like he was trying to form the right response.
“Dude, my parents have been divorced for like ten years. I hardly think he’s been celibate since then, unless he really is shooting for sainthood.”
“It’s none of my… it’s none of your business, whatever they do.”
“Oh, come on. You don’t need to be such a prude. I caught the vibe right away.”
“Look, it really isn’t any of my business, but,” he stressed, “you’re probably right. I’m pretty sure they have some kind of arrangement.”
“Like he helps make things easier for her, in exchange for a place to stay, and, let’s face it, I’m pretty sure he’s not sleeping in the lean-to when he goes through town.”
“Don’t be crude.” Henry whirled on me so fast his ponytail swung around until it lay over his shoulder. “You make it sound like Mrs. O’s some kind of whore!”
“That’s not what I meant.” His tone put me on the defensive. “I don’t mean that it’s dirty or anything, but you have to admit, it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Hey, listen to that. I made it sound so businesslike.
“You don’t know anything about it. Sometimes we do what we need to in order to survive. Things are tough around here. If she… accepts help from your father or even others, it doesn’t make her a bad person. You have no right to judge her for the choices she makes.” The words erupted from his mouth like lava from a volcano.
“Whoa, dude. I wasn’t judging anyone.”
“Whatever.” Henry rubbed his forehead. “Anyway, let me know when you want me to drive again.”
The problem with no radio and no conversation was it left a guy with way too much time to think. Thinking was dangerous. With Henry stewing in the passenger seat, my options to avoid thinking about stuff were limited. I could sing, but I wanted Henry to like me and maybe even be impressed by me. Not only would I not win a vocal contest, but my tuneless, off-key singing would probably make him beg to be let out of the truck. Since I was driving, and theoretically my eyes should remain on the road, I couldn’t even skim one of his new books for distraction.
So, instead, I was left with thinking. Thinking about Henry, actually. I didn’t envy his family dynamic, not at all. Chuck may not have been in the picture much, but he didn’t actively hate me. And Mom never let on that anything might have been missing from her life. As far as I knew, she didn’t even date. Henry, after being kicked out of his home and living on the streets for so long, well, I didn’t know how he could be as normal as he was.
And what was with that reaction to my comments about Mrs. Okono? It had sounded almost personal. Did he admire Mrs. Okono so much he didn’t want her to be insulted? Or was it more than that? He’d lived on the street for two years. I knew I couldn’t survive that way, couldn’t stay sane at any rate. And Henry was definitely sane.
I’d read about how a lot of homeless gay kids got into prostitution just to survive. That was one of the things my school’s GSA chapter battled. Not our own homelessness, but fund-raising for shelters and services for homeless queer kids. I’d seen some pretty scary statistics.
Was that it? Had Henry been a prostitute? Or rent boy? Wasn’t that the term?
He was pretty enough, if that kind of thing mattered. I felt sick to my stomach.
See, thinking led to all kinds of crazy thoughts. I really needed a distraction.
Men with bigass guns were a distraction.
I slammed on the brakes, sending a cloud of dust up from underneath the Range Rover.
“What the—” Henry’s head jerked up. “Oh shit.”
Four men in green military fatigues stood in the middle of the road with large assault rifles pointed at us. Big, beefy guys whose faces would make Mount Rushmore look soft. Three were white, one black, all with shaved heads and identical sunglasses. They were like the Secret Service’s older, meaner, steroid-soaked stepbrothers.
“Please tell me I’m only getting pulled over for speeding,” I whispered, not taking my eyes off the men ahead of us.
Two more men in fatigues approached from either side of the Range Rover. The one closest to me tapped the door window with the barrel of his gun.
“Get out of the vehicle.”
Chapter 8
SOMEWHERE, SOMEONE with a giant remote control hit Pause. Everything froze in that instant, just stopped exactly where it was. My heart didn’t beat, my lungs didn’t expand.
The gun tapped on the window again. A voice said, “Get out.”
The ominous clank, clank set everything back into motion. In fast-forward. A fifty-foot roller coaster drop, like someone pulled my blood and guts out through my nose and left a gaping chasm of nothingness in my stomach. “What do we do?” I asked.
“We get out, I guess.” Henry’s voice shook. I hadn’t expected him to be as scared as I was. He seemed to know what he was doing in every situation, so to hear him as shaky as me made it somehow worse. If he was scared, we were screwed.
My hands trembled, and I fumbled with the door handle. Hot, heavy air poured in through the open door, but my blood still ran ice cold. The seat belt, which I had forgotten, trapped me, so I reached down to unlatch it.
“Hands!” the guy with the gun barked.
My hands flew up. “Seat belt.” A dry mouth and a throat closed in fear made it nearly impossible to get the words out.
He nodded and took half a step back, but the gun didn’t waver.
My left hand stayed up and I slowly undid the seat belt with my right, trying to avoid any sudden movements. Next to me, Henry did the same.
The—soldiers?—motioned us forward until we stood in front of the Range Rover with the first four. The shortest of the guys—still at least six feet tall—signaled to the side of the road, and even more camo-clad men came out of the trees. “Hands on head.” He spoke in a rough voice, heavily accented by something Eastern European, maybe Russian.
Three men surrounded each of us, two with those wicked-looking guns pointed at each of us. One man, unarmed, clamped a hand on my shoulder and kicked my feet until they were shoulder width apart. Then a thorough pat-down. He found my insulin pump right away and pulled my shirt up to identify the small contraption. He said something to the short guy in a language I didn’t know and pulled the monitor from my waistband. The pinch of needle and tubing being removed barely registered under the sting of tape ripping from skin.
Four of the men huddled together, inspecting the insulin pump. I don’t know if they thought it was some kind of listening device or an explosive of some kind or what. “It’s medicine.” I snapped my mouth closed at a glare from one of the gun holders.
The short guy wrapped the clear tubing around the monitor and tucked it in his pocket.
“I need—” A glare cut me off. My hands clenched with the need to grab the device back.
The pat-down resumed; the stranger’s hands glided across every part of my body, stopping periodically to examine my pants’ pockets and my socks and shoes. Next to me, one of the men made Henry remove his boots. Henry didn’t protest, but he stood wide-eyed and gray faced as the man searched him. When the search was done, they allowed Henry to put his boots back on, a consideration I hadn’t expected.
“Kneel.” Shorty gestured the ground with his rifle. Strong arms pushed me to my knees. It was an awkward movement with my hands still linked atop my head and fear making my muscles stiff. I glanced at Henry who was kneeling next to me, execution-style.
We were going to die.
I closed my eyes. Tears leaked down my cheek, and I waited for the bullet.
I don’t want to die cycled through my head, over and over again.
Dozens of images joined the repetition. Mom, laughing at something I’d said. Wendy’s tear-streaked face filled with shame and guilt. Dad bandaging a little girl’s knee when I was six. Henry smiling. There was so much I hadn’t done, hadn’t experienced. And amid all of that, was the question: Why? Why was this happening?
I don’t want to die.
There was no shot, no bullet, no pain. No death. I blinked my eyes open and looked around. Men still surrounded us, guns pointed our way, but most of the others pulled boxes out of the Range Rover, tearing into the cardboard.
They dumped the boxes into the road, scattering the contents in the mud.
“What are they looking for?” I didn’t know I’d said it aloud until one of the guards with guns growled at me to be quiet.
Henry shrugged, a small gesture, easily missed if I hadn’t been glancing in his direction every other second. The quick look showed me Henry had adopted the same Zen-like expression he’d had after the snake bit him. This was Henry in control of his fear. Reassured—at least a little bit—I tried to match my breathing to Henry’s even breaths.
The short guy slammed the hatchback of the Range Rover closed. He and one of the other guys—I wish they didn’t all look alike; it was freaky—shouted at each other.
Shorty stalked back until he loomed over Henry and me. “Where are they?”
What was he talking about?
“Where are what?” Henry asked. I admired his calm tone. I thought I was going to piss my pants, and my voice would have probably been shakier than my nerves.
“Do not play with me.” The man jabbed his finger at Henry. His already-hard face grew tighter.
Henry swallowed audibly. “I’m not playing, I swear. If you need something that we have, you can have it. Just, please, let us go.”
“Where are the canisters, you idiotic child?” A quieter growl this time, but scarier somehow.
Henry’s head jerked up. “Canisters? What canisters? We have medical supplies, that’s all. We don’t even have any narcotics.”
Shorty hauled Henry up by the collar of his polo shirt. Henry grabbed at the man’s hand, trying to keep from being strangled by his shirt.
“Hey!” I lurched forward. Not my brightest move. One of the guards hammered the butt of his rifle into my shoulder, forcing me back to my knees. Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I flattened my hands atop my head again.
“Where are they?”
Henry shook his head helplessly.
Shorty stepped back and gestured to one of his companions. The other man lifted his bigass gun and aimed it at Henry’s head.
“Don’t!” I fell forward, digging my fingers into the dirt.
Pain exploded in my head, and the world tumbled into darkness.
MY HEAD throbbed and my stomach lurched when I came to. My shoulder ached. Someone had secured my arms behind my back. The world rocked, sending me rolling into something warm. My eyes flew open. Henry. I craned my neck as far as I could and saw his long hair, loose, covering his face.
Oh my God, he wasn’t moving. My heartbeat roared in my head, blocking out all sound. The flutter of brown hair almost made me cry. Breathing.
I wriggled and shifted until I could roll over and face him. Bound with his hands behind his back like me, Henry lay completely still.
“Henry?” I tapped his ankle with my foot, hoping to jostle him awake. “Please, please, please.” Another tap of my feet punctuated each word. He didn’t move.
I looked around the enclosed space and realized we were
back in the Range Rover. The vehicle jumped and I bashed my hip and elbow against the floor. The boxes were gone, probably still scattered over the road. My backpack bounced around somewhere near my feet, and I saw Henry’s bag in the corner. Another bump, this one big enough I was actually airborne for a second before I landed with an oomph.
A soft groan echoed next to me. “Henry?”
“Question.”
I nearly laughed in relief. “Shoot.”
“Where the fuck are we?”
“I don’t know.” I tried to see how badly he was hurt, but I still couldn’t see his face through the curtain of brown hair. “Are you okay? I mean, I guess they didn’t shoot you.”
He blew at his hair, moving it enough so one eye and part of his forehead were visible. One swollen eye and a patch of bruised forehead.
“What did they do to you?”
“After they knocked you out and I couldn’t give them the information they were looking for, they hit me too.”
“I thought they were going to shoot you.” The admission escaped through my thick throat. The terror of that moment, even knowing it hadn’t happened, still made me want to throw up.
“So did I.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“No idea.”
“Did you ever figure out what they were looking for? Canisters? Canisters of what?”
“I have no idea.” He sounded as disturbed by his lack of knowledge as I was. He closed his swollen eye and relaxed.
“Henry?”
“Yeah?”
“How badly are you hurt?”
He sighed, sending the curtain of hair fluttering again. “Just a bump on my head and the eye. Is it black yet?”
“It’s still at that puffy reddish-purple stage, but it shows potential to be a damn good shiner.”
Do-Gooder Page 6
