My Amputations (Fiction collective ;) (25 page)

Liberia was hope. Here, as in Ghana, the airport was manned by a vaudeville of armed police and combat soldiers in fatigues. A menacing presence? Like American police (“Round up the usual suspects!”) in the sixties. These guys though were brisk with the
new
spirit. Mason made his way at Robertsfield among hundreds of Muslims, Lebanese, Kpelle, Bassa, Gio, Bbandi, Lomo, Indians, Mano, British, Americans, even Japanese. Airports, he thought, are metaphors. A metaphor is, he thought further, never quite sure of itself. At the final paranoid-checkpoint (after every inch of his body—except for his asshole—had been searched) he found Professor Thomas Kakotu waiting at the gate. Kakotu held a sign. Horned-rimmed, Kakotu, flashed his gold tooth. The glitter of his smile was most welcome. . . . First impression at late afternoon—now—was haze and flatness. No sun yet you could feel it coming at you. In the car on the way in, Kakotu quickly proved to be a man of “like spirit.” He was one who understood or accepted the notion that “the imaginative foundation of human existence had some basis in the secular ‘dream’ of our actual journey” yet . . . In Monrovia they stopped and parked in front of Diana's. Inside, two of Kakotu's colleagues (Jacquelyn Cloves and Samuel Roberts) were waiting for them. Diana's was a simple place in good taste. Round table. They sipped Liberian beer while investigating the menu. The waiter, a boy, wanted to know where Mason was from. Was it that obvious he wasn't from, say, around the corner? . . . On the recommendation of the waiter they all ordered potato greens—which was made with fish, chicken, bits of pork, potato leaves, peanut butter, palm oil and lots of spices and herbs. It reminded Mason of pungent Soul Food—turnips and hamhocks, black-eyed peas and cornbread. He washed the rich food down with tangy beer. Conversation? Timid and academic. As they were leaving the waiter grinned at Mason and said, “When you go back to New York America you tell strangers come enjoy Liberia everytime, okay.” Yes. Back . . . ? . . . His room in plush grandiose Ducor was cool. Then at the bar businessmen from Japan, England, South America, chattered away about rubber or iron
ore deals. Mason smoked and sipped and wondered at the steamed flowers of his mood. He suddenly wished he had no face, no hands. No history. He took his quinine pill on the tide of a sip of scotch. . . . Those squatters in the Masonic Temple? Holy-moses, secret societies still. Hall of the oligarchy brought down by Doe: legacy plus a tight-grip of government by the old five-percent from 1821 Americo-Liberians, smashed, ended. Spirit of fourteen thousand originals placed back into the tribal context—no better than a Vai, a Kissi, a Lomo; compelled to take the same holi, barter with the charlies just like everybody else. What was “royalty” anyway? The in-breeding of royalty inevitably produced in its line of offspring the off, the feeble, narrow, nervous, inferior. Real nobility could be found where it had earned its right. . . . It was relative, too; yes, in deedy. Well, drink up. He had the week-end free. But he
did
have to find Chief Q. Tee. But where . . . ? He took the envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. It looked innocent enough. Held it up to the light. Only one sentence typed on a folded sheet of paper. The words were not clear enough through the envelope to be read . . . 

It was a Capricorn night: stubborn and grim. He knew he was out of his cotton-picking mind. And although he was in dirty, poor Monrovia—he remembered that for sure—the enemies had surely closed in. What could they want? He was drunk but not blind. And this taxi driver wasn't to be believed: smelling of bamboo and salted herring, he had a license placard with his grasshopper-face on it and his name was Wassily Bruno Ludwig Rottluff. Mason was suddenly afraid. Would they kill him, dump his body in some extragalactic space where nobody
but nobody
would ever find his remains? The guy was blue-rimmed and haughty even! In front of the dance hall, Mason got out. He reached into the uterus of the machine and pressed a
filthy dollar into the crusty black hand. “Thanks.” The joint was jumping. Called The Total Situation, it was on a side street off Broad, the main drag near the Chase Manhattan Bank. Natives were packed at the bar so deep it took Mason a full minute to recognize Reverend Jack Mackins tending them. Now
this
was some shit! Mason worked his way in and reached for Mackins' hand. The bartender gave him a dirty eye. Mason felt like a fringed-footed lizard. Red lights winked against blue darkness in the mirror behind the Man of God. Being here was like shopping in a supermarket. Mason looked up and down the length of the bar: a woman—the only white woman in the place—was eating peanuts from a bowl. A mug of beer in the other hand. Something about her rung a bell, nearly broke the ding and split the dong. He rubbed his pumpkin-colored eyes: this dame this lass was Little Sally Walker, the porno kitten. Nobody could tell him different. Damnit! The world wasn't
that
small. The man next to her was eating the placenta of some animal. Steaming hot, it superseded the double shot of whisky at his elbow. His black face was twisted and purple under the light. Mason turned back to the barkeep: “I know you, Reverend. You can't fool me. Remember Attica?” “Are you drunk? Can't serve you if you drunk. You from New York? Thought so.” “Where can I find Chief Q. Tee, Reverend?” “Never heard of a chief by that name.” Upstairs people were dancing and the weight of their festive display and desperate and absolute celebration of life had the lights in the ceiling rocking, releasing pearly iridescent specs of dust and crud. Mason ordered a scotch on the rocks. This place was more vulgar than he'd hoped for. Down the bar Little Sally Walker was licking her fingers. He remembered the tadpole-touch of her inner flesh. It gave him goose bumps and made eggs break against his spine. Later he'd go down and speak to her. She couldn't possibly be part of any plot against him. Could she? But the Reverend? Who could say. Little Sally Walker's glitter and glamor were throwing off a glazed inner rigidity she hadn't had back in Guy Flotilla's world of sentimental flesh and alienated genitals. Now now, be gentle. A commotion at the door pulled
him around and his eyes snagged on the exodus: people were splitting like mad. It was moments before Mason could see the body of a bleeding man on the floor half way under a table by the front window with its winking bar sign. A hard muscle in Mason's head turned to spring flowers. His teeth felt like pine cones. He drank the scotch down in one gulp. In minutes uniformed police and soldiers filled the place. Like everybody else he had to show his i.d. People wearing German music hall costumes and American designer jeans and French fluff came down the stairs from sweating and jumping, herded along by the tips of billy-sticks. In the crowd was one white guy. He was German all right. And yes: believe it or not: he was none other than Taurus Heiner Graf with a black woman clinging to his arm. For a moment Graf was only inches from him. Mason reached out and touched his arm. “Graf!” Graf didn't respond. He kept right on as though he hadn't felt the tug. At the same moment little Sally Walker and her date were pushing their way past. He couldn't remember her real name when he opened his mouth. “Rise Sally rise.” She gave him a smile and a wink. Well, well. On the way out Mason looked at the face of the man on the floor. He recognized it but he couldn't place it: it was too far out of context.

Saturday. Bopola-Ganori was a remote village reached by way of a good road built by foreign “investors” interested in you-know-what. Along the way were gigantic rubber tree plantations. A few scattered clouds hung above. It was not just another day drawn in charcoal. It had a conté sharpness, a certain verve. . . . They didn't arrogantly drive into the village, rather, they parked outside and walked in. Nothing much had started. The village chief, a slender old man wearing a white turban, greeted them with dignity and ceremoniousness. He didn't apply the customary, more casual, snap-of-the-finger-at
-the-end-of-the-shake “handshake.” Mason and the teachers walked about the area. A crowd was beginning to gather in the village square. Occasionally one of the professors explained something—how the huts were built, or—as they passed young girls cornrolling each other's hair—the process of braiding. They then ended up back at the square where the beer and food were spread out on tables under a shelter. Mason surveyed the feast, sniffed the pungent, spicy stuff, bean and sesame seed spread that smelled strongly of garlic; a wooden bowl filled with jumbo shrimp in red pepper paste; a big old pan of fried chicken in groundnut sauce that released little smoke clouds of chili and onions; some sort of baked thing with the aroma of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon; then familiar potato greens. Kakotu said the chicken and rice casserole was a specialty of Ghana—called jallof rice. Ghana was his homeland. The professors paid their fee of twenty dollars to the old woman in the corner. The first thing Mason lifted to his plate was a baked dish of corn and okra then a wooden spoonful of sugared yams. His sweet tooth was calling. A bus load of people from Monrovia arrived at the moment they started eating. The dancers in costume out in the square were warming up, stretching their limbs. Mason and the professors took a table adjacent to the serving table and a boy placed a bottle of beer alongside each of their plates. Kakotu wanted to know if the writer's books were available in Africa. Mason didn't know. Something in the corn and okra was reaching under his tongue and burning all the way down through the root of his mouth and into the throat canyon. Besides, he felt sore and dizzy from a sleepless night. His host assured him that this food was a cut above Julia's Gurley Street place, the Lebanese joints, the Mandarin, and even better than what you'd get on Carey or Broad not to mention the so-called European places. Our wolf-in-sheep skin was enjoying himself out here among the “tribal” folk. . . . Before the dancing started, the visitors—Liberians mainly, an American couple, two British ladies—crowded the sheltered area. Mason wanted to know if Kakotu knew of a Chief Q. Tee in Monrovia. He did not. Some people from Sinkor and Paynesville
arrived in a pickup truck. They came in just as a sprinkle started. The dancing was sort of casually beginning out there, though not with much kick. . . . A little man with an adult upper body perched on short legs—which were uneven—went to the center of the square, shooed the dancers aside, raised his hands against the drummers then addressed the visitors. Most of them were still eating as they stood or sat under the sheltered area. The deformed man explained the limitations of the festival: there were tribal secrets they couldn't share with strangers. . . . A grizzly fellow—obviously got-up to scare away evil spirits—wobbled into the square as the deformed guy stepped aside. Grizzle flopped about beating up dust despite rain. He ran toward the spectators in one direction then another. He was more comic then menacing. Not even the children flinched. Then two other bedeviled critters came from between huts and joined the old woolly bear. They beat around in the dust and tugged at each other with no apparent symmetry. A fourth one came forward from behind a cluster of old village women in plain cotton. Mason chewed on a shrimp dipped in ata sauce and watched the antics. (He was sure one of the English ladies was Cornelia in disguise!) About an hour later the thick dusty creatures were shooed away by the deformed man and the girls in grass skirts were ushered out. They moved their arms and twirled their hips and made all the turns and squats just right to the drum beats. The drummers, by the way, were clustered together at the other side of the square: also under a shelter of branches supported by four simple poles. . . . New dancers came and joined the present ones. Within minutes the girls were moving in a dusty storm as they pounded the ground with their bare feet. The drums talked. The sun came out sharply. Mason and his escorts continued to watch from beneath the thatched roof. The deformed man kept shouting to the dancers—urging them to move faster. Standing to the side, just inside the circle of viewers, he'd cut a little step himself to the drums. Cackling and gesturing toward his genitalia. He reminded Mason of Snake Hips. . . . 

“Tomorrow at noon come to Village Tabli-Gablah in Bomi Territory for official meeting. Essential you be there. You must appear in wooden mask. No one is to see your face. Q.T.” This message awaited him upon his return to the Ducor. It was on letter-head stationary: Q.T. Secret Society. No address. No phone. Reader, for hours Mason was in a quandary! Yet he bought a mask. He didn't sleep well that night. The taxi trip to Tabli-Gablah would cost forty cruddy dollars. (Did the American government send all its dirty money to Liberia?) On his way, he thought how odd he'd felt to discover yesterday in the afternoon during the dinner party at Kakotu's that Kakotu had four wives. Mason'd known in the abstract that polygamy was still widespread here but to see it in action—all the wives busy in the kitchen—was different. The whole neighborhood came to Kakotu's home in northwest Monrovia to help him celebrate the visit of the American poet and novelist. It was also a party to honor the birth of Kakotu's first grandchild. Mason felt a little cheated. Scotch, rum, wine, beer, soda pop, a dining room table in a dark house filled with serving dishes of sizzling hot stews, fried meats, peppered baked dishes, salty, tangy, sweet meats and yams, overripe fruit. Guests chattered politely standing in line around the table, loading and reloading their plates. The cool darkness complimented the soft, low, sweet voices. As Mason listened to Jacquelyn Cloves tell of her adventures in New York, there suddenly came the clamor of something afoot out in the yard. Had Mandingo tribesmen come with unfriendly intentions? Had Camp Johnson Road been taken by the advanced guard of a new government? Naw. It was only The Devil: tall as a Georgia pine, with a red face! Mason, with the others, rushed out onto the screened porch to see what was up. The Devil was a sight standing there in the dust surrounded by a hundred or so awed and giggling children. Then His Satanic Majesty started a little sweet dance step. He had the charm of little Shirley Temple. A lifted foot, a lifted arm. His body was wrapped in yellow sacks all the way down his wooden—stilt-held—legs. The sucker was every bit of twelve feet! He had no voice but gestured toward his
mouth with a webbed set of fingers—indicating thirst. Impatient with the slowness of spectators, The Devil snatched a bottle of beer from a man's fist. Toodleoo, beer. Whoa, now! Back up! But it was too late. He drained the bottle then snatched a glass of scotch from Robert's grip—spilled most of it in his clumsy effort to get the liquid in through his slit. Sort of wavering in a dust cloud of his own making, he accepted bits of meat, sips from bottles of soda pop, potato chips, crackers, pieces of chocolate. Even money. After taking Mister Nobody's scotch he demanded money—making his request clear by rubbing his thumb against his index and forefinger. The crowd roared. Mason gave The Devil a couple of dollars. He stuffed them into his shirt front then reached down and grabbed Mason by the shoulder. “Tonight . . . ” he whispered through the mask. But there was something else. Mason missed it: a few words at the end: unclear, curved, clay-clogged, in a wheeze. A boy at the back of the crowd—perched high on a fence—was beating a drum to The Devil's dance. The Devil stepped now to the dreamy drunk sick rhythm of his Shirley Temple tap. Where was Big Bill? Calm as a clam, innocent as a curl, he danced his magic whim. He danced till he couldn't stand. By now the whole party'd moved outside. Then the poor-devil-of-a-guy dropped and leaned against the high terra cotta wall that separated the yard from the dusty road. As in novels of old, the afternoon wore on. . . . Tonight?