Indigo (30 page)

“Looters,” said the one whose gun had come back to him first.

To Jerry's eye the soldiers all looked about Bramwell's age and his first impulse was to scold them, to tell them that a soldier's duty demanded something more than just lounging about. Before he could make such a serious mistake, however, the other two soldiers picked up their rifles and pointed them, sufficiently stifling his impulse.

“Wha' store you gone loot dis day, looters?” the first soldier asked. He pointed at the locked door next to him, and then quickly banged the lock open with the butt of his gun. “I tink dis one,” he said. “Les step inside.”

The store was dark and the situation was deadly. This was an appliance store but it was completely unlike Smart's. In here things were orderly and organized, small appliances on shelves, larger ones standing in the middle 6f the floor and around the sides. One of the soldiers found a tape player. He pulled a tape from a nearby rack and popped it into the machine and immediately reggae music was everywhere. This was Bob Marley, and the sound of it made Jerry look at Parker. The tune was “Natural Mystic,” and Parker said, “Sellin' dem tickets was a big mistake.”

Though the soldiers had no idea what Parker was talking about, his tone nevertheless got their attention. “Ah, good,” one of them said, “firs' come de confession, den de punishmen' begin.”

The other two soldiers nodded, but they were also listening to the music and wondering about getting that tape player out of the store. When the first soldier turned the tape machine off, though, the quiet was so overwhelming that his words had too much power.

“Go down on de floor,” he said. “Go onto you knees.”

“Oh no,” Jerry said, and Parker held up his hands. Louis, however, was the last to lose his cheerful attitude. “We all Nigerians here,” he said, “les talk a while firs'.”

But the soldiers' answer to that was to bang Louis across the shoulders with a rifle butt until Louis's cheerful attitude went away. Louis fell down onto his knees where Parker already was.

Jerry still stood, but only because he feared that if he got down too, their time would be completely up. They were inside an appliance store. The soldiers could say they had found them there.

Jerry looked at the man who seemed to be the leader and said, “Tell us, at least, what has happened, what's going on outside,” and though he flinched in anticipation of the rifle blow, the soldier went ahead and told him.

“Nigeria experience military coup d'état right now,” he said. “De generals has taken over de gov'men'.”

The generals? Jerry remembered that Beany was worried about the junior men, so he asked the soldier if he was sure it was the generals, and the soldier said, “De generals move before de young mens fin' dere chance.”

So in the end that was it. All of Beany's plans meant nothing. His negotiations with the military meant nothing too.

“We didn't know there was a curfew,” Jerry said. “We just now got into town.”

It was a chancy thing to say. Perhaps there wasn't a curfew. But why else was there no one on the streets, why else were they being detained? Jerry simply hoped for more talk, but this time the soldier put the barrel of his rifle under Jerry's chin. “Shuddup,” he said. “Get down.”

So though he felt strangely calm, Jerry got down on his knees. He was feeling otherworldly, like he'd felt with his face in the water of that porcelain sink at the Loaves and Fishes Hotel. This time, however, he didn't see it as a good sign at all.

The third soldier, the quietest of the three, told them to empty their pockets and put their hands behind their backs. Jerry's bundle was in front of him and when the same soldier tore at it he said, “That belongs to me. Leave it alone.”

It was the wrong thing to say, for though the third soldier did leave the bundle alone, he hit Jerry quickly, slamming him hard across the chest with the shaft of his gun. The first soldier laughed and hit Louis across the shoulder blades again. Jerry felt pain roaring all the way through his body, but since he'd been hit in the front, he only hinged back until he was sitting on his feet. Louis, on the other hand, fell down hard, his face against the appliance store floor. A little blood came out of Louis's nose and flowed next to Jerry's bundle, darkening the already indigo cloth.

“We go catch three tiefman,” said the soldier who had hit Louis. “Les' no call for come de lorry. Les' go take care dem now.”

He was talking about shooting them, but the pain in Jerry's chest was such that he couldn't think how to respond. He had been hit too hard. Louis didn't seem to be in much of a mood to speak either, so it was all up to Parker, who, as yet unharmed, had regained some of his nerve.

“You know de Bob Marley you play just now make remember me wha' Bob Marley his own self say 'bout Yoruba man.” Parker had spoken clearly, using his best confidence man's voice, the one Jerry remembered clinging to those first days in their jail cell. Then Parker had known what he was doing, and Jerry prayed that he knew as much now. Had he mentioned Yoruba men because these guys were Yoruba or because they were not? Jerry thought he knew that Parker was Yoruba and that Louis was not. He had no idea at all what the soldiers were.

But the soldier who had hit Jerry knelt down in front of Parker. “What Bob Marley say?” he asked. His voice seemed completely free, for the moment, of any threat, and Parker gained strength. His powers to be confidential were fully back now and he said, “Lemme fin' somethin' from my possession dere.”

Parker nodded at his wallet, which the soldiers still hadn't touched, and which was in front of him on the floor. “Lemme reach down small,” he said.

The kneeling soldier looked at the others and then at Parker again. “Go small an' slow,” he said, “don' touch nothin' else.”

Jerry and Louis had regained themselves enough to be watching Parker now, though Louis was doing so from the floor. Parker's hand was calm and it did move slowly down, finally opening the leather wallet that was there. Jerry could see the corner of a twenty-naira bank note in the wallet and he feared the soldiers might kill them just for that. But Parker's hand deftly pulled the note out and flipped it away, and when it dug farther into the wallet it found what it was after. Three tickets to the bogus Bob Marley concert, the one that had landed Parker in jail in the first place.

“I wan' you take dese,” Parker said, “I dash you small.” The tickets were in perfect shape, especially considering how long they must have been tucked away in that wallet, and when the kneeling soldier took them he smiled.

“Thank you very much,” he said. “When Bob Marley comin' to town?” It was a relief to see the smile but horrible to understand that Parker was staking their lives on these guys believing that Bob Marley was still alive. Hell, even Jerry knew he was dead. But the other two soldiers had come around to look at the tickets, at the good photograph of Bob Marley embossed upon them, and one of them even picked Louis up, getting him off of his face and back onto his knees. For a moment everyone was smiling. “You can' buy 'em,” Parker told the soldiers. “Dem ticket no fo' sale.”

Though Jerry was sure that the bogus concert's date was written somewhere on the tickets, things were looking up. Parker had bought them time, and the sudden sound of the troop truck and another motorcycle on the road outside had probably bought them their lives. The soldiers had barely tucked the tickets away before a sergeant walked in. All of the appliances gleamed at him, and when he asked, “Wha's de trouble hea'?” the three soldiers were like the Andrews Sisters, all of them speaking at once. “Looters, sah!” they said. “Lootin' an' fussin' aroun' inside de store.”

The sergeant, who was nearly as young as the three soldiers were, read from a piece of paper in his hand. “Looters are to be arrested or shot on sight.” He then looked at the soldiers and asked, “How come you don' shoot 'em on sight?”

“Don' know, sah,” the three soldiers said.

Jerry could see through the window that other soldiers had rounded up other civilians, had pushed them up into the canvassed back of another truck.

“OK, take 'em outside,” the sergeant said. His speech was so matter-of-fact, businesslike even, that Jerry decided he would try to speak to the man. He had been lifted to his feet by two of the soldiers when he asked, “Who's in charge now? Who is leading Nigeria into its new era of prosperity?”

He hadn't meant to sound cynical, he'd only wanted to discover as much as he could about what was really going on, but the sergeant stopped short and looked at him.

“You don' believe we can fin' prosperity more den we got right now?” he asked.

“It would be hard to find less,” Jerry said, and to his surprise the sergeant laughed.

“You a chancy man,” he said. “I got de powa' to shoot you in de street. How come you wan' go loot like dis anyhow? Any man know de firs' hour o de coup mos' dangerous time of all. Dis ain' de time for lootin', later is.”

“We didn't loot anything from the store,” Jerry said.

Parker and Louis were looking at him like he was crazy, but the young sergeant kept his friendly face. “Save it for de judge,” he said, but he held Jerry's arm, helping him out the door and up into the darkened back of the truck, before he got onto his own motorcycle and prepared to drive away.

Jerry would have been content to ride along, now that he knew he wasn't going to be shot, but as the truck started to move he suddenly remembered his bundle of art, which had remained inside on the appliance-store floor. The sergeant had ridden off somewhere but there were other soldiers in the truck, so he asked one of them if he could go back inside.

“I forgot my belongings,” he said. “Just hold on a minute, I'll be right back.”

He had smiled nicely at them, but when he stood up one of the soldiers yelled at him, “Don' move! Siddown!”

The soldier was more startled than angry but the truck was moving and Jerry was sure he wouldn't be able to find this appliance store again. “No, really,” he said. “I'll hurry, I promise I won't be long.”

Though they were seated somewhere near the middle of the truck, Jerry had managed to stand completely up and take a step toward the truck's open back before the soldier stood too, swinging at him with his rifle butt. It was dark in the truck, but Jerry felt the blow coming and ducked, so all the rifle did was knock his cap off.

“Crazy man!” the soldier yelled. He held his rifle up to swing it again, this time squarely into Jerry's jaw, but right then something stopped him. He let the rifle slip and put a hand up to his mouth. The others in the truck, too, began moaning so specifically that Jerry breathed through his nose, catching a little of what he remembered from under that mango tree, at the side of that field, the passing odor of a rancid world. Jerry found his cap then, and, though they were retching too, he helped Parker and Louis climb out of the truck.

“Get my bundle from the store!” he shouted. Parker and Louis were on the ground now, still gagging but recovering some, and Jerry kept his head pointed inside the truck where the remaining soldiers and prisoners had actually begun throwing up. Jerry could smell himself too, but in a defused sort of way, like walking past an overflowing cesspool at a distance of fifty feet or so.

When Louis and Parker came back with the bundle Jerry put his cap on and the three of them ran past the appliance store and around the nearest corner again. Louis ran fast, Parker slower, and Jerry took up the rear. When they got to the stranded motorcycle Parker jumped onto the grate while Louis flung his shoulders against the handlebars with such force that, this time, the tire popped easily away. The keys were still in the ignition and when Parker started it they all got on.

“This is a crazy life,” Parker said. He had turned the motorcycle around and eased off on the clutch, and they were gliding quickly away from the truckload of recovering soldiers and the handful of looters they had caught, past the surprised young sergeant,, whose own motorcycle was now stuck at the side of the road. It
was
a crazy life, Jerry thought, Parker was right about that, but it was a lucky life too, for they were able to ride all the way to Jankara without running into any more soldiers, all of them thankful that nothing came up to give Jerry reason to take his cap off once again.

In Jankara things at first appeared to be unchanged. They had expected an extension of the closed stores they'd seen downtown, a neighborhood of shutters, but Jankara, though it wasn't particularly busy, was open and normal, people walking by as if Beany's plan were still a viable possibility in their lives.

Parker drove the motorcycle slowly past the auto-parts stalls and down narrow paths until they got to Smart's first green door. Louis knocked while Jerry held his bundle lightly. His chest was still sore and he was beginning to worry that maybe the soldier had broken something with the butt of his gun.

“I don' understan' dis,” Louis said.

The door to Smart's place was always kept solidly locked, but this time it had swung open with the pounding of his hand. “Don' go in,” said Parker. “Les go back an' wait a while.”

Louis, however, had already stepped inside. “Oh, Elwood?” he called. “Oh, Smart?”

The metal corridor led darkly down, but now Parker and Jerry both told Louis to stop. “Maybe Smart is caught,” Parker said, “maybe someone else down there.”

Jerry worried about Pamela, who was supposed to have met the bus, and about the others too, Sondra and those who had shadowed the bus in Pamela's car, but Parker said it was they who had sent him on the motorcycle, that they'd been safe at Smart's place only a couple of hours before.

Was it best, then, to stay out, or to go down into the belly of this whale? Jerry could still hear the echoing footsteps of his first descent, the sound of himself stepping into this thing, but he said, “You guys ride around to the monkeys' side, I'll walk down here. If I don't come out soon then go away somewhere and hide.”