I’m close in the story now to where I was when everything fell down. A few days away. I saw Marguerite at that shoot-out by the sea only a month before I ended up in here, before here turned into a coffin.
I feel like if I tell my story to you till the point when I came to hospital, then that will be the point when I break through into the light. It sounds dumb, I know, but that’s what I’m doing. I’m digging and I’m telling you this shit, and I’m throwing the stuff I’m digging behind me, just like I’m throwing my story behind me.
It’s dirt, my story. I don’t need it anymore.
I no longer notice the pain in my hands, either. To begin with, the pieces of concrete were slick with my blood, and now I suppose I must’ve developed calluses, cos it barely hurts anymore. I don’t know if I’ve moved, really, or how long I’ve been digging. It feels like hours, but it might be longer.
An hour ago, maybe, I heard someone calling again. This time in English.
— . . . anyone down there?
I don’t like hearing the word down. I was on the fifth floor. If I’m down from where the people are digging, then things are pretty bad. I call back, but as usual no moun replies. Either I’m dead, or my voice is bouncing off the concrete.
— I can’t come there, said Stéphanie.
She wasn’t in the car with us, she was on the other end of the phone – Biggie liked to talk on speakerphone when he was driving. He was cruising around the slum, and he was trying to get Stéphanie to come and pick up Mickey, this soldier who was wounded, only she didn’t want to come into the Site anymore.
— It’s not safe for me, she continued. I’m staying in my hotel.
Biggie grinned.
— Steph, he said. Steph, chérie, ma copine chou-chou. Chill. Everyone knows you – I tell all my soldiers about you. They know I love you, they know not to hurt you. Écoute – quand je serai riche t’auras une belle maison. T’auras tout ce que tu voudras car je t’aime, tu sais?
— Yes, said Stéphanie. I know you love me, I know you’ll buy me a big house – you’re always telling me that. But it’s not so simple, Biggie. They shot at us when we were distributing fucking food! Tu comprends ça? It’s crazy. I can’t come to the Site anymore.
— Please, said Biggie. I got a soldier been shot in the foot. I need you to take him to hospital.
— In the foot?
— Yeah, in the foot.
Stéphanie sighed down the phone. She’s the only person I know who can sigh on a phone and get the right effect. That sigh, it’s one of the things I really remember about her.
— Someone from Boston shot him, I take it? she asked.
— No, said Biggie. I shot him.
Silence for a moment.
— You shot him? Why?
— He was disrespecting me.
This was true. The guy – he called himself Mickey – was saying how if it was Route 9 who had shot people up and killed Boston soldiers, then Boston would have hit back already. He was implying that Biggie was weak, that he wasn’t dealing with his shit. This kind of thing is always happening – Biggie says that when you’re a leader, people always got to challenge you. That’s part of being a leader, I get that.
But Stéphanie laughed, a hollow laugh.
— Jesus, she said. You gangsters with your respect.
— I’m not a gangster, said Biggie. People come here, they call me a gangster, but they don’t know shit about the Site. No moun want to help with the education here, no moun want to give out food – apart from us. People here got anyen to eat, anyen to drink, but they got guns. What you expect gonna happen?
— Shut up, Biggie, said Stéphanie. I’m not some documentary maker for you to recite your poetic bullshit to. I do know the Site. You’re a gangster. You sell drugs and you kill people.
— Yeah? said Biggie. Good. Yeah, I’m a gangster. G-star in the motherfucking hood. This is what I’m saying to Mickey – too right I’ll take Boston down.
Biggie started rapping then:
— Can’t get them with a gun, get them with machetes. Chop their asses up, fuck them up with baseball bats.
— If he disrespected you, said Stéphanie, why do you want him to go to hospital?
Biggie looked at me and shook his head, like, how can this bitch be so stupid?
— He’s my soldier, man, my frère chou-chou. I love him. I just had to teach him some respect.
Stéphanie sighed again.
— I’ll see what I can do, she said. But listen to me, Biggie. I like you, you get that? I want you to be OK. I don’t want you to die.
— I don’t want to die, either.
— Then listen. I was in a bar last night. Lots of aid workers go there and some MINUSTAH soldiers were there, too. They say they’re going to hit the gangs in the Site, hit them hard. Some journalist got photos of the shoot-out the other day. MINUSTAH have to look like they care.
— Pfft, said Biggie. If they spent as much on hospitals and drinking water as they do on tanks, maybe we’d believe them.
I stared at him. Sometimes he didn’t sound like he was in an American ghetto. Sometimes he said things that weren’t completely stupid.
— I agree, Biggie. You know I do, said Stéphanie. But listen, these guys are serious. They’re going to come after you soon. They want to capture some gangsters, show some piles of confiscated guns on TV.
I could hear real worry in her voice, real concern, but Biggie made that dismissive noise again.
— MINUSTAH haven’t done shit in the Site since they killed Dread Wilmè, he said. All they do is sit at their checkpoints. They even let us through when we go out to sell drugs if we pay them.
— I’m just warning you, said Stéphanie. That’s all.
There was a click – she hung up.
— Girls, man, said Biggie and he did that turny finger thing next to his head. Sa ansent, that’s why she worry so much. She thinks I ain’t gonna care for her. I keep telling her I’ll be a rich rapper one day. That record company gonna snap my shit up. I’ll be like Wyclef.
Now I was staring at Biggie.
— She’s pregnant? I asked.
— Sure, he said. My sperm are super sperm. Super soldiers.
I already told you Biggie had a three-year-old with his baby manman Valerie. Making Stéphanie pregnant, it was incredible. How he thought he was gonna raise the kid, I don’t know. And what did he think she was gonna do? Did he think she’d move into the Site, play house with him? I couldn’t believe he had been so stupid – like, hadn’t he heard of condoms or some shit?
— She’s French, I said. She works for the UN. What’s gonna happen?
— I told you. I’ll be a high roller one day, shot caller, full bank, motherfucker.
I gave up. I leaned back in my seat. There was fresh sea air coming in through the open window, and I had my hand wrapped around a sawn-off shotgun. I felt good. I had a lungful of weed, too – Biggie had just handed his blunt to me. But even though I felt sweet, I still had my sister in my mind. Me, I wanted a war. But you wanted Biggie to do something, you didn’t just tell him. That was how Mickey got a bullet in his foot.
— Boston came too close this time, Shorty. They shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have messed with our community work like that.
— Word, I said. We need to hit them back hard, man.
I was thinking about Marguerite, though I didn’t tell Biggie that. But that’s what I wanted – I wanted to hit Boston so I could draw out my sister, grab her from the Boston fuckers, and bring her back to live with me. Shit, maybe I could find her a dog, or something, maybe the dog Tintin nearly ran over. She could look after it, feed it. Then we’d get her into the school, help her to be a doctor one day. She always said she’d get out of the Site. I wanted to help her get out more than anything in the world.
— Yeah, said Biggie. But first we’re going to see the houngan. I want more spells. More protection. I want the lwa of war.
— The lwa of war? I said.
— Yeah. Ogou Badagry. Niggers got to respect that motherfucker. You right – Boston come into our territory, we got to hit them back hard. That houngan gave me Dread’s bones to wear, but now we need some deeper vodou: black maji. You get me?
— There’s going to be a war? I said.
I was thinking about Marguerite. I was thinking how if I go into Boston territory on my own, I’m dead. But if we all go to war, then maybe I have a chance to find her, bring her back.
— Cool, I said.
The houngan, he lived in this van down a side street. It wasn’t on the map I drew, so I guess Biggie didn’t want people knowing where the guy lived. The van didn’t have wheels. One side of it was propped up on magazines, the other side on bricks. The windows were broken, but there were curtains in them. They had flowers on. I thought it was a pretty weird set-up for a houngan, but I didn’t say anything.
Biggie knocked on the door. I’d never seen him knock on a door. Usually, he just opened up and walked in, or he stopped outside with his music blaring and he expected you to come out to him. An old man opened it. I saw that he wasn’t the same houngan who did Dread’s funeral; maybe that houngan died, or something. This one had got dirty shorts on, no top. His body was scrawny and there was gray hair all over it. His stomach hung over his shorts. It was like it wanted to hide his crotch. There were heavy bags under his eyes and big red veins on his nose, and his eyes were bloodshot.
— You got whiskey? he said. You got kleren?
Biggie shook his head.
— I’ll get one of the shorties to bring you some, he said. Anyway, it’s not Baron Samedi I want.
The houngan smiled at me. Actually, it was more of a leer. I saw his crooked teeth, the gaps where some of them had fallen out. There was a smell of rot and alcohol from him. He was old. Like, forty, at least.
— It’s not Baron Samedi he wants, the houngan said, so he doesn’t bring whiskey. Little asshole.
I couldn’t believe it. Biggie, he once shot someone in the foot for saying his hair looked stupid with cornrows. Now the houngan was calling him an asshole.
I pulled my Glock.
— You watch what you’re saying, houngan man, I said. You disrespect Biggie, you get a full metal jacket in the eye.
Biggie put a hand on my gun, made me lower it.
— Chill, he said to me.
Then, cool as brushed steel, he turned to the houngan.
— I told you, Biggie said. I’ll get you some. You gonna let us in, or what?
— Depends what you want, said the houngan. You want maji? You want charms to put on the crossroad to protect your territory?
— I want Ogou Badagry, said Biggie.
The houngan’s eyes went big and wide. Biggie took out this bundle of notes, like, two months of drug money. He handed it to the houngan.
— We’re going to war, he said. We need serious maji.
— You need a shrink, said the houngan.
But he opened the door and he let us in.
Inside, it was a tip. There were magazines everywhere and a few books, too. There were dirty clothes, a few cups, and plates lying in the mess. On the sides of the van were shelves that looked like they were made out of bits of corrugated iron and wood the houngan had found in the street. There were jars on them, with powders and stuff. Veves were drawn on the floor. There was a rattle in the shape of a skull, drums. I could smell sweat and whiskey and rotting food. It was like how you’d imagine a houngan’s place, if you knew the houngan was a tramp, or mental.
The houngan gestured at a mound in the dirt that might have been a couch. Biggie didn’t hesitate, just sat down. I started to sit down, too, but I must have made a face or something, cos the houngan laughed and gave me a push, so I got down on my ass on the shirts and magazines and stuff. I caught my breath and I tried to slow down my heartbeat.
The houngan took a proper look at me.
— You got a pwen, he said. I can feel it.
I put my hand to my pocket, to the smooth pebble that Dread gave me.
— Yeah, I said.
— Good, said the houngan. That shit will protect you. Someone must like you, kid.
Biggie smiled.
— My soldiers got to be protected, he said.
The houngan laughed.
— None of them as protected as you, my man.
He pointed to a jar on the shelf opposite me. It was nearly empty, but there was a bit of gray powder left at the bottom.
— That’s Dread Wilmè, he said. What’s left of him. The rest is on Biggie here, keeping him safe from bullets. You want I should put the dust on you, too? There ain’t no gun will kill you, then.
— That’s Dread Wilmè? I said.
It was, like, the stupidest thing I ever said, cos he just told me it was, but it was all I could think of.
— Yeah. All I do is I call Baron Samedi and he rides me, and he takes the ashes and sprinkles them on you. That way he’ll recognize you when you’re about to be killed. When he sees you all covered in that dust, he knows not to take you. He leaves you alone, for sure. Dread Wilmè is sacred, man.
The houngan leaned forward. His breath was like something physical in the van.
— All you gotta do is bring me some whiskey, he said. And some money, maybe.
— He doesn’t need it, said Biggie. Shorty be blessed already. Dread saved his life – died right on top of him. Truth?
— Truth, I said.
— He’s that kid? said the houngan. Shit.
He held out his hand, and I shook it.
— You’re a legend in this part of the Site, he said. Is it true that Dread had a thousand holes in him when he died?
— I guess, I said. That’s what my manman says.
— And the dude still lifted a tank off of Shorty here, said Biggie.
It’s weird, the way everyone knows the story, not just me and my manman. I never get used to it.
— Stone-cold gangster, man, said Biggie.
— You Marassa, too? said the houngan. I heard Aristide took you both from your manman his ownself.
— No, I said. My sister is gone. I’m just me. I’m nothing.
The houngan nodded. He went over to the shelf – it didn’t take him long, it was only one step to the other side of the truck – and he touched the jar. Then he kicked some stuff out the way, cleared a space on the floor.
— You’re ready for this? he said to Biggie. This could be intense. Ogou is . . . Ogou is fierce. You’ve been smoking weed, playing with Baron Samedi and Dread’s bones. But this shit is heroin.
— Heroin is my shit, man, said Biggie. I been dealing with heroin since back in the day. Boston came into our territory. We got to wipe them out.
The houngan nodded again. He got out some chalk and started drawing a veve on the metal floor of the van. It was delicate, quick, and I didn’t expect that this wreck of a guy could draw like that. Then he poured some kind of powder on the floor, and he took up the drum and started to dance. As he danced he sang:
— Attibon Legba, ouvri bayè pou moin!
Ago!
Ou wè, Attibon Legba, ouvri bayè pou moin, ouvri bayè!
M’apè rentrè quand ma tournè,
Ma salut lwa yo.
Manman dragged us to a load of ceremonies, so I knew what he was doing. He was calling Legba to open the gate between our world and the world of the lwa. Legba doesn’t open the gate, nothing comes through.
The houngan beat and beat on the drum, singing that little song over and over again. I started to get a bit freaked out. Usually, when this kind of thing went on, the houngan switched over pretty quickly to some other lwa. Usually, there wasn’t this electricity in the air – I could feel it crackling in my ears, running like shivers on my skin. The smell of the houngan was gone. Now the inside of the van smelled like gunpowder and sex and flowers. It was like the walls were closing in on me, and I turned to Biggie and he looked like he just saw a ghost.
Suddenly, the houngan stopped. There was silence, but it was like the silence you get before thunder, or before a dog barks. Then his head snapped round to look at me, and his eyes weren’t his eyes anymore, but were like gates that have been opened, and there was emptiness on the other side of them, and it made your head hurt, like when you think about how big infinity is.
— What do you want? he asked, and it wasn’t his voice – it was something that echoed.
The houngan, or whatever it was, wasn’t looking at Biggie, he was looking at me, but it was Biggie who answered.
— We want Ogou Badagry, he said. We want to go to war. We need his help.
— I am the crossroad, said the houngan who was Papa Legba. You are at a crossroad. So you get me.
— Yes, said Biggie. But can you bring us Ogou Badagry? We need war in our met tet, we need to be strong . . .
He tailed off, cos the houngan had turned to look at him, and Biggie got a load of those eyes.
— No, said Legba.
— No?
— No.
He touched Biggie’s head and Biggie shivered.
— You are full, Legba said. You have a dead man inside you.
Then he touched my head.
— And you are empty. You were Marassa, now you are nothing. You are half a person, but you won’t be for long. The ceremony has already been completed. It was completed many years ago. Ogou Badagry is not for you.
— But our enemies, said Biggie. We need to destroy our enemies.
— This one knows how, Legba said, touching me again. This one can destroy anything, if he wants. He can build things, too, but it’s up to him what he does.
I felt like I might pass out, but I dug my nails into my palms. Papa Legba is the crossroad, I thought. He can find anything, and give anything. He can return things that are lost.
— Will I get my sister back? I said to the houngan who was Papa Legba.
— What the fuck are you talking about? said Biggie. What the fuck is this?
The houngan looked at me.
— I don’t know what you’re talking about, he said. I don’t deal with that door.
— What door? I said.
The houngan shook his head.
— I don’t . . . This is all . . .
The houngan’s voice was back to normal now; it didn’t echo anymore. It was like a dub mix had stopped and we were back to the normal song. He slumped to his knees and the old eyes fluttered open, the bloodshot ones, not the ones that were blankness forever.
— What happened? the houngan said to us.
— I don’t know, said Biggie. You were Legba, I think. He said that I was full. He said Shorty was half a person. You know what that means?
The houngan looked at me and he frowned.
— No, he said. But it doesn’t sound good.
He turned as if we were done.
— Hey, asshole, said Biggie. I’m not paying for that. Give me the money back.
The houngan shook his head.
— I did what you wanted, he said. Not my fault the lwa didn’t help you.
— I didn’t want bullshit talk, said Biggie. I wanted protection. Aggression.
The houngan shrugged.
— Take it up with the lwa, he said.
— No, said Biggie. You take it up with the lwa.
He took out his Glock.
— Wait, said the houngan. You need me.
— No, I don’t. You already gave me Dread’s maji. Anyway, you called me an asshole. It’s a matter of principle, you get that?
He emptied the Glock into the houngan, and the guy got thrown back so far he knocked down all those shelves, including the one with Dread in it, and it smashed as it fell on him. The powder went all over him, but it was too late for him. He was dead.
— You can destroy anything? said Biggie to me. Better come up with something quick, then.
The weird thing was I did think of something.
After we went to the houngan, everything sped up. Ever since Legba touched me it was, like, I don’t know, it was like there was a door that was open in my head, and all kinds of stuff came through. I went out on patrol, and I helped Biggie put charms on the roads that led into Solèy 19, and I helped him sort out some guys who’d been short on their payments, and all the time it was like I was in this completely different place, where there were a lot more trees and shadows.
I’d also been having this weird dream about a castle and a carriage. It gave me an idea. I had it all worked out.
— Listen, Biggie, I said one night. I’ve got a plan for how we can take out Boston.
— What? said Biggie. Like, all of them?
— Yeah, I said. All of them.
We did it at night. Biggie wasn’t so happy about giving up his whip, but I told him:
— If we pull this off, you can have as many cars as you want. We’ll own the whole Site if we take Boston out. Think about it. You want to sell half the heroin in the Site, or all of it?
He gave us the car.
I told you I was the Mechanic, right? Show me a broken engine and I would fix it, no matter if the engine was in a car or a chainsaw.
So, I got this servo mounted to a gun in the back. I had a remote control in my hand, like the ones you get with a toy car. That was the hardest thing to find – we had to cruise pretty much a whole day through the Site, asking people. Kids don’t get toys in the Site, but eventually we found some kid who had brought his from the country when his parents moved to Port-au-Prince to get better jobs – and ain’t that a joke, like they say in the songs? We paid him 50 dollars for it. So now I’d got the servo out the toy car, you get me? And it was hooked up to this AK in the back of the whip. Packed into the trunk and the footwells was a load of dynamite, grenades, and rockets. I couldn’t believe all this stuff when Biggie showed it to me. He said it was from Aristide, from when he wanted the gangs to secure the country for him, but Biggie said he never knew what to do with that shit, so he just left it in a shack.
— That stuff is dangerous, he said.
— Yeah, I know, I said. That’s the point.
So, whip, servo, gun, explosives. The rest was just ghost-riding.
Some of the guys, they didn’t like it. They said that Biggie shouldn’t be listening to me, that I’ve had crazy shit in my head ever since we went to see the houngan.
Lil’ Wayne said right to Biggie’s face:
— Boko ba w pwen, li pa di w domi nan kafou.
It’s an expression everyone uses, and it’s kind of perfect for that moment and for Biggie, I guess, cos it means, even if the houngan gave you a protective spell, there’s no need to lie down at a crossroad. Meaning, we were going to get ourselves killed.
Biggie, he just looked long and cold at Lil’ Wayne.
— We’re still alive after this, you come and tell me that again, he said.
So that was it. We talked about it for a bit, and then we were just doing it. We got the car ready, the explosives, the guns, and we did it.
We were at the end of the street that leads to Boston territory. We knew that the Boston leaders were sleeping there tonight, cos we put some shorties on the case. Shorties look the same, running around, playing games. Boston crew can’t tell a Solèy 10 shorty from a Solèy 19 shorty.
I was hoping Marguerite was there, too, and I was hoping I didn’t kill her. I was feeling sick. My whole stomach was tight, like a bag packed with weed. I know I’ve killed people, and you probably think I’m an evil person, but the truth is I only did it to find Marguerite. I only joined Route 9 cos they’re the other power; they’re the only ones who could help me destroy Boston and get her back.
So this, right here, this was the moment I had waited nearly half my life for. This was the moment when I might be reunited with my twin.
Biggie raised a hand to say go.
I leaned down and started the engine. I jammed the brick on the gas pedal, just so.
Tintin pushed past me and adjusted the steering wheel a little.
— Better, he said.
The car rolled forward into the night. It crossed a line that none of us had ever crossed, and then it was in Boston, just like it was nothing at all, even though to us it was in another world. It cruised straight, ghost-riding, smooth like silk.
It passed the shack where the Boston chimères were sleeping, and I gripped the remote in my hand. I pressed the lever forward, and the servo engaged, and the AK in the car fired.
Ghost-ride drive-by.
All hell broke loose.
Guys started spilling out of the shacks and they were unloading at the car. I saw that one of them was limping, blood pouring from his leg. People were screaming. I thought, shit, I did this. Then I lifted up my gun, cos some of them had seen us and they were starting to fire at us. Biggie went down on one knee, his Tec-9 spitting fire.
For a long moment, I was just frozen. I’d never seen or heard so many bullets. The whole street was locked in a full metal jacket; the air was brass casings and steel-tipped; it was on fire. It was fucking crazy. I tried to call out, but bullets are faster than words, and I was just standing there in the middle of all that metal death.
I thought, I’m going to die.
I thought, this was a bad idea.
Then I saw her. Marguerite.
She was running out of a shack, screaming with fear. She had no gun in her hand, and that was good, I thought – that way Tintin or Biggie or Mickey wouldn’t shoot her. Mickey was limping bad, but he was there anyway.
I started to move toward her, but not too close. I had to catch her with my eyes, otherwise this was –
She turned, looked at me. She was heading to the chimères who were shooting at us and the car, but she stopped.
— Run! I screamed. Run! Away from the car!
She stared at me.
— RUN!
Some of the Bostons turned to me and started shooting, and I threw myself to the ground. I thought, shit, they see it now, they see the trick. But they didn’t move.
She moved, though – I saw her run in the opposite direction, further into Boston.
I thought, oh thank you, oh thank you, oh thank you.
Most of the Bostons, they were shooting the car. That was good. That was what they were meant to do, cos if they kept shooting it, then –
BOOM.
It was the middle of the night, but suddenly it turned to daytime, and there was a sun burning in the street. Stuff flew in all directions – pieces of car, a seat went over a shack. There was a sound in my ears like that electric tingling you get when you put your head under the water of the sea – the sound of the fish moving, I guess. I put my finger to the side of my head. I felt hot sticky blood on my cheek; it seemed it was coming from my ear. Where the car had been was just black scorches. One of the shacks fell down completely, a crash of sparks and corrugated iron. The air was filled with the smell of burning.
I realized I was doing nothing, so I raised my gun and fired into the storm. I didn’t think it mattered, though, cos there couldn’t be anyone still alive there.
I hoped that Marguerite had got far enough away.
There was dust and smoke everywhere now, and some of the shacks were burning. I walked forward, holding my gun in front of me. A man on fire came stumbling toward me and I shot him without thinking. A moment later, a bullet hit my arm and I screamed, but I kept walking. It was hard to hold the gun in my hand. I held it anyway. I was only half-conscious of people running here and there, of bullets flying. Most of the bullets were ours, I think. The Boston crew wasn’t a crew anymore.
I was through the smoke and in clear air when I found her. She was huddling against a broken bike, watching the flames. She was so beautiful and so vulnerable. She was the only thing pure and uncorrupted in this whole slum.
— Marguerite, I said. Marguerite, it’s OK.
I held out my half of the necklace.
— See? I said. See, I still have it. Where’s yours?
I was looking at her neck to see if she was wearing her necklace.
She stared at me, fear and horror on her face.
— What are you talking about? she said. Who’s Marguerite?