Jomon and the great-grandfathers walk along quiet stretches where Jomon can almost hear the sea. They walk through villages busy with buying and selling and families hurrying between home, work and school. They walk along pathways with people on bicycles, goats chewing on weeds, and past homes where old people sit on the porches and watch the world go by.
“Three boys, just what I need,” says an elderly woman at a roadside stand called True Love. Bob Marley is playing over a speaker. “Put these crates in the back for me, would you, and take the old ones out. They’re coming to pick up the empties tomorrow, and my back isn’t as strong as it used to be.”
Jomon, Hi and Angel lift and carry and sweat for almost an hour while the woman sits on a bench under the shop’s awning, fanning herself and making comments like, “Pick up your feet, I’ve got customers coming,” and “The Lord sent you boys to me so there must be some good in you,” which makes Jomon wonder why they are bothering to work so hard.
But when the job is finished, she brings them plates of the best chicken curry and rice Jomon has ever tasted, and cold bottles of soda to wash it down.
While they eat, she tells them the story of her family, which she has traced all the way back to Mali.
“Got a daughter now who works at the national zoo,” she says. “In charge of the ocelots. Always was wild about cats.”
Customers start to gather as the boys finish eating. They return their plates, thank the woman and head back to the road.
The sun sets and the moon rises. The darkness of the night mixed with the sudden brightness of car headlights or bare lightbulbs over a shop keep Jomon’s eyes adjusting to no light and then too much light. People seem to appear out of nowhere, slipping into his field of vision, then slipping back out of it as he, Hi and Angel walk in and out of shadows.
Jomon enjoys the challenge of it, the way he has to watch out for dogs and children and donkey carts and trucks. It takes all of his concentration.
The villages come to an end for a time and the boys walk on in darkness.
Jomon has never walked this much, and he is a little surprised that he can do it. His legs are tired and his feet are still a little sore from the cuts, but it’s nothing he can’t tolerate.
Guyana is a small country. Jomon thinks back to the maps he studied for the geography competition. Other than a few boat rides across the Demerara and Essequibo Rivers, he could probably cover the whole country on foot, from Corriverton by the Suriname border to Waini Point by Venezuela, and then south to where the Rupununi savannah meets the Kamoa Mountains and Brazil. He could get to know his country through his feet and through the people he’d meet. He could learn everyone’s language — all the Amerindian languages and the languages people brought with them from their old home countries. He could try all the foods, sing all the songs, and listen to all the stories.
“You can’t do any of that if you kill yourself,” says Angel. “It’s an obvious point, but one worth mentioning.”
“I like his idea,” says Hi. “Walk, walk, walk. If you don’t like where you are, walk to someplace else.”
“It’s just an idea,” says Jomon. “Just a daydream. It wouldn’t fix anything.”
He imagines himself walking, walking, walking with the heavy emptiness always in his head. He wouldn’t ever be able to really see anything, taste anything or appreciate anything.
“You mean it wouldn’t fix everything,” says Angel. “No one thing fixes everything.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you do it?” Jomon asks them.
Hi and Angel have nothing to say for a long time.
Then Hi asks Angel, “Instead of killing myself, would you rather I’d just walked away?”
“You were always walking away from me,” says Angel. “What was so horrible about me? What was so horrible that you had to kill yourself to get away from me? I was just a kid!”
Angel is not quite shouting, but his voice is rising. Jomon sees a couple of houses just off the highway and doesn’t want anybody waking up and calling the police on them.
“Let’s keep moving,” he whispers.
Dawn breaks. They walk through another village.
Just as they reach its outskirts, the sky opens up. Sudden, hard rains are a Guyana staple.
The boys jump over a gully and dash into a Rotary playground. They head for a little playhouse built over a monkey bars and swing set. They rush into the playhouse and plop down on the floor, rain streaming down their faces.
They look from one to another in the dim light. Hi starts laughing.
“You two look like something that came out of the swamp!”
Jomon and Angel laugh, too.
“We’re the creatures from the black lagoon,” says Jomon.
“Did you see that movie, too?” asks Angel. “I love that movie.”
“What’s a movie?” asks Hi.
Jomon and Angel tell him, shouting to be heard over the torrent of rain on the playhouse roof. They explain plots, mimic their favorite characters and sing bits of their favorite movie songs.
The rain stops as suddenly as it starts. As the boys unfold themselves to leave the playhouse, a new sound reaches them.
It is rhythmic clapping — jazzy and fun. Jomon and the grandfathers leave the playhouse and stand on the bridge of the playset.
A boy is coming toward them from across the park. He is about their size. He is clapping and dancing and stomping his feet in the puddles to the beat of his hands.
Closer and closer, the dancing fellow grooves his way to the playground. He looks like he is having a great time.
The boy dances closer.
Angel takes a quick, hard breath. Tears are rolling down his cheeks.
The boy gets even closer. He is singing. Jomon can make out the words. The boy is singing them brightly, not slowly, turning them into a celebration instead of a lullaby.
Chatter monkeys in the trees
Swaying branches in the breeze
Sleep the hours of dark away
Wake up to a brighter day.
With a graceful twirl, the boy leaps up on the play structure and grabs hold of the bridge bar, swinging up to Jomon and the grandfathers.
“I am Barnabus Bangla Fowler,” he says. “Stage name — Barnby. Which one of you is my grandson?”