Chapter Twenty-Two

You can recognize a person’s tribe by the way he cries.

—Krio Proverb

Hunter left the houseboat about noon. He had only been gone a few minutes when Caitlin remembered that she needed some things from the convenience store.

“Tejan, will you walk with mama to the store?”

“Mama knows Tejan will go. I like to walk.”

“Good.” Caitlin was amazed at Tejan’s energy, but then, a one-mile walk would be nothing to a boy accustomed to the twenty-mile forced marches he had often taken in the tropical bush when he was a soldier.

When they reached the convenience store, Tejan paused in front of the dumpster. His fingertips traced the red spray paint graffiti.

BLOODS RULE MONROE.

“Mama, I fear they are here too. They have come from Africa for Tejan?”

Even thousands of miles away, the RUF still terrorizes my son. “No, Tejan. That is the writing of someone else. It’s just graffiti.”

When they stepped inside the store, Caitlin said to the manager, “Hi, Barry. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Miss Caitlin. Mighty fine. What can I do for you today?”

“I just need some milk and bread and a few other things.” As she gathered up the items on her list, Tejan walked over to the video machine and watched a young boy play a game called Jungle War. Camouflaged soldiers jumped out of their hiding places attacking the player’s persona with guns and machetes. The boy glanced at Tejan, then turned his attention back to the game. One by one his persona eliminated the soldiers on his screen.

“Do you want to play?” the boy asked Tejan as he dropped coins into the machine.

“No. I’ve played such games before—in Salone.”

“Where’s that?”

“Africa.”

“You’re the first real African I ever met. What were the games called?”

“I do not remember,” Tejan said. “But the games were not fun for Tejan or the others.”

The boy shrugged his shoulders and kept playing. “You talk funny,” he said. “People from New Orleans talk funny too.”

“No. Tejan is from Salone. I am come to go to school.”

“You’re not really from Africa. That’s bullshit. I think you’re from South Louisiana.”

Tejan watched the young boy play at war.

The more Caitlin thought about the graffiti on the dumpster, the angrier she became. “Barry, I want a can of that spray paint behind the counter there.”

After Caitlin paid Barry for the groceries and paint, she handed Tejan the sack of groceries, walked to the dumpster and sprayed the white paint over the graffiti. Three boys gathered at the street corner moved toward her. Two wore dew-rags and the other wore a bandana as a headband. They had on sleeveless T-shirts and their knee-length jean shorts sagged halfway down their butt.

“Lady, what do you think you’re doing?” one asked.

“Cleaning up the environment. I don’t want my son seeing this.” Caitlin sprayed over another symbol. When Caitlin finished covering the gang words, she turned to walk away, but the three boys lined up in front of her to block her way.

“You best move those starched britches of yours and let me by,” she said.

The three laughed.

“We got us a tough bitch here,” the one with the headband said. “Likes our starched britches.”

“I’d sure like to get into her britches,” one said.

“Qu’est-ce Qu’il ya, Maman?” Tejan asked. He had followed her outside carrying their sack of groceries.

“Nothing’s wrong, Tejan,” she said, searching the dull, burned-out eyes of the three teens. “Let’s go home,” she said, trying again to step around them.

One stepped over and blocked her path “Tejan?” He adjusted the red scarf on his head, then said, “I thought some of my friends had dumb-ass names. Bitch, is this little black boy your man?”

“Why don’t you shut your ignorant mouth. He’s my son, asshole, and it’s none of your business what we’re doing.”

“She sure is a sassy bitch,” another said. “If he’s her son, she must have a thing for black men. Maybe we can help her out.”

“Est-ce-qu’ils song soldats?” Tejan asked.

Caitlin felt something clawing at her stomach. “No, ils sont bandits.”

“What, you from a foreign country or something? Why don’t you speak American?”

“It’s French, you moron,” she said.

The other two laughed. “She nailed your ass, Jamal, didn’t she,” one said holding out his fist and then banging it on the fists of the others.

Tejan said, “Qu’est-ce que tu veus me faire?”

“Ne fais pas quelque chose jusqu’à je te dit, Tejan.

“Je ne le permettrai pas à te faire mal.” Tejan set the sack of groceries on the ground and motioned for them to take it.

One of the boys said, “Lady, we don’t want your goddamn sack of groceries. Why don’t you hand me your purse instead.”

“Why don’t you go screw yourself,” Caitlin said. “I’m not going to give you my purse. You can get your crack money from someone else.” Her purse hung across her body, and she pushed it behind her back.

“Jamal, sure looks like she’s got your number,” one said. “How’d she know you wanted some crack?”

“Shut up, man,” Jamal said. “Now lady, let me have that purse.” He pushed Caitlin against the dumpster, reaching behind her.

As soon as Caitlin heard Tejan groan, she regretted pushing the confrontation. Tejan uttered sounds she didn’t recognize. Not an expression of fear, but something digging its way out from Tejan’s insides, something primeval and frightening, much more terrifying than the three thugs before her.

When the boy continued to reach for her purse, Tejan stepped forward and pushed him back. “No. You do not touch her.”

“Oh, big man. Going to save his white bitch?” He flashed a knife and waved it in cutting motions in the air.

It all seemed like one movement. Tejan fell to the ground and spun, a leg whipping the legs out from under the attacker and then he locked his legs around his chest. He grabbed the knife hand and bent the boy’s wrist back so that it snapped. Tejan took the knife from the boy’s hand, released him and sprang to his feet. One of the other boys lunged, but Tejan slapped his face with the flat of his foot. When that one threw a punch, Tejan parried, locked the boy’s arm and thrust his palm into his face. Blood spurted from the man’s nose. Tejan raked his eyes, slipped a leg behind him and straight-armed him to the ground. Caitlin heard the thud of the man’s head as it struck the asphalt. His arm was twisted strangely. Caitlin was sure that Tejan must have torn the arm from its socket.

“I don’t want none of this kung-fu shit,” one boy said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” He helped the one on the ground to his feet and together they ran away. The pair vanished around a corner, the two good arms between them wildly flailing the air.

The last one hadn’t moved. He pulled a .22 automatic pistol from his back pocket. “I’m not in the mood for getting too active, so I think I’m gonna just pop your ass.” He held the pistol sideways, pointing it at Caitlin, then pointing it at Tejan. “I got a T-shirt with your name on it. Who you want to get it first, you or your bitch here?” He swung the gun toward Caitlin again.

The thug never saw it coming—Tejan locked his arm, snatched the gun from his hand, and tossed it to the ground. As the boy struggled to free himself, Tejan repeatedly slapped his face. For the first time in her life, Caitlin heard the sound of a snapped elbow. Tejan held his lock on the broken arm and ground the boy’s face into the pavement.

Caitlin knelt down and hissed in the attacker’s ear. “His name’s Tejan. He’s only sixteen, but he’s been a soldier since he was eleven. You punks are sissies compared to him. He’s killed over a hundred people in battle. He’s used a machete to cut off ears, fingers, hands, feet. And if I tell him to, he’ll use your friend’s knife and do it to you. Now, will you leave us alone?”

“I’m going to kill this African.”

“Tejan, plus ferme!”

Tejan thrust the man’s face into the asphalt and wrapped one hand around his neck.

Caitlin heard gurgling noises coming from his throat. “I would think twice about your plans of being a career gangbanger. You don’t have it in you. Will you leave us alone if he lets you up?”

He managed to squeak out a garbled yes sound.

“Let him go, Tejan. Permettez le d’aller.”

But Tejan, talking to himself in Temne, didn’t let go. Instead, his muscles hardened and he tightened his grip until his nails dug into the boy’s skin and streaks of blood dripped from his fingertips. Caitlin again thought she made a mistake. Maybe she should have given up the purse. She had to calm Tejan before he killed this attacker.

Caitlin placed her hand on Tejan’s shoulder. “S’il vous plait, pour mamá. Tejan, please, for mama.”

Tejan finally released his grip and hooked such a vicious kick into the boy’s ribs that Caitlin winced. Tejan picked up the pistol and the knife and dropped them into the grocery sack. He was breathing hard. He pointed down the street and shouted, “Get up! Leave us alone! We have no diamonds!” He kicked the man in the ribs again.

The man struggled to his feet and half-running, half-limping, followed his friends’ trail around the corner. Caitlin looked at Tejan’s face. She didn’t like what she saw in Tejan’s eyes—the battle between the boy and the monster, the instinct for self-preservation, the struggle between the human and the soulless, the struggle of the sweet Tejan with the boy soldier who had played the machete games, all so black and white hands could end up full of diamonds—bloody diamonds, blood diamonds.

A baseball bat in his hands, Barry ran out of his store. “Are you okay, Caitlin? I heard the ruckus and came out as quick as I could. I’ve just called the police. They should be here any moment.”

Caitlin was dizzy from hyperventilating. “Good. I hope they catch them. They shouldn’t be hard to find. Tell the police that three boys with broken arms tried to snatch my purse and hurt us, but Tejan stopped them. We’re going home. If they need to talk to me, send them to the boat.”

“Broke arms? Who broke their arms?”

“Tejan did, but he was protecting me. They threatened us, Barry.”

“You probably should wait until the police get here.”

“No, we’re going home. I really don’t want to talk to the police. Tell them whatever you want.”

Caitlin and Tejan said nothing on the walk home. By the time they reached the boat, Tejan was crying. He moved to the far side of the boat, retrieved the pistol from the sack and sighted down the barrel. Turning it over in his palm, he studied it. He turned as if facing an imaginary person. “Boy, do not bring your rebel ways here,” he said, quoting someone Caitlin did not know. Tejan tossed the pistol into the river, then he did the same with the knife, then turned to Caitlin. “Tejan is sorry, Mamá. He promised to not be soldier again. You will send Tejan away now?”

Caitlin clutched him to her. “No, Tejan, never. Today, you were a good soldier, and you protected your mamá.”

Caitlin sat next to Tejan for two hours while he cried all the tears he had inside of him. Only once before had she had seen him cry like this. In Sierra Leone, after Tejan had agreed to talk of his experiences, she and Father Ambrose took him to the banks of the Mabole River. They had spent the afternoon on the river’s banks talking. There, the priest told Tejan about all the things Tejan had done to the people of his own district, and how he had seen Tejan kill his own grandfather.