Well, let's just see how it goes, it's a little too early to tell but as Adam would say, "Be brutally honest, it's good for us all."
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We're a bunch of doodlers and dreamers.
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The Red Baroness's Book of Sighs and Spies
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Monday, March 10, 2003
A little tinkering with a nudge from Tammy. Took out big busy words as best I could under the circumstances: taxes, finally gott'em done! 3780 words
Warm Rain and Sand
Adam Lorrey was a young man excited by the incipient freedom and awareness entrance into manhood brought. He ached to break free from the debilitating boredom of all that he knew. His home was comfortable, his relations casual. He was a doodler, a dreamer, a lonely creature dulled by the smoke and shadows cast by brick pilled upon green hills. He was held spellbound by what the unknown wasteland could teach him.
The most extreme of environments brings clarity to human perceptions and thus brings clarity to human understanding. Punishment from the sun and rain and the ravages of unfettered livestock made the desert a wasteland, clear and true.
Warm rain never came to this place. In the desert, water crashed down from way up high. Only cold drops large enough to survive finished their trip to the ground; they beat upon the roofs of zinc shacks, stung against the backs of children and animals and washed away the feeble topsoil. Summer storm winds swept back saplings as shards of water tore at their budding leaves. In this place, trees grew only by the most exacting care. The summer rain was an attack on the land and its people. Exposed, the people were cold and beat upon; in shelters they stirred uneasily as the melee of water and wind beat down upon the zinc overhead. The sun took cue from the exit of the summer storms with mechanical precision. The song of cicadas quickly replaced the waning babble of raindrops; this was the serenade that sang of burnt land, flesh and bone. Domestic animals roamed free, their gaze dull and dumb: too stupid to hurt. Cows and goats scavenged for any piece of life they could digest. They left nothing behind but shit, poison weeds and dust. The unbroken fields of sand became one fluid glass sheet covering the wasteland. Reflected sunlight became liquid lightning that scorched retina and stilled the heart.
The people chanted and prayed and sang out to Jesus through a ceaseless mantra that belied the weariness the desert sun beat upon them all. Breathing and walking were effortful in whole new ways again as grown folk struggled like infants, pleading with the sun-baked land. The people were in despair.
The children worked to save them all.
A pair of young boys took turns with a shovel. They dug into the earth until they needed a hand up to escape their work. The soil was weak from erratic cycles of flooding and harsh evaporation, which drew salt from the parent rock deep below. Women spread rusted crushed cans evenly along the sapling-bed floor; this gave the young tree much-needed nutrients. The boys left the new dirt a hand’s width below ground-level to keep water at the sapling. The mixture was five parts topsoil for every one part dried cow dung. Boys not big enough to pick up a shovel collected palm fronds and pressed them into the earth to make a shield against the burning sun and tearing rain. This also hid the young, green life from wandering animals and idle children that would pluck at this new obtrusion and peel it away from their barren ken. This was the people’s fight with the earth, their fight to tame the sand and keep it alive.
Sand moved the people. The movements made the people. Where the foot asked for support the sand gave way to nothing. Where the sun shone the sand burned and there was no escape. The sand gave the people an acceptance of uncertainty and faithless pain. It taught them everything slips away to nothing. With nothing to stand upon, a certain self-reliance, one apparent in the human form, was bred. With each step, the sand made the people. With a soft step, dependence on the formless earth lessened. With a small stomach, hunger, hunger from the bare fruit of this place, came calling but a few times. With a light heart, anger was forgotten. The sand made this. The wasteland carved its people upon on the grindstone, made their form acute and efficient.
Imbued with such efficient grace, slight boys accomplished Herculean feats. A man from solid dirt, dirt piled up in hills held together by green grass had no appreciation, no fear of what he planted his foot upon. He planted his foot down firmly and carelessly with each step for he trusted the earth: the foundation that kept all he knew from falling down. His heel dug divots into the earth; the ball of his foot pressed against the ground propelling him forward. This made his calf and ankle thick, his form obtuse. Where a man from solid ground had trust, a boy of the sand had respect bred from fear. His form was made from a more efficient functioning forced by the harsh conditions it was bred upon. Sand has little substance; its inhabitants were not held fast to the earth. What they built their lives upon was not constant, comfortable or solid.
Life is movement. Movement is fragile, it flutters, flies, twitters and disappears into the mist of a starlit night, it is not planted into the hills, it has no foundation set in rock, it slips and slithers and dances across the way, it does not break, it is simply broken as the stream foams over the stone.
The village square was alive with movement. Hunks of rusted metal held together by wire, tape, glue and burnt cow dung pulled up to their respective stalls: snapping, coughing and growling for want of better days. Hundreds of strangers huddled together carrying sacks of clothes, food and children madly vied for a spot on the next transport home. The ticket-masters were busy with their receipt books arguing with fools who would try to bargain a rate with them. Young boys crowded up against bus windows holding up sweets, soda and China-shop goods. They said nothing, glanced off to nowhere in particular and waited for any blessed coin that would come their way. Adam smiled. His kind did not live like this. This change of scenery was blessed excitement: strange and new. This was how life was supposed to be lived. The people were everywhere. They put their hands upon each other as they spoke. The people, not their machines, shone brightly in the mid-day sun of the village square.
Adam was a young teacher who had come to the desert from a rich land covered in green hills. He loved life and was passionate about learning. He had come here on a mission of meaningful adventure. The school's headmaster hired him site unseen for the situation was desperate. The school had made room for him in a house nearby made of concrete block and a roof of corrugated zinc. A wire mesh fence planted in concrete only came up to his chest but that was enough to protect his small plot from the neglected livestock that ravaged the place. Where there was sand and weed behind his fence, he immediately imagined the green life that should have been there: the rich green life he had walked upon all his life prior.
He planted trees, flowers and berry bushes without asking; he couldn’t wait for he missed the green things so much. The children came and helped him. Johnny came, too. They taught him about the sand and brought him gifts to plant into the ground. After some time, there flourished Cape Gooseberry, red and white periwinkles, several shade tree saplings, edible weeds, doomed papaya and a strange Angolan vine that drew water from the broken pipes of the superintendent’s office across the way.
In time, his house became an oasis, a flare of green in an otherwise barren landscape guarded by that wire fence. Everyone was shocked to learn that a foreigner knew how to do these things, to make things grow here in their desert. The children were excited by the fresh green place. When Adam was away on holiday the little ones, the more mischievous ones would douse themselves in water and roll around in the lush green goodness of all that life. Upon his return, Adam would prune and plant again. Of course, he was angry at the destruction of his work but with time anger dulled. He was pleased he could give the children amusement especially against a backdrop as harsh as their homeland was.
There were no buses. His students walked from villages as far as ten kilometers away. Most of them slept in huts made of stick and clay. His feet were soft, almost pink; he wore shoes with strong soles. The children swarmed in droves, brought to school by calloused feet dull to the sand and timbers splintered into their flesh. They were strangers always: the foreigner and his children, an arrangement exciting and dangerous for both parties. Circumstance of economic station would hold them apart forever.
The foreigner was a rich man by no stretch of the imagination save theirs. He came from rich land. His people were beautiful and learned in their dress as well as speech. He would never go hungry and knew so little pain. He joked and smiled, he was good and trusted so easily. The people were afraid for him. He enjoyed their ways for they were strange to him. Contrasting his old life against this one in the desert, he gained insight, which led to consciousness that aged him prematurely, thoroughly confused him and enlivened him like so many young men who came before him. He learned quickly for it excited him and in his excitement, he had forgotten how desperate a hungry child is.
They are called “O-sha”: the marks left behind by an old African tradition. Blood from the cheeks is put into the baby’s eyes to improve his sight. They are scars: a pair of two, sometimes three or four or one, roughly one centimeter high, one centimeter apart.
Homateni is the warrior. Panduleni is the grateful man. Tangeni is the thankful man. Hafeni is the happy man. Amutenya is the boy of day. Nuusiku is the girl of night. Nakashupi is the short girl. Pombili was the one who smiled. Nakatenya was the girl born too early and small. Nelago was the lucky girl. Hosian was a great king from a proud history.
His name was Johnny.
As a baby in his mother’s arms Johnny did not see the trees he would later climb and the wasteland he would later conquer. Fighting mother’s grasp the boy was put upon her tender breast and fed not realizing the land that lay at his feet waited for him, called for him. For what seemed interminable epochs he was schooled inside his own heart for it was the only place he was free to move and speak without question, comment or concern; it was the only place he wasn’t afraid. With a bit of time, the gift of osha and the pure dumb luck of the truly effortless he’d fall out of his own skin and into another.
Johnny loved the foreigner from the moment he saw him. Johnny knew he was good as easily as he knew that blood was red and green was the color of happiness and life: he saw it.
When the other children talked about Mr. Adam and his foolish attempts to grow shade trees Johnny listened and was excited. Johnny was among them that first day when they all went to Adam’s house. It was early afternoon and the sun still burned bright white. Adam was digging with a shovel he’d borrowed from school. The same undershirt that was crisp for that morning’s class sagged at his neck bare to the world, he’d traded his chinos for a pair of raggedy cut-offs, and his soft, pink feet were bare to the hot sand. The children laughed partly because they were shocked to see a teacher in such a state but mostly because they knew nothing else of his language.
Johnny was the first to step forward.
He said, “Good morning, Mr. Adam,” though it was not morning. Johnny smiled the smile of the truly warm hearted. Adam was impressed and replied in kind in the boy’s language. The children laughed as they always would. Adam put his hand out regardless and returned the boy’s smile.
“My name is Johnny.”
“My name is Mr. Adam,” he said, for the children would never be able to pronounce his last name; the people of this particular tribe were known for slurring their r’s and l’s. In any case, it was custom to address foreign teachers in such a manner.
Adam asked the children for help using a few request verbs he had recently been taught. Not asking for their help would have been an insult. They obeyed as respectful children do. Adam and his children worked side-by-side digging into the earth, fighting the good fight. He explained his crazy idea of someday stretching vine over the house to cool it. Johnny told the others. They laughed as children do.
Time passed, the little trees grew, Adam brought home bushes from town and the vines were carving their path across the way towards his house. The boys had brought lumber, Adam supplied the wire and somehow they picked the vine off of the ground to make a shaded, green place next to the house. Everything was right with the world. As harvesting time approached fewer children dug with Adam. Johnny and his brothers came as often as they could for English practice and Sesame Street.
The old women asked Adam about the vines his housemates had put over the house. Adam corrected them. He informed them with not a little pride that is was he, the foreigner and not his
native roommates who had done that work. The old women laughed in disbelief. Then Adam laughed and smiled and professed the truth of his excitement for growing green things here. They believed him and were impressed. Over time, they told him the secrets of rusted crushed cans, the right mix of cow dung to sand, everything. When the children came again, they saw him at work with rusted cans and screamed out loud.
“Mr. Adam!” Johnny smiled. “You know!”
“Yes, Johnny. I know to put the cans.”
“You are Tate Kulu now.” This meant grandfather.
“Ta-teh Kulu?”
“Yes, Mr. Adam.”
“Excellent, kid.”
Those Angolan vines grew long and quick. Adam and his boys put them up into the air on top of a vine trellis anchored into the fence and across the way into jutting roof beams of his house. It was an addition to the house, refuge from the sun and heat under a green canopy, a circus tent made out of vines attached to the house and fence. Adam had hoped to instill into the boys a pride in their creative work as well as a sense of Geometry. By the time the vines had filled the trellis canopy, most of the idle children had stopped coming; the novelty of the foreigner had worn off. Only Johnny and his two brothers visited with any regular frequency. They came and went as they pleased, comfortable with Adam and his home. They sang along with Big Bird and danced in the living room with the local broadcast of African music videos. They were his little friends and Adam enjoyed allowing them such joy.
As the boys ran amuck inside Adam usually lay in a hammock underneath the vines reading, writing and daydreaming of home. They had made the hammock from scrap wood Johnny brought and raw canvas Adam found in town. He taught the boys to stitch; they made it together. Although they had little idea what a hammock was, the boys did as they were told and were impressed with the end-product.
As they worked together under the vines and with the saplings, Adam and his boys would fall to idle talk. Both parties employed their own native tongues as one is apt to do in idle talk and somehow both parties didn’t seem to realize the difference: a hilarious consequence of working side by side for so long. One would speak in one language and be replied to in another. Sadly, this magic did not go far beyond the language of work and the idle talk of “yes, yes” “bad man fall down” and “Johnny is funny.”
Luckily, Adam was an opportunist. Once he realized the boys’ English limitations, he used this fact to unburden his mind. Being alone with your native tongue can be a heavy burden to carry. Johnny and his brothers became Adam’s walking diaries. From his hammock underneath the vines, Adam would preach to the boys about his thoughts on life, liberty and women. The boys loved seeing Mr. Adam so animated and talkative. What did it matter if they couldn’t understand a word? They knew Mr. Adam was happy and now he was speaking from his heart.
“Boys, you’ll be men soon. And you’ll know love in whole different ways. Let me tell you about the girl I left behind so you’ll know the madness they can bring into the heart of a man.”
And he started his poetic, beatnik rant, arms flailing, gums flapping:
“I still remember the funny way she scurried around the corner that first time: her arms at her side, hands flapped up: penguin style. I knew her as a peach: sweet, fleshy, fuzzy, good. She had the hands of a smoker: chapped red and intense, that reminded me of the teacher who loved me when I was a boy. My girl forgot me, brushed me aside. She'd found true love and it wasn't me. This is life: that moth that flutters from leaf to twig to a blade of grass. Its black feet hop and float and pucker and hunger and so do I. Manhood brings mad appetites. Held under the water of the water of civility and a dull, awful ken these appetites are satiated only in the Zen playground of the open road, lost memories and the blessed virtue of physical exertion. Boys! Let us endeavor to let conscious thought fall away, slough off and reveal truth bare and raw. Amen! Amen! Amen!”
Adam was a holy madman before he’d come to the desert. Now, it seemed easier to be one out loud. The boys were happy and accepting of Adam’s manic rant. In the following excitement Johnny’s littlest brother decided to share.
“Mr. Adam! Look Johnny!” he laughed.
“What? What’s up Johnny?” Adam asked
Johnny smiled and averted his eyes.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“C’mon Johnny. What?”
Johnny smiled the smile of the truly warm hearted once more and showed Adam the front of thigh; the little scamp had carved his name and soccer number into it. If it was not so grotesque it would have been downright adorable: Johnny #11. Adam smiled back. Somehow back home this would have been alarming, but Adam was not back home. What good would it have done to do anything but smile? It was kind of cute. And for a malnutritioned boy who walks around with timbers embedded into his calloused, burnt feet, what were a few more scratches on his leg?
Johnny was a tough boy but still a warm-hearted one: a delicate duality. He was born onto this desert a product of his own strong heart; a smile like his said at least that much. Johnny had learned lessons of happiness in his mother’s grasp before hunger or anger or any other punishment of this place could touch him. He was an oddity for sure, separate from most other boys he knew, even his own kin.
When Adam came home that Sunday morning he knew something was wrong; he’d seen it in the sand. There were strange new tracks at the gate; he’d missed last night’s panic. Impressions in the sand told the story for the sand screams and burns for any piece of life to give it attention. His housemate Sam had followed the tracks into a valley until the boy thoroughly confused him. Then the boy went home to replace the shoes he had borrowed for the night.
Adam found the guilty brother and Johnny in town the next day. They exchanged greetings of “Hello” and “good” and “yeah-yeah”. He couldn’t bear to look at the boy he’d welcomed into house with a happy heart so many times before.
He pulled the Johnny aside and asked about his brother.
“Johnny, what happened at my house last night?”
“I don’t know what wrong. He went into it,” Johnny replied.
Johnny’s middle brother had broken in the previous night. Adam was away for the weekend but his housemate, Sam had come home early and surprised the boy. The boy ran and Sam followed. Though Sam did not see the boy, only his tracks, everyone knew who it was.
Adam had laughed and danced with the people. He drank and toasted the proper way. He made the people happy and thought he was safe because everyone loved him. These were Sam’s people. Sam had warned the Adam. Sam knew the boy thief. He’d been following his tracks longer than just last night. The foreigner had forgotten that the boy was not him, was not made of the same stuff. He had ignored where the boy had come from, he’d refused what was plain in front of him.
Coming home from town all the bumps and tracks along the path came out and up around the Adam: all over him as if he’d been surprised by a crowd that had always been there. He felt his hold upon the earth soften. He was dizzy. Life as he knew was all falling down. Knowing and fearing the earth he moved upon he became small and fragile in his own mind.
The Chinese say be careful what you wish for, it might come true: cliché, but nonetheless an apt description of Adam Lorrey’s story in the desert. He got what he wished for. He jumped head first into a place he knew nothing about and came out the other end a man, whole and new. His contract with the school ended soon after the break-in. On his last day in town, he found both Johnny’s little brothers but not Johnny. They said he’d gone to church. Adam had hoped he would have waited to say goodbye proper, but he should have known better. Adam had left so many people behind without a goodbye so many times before. It was always the men who would not bear to see him go.
Chris 10:03 PM
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