Golden Boy (4 page)

I soon lose interest in their conversation, and I doze off again as we flash along the road like a metal fish swimming with the current of a dusty stream.

Dawn is still a few hours away when we pull off the main road and bump over the brush to reach Alasiri's camp. After a few jarring kilometers of driving where there's no road, we get there. It's not a fancy place. There are dust-colored tents circled around a smoldering campfire and stools and cooking supplies pushed over to one side. This tells me that other people must share this camp with Alasiri, but no one's here now.

“Sleep near the fire,” he says. “The light and the smoke will keep away the animals.”

We don't ask which animals he's talking about. I can see signs of relief on the faces of my family and, really, I'm glad to be here, too. The safety of a fire and a man makes everyone feel better than when we were sleeping on the road. Though it's only a few more hours until morning, we all lie down in the circle of orange light and sleep.

I wake up soon after sunrise. I pull myself to my feet, stiff after another night on the ground, and lift my arms high over my head to stretch out my shoulders. I kept the Maasai cloth on for warmth overnight, but now I unwrap it and leave it on the ground next to my pack. I see that Asu, sitting over by the fire, is back in her usual clothes, too. Now that it's daytime, I'm expecting to see more of the men around, but it's still just Alasiri. I wonder where the others are. There are tents and supplies for at least five people.

I go behind the Jeep to pee and then walk over to where Asu and Alasiri are talking while she makes coffee in a pan over the fire. When I get there Alasiri is finishing a story. I think he's trying to impress her.

“So, what do you do when you're not in the cities?” she asks as she stirs the grounds in circles with a long ladle so they don't stick to the bottom. She's smiling at him. I sit between them, pretending this is only to be near the fire. But really I don't like the way she's smiling at him. Also I'm hoping that, being so close, I'll be able to get some coffee this morning, too. I prefer tea when I can get it, but in the middle of the wilderness here, I'll be happy with any warm drink.

“Some of this and some of that.” Alasiri's smile gleams in his dark face.
Handsome face,
I admit grudgingly, noticing his clear brown eyes and high, thin cheekbones. I scowl down at my feet. “During the tourist season, I help with
safaris.
When there are no white people around, I find other work.”

“That's interesting.” Asu nods.

“And what about you?” Alasiri continues. “Why is such a pretty girl not married yet?”

Asu looks flustered and I know it's not just because of the flattery. It's embarrassing enough to be poor, to be dressed up as Maasai and sleeping in the road, but we're so poor that we'll probably never have enough money to get Asu a good husband. I can't tell if this man is teasing Asu or flirting with her, but either way the answer will embarrass her. I break into their conversation so that she doesn't have to answer him, and say the first thing that comes into my head.

“So what is it, exactly, that you do when you're not on
safari
?”

Alasiri's gaze eats my face.

“A white boy in a black family,” he muses. “How odd. Where did you come from, white one?”

Now it is my turn to feel embarrassed, but I refuse to hang my head in front of this disrespectful man, and so I scowl at him instead.

“The same place everyone else did,” I snap. This makes Alasiri laugh.

“Well, well, the little
zeruzeru
has teeth!”

This makes me dislike him even more. I hate it when people call me
zeruzeru.
The name means “zero-zero,” “nothing.” A
zeruzeru
is an unnatural thing, like a zombie. It's like calling me an animal.

“Don't call me that,” I snarl.

“Habo!” exclaims Asu, horrified. “Don't be so rude to Alasiri when he's gone out of his way to help us.”

Now I'm mad at her, too. The only reason I got involved in this conversation in the first place was to defend her, and now she's defending him. Alasiri gives a small cough that could have been a laugh and changes the subject.

“Tell me, boy, why are you so interested in what I do?”

“I just am,” I say, still bristling.

Alasiri strokes long fingers down his chin, considering. Then, “Would you like to see for yourself?”

Asu and I both look up at him in surprise. I'm not entirely sure I want to do anything with this man.
Was he flirting with Asu? Is she flirting, too, talking to him and making him coffee? Or is she just being her usual nice self?
I can't decide. I want to tell him I don't feel like going anywhere with him, but he has a job and a car. If he's really trying to be Asu's boyfriend, I don't want my stupid temper to ruin her chances of a better future.

“Ndiyo,”
I lie, deciding to play it safe for Asu's sake. “Very much.
Asante.
”

Alasiri chuckles softly. “Well. We'll see how much your curiosity likes what it gets once I finish my coffee.”

“Here you go,” says Asu, ladling a serving of coffee into a tin cup for Alasiri and a half serving into a clean jar for me. She's careful as she pours, but even so, as I sip at the steaming jar, I can feel the bitter gravel of the coffee grounds lodging in my teeth.

I wonder where Alasiri will take me when we're done.

Chui has never
wanted to be anywhere near me.

I learned this clearly six years ago on my first day of school when he tried to talk Asu out of sending me to school entirely.

“Does Habo really have to go to school?” he had asked.

“Of course,” Asu replied. “He's seven now, just like you were when you started school. Why wouldn't he go?”

“Well . . .” Chui glanced sideways at me. “Look at him.”

I remember how Asu's eyes got hard when he said that. She turned to me.

“You're right,” she said, “let's double-check. Habo, reach your hand over your head and touch your other ear. Can you do that?”

I did. It was a little bit of a stretch at the end, but I was able to touch the end of my longest finger to the top of my opposite ear. This is how the teachers know you're over seven and old enough for school if you don't have a birth certificate. I smiled a missing-tooth smile at her. She smiled back.

“Okay, Chui, I've looked at him, and it seems like he's old enough to go to school after all. That
is
what you meant, isn't it?” She looked him straight in the eye, her question an outstretched hand with a piece of broken glass in it.

Chui knew better than to grab it. He dropped his gaze.

“
Ndiyo,
Asu,” he mumbled.

“Good. That's settled then. Off you go,” and she'd pushed us out the door together.

Chui and I had set off on the tiny footpath that led from our family's small farm to our village. Since we were walking into the rising sun, I kept my head down so that the brim of my hat kept my face shaded. I was watching Chui's black ankles in front of me, comparing them to my own white toes, when suddenly the feet turned around. I looked up, squinting. Chui stood in front of me, with both arms crossed over his chest, blocking the path.

“Now listen,” said Chui. “Just because you're my brother doesn't mean I have to walk with you.” I stared at him. Hadn't he heard Asu's scolding?

“But I want to walk with you,” I said finally.

“Sorry,” said Chui, not sounding sorry at all, “but you don't have a choice. I'm going to walk in to school first. You'll come in after me.”

“What if I'm late?”

“I don't care,” said Chui, his sneaky eyes narrowed to make his point. He turned to leave.

I was furious. It was my first day at school. I knew my brother didn't like me, but all brothers and sisters walked together. I had never seen a child walking anywhere alone, ever.

“Fine, go on!” I had shouted at him. “Run away,
Chuijoya
!” Chui's shoulders stiffened, but he just walked faster.
Chui
means “leopard” in Kiswahili, and Chui is proud of his strong name.
Chuijoya
means “paper leopard.” It's a way to call him a coward, my little revenge for the way he calls me names when Asu isn't around to hear them.

I kicked at the dirt in the road until I couldn't see him anymore, then followed.

By the time I made it to the thatched three-wall schoolhouse in the village, I was late. Palms sweating, mind racing, I hovered by the mud wall listening to the hum of children's voices as they greeted one another.
You're not getting any earlier,
I finally told myself, and forced my feet to cross the threshold. When I entered, a hundred dark eyes swiveled around to stare at me. I had no one to go to, no one I knew who I could sit next to on the floor. I stood there, unable to move.

Then, like locusts coming in to destroy a year's crops, the whispers spread through the room. Among the general hiss, I distinctly heard Chui's voice whispering “
mtoto pepo
”—ghost boy. Burning with shame, I stood there alone and listened as the plague of whispers ate my hopes.

Even though it was six years ago, that memory still makes me angry. After that first day, I have never again tried to walk with Chui. Even if we're going somewhere at the same time, I leave some space between us.

Which is why I'm surprised when Chui insists on coming with me and Alasiri. And I have to admit, though I never thought I would be grateful for Chui's company, I'm glad it won't be just the two of us for the day. For some reason, I can't shake my dream of the lion whenever I'm around our eerily cheerful guide, and it makes me uneasy.

“All right, boys! Grab those tarps and get in!”

Following Alasiri's directions, Chui and I haul four big squares of thick blue plastic out of the storage tent and heft them into the open back of the Jeep. The tarps smell the way our goat shed at home did after the nanny gave birth, and we both hold them at arm's length.

“Hop in and sit on them so they don't blow away,” commands Alasiri, turning the key in the ignition.

I hesitate, and Chui clambers past me.

“Habo will do that,” he says. “I'll sit up front here, if that's all right.”

Alasiri laughs delightedly at Chui's forwardness, waving him to the empty front seat. I scowl and climb after him, sitting on the stinking tarps. I hunch into my long clothes to keep the sun off my skin, and face away from both of them.

As we drive away from the camp, I notice Asu standing with Mother, looking after us as if to memorize where we're going. I realize, from the way our tire tracks stretch away from the camp, that we're driving away from the road and out into the Serengeti.

When we're out of sight of the camp, Alasiri brings out a small radio. He talks into it in a low voice, then releases the button and waits through minutes of static. He has stopped smiling. When a voice answers him, he turns the wheel sharply to the left and begins to drive faster.

“Where are we going?” asks Chui, leaning forward and examining the buttons on the radio.

“Ah,” says Alasiri. “We're going hunting.”

“Hunting?” asks Chui. His eyes are sparkling with excitement. But this time Alasiri doesn't answer.

Chui and Alasiri are sitting on padded seats with springs in them, but I bounce around every time we hit a rock or pothole. Which is all the time. The Serengeti seems so flat when you look at it—long tan fields of grass and slowly rolling green hills, dissolving away in the heat haze of the distance—but when you're driving across the wildlife park the ground is full of animal tracks that have turned into dips and spikes when the mud dried, and the grass is full of stones and holes. I feel like someone is trying to shake my teeth into my brain and I'm having trouble keeping track of where we're going. That must be why I feel like we're going in circles.

The trip goes on and on. I'm now so jumbled around that I couldn't even tell you which way the camp is from here. I could ask Alasiri, but he is serious again, and his eyes shine as he talks into his radio, and I'm afraid. Chui looks at me over the shoulder of the front seat. Even though neither of us says anything, I think he's not so happy to be here anymore, either.

Finally, Alasiri lets out a little yelp and throws the car into park in the long grass on the side of a small hill, beside another battered-looking Jeep. For the first time in over an hour, his smile is back, and he turns to speak to us.

“Get out, boys! It's time to make yourselves useful.”

Chui and I get out of the car gingerly. My vision sways a bit for a while even after I put my feet on the ground, though whether that's from the bumpy ride or my usual bad eyes, I'm not sure. All I can make out against the bright sky is an immense lump on the hill that Alasiri is pushing us toward. I haven't quite gotten my eyes to focus when I stumble and land heavily against the leathery side of the thing. It gives a little under my hands, and I pull away with a cry of surprise because it's slightly warm. I realize I'm leaning against an enormous animal carcass, but I can barely imagine that an animal could be so huge. My mind races through what it knows about big animals, trying to match what we've found. Rhino? Elephant? Hippopotamus?

Alasiri steers Chui around the corner of the carcass, bending out of my line of sight. I hear Alasiri calling out greetings, men's voices replying, and the sputtering of a small machine. The shape next to me is giving off the faint hay-and-earth smell that reminds me of the days when we could afford to keep a cow. There is also the hot, sticky smell of blood. I walk around to rejoin Chui and Alasiri, running my fingers along a spine with bones wider than my hand to steady myself as I go.

It's the ears, like great gray leaves, that finally let me identify the animal. It's the first time I've ever seen a real elephant.

There are three men up at the front of this elephant, and Alasiri has joined them. The men are covered in blood, and bits of flesh hang off their arms and stick to their clothes. Two have machetes and one has a diesel chain saw, and they're attacking the elephant's head the way a boy beats a bush with a stick when he's angry. But none of these men are angry; they smile at Alasiri and wave. The chain saw makes a wet sound as it digs into the cheek and then a high whining sound when it hits the bone of the skull. Clouds of black diesel smoke blow over us. I feel a little like I want to vomit, but this reaction embarrasses me. At home we butchered meat with knives, not with chain saws, but meat is meat and Alasiri did tell us we were going hunting. I should be glad that we'll all have dinner tonight, not upset by the sounds we make getting it.
And I'm not going to let Chui call me a coward!
But I don't like the expression on Alasiri's face. He's all lit up inside, a lamp burning excitement instead of kerosene. I'm sorry I ever agreed to come out here.

“Boys!” he shouts. “Go get the tarps!”

Chui and I walk to the Jeep, and I grab the first tarp my hand lands on, hauling it into my arms with all the force I can muster. It's heavy.
Soon,
I think,
soon we can leave.
I repeat this to myself as I begin to drag the folded tarp over to the dead elephant. Alasiri waves and shouts, but I can't make out what he's saying. He seems upset. Then the weight goes off my arms, and I see that Chui has picked up the other end of the tarp where it had been dragging on the ground. Alasiri stops shouting and waves us forward.

As we get closer, the smell of a butcher shop on a hot day hits me again and the flies begin to land on my face.
Food is food,
I remind myself. I squint to keep the flies out of my eyes and keep trudging forward.

“Good, good!” Alasiri's voice is right in front of me now, so I must have made it all the way to where the men are standing. The keening of the chain saw is just behind my left ear, but I refuse to turn and look at it. Instead I look at Alasiri. In his delight over the kill, all the lines of his face have shifted slightly. I no longer think he's handsome.

“Not so curious now, eh?” He takes my face in his hands and grips it hard, then pushes my cheek away. “Go get the rest of the tarps, and be quick about it. We need to get out of here before any park rangers show up. Move!”

Chui and I trot to the Jeep, and then slowly, quickly, slowly, quickly we go, bringing the tarps to the elephant butchers. As we run I can feel the hot, slick imprint of Alasiri's hands on my face drying and flaking off, little pieces of elephant blood falling like dry tears onto the ground in my wake.

Keep going,
I tell myself.
All you have to do is bring them these tarps, maybe help them cut up the meat, and then you're done. Just keep going.

But instead of carving up the meat, the men are focusing entirely on the elephant's head, leaving the huge body to bloat in the sun. All they seem interested in is ripping the long horns out of the animal's face, though why they would do that is a mystery to me since you can't eat bone.

As soon as the men have cut the long, curved horns out of the elephant's face and have wrapped them in the tarps, they load one into each vehicle. After talking a little with Alasiri, the three men drive away in their Jeep, trailing a cloud of dust. Alasiri goes back to the elephant and picks more bits off with a long hunting knife. Again, though none of us has eaten lunch, he leaves the meat alone. He harvests the teeth and tail and toenails and dumps all of this in the last tarp, which he makes Chui and me carry to the Jeep. He helps us wedge the tarp through the rear door and then hops in the front himself. He starts the engine.

For a split second I'm terrified that he's going to drive away and leave us here. I don't know what it is that I fear, whether that evil spirits will be attracted to such a spot or scavengers with large teeth, but I know that I'm afraid to be there a moment longer.

Chui runs to get into the front seat again. But when he sits down, he looks away from Alasiri, out the window. I scramble in awkwardly, climbing over the pieces of elephant we have wedged in.

“
Bwana,
are we going to the camp now?” I ask.

“Oh, so now it's ‘sir,' is it?” He laughs and wipes the sweat out of his eyes, leaving a swatch of blood across his forehead. It makes him look fierce. “
Ndiyo,
we're going back now.”

Alasiri drives at a slightly slower pace, but I wish for the bone-rattling speed of our first journey. Because all the way to camp, I am sitting on a tarp-wrapped bundle, still warm from the animal we have destroyed, and my feet give me no traction in the blood on the floor.