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International—Intrigue—Injustice

Son of a Gun

PROLOGUE

I was crazy. Crazy mad. That’s how I felt when I turned in my AK-47 rifle. The Commanding Officer, or CO’s growl still haunts me, “This gun is your god. You listen to the voice of your god and go where your gun tells you.” But I wanted the money, the dollars the UN, or United Nations, is offering if you turn in your gun. I needed it to go home, to face the future, if my past let me.

The UN, he came to Liberia, and now I think he’s here to stay. At least I hope so. “So where do you think you’re going?” Mr. Blue Helmet asked me.

I wish I knew, I thought. I watched him toss my god onto the pile of other AKs. It clattered down the side and sent up a little cloud of dust. “Won’t hear no more voices from that gun,” I mumbled.

He gave me the dollars; I counted them quick and shoved them deep into my crotch. Then he still wanted to shake my hand. That’s cool. We snapped fingers, my third finger against his. “Where you from?” I asked.

“Ireland. What about you? Where are you from?”

“Me? I’m from Liberia, man. What you think? Ha!”

I didn’t tell him the last time I went home, I found the house burned and looted. I didn’t tell him this was the third time in eight years I was trying to get home. I didn’t tell him about how walking has become my thing. The CO called them forced marches, but me, I’ve made it into my very own career of walking.

CHAPTER 1

Nopi:

Do you wonder who this boy is? This boy who is telling you this story? This boy is my brother. And me, I’m his sister. I’m two years older. He was born in 1988 and I was born in 1986. When he was still a baby the war started near the end of 1989. The first wartime. That makes him eight years old at the beginning of this story, and I’m ten. You can call me Nopi, that’s my nickname. We all have crazy nicknames here in Liberia. My brother’s is Lucky. He has a gap between his two front teeth, so whenever he smiles, it make you want to smile, too.

His favorite stories are the ones about how good it was in the old days. Or how he has heard it was. I’ve told my brother over and over what it was like before the war. I mean, how should I know, since this whole thing started before I was even born? But I listened to our Grandma  when he was too young to remember.

Listen and let’s see if you can picture this. I’ve heard about your side of the world, you know. Where it gets cold, and cows don’t know how to swim, and there’s so much food you don’t even want to get fat. I wonder if there’s a place for my story in your world. People say a lot of things about Africa. Maybe you could shut out those voices now, and just listen with your heart.

If I start talking about the sun and trees pressed down by the weight of the sky and yellow grass and red dust and crickets at night and laughter and the roar of waves at the beach, can you hear Africa? Can you taste my Liberia in the salt-scented air? Can you feel the dust between your teeth? Can you hear the laughter of the children? Hey, we’re just like you, you know. Well, okay, maybe a little different color, and a whole lot warmer, but you want to bet we’re afraid of the same things?

CHAPTER 2

Lucky:

Me, this is what I do remember. OK, so this is what happens. These kids are sitting in school. It’s a school with walls made of sticks with mud smeared onto them, and mud bricks. The benches are rough tree trunks sawed lengthwise in half, thin poles hold up the roof. Open windows with no glass because it’s always warm, remember? We’re packed into the largest room. It’s a school meeting because we’re all a little scared since we heard gunshots all night. The school principal is talking to us about schedules, when suddenly, these soldiers come storming into the place in the middle of the school where we’re all sitting and standing against the walls.

The girls start to scream, then stop when these soldiers point their guns at us. Man, I can tell you it was not a fine sight. I nearly wet myself I was so scared. You’re laughing, but I was only eight years old.

I mean, I was just a little boy then, and all proud of myself for learning the alphabet. What did I know? The principal, Mr. Nyanforth, he walks up to the tallest soldier and he starts talking. I stand up to see better and feel my sister’s hand slip over mine. She’s found me in the crowd and left her friends. I look at her face and see it turn ashen, then I look back at the principal. All us kids, we jump, because the soldier takes the butt of his gun and rams it up the chin of Mr. Nyanforth and his head goes all funny and he falls down.

Then three of the teachers, all women, walk up to him. There’s Mrs. Bieh. She’s my teacher and even though she’s really big, she has a soft voice when she reads us stories. Her hands are on her hips, which is a bad sign. Man, this soldier is going to get it for sure.

Well, what happens next, you don’t want to know. I don’t even know. It has something to do with a lot of hitting and more yelling. Us kids, we ran for the door. I looked real quick over my shoulder and saw all three of the teachers being pushed up against the wall and hit over and over again. All I knew is I still had my sister’s hand in mine.

We ran as hard as we could, but those soldiers, they had come into our school for a reason. Not just to hurt our teachers or steal. No man, they were after us. We ran and hid in the forest, behind stacks of wood, burrowed under the brush, but when the soldiers came after us, they found us all. My sister and I hid in empty metal barrels used for storing water. I can still remember the smell of rust and how loud my breathing was inside and what it felt like to have my heart jump out of my mouth when I looked up and saw one of the soldiers looking down at me with his red bloodshot eyes and stinking breath.

They grabbed us and tied us up so our hands were all connected with rope. My sister walked in front of me. It was not so nice. By now I had wet myself. So I’m wet, and smelling and we’re walking in the dust. I guess you could say this was the beginning of my walking career. Walking, walking, walking.

Nopi:

The rebels knew where the kids were when we had a school meeting and waited, knowing they could come and take us then. I couldn’t say that to my little brother. I couldn’t even think. All I knew was I had to hold onto his hand, no matter what. Where were our parents? Who were these men? Why did they bother with small, small children like us? I was only ten!

It would be many years before I learned that this happens a lot, all over the world. We’re called child soldiers. An AK-47 is light enough for kids to carry. And we do stuff grown-ups are too smart and afraid to try. You know what I think? I think it happens in places where they’ve ran out of men to fight because the wars have gone on and on, and especially in countries like ours where there are diamonds or oil or something else that makes people rich and powerful. These are places where the wars last so long, there are no more grown-ups to fight them. Then they pick on us kids.

We walked a long time, and ended up in the forest somewhere near a swamp. My little brother, he kept asking where our parents were. We had heard rumors of the war getting closer. Who was fighting who? And why us?

I don’t really want to talk about what happened next. I don’t know if it was days or weeks, but these rebels didn’t give us much to eat and hardly anything to drink, so we really depended on them for everything. I do remember that first night after the soldiers took us, my brother and I sat curled up beneath a cottonwood tree, its big roots and all the branches around us like big arms. And in the dark, while crickets screeched and big splashes sounded in the swamp, I told him his favorite stories, about how things were when we were small small, how things were when we jumped rope and danced and had more rice to eat then we knew what to do with. That’s when I told him the stories our grandma used to tell us, of what it was like before the first wartime.

Prologue, Chapters 1 and 2