Jon Evans - Swarm

“You dive into a pool full of gravel or something?” Jesse asked me.

I had forgotten that my face was still marred by healing scabs and bruises. “Long story.”

A stranger might have heard that brusque exchange in lieu of salutations and concluded that we didn’t like each other. Jesse and I had been close friends for so long that we didn’t bother with greetings or other social lubricants.

“This is Zavier,” Jesse introduced our saviour. “Come on. We want to get off the docks by noon.”

The hug Jesse gave Sophie lingered a little, and I felt irrational jealousy surge within me, like lava in a long-dormant volcano, but squelched it violently. They had dated briefly, years ago, before she and I had met. Ancient history, no longer relevant. Zavier led us to a slightly scarred Land Cruiser armed with a cattle catcher and a six-foot whip antenna, ensured that all doors were locked, and conducted us into the retina-searing madness of late-afternoon Port-au-Prince traffic.

The city was all slum. Cratered, mud-puddled streets; packs of feral dogs atop waist-high mounds of trash; skeletal remains of ancient car crashes, thick with rust; stores with hand-painted signs, set in rotting concrete buildings; high walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass; abandoned piles of rubble. It was hard to distinguish between earthquake damage and hundreds of years of grinding poverty. But it was also far more colourful than I had expected. The streets were full of buses called taptaps , dazzling murals on wheels portraying Biblical scenes, soccer stars, American flags, Nike swooshes. Many walls were covered with graffiti art, or tiled with paintings for sale, and even the poorest women wore vibrant clothes.

“It’s a dump, but you get used to it,” Jesse said cheerfully. “There’s some nice places. You go up to Petionville,” he gestured up a steep cross street, “there’s nightclubs, supermarkets, galleries, a couple of amazing French restaurants. But shit flows downhill.”

The traffic was intense but kept moving, in part because this theoretically two-lane road supported at least three lanes of vehicles. Every taptap overflowed with ragged passengers, and we passed crowds of pedestrians, many barefoot. Many turned and stared at us. I tried to interpret their expressions. Curious? Jealous? Hateful? I couldn’t tell. I had never seen such hopeless poverty. I couldn’t imagine what people who had spent their whole lives trapped in its quicksand might think of us.

“Is it dangerous?” Sophie asked.

Jesse nodded. “Can be. Petionville’s OK, but you wouldn’t catch me in Cite-Soleil at night. At least not without Zavier.” Zavier’s grin shone. “There were food riots last month, Because the government’s cracking down on the ports to look good for the DEA.” Sophie and I exchanged a quick look. “Idiots. So now it takes a month to bring any imports in. There’s rice literally rotting on the docks. Meanwhile Haiti can’t feed itself, because it doesn’t produce enough, because fucking government price controls give farmers no incentive.” He shook his head in disgust. Jesse had been a libertarian/anarchist since I had known him; he hated all governments everywhere, and everything they represented.

We reached a UN checkpoint, where blue-helmeted men with light brown skin inspected our passports and Zavier’s paperboard ID card. Shortly afterwards we entered a region of high fences and warehouses, some watched by armed security, some rusting and abandoned.

“So-called peacekeepers,” Jesse muttered. Zavier grunted with contempt at the word. “Brazilians. Only thing they’ve done for this country is ensure full employment for prostitutes.”

“You know what your problem is, Jester?” I asked. As teenagers we had watched my dad’s tape of Top Gun to death, and the code names ‘Maverick’ and ‘Jester’ for each other had stuck. I had always liked them, because they made him the sidekick and me the hero. “You have a problem with authority.”

We turned another corner and suddenly the turquoise Caribbean lay before us, beyond a jumbled and crowded industrial complex of piers, docks, cranes and shipping containers, all surrounded by chainlink fence topped with razor wire.

Jesse turned and grinned at me wolfishly. “Wrong way round. Authority has a problem with me.”

I helped carry supples – groceries, cases of Prestige beer, water containers, bits of hardware – from the back of the Land Cruiser down to the docks. My feet hurt, but not badly. The boat that was our destination was a forty-foot-long flatbed with a big motor on one end and a canopy in the middle, crewed by a middle-aged Haitian and his teenage assistant. It stank strongly of diesel.

“Where’s the Ark?” I asked.

“Out there.” Jesse waved vaguely. “We hardly ever bring her in. Too much paperwork. Easier to call these boys on the satphone. Wilfrid the water taxi, eh?” He clapped the captain on the back, and got a grin in return.

“Should we get our exit visas from the harbourmaster or something?” I asked.

“Nah. This isn’t Canada, you don’t need to go line up for the blessing of the authorities to get anything done. Nobody cares. If they pretend to, you just give them twenty bucks and they stop. Let me go pay off Zavier and we’re out of here.”

I was not particularly reassured by either his words or the sight of Captain Wilfrid opening a bottle of Prestige. Figuring when in Rome, I did the same. Sophie followed suit, and Jesse joined us on his return. As the teenage boy undid the mooring ropes, the four of us clinked our bottles together.

“Welcome to Haiti,” Jesse said, “The land of voodoo, violence, venality, and surprisingly decent beer.”

“Why here?” I asked, as we eased our way out into the sea. “Why not Jamaica or the Caymans or something?”

“It’s not that bad. No red tape. And the reefs near the south coast are prime shipwreck territory.”

Wilfrid took over the wheel from the teenager and throttled the engine forward. Its churning roar precluded conversation as the boat surged into the bay. I turned back and watched the vast and soiled conurbation of Port-au-Prince, and the steep green hills beyond, dwindle into the distance. We passed an island the size of Manhattan, then hit the open ocean, where the slow swells were bigger than the boat and the salt wind whipped at us unceasingly.

Jesse guided us by GPS. I felt increasingly uneasy as the last hint of land disappeared, and the endless ocean surrounded us. This turquoise sea was the watery graveyard for thousands of ships, that was the whole reason Jesse was here, and this particular boat didn’t seem much more seaworthy than the lake-going vessels of the summers of my Canadian youth. This was hurricane season, too; the sky was clear, but I knew all too well that in the tropics blue sky could become brutal storm in minutes.

Beside me Sophie stared at the infinite monotony of the ocean. I could tell by her abstract fascination that she was marvelling at something I wouldn’t understand.

“What is it?” I asked anyway.

“Fractal patterns,” she said softly. “In the waves and the spray. They’re amazing.”

I watched her rapt expression and wondered, not for the first time, what it must be like to see patterns and connections everywhere, to speak the mathematical language of the universe with such instinctive fluency.

I had known Jesse Ruby since we were fifteen years old. I had been the smartest kid in my high school until he transferred in and claimed that title, so at first we butted heads; but a month after we met, at his instigation, he and I smuggled sulfuric acid out of the school laboratory and used it to synthesize nitroglycerine in my garage. The resulting explosion left me deaf for three days and cemented our friendship forever.