Dimitry Leger - God Loves Haiti

Yeah, then they looked away.

Funny. Get some rest. I’ll be awake for another couple of hours.

No, man, you should get some sleep. You had a heck of a night. Just leave that bat with me.

I’d love to, but I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to sleep since I saw the first CNN report on the earthquake. People running, crying, buildings falling, confused children. When I close my eyes and relax, I see them chasing me.

Me too.

Same dream?

Same nightmare.

Why don’t you go home? You sound like someone who probably has a nice home in the hills here. You know they were largely untouched right?

I’m not surprised. God protects the rich.

Look, God had nothing to do with what happened here.

Was that supposed to make me feel better?

You know what I mean.

Why don’t you go home? You have no business here.

In the black of the night, they heard a stirring. A crunch. It was creepy. Really, couldn’t the earthquake have left at least one functional streetlight? Alain thought. Alain and Hollywood tensed up and tried to play it cool at the same time. The noise came from behind where they were sitting. New marauders were in Alain’s tent. Fuck. A hand touched Alain’s shoulder from the side. It was Xavier. Only he could sneak up and touch you without scaring the shit out of you. How the hell does he do that?

Xav , c’est toi ! Alain said.

The six-year-old newly minted orphan nodded in a way that told Alain it was OK for him to breathe easy. He was in good hands.

Meet our new neighbor…

Steve.

Hollywood’s real name was Steve, but Alain preferred calling him Hollywood, as he watched hands that had held Oscars shake Xavier’s hand. Xavier held the star’s hands in both of his and looked at the scars on Hollywood’s wrists. Hollywood turned red with shame. Hollywood looked away.

Nice to meet you, little guy, he said. I’m going to get some rest now. It’s been a long night.

With that, Hollywood crawled into the little tent he had pitched and promptly fell asleep. His Timberland boots poked outside it. Xavier looked at Alain and suggested he do the same. Alain dragged himself into their tarp tent and promptly fell asleep too, despite the crowing of roosters and the azuring sky outside.

Alain Destiné did not dream that evening, nor did he have time to write a diary entry to Natasha about the movie star who saved his life. In fact he didn’t get to sleep much at all before a commotion outside his tent woke him up. He heard a happy voice, that of Philippe, his comrade in refugee leadership, calling his name.

Alain! Alain! You got to hear this!

Alain rolled over and began to crawl out of his tent. His upper-body strength had improved enough that his face no longer grazed the mud in his tent when he crawled out of it. Once his face had appeared outside the tent, Philippe and another buddy, Gilbert, gave him a hand to get on his feet. Shading his eyes from the bright sun, he saw Hollywood sitting on the ground outside his tent, sipping a cup of coffee, casually, so cool in fact he might as well have been in Saint-Tropez or Saint Bart’s instead of disaster-struck Port-au-Prince. Beyond Philippe’s entourage, a crowd of refugees were coming toward Alain’s tent, no doubt to hear what the commotion was about too.

Man, listen to her, Philippe said. Her idea is genius! Genius.

A bright, freckle-faced little girl of about twelve years old emerged from the middle of the crowd. In that typically Haitian way of talking, as if addressing a nation after a march on Washington, she said her name was Alyssa. Mr. Alain, she said, I think the camp could use a memorial in honor of the people who died during the earthquake.

A what?

A memorial, sir. A piece of architecture, art, or a quiet area where, if you see it, you are meant to pause in tribute to all the lives we lost and be grateful and optimistic about the future. I had an uncle who visited from New York after 9/11, and he said just reading about people arguing about what shape the memorial should take helped New Yorkers begin to recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I think trying to put a memorial in Place Pigeon would do the same for people here.

What the fuck is this little girl talking about? Alain thought. To Alain, a moment of pause during these stressful times had come to mean time for reflection, and reflection meant time to cut yourself with soul-searing grief about the past events and the vagaries of the future, which was inevitably transformed into volcanic anger at the intolerably sunny but unknowable future of their people. “Our” people, that is the key word, isn’t it? Chill out, Alain. The girl might be on to something.

Think about it, Alain, Philippe said. If Place Pigeon becomes the first refugee camp to establish a memorial for those suffering from goudou-goudou, we’ll get more attention than the other camps, and more help. The world will know we’re ready to work our way out of this mess. We have to do it. Especially considering our location across from the Palais. Look how fucked-up it still is!

Alain didn’t look. He avoided looking at it these days. Too disheartening.

And, if you pull it off, you’ll show the world that Haitians can take care of and honor themselves, Hollywood said.

These were his first words to anyone other than Alain since he’d installed himself in Place Pigeon. Everyone turned their attention en masse to the blue-eyed man in their midst. It was as if they hadn’t noticed he was there all that time. So he can talk, an old lady on Alain’s right said.

As you guys can tell, I’m not from here. Mon français est très moche , Steve said.

Haitians don’t say moche , Alain thought. The French do. But everyone got the gist of what Hollywood was trying to say anyway.

Where I come from, and around the world, everyone feels terrible about what happened to you. The damage the earthquake caused is horrible. It’s mind-blowing, really. In fact, because we sense how great your need is, my people also know that whatever help we send you will only scratch the surface. It’ll barely make a dent. We’ll barely stop the bleeding. But that’s OK. Yes, it is, really. You guys have taken care of yourselves for centuries. Before the white men came. Even before the Africans came. This place is never going to be Switzerland. It never was, nor does it aspire to be, right? But you manage. You make the best of things anyway, don’t you?

A few uh-huhs floated through the crowd. Not bad, Hollywood. Alain thought. I might have to rename you Oscar. Go on.

I’m pretty useless to your deep humanitarian needs. They’re out of my league. I’m rich, but I ain’t that rich.

A few people chuckled.

I’m here because I need redemption, Hollywood said. I need to work for you and for you to eventually tell me I’m an OK human being. My second wife left me last fall after twenty years of putting up with my dickhead ways. No one wants to talk to me where I live. Everyone took her side. And rightly so. Only my agent takes my calls these days.

C’est quoi ça ?

It was a teenager. He, like most of them, had no idea what an agent was. Get it together, Hollywood Alain thought. You might lose them.

An agent? An agent is your best friend in the world as long as your work gets them a percentage of your income so that they can enjoy it more than you. Anyway, my work is not that important. I’m not a doctor or an alchemist or Rambo. All of whom would be far more useful to you in the situation you live in these days than an actor.

Ah-ha, Alain thought. You really are that movie star! Shit, what was your best movie? The one when you played the rapist? Or the cokehead or the corrupt cop? Come to think of it, you’re damn good at playing creeps. No wonder you can’t keep your women.