Dimitry Leger - God Loves Haiti

New York City made the President think of no one else but Madonna. He disliked the Big Apple, but the city had given the world Madonna, an angel if there ever was such a thing. It couldn’t be all bad. The President’s arrival at JFK Airport that wintry afternoon had been rocky. An airline stewardess actually took his freshly buttered bread out of his hand right before he could bite into it because the plane was about to land. He never felt rage hotter than the one he felt looking at the prim and prissy bitch standing over him in the airplane. He glared hard. His bodyguards and new aides had to drag and push the old man off the plane and through customs. The President was so mad he didn’t bother closing his coat in the face of the first blast of cold winds that greeted them outside JFK. In silence, they walked toward a black town car whose chauffeur had smartly, though rudely, decided not to leave the driver’s seat to brave the elements and open the door for the visiting head of state he was there to pick up. Of course, there was a snowstorm. It’s rare that snowstorms don’t greet you when you visit New York City from tropical Port-au-Prince in February, the President thought, a truism he first experienced in his twenties. Ice daggers rained from the gray sky. The air was still and quiet, yet rough and menacing. The brick buildings of Queens’s rows of warehouses looked bombed-out in the stormy haze. It was morning, but dark like dusk. The President’s group heard icicles whistle through the air, searching for exposed skin to prick and cut open. In the car, the President soon realized the thing making the incessant buzzing sound he had been hearing was in his pocket. He fumbled a bit with the new device, a BlackBerry, then watched a message from Bobo unfurl.

We found Destiné, boss. I sent a few of the boys for him. He was in a refugee camp where he is living for no apparent reason. They went there in the afternoon. No guns. I gave them baseball bats to protect themselves. It can get wild in those camps sometimes. They say the place was filthy and crowded. I told them to be nice and discreet. Destiné seemed to have been living there since the quake, they said. They said he was hurt, a broken leg. Either way he had no intention of leaving the camp to go to the hospital or just go home. Could be he’s gone crazy. There’s a lot of that happening since goudou-goudou. We didn’t expect any trouble. But the guys told me that as soon as they approached his tent in the camp, twenty guys with guns showed up. If it’s true, boss — and we have no reason not to trust these guys; they’re pros; I’ve used them before — if it’s true, I think Destiné might be raising a militia to come after you. His security guards killed two of our guys. The two others barely got away safely. They said Destiné’s guards had big guns. Maybe Destiné’s fallen in with Colombian drug runners? He’s pretty shifty. According to the guy I have watching him 24 hours a day, Destiné is now friends with some famous American actor. They have even appeared on TV. They’re building a memorial to the victims of goudou-goudou made of mud in Place Pigeon. The international press loves them. Reporters and camera crews are always over there, swarming them. It’s complicated but we’ll keep trying to get him. You can count on me, boss!

Don’t worry about your wife, sir. We have her under constant surveillance too. You’re right. She’s a good girl. She’s never left the Cathedral. I have a guy bring her food and supplies daily. She’s taking care of Monsignor Dorélien, who’s near death. She stopped going out, and she seems to have forgotten about looking for Destiné.

Faithfully yours, Bobo.

The President wanted to slam the device against the wall or break it apart with his hands, but this was the wrong time for him to show any signs of weakness. The mood in the car, which was now rumbling along the Fifty-Ninth Street bridge, was tense enough. The members of his government’s new makeshift cabinet were heading into the biggest negotiations of their lives. They were young and not eager to find out just how deeply unprepared for the moment they were.

Bobo was lying, the President thought. Bobo had always been a lousy liar. That’s the main reason the President had trusted him over so many others throughout the years. Somewhere in Bobo’s bumbling dissembling was the nugget of information the President needed to make his next decision. Bobo’s idiots for hire probably did indeed find Destiné and fail to get him. But they didn’t fail because Destiné had assembled a revolutionary army of sans abris to scare them. Destiné was a smart kid who was capable of many things, but at his core he was a loner, a talker and not a fighter. It was the character flaw that prevented him from becoming a leader of men in the best of times in Haiti. These were not the best of times in Haiti. Did Destiné talk his way out of capture? Possibly. The kid was magnetic, and, boy, could he talk a good game. Why didn’t he have the decency of doing me a favor and die already?

At this thought, the President saw his conscience take the form of his predecessor Métélus with big old white angel wings. What are you doing, man? You never hurt anyone intentionally in your life.

And what of it? the President said.

You knew Bobo would misinterpret your request that he find Destiné for you. You just wanted the kid found by your people before your wife did. You hoped they found his body, deceased. Of all the Haitians the earthquake killed, surely, ce merde de Destiné would have been one of them, right? That was too much to hope for, old friend. Destiné is your cross to bear.

The man is fucking my wife, the President said.

You don’t know that for sure.

The President gave the angel a blank stare.

OK. He’s fucking your wife.

I got other crosses to bear.

Like, what? Leading a ruined country with few resources?

Yes, that.

That’s easy, man. That’s playing with house money. You know that. Heads you win. Tail you win.

Mais, compère , the kid is fucking your wife! the devil said, waving a pitchfork on the President’s left shoulder. He looked a lot like Duvalier le père .

You’ve been a good boy all your life. You’re entitled to snuffing out one life with your presidential privilege before you leave office, especially after all the horrors you’ve been through with the earthquake and all. Écoute , he was fucking your wife in your own palace! What the fuck’s the point of working your whole life to become master of your own palace when young bastards are going to stroll through the front door to sleep with your woman? He fucked her well too. Real good. If he’s crippled from the earthquake, you’ll be putting him out of his misery. Besides, it’s not like you’re sending Navy SEALs on the other side of the planet to execute some son of a bitch you never met and calling it justice. Unlike that case, there are no courts of law, local or international, where you could bring charges of crimes against humanity against the kid. There isn’t. No one will notice or mourn the boy’s death, not even your old lady from the sounds of it. Isn’t this what it’s all about anyway? Her love. After removing the small hindrance of a typically over-reaching boy out of your marital lives, you’ll have your lady all to yourself. Think about it, you’ll be killing the boy for the love of a wonderful woman. How romantic is that? Isn’t that His way? Shit, I should become a poet. Call me Cupid.

Don’t listen to our predecessor over there, Mr. President, Métélus the angel said. You have a nice track record of resisting the impulse to abuse your privileges. There are many, many diplomatic and decent ways to deal with your issues with Alain Destiné. You know them well, instinctively. They will serve your purposes.