Leslie looked him over coolly. “Yes. Who would like to know?”
The shorter one glanced up at the taller one with an ‘I told you so’ kind of expression.
“Oh, I’m sorry. My name’s Jeff and this is Mark.”
Jeff rushed through his next words. His buddies were all staring at them from their booth across the way, snickering. “Um, we’re on the football team. At the junior high, you know, and we’re sponsoring a dance to raise money—for helmets—and like, we were wondering if you two would like to go.” Leslie and Maureen looked at them expectantly. “To the dance I mean, with us. It’s Saturday in the gymnasium.”
Neither young woman said a word. They sat primly, backs straight, expressions severe, judgmental, as if they were dealing with a lower life form.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, and this is probably a surprise since you don’t know us or anything.”
Maureen said, “Thank you. We’ll talk about it.”
The boys looked disappointed for a second, then the short one said, “If you want to go, Jeff and I will be in here tomorrow after school and you can meet us for a coke or fries or something.”
“Perhaps.”
Leslie added, “We might, and then we might not. We’ll have to think about it for a while.”
“Fine. We’ll see you tomorrow then maybe.” They backed up a step each, turned, and marched deliberately to their friends. When they sat down they all began to talk in a low buzz.
“God, do you believe that, Maureen?” Leslie’s eyes were glittering.
“No way am I going to a dance with those guys.”
“The tall one was kind of cute.”
“You really think so, Leslie? He was so sweaty.”
Maureen screwed up her face like she had swallowed something distasteful.
“I think I like sweat.”
“Gross!” Maureen squealed. “Well, what do you want to do?” she said. The boys got up then and walked out. As they went by, Jeff and Mark said goodbye politely, but the rest poked each other in the ribs, saying things like “Nice legs,” and “Oooh baby.” The door finally wheezed shut behind them.
“Of course boys can be pests too,” said Leslie.
“Just like flies.”
They watched the group walk down the sidewalk, then turned to each other and Leslie said, “Obviously, those two are desperate for a date, or they wouldn’t have asked us, a pair of strangers, to the dance. We could go with them and make their day,” she paused, “or we could say no and break their hearts. There’s power and then there’s power. It’s something to think about.”
Maureen considered her reflection in the window superimposed on the retreating boys. “You’re right. Not all changes have to be bad.” There was a moment of silent meditation as that concept sunk in, as they thought about not just these boys, but without realizing it, on a perfect subconscious level, all the boys in their futures.
Then they whispered it together, knowingly:
“Bang.”
THE SAINT FROM ABDIJAN
They say the port of Abidjan is beautiful with new buildings—a bustling, modern city—but when the tugs pulled the cacao freighter in I saw nothing but a long, filthy gray steel deck an inch from my eye. I couldn’t raise my head. I missed the horror in the interior. If I’d looked closely, would I have seen Seydou’s hand on my elbow? Could I have stopped myself from being the tool?
From the time we’d hit the deep sea swell out of Melbourne I’d been sick, and by the trip’s end I was reduced to dragging the thin mattress the Liberan first mate had begrudged me from one slip of shade to the next. The air smelled African hot, but it was cooler than in the hold. No relief, though, now the trip was almost done: the ship’s queasy pitching had been exchanged for uneven pulls from the two tugs.
It made me think of Ireland’s St. Brendan who fifteen hundred years ago wrote a book called Navigation describing his search for the Isle of the Blessed. Some people claimed Brendan discovered the Americas, but he never wrote about sea sickness, so I think he made it up.
I clamped my teeth tight on lunch from three days earlier, and concentrated on remembering I was going to Seguela’s diamond fields to save lives. We’d heard rumor of children toiling in the pits, digging with pikes and shovels for starvation wages. So I told my friends goodbye at Greenpeace Australia where I’d been interning and caught an empty freighter bound for Cote d’Ivorie and the port of Abidjan. You’re too young, they said, too inexperienced. Real activism, I told them, is an individual affair. They shook their heads, thinking my idealism hung on my sleeve. Among the fanatics, I stood out, but I’d always been that way. In first grade I collected crushed aluminum for the poor. My favorite magazine in middle school was the Red Cross’s in-house newsletter. The knowledge someone somewhere is suffering keeps me awake at night. Nothing is distant for me. It’s next door. It’s not religion. I’m not religious, but all my heros are saints.
He’ll mellow when he turns thirty, one said. But somebody has to record abuses. My cameras were buried deep in my duffle, along with a tape recorder and notebooks.
Immigration gave me a bother about my passport—too many stamps in six months. The introductory letter from Human Rights International didn’t carry any weight; neither did the pledge of cooperation from the Seguelan authorities, so I convinced them with smiles that a terrorist or drug runner would not go from America to Greenland to Brazil to Australia and then to Africa. A little cash under the table could have saved me twelve hours, but I preferred not to contribute to civil corruption. They interrogated me in an air-conditioned office high above the street. Everyone behaved civilly, very proper. Gray three-piece suits over white shirts. Red ties. “Stay out of Treichville and Adjame after dark. There are muggers,” the cinder-black custom’s official told me in French much better than mine as he handed back my visa. “What do you hope to do in Seguela?”
“Photojournalism.”
“Watch for the old people.” He grinned politely, white teeth flickering, as he okayed my papers.
I must have looked puzzled.
“Old people. The traditionals. We are near upon Dipri, the new year celebration. It’s a time for magical powers. There will be panther men.”
A dozen skyscrapers blocked the noon light in the window behind him. Even through soundproofed glass, the afternoon traffic rumbled. This was modern Africa, the former Ivory Coast, among the most progressive nations on the continent. Poverty I expected, crime too, but not superstition. I nodded my head and thanked him, almost falling when I stood up. Funny, now I walked on land, the Earth still moved.
A train took me from Abdijan inward to Yamousoukro, about a three hour trip, which I thought would be a pleasant change from the freighter, but brightly dressed Ivorians overcrowded the car, the women in bold printed blouses; the men’s shirts unbuttoned to mid-chest. The windows were down, blowing in swampy air, hot as a sauna, like a steaming washcloth across the face. I breathed through my mouth, pressed between two huge women on a bench seat built for two. The one on my left languidly dipped her hand into a paper bag between her legs to dig out what looked like a dollop of peanut butter and smelled like rancid banana, then smeared it on her gums. She sucked at it for a while before going back to the bag. The one on my right lolled off to sleep as the train pulled from the station and fell against me. For charity’s sake, I supported her. She’d have flopped right to the floor if I moved.
From Yamousoukro, I took a two-hour bus ride to Bouaflé, where a representative from Seguela was supposed to meet me, but he didn’t show up. I decided to wait. The saints were patient. Many worked for years without success. Like St. Francis de Sales, they persevered. In 1600 he decided to convert 60,000 Swedish Calvinists. He brought 40,000 back to the church. I made my duffle into a pillow and rested. By then, late in the evening, there was no transport north until morning. I slept on the depot’s floor between a wall and a bamboo baggage cart. Something in a suitcase a foot from my head kept slithering. I drifted off anyway.