— Why do you bother? William K asks.-They break so easily.
— They don't. Not always, Moses says quietly, still deeply immersed in the task of forming his cow's horns, long and twisting.-I've had these for months. He nods his head to a small group of clay cattle a few feet away, standing crookedly in the dirt.
— But they can break, William K says.
— Not really, Moses says.
— Sure they can. Watch.
And with that, William K steps on one of the cows, crushing it into dust.
— See?
The word is barely out of his mouth when Moses is upon him, punching William K's head, flailing at him with his thick arms. William K at first is giggling, but his mirth disappears when Moses lands a mighty punch to William K's eye. William K squeals with pain and frustration, and immediately the tone and tenor of his wrestling changes. In a flurry he is atop Moses and lands three quick blows to Moses's arms-crossed in front of his face-before I pull him off.
In my dream day our scuffle is interrupted by the sight of a something so bright we all have to squint to see it. We rise slowly from the dirt and walk toward the market. Light shoots from the trunk of a tree in the market, near Bok's restaurant, and we sleepwalk toward it, our mouths agape. Only as we are upon the source of light we can see that it's not some second sun but is actually a bicycle, absolutely new, polished to a gleam, magnificent.
Where did it come from? Who owns it? It is easily the most spectacular object in all of Marial Bai. Its pedals are the silver of the stars, its handlebars exquisitely shaped. The color of the frame is different from any color previously seen in town, a mixture of blue and green and white, swirled together as in the deepest part of a river.
Jok notices us admiring the bicycle and comes to bask in the glow.
— Nice bike, right? he says.
Jok Nyibek Arou, the owner of the town's tailor shop, has just purchased the bicycle from an Arab trader from over the river, in a truck full of very new and impressive objects, most of them mechanically complex-clocks, bed frames made of steel, a teapot with a top that springs open, on its own, when the water is boiling.
— Cost me quite a bit of money, boys. We don't doubt him for a moment.
— Would you like to see me ride it? he asks.
We nod gravely.
Then Jok gets on the bike, as gingerly as if he were mounting a mule made of glass, and begins to push the pedals with such care that he barely keeps himself vertical. The other men of the market, happy for Jok and jealous of him and also wanting a joke or two at his expense, greet his very slow rides with a string of insults and rhetorical questions. Jok answers each very calmly.
— That as fast as you're going to go, Jok?
— The bike is new, Joseph. I'm being careful.
— You may break it, Jok. It's fragile!
— I am getting used to it, Gorial.
Gorial, who does not work, drinks most days and borrows money he cannot repay. No one likes him much, but this day, he makes a point of showing Jok how slow he is going on the color-swirled bicycle. As Jok rides by, Gorial walks the path next to him, indicating that he can easily stroll faster than Jok is riding.
— My two legs are faster than that whole beautiful bicycle, Jok.
— I don't care. Someday I might ride it faster. Not yet, though.
— I think you're getting the tires dirty, Jok. Careful!
Jok smiles at Gorial, smiles placidly at all of his spectators, because he has the most beautiful object in Marial Bai and they do not.
When Jok has again parked the bike against the tree, and is admiring it with me and Moses and William K, the talk turns serious. There is debate about the plastic. The bicycle has been delivered covered in plastic, plastic that like a series of transparent socks covers all of the bicycle's metal tubing. Jok examines the bike, his arms crossed before him.
— It's a shame that they don't tell you whether the covering is necessary, he says.
We are afraid to say anything about the plastic, for fear that Jok will send us away.
Jok's brother, John, the tallest man in Marial Bai, angular and with close-set eyes, approaches.-Of course you take off the plastic, Jok. You take the plastic off of anything. It's just for the shipping. Let me help you…
— No!
Jok physically restrains his brother.-Just give me a moment to think about this. At this point, Kenyang Luol, younger brother of the chief, is standing with us. He strokes his chin and finally offers his opinion.
— Remove the plastic, and the thing rusts the first time it gets wet. The paint will begin to rub off and eventually will fade in the sun.
This helps Jok decide not to do anything. He decides that he will need more opinions before doing anything. Over the course of the day, William and Moses and I canvass the men in the market, and find that after dozens of consultations, the debate is perfectly split: half insist that the plastic is for shipping only and needs to be removed, while the others assert that the plastic remain on the bicycle, to protect it from all sorts of potential damage.
We report the results of our survey to Jok as he continues to stare down at the bike.
— So why remove it at all? Jok muses aloud.
It seems the most cautious route to take, and Jok is nothing if not a man of caution and deliberation; that is, after all, how he came to be in a financial position to buy the bicycle in the first place.
In the late afternoon, William K and Moses and I lobby for and are granted the right to guard the bicycle from all those who would steal, damage, touch, or even look too long upon it. Jok does not actually ask us to guard it, but when we offer to sit by it and keep it from harm or undue scrutiny, he agrees.
— I can't pay you boys for this, he admits.-I can just as easily bring it inside, where it would be very safe.
We don't care about payment. We simply want to sit and stare at the thing, outside Jok's hut, as the sun sets. And so we sit beside the bike, with the sun to our backs, to better see the bike as it stands on its kickstand next to Jok's house. We guard the bicycle for the majority of the afternoon, and though Jok and his wife are inside, we barely move from our spot. Initially, we take turns on patrol, circling the compound, holding a stick on one shoulder to imply some kind of weapon, but finally we decide that it is just as well that we all sit under the bike and stare at it.
So we do this, examining every aspect of the machine. It's far more complex than the other bicycles in the village; it seems to have far more gears, more wires and levers. We debate whether its extravagance will help it go faster, or the weight of it all would slow it down.
TV Boy, you are no doubt thinking that we're absurdly primitive people, that a village that doesn't know whether or not to remove the plastic from a bicycle-that such a place would of course be vulnerable to attack, to famine and any other calamity. And there is some truth to this. In some cases we have been slow to adapt. And yes, the world we lived in was an isolated one. There were no TVs there, I should say to you, and I imagine it would not be difficult for you to imagine what this would do to your own brain, needing as it does steady stimulation.
As my dream-day passes into the afternoon, I lean on my sister Amel as she grinds grain. I did this often, because the leaning and its expected result gave me great joy. As she squats I lean against her, my spine to hers.-I can't work this way, little monkey, she says.
— I can't get up, I say.-I'm asleep.
She smelled so good. You might not know what it's like to have a sweet-smelling sister, but it is sublime. So I am lying against her, pretending to sleep, snoring even, when she thrusts herself backward and I'm sent flying.