The Poacher's Son

11

On eve of the summer solstice, I was sitting at a table in front of the Café de Paris perusing the local paper, when I was sorely interrupted by a voice calling my name.2

“Arthur, my god man is that you?”3

Looking up, I was taken aback by the familiar face of an old colleague, Jayden Hughes, a fellow expatriate. I lowered the paper and spoke,4

“Good Afternoon Jayden. How are you?”5

“Well thanks, is this seat taken?”6

“No.” Before he noticed my ominous glance, I had already returned to my paper. There was a particular article I had become interested in. It detailed the escalating conflict between the League of African Nations against poachers on the edge of the Savannahs.7

I ignored his initial efforts to start a conversation, burying myself further and further into the story.8

~In the jungles of wild grass, the soldiers lay flat in camouflage. Recent intelligence had pointed to a poacher’s …~9

“Arthur, I say, put down that paper…” said Jayden as he pulled it from my hands. He withered at my subsequent glance. “What’s gotten into you chap? Have you really led yourself into the nonsense on the League?”10

~…to a poacher’s outpost.~ “No Jayden…” ~There they shall strike a crippling blow to the traders’ of Black Ivory.~ “This heat though…” ~The ground trembles with indignation as the soldiers bombard the camp with mortars.~ “is certainly a distraction.”11

He glanced over the article I was reading and pulled it steadily closer to make out the fine print.12

“Did you hear the rumors that have been circling among the expatriates?”13

I winced slightly and pretended I did not.14

“There’s supposed to be an item of interest in an expatriate’s possession. The police are in quite a frenzy.”15

“How quaint.” I whispered as I placed one hundred dirham’s on the table. Abruptly standing, I stepped away from the table and spoke “I should be off Jayden. This conversation has been delightful, but I must be off.”16

I stepped into the bustle of the crowd before he could respond, and disappeared beneath the heels and leather shoes of the French bourgeoisie. 17

I stopped at a fruit stand for a moment I recollected my passage to France. Jayden had unwittingly aided me in recalling the unpleasant trip. But this memory was a specific one. It was the story an old sea hand had told me as I laid in his hammock. It was the story of The Poacher’s Son.18

219

In 1970 during the height of the Vietnam War, I turned eighteen. It was a moment of great elation and lament for my guardian, and sister of my father, Jenine Holbrook. I was now eligible for the draft lottery. Unwilling to see me in the same uniform in which her brother had been returned to her, she had sat for days thinking of how I could escape. 20

I recall her vaguely as an eschewed woman who filled her time and mind with the tales of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. She had taken inspiration from their stories, and one night she sat me down and told me her plan. 21

“You’ll be an expatriate, just like Fitzgerald and Hemingway.”22

I remained unconvinced, but she wouldn’t give in so easily. Being a wife of an obscure banker for a major Wall Street bank, she was unaccustomed to two things: wearing dresses and having her wishes unfulfilled. Naturally, my disagreement was taboo.23

I was an orphan of the Vietnam War. My father, a volunteer, had placed me in my aunt’s care. My mother was one of the first victims of the burgeoning drug endemic that would crush the United States hope along with the Vietnam War. For me, my hope had died with my father. I was sixteen. By the time I had become eligible for the draft, I had grown headstrong, but I had never gone against her wishes.24

It was only after I had awoken in the hammock of the old sea hand was I able to gather what had happened. My well endowed aunt had paid a local LSD addict to take me to the Charlotte. Having celebrated my birthday at a local bar, I barely recalled returning home.25

When I awoke, I was dressed as a sailor. My Aunt knew that the MPs’ were at every airport plucking the fleeing geese from the coming winters in the War. She had planned it all accordingly since that day she sat me down. But she had forgotten one thing. I had no money. 26

327

At about the same time, the growing pandemic in the League of African Nations was beginning to threaten the stability of the Savannahs’. The Black Ivory trade had blossomed with the increasing demand in Europe and China. Private collectors were fueling the destruction of one of the last titans’ on earth, the African Elephant. 28

But the Vietnam War had overshadowed this trade. It is here in 1970, where the story begins.29

430

Owiku swept his feet forward in silent motion. He could feel the arid earth flow beneath him and the dung beetle which slept deep within the ground. Tonight, he was the hunter.
For three days, the leopard had eluded him. But Owiku would wait at the waterhole for one last time. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. It was said that leopards could hear a man’s heart beat; it was why they were never caught.
Owiku opened his eyes and stepped to the water’s edge.
Owiku dreamt of the leopard again, but his mother, Idweme, would not hear of it.
“Shouldn’t you be preparing for the Great Hunt tomorrow?” she spoke with a wry smile, “Besides, those stories will not work on me. Your father has told me them all before.”
Owiku groaned at his mother’s wagging finger, and stepped outside.
“Owiku!”
Nearby, Owiku’s friend, Jijumbe danced alongside a football; his feet moved elegantly back and forth.
“I thought you had football training Jijumbe?”
“And miss the Great Hunt? Mother says that would be most unwise.”
For a moment, Owiku agreed with grave sincerity. But when he looked up at Jijumbe, he cried
“You old dog! You’re only staying for Liana.”
But Jijumbe only laughed.
When Owiku returned from the football game with Jijumbe, he sat beside his mother as she read the letter from Owiku’sfather. She handed it to him after carefully reading it. Impatiently, Owiku eyes darted across the thin scripture, but he didn’t find his name.
“Why does father not mention me in his letter Meme?”
“He does. It says ‘With love to you and my son’ Baba.”
“Will he join us at the Great Hunt tomorrow?”
“No Owiku.”