Johnny Mad Dog: A Novel

Chapter One

Laokolé

General Giap proclaimed a period of looting that was to last forty-eight hours.

Instantly I switched off the radio. I took the hurricane lamp and ran toward our little storage shed, to make sure the wheelbarrow was there and in working order. Yes, it was there, lying upside down. I spun its single wheel. The wheel turned smoothly but squeaked a little. I went to the kitchen to find the bit of palm oil we had left. I oiled the wheel and tested it again. It didn’t squeak anymore. Despite the rust that had begun to corrode the body, the barrow was in good repair and both of its handles were steady.

I returned to the house. I raised the pagne that served as a curtain between my room and Mama’s. She was still asleep. Wake her, or let her sleep awhile longer? I hesitated briefly, then decided to wake her only at the last minute. She’d had a very difficult night, unable to fall asleep until three a.m., when the two water-soluble aspirin I’d forced her to take had dulled the pain of her injured legs and allowed her to get some rest. I would leave her in peace for another half hour. I lowered the pagne and went over to Fofo, my little brother, who shared the room with me. He was still snoring, sprawled comfortably on his foam mattress, which lay on the floor next to my bed. I shook him roughly. He was almost twelve now, no longer a small child, old enough to help the family.

He awoke with a start. I told him that another round of looting would begin in a few hours and that we had to hurry—we mustn’t be taken by surprise, the way we had been last time. Panic in his eyes, he began to cry, his whole body trembling. He was terrified, I knew, because he was dreading a repeat of the day when members of the first militias—the men who, back then, were fighting against the troops gearing up for the looting today—had killed Papa right in front of him. It would be a disaster if he had another of his breakdowns now. So I had to shake him, had to impress on him the urgency of the situation in order to prevent him from dwelling on its gravity.

Raising my right hand in a threatening way, I told him to run and fetch two shovels from the shed where the wheelbarrow was stored, then wait for me behind the house. He understood right away that I wasn’t joking; he calmed down and went out into the darkness. I was afraid I’d woken Mama by speaking so loudly to Fofo. I raised the pagne once more; she lay undisturbed. It had been a long time since I’d seen such tranquillity in her face. She was sleeping so peacefully!

I followed Fofo outside. He was already waiting for me in our little garden behind the house. He had only one shovel with him; the handle of the other, he said, was broken. I told him to go fetch a hoe instead. When he came back, I handed him the shovel and took the hoe. I marked out a rectangle on the ground and we began to dig a large hole by the light of the moon. Since it was garden soil—lucky for us—it was easily worked. Imagine if we’d had to dig in sand or packed ground! After ten minutes or so, the hole was deep enough.

I looked at Fofo. He was sweating profusely. Poor child! I’d gotten him up at five in the morning, threatened him, made him work like a dog, and he hadn’t even had breakfast yet. A twelve-year-old doesn’t deserve that. I told him to go wash up and then have something to eat. Remember to brush your teeth and comb your hair. And be quick about it! Don’t dawdle, or I’ll come looking for you. He went without a word. How I wished I had a treat to give him, if only a piece of chocolate!

I picked up the shovel Fofo had been using and moved the heaped-up soil farther from the edge of the hole, so it wouldn’t fall back in. Now I had to attend to Mama.

Chapter Two

Johnny, Known as Lutua Liwa

Giap authorized a period of looting that was to last forty-eight hours. You should have heard him, squawking away on the radio.

"This is General Giap speaking. Our brave freedom fighters have fought like lions, like buffalo! They’ve struck fear into the hearts of our enemies, who have fled with their tails between their legs. Victory! La luta continua! We are afraid of nothing! We will pursue them to the depths of the ocean—we will cling to them like lice! To celebrate this triumph of a liberated people, I, General Giap, together with our new president, give you full authorization to take anything you want for a period of forty-eight hours. Whatever you wish is yours! Confiscate what you please! To the victor go the spoils—this is one of the benefits of war. So help yourselves until Monday . . ."

Help yourselves until Monday . . . Who the fuck did he think he was, with his forty-eight hours? Did he really think we needed his okay? We were going to loot until there was nothing left to be looted, whether that took twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two hours, or as long as a week. Even the VIP we were fighting for, the guy who’d been president of the country for the past few hours, ever since we’d captured the city—even he couldn’t stop us. He knew that of all the militias who had fought and were fighting on his behalf, ours was the best. It was no accident that we were called the Mata Matathe Death Dealers—for we were completely fearless when killing others or meeting death ourselves. In fact, it was our commando unit that had secured his power, because we’d been the first to enter the city and had taken over the radio and TV stations. And when the city was cleansed and the entire country was under our control, the government would have to integrate us into the army. Otherwise, there’d be hell to pay! I myself would be integrated with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Giap had been promoted to general because he was already old. He was twenty-five.

It was thanks to me that he was called Giap. His nom de guerre was Pili Pili, because he liked to torture female prisoners by rubbing their eyes with pili-pili, the little red pepper that, when made into a sauce, burned your mouth so badly you’d swallow the entire Congo River trying to put out the fire. Unlike us, he didn’t screw the pretty girls we captured. He said that if he did, his fetishes would be robbed of their power—that, for example, he’d lose his ability to become invisible to the enemy and that bullets would no longer turn into clumps of dirt as they approached him. Actually, I was the only one who knew his secret: his piston was dead, and he could no longer pump the women the way we could. His thing got really stiff only with women we didn’t want, those that didn’t excite us. He would take them, would douse their eyes with pepper sauce or powder that he’d made himself, and would tear their clothes off. And while the women screamed, rubbed their eyes, and writhed from the burning pepper, he’d howl with laughter, laugh till he cried. When he saw them rolling on the ground, twisting and jerking, and wriggling their bare asses as if performing some devilish dance—well, then he got a hard-on like a bull’s. His eyes, the bulging eyes of a pot smoker, were even redder than the pepper-filled eyes of his victims. He’d feel gay and happy, and would come without any inhibition. I knew when he’d shot his wad, because a dark stain, round and wet, would appear on his khakis right below his fly. Once, when he was all played out, I saw his banana droop and go soft, then shrink away and vanish into the folds of his belly. Amazing! But you had to pretend not to see that, or else he’d go crazy, like a bitch in heat when she’s been denied a male. Once, Smoking Cannon, on seeing Pili Pili’s thing shrivel up and disappear, had dared to say, Hey, it looks like a worm crawling back into its hole! And Pili Pili had blown him away with a burst from his Kalashnikov. Ever since then, we all watched our step and averted our eyes when he was like that. Even Rambo, our previous leader, had been afraid of him. Yeah, Pili Pili was a good name for him.

When Major Rambo was killed in an argument over some stuff we’d looted from the home of a rich Mauritanian shopkeeper, I’d had the feeling the guys were going to ask me to take his place. I was all ready to refuse. I would have said that Pili Pili was the oldest and that he was the one who should take command. But the truth was that I was afraid of his fetishes, because I’d seen them in action. One day, when he’d forgotten to put on the fetish that made him invisible, he’d been captured by the Chechens, allies of the militias we were fighting. He’d managed to escape, and by the time he’d gotten back to our camp his clothes were so wet you could have wrung them out like a mop. All of the bullets that hit him had been transformed into drops of water! No shit, he was one powerful guy. So I would have let him lead the group. Apparently this was precisely what he was expecting, since he accepted without batting an eye, and said that his name from now on was General Pili Pili.

We all thought it was ridiculous for a general to call himself Hot Pepper. The other militias made fun of us and disrespected us for being led by a guy who got a hard-on staring at the twitching asses of women with spices in their eyes. Then he looked at us while flexing his biceps and said that since Rambo was dead, he was now General Rambo. I objected strongly. Since it was my bullet that had killed Rambo, I thought something bad might happen to me if the name Rambo stayed alive in our group. A name isn’t just a name. A name contains hidden power. It’s no accident that I’ve taken the name Lufua Liwa, which means Kill Death, or rather Cheat Death. So in order to stroke his ego, I told him that the name Rambo was too common, almost vulgar, and that in Texas there were more than three hundred Rambos in Dallas alone. The others, who considered me pretty smart (in fact, I was the only intellectual in the group), agreed. We all began to think hard, very hard. We came up with Godzilla and Orangutan; then Khaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic—all the strongmen whose names we’d heard on the radio. But I wasn’t satisfied. Those names were too well-known, and, like daylight, names that are too well-known contain no secrets and thus no hidden power. The light of day is transparent; it has no secrets, no mystery, the way the night has. And then, bang, he came up with Grenade—General Grenade. He was hugely proud of himself. The others had begun saying: Yeah, that’s perfect, that’s a great name, a name that scares you shitless, a name that explodes like an armed grenade.

Pili Pili had his fetishes and his pectorals going for him, but I had my brains and I wanted everybody to know this. Maybe someday the others would choose me as leader. So I said it was nothing for a general to pop off like a grenade. That wouldn’t scare anybody. A general should make a horrendous explosion and a vast fiery cloud—like a bomb, not like a stupid grenade. He hesitated a moment and saw that there was some truth in what I was saying. He looked at me, his eyes red from the weed he’d been smoking, and asked me to think of a name that sounded good. And think of one fast. Since I’m an intellectual—I’ve completed second grade, while Pili Pili never even finished first grade—my brain is always working even when I haven’t put it in gear, the way you breathe without knowing it but you’re breathing all the same. So all of a sudden, bang—I myself exploded like a grenade: Giap! I don’t know where or when I’d heard this name, or who Giap was, but this was what I came out with: Giap. Pili Pili seized on it right away. Yeah, General Giap—I’m General Giap!

And instantly Pili Pili was transformed. He straightened his spine and gazed at us with the look of a true leader. I saw the power of a word, of a name, and I regretted what I’d done. I should have taken the name myself. A name is never innocent. Lufua Liwa doesn’t inspire fear. Someone who cheats death is certainly crafty, sly, cunning, and shrewd, but he has never struck terror into the enemy’s ranks. From now on, I’d call myself Matiti Mabé—Poison Weed. Poison like diamba, the powerful hemp that grows around here and that makes your head spin, drives you crazy. Poison like the deadly mushroom. Matiti Mabé!

But fucking hell— of all the guys there, it was me he singled out when he gave his first order as General Giap. A humiliating order: he told me to go fetch his boots. Matiti Mabé, ordered to bring him his shit-kickers! And why not polish them too? I was on the verge of saying it was thanks to me that he’d become a general. And not just any general—a general named Giap! But the look he gave me, and the power of his fetishes and his a bdominals, were so strong that I obeyed right away. I hustled off to fetch his boots.

Chapter Three

Laokolé

I went back to the house. Fofo had finished washing and was rummaging through the little bamboo cupboard to see what he could find for breakfast. I told him to take the two eggs that were left and make himself an omelet.

I headed to Mama’s room to wake her up, and lifted the pagne that served as a curtain. Incredible! This woman who hadn’t had a good night’s rest since her husband’s murder, who was continually being awakened by the pain in her legs, was sleeping peacefully, her face calm. Despite the urgency of the situation, I didn’t have the heart to drive away the fleeting smile I thought I saw on her lips. Right away I found a rationalization: waking her five minutes later would hardly affect our escape.

Fofo called out from the little galley kitchen, saying the groundnut oil had been used up—there was only palm oil. I don’t care for palm oil and think that eggs fried in it are inedible. I told him to hard-boil the eggs; there was kerosene in the portable stove we’d bought to replace the stolen gas cooker. And above all not to dawdle! We had to be out of the house in half an hour at the latest. This time, we wouldn’t let ourselves be taken by surprise.

I went over to my bed. I knelt, bent down, and pulled out the large metal trunk we kept hidden beneath it. I opened it. Inside were three dead cockroaches and their dung. How had they gotten into a closed trunk? A mystery. Quickly I cleaned it out and started filling it with the important things we had to save at all costs. The choice was difficult, even though I’d devoted much thought to it since the last round of looting. I began with the big cardboard folder that contained all of our official documents: birth certificates, my parents’ marriage license, report cards, diplomas. Then I put in my textbooks, and Fofo’s as well. I wished I could take with me the large Encyclopedia of Space that I’d received as a school prize the previous year, but it was too heavy and bulky. As for the photo of Papa and Mama holding hands, I slipped it into the little purse where I’d also stored our money. In situations like this, I would keep the purse tucked inside my dress, my pants, or my pagne while carrying a decoy—a larger bag—which I wore openly, slung bandolier-style across my front, making sure it always contained a few coins and bits of cheap jewelry. A ruse like that can save your life. Then I filled up the trunk with Mama’s three superwax pagnes, my two prettiest dresses, and my new pair of shoes. I asked Fofo to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything that was important to him. At last, I went to wake Mama.

I approached her bedside, averting my eyes from her face, and put my hand on her forehead. I called to her softly, as if nothing were wrong. She opened her eyes and smiled at me.

Visibly happy but with a touch of regret, she said: "Oh, Lao, I was having the most wonderful dream! I was strolling by myself through the city zoo, and I stopped to watch some little girls who were playing ndzango. They were skipping about, clapping their hands, laughing—"

Mama, listen, you can tell me about your dream later. We have to leave now.

Quickly I told her that the government troops, those who had ransacked our house the last time, were fleeing the city, while the rebel troops were entering it at that very moment, which meant that another round of looting would begin shortly. Her eyes grew wide with shock, fear, rage, and determination. She made me tell her again whether it was the government soldiers or the rebels who were fleeing. I repeated that those who had been the government forces were now the rebels, and those who had been the rebels were now the government forces. She knew as well as I did that for us it made no difference. All of the warring factions claimed to be fighting in the name of the people, so it was up to the people to pay the expenses of both those who were winning and those who were losing. And we, of course, were the people.

After hearing what I had to say, she once again became the mother she’d always been before losing her legs—the tower of strength who ran the household, sold goods at the market, fixed our meals, saw to our clothes, our health, and our schooling, while Papa spent long hours away from home, pushing wheelbarrows full of cement and sand, mixing mortar, hauling bricks, and climbing walls so that he could bring home the money to support us. She sat up straight on the bed and berated me for not waking her as soon as I’d heard the news on the radio. I explained that I’d taken care of the most important things—the wheelbarrow, the trunk, Fofo’s breakfast—and that there was no time to lose. This calmed her. She I pointed out two or three other things to be placed in the trunk (and above all don’t forget to add your father’s photo), then quickly began to wash and dress.

I called to Fofo to come and help me carry the trunk to the hole we’d dug. It was heavy, but the two of us managed to move it. We then slipped two ropes underneath it (I’d learned this technique from watching Papa’s coffin being lowered into his grave), but before we could maneuver it into the hole, Mama began calling to us and waving the hurricane lamp. She was trying to come toward us by hitching along on her backside with a halting, crablike movement. She was holding some of Papa’s tools—his level, his T-square, his folding ruler. If I hadn’t had firsthand experience with looting, which in our country always marked the arrival of victorious or fleeing troops, I would have laughed out loud and told her that nobody would ever dream of taking those old tools—a T-square whose right angles had been warped by the tropical rain and sun, a level whose little glass window was so dirty you could barely see the air bubble inside, and a ruler that splayed out like a fan when you tried to fold it. But in our country there was no longer any logic: soldiers destroyed for the sake of destroying, killed for the sake of killing, stole for the sake of stealing—even the most improbable objects. And then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a wave of affection surged up from the depths of my being, and my body began to vibrate in synchrony with those instruments. Those old mason’s tools had not only fed us and clothed us and enabled us to buy medicines that had kept us healthy up to that point, but they had also given me a certain advantage over my fellow students. They had provided me with a quick, thorough grasp of the concrete reality that lay behind abstract concepts; and, conversely, they taught me the way in which concrete, real things could engender abstract, conceptual forms. Thanks to that T-square, I had seen and comprehended the reality of a right angle, which we’d learned about in geometry class. Thanks to that level and its air bubble, I had easily been able to conceive of an inclined plane or a perfect, frictionless surface on which a ball could roll indefinitely. And last but not least, thanks to that folding ruler—which Papa had me fold and refold, that ruler with which he’d measured everything measurable in the world around him—my dream had been born: my dream of graduating from high school and becoming an engineer, so that I could construct buildings even bigger than the ones Papa had built. I took the tools from Mama and put them in the trunk.

Using the shovel and hoe, we buried our treasure—everything that was most precious to us in the world, apart from our lives.

The sky was beginning to brighten in the east. Dawn would soon come, and at any moment the troops would descend on the city. It was time to leave.

Chapter Four

Johnny, Known as Matiti Mabé

Before we hit the road in preparation for the attack, Giap, like a true leader, assigned each of us a share of the gear. In addition to my own weapons, a load that already felt like a sack of stones, he told me to carry the rocket launcher, which was almost twice my size and weighed a ton. Okay, the rocket launcher—today it’s your turn, Lufua Liwa, he said. Hold on a minute! Just as he was no longer Pili Pili, I was no longer Lufua Liwa but Matiti Mabé. I realized I hadn’t told him my new name. At this point, everyone had a stake in knowing it and remembering it, even him. I looked him in the eye and said: Matiti Mabé. My name is now Matiti Mabé! He laughed. The others, seeing him laugh, began to laugh, too. Poison Weed—like grass? Like a lawn? Okay, I’ll call you Turf. The others laughed some more. I was boiling with rage. I thought of killing Giap, and I imagined my hand reaching stealthily for my AK-47. But my quick mind realized that he’d already attached his bullet-shield fetish to his biceps. This fetish, at its weakest, could transform bullets into clumps of wet dirt, and at maximum power could make the slugs ricochet off his body and whiz back to strike whoever had fired them. At such times, only a blade could penetrate his body and kill him. I thought of the knife I had in my belt. I would leap on him like a panther and stab him in the heart! But no, I kept my cool—not because I was scared at the sight of his well-muscled chest, but because I understood he hadn’t meant any harm by what he’d said. Since he wasn’t very bright, he didn’t know that grass isn’t a poisonous weed. Goats eat grass, soccer players love to play on grass, and poor people cushion their beds with it because they don’t have enough money to buy foam mattresses. He couldn’t know that. So I said to Giap for his edification, without losing my temper, that grass wasn’t a deadly weed like me. Ignoring what I’d said, he repeated: Turf, for tonight’s attack, you’ll be the one to carry the rocket launcher. Well, okay, I’d let Giap call me Turf—but the others had better call me Matiti Mabé. Wherever I tread, the grass is dead! If they didn’t, they’d be goddamn