Cash Epiphany

The Swiss-made Airbus 320 made a slow turn into the downwind as Port Harcourt appeared off to the left, a handful of white lights set against a featureless black sea. She cupped her face against the window with both hands and stared as the lights grew larger and more numerous.

Africa, finally, she thought to herself.

The older gentleman from Scotland, who sat beside her, leaned over her to take in the view but didn’t say a word. He smelled like clothes left in the washer for two days. She was no orange blossom.

The travel from San Francisco had taken over twenty eight hours including a stop in Atlanta and a five hour layover at Charles De-Gaul.  She was travel weary, feeling the exhaustion of someone who sits and sleeps too long. The Ambien taken somewhere over the Sahara was just beginning to wear off.

The flight was scheduled to arrive at 6:45 p.m. local time but it was past midnight when the thin, male steward released the hatch and waited as the passengers trudged their way to the exit.

The sky was overcast and the air cooler than she expected, but every bit as humid as she’d been warned. She wore faded Levis and an inexpensive cotton blouse, sleeves rolled-up and un-tucked. Her shoulder length dark hair was pulled back through a San Francisco Giants baseball cap and she hadn’t applied makeup in two days. She kept her passport and immunization record in a lanyard worn around her neck.

The walk across the tarmac was a couple hundred yards and she could see through the well-lit windows that the terminal was almost deserted. A short black man in a traditional orange and green Nigerian wrap with a turban stood at the glass window by the entrance and watched her as she approached. He waved and smiled with bright white teeth. She recognized him as Joseph Oyibo, the representative from the graduate volunteer program she was working for at USF.

“You must be Ronnie,” he proclaimed in a deep, bellowing voice in perfect English, Nigeria’s national language.

“You must be so tired,” he said, leaning over a waist-high rail that separated them and gave her a tight hug. He pulled back to look at her.

“My, what a beautiful lady you are; we’re so excited you’ve come to join us. Come, we need to get your bags and get you through customs. The three other counselors are already at the hotel,” he said.

They walked together for a short time until she had to veer left to baggage area. “I’ll meet you out front in a few minutes.”

Ronnie found her army-surplus duffle bag in a pile on the floor at the baggage claim and proceeded to the customs podium. A scowling black man in a wrinkled green uniform, wearing a beret, perched high on a bar stool. He wore a serious sidearm revolver and had a salmon colored scar that ran from his jaw to the back of his neck.

“Do you have anything to declare?” he asked with a tired glare.

“No sir,” she replied.

“May I see your passport?” he asked.

She pulled it out from under her blouse and removed it from the leather holder hung round her neck.

“Where are you traveling in Nigeria?” he asked.

“I’m a social worker. I’m going up the Cross River to Laura’s Place which is an orphanage near Opia. It’s on the southern edge of the Plateau State.”

“Ahhh Opia,” he said with an unchanged glare, flicking a pen against the left arm rest.

“A Christian village if I’m not mistaken. You must be careful, the mosquitoes are plentiful and we’ve been hearing reports of ethnic violence from Fulani Tribesman who’ve been raiding villages in the south. Opia’s at the outside limit of government control. We haven’t had any problems that far south, but just in case, the American consulate is in Abuja and you can get there in three hours by bush plane if you know the right people.” With that he stamped the passport and said, “Enjoy your stay.”

Sounds like he said welcome to San Quentin, enjoy the ocean view, she thought.

She met Joseph Oyibo standing at the curb in front of a rusting, dented, yellow Corolla with TAXI hand-written in red on the side. The trunk was already popped open as he took her duffle bag and heaved it inside and then opened the creaking back door as he yelled to the driver that they were headed for the Meridian Hotel.

She couldn’t see much on the ride. The streetlights were off or not working and the dense cloud cover limited visibility. The windows were cracked open, and the air smelled of trash burning and sewage and the heavy scent of a salt marsh at low tide.

The Meridian Hotel was located on a canal about ten miles south of the airport and seemed to be in a commercial zone with few houses or shops in the vicinity. Bad news, she was starving.

“Joseph, where can a girl get a bite to eat at this hour? The only things I’ve eaten in two days are peanuts and stale pretzels.”

“Ah… I know just the place. It’s here at the hotel, it’s called Mama Ohs and they serve the best Egusi in town,” he said.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Egusi is a thick, spicy stew made with beef, chilies and yams. They serve it with kokoro sticks which are like churros.”

She checked in and found her room clean and well furnished.

There was no TV but the tub was huge. Though the hot water ran-out a third of the way up, it felt heavenly. This was it. She was here! She closed her eyes and woke up an hour later. The hunger had disappeared. She felt the urge to call her dad, remembering the worry in his eyes when she kissed him goodbye at the customs gate. He looked so sad.

“Dad, I’ll be fine, don’t you worry about me.”

He was trying his best to fight back tears as he hugged her tightly.

“Do have everything you need; got your passport? If you need any money, just call; I can send it Western Union. Don’t worry about the time difference; I always carry my cell. Make sure you sleep under a net; you got your immunization records, and a book?  What about glasses?”

“Daddy, I love you, it’ll be okay; three months will fly by. Don’t you worry about me, hear? I’ll write every week.”

“I love you too angel, take care of my girl,” he said with tears rolling down his cheeks and sniffling hard.

“I will Dad, I love you too,” she said as she entered the international gate where visitors weren’t allowed. After ten steps or so, she turned. He was crying and smiling at the same time, waving to her.

She blew him a kiss and he blew one back, and that was it; for the first time in her life, she was really on her own. She felt a tinge of anxiety but it passed; as soon as she hit the bed, she fell into a deep sleep.

My home phone rang at 4:30 p.m.; I was watching Oprah. The caller ID was a long set of numbers I didn’t recognize. It was Ronnie and it was 1:30 a.m., her time. She sounded hysterical.

“Dad, I don’t know what to do!” She was crying, trying to catch her breath.

“Ronnie, sweetheart what’s happening!”

“I gotta talk fast. A village called Kuru Kurama about four miles up-river was attacked last night and practically the entire village was wiped out. Three hundred people were slaughtered with machetes and knives. It was Fulani raiders from the north; teenagers and men that came in the night. They trapped anyone trying to escape in animal nets and hacked them to death. Everyone! men, women, children, even a priest!” …she cried.

“We can’t get out. There aren’t any boats. The survivors say the Fulani plan on surrounding our village next. I can’t leave. Half the kids are sick with malaria; Thomas and Chris may not make it through the night.  Sister Mary went for help three days ago and we know she was headed north. We think they killed her too. The phone is starting to beep; I don’t know how much longer it’ll last. We couldn’t get through to Tori’s dad. We can hear drums in the distance and they’re getting louder by the hour. We can hear gunshots Dad.” She was sniffling.

“I’m so afraid. I don’t know what to do!”

“Ronnie, listen to me… You’ve got to leave! You can hide in the jungle. We can try and get a helicopter. You’ve got to go!”

“Dad I can’t leave the kids. I can’t do it! I’ll beg the Fulani!” she said, sobbing.

“Can’t you move them?” I pleaded.

“No, it would be impossible. They’re all in advanced stages of malaria. Most have raging fevers. They’ll die if they move.”

“They’ll die if they stay!” I yelled losing control of the desperation I was feeling.

“Daddy.” She was suddenly calm, still sniffling.

“I love you so much, I can’t leave. I just…”

There was a sudden explosion; another female voice screamed. Foreign voices were yelling and I heard gunshots, more screaming.

“DAD!”… Then silence.

Torturing, numbing, endless, silence. I cried. I never felt so helpless. I tried the international operator, gave her the numbers on my caller ID and the phone wouldn’t connect. I tried ten more times… nothing. I rarely prayed but I started in earnest. I threw up.

I didn’t have a clue. Do I call the Embassy, the African Consulate, or the State Department? I tried for hours; got nothing but repeated messages sending me to more worthless numbers that cycled over and over to the same fucking messages.

Two days later I was on a series of flights to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. It was a shitty, last-minute arrangement that took me from LA to Dallas to New York to London to Cape Town and then north to Nigeria and it cost $5400. Almost three days of flying, layovers, transfers, cocktails, horrible food and a handful of Ambien. I also went through about twenty Xanax’s and don’t remember a damn thing about the flights.

My luggage was a backpack with three t-shirts, a pair of shorts, a baseball hat, insect repellant, a mosquito net, an international cell phone, some Red Bulls and about $9000 in American Express traveler’s checks.

To fund my flight of desperation; I sold, practically gave-away, a vintage 63 Les Paul, a 1960 VOX Super Beatle Amp, an old Martin acoustic guitar given to me by Dex Jennings, a vintage Gibson mandolin and I maxed out any credit cards that still had juice.

I arrived in Abuja around noon and the airport was a chaotic clusterfuck.  Customs was four individuals serving about five hundred arriving passengers. It took maybe three hours.

When I finally reached the pompous, grumpy, scowling, inspector he went through my bag and confiscated my Percocets, even though they were clearly prescribed by an American doctor. Probably took a handful with his coffee. Asshole!

The first thing I did was catch a cab to the cheapest hotel I could find. My only prerequisite was that the room had a phone. The air was thick and heavy, heat with an attitude; it smelled of smoking food stalls, car exhaust, and a river basin jungle as big as the western United States. It turned me into a sweat machine in minutes. The Africa I saw was intensely poor but vibrant, exploding in colors; full of exotic, musical rhythms far more complex than then the four-four time signatures our ears are accustomed to in the west. The ride through town was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. No traffic rules, at least in force, no traffic lanes. Traffic lights were hanging ornaments that changed colors but meant nothing. We had several near head on collisions and were lucky we didn’t kill several civilians that had the audacity to step into the street. We arrived at the Safari Motel and I couldn’t get out of the cab fast enough. The room was twenty-two bucks, American. Bathrooms were at the end of each floor. My room consisted of a twin bed, a dresser, a lamp and a phone. The lights flickered at ten minute intervals. The bed was unmade and the sheets looked like mine at home, messy, and stained, but I was so tired, it didn’t matter.

I was a mess; an over-drugged, stressed-out, hungry, smelly, red-eyed zombie.

I drank a warm Red Bull and dialed a tour service I had looked up on the internet before leaving; an older guy, must have been from Arkansas, answered the phone.

“Opia’s bout four hundred miles from heyah. If we go by chop, it’ll cost ya two grand, American dollahs, round trip. If we fly the Cessna, it’ll cost ya twelve hundred. Chop’s got more flexibility and’ll get ya theya fastah. Not exactly sure where we’d land the Cess anyway.”

“Let’s take the chopper.”

“Fine, soonest we can leave is tomorrah, round three, I’ll need payment in cash, up front.”

“You got it; I’ll be there tomorrow, three p.m. sharp.”

I hadn’t eaten anything substantial in three days so I went downstairs and asked the clerk where I could get a decent meal.

“Down the street one block and left at the light. The Blue Swan has great food.”

“Cool.”

The restaurant resembled a southern diner but didn’t have a thing I recognized on the menu.

“Try the Egusi; It’s a rich beef stew that’s our most popular dish,” said an attractive female waitress in a blue and white apron, her hair pulled back in a tight bun.

“Great, how ‘bout a Coca Cola?”

“Yes sir.”

The Egusi was a thick, meaty stew, spicy and fantastic, downed with an old friend served in a glass with no ice. On my walk back to the motel, I had the distinct feeling the runs were coming on and I crab-walked my way the last hundred feet to the hotel, barely making it to the communal toilet before I lost a load in one of my two pair of shorts. Close call.

The next day, I didn’t eat because I was stuck on the porcelain throne for several hours. Doc had given me strong anti-diarrhea pills so I was good to go around noon.

In a taxi again, it was death-travel revisited, but at least we headed away from the city, statistically decreasing our chances for a violent collision with every mile. The “Plain Plane Travel Service” was an oval, corrugated-metal hut set among several large leafy tropical trees with about a three hundred yard dirt runway and hanger area that kept two Cessna’s and a vintage, four-seat Bell Helicopter. An orange wind-sock hung limp in the napping, afternoon air.

I walked into the office hut and found a guy out of deep Appalachia sitting behind a metal folding table; a half-empty fifth of Jim Beam next to an ash tray with the meandering  stream of cigarette smoke drifting to the ceiling. He wore suspender overalls and a CAT hat that was old and sweat-stained at the rim. I played the banjo lick from Deliverance in my head.

“Must be Cash Carrillo,” he said, still sitting.

“That’s right, and you must be JimBob,” I said, extending my hand.

“Y’all ready ta go?” he asked.

“Yea. Right away.”

“Yat’ll be $2000 cash, and at’s good for two days and two nights. It’s about a five houwa flight, so we’ll be arrivin at dusk, cutting it a bit close ya’hear.”

“I’m okay if you’re okay.”

“Zat all ya bringin?” he asked, looking at the backpack hung over my shoulder.

“This is it. Do I need anything else?”

“I’ll throw in a couple of sleepin bags and cots and couple nets. You don’t wonna be sleeping on the ground in the jungle if’n you can avoid it.”

“Sounds good.”

He fired up the Bell. We buckled in, put on head phones with wrap-around mics and roared east at about 3,000 feet to avoid the birds that patrolled the river basin. The anxiety and grief I felt was overwhelming yet the beauty of the lush jungle laced with rivers and waterfalls cascading down plateaus and rock escarpments left me in awe. As we traveled east, the horizon melted into a lavender and orange explosion that Van Gogh would have appreciated.

Crossing an unknown river we saw hippos run for water at the sound of the chopper and alligators sulking on mud banks along the shore. The air was cool, and fresh and clean as the ethereal sky began to draw down a slow, dark curtain.

It was after 8:30 when JimBob pointed out the snaking outline of a muddy river to the southeast.

“That’d be the Cross river. We’re bout fifteen miles north of Opia.”

The anxiety I felt was becoming overwhelming. The reality of Ronnie’s last call was killing me.

What would I do if I found her body? JimBob sensed it and offered me a cigarette.

“Yokay man?” he asked.

“I’m good, don’t smoke, but thanks.”

“That’s Opia on the west side of the river, or what’s left of it,” he said.

The orphanage was a few miles south. We banked ninety degrees to our right and suddenly could see the remains of a whitewashed church with a square bell tower. It appeared intact but several of the outlying buildings were charred skeletons.

“Let’s put down in front of the church,” he said.

There wasn’t a person in sight.

We landed softly and got out, immediately aware of the sounds of the jungle, of night birds and monkeys and sharp crackling thunder to the north over the great central plateau.

“My man, we can’t do anythin tonight. Let’s set up in that small buildin, roof looks intact and we can get started in the mohnin. Lookin like we’re in for some weathah tonight.”

He was right. It was too dark to do anything, an approaching storm was bearing down, and I was functioning on Red Bulls, Xanax, and a bag of Gummy Bears.

“You bring anything to eat?” I asked.

“Yea, got a box of Slim Jims and a couple gallons of water, and a quart of Uncle Jimmy Beam, if you cayah fo a nip?”

“Bust it out,” I said.

We set up the cots and bags and settled in for the night as the spitting; violent storm raced through the area. It passed in less than two hours.

Morning brought a hot, cloudless sky of deep ocean blue, the river at our side was a sludge brown, Cajun-Roux flowing above its natural banks.

Exotic smells of the dense foliage filled the air. A hundred shades of green surrounded us. Monkeys screamed above my tinnitus, as they had all night, and birds the size of hang gliders made crowing sounds as they drifted above the canopy.

I started poking my way around the orphanage. A newer, square, brick building sat on the southeast side of the compound. On entering, my heart was racing as I could see signs that this was where the counselors stayed. The thatched roof was burned off, and one of the walls was blown out. Four metal cots lined one wall with mosquito nets strewn over the room, some half burned and melted from the fire. There were blood stains on the wall and the floor and two of the beds. A poster of the Brooklyn Bridge lay torn on the ground in one corner. The remains of ten smaller wooden beds with thin mattresses lay in charcoal ruins. Several IV stands lay bent and broken. I knew this was the room she called me from and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I cried a river that had been damned up for over a week.

JimBob was rummaging through the small church when an old man approached us from a trail that led from the river. He wore a brown wrap tied at his boney waist and his piercing eyes were hollow in a face that was flesh on bones.

“Do you speak English?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Do you know what happened here?”

He turned and pointed north with a long arm that was more twig than limb.

“The Fulani raiders came from the north. They were angry and drunk and had already destroyed other villages up-river. We knew they were coming by the drums they use when they’re preparing for an attack. Many of the villagers and nearly all the children were sick with fever and too weak to move. They came in the night with torches and machetes and killed everyone they saw. I know because I buried the dead the day after they left.”

I had a hard time swallowing before the next question.

“What about the American workers. Were they killed?”

“I buried three Americans that were killed in this room. Two men, one was very big, and a young girl maybe eighteen years old.”

“Did she have blond or brunette hair?”

“I could not tell. Her face and hair were badly burned in the fire.”

“But there was only one girl?”

“I believe so.”

“Can you show me where the bodies are buried?”

“Yes, I did it myself. Follow me,” he said.

The path leading to the river was well worn and muddy from the previous night’s pounding.

In a grass clearing, a mound stretched for about forty to fifty feet with a rudimentary, wooden cross planted in the center.

“Friend, I have reason to believe that my daughter may be buried here. I would like to examine the bodies to see if she’s among them.”

“I understand. I lost two granddaughters and a daughter during the same raid,” he said with a blank expression.

“The white people are buried to the left.”

“JimBob, do you have a shovel in the chopper I can use?”

“Yea, of the army foldin variety, I’ll get it.”

Ten minutes later I stuck the tobacco end of two of JimBob’s cigarettes up my nostrils to quell the stench that seemed to grow with every spade of the black, mulchy, dirt.

The bodies were buried less than twelve inches below the surface and were relatively easy to exhume. The first body I found was clearly the heavy set man Ronnie spoke about named Thomas. He was chalk white and bloated from his body’s decomposition and it was obvious he had been slashed across his neck which left his head tilted at a grotesque angle to his shoulders. The next body was the guy I guessed Ronnie said she had a crush on. His body appeared to have several bullet holes in his upper torso and head.

The third was a female, face and body scared beyond recognition. Maybe Ronnie, I couldn’t be sure. Her tongue was cut out. About the same build, but no toe ring which Ronnie always wore. They could have taken it?

Hope and doubt kept exchanging jabs. Doubt was kicking hope’s ass.

“Are you sure these are all the white people you buried?”

“I’m sure. I know that two white women worked here but one disappeared. I didn’t know them. I rarely came. She would be better off dead if the raiders took her. They can be particularly brutal with a white woman and after they had their way with her they would either kill her or ask for a ransom. If you don’t get a ransom request within a few days, she’s probably dead.”

“How would they request a ransom?” I asked.

“They would contact the American consulate in Abuja who would then contact you. To try and track them is a waste of time. They move fifty miles a day in the jungle and could have headed in any direction. If I were you, I would go back to Abuja and wait for a week or so. The Fulani will ask for a ransom if she’s alive. Good luck, God be with you,” he said as he turned and walked away in long, even strides.

I was in a quandary. My only option appeared to be back at the consulate, file a report and wait to hear from the abductors, if there even were abductors.

“He’s right, Cash,” JimBob said, patting me on the shoulder.

So we flew back and I waited… three weeks. Nothing, not a word, not a demand, not a Goddamn thing. I was almost out of cash. I had to leave. Did life end there, or did I try and break through the grief to live. I chose life, sort of. On the flight home I had to be revived by a paramedic traveling from Cape Town to New York. Too many Xanaxs and six little Smirnoffs with the red twist-off caps. I saved the caps for some weird reason.