Chapter 5: Dukulay
Dukulay and Adjani gather fallen feathers from the jungle floor.
“Only the dry ones. These keep you cool,” Adjani says wiping his sweaty hands.
Dukulay shoots a shorebird and returns to camp with his AK-47 slung over his shoulder. “Ah, little Jesus just kill a bird,” Adjani announces to the boys as they await Tea Time.
Dukulay sits beside his protector and they bind the sturdy feathers into fans with horn tipped edges. “Dis fan beat back de heat o de sun and ‘squitos,” he says. “I make dis fan at my home with my grandfather before they kill him.”
He and Adjani ingest the Angel dust and stir a breeze with the golden feathers.
“Watch me,” Dukulay says rising and striking a warrior pose.
He spreads his arms and twirling in circles accidentally draws blood from Adjani’s cheek with the horn tipped fan.
“Who mix his red blood with his brother?” he says.
No one steps forward. He continues to dance with the fan when Captain James, breaks in and shouts, “Forward.”
Quick as jacanas, Adjani and the boys jump to their feet while Dukulay pricks his own coal black cheek with the fan and presses it against Adjani’s.
“I mix my red blood with my brother,” Dukulay says as he hugs Adjani before they are driven into the dense underbrush. Dukulay picks up his dirty kente cloth and stuffs its contents into his shirt pocket.
They trudge for hours.
“Stop here,” James commands.
The teens drop to the ground in sheer exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” Dukulay tells Adjani when they rest. “I don’t mean to touch you today. But we blood brothers now.”
He unwraps his kente and removes his Bible. Captain James walks by and grabs it from him. “No reading in ‘dis camp! You understand, little man?”
He laughs, “Ah, de name dis book afta me, de King James. Me de great warlord,” he gestures to Dukulay to take it, then withdraws it, then throws it in the mud. “There is no God in my army except me. Do you understand, little man?”
Dukulay looks at his commander, then smiles, then points his AK-47 at his own head, “It is better for me to die, no?” Dukulay laughs.
The captain glares at the tiny boy who retrieves the book and wipes mud from the cover.
James shouts, “Tea Time,” as he pours a large jerry can filled with water-laced cocaine into a trough. His army of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen year old boys and girls grab their hollow reeds and suck the toxic beverage into their thirsty mouths.
Adjani watches boys wash down the bitter brew with beer from filthy, rotted cans. He cleans mud from his shoes as his body absorbs the magical ration. “Teach me to read,” he asks Dukulay.
The commander overhears him and threatens him with his gun butt for speaking during tea time. “No reading in this camp,” he shouts. “No speaking at Tea Time.”
Boys and girls swoon in oblivion and Adjani and Dukulay sit side by side and whisper.
“Don’t speak near him,” Dukulay warns, “He just rape a girl.
James simply raises his machine gun and sprays fire bursts into the air to arrest the attention of his sleepy boys. Reflexively they grab their 47s.
“Ha, ha” he bellows, “just testing you, my little ones. ”
Dukulay pushes his Bible into his shirt pocket. ’Dis save my life,” he says patting it. It stop a dart to my heart.” My grandfather say when they take him away,’ Dukky, Dukky, you learn to read the word of God. It keep you safe.”
Adjani watches him sheathe the horny spurs on the tip of the wing then slip the Jacana fan up his sleeve.
“Dis good fighting tools,” he says pointing to his Bible and his fan.
“Forward,” James yells again and forty-three boy-men march ahead of younger girls who take up the rear followed by the gun barrel of Commander, King James.
“He just rape a girl,’ Duklulay repeats.