Dukulay 

Chapter One: He Went Inside

Hamper Unwin was not yet aware of being lived by forces greater than himself. He rolled like wind blown tumbleweed, dispersing his seeds along the concrete sidewalk as he hurried to a destination unknown. His girlfriend’s ultimatum, “Get a real job, or it’s over,” echoed in his ears. And substitute teaching two days a week, three at the most, to cover his monthly nut, plus summers off, would be a day job he could live with to let him keep his music alive.

He exited the subway, at 110th St., a line he’d never traveled before and walked quickly and anxiously down West 112th st. He gleaned tips and clues as he shaded his eyes from the bright morning sun in the unfamiliar neighborhood with gated storefronts covered in graffiti and groups of young and old men clustered on the corner. He hurried through the red light at the intersection and jay walked to the school. He knew to turn right and look for the big white building near the end of the block. “I can’t be late,” he mumbled as his mind flooded with a stream of twisted logic. If tardiness was a sin, then time was an enemy and not on his side, and he desperately wanted to be in the flow of his life. “Hurry,” his voice said as underemployed men loitered and parents rushed their children down the street.

A red hook and ladder fire truck threaded through traffic and squeezed between double parked cars until it was dead stopped, then it blared an ear piercing siren and horn. He would have covered his ears if he wasn’t afraid of looking weak. The lights, the sun, the crowded loudness, and newness was overwhelming He couldn’t see or hear. Cars couldn’t move as they waited for the sanitation truck that cleaned the street to disappear down the block. Hamper spotted the white brick building in the distance and followed behind parents hustling their kids along the sidewalk and filing them into the big blue, metal doors. He’d arrived on time, early in fact, and paused for a long minute, to take in the scene. He would have lit a cigarette if he wasn’t afraid of looking nervous. He saw more black faces in two minutes than he had seen in his entire life. He double checked to find his legal pad, three pens, and the Earth Flag he’d placed in his book bag, then adjusted his white collar and tie and smoothed his thinning hair. He didn’t know that today would mark the beginning of the end of his teaching career. He braced himself and walked his easily embarrassed white skin, that turned tomato red without warning, forward. He went inside. 

Chapter Two

Don’t Let Them Dance.

“Hello, I’m Hamper Unwin, the new sub,” he said to the school secretary as ‘I’m a Loser’ played in his head. “Good Morning, Mr. Unwin, please be seated and the Assistant Principal will be with you shortly.” He sat in the plain wooden chair and observed the early goings on in the office. Scurry and hustle, time cards, punch clocks, telephones, parents with children, a custodian with a long handled mop wiping a spill outside the door. He took out his pen and legal pad and wrote down the titles of his musicals, as if to reassure himself, that his dream would not die, ‘Beyond Rejection,’ ‘The Perfect Man,’ ‘Community Room,’ ‘Cup of Change,’ when a pretty woman behind a long counter interrupted him, “Good Morning, Mr. Unwin, I’m Nina Silverman, the Assistant Principal.” They shook hands. “ You couldn’t make it out there so you came in here, right?” she teased. Hamper blushed, tomato. Was it the hair? The white shirt and tie? “Excuse me?” he asked as his head spun to catch the Principal close her heavy wooden door. “Oh nothing, just teasing,” she laughed, “I saw your list of titles. Are you a writer?” “Yes, a song writer,” he answered. “Excellent. Everyone needs a hobby,” she said. “You’ll be covering for Mrs. Burnside who is on maternity leave.” “Good luck,” a teacher said when she heard his assignment. “Don’t mind her,” Silverman said. “Mrs. Burnside is very popular and she finished the semester last Friday with her dance students in a very successful performance.” “It was a very good show and raised $350 for her dance class,” the secretary said from behind a copy machine. “Anyway,” Silverman continued, “you’ll be covering her dance class in room 209.” “Don’t forget to tell him about Tre,” the secretary said. “Yes, Tre can be difficult. He was the star of the dance show and he can push and push until he gets his way.” “That’s a nice way to put it,” she added. “Ms. Riley prefers to look through a dark lens,” she teased the older woman making copies. “You’ll do fine,” Silverman told him. “Here’s your schedule. Do you have any questions?” Hamper was scribbling down every word she said when she repeated, “Do you have any questions.” “Yes, how do I get to room 209,” he asked. “Down the hallway to the security desk, then up the stairs to the second floor. Turn right and it’s the first door on your left. Room 209.” “Is there anything else?” she asked as she walked away to answer a ringing phone. “Public School 50, please hold a minute.” “Mr. Unwin, you’ll also monitor the early lunch period.” Hamper popped the question that was running through his mind, “May I let them dance?” She burst out laughing, “Oh I’m sorry I forgot. Whatever you do, don’t let them dance. Don’t let them dance." “Or you’ll be sorry,” Ms. Riley, added

Chapter Three

Jacanas in the Delta

Hamper thought traffic cops in Times Square during rush hour had it easy compared with his lunchroom gig that rattled his last nerve and turned him tomato. First, second and third grade students scampered over, under and along tables with food dangling out of bags, pockets and mouths and trays were thrown in haphazard clumps creating a spilled over landfill in the corner. The art teacher with the megaphone seemed to delight in the impotent cacophony that emanated from his bullhorn. “Sit down. Be quiet. No recess. I’ll call home.” It might as well have been a fire truck siren blaring through bumper cars. Hamper would have walked out if he wasn’t afraid of quitting. That night, filled with a fear and trembling he’d never known, he read a newspaper article about teen aged veterans, boys and girls, not much older than Tre, abducted to fight in wars.

Mating season in the St. Paul Delta is a deadly affair that brings forth new life.

 “Forward,” Captain James shouts loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of Jacanas coupling furiously. 

Long-toed males, called lily-trotters, skip across stagnant ponds and lagoons to battle fellow suitors for much larger polyandrous females. The prized cock fighters stab at each other with horned wings. The birds vocalize aggressively and chase each other through the air to secure their territorial prerogatives. In due time, intruders are driven beyond the outer banks. Then the victorious breeders fertilize female eggs and hover nervously between their nests and the frontiers of eternal threats.

On the flat region by the lower tidal waters of Lake Piso, mangroves and peat swamp forests spread luxuriously into view beyond refugee Camp Tzwanna where cholera rages and devastated survivors from the war suffer quietly and pray for death. Captain James handles his Angel dust with care, doling out meticulous portions to relieve their pain and secure their favor. He dispenses potions to numb their bodies and minds as they lay low and rest in the muck and mire. Here, north of the delta, the incoming tide pushes brackish water upstream and carries putrid chemical residue and airborne seeds that slip and slime under foot as the teenagers trudge deliriously through the toxic mud and civil war.

A larger and stronger than average boy-man strips water vegetation of its leaves and blossoms to obtain hardy stems that he binds together to produce a cheap truncheon. Adjani cleaves with a rusted machete through vines that cling to him as he climbs the vertical wall of tropical ivy to gather fresh shoots and get a view of the sacred river as the sun sets. The St. Paul saturates the banks with sewage, diesel and bilge and tonight, the stagnant, mottled water reflects twilight across a twisted miasma of ripples and despair.  

The teenaged militia inches closer to the river’s edge to drink green sheened water from a rusty pipe and watch Jacanas dance and fight and couple across the shredded lily pads. A female in distress fortifies her nest with striped leaves, grass, and shreds of oil-soaked kente cloth as Dukulay gathers feathers in the sweltering, equatorial winter heat.

Chapter Four 

Red Shoes

Across the ocean in New York City, a colony of seagulls stir the air with raucous caws as they glide in lazy thermal currents above East Harlem rooftops then plunge into a school yard. In unison they dive into the wake of greasy spillage that trails out of a torn bag of cafeteria trash that the custodian drags through the snow to the curb. Through bars in the window of Room 209, Hamper Unwin looks down at a garbage truck blocking traffic in the street below as he waits to greet his first group of public school students.

 The fourth grade class arrives like a well trained militia, two perfectly parallel lines march in unison, stop on a dime, and attend their homeroom teacher’s every word.

“Are you substituting for Mrs. Burnside?” the teacher asks him.

“Yes,” Unwin says. 

“Let me know how they behave. They’ve had a lot of attention lately and now they need to settle back down. I’ll take them to lunch after dance, only if they behave. This is your first day I hear.”

“Yes,” Unwin nods.

”Tre might need a little extra attention,” she says. “Right, Tre?” The little boy with the crisp yellow shirt, copper skin, chestnut hair, and a faceful of unlikely freckles, nods obediently, dropping his head like a rag doll.

“Good luck,” she says and shoots a wink before walking down the noisy hallway.

“Or you’ll be sorry,” replays inside Unwin’s head as he directs his waist high charges to sit in a circle. Unwin immediately realizes he’s a victim of his assumptions as his simple expectation of twenty-four bodies, little bodies seated on a floor with each one visible to each other proves utterly impossible. Within minutes a ripple of movement and squirms, spreads into a contagious wave of discontent and open rebellion.

“Can we dance?” Tre asks. “Can we dance outside?” Tre asks his substitute teacher. “Yes? Please? Can we? Outside in the yard? Please.?” 

“There is snow in the yard,” Unwin states as the gulls fly up by the window sills to safely eat their scraps of food.

The wiry fourth grade boy imitates them with wing-spread gestures as they hover outside the window before lifting off in the sky. Teacher and excited students stare at the creatures as they disappear over East Harlem rooftops in the distance. Tre instantly lifts his arms and transforms into an airborne creature as Unwin tries to direct him back to his spot on the floor. “It’s not fair,” he complains, “”Mrs. Burnside, let us dance.”  

A sudden knock and an open door catches Tre careening around the classroom while his classmates laugh uncontrollably. “Just as I thought,” his teacher says. “Tre, you will not be going to lunch with the class. You will stay with me next period.”

The tiny dancer stops short and starts to cry, “It’s not fair,” he yells. “It’s not fair.” He kicks over a chair as his friends exit the room without him and head to lunch.

“What do you have to say for yourself?’ his grandmother asks when he arrives home. “The school called me again. We’re going to Dr. Petrone. I ain’t playin’ no more. I’m done listening to your teachers complaining that you’re butin’ up the class. I ain’t playin’ no more.” 

She tugs little Tre Shule and he drags his feet behind his grandmother’s old red shoes. 

“Pick your feet up,” she says as she grabs his his hand and picks up speed down the blinding white lit corridor.  Her brown skirt fans his face and his free hand windshield wipes it away. He counts office doors every eight steps, one on the left, right, one on the left, right, three tables on wheels that are parked and one that is pushed by someone wearing white shoes that squeak. He passes one boy with his head in his hands slumped in a chair. Then grandma’s red shoes and brown skirt stop short in his face.  

A fat, serious, woman in front of his grandmother will say, “Please, take a seat, the doctor will be here momentarily.” 

“Well,” grandmother say for the hundredth time, “what do you have to say for yourself?” 

He stares at her red shoes tappin’ the white floor. 

“Well? That doctor’s gonna wanna know somethin’.” 

Tre doesn’t say a word when the doctor walks in to the office. 

“Hello, I’m Martin,” he says. 

“Are you Dr. Petrone?” she asks impatiently.

“Yes,” he answers.

“I’m Mimi Johnson. Tre’s Shule’s grandmother.

“Pleased to meet you. What brings you here today?” he asks.

 “I hope you can help him, ‘cause I sure can’t.” 

“What’s your name? he asks Tre. 

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Mimi repeats. 

“Look at the Doctor,” she add, lifting his chin up to face the man.

 “That’s not necessary,” Martin says in a warm, patient voice. He gently repeats, “What do you have to say for yourself?” 

 Tre’s feet move in unison like a pair of lily-trotters, squirming across the cold white tile. 

“He won’t stop dancing. Every teacher says, he won’t sit still, he won’t finish work, he distracts other students, he gets angry.” 

“I see,” Martin says.

His little feet in brand new sneakers freeze.

“Not every teacher,” He whispers.

“Oh yes,” grandmother says, “Mrs. Burnside, says he’s the cat’s meow. She lets him run wild.”

“She says, I am a good dancer,” Tre mumbles holding his face in his hands… that I could be a great dancer one day.”

“ Speak up, so the Doctor can hear you. You yelling in the classroom all day. The school nurse told me she thinks he needs medication.”

“We’ll need some more information before we make that determination,” Petrone says.

 “He can dance all he wants after he learns to read and write. His father couldn’t read and look where it got him,” she says shuffling her red shoes under her chair.

“Remember, whatever you do, just don’t let him dance. That’s what you always say,” Tre says out loud. 

 Petrone sits silently, then says, “We’ll consider the pluses and minuses, but it’s likely that he’d benefit from a little help that we monitor closely. 

“Well, is that your best guess, Dr?” she says, stands up and turning toward the door. “The boy is heading for trouble. How long before he’s ready for medication?”

“We’ll meet again next week. Before we make a decision I’ll speak with his teachers, the school nurse and psychologist.” he says. “We want to be cautious.”

“Meet next week. That’s what they all say. “ Meet next week. Can’t anyone fix anything any more? I gave up my dancing for this?”

Petrone hears her slap Tre on the head and her loud voice trail down the corridor, “That’s all you have to say for yourself.? Whatever you do don’ let him dance? This isn’t about me. It’s about you,” she says as he trails behind her red skirt and old red shoes down the brightly lit corridor. “These shoes are too tight,” she says.

 Chapter Five

The King James Bible

Dukulay and Adjani gather fallen feathers from the jungle floor.

“Only the dry ones,” Adjani says wiping his sweaty hands. 

“These will keep you cool,” Dukulay says as he shoots a shorebird. They return to camp with their AK-47 slung over his shoulder. “Ah, little Jesus just kill a bird,” Adjani announces to the boy as they await their Tea Time.

Dukulay sits beside him and binds the sturdy feathers into a fan 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.”

He ingests his Angel Dust and stirs a breeze with golden wings. “Watch me,” he says rising and striking a warrior pose. He twirls and accidentally draws blood from Adjani’s cheek with the horn tipped fan and says, “Who mix his blood with his brother?” he says. No one steps forward. He continues to  dance with the fan when Captain James, breaks the spell and shouts, “Forward.” Quick as a jacana, Adjani jumps to his feet beside Dukulay who pricks his own coal black cheek with the fan and presses against Adjani’s. “ I mix my red blood with my brother,” he says and hugs him before they are led into the dense underbrush. Dukulay drops then gathers a dirty kente cloth and stuffs it in his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he says to 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 i, dis camp!”

He laughs, “Ah, de name dis book afta me, de King James. Me de great warlord,” he gestures to Dukulay to take it, then throws it in the mud. “There is no God in my army except me. Do you understand?”

Ducally looks at his commander, then smiles, then points his AK-47 at his won 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, 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.”

“Don’t speak near him,” Dukulay warns, “He just rape a girl. I want to read, too”, he says.

 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.

Dukulay tucks his Bible into his shirt pocket. ’Dis save my life,” he says. 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 bend 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 from ten to fifteen years old march exhausted through the terror torn rain forest. Younger girls take up the rear followed by the gun barrel of the Commander, King James.

“He just rape a girl,’ Duklulay repeats. 

Chapter Six

The Pillow

After a two day absence Tre returns to school with a note from Dr. Petrone. Unwin ignores him when he raise his hand.  Remembering the advice from the Assistant Principal, he opens his arms to address the entire class. “They’ll be no dancing today,” he says. 

Tre rises from his seat and says, “I have to go to the nurse.” 

“Why? What's wrong?” Unwin asks.

“It’s private. My grandmother gave me a note to give her.” 

Unwin reads it ,then scribbles a pass and places the note back on Tre’s desk. Jonathan grabs the note and reads it before Tre picks it up. He laughs and whispers, “Tre’s on meds. Tre’s on meds. ” Tre rips it out of his hand and goes to the nurse. She reads the note and tells Tre to sit while she calls his Grandmother. 

“Hello, this is Ms. Olmert, the school nurse, I’m sitting here with Tre. I just want to confirm as per Dr. Petrone’s note, that I will administer 10mg of Ritalin to Tre each morning at lunchtime and that I am to call you to report any side effects or changes in his behavior so Dr. Petrone may adjust the prescription as necessary.” Is that your understanding?” she asks She pauses while Mimi expresses her concern about Tre.

 “He needs to sit down and do his work in school. I can’t take no more foolishness. You may call me anytime,” Ms. Olmert hangs up and Tre looks at the white tablet before popping it in his mouth. 

“What will this do to me?” he asks the nurse. 

“ Make you calmer and help you concentrate,” she says, concealing her doubts. 

“It looks like the pills my grandmother takes everyday for her blood pressure,” he says as two younger students push into the small, brightly lit room. 

“Now go back to class and do the right thing. Here’s a pass,” she says as Tre shuffles out the door then swivels back in to scoop it out of her hand. 

“Thank you,” he says and skips down the hall. 

“Were you at the nurse?” Unwin asks mistrustfully. 

“Tre’s on med’s,” Jonathan taunts him. 

“Shut up,” he says pushing Jonathans chair. “I was at the nurse,” he says defiantly and hands him the pass back to class before circling round his chair and sitting in the wrong seat. 

“That’s not your seat,” a student complains. 

“Oops, my bad,” he laughs and gets up, twirling round again and taking his proper place. 

Unwin, a fish out of water, runs his fingers through his thinning hair, and stands motionless in front of the room utterly bewildered by the boy’s rebellious charm. The silent reading period continues uneventfully until Tre’s pencil falls on the floor and he leaves it there. Convinced he is clowning around again when he places his head on his desk, Unwin directs him to, “sit up straight and pick it up.” There is no response. “Excuse me, pick your head up. I won’t ask you again,” he repeats, as the boy lies sound asleep at his desk. 

“He’s dead.,” someone says giggling. 

“He’s playing. He’s sleeping. I can hear him breathing. He’s not dead,” Jonathan says. Unwin shakes him by the shoulder and tries to raise his head. Tre hangs like a rag doll in Unwin’s hands. “Call the nurse,” he says to Jonathan as he places Tre’s jacket under his head for a pillow.

The lunch bell rings and an intercom message crackles in the background as a group of students gathered around their sleeping friend. 

“Shh, he’s sleeping, a girl says.” 

“Tre never sleeps,” Jonathan says, “He’s on drugs.”

Chapter Seven

Abduction

Dukulay lays motionless on the jungle floor, faint from sweltering heat as Adjani fans him and gives water to revive him. “You won’t die. You will go back to your family when this is over,” he says 

“Never Dukulay,” moans. “They burn our village. They come in the night, shooting and laughing. My grandfather try to protect us and they hit him with the gun. They pull him out of the house. I hide and I see everything. My mother and sister Nola, they pull out of bed and thrown them on the ground and start to rape her in front of the house. My grandfather goes to protect them and they hit him again and again. They throw fire into the house and I run out to my grandfather. He give me this Bible, and he say, “Dukky, you read this. Jesus save you. Dukky take this,” he says pointing to his pocket.”I can hear my grandfather Kimani, “Remember Dukky, be good like Jesus.” Then I put the Bible into my pocket before James’ boys tie my hands and lead me away. Then they shoot him and laugh. “Adjani,” he says, “we blood brothers, you are good like Jesus,’” as gunfire erupts and Adjani is instantly shot dead.

Chapter eight

The school yard

“He is awake now. Do you want to speak with him? 

“Yes, put him on the phone,” Mimi says. 

The nurse hands the phone to Tre. He listens for a long time, then says, “Ok, Mimi, I will,” and hands the phone back to the nurse.

“O.K., with your permission I’ll send him back to class. Goodbye.” Your grandmother will pick you up at 3 o’clock. Sit here and rest until next period, then I’ll send back to class.” 

He plays with two students while he waits in the nurse’s office. “It’s time for recess,” Tre says as she writes the pass. 

“Write it to the recess teacher,” he says then he skips out the office and into the yard to deliver the pass. 

Unwin looks down from the second floor classroom through the metal gated window, into a sea of joyous, exuberant children and sees Tre break wildly into the yard to join them and chase a basketball that rolls across the yard. He bumps into Jonathan.

 “Tre’s on meds. His grandmother put him on meds,” he laughs.

Tre freezes and Unwin observes a group of children spiral around the two boys who face each other. He knows he has played a part in this dangerous dance. He sees Tre push Jonathan and Jonathan push him back. Tre hits him and the students erupts into chaotic delirium. Immediately the boys are on the ground and the stronger boy pins Tre motionless on the hot black asphalt yard.  A teacher aid pulls them apart and leads Tre and Jonathan into the building. Tre breaks free and is grabbed by a second aid.

Minutes later Unwin hears his name on the intercom as the principal summons him to the office.

“What happened?” he hears her say to the boys as he walk into the office..

“He made fun of my grandmother,’ Tre says panting and glaring at Jonathan. 

  “Unwin told the us that Tre was going to the nurse for medication,” Jonathan says. 

“No, you grabbed the pass that he gave to me,” Tre says. “You took it,” he repeats. “You told everybody. I gave the note to the teacher and he put it on my desk and Jonathan read it.”

“Thank you, that will be all for now,” the principal says as she seats the boys at opposite sides of the main office. “I will follow up with your mothers” she says. 

“My grandmother,” Tre corrects her, “My mother’s gone.”

“And his father’s dead,” Jonathan adds.

“You see,” Tre says crying and wiping red blood off his almond colored cheek. “He’s always starting

“Mr. Unwin, I will speak with you later.”