Blue Clay People by William D. Powers

Author:William D. Powers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

I 'M TRYING TO call Jennifer from my kayak using a CRS satellite phone, since I wasn't able to get a signal from Carolina Farm. I dial her number, and it goes through. I don't know what I'm going to say if she answers. I ache for the intimacy we once had during our shared life in Washington and desperately want the call to connect. Looking out over the bay and into the ocean beyond, I feel tears coming on.

Someone picks up the phone on the other end.

My colleague Susan and I were driving together from Carolina Farm to work one morning. We often carpooled since we lived in the same compound. I steered through the Carolina Farm gates into the moonscape half mile to the main road, and as we lurched along I noticed a slim man thirty feet ahead, waving us down. When we reached him he sidestepped in front of the car, and I slammed on the brakes. "Bossman!" I said out the window. "What the matter-o?"

"Sorry, boss," he said. "I got to show you something."

He stuck two filthy fingers into his mouth and probed around until he found what he was looking for: a diamond. He wiped it off with a handkerchief and tried to hand it to me. "It's from Sierra Leone," he said.

Susan leaned in to get a closer look.

"I think bosslady missy like my diamond. I sell it cheap-o!"

Susan shook her head. I began to pull away, saying, "Thanks, but we're really not interested."

That same evening, I was enjoying a sundowner in my hammock after a day in the office. The sky's orange bled into rust red over the surf. I began to bite into an ice cube but stopped when I noticed a flash of white against the lawn. As I slowly chewed the ice cube, the white spot began to take the form of a man in a wheelchair heading my way.

Before long he had pulled up right below my deck. "Y'all right?" he asked, gulping air.

"I'm tryin' small," I answered, wondering how he got past the guards.

"I want to be your friend," he said. "Yeah, boss . . . I want to get to know you."

I let this hang in the air as I chewed on another ice cube.

"Could you help me get to America? You could help me with the embassy. I want to go to America to work."

"I don't even know you."

"Yes, this is very true. But since you are my friend you can help me. I had a job as a security guard. Liberians are a jealous people. You get a little successful and they want to push you down."

He had a worn, knotted black face and pink-veined, paranoid eyes. His wheelchair seemed about to collapse, and his shorts concealed only the tops of two broomstick legs. Tiny poles, not really legs.

"I'm from Freetown." His face was a clenched knot.

He stared out over the bay and then back at me. "I wasn't always like this. I used to walk around on two legs just like you.

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