The Greats Read online

  Guyana’s “Land of Many Waters” offers up to Jomon river after river, stream after stream, and ponds full of giant lily pads as big across as a man is tall. He sees flashes of black and gray as long-legged wood storks rise out of the marshes and take to the sky.

  Jomon glances over at Hi. Hi is also staring at the sights out his window.

  “It’s all so different,” Jomon hears Hi whisper. “And we’re moving so fast!”

  They are, in fact, driving slowly behind a truck full of melons.

  Hi turns his head, catches Jomon watching him and grins. Jomon turns back to his own window.

  After an hour of driving, the police car turns into a driveway facing a high chain-link fence with strands of barbed wire strung across the top. The gate in front swings open and the car drives into the yard.

  “Out,” the officers order, and the boys wriggle themselves around in the car seat until they can swing their shackled legs through the door and push themselves off the seat back with their elbows. Everything is harder in chains and cuffs.

  Jomon and Hi are marched toward the office. At the building’s threshold is a large red mat with the word “Welcome” on it in big white letters.

  “Two for you today,” says their driver. The cuffs and the shackles are taken off.

  “Trouble?” the warden asks. She comes out from behind her desk to greet them.

  “Nothing you can’t handle.”

  Jomon looks around the small office. Dark green walls, beige filing cabinets, a sofa they are not invited to sit on, and several guards doing paperwork and filling out a duty roster on a chalkboard nailed to the wall. Also on the walls is a photograph of Guyana’s president and a tourism poster of Kaieteur Falls with the words “Largest Single Drop Waterfall in the World” printed across the top.

  Jomon has never been to the famous waterfall, but he wishes he could be there right now, standing on a rock, feeling the spray and breathing the fresh air.

  When all this is over, I’ll go, Jomon thinks.

  Then he remembers that he’s planning on killing himself at his first opportunity. He has a flash of regret that he’ll never see the falls.

  “See? You haven’t even died yet and already you’re regretting it,” says Hi.

  Jomon is more than a little tired of Hi hearing his thoughts and is glad when a guard comes right over to Hi, stands three inches from him and says, “Did someone invite this boy to talk? I don’t remember that.”

  The warden finishes with the paperwork. “Any health issues?” she asks.

  “This one’s got some cuts on his feet,” an officer says. “They got freshly bandaged this morning. He’ll live.”

  That’s what you think, thinks Jomon.

  Hi lands a quick, small kick to Jomon’s shin, a kick that is not noticed by the guards.

  “Time to explain the rules,” the warden says, “and you’d better listen. No fighting. You fight, you go to solitary. We don’t care who starts it. No fighting, no cursing, no talking back. Do as you’re told and don’t argue. Stay out of the girls’ dormitory. Keep your hands off the other detainees, and I mean it. No slugs, no hugs. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The warden points toward a big cardboard box on the floor in the corner.

  “Get yourself a new shirt and some shoes,” she says.

  Jomon easily finds some sandals that fit him, but most of the shirts are smaller sizes.

  “We don’t mind waiting for you,” says the warden.

  Jomon grabs the first T-shirt that looks big enough. He takes off his bloody, soiled school uniform shirt and puts on the T-shirt. The warden points to a garbage bin for his old shirt.

  “What do you say when you are given something?” she asks.

  “Thank you,” Jomon says, and he truly is grateful.

  “Take them in,” the warden instructs one of the guards.

  A guard nods his head toward a stack of bed sheets. Jomon and Hi pick up their allotment and follow the guard out of the office and across the yard to another building.

  “This is the boys’ dormitory,” the guard says. “Pick a cot. Make up your bed. Be quick.”

  The narrow cots are crowded in. There are two cots in the room that don’t already have sheets on them. They are next to each other. Jomon is annoyed that there won’t be more distance between him and Hi. He is also surprised to find he’s relieved. At least he’ll be sleeping next to someone who won’t hurt him. Hi does not make Jomon feel afraid.

  Jomon gets to work making up his own bed. He’s done this ever since he was small. His mother insisted that he know how to do all the things that needed doing around the house, from cooking to cleaning to fixing things that break.

  He gets the bed made in no time.

  “I gave you an order,” Jomon hears.

  He looks up to see the guard standing over Hi. Hi is not making his bed. He’s holding the sheets, looking confused.

  “Are you refusing to do what you’re told?”

  “He isn’t,” Jomon says. He takes a sheet from Hi. “I’ll help him.”

  He unfolds a sheet and nods to Hi to do the same.

  “We each get our own bed?” Hi asks in a whisper.

  Jomon nods as he stuffs the pillow in a case.

  “This is a really nice place, isn’t it?”

  Jomon doesn’t know what to say.

  “You’re done?” the guard asks. “Good. Move.”

  He shepherds them out of the dorm, down the stairs and out to the yard.

  14

  The yard is a small, barren space between the buildings, in full view of the large office window and the awning that covers the area where the guards sit. The ground is dirt and gravel.

  Jomon hears the muffled sounds of a classroom coming from a room above them. When he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine he is back in his own school.

  There would have been an announcement that morning, congratulating the geography team on their win. Maybe there was even a special assembly. His school has never won before. The whole school would have clapped for his teammates, and everyone would probably know what Jomon had done and why he wasn’t there.

  Jomon sits in the dirt with his back against a wall. Someone has drawn little circles in the dirt. Jomon pitches pebbles into the circles, trying to make bullseye.

  Crash!

  Jomon jumps to his feet, looking for the source of the noise. The guards haven’t moved. No one else seems bothered by the sound. Jomon wonders if he’s losing his mind.

  “Relax. It’s just a cannonball tree,” says Hi. “Haven’t you heard that before?”

  “I’m from the city.”

  “Well, you’ll hear a lot of them out here,” Hi says. “Look.” He points to a large stand of tall, pink-flowered trees across the road from the detention center.

  As Jomon watches, a large, round seed pod breaks free and crashes to the ground.

  “Smell that?” Hi asks. “Perfume from the flowers and rot from the seeds. You can’t mistake that smell for any other.”

  Jomon sits back in his spot and returns to his pebble pitching. Hi sits beside him. Jomon doesn’t have the energy to move or tell Hi to get lost.

  “This would be a good day for fishing,” Hi says. “Do you do much fishing?”

  “No,” says Jomon. “Never.”

  “Never been fishing? What do you eat?”

  Jomon doesn’t answer. He feels like all the fight has drained out of him. He doesn’t even have the energy to look around for ways to kill himself. At this moment, even suicide seems too hard. He wishes he could just fade away.

  “Maybe that’s why I’m still here,” says Hi. “To take you fishing. I thought it was to tell you my story, but maybe I’m supposed to take you fishing. Then whenever you feel like dying, you’ll tie a line to a s
tick and go sit by the water and you’ll feel better.”

  “Really?” asks Jomon. “Fishing? That’s your answer?”

  Hi shrugs. “Why not?”

  “Didn’t help you, did it,” Jomon says nastily. He gets up and walks away.

  Hi doesn’t follow him. Jomon goes to the other end of the yard and looks back. Hi is still on the ground, staring at the dirt, and for a brief moment, Jomon wants to do something to make him feel better.

  Just then, he hears music coming from the classroom. The young inmates are singing.

  This little light of mine,

  I’m gonna let it shine.

  They sing through a few verses, including some Jomon’s never heard before.

  This good brain of mine,

  I’m gonna let it shine.

  Jomon’s mum used to sing that song with him. It was one of her favorites. She’d add her own lyrics, too: “This fine boy of mine, he’s gonna really shine.” And, “These dirty dishes of mine, Jomon’s gonna make them shine.”

  Moments after the song ends, the classroom door opens. The rest of the prisoners flow down the stairs and into the yard. They look at Jomon and Hi with mild curiosity.

  Jomon is surprised at how young many of them are. A few of them don’t look any older than ten. They all look ordinary. Put school uniforms on them and they could be his classmates.

  It’s not what he is expecting. He thought they’d look tough and mean, but they just look like kids.

  “It’s you,” Hi says, almost like a breath. “It’s you! It’s really you!”

  Jomon looks at Hi and then at the boy Hi is talking to. The boy is his age, with a face messed with confusion and sadness and Jomon can’t tell what else.

  Hi takes a step toward the boy and then another step.

  “Don’t,” Jomon warns. He’s seen enough prison movies and schoolyard fights to know that you don’t walk up to someone when you’re talking nonsense. “Don’t.”

  Hi ignores him.

  “Dev,” says Hi, getting closer and closer to the boy who is now starting to back away. Jomon can almost see horror in the boy’s face. “Dev, it’s so good to see you! Don’t you recognize me? It’s me!”

  Dev’s face now shows recognition and pure rage.

  “You!” growls Dev, first low in his chest, then louder, a scream from his heart. “You!”

  “Yes!” exclaims Hi. “It’s me! We’re together again!”

  Dev plows himself headfirst into Hi’s stomach. Hi hits the ground and Dev rolls on top of him, crying and pounding him with both fists.

  Jomon tries to pull the boys apart, but Dev’s anger is making him strong and fearless. Jomon quickly gets lost in a tangle of swinging arms and flying fists.

  The fight doesn’t last long. Guards pull them apart.

  “No fighting!” a guard yells. “Solitary!”

  “I was trying to stop them!” Jomon protests.

  The guards don’t care. Jomon is force-marched with Hi and Dev through the yard and around the corner. They end up in front of a small brick shed with a series of narrow doors across the front. Three of the doors are open. The three boys are tossed inside, with Jomon in the middle.

  The doors are slammed shut and then bolted.

  Jomon is in a space not much bigger than an outhouse. The only light comes from the grill in the door. There is a tattered straw mat on the cement floor. Jomon sits on it and hugs his knees to his chest.

  “What just happened?” he cries.

  “Jomon,” says Hi, from the cell to his right. “Let me introduce you to Angel Liang Fowler. Your great-grandfather.”

  “I hate you!” shouts the boy in the cell on Jomon’s left. “I could kill you!”

  “You’re too late for that,” Hi shouts back. “I’m already dead. And so are you.”

  “What just happened?” Jomon hollers again.

  One moment, he was sleeping on his bed, exhausted from an evening of competition and forced celebration. He was feeling empty, but that wasn’t unusual. He was already making plans to fill the emptiness with exams and jobs. They weren’t great plans, but his expectations weren’t very high. He would have made them work.

  The next moment, he was running down the street without shoes, breaking windows and being slammed against a police car. Now he is stuck in a cell between a kid who calls himself Jomon’s great-great-grandfather and another boy who the first kid says is Jomon’s great-grandfather.

  Jomon wants none of it. He wants out.

  He bangs on the door, rattles the bars on the tiny window and calls out, “Open this damn door!”

  “I’ll pay for the window,” he shouts. He has no money, but he’ll figure out a way. “I’m sorry I broke it. Now, LET ME OUT OF HERE!”

  Part of a face suddenly appears at the small window.

  “Stop that,” the part-face says. “You shout again, I’ll keep you in longer.”

  Jomon bends over and pounds his thighs with his fists. All he accomplishes is to bruise his legs and his hands and to wear himself out.

  The unfairness, the rottenness of it all!

  He stretches out on his back on the straw mat and watches the sliver of sky through the little window. Sometimes a cloud passes by. Sometimes an egret trailing its long legs.

  Every few minutes, the part-face of a guard blocks out the sky as he peers into Jomon’s cell. Bread and water are delivered. The sky changes from bright blue to gray to black. Jomon slaps at mosquitoes. He keeps breathing in and out. He has no other choice.

  The sounds of the detention center go quiet. There is silence except for the cries of owls and the buzz of cicadas.

  Jomon doesn’t even try to sleep.

  Deep into the night, another sound reaches his ears.

  It comes from the cell belonging to Dev, the boy Hi called Jomon’s great-grandfather.

  It is a soft sound, muted by the thick brick walls of the solitary compound. But the night is quiet and even a soft sound can be heard.

  The boy in the cell next to Jomon is crying.

  Jomon puts his hand on the cell wall, as if that can comfort the boy who is feeling as sad and alone as Jomon. The boy’s tears are contagious. Jomon feels like crying now, too.

  “Sing the Soothing Song,” he hears the boy say. “Sing the Soothing Song.”

  Jomon wonders if the boy is talking to him, but then the boy himself starts to sing.

  Chatter monkeys in the trees

  Swaying branches in the breeze

  Sleep the hours of dark away

  Wake up to a brighter day.

  Singing it once isn’t enough. The boy starts to sing it a second time. Jomon joins in, and, from the other side of his cell, he hears Hi join in, too.

  They sing the song five times before they are soothed enough to slip into sleep.

  15

  “How long are we going to be locked up in here?” Jomon asks the guard who delivers their breakfast.

  “Do you have someplace else to be?” the guard asks before she closes the door on him.

  Jomon thinks that is kind of a mean answer, but he doesn’t say so. What would be the point?

  They are allowed to empty out their slop buckets and to mop out their cells. The few minutes of sun feels good.

  When Jomon goes back in his cell, it smells of Dettol. The dampness makes the air inside feel heavy. He goes back to sitting. There is nothing else to do.

  Jomon falls asleep after lunch. He is woken up by a voice outside.

  “Solitary means alone.”

  “I am well aware of the definition. You tell me every time I bring my students down here for a class.”

  Jomon gets up from the floor and goes to his small window.

  A tall, older man in a crisp white shirt is directing the young pri
soners to place chairs in a semicircle in the yard, facing the cell doors. A guard is there, too, watching them and frowning.

  “Take those chairs back up to the schoolroom,” she orders.

  “Guard Boyton, I assure you, all the chairs will go back to their proper places at the end of the lesson time.”

  “The chairs are supposed to stay in that room.”

  “Show me the regulation,” the tall man sighs, as though he has been through this before. “I am happy to show you the regulation that says all children are entitled to an education. All children means all. Even those in solitary. All we are doing is moving the classroom down here so that the boys in solitary can be educated.”

  “They are being punished,” says the guard.

  “Yes, they are,” agrees the teacher.

  Jomon watches the guard frown again and she warns the children, “Any of you cause trouble down here, you’ll have to deal with me.”

  She turns and walks away.

  “Students,” says the teacher, “Guard Boyton and I just had a disagreement. Did we say mean things to each other?”

  “No,” say the inmates.

  “Did we use curse words?”

  “No.”

  “Did anybody hit anybody?”

  “No.”

  “Very good,” says the tall man. “We are learning great things today. When you speak with Guard Boyton, I want you all to use your good manners. Good manners keep us calm, and they teach others how we want to be treated. Do I have your promise on that?”

  “Yes,” they all promise.

  “Now, let’s take our seats and get on with our lesson.”

  The teacher turns to the cell doors holding back Jomon, Hi and Dev. “I know one of you gentlemen already. I look forward to meeting you two new boys when your time in solitary is done. For today’s lesson, we are going to work on our skills at reading out loud. I will begin.”

  He asks if everyone is comfortable. Everyone is. He settles into a chair, opens a book and begins to read.

  “Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.”