Fletch, Too

“What’s that?”

“There is a Walter Did.”

“Fletcher you doubt that?”

Fletch removed a speck from his eye. “I think Barbara was beginning to hope you are my father.”

Carr laughed. “I’m flattered.”

“We came to meet my father, you see, and we met you instead.”

Carr refolded the brown paper in which he had brought lunch. “If you keep cuttin’ trail, I’ll go get the corkscrew.”

“So I know Walter Fletcher exists,” Fletch said, “which I really didn’t know before.” He sighed. “And for once in my life, I know exactly where he is.”

“Hapana kitu.”

Barbara and Carr knelt on the ground watching the soil as it came up the screw to the surface. Sheila stood over them, arms akimbo, watching, saying nothing.

On the four sides of the earth screw’s frame, Juma, Fletch, Winston, and Raffles turned the wheels sending the screw into the ground. For the most part, the earth was soft. Forcing the screw slowly into the ground wasn’t very hard work.

Carr’s fingers crumbled a piece of rotten wood that surfaced. “Nothing,” he repeated.

An hour or so after Carr had left Fletch, the derelict-looking Jeep snorted up the trail Fletch had cleared. Looking huge and ridiculous, the aluminum corkscrew stuck far out of the back of the Jeep. Twelve meters behind the Jeep men carried the top of the shaft. Barbara, wearing her kanga, rode in the Jeep with Carr.

The rest, including Sheila, walked beside the Jeep.

It seemed an invasion of the solitude Fletch had enjoyed in the jungle.

It was fairly easy, tipping the corkscrew up and making it even on the ground.

The top of the screw shaft reached its lowest point. The wheels could turn no further.

“Right,” Carr said. “Bring it up.”

It was easier, unscrewing the earth.

They continued to watch what earth came up with the screw.

“Pity we’re not in the well-drilling business,” Carr said. “At least sometimes we find water.”

“Ever find oil?” Fletch asked.

“Not even hair grease.”

Wrestling the corkscrew around, they tried three other places in that clearing that afternoon. Fletch tried a few pleasantries until he realized they weren’t appreciated. They didn’t find a lost Roman city, but he had enjoyed the day.

“Hapana kitu,” Carr said. “Nothing. Let’s go back to camp. There’s always tomorrow.”

“Hello,” Juma said. “Stay where the crocodiles are used to us. They are very territorial, you see.”

Naked, Barbara and Fletch were swimming in the river.

Naked, Juma sat on a rock in the river watching them.

“Crocodiles?” Barbara stood up in the river.

“Haven’t you seen them?” Fletch asked.

“Crocodiles that eat people?”

“I don’t think they’re particular.”

“Fletch,” Barbara whispered. “Juma’s naked.”

“So are we.”

“What does he mean? That there’s nothing sexual between us? Among us?”

“I’ll ask him.”

“Screw crocodiles.” Barbara started for the riverbank in haste. “Never even got to wash my hair.”

Fletch climbed up onto the rock and sat beside Juma.

“Barbara wants to know if there’s nothing sexual among us.”

“What does she mean?”

“Among us three, I guess she means. You and her.”

“Barbara wants a baby by me? That would be odd.”

“No. She doesn’t. We three were just naked together.”

“People put on clothes to be sexual, don’t they?”

“People do many things to be sexual.”

“What else are clothes for?”

“Pockets.”

Juma was rubbing the fingers of his right hand against his leg. “Africans don’t have pockets. We have nothing to put in them.” The red stain on his fingers was not coming off. “People can be sexual with each other whether they wear clothes or not.”

“True.”

Juma was looking at the mark on the lower right side of Fletch’s stomach. Juma said, “So you are partly black.”

“And blue.”

“I have never seen such a thing before. Is that the way a baby would look, if Barbara and I had a baby? I don’t think so.”

“No.”

“It looks odd.”

“Black people do not turn white where they are hit.”

“Who hit you? Did someone in Kenya hit you?”

“Why are your fingers red?”

“Miraa.”

“What’s miraa?”

“You don’t know miraa? It’s a drug we chew. A pleasure drug.”

“Like marijuana?”

“What’s marijuana?”

“A pleasure drug.”

“It leaves the fingers red, and the gums and tongue.” Juma showed Fletch how red his gums and tongue were. “Also, I suppose, our insides. It’s not very good. One of the men gave me some.” Juma nodded up the riverbank toward the cook tent. “You can buy some in any store which has banana leaves over the door.”

“I read some of that book you lent me, Weep Not Child.”

Juma snorted. “Ngugi blames white people for almost everything.”

“Including inventing war.”

“As if they were gods.” Juma put his hand on the back of Fletch’s neck and squeezed. “Are you a god, Fletch?”

“Tell me about my father.”

“He’s all right.” Juma returned to trying to rub the red stain off his fingers. “A bit of a mutata.”

“What’s mutata?”

“Troublesome.”