"Sir, it's this needle situation ... and the blood plasma situation, and the three in one vaccine - we're almost out, and half the kids in the village haven't received it. And can't the government get us a decent anesthesia unit? Sometimes I think it'd be safer to just hit 'em on the head with a brick bat. And our x-ray equipment...." I made a disgusted sound. "I'm surprised the nuclear regulatory commission hasn't waded in, and declared us a nuclear power."
Faneuil bestowed a soft, kindly smile on me, but there was a waggish light in his pale eyes. "Bradley, as long as you're listing wants how about a CAT scanner, or an MRI, or a dialysis machine? Money, Bradley, money, all those things cost money, and we haven't got any."
I licked my lips nervously, and plunged in. "Well, that's the thing, sir. My dad's a rich Hollywood producer. He's got a lot of friends who are other kinds of rich Hollywood parasites. They just love to get together over rubber chicken at some benefit dinner and raise the money. They do that real well. So, how about I get my dad to put together a plane load of goodies for us?"
"Sounds lovely, Bradley. You must coordinate it with the Kenyan government, the International Red Cross, and the World Health Organization."
"Why?" I blurted. "I mean, would I have to involve the U N if I wanted a box of chocolate and condoms for me?"
"Ah, but this isn't just for you, Bradley. Bureaucracies must fiddle, it's a law of nature."
"More like the jungle," I muttered, but I surrendered to the realities. "Okay."
I turned to leave, but was arrested before I exited by him saying, "Bradley, you have a good heart."
I felt myself blush. "Thank you, sir." Recovering I added, "It's just the rest of me that's a little weird."
***
So, I had managed to impress Faneuil, and I was hangin' with J.D. and Mosi, but friends inside Kilango continued to elude me. There is enormous distrust of whites by Africans (understandable). Enormous distrust of hospitals and doctors by native people. (Also understandable. Hospitals are where you go to die.) The fact I was a joker helped, but one out of three ain't so good. I decided the kids were where I needed to apply the wedge, and I proceeded in my usual shameless manner - I bribed 'em.
A call to Mom, and I soon had a supply of frisbees, soccer balls, baseballs, bats and gloves, dolls, crayons and coloring books. Ironically these were a lot easier to obtain then my plane full of vaccines and needles. Dad was whacking through a jungle of red tape, but it was all taking a lot longer than I wanted. But you know Americans - if there's one thing we don't do well, it's wait.
Anyway, once I got the toys, I organized teams and started a scout troop. I'd hoped Margaret Durand would handle the girls, but she gave me that "you must be kidding" smile, told me she was too busy (and implied I ought to be too busy), and declined. I combined the boys and the girls, and figured what the parent organization didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Faneuil laughingly called my kids the Pony Tail Irregulars, which I admit bugged me a little, and made some crack about Americans and our unnatural appetite for sports. I got him back by referring to Frenchies and their unnatural appetite for snails.
You like to think that a group of people to which you belong, whether it be based on race, religion, nationality, profession, whatever, are good and decent people. That the flaws you see in Them, we never have. Unfortunately that ain't the case. Underneath it all we're human, and not too long out of the trees.
I had been invited up to Faneuil's for lunch, but I had a broken arm to set, and it was twenty past one before I folded my stethoscope into the pocket of my lab coat, and checked my watch. When I saw the time I put it in overdrive. My hooves rang hollowly on the hard packed earth, and dust rose behind me as I galloped up the winding road toward the farmhouse that Faneuil called home.
Back in the nineteen twenties the land that currently cradled Kilango had been a not-very-successful coffee plantation. All that now remained was a dilapidated irrigation system and the colonial owner's home. It was a low, rambling wood affair, with a screened veranda, and a cupola on one corner. In my wilder moments I could picture the ghost of the imperialistic asshole who built the structure standing in that cupola, binoculars raised, watching the happy darkies toiling in the fields below. Now it was happy jokers who were singin' and workin' in the sun.
As I ran I suddenly heard the shrill voices of children in the underbrush off to my left, and my stomach formed a tight, hard ball, for I know that hunting pack ululation. I had heard it enough when I was a kid. I hung a looie, and followed the noise.
In a dusty depression eight children were flinging stones and beating with sticks a ninth child who huddled inside this circle of torment. He had flung long skinny arms across his head, and there were already a few smears of blood on the boy's dark skin. All eight of the tormentors were jokers, and five of them were in my scout troop. It depressed the shit out of me that some of my kids were involved. I went flying through them like a bowling ball through nine pins, and they fell back before my furious onslaught.
The ringleader of this little gang of journeymen torturers was Dalila, an impossibly tall figure with a two foot long neck, and ear lobes which brushed at her breasts. At fifteen she had scorned my overtures, and dismissed our activities as "childish." There was a lot of anger in this girl, and she viewed any kind of accommodation with nat society a sell out. She gestured at someone, then indicated me, and a child whose form was basically human came hissing and undulating across the dirt toward me. His body was twisted sharply into curves, and his legs were fused into a single limb, and when he opened his mouth I saw a single big tooth which looked suspiciously hollow to me. I reared, and brought my forefeet down near his head. He got the hint, and withdrew.
The bleeding boy lifted his head to look at me, and I realized he wasn't a nat - he had eyes like a chameleon - and I had an explanation for the impromptu torture. Kenyans hate and fear chameleons.
I assumed my best daddy attitude, and daddy voice, and asked in my somewhat stilted Swahili,
"Okay, now what's going on here?"
Tube Neck stepped forward, and indicated the shivering boy with a flick of a hand. "He's ugly -"
"Well, there aren't any of us who are going to win any beauty contests," I interrupted. "You're pretty damn funny looking too, Dalila."
"He is evil," lisped Snake Boy. His palate had also been warped by the virus, and it was really hard to understand him.
"To have him here will bring bad luck on all of us," Dalila added piously, and I could have slapped her. She wasn't a superstitious rustic, she had been born in Mombasa. This was just a way to reassert control over her peers.
"There's death and evil everywhere - I'm looking at a little of it right now. Now listen up, you leave this kid alone, or I'll come by and stomp your intolerant and ugly joker asses into the ground." I turned to the kid on the ground, and held out a hand. "Come on, let's do lunch."
He scrambled to his feet, ducked his head in terror, and ran. I turned back to the kids. My five were shuffling uncomfortably. "I mean it now," I said severely. "Any more of this shit, and all privileges are revoked." They looked confused. I put it in perspective by ennunciating carefully. "No more baseball."
They ducked their heads, and slithered for the trees. I decided some lessons in tolerance were definitely in order, and I also decided I had to find the chameleon-eyed kid and get him into the Irregulars. I also needed to locate his folks, and find out if he'd been immunized. He was obviously new to the village, and we didn't want anybody carrying in any diseases from outside.