The Spy's Little Zonbi (32 page)

But in a world that seemed to be trying its absolute best to run over or drag under an innocent, already damaged boy, Chase's Little Zonbi refused to relinquish hope. She recognized the opening, the possibility of this fleeting chance for a kid which life had already been mauled pretty good.

***

Chase had spent two weeks recovering from a single bullet wound to the abdomen, while Mitra's father tried his best to look after his granddaughter. Her inconsolable crying, the accusing CIA interrogations, and the apparent loss of his only child had left the man withered and hollow-eyed by the time the hospital set Chase free.

“
You take care of this little scientist,” he'd said, hugging Tylea hard on his front step. Chase's belly ached, but he knew Doctor Bam's heart was broken. Chase had never seen him cry before. “It is hard being both mother and father. Very, very hard.”

In a bag of medicines and bandages given to him on his last day in the hospital, Chase found an envelope with a cashier's check for five thousand dollars. It included instructions to disappear from the country.

So he gathered up his little girl and escaped to the bottom of his nightmare pool, a place where life was heavily cloaked in thick layers of despair. He chose a destination where even the slightest glimmer of hope would be hard to miss, even for him. Tylea's mother was likely adjusting after a long debriefing process in Tehran, as the newly emancipated duo were settling in at an abandoned marijuana ranch on Montagne Terrible. The Jeep ride up was done after nightfall on purpose. Sometimes there really are monsters in the dark.

Haiti is a place so wrecked by wars and brutality that the last threads of hope remain only in hidden places. Fear is insidious, while love and compassion have been poisoned like the dying earth, the scorched and barren countryside, and the oily water. Nothing grows for very long, except maybe in secret places, where there were once great green fields of marijuana; where shiploads of guano and truckloads of nutritious eggs shells brought the dead soil back to life. A place that could one day feed whole villages, with a little hard work and a lot of hope.

Tylea didn't leave her new room those first weeks. She'd drawn pictures or read one of her books for a while but mostly wanted to be alone, unless it was night. In the dark, she never let her dad wander farther than the bathroom, or to get a glass of water. Chase knew she could feel what was out in the dark, those real monsters.

And so he began cleaning up the death in the immediate area, tying a rope to Moreau's guardian zombies, dragging their leathery corpses out into the nearest field. It was hard labor in the incredible heat and he'd shower off the stench a half-dozen times a day.

Each day, Tylea read a little more and began writing a journal. Chase felt more at ease, leaving her for a couple of hours at a time, but the same feeling of dread would return on the walk back up to the house after he was done zombie wrangling. His heart would be racing as he opened the front door, always imagining the worst as he went straight to her room. But there she would be, looking up at him from the middle of her bed curiously, her eyes puffy and red from recent tears.

Chase used the heavy equipment to dig a trench, a mass grave. He'd found a few young men from the valley who were desperate enough for money to help drag the lost souls to the edge of the pit, then send them rolling down to their final peace. At least he'd hoped it would be.

And then one day, Chase heard an unfamiliar noise when returning to the house to check on Tylea, a slapping sound echoing out of the open windows. He ran, throwing open the big heavy door and racing to her room.

“
I'm sorry!” She was frightened and cradling something in her arms—a soccer ball found in one of the boxes in the hallway. She'd been juggling in her room, kicking the ball off one wall.

“
Sweetheart.” He grabbed her close, hugging her with the ball squeezed between them.

“
I love you, Daddy.”

“
I love you, too.”

“
I miss Mommy so much.” She buried her head in his chest.

“
I do, too.”

After the last of their supplies ran out, Tylea ventured into Port-au-Prince with him, bringing her soccer ball for comfort in this strange, crazy place. She carried her ball into the market like a Teddy bear as he gathered canned goods and powdered drink mixes. But as he was packing the groceries in the back of their truck, she'd dropped the ball to her feet, slowly dribbling over to a group of young boys in a corner of the dirt parking lot. One boy tried picking the ball up, but the oldest scolded him. Tylea motioned them into a circle and they passed the ball across and around, performing one of her team's drills. There was laughter.

Some of the laughter came from his little girl.

She sat staring out the window on the long drive back up the mountain and he could tell she was working on a plan.

“
There are a lot of kids just hanging around, aren't there?”

On the next supply trip into Port-au-Prince, Tylea forced him to stop at an orphanage and then at the two Catholic churches within a few blocks of the market. Either directly or through an interpreter, she explained her plan, asking for the blessing of the adults in charge. Chase knew it was her smile and her hope that made them agree to her proposal.

Their soccer league had been formed with enough kids for six teams. And the teams were picked in the classic American playground style, where the oldest or best kids were divided up, then took turns choosing players. These older players were also going to be responsible for finding a parent, priest, or some local drunk to act as their coach and stand on the sidelines. Those were the rules.

Stepping forward, Tylea made it clear she wanted to be one of the six kids to pick a team. The drafting began, one by one, with the next best player going as the first pick, and so on. Tylea, who had sixth choice, pointed to a small group of boys huddled in the back, boys who didn't have their hands raised and weren't crying out, “
Souple
,
souple
,
souple
!” or, “Please, please, please!”

“
Ou
!” Tylea said, pointing to the most agile looking leper of the four—a tall young boy holding a deflated soccer ball under one arm. The boy limped away from his friends to get in line behind his new captain.

“
You dumb,
blanc
!”

“
Aveg
!” another said, which was the word for blind, and the boys all laughed.

“
Asasen
,” Tylea said in a dramatic voice, shrugging toward the leper over her shoulder—who was cowering, crowding close—but the other, older boys stopped laughing.
Asasen
meant assassin in Creole.

“
Okay,
blanc
, my turn.” One of the older boys began the next round of picks, continuing until every child had a team.

Tylea had chosen all four available lepers.

“
They are secret weapons,” she told her father. “Nobody will cover a boy with leprosy.”

But Chase knew she was kidding. She had picked the children who needed the most hope.

Tylea led her teammates in quiet ways. When it was especially hot, and some were dropping back and about to give up and walk the last lap during practice, she'd drop back, too, say a few things to them and match their stride. Those strides might be labored, but would never slow to a walk or a stop. They would always finish the run, and although Chase didn't think they ever came out and thanked her, he could tell by their looks it was what they meant to say. It seemed more than enough for her. This leadership made her a real captain.

Sometimes his little girl was ten, and sometimes she was much older and wiser than her father who'd run away with her to this place.

“
You are different,” the boys would say to her, touching the incredibly white skin of her forearm as they sat in a group, sipping water in the shade after practice.

“
No, not different, you stupid boy,” she'd say back, touching his uniform and hers at the same time. “We're the same team. We're the same.”

And, like nearly all these children of poverty and war-ravaged Haiti, his little girl came from a broken home. Sometimes, late at night, she would cry inconsolably for her mom.

Chase did everything he could, although there was no way to replace a mother. And yet, even a man with a lousy singing voice could soften the sharp pain of the world, especially when the words meant so much to a little girl who's had a long, hard day.

He sang Bob Marley's song, the one that comforted him as he lay dying, assuring him that it would all work out.

When the tears finally stopped and she'd fallen asleep in her soft bed, in their new life, he'd kiss her pale cheek and head to the ebony writing desk in his bedroom to draw up some new plays, trying to figure out how to win a game, or at least come a little closer to winning.

No matter how much they have lost, everyone needs to feel there is still hope.

Back under the glaring sun, Webster Jon Widgy moved the wrong way at the last second. The perfectly placed pass from Tylea somehow missed his dirty forehead by a foot, bounding harmlessly across the endline for a goal kick by the other team.

The moms began to cheer anyway. Tylea and Webster Jon ran back to their positions to defend, to try again. There was still plenty of time on the clock.

Hope was alive and well on their dirt field.

* * *

Cole Alpaugh
is a former journalist, having worked at daily newspapers along the East Coast, as well as spending several years as a war correspondent in numerous hot-spots around the world for Manhattan-based news agencies. His work has appeared in dozens of magazines, as well as most newspapers in America. He was nominated by Gannett News Service for a 1991 Pulitzer Prize. Cole is currently a freelance photographer and writer living in Northeast Pennsylvania, where he also coaches his daughter's soccer kick-arounds. You can find him online at www.colealpaugh.com.