Blood Brothers

I believe creative non-fiction needs to be nearly all true with a little tweaking to make the story flow.  This has a good deal of tweaking and about two-thirds truth.  Does that make it non-creative fiction?

 

            I don’t think Jeff Porcaro ever went to Africa before he and Paich wrote the song.  That’s hardly a criticism since TOTO IV received seven Grammy’s in 1982.  But he did say in an interview that as a kid he had heard a group of African tribal percussionists performing at the New York World’s Fair.  He had been struck at the fact that each individual played a single rhythm over and over without variation till the religious repetition swallowed them into a trance.  That was the flavor he was trying to recapture for the 80’s mega-hit.

            This may sound presumptuous, but I am sure Porcaro would have loved to come along on some of the trips we made in the Congo.  Jesse and I sure did.  We were blood brothers; foreigners in a country we knew better than our own.  Jesse’s father flew little Cessna airplanes all over the interior and my dad was a doctor—sometimes flying with Jesse’s to stem epidemics of river blindness and what not.  We were on summer break from our junior year in high school when this ethnomusicologist came over from the US, wanting to do some fieldwork on authentic tribal music.  For the sake of furthering the science of art we dutifully offered our services as translators and technicians—just for the hell of it.

            What Porcaro observed was true.  Only in the villages, it is not just the music that puts the performers in a trance.  You notice it more with the dancing singers because they come right up to you, their detachable hips gyrating at impossible speeds, while they stare right through you with those awful bloodshot and glossy eyes.  The percussionists are only playing one simple rhythm each.  There can be any number of them, from maybe five to hundreds, all repeating a single beat, but in such a coordinated effort that the overall effect is incredibly complex.  And they never seem to tire.  The ethnomusicologist usually stopped recording a particular song after his 90-minute tape was full.

            But there is more to TOTO’s “Africa” than the percussion.  Maybe Porcaro and Paich had been to the continent after all.  How else would they know about the rains?  It poured the night Jesse and I mingled our blood.  Sometimes the rains last longer than a tribal song.  Not pansy drizzles like those that plague England.  The water pours down for hours in torrents that change the landscape around you.  You could drive to a village overnight and only the next day find that a gully had eroded clear across the mud road, cutting off your return.  If you happen to be under a roof when the rain comes, you are liable to be sucked into a trance.  Streams come cascading down the valleys of corrugated roofs, striking the ground in the same spot over and over again, and mingling with hundreds of other streams shooting off the tin roofs that bang-bang-bang under the deafening assault of raindrops.  But out in the open it is pure exhilarating chaos; a breathless baptism never free from the awesome fear that one of the earsplitting bolts of fire will zigzag its way to your heart.  Jesse and I and friends loved to play soccer in these storms, under the brilliant canopies of lightning.  It usually turned out more like rugby since every bolt that struck nearby would send us prostrate on the ground.  There would be a brief moment to make sure none of us were fried and after locating the soccer ball, we would scramble about violently in an attempt to retrieve it before we were forced to pay homage once more.

            We were eleven years old when Jesse got it in his head that we were to become blood brothers.  He had just read a book about American Indians and explained that it was only a matter of proving ourselves and a simple technique involving a knife and string.  One weekend Mr. Robinson, the local pharmacist, took it into his head to take Jesse and I and a few others on a camping trip to a nearby river.  On the ride over Jesse secretly showed me his Swiss army knife and some string he was carrying in his pocket.  He smiled triumphantly and nodded.

            “We’ll prove ourselves this weekend,” he whispered gleefully.

            I swallowed but managed a convincing nod.  Jesse’s natural instinct of self-preservation had been bred to a minimum by centuries of pampering civilization, and I was already having foreboding premonitions.

            We set up tents next to the river, making sure our flies were secure as it was rainy season.  This also meant the river was swollen and dangerous, attracting Jesse like a fly to a carcass.  I didn’t protest, however, when he suggested we swim over to the other side, for my mother was one of those lunatic parents who throws her babies in the water as living proof that man’s aquatic instincts are still accessible.  Mother, of course, is a hazard to herself and others in the water, but every one of her kids learned to swim before they could walk.

            “We better go up farther upstream to cross, Jesse.  This thing’s flowing fast and just around the corner are some killer rapids.”

            Jesse agreed and while Mr. Robinson was busy elsewhere, we set off.  The moment we got in I could tell the current was strong and I started swimming for all I was worth.  When I reached the center of the river the water kept pushing my legs downstream and I had to fight just to keep perpendicular to the shore.  But like I said, my mother had raised us part fish and after a few moments of struggling I drifted into the relative calm near the opposite shore.  That’s when I turned to see how Jesse was faring.  I heard him before I spotted him.

            “Heeeeeelp!” he was screaming and I located his head in the middle of the river, rushing towards the fatal bend.  He was thrashing about with fury, trying to force his way straight upstream against the toughest current.  My stomach lurched into my throat, but my mind suddenly became crystal clear.  I remember seeing a footbridge just before the rapids and I knew what had to be done.  Steering myself to the center I began free-styling down towards Jesse.  His terrified eyes grew even wider as he caught sight of me racing right at him.

            “Are you crazy?!” he spluttered as we swung around the bend, now side by side.

            “The bridge,” I gasped, managing to lift an arm and point.

            “It’s too high.”

            I could hear the panic in his voice.

            “Give me your arm,” I said.

            Jesse thrust an arm in my direction and his head immediately went under.  I yanked and he came back up spluttering.

            “Shit!” he screamed, the furor of the rapids now filling our ears.

            “Now!” I yelled and kicked up, grabbing a plank of the bridge.

            There was a moment when I was sure my arms would rip out of their sockets and then Jesse had clambered up my shoulders and hoisted himself onto the swaying footbridge.  He gave me a hand and then we sprawled out on our backs trying to catch our breaths.

            “That was awesome,” said Jesse, gleefully over the noise of the rapids.  “You are the best, cotton-pickin’ hero I’ve ever known.”

            I had no answer.  I just wanted to cry.

            The next thing we knew the footbridge began to sway erratically and Mr. Robinson was suddenly there, peering down at us.  He face was pale, flushed with splotches of red.  He just stood there staring down at us and then at the rapids next to us.  His gaze went back and forth several times before he spoke.

            “Go find some firewood,” he said in a tone that was not lost on us.  “And stay out of the water.”

            He turned and walked back to shore while we sat up.  We watched him go with a newfound respect.

            “That’s it?” said Jesse incredulous.  “No threats about our parents?”

            I shrugged.

            Then Jesse said resolutely, “We are going to have the biggest, cotton-pickin’ fire you’ve ever seen.”

            Well, it wasn’t the biggest, but we did a fair job of it.  We were so dirty by the time we had collected the wood, however, that after supper Mr. Robinson let us bathe at the edge of the river.  We had no towel so we squatted next to the blazing fire to dry ourselves.

            “You boys all like ghost stories?” Mr. Robinson asked, pulling out a pipe.  He cleaned it and then stuffed it with tobacco while we all nodded eagerly.  Our respect for the man shot through the roof.  That night we heard some of the creepiest stories an eleven-year-old should ever hear.  We were so riveted, Jesse and I never bothered to dress and we squatted naked for nearly two hours before the rain began to come down.

            Once in our tent alone, we put our pajamas on by the light of our flashlights and Jesse pulled out his knife and string.

            “We can each cut our own wrists,” he said unfolding a blade.  “And then we’ll tie our arms together.”

            He proceeded without hesitating to make a two-inch incision across the length of his wrist and then offered me the knife.

            “You can do mine too,” I said and held out my wrist, looking the other way.

            “Sissy,” he chided, but I had saved his life all the same.

            I managed to suppress any noise as I felt a hot pain across my wrist.  I turned around to look at my arm.  The blood was dripping steadily from the cut and we were mesmerized by the novelty of the “piff-piff-piff” it was making on Jesse’s shiny exterior to his sleeping bag.  Jesse recovered first.

            “Shit.  That’s my bag.”

            He grabbed a sock and held it under my wrist to catch the drops.

            “You’re hardly bleeding,” I said.

            Jesse looked sheepishly at me.

            “Here, hold this,” he said giving me the stained sock.

            With his index finger and thumb on either side of his cut, he pulled the skin apart and fresh blood came dribbling out.  I grimaced but he only smiled.  Then he picked up the string.

            “We’ll have to do this together.  It’ll be like a ceremony.”

            Clumsily we pressed our wrists together and wrapped the string around and around managing some semblance of a knot.  Jesse looked up into my eyes once he was satisfied.

            “I would have died out there.”

            I looked down, embarrassed of my emotions.

            “You’re my best friend, Jesse.”

            “You too,” came the answer.

            My wrist was beginning to hurt and I could feel my pulse incessantly pounding against Jesse’s arm.  His heart was beating a simple counter rhythm and our blood was mingling as one.  Outside the rain was pouring with its own rapid “poff-poff-poff” on our tent fly.  It was a symphony.

             I bless the rains down in Africa.