Tonton (A Hunter Kincaid Novel)

Marc walked back to his dogs, had them lay side by side with their heads almost touching, then he backed three steps, raised the shotgun and killed all three dogs with a single shot. He walked to the man who gave him the shotgun and held it out, saying, “Thank you.”

He stepped to Malice and said, “I couldn’t leave them alone; they would not make it.”

“I understand,” she said.

Marc reached and took her hand, “I’m ready now.”

~*~

Marc didn’t talk on the four-hour trip to Port Au Prince unless someone asked him a question. But he watched and listened, paying special attention to Malice.

When they reached the large white home, Malice led him in and showed Marc his room, and then let the boy roam the grounds at will. He checked the pool, the garden, all the other rooms except the one Malice told him not to enter. During the following weeks and months, Marc explored beyond the home and became familiar with the area. At night, he read until falling asleep, usually with the book on his chest.

Malice would leave during the day, and sometimes did not return for several days. He didn’t mind being alone because it gave him time to think about things, and most importantly, how to continue this new, rich life. The key to it all started and ended with pleasing Malice, and he catalogued what actions he or others did that pleased her, and how much they pleased her. He kept track of even the smallest things.

His desire to learn everything about her almost resulted in his death when he noticed the door to the forbidden room was slightly ajar. He knew Malice had left, and he was alone in the house. Marc stood at the opening a long time, then he put his hand on the shiny brass knob, hesitated, and pulled it shut.

Malice watched the boy from her hiding place within the walls. The eyehole was hidden in the ornate frame of a large painting that hung in the hall directly across from the forbidden room. She had made this his ultimate test. When Marc closed the door, he passed. If he had entered, the boy’s life would be forfeit. Those were the harsh, unspoken rules Malice created for him. She was pleased with the golden-eyed boy, and soon she would reveal many things to him, including all the magic behind the now closed door.

When Marc turned twelve, Malice took him into her bed. A month later, she took him with her to Fort Dimanche, the fearsome prison where political prisoners were kept, and most never left. Malice gave him a quick tour, and the first thing Marc noticed was the smell. He soon learned why as they entered the cell area. The prison fascinated him, and during the ensuing years, Marc would wander through it at all hours, remembering what he saw.

The cells, made of metal bars, were three feet by three feet by four feet, with concrete floors. Any elimination or urination was done on the concrete, for there were no holes. Some cells contained three people, others one or two, and the sexes didn’t matter, as men and women were inside together. If husbands and wives, they were placed in separate cells, and their male cellmates often repeatedly raped the women, all of this done in plain sight of the husband locked in a nearby cell.

Marc was first given the tour at the time the prisoners were fed. He watched as the guards carried large pots of gruel to each cell and another guard dipped out a cupful or two and poured it through the bars onto the concrete floor, then moved to the next cell and repeated the feeding. Prisoners

jostled for position as they licked thin liquid from the rough concrete until it was all gone. Everyone pled for more, and rarely, a second helping of gruel was splattered on the cell floors.

Once a week, the guards brought down fire hoses and used them to wash down both the cells and the prisoners at the same time. Most prisoners tried to get a few precious gulps of water as the torrent hit them.

If a prisoner died, their body might lay and decompose in the tropical heat and humidity for several days to a week before being removed.

Because it was full of political prisoners, there were many interrogations. The prisoners almost looked at them as a relief, because they were taken from the cages and could stand erect. Except when Malice conducted the questioning. No one wanted to leave the safety of the cages when she was in the dungeon.

The first questioning Marc witnessed was with Malice. A pregnant woman was brought into the room and Malice asked her in quiet tones about her husband’s treasonous activities against Duvalier, and where he was hiding. The woman said she did not know anything about that, or where he was.

Malice motioned to the guards to take off the woman’s clothes and lay her on a table. After the woman was down, Malice asked again, and the woman said she did not know anything, that she was innocent.

Malice slipped on a pair of thick gloves and went to the corner of the room where there was a small metal trashcan with a lid. She pulled off the lid, reached in and pulled out a live rat.

The pregnant woman screamed and tried to get away, but the guards pinned her to the table.

The rat bit the thick glove and struggled to get free as Malice carried it to one of the gruel pots and dipped it in the liquid. She removed the wet, dripping, squirming rodent from the gruel and carried it to the table.

Malice said, “Open her legs.”

Marc didn’t turn away as Malice pushed the rat into the screaming woman, then forced her to sit up on the corner of the table so that her legs hung off each side. Malice said to Marc, “The rat cannot escape now. You understand this?”

“Yes. It should be effective.”

The pregnant woman screamed and sobbed and began talking. When she gave Malice the information, Malice said to the guards, “If the rat eats its way free, let it go and take the woman to her cell.”

One of the new men said, “If she is dead?”

“Take her to her cell. Do not ask me to repeat myself ever again. Do you understand?” The guard nodded, too frightened to speak.

By the time he was fourteen, Marc was six feet two inches tall and weighed one hundred sixty pounds. That was the year he started interrogating prisoners. Within three months, those in the cages avoided his eyes, and if he stopped at a cell, the prisoners inside began to cry. Malice told him, “I am proud of you, my young one.”

Marc found more independence and Malice encouraged him. He traveled to different areas in and around port Au Prince and visited with people, learning what he could from the locals. He often spent the night in such places and would walk through the communities and countryside at late hours to see what the darkness hid. The one thing Malice insisted was that he was always armed, but discretely.