Read Online The Journey Prize Stories 21 by Various - Free Book Online Page A

looked at the passport clerk and then leaned forward and reached forward with his short, strong arms to grasp the edge of the counter. He took his weight through his shoulders as his knees bent, and then he looked up, just over the clerk’s head, to look at nothing and be distracted by nothing as he smiled appreciation for the witty twisting of his insides. There was no counter to lean on at the airport, and Christopher bent over, put his hands on his big thighs, and looked down. His chest heaved. He rose, closed his eyes for a moment, and dismissed his smile. He spoke again, in his “Mutual voice,” which we named years ago after the lucrative national spots he recorded for an insurance firm, when he, in his words, “took all the black out,” cooled his vowels and clipped his consonants to produce a flattened, actuarial authority. He said, “No, I am sure you will see that it is all in order; all is in order here. Look again.” The immigration agent did not look again; he glanced at Christopher and then at the impatient lineup, shrugged, stamped our passports, and thus we continued. No look for me, no signal that relief or anything else from the experience was to be shared.
    From the airport we took the
tro-tro
into the city. Twice as the little bus roared along the highway the power went out behind us, as though it had been on only for our passing, and I turned and saw the darkness where we had been. When we arrived I stood in the blue-tiled lobby, drained utterly, despairing and drained, while Christopher checked us in and asked the clerk about clubs in the city and the best highlife bands. Soon an eager circle of men materialized to share their enthusiasms for bars and bands, for brothers who sang, uncles who played guitar, and sisters who owned clubs, and they wereinviting Christopher and me to dinners and parties, while he wrote down names, locations, and confusing directions. Only after one of these men interrupted to say, “Your lady looks so tired,” which drew much sympathy and offers to carry bags, did Christopher put away his pen and with me follow a solicitous clerk to our room.
    We have come for highlife. Christopher wants to hear it, not on record, not in a little Detroit club with an audience of the curious and the dutiful, but in its home, though he is emphatically not so naive as to believe he will be getting at something uninfluenced, some sound of an idealized, untouched continent, as he knows that the local musicians have been listening to the West for decades, playing guitars and horns, and that nothing pure exists now and never did. He hasn’t had to tell me these things and we haven’t talked about them; we’ve stopped talking in the old way. But I think he imagines that he will find something like the energy and meaning of doo-wop, of the original, not the anachronistic recreations. I know his position well; he’s clear that it hasn’t changed since he first wrote for
Zoom
. Christopher believes that the innocence, optimism, and beauty of doo-wop weren’t a pose, but they weren’t only what they appeared to be; they expressed defiance, insisted that these qualities could withstand the oppression, the humiliations, the decades of crimes against dignity, assaults on identity. In articles, at conferences, he has explained that doo-wop is as political, affirmative, and subversive as soul, hard bop, and gangsta rap. It is as connected as they to a tradition and history broken by slavery, and he hopes he will find something like it in the enduring exuberance of highlife and be uplifted before he dies.
    In the morning, with no music to seek out yet and no energy to risk a walk in the city’s sauna heat and confusion, we – Christopher – accepted a pitch from a share-taxi driver in front of the hotel to take us to the nearest fort outside the city. An hour’s hot drive later, we moved from share-taxi directly to guide, but