1. A Hard Landing
Whitney was coming to visit us. At 19, she was making her first visit to Nicaragua––an exploratory mission trip––and we had not gone to Managua to meet her. Nutie and I felt bad about it, but the round trip flight for both of us would have been expensive. After all, we had already gone to the capital city three times this year. So instead, we made all the arrangements––a van from the hotel and a man with a sign to meet her in the baggage claim area at 1:30 in the morning, a double room with our mission discount, and Anna, Truman's 22 year old daughter who speaks English, who had agreed to stay with her at Hotel Las Mercedes. We reconfirmed everything with Roberto the hotel manager and with Ricardo the night desk guy. Nevertheless, the van from the hotel never arrived; there was no man with a sign. Whitney hailed a cab across the street to the hotel.
Soldiers were standing on the Waspam airstrip throwing rocks at cows. Ominous looking thunderheads rolling upward, forward, toward town. These were infallible signs that the plane was coming, the little 12 seater which was about to make its timely arrival from Managua, this time bearing Whitney. The usual arrival time is somewhere around noon, but on this particular day, the plane was late because half the airline's equipment–namely, the bigger plane–was in maintenance and the 12 seater must have filled the route to Bilwi, Bluefields, or Corn Island first. Hence the typical midday deluge over Waspam was also delayed, and Julio Curbelo's cows enjoyed extended grazing time. At 2:30 though, something like a giant timpani sounded in the heavenlies and it all abruptly came together. Rain, lightning ... still about three miles away ... and soldiers stoning cows. We heard the drone of the single engine plane toward the South; I grabbed my yellow rain jacket and cap with the tarpon embroidered on it, and rushed out the door.
As the plane rolled to a stop, I spied Whitney seated directly in back of the pilot. She was a question mark to me; I knew that she had lost her mother two years ago and was out in the world on her own, still grieving but moving forward. She had recently finished a year of Bible at GCBI and spent the summer on Utila before coming here. How would she hold up? I could see her looking out through the cloudy plexiglass oval; she recognized me. I was standing alone, yellow-slickered in the rain smiling big and waving. Instantly Nutie also appeared on the far side of the plane, next to the disembarkation door, yelling at the top of her lungs, "Whitney's here! Whitney's here!"
The cramped airplane was nothing like the ones Whitney was accustomed to in Hawaii, the ones that fly between Maui and the Big Island, in which she could stand up and squeeze between seats in the aisle without turning sideways. It took her a while to make it to the door in the back, where tiny metal steps, narrower than a man's shoulders, dangled over the side like a swimming pool ladder that fails to touch bottom. I came around and grabbed her bags. The water that Whitney descended into was rain. She jumped from the last step onto gravel with a splash. Then she gasped, in part because of her excitement, in part because of the intense humidity. The first thing on her agenda was to learn how to breathe.
Truman had been kind to come in the truck and was sitting at the wheel, waiting to take us home. The usual crowd had gathered around to see what novelty this flight might bring, and Whitney was today's attraction. A volunteer was dispatched to the truck after Truman rolled down the window.
–"Is that Nutie's daughter?" inquired a skinny woman in a "world's best mom" T-shirt.
–"No," said Truman softly, "she's an orphan."
Here, orphans are considered worthy of special compassion, and anyone who has lost either mother or father, even as an adult, qualifies for that entitlement. The woman nodded knowingly, went back and reported the news to the rest of her group. They all stood silently under the umbrella of a mango tree, watching Nutie and Whitney embrace.
When the truck arrived at our house there was another celebration, led of course by Nutie, who rejoiced at the opportunity to share her place of rest and replenishment from the strains of our daily service in a needy land.
–"We're here! We're here!" she exclaimed. "Welcome to our home!"
Whitney beamed exuberantly, surveying a landscape she had dreamed about for years. The rain was passing to the south of us and soft sunlight shone through a thin covering of cloud. Was this the place God was calling her to?
Our neighbors came running over, the children first--little Nutie, Negro, Linda, some cousins--and then Carlos and the pregnant Leskia. Nutie began making presentations: "Whitney, this is little Nutie..." However, Carlos, Leskia, and Linda looked preoccupied. They were talking to Truman in Miskito. Someone had been shot on the other side of the river just a couple of hours ago. Nutie and Whitney, oblivious, gleefully patted children's heads. Something was about to collide.
I asked Carlos who had gotten shot: "Yaura bulit saban?"
"Crisler."
"Onofre's son Crisler?"
"Au."
"Is he still alive?"
"Apia," came the simple answer. He was dead.
"Nutie," I said. "Nutie, wait. Listen."
Nutie looked at me, at Carlos, Leskia, and at Truman. "What happened?"
"They're saying Crisler got shot and killed this morning."
"Sonia and Onofre's son Crisler?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes."
"Oh no."
At last Whitney was drawn into the conversation. "Who's Crisler?" she asked innocently. She was still smiling.
We explained that Onofre was our friend and ministry partner whom we were going to take her to meet. His son had just been killed in his rice field. The shotgun which he had taken with him to shoot some game had gone off by accident in the hands of his brother-in-law.
Dead quiet. Carlos and his son Bob-Juri helped carry the luggage upstairs to our living quarters.
"People die here all the time," sighed Nutie. "It's crazy."
"Did he know the Lord?" Whitney asked with some hesitation.
I turned and looked her in the eyes. "Who, Crisler? No, I don't think so."
Whitney's face slackened and her eyes focused. She slipped quietly out the door and watched Carlos and Bob-Juri descend the steps. Truman was still standing in the yard, beside the Toyota, looking grimly up at us.
"Gracias. Thank you," she said after them. After years of dreaming about it, she had finally landed in Waspam. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
2. A Baptism
Count back nine days. Nutie's son Matt was here then, retracing the steps of his father, who had left everything–the sweet life on Maui–literally to pour out his life in this tasba nata, the butt-end of the world. For Matt it was a most sacred pilgrimage, a quest to understand his father's faith, to come to terms with his loss, to be baptized. On September 15th he asked Onofre and I to take him to the river.
Nutie, Matt, Onofre, Sonia, and I walked the trail to the swimming hole called Pialis, holding our breath past the rotting carcass of a dog, tiptoeing carefully through a marshy field of sahsa grass and then gingerly making our way down the slippery clay embankment moistened by an artesian spring. The quiet stream of clear water, lined with bamboo, carved a secluded pool below. Nutie took out her guitar and we began to sing. A trio of boys came, stripped naked, and leapt joyfully into the water, practicing back flips and cannonballs. These were shepherds of Bethlehem, elected to be the only other witnesses of a special moment marked with highlighter on the celestial docket even before Matt was born; a significant moment, this day. A heavenly host was on its feet. In the distance we heard the rattle of drums; coincidentally, it was also Nicaraguan Independence Day.
As his mother's husband of two years; I could never take his father's place. I knew Matt was reaching out to me, creating a position of honor in a relationship that was trying awkwardly to wiggle its way into a sense of belonging to one another. Since his Dad had cared particularly for Onofre, Matt wanted him to be in on this also. But Onofre was a Moravian, a sprinkler, and not entirely comfortable with this emersion thing, even though he himself had been baptized in the Jordan River a few years ago. THE Jordan River. After I read from Romans 6 and explained the meaning of baptism to the naked boys and the rest of us who had gathered around, I asked Onofre to officiate the actual rite. I would merely be extra muscle when we submerged Matt under the water and brought him out again. Matt, his voice shaky, expressed that he didn't claim to understand everything, but he was determined to take this step. Bathed in stippled afternoon sunlight, each of us carried our own private insecurities down into the pool, convinced that God would be glorified in our obedience.
There was no dove hovering overhead or any other visible sign as we submerged Matt's head beneath the water and brought it out again; only the sunlit spray produced by gleeful boys jumping off the bank with tucked knees. We were about to wade back to the embankment when Sonia, Onofre's wife and organist in the Moravian Church of Waspam, stood up.
"Wait, wait," she cried, "I need to get baptized too."
We continued shoreward, unsure of what she meant, but Sonia, fully clothed in her church garb, made her way down the bank and into the water. Onofre and I baptized her in Pialis pool that afternoon.
Back on solid ground, Sonia soaking wet turned to Nutie and confided, "Now I am ready for anything. Anything the Lord asks of me."
Nine days later, a shotgun in Crisler's brother-in-law's hands mysteriously went off, killing instantly. The entire work crew of six relatives fled the camp, leaving Crisler lying face down in a rice paddy. At that moment, Sonia, full of zeal, was singing the old hymns in San Alberto, a village several hours upriver.
3. A Wake And A Half
The wake went two days and two nights. Crisler died on Saturday and was buried on Monday, his casket being carried the mile from the church to the cemetery on the shoulders of his Waspam All-Star FC comrades, all dressed in cleats and blue & white uniforms.
A drenching rain began Saturday afternoon and the people were saying "Dawan nakra laya," the tears of God. By nightfall the ground was soaked beyond the saturation point. I went over to Onofre's late in the afternoon. The grass in the yard was already trampled beneath mud the consistency of brown paint. Some twenty people busied themselves, setting up pole tents emblazoned with the Toña Beer logo, and plunking church pews down in the shelter they provided. Shallow drainage ditches had been dug, but their only function was as obstacles to the thru-traffic of bicycles; mud was everywhere and those carrying the heavy pews had to be careful not to sprain an ankle by stepping into these ditches.
As luck would have it, Arnulfo the cabinetmaker had made a fine mahogany casket for the family of an elderly man who wasn't quite dead yet, so it was expropriated with permission and taken to the hospital where the body was being prepared. A tricked out jeep belonging to the mayor's son appeared outside, fog lights ablaze, the coffin lifted up and carried into the house where it was set on a bed frame in a living room which had been cleared of everything else but the photographs that hung on the walls. Plastic chairs, also on loan from three different churches, were brought in. Several of the local pastors came--Elvis from the Assemblies of God and Francis from Maranatha, and then there were a couple of elders of the Moravians. Elvis was kin to Onofre somehow, so he led a prayer for the family around the casket, and the wake was officially inaugurated.
I told Onofre that I would return after supper.
"Did you get in touch with Sonia?"
"I sent a skiff up to bring her back," he said. "I'm heading down to the landing to see if they're coming in."
"Does she know?"
"I'm not sure. They wouldn't be telling her right away. Her heart ... Are you going to bring Nutie?" he asked.
"I think so. She doesn't ever go out at night, but I will talk to her." I reached into my pocket and pulled out three hundred Cordobas. "Here's something for coffee and sugar. If there's anything else you need..."
After supper, the rain intensified. It fell down in the still air with a peculiar heaviness, as though earth's gravity had increased on account of all the sorrow in the world.
"I have to go," I said to Nutie.
Nutie looked troubled. "Is it going to be all night?"
"It will probably go on all night tonight and tomorrow night as well," I said. "Tomorrow's Sunday. They won't bury him till Monday. Some of his brothers have to come from Managua, and Sonia's in San Alberto at the retreat. She probably doesn't even know yet."
"I really don't like going out at night. I don't do well at night."
"You don't have to go, darling. I have to go. It'll be okay. I will represent us."
I knew the importance people here give to wakes. Preachers say you can tell the end of the world is at hand because love has grown cold and if you want proof just look and see how many people stay home when someone dies. They don't consider the possibility that urbanization--the fact that Waspam has tripled in size in the last ten years--might have anything to do with it, no, it's the end of the world and people don't care. Love is when the community stays up all night with the family of the deceased, the ladies with crocheted white doilies bobby-pinned to their heads singing hymns around the casket, the men playing cards and telling jokes on the front lawn while preachers in black pants line up on the steps, each one awaiting his chance to call them to repentance. It feels a little strange to foreigners, perhaps, but here this is solidarity. This is the way I had always imagined it was going to be for me also when my time came, but Nutie says if I were to die the last thing she would want is for a swarm of people to come over and not leave for two days. In my new season of life with Nutie I hadn't been to a single wake; the Miskito in me felt like an apostate. This was silly because I'm not Miskito, right? I have an American wife now, who expends incredible amounts of energy in the daytime being present, caring for people, but wilts after 8:00 at night. So I always stay home, defer to her, but tonight I must lead. This was Onofre's son. We were too close not to even show up. It meant too much to them.
"Darling, it's okay, really. I will explain to them. It's dangerous to go out at night."
I knew it would be hard to explain but they would give her grace because she's American. I didn't have the heart to tell her she ought to come along, but I was doing such a bad job of hiding it that Nutie was more conflicted than I was.
"Is it going to continue raining?"
"I believe so."
"I guess I should go. But I'm not going to be able to stay all night."
"I can borrow the truck and come get you," I said eagerly. "We can stay as long as you want. I’ll leave my bike at Truman's so when I return the truck I can go back to the wake and come home whenever."
"Okay darling. Do I need to wear a black dress?"
"Everyone will be wearing black. They're Moravians."
By the time I arrived at Truman's to ask for the truck, he was already bathing and getting ready for bed.
"The keys are in the truck," said Mirna.
"Thanks. We won't be too late."
Mirna usually stayed up, but she never left the house, so I wasn't surprised that she wouldn't be out paying her respects. I fought with myself about her husband, however. Truman was the leader of the project; he should at least show up and say something, shouldn't he? Nevertheless, it was just like every other night at the Cunningham household. Women and girls busy putting babies to bed, ironing and folding clothes, doing homework, the TV on and no one watching, an auntie from downriver--his mother's sister--sitting motionless on the porch staring out at the night and the rain. Russel, a nephew from downriver, student and night watchman, was on duty in a broken plastic chair under the eaves of the enormous house. Truman was the reason this house existed; he was the patriarch of all the life that went on inside of it, and now he was in the bathhouse, sick, scooping water turned green by bitter herbs out of a bucket and pouring it over his head. That afternoon he had dispatched Carlos, his son-in-law and chauffeur, to borrow pews from three different churches in his name and oversee their safe transfer to the place of grieving. He probably sent some money also to take care of whatever little detail. What did I know, and who was I to judge? As concerning me, my body needed to be present with Onofre and Sonia. I kept imagining what it would be like if it had happened to one of my children. I would be beside myself with grief.
I was not good with words on these kinds of occasions--back home people stood in a line cafeteria-style at the funeral parlor and shook hands with the family of the deceased as they passed, a hundred of them, one-by-one, each saying "Sorry for your loss, sorry for you loss," as though they had memorized the line from a section entitled "For Wakes and Funerals" in the Catholic Missal.
As I turned the keys in the ignition of the Toyota I practiced the words in Spanish, "Mis pésames por tu pérdida." It sounded stiff, cold in my ears, and I resolved not to say that. In Miskito there was no formula. You could express your condolences by giving money toward expenses or simply playing dominoes on the front lawn. What counted was your presence, making a statement that you stood with your friends in their hour of grief. Some day it would be your turn, and then all would know how many friends you had.
I was glad that Nutie had agreed to go with me. I knew she would. Not only would she be present, she would have words, kisses, long tender hugs and real tears unmanufactured that would be remembered by those who needed them most. She didn't speak great Spanish or much Miskito at all, but she was expert at communicating with whatever language at her command the contents of her heart; and these contents were thoughts of gold refined in the fire of her own woe, crafted by the Holy Spirit into delicate lockets of language containing images of beings beloved but broken, yet taken at their most flattering angles and in an exquisite light. It didn't matter that, stepping down from the Toyota into darkness at the closed gate to our property I fell directly into a five foot hole someone had dug some years ago, whose opening had grown over with a thick mat of sensitive plants. My back wrenched and my knee hyperextended, I waited five minutes for the pain to subside, suppressing an urge to cry out, until finally I placed my hands palms down on the pricker bushes and hauled myself out.
"Nutie," I called from the door, "the truck's outside."
Crisler, his wife, and two young children lived with Onofre and Sonia. Funeral parlors don't exist in a Miskito community; the wake was to be held in the home of the deceased, a wood frame house that sits upon elevated posts on the corner of two unnamed streets, one of which I call Waterfront. It used to be the center of commerce in Waspam before the war. It runs along the high bluff over the river for three short blocks until it reaches Onofre's; there it abruptly ends and you have to either turn left or head straight into a gasoline station owned by an alleged drug lord from Honduras. Onofre's house itself, set back in a half acre lot, is really two buildings, a kitchen and a living quarters, connected by an ample L-shaped porch in such a manner that it becomes ambivalent which of the two streets it actually faces. You may enter his property through gates on both sides of the corner. There is another outbuilding built up against the street that heads away from the river. Before the war, it had been a store; now it is more lucrative to rent a stall in the Waspam market. From the street, it looks boarded up and unoccupied, but Onofre and Sonia have made it into their bedroom, having made way in the main house for their grown children and grandchildren living at home.
This night there were vehicles–mostly motorcycles and trucks with decals of donating institutions on the door–lined up for a block each way around the corner. Nutie, Whitney, and I parked at the gas station across the street. For all the trucks, there weren't anywhere near the amount of mourners I had expected. The benches under tents shedding rivulets of rain onto the yard were only half occupied. Was it because of the end times as people said, or because of the nasty weather and the fact that news of the accident was still getting out? Onofre and Sonia had two sons in Managua, and the flight had left the Managua airport by the time anyone in Waspam had even found out about the tragedy. A son and a daughter who live in Bilwi, and many more, were still on their way. I inquired whether Sonia had come back from San Alberto. Someone motioned with her head toward the house. I led the way up the steps, trying to mask the pain in my back and my knee as I lifted my leg over the home-made child-proof gate at the top. Since all Sonia's children were grown, these crossbars could only have been put there to contain Crisler's two boys, the toddler and the other, soon-to-be toddler.
A crowd solemnly milling shoulder to shoulder on the porch and in the parlor of the main house, the movement of a herd endeavoring to keep dry. We didn't want to jostle people, so our advancement was difficult, but we slowly pressed forward till we were inside. There, beside the head of the coffin, sat Sonia, slumped against the wall in a formless black dress. I couldn't tell if her eyes were closed or whether she was merely staring blankly at the floor. In the midst of so many, she was absolutely alone. Nutie went straight to her, crouched, held her forearms, and looked fixedly at her; Sonia lifted her eyes to meet her gaze. They embraced. Shortly Nutie was rubbing her arms, then moved around in back of her and begin massaging her neck and shoulders.
"I know I told God that I was ready for anything," Sonia said sorrowfully, "but not ready for Him to take my son. My beautiful son. I was not ready for this at all!" She sobbed freely, collapsing into Nutie's arms.
I took a cursory look around for Onofre but couldn't find him. Suddenly, a young man who had been leaning against the wall lurched forward and fell heavily on the floor close to where Sonia was sitting. At first I thought he was drunk, but then I saw that his body was convulsing violently in the throes of an epileptic seizure. Several other young men immediately rushed to his assistance. I was also there in a flash; I placed my hand behind his head to keep him from hitting it on the floorboards. Others attempted to straighten his clenched fists. His friends began to slap him lightly in the face and pour handfuls of water over it. They were used to this; obviously it wasn't the first time they had seen him this way. "Lasa prukan," I heard some lady say with a gasp. A demon has struck him.
My mind was racing. In the Miskito worldview disease is spiritual: here with bodies singing, swaying, and swooning in the presence of a dead person all things spiritual were heightened. My imaginary American physician, a glib, sallow-faced Johns Hopkins graduate, standing 6' 3" in a white coat, would say that stress, the anxiety associated with grief, had triggered an episode of a common physical ailment and ... I didn't know what a doctor would do ... administer some kind of drug? Phenobarbitals? I used to take them to get high as a teenager. I had no idea whether a demon was involved with this or not, nor was I certain of the proper first aid. I was not prepared. I had heard that one should make sure the victim does not swallow his tongue, but this guy's mouth was clamped shut; I could not tell if he was swallowing his tongue or not. He was breathing. The boy from whom Jesus cast out an unclean spirit as He came down from the mount of transfiguration had manifested all the clinical symptoms of epilepsy, but the omniscient Jesus didn't gather everyone around and explain, "Hey, listen up, this here is a classic example of gran mal seizure; western medicine is going to discover this in about 2,000 years"; no, He just cast the demon out of him. So I prayed and blindly cast out any evil thing that might have been hanging around, my faith being in God's ability to handle the unseen, I did not require the victim to expel phlegm like the proper Pentecostal pastors do. I just wanted to be real; I longed for knowledge of the truth.
The guy remained unconscious, but the twitching gradually slowed down and came to a halt, like Bugs Bunny faking death when he gets shot by Elmer Fudd. It seemed the seizure was running its normal course. I didn’t assume it was on account of my prayer. I helped carry the man outside, propped him against a wall on the porch, and stayed with him until he opened his eyes. The beauty of a grateful smile was the only reassurance I needed that real ministry had taken place. In my own way, I also had to believe that the spiritual and the physical were intertwined.
Onofre felt himself getting dizzy with all the people swirling around and shut himself in his bungalow. He needed to take a minute to deal with the storm inside. It was HE. He had been the one to convince Crisler to put in a rice crop this year because of increases in the cost of living. It turned out to be an excellent crop––ten acres split between four, five, and six month varieties––but the end of it was not gain but indescribable loss. Before him now were countless dirty sacks of grain, piled up against the wall in the kitchen and in the main house and in the bungalow; then there still was whatever was left out in the field, because Crisler hadn't gotten a chance to finish. Let it rot. That which had been gathered in, the family would eat up in four or five months. The rats would take their portion. Is this what Crisler gave his life for? Why had he insisted? Over and over, Onofre reviewed the events of the day. The six brothers-in-law had all fled, each to his own home, and the father-in-law eventually took it upon himself to inform him about the accident. Finally, Onofre had to round up a group of his own family to recover the body and bring it in out of the rain.
In the meantime, two versions of the slaying had begun to make their way around town. The initial details concurred: It had happened around 10:30 in the morning, when Crisler, having shot a pair of ducks, came back to camp in order to dress them and prepare the noon meal. He unloaded the Remmington twelve gage pump action shotgun, leaned it against a rough work table, and proceeded to build a fire on the ground, over which he began singeing and plucking feathers. It was drizzling. When the brothers came in from threshing rice, the eldest of them asked if he could borrow the gun after lunch if the weather held. Promising to pay him back for it later, he slipped one shot back into the magazine. Sometime later the youngest brother, twenty years of age, picked it up and was handling it. It went off. It was an accident.
There the stories diverged. The way the father-in-law told it, the unlucky perpetrator had picked up the gun simply to remove it from the place where he wanted to sit. He grabbed it by the slide bar and when he set it down again it just went off. There were questions with that accounting, however. Setting the gun down while holding onto the slide bar might load the shot into position but how did that activate the trigger? And if the gun went off that way, pointing upward, how did it deal the fatal blow, since Crisler was crouching on his haunches over the fire?
The second story, coming apparently from one of the other brothers, was that Crisler had warned the boy, saying, "Hey, put that down. That's a man's gun." Initially he complied, but later curiosity got the better of him, or was it rancor on account of the insinuation that he wasn't man enough for the gun? No matter, he'd taken it back up in his hands. Pumping, his finger inadvertently squeezed the trigger. The gun had gone off pointed slightly downward, point blank, spewing angry pellets which tore the flesh from the neck upward to the side of Crisler's face.
Onofre visualized that version, he could see that one clearly. Again and again, he imagined his son reacting with catlike quickness, leaping out of the way just as the gun went off. He wished he could create some kind of alternate ending. Maybe if Crisler had spoken with a sterner tone, if he hadn't tried to be so nice about it, if he had only told the other brother he didn't lend his gun to anyone. No, it had happened just as told in the second version, the bootleg version, and not the way the father-in-law had said. He was covering up the extent of the boy's foolishness and disobedience. It was hard enough to forgive the reality of what had happened, but now he was being required to forgive deceit also; and cowardice of the young man who'd killed his son and run away. He almost wished it had been malicious, if there had been animosity between Crisler and his in-laws he could unite his heart with righteous indignation; but it was certainly an accident, a stupid, ignorant, foolish accident, and his thoughts had nowhere to go. Why, God? Oh, dear God! Help me.
Onofre stood up abruptly and walked out into the yard, slamming the door of the bungalow behind him.
I found him out in the back, attending to details. Holding down the grief in his gut with everything he had, he was standing in the rain in back of the house, looking at a bare spot on the ground where a fire could be made to cook coffee, cowboy style. Presently two men appeared, carrying some pieces of metal roofing. I stood with him as he directed them to erect a frame of saplings, then instructed them to lash the metal roofing to it with rope so as not to punch what would become drip holes in the material that would eventually cover his house.
"He was the one who was closest to me," Onofre began. "He was the most obedient one, the one who always wanted to learn."
He told me how Crisler had excelled, even among other brothers and sisters who had gone to the university, and had obtained a specialized degree in rural development, which he continued to apply as a key employee of the Waspam city government until this very morning.
"He was in his office just yesterday," Onofre added ruefully. We started back inside. I noticed that he took care not to get his shoes muddy and I took it as a good sign.
On the wall in the parlor there was a portrait of Onofre as I had first known him twenty-five years ago while directing a development project in Honduras, before either of us had known the Lord. He was handsome, seemed quite a bit taller then. I reflected on our journey. Of some twenty employees at Sani Radio, the first indigenous radio station in the Honduran Mosquitia, Onofre, the refugee, was the one I could rely on most. Every morning we wrote scripts together, and in the afternoon we recorded them. That was our production rhythm. I had no one else who could keep up. We had made history; like lines to a favorite movie, Miskito people everywhere could still quote, "Man sin wabul dih pauram" and other excepts from 30 second spots fomenting cultural pride which we had made back in 1986. Onofre was the voice of Masa Alan, a Miskito student in the capital city who pretends not to be Miskito when a childhood companion from his village encounters him on a bus. I was the voice of the boy who collected fares. We left the radio station in 1988 and didn't see each other again for 20 years. When finally we did meet again I hardly recognized him; he looked really old. It was crazy but we had to warm up to each other. He was now a minister in the old line Moravian Church, having embraced all its traditions, liturgy, germanic hymns, and dress code. I believed in whacky miracles, paced the floor when I prayed, for worship I liked Phil Wickham, and I wore the most comfortable thing I could get away with. We had been friends; all of a sudden we were brethren, strange bedfellows in ministry together. Gradually, however, I observed the qualities I had always admired in him: his steadfastness, commitment, work ethic, and faithfulness. These attributes shined more brightly now, polished by the desire to please God, and were being employed in labors with eternal purpose. Now, of all our partners in Seek The Lamb, it was Onofre who always accompanied us when we observed teachers' classes or went house to house visiting students' families. In his church, he was the one they could entrust with unglamorous work like keeping track of finances in their harvest festivals or teaching catechism to candidates for confirmation. Diligently checking every scripture in his trusty Matthew Henry commentary, he paid his own air time and taught God's word twice a week from the pulpit of the local radio station in a straightforward style refreshingly different than the stadium preacher groove affected by everyone else. Onofre had proven himself to be a steady, dependable guy with secret skills ... he knew things like refrigeration and diesel motor repair. But tonight he was just a grieving father trying to keep it together; the man in the photograph was a long time ago.
Carlos, Simeón, and the band from Sangre De Cristo arrived. They considered it their calling from God to play at wakes and funerals, and they came this evening toting their guitars, their accordion, and bajo. People made way. Promptly they began playing their own compositions mixed with hymns from the Moravian hymnal all in the same, monotonous norteño style.
Jisas pat aula
Jisas pat aula
Dia pali bila kaikisma ki?
Jesus is coming,
Jesus is coming,
What in the world are you waiting for?
Over by the back door there was one unoccupied plastic chair. There were three of us; Nutie knew that I was hurting from having fallen into the well, and insisted that I sit in it. From across the crowded room, Onofre saw her standing. He disappeared behind a curtained doorway and shortly emerged carrying a chair. He set it down beside her and then returned to his place beside Sonia, stopping to look into the little window on the lid of the coffin and lay his hand gently on the pane of glass.
"I can't believe it," exclaimed Nutie, "that he would be so attentive to me at this hour."
I got up and went into the kitchen. "Do you have any spoons?" I asked. Surprisingly, there were no spoons at all to be found in the kitchen; almost everything had been taken down and put away. When you open your house to the public––even for a solemn occasion such as this––you must take precautions; otherwise you will have nothing left. Thieves don't even respect the dead. I did find a homemade coconut grater. It was a small piece of metal roofing punched through a hundred times and fastened to a wooden frame. On a ledge there was a short piece of half-inch rebar to strike it with. I took my musical instrument with me back to the parlor. Striking a merengue rhythm, un-dos-tres, un-dos-tres, I got lost in my little groove; I did not have to think. I don't know how much time elapsed. Finally Nutie nudged me.
"Do you want to go home now?" she asked. "I think Whitney is about saturated with the experience. She's ready to go."
I looked over at Whitney. She was sitting quietly, her eyes wide. I made a perfunctory diagnosis: saturated, but not stressing. She was doing pretty well, considering she understood no Miskito and the only Spanish words she knew so far were "lo siento" which she had been taught to employ when boys said "Ai loave you." Nevertheless, it was time to go.
The following night I went to the wake alone. The weather had cleared up and at least twice as many people were present. It was a proper velorio now, more like a party, the benches beneath the pole tents full of jolly mourners talking, joking, playing cards. Whereas on Saturday they had served only coffee and fried bread, now a full kitchen had been set up outside, and Isabel––not family to Sonia, rather a sister in the Lord, best friend and stall neighbor in the market––was busy cooking a huge pot of beans. I spied Truman’s son Gaspar in the crowd, eyes scanning from side to side as he moved forward; he was cruising in his little Che berret. Another man, inebriated beyond repair, stood with a plate of food tilted precariously, his free hand flailing in the air as he cursed indiscriminately at the crowd, which responded by alternately taunting and pleading with him to sit down until two men finally grabbed him by each arm and slammed him down on a bench. Food dropped to the ground and two mongrel dogs rapidly moved into position, growling at each other and gnashing their teeth.
“Hey,” the man protested, his mouth pressed to the pine. He began to cry. “You’re not letting me. I’m just trying to eat my food and you spilled it all over.” Several in the crowd burst into raucous laughter.
I sat on the porch with Onofre, silently viewing the spectacle. I wondered what he was thinking. This is how it is in a Miskito wake. Did it help him take his mind off his grief?
A man stumbled up to us. “Tío,” he slurred.
“Hola sobrino.”
“Don’t fight against God,” he admonished. He looked as though he were staring at a plate of glass in front of Onofre’s face. His eyes were glazed. “It’s all God,” he blurted. “God is everything.”
“Thank you,” Onofre said patiently. “I’m okay.”
The night wore on and the crowd slowly thinned. Around eleven o’clock the news came back that Professor Polo, Onofre’s older brother who had helped put Crisler through school, had gotten mugged when he went into town to buy minutes for his cell phone. A group of kids had come up from behind––slugged him––and taken his phone and his wallet to boot. Another man had been roughed up also after he had left the wake, a tall, balding male nurse who sang in the Moravian choir. Around midnight I walked my bicycle out toward the street, preparing to head home. A group of ex-combatientes from the contra war, standing in a circle talking about these incidents, blocked my path. I wanted to hear what they were saying about it, but they quieted abruptly.
“You going home like that by yourself?” they asked. “You had better leave your bike here and take a taxi.”
“Why does everyone always exaggerate the danger?” I asked.
“It’s real,” one of them said. “Times have changed.”
“Well, I am also an ex-combatiente,” I said, arousing in them not a little bemused laughter. “Excuse me.”
I hopped on my bike and as I pedaled swiftly, soberly if not apprehensively into the darkness, I could hear the refrains of the Grupo Sangre de Cristo:
Jesus is coming,
Jesus is coming,
What in the world are you waiting for?
(To be continued)
