Kamby Bolongo Mean River Read online

  KAMBY BOLONGO MEAN RIVER

  by Robert Lopez

  Dzanc Books

  1334 Woodbourne Street

  Westland, MI 48186

  www.dzancbooks.org

  Copyright © 2009, Text by Robert Lopez

  All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Dzanc Books - 1334 Woodbourne Street, Westland, MI 48186

  Portions of this book have appeared in New York Tyrant, Unsaid, and Willow Springs.

  Published 2009 by Dzanc Books

  Book design by Steven Seighman

  eBook design by Steven Seighman and Matt Bell

  06 07 08 09 10 11 5 4 3 2 1

  First edition September 2009

  Print ISBN-13: 978-0-9767177-6-8

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-9368734-2-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ALSO BY ROBERT LOPEZ:

  Part of the World

  Asunder

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Kamby Bolongo Mean River

  Acknowledgements

  Ebook Club

  KAMBY BOLONGO MEAN RIVER

  Should the phone ring I will answer it. I will say the hello how are you and wait for a response. I will listen to what the person on the other end says. I will listen to the words. Sometimes I don't listen. Sometimes I wait until the person finishes answering the hello how are you so I can say whatever it is I'd been saying to myself before the phone rang.

  What I say to myself usually starts with the hello how are you then I'm fine I have a headache I didn't sleep last night.

  I am fine means I do not have a headache. I cannot be fine and have a headache at the same time and I don't think anyone else can either. In this way I am like most people in this way I am like anyone. If I have a headache I am not fine and if I am not fine I probably didn't sleep last night.

  I was not born with a headache but I don't think I was born fine. Why I think this is because of what I heard Charlie and Mother talking about one day when we were children.

  Should the phone ring I will answer and the conversation will stop there. Saying I'm fine is no way to start a conversation or keep one going.

  What I am fine means is please stop talking.

  Should the phone ring I might let it keep ringing until the machine answers. This way I will not have to bother with listening or the words. Sometimes I have trouble with both. Sometimes I do good with the listening but forget the words and sometimes it's the other way around.

  The trouble is when I listen I don't listen for the words. I listen for what is between the words and behind them. The way you do this is to listen to how the voice sounds. If you concentrate on the words you lose the voice and the voice is always too important to lose. How the voice pronounces each word is probably the most important thing.

  The words themselves are important less than half the time.

  When I concentrate on the words I have trouble understanding what they mean. If I understand one word I don't understand the word that follows. I have trouble understanding what one word has to do with another.

  For instance I don't know what happy has to do with birthday or good with morning.

  What you have to do is understand how people use words and go from there.

  The trouble is some people use words one way but other people use those same words a different way altogether. My problem is I think about one word for too long. A caller will say a word like injury and I will think about the word injury for a minute or two and not hear the other words. I won't know who has the injury or why it matters. This always happens to me and this is why should the phone ring I might let it keep ringing until the machine answers.

  A word like injury can split your head open.

  Should the phone ring a decision will have to be made and this is always the case. And once one decision is made you have to make another right after it and your life becomes a series of decisions about the telephone and how to conduct yourself over it.

  Only answering machines can do listening and the words at the same time. This is why answering machines are the best things going. I don't know what life was like before answering machines or how people got along with themselves without them.

  The sound between words can be great or small or great and small at the same time.

  The sound between words can be troubling or comforting but almost never at the same time so this is probably beside the point.

  I think I have lived an entire life beside the point but even this is probably beside the point.

  This is why the sound between words is always better to listen to than the words themselves.

  Charlie and I were the children and Mother was the mother and this is how you can tell everyone apart.

  Also Charlie was older which meant he was responsible.

  Injury sounds like a place like Injury Alaska. Like the people of Injury Alaska fish and hunt and trade with their neighbors and the average lifespan of an Injured Alaskan is 58 years. This is what I think of when I hear a word like injury.

  Then I'll think about someone in a jury like judge and jury or a jury of your peers. I'll think about the ladies and gentlemen of the jury and the deliberation causing a hung jury. I have never myself been in a jury or on a jury and have never said a phrase like the jury is still out on that one. The jury is never out that long even when they have hung themselves.

  This is why it's always better to listen to the voice and leave the words alone.

  Not sleeping last night always gives me a headache but not the same as thinking about a word like injury. The not sleeping last night headache feels like when they give you too many pills.

  Mother would give me pills every morning when I woke and every night when I went to bed. She would spread them out in her hand so that they made different shapes. Her favorites were pill circles and squares. Sometimes the pill circles and squares were bigger or smaller depending on how many pills I needed at the time. I would take the pills one by one off Mother's hand and she would encourage me to make the circle or square disappear. When I was done she would say good boy and kiss my forehead and then tuck me in goodnight.

  The pills themselves were different sizes and shapes and colors. Mother never said which pill was which or what any of them were for.

  My favorites were the blue and pink ones. The blue one was a tiny oval and had the letter P carved into it. I used to wonder if that was someone's job to carve the letter P into the blue pills.

  The pink one was shaped like a submarine and had no letters carved into it. There were two lines across either the top or bottom depending on which end you swallowed first.

  I tried not to taste the pills but sometimes I couldn't help it.

  Sometimes I would choke on the pink ones and Mother would have to slap my back for me. She would slap me twice and I would either swallow the pill or spit it up and have to start over.

  She never had to do the Heimlich maneuver on me. She would say this she would say don't make me have to do the Heimlich maneuver on you.

  The pink ones were awful and if she ever had to do the Heimlich maneuver on me it was because of the pink ones.

  Not sleeping last night is another reason answering machines are the best things going. Whenever I didn't sleep last night I never answer the phone the next day. Maybe this would be different if there were no answering machines in the world but it's good we can thank God and never know.

  I will lay me down to sleep and e
verything is fine for a minute or two. My head on the pillow is fine and my body under the blankets is also fine.

  I always start off face up on my back and I look at the ceiling and tell myself I am tired and should go to sleep.

  I tell myself millions of people are falling asleep right now and I should be one of them.

  I will close my eyes and wait for myself to fall asleep and when nothing happens I tell myself I'm not sleeping again so now what.

  This is when I usually count the holes in the ceiling tile. I will count the holes in every tile to see which ones have the most holes.

  Mother said only certain kinds of people have trouble sleeping like musical geniuses and serial killers. Then she would say which one are you going to be and of course she was right.

  I like it best when I call someone and the answering machine answers. I like it how the phone keeps ringing with no one picking up and you wonder is someone going to pick up the phone. You wonder if no one is home and this is why the phone keeps ringing or if someone is home but doesn't feel like talking.

  There is nothing wrong with not wanting to talk because the person probably didn't sleep last night and has a headache.

  This is why we all should thank God for answering machines. We should thank God for inventing answering machines and allowing us to have them in our homes.

  God created answering machines the same way he created Alaska the same way he created dogs so that we as people wouldn't have to do it ourselves. We as people don't have the time to come up with something like an answering machine the same as Alaska.

  I like it when the phone keeps ringing and you hope the answering machine answers and you say to yourself please don't pick up the phone please don't pick up the phone and machine finally answers and you know it is the machine by the way the machine pauses before saying thank you for calling I am not home right now I have a headache but if you leave your name and number I might call you back soon.

  Should the phone ring I will ask the caller to identify themselves before I say the hello how are you. The machine can also do this but not with the same authority. This is not the machine's fault. The machine was not programmed to have this kind of authority. God knows if the machine has this kind of authority there would be even more trouble than there already is.

  Otherwise the machine is perfect and can do no wrong.

  Should the phone ring I will say please identify yourself like that. I will try to sound like a military policeman or security guard when I say please identify yourself because MPs and security guards speak with authority. I will say this right after I pick up the phone. I will not say who is calling please because I do not like the way that sounds. Another reason I will not say who is calling please is because a military policeman or security guard would never say who is calling please. Only people who are not military policemen or security guards would say something like this. How I present myself on the phone is important and saying something like who is calling please is not what I want to do with myself.

  When I have a headache it is hard for me to say please identify yourself the way a military policeman or security guard would.

  It is hard for me to sleep here too which is why I almost always have a headache now.

  I have not always wanted to sound like a military policeman or security guard. There were times I wanted to sound like a boxing trainer. I'm not sure why I would've wanted to sound like a boxing trainer other than to say I used to watch boxing on the television. I liked it how the fat trainers would stand outside the ropes and yell and scream at the boxer inside the ring. I liked it how they had a towel draped over their shoulder and would curse the referee.

  I've never boxed myself because it was too rough. I might get hurt. It was important when I was growing up that I not get hurt.

  Charlie and I would watch the boxing on television together Friday nights. Mother would be out of the house doing God knows what those Friday nights we watched boxing.

  Sometimes she would bring us home a dinner of sandwiches and coleslaw and whenever she did this we thanked her by eating all of it and not looking up.

  MPs and security guards get hurt sometimes but for them it is probably okay. For them it is part of the job. Only MPs and security guards can have a headache and be fine at the same time.

  I don't think I've ever known an MP or security guard but I have seen them on the TV. They are always handsome in their uniforms. Almost anyone is handsome in a uniform MPs and security guards especially.

  For me it is not okay to get hurt. I think if I were to get hurt I might die. No one ever said this to me out loud but I remember hearing Charlie and Mother talking about it. I was in my room and Charlie and Mother were in the kitchen talking about how I could die if I got hurt. They didn't say why I would die if I got hurt but Mother seemed especially concerned this would happen. The way she sounded it sounded like I could get hurt and die from eating an ice cream cone.

  I never asked Charlie or Mother why I would die if I got hurt because I don't think I was supposed to know. I think it was a secret between Charlie and Mother.

  Mother gave birth to Charlie and me and she would tell us this every few days.

  I think she thought we would forget if she didn't remind us.

  She would say I gave birth to you like that. Usually she would point at the two of us and move her finger back and forth when she said I gave birth to you. Charlie and I would agree with her by nodding and looking at the floor.

  This was probably the first time I couldn't understand what words had to do with each other.

  I could understand when Mother gave us a sandwich and coleslaw or gave me my pills because she made the sandwich and coleslaw herself or took the pills out of the box and made a pill circle or square for me.

  Mother said she went through hell to give birth to us. She said she was in labor for two days each time. She said it tore her insides out and that she was in horrible agony the whole time.

  What I remember was that it only took her a few minutes to make me a sandwich or give me my pills. This is why I think she was exaggerating about giving birth to us like that.

  This is also why whenever she said happy birthday to us I didn't believe her.

  I only heard Charlie and Mother talking about me getting hurt and dying that one time. I was sure they'd talked about it other times but not with me there to overhear them.

  Charlie himself was allowed to get hurt but Mother made Charlie promise to make sure I didn't. She told him he was responsible and that I was his responsibility.

  So far I have lived a whole life without getting hurt and then dying.

  This is where I should probably say thank you Charlie but why bother.

  Uniforms are always good and I have always enjoyed wearing uniforms whenever I was allowed to wear one. I got to wear a baseball uniform one summer because they let me join the team. I think I wanted to join the football team but I was told it was too rough which meant I might get hurt and die. I never saw anyone get hurt and die playing football. I saw players get hurt and carted off the field but none of them ever died I don't think.

  Why uniforms are good is this way you don't have to worry about what to wear yourself. For instance I like it now that I have a uniform and don't have to worry about what to wear every day. One less thing to worry about is something I've heard all kinds of people say.

  The uniform I wear now is comfortable but not as handsome as my old baseball uniform. My old baseball uniform was made from a fabric they call polyester. Polyester is the best fabric to make uniforms out of.

  The uniform I wear now is made from cotton which is not nearly as good to make uniforms out of as polyester is.

  Polyester is one of the great words and I never have any trouble with it.

  The only trouble with this uniform is I sweat too much in it. Everyday I sweat right through the uniform and they have to bring me a fresh one. I always sweat too much and when I sweat too much I chafe and when I chafe the insides o
f my thighs are rubbed raw.

  I tell them it's hard for me to walk around like this which is why they give me powder sometimes. They don't give me powder like Mother did because Mother knew how much I chafed too.

  It is hard to say which is better uniforms or answering machines.

  No one looks as handsome in a uniform as a military policeman or security guard. Baseball players don't even compare to MPs or security guards.

  The people who bring me powder are the same ones who bring the uniforms. I can't tell how many uniforms they have for me. Every three or four days they take my uniform and give me a different one. This different uniform looks exactly like the other one so they're not as different as you'd think. They are the same uniform only different versions.