Heifer, Milk & Mango

"Heifer, Milk & Mango" by Stan J Wild

Issue 3.11 | Fiction

Cover Art: L. Erickson

In hot Haiti sun, on the NGO compound at rue Pelican, Boy scrambles up the bark. Through mango tree leaves, illuminated lime green, in his fluorescent cocoon for one, he lays pressed to timber slats of the forgotten treehouse of 2010.

Dutch, cartographer—50 tomorrow—widower, has his new beloved goat now, which Boy watches eagle-eyed in his absence. It’s tied to a steel barrel with rope and whimpering, chastised by Chef for something, and waiting to die: she will not die, says Boy.

Lizards appear along branches—flank Boy, their chins undulating, and eyes askance at him—but he remains flat and still, the new goat forever in his sight: she will not die.

Then as light dims, as insects bite, and air cools, the electric glow clicks on at hole-in-the-wall, which Chef drilled one duplicitous night out her yard wall, backing on to the compound, and traded Pall-Mall, Barboncourt and breakfast from by morning light.

She appeared—brick-framed—in the compound wall, mortared at the edges; her cauldron cooking mayi-moulen, serving up akasan and coffee, smells seeping out across the compound, through the zip-teeth at tents before wake-up, selling Pall-Mall before first morning smokes.

Grann’s Pelican Shack, rue Pelican, failed by the next moon like the Pelican up and flew, shadow cast across the craters. So, Boy watches Goat for Dutch’s dollar since Boy has bellies to feed, all swollen since his Grann’s heart stopped from competition from her old friend, Chef.

Goat bleats, and rain comes; then Dutch appears, home from mapping, clambers halfway up the tree, shovel pawed and stringy haired, shines his torch between fruit and leaves, says, all good, Boy?, gives Boy a container of bean stew from hole-in-the-wall.

Boy sees Chef too, with her monopoly on the Pall-Mall and Barboncourt now: sees the dollar swallowed into her hole-in-the-wall, which should have been his Grann’s: matriarch of swelling bellies, dead herself and buried and in an unmarked hole-in-the-ground.

—

Dutch comforts new Goat, like he did the last—he walked its predecessor about Clercine and Cite de Soleil on a lead since he’s lonely, since his wife died, since he’s a million miles from home; fed her from his palm, named her: then, unknowingly, he ate her.

Dutch was mapping Montagne Noire when pirates blockaded rue Pelican; they prickled Galil, Glock, and Uzi from their 4by4s, so then there was just the hole-in-the-wall.

Chef said, “needs must,” since nobody came in nor out the compound then without pirate tax due; she slit old goat’s throat, skinned her, hanged her to dry then took a premium price for curry-goat, grilled-goat, creole-goat for weeks from her hole-in-the-wall.

Dutch was spent from mapping and the blockade on his return, stung by pirate tax, and ate the first thing he saw from the hole-in-the-wall; he never knew it was his goat until too late, and was grief stricken.

—

Dutch takes the rope from new Goat’s throat now and she is free, then right up on the bench beside him. Then she’s on the table, tap-dancing and bleating under moonlight with a million mosquito silhouettes and bites.

Dutch, smokes on his Pall-Mall, rum scented; his head is in Goat’s coat and he’s smitten, petting and scratching at her throat and beard as midnight strikes and Dutch colleagues say Gelukkige verjaardag! and sing, and now Dutch has something to love again.

Chef’s eyes are on Goat from her hole-in-the-wall: her cauldron bubbling like before, pinprick eyes and waiting, fingers drumming—small to thumb—at her counter.

Chef knows customer is not always right; she has wisdom in her pinprick eyes.

Chef knows voodoo too; she said man can become a cow at a click, said ask them at Marché de Fer where she left merchants aghast, amongst rows of trestle tables, and just a cow left behind where once was the man that wronged her.

Boy knows it too: he sees what Chef can do; she threatened it, with a wink, when NGO folk laughed at her ways, when she coveted a neighbor’s things, when wronged. She winks, her pink palm buttressing rolls of chin where she sits behind her hole-in-the-wall.

When she takes that blade tonight and it glints by the moon, Goat will be long gone; bundled on Boy’s shoulder—tender as Dutch commanded it—heaved to that cocoon for one, now for two, tended ’til daybreak when Dutch will pay and swollen bellies will gorge once more.

Just one more night to bewitch her: Boy, Goat, and Dutch who swore not a morsel more goat would be shoveled into her polystyrene, which you see discarded and kissing coastline from space.

—

Dutch is gorging on mayi moulen, supping on akasan at morning light, his coach just hours away—Jacmel for a 50^th sojourn, and taking Goat to safe pasture.

Boy becomes cow at a click, Chef says, clicking and clearing breakfast dishes all the while.

She is back at the hole-in-the-wall already when the branch creaks; she says: Bòn Fèt like nothing happened and they—NGO folk—turn to her in her darkness, in the shadow of her hole.

Someone says they hear breathing, almost bovine. Then there is the bleat, the creak, the crack. Dutch looks up as the timber slats of the forgotten treehouse give, mouth agape, udders descending, an almighty moo, and death by heifer, milk and mango.

Goat—ensconced by cow—scampers off, just bleating, and watches as they flip the heifer with broken limbs, which winces but with eyes on Goat like to moo: you will not die. Dead Dutch’s bones crunch as relieved of heifer weight; there’s a moo and Goat bleats.

Chef takes her chalk, writes: Tonight – Dutch Beef and Mango Milk across the board at her shutters and sits behind her hole-in-the-wall. There’s a moo, and Goat bleats.

—

Stan J Wild is a new British writer. He has appeared in Vestal Review, Hinterland, Neon & Smoke, and others. He has two young sons, two old dogs, and works in the NGO sector.