The Celestial Instructi0n by Grady Ward Page B

sharpen a pencil stub with his teeth, sucking and
spinning the stub in his mouth until he could make the necessary marks on the
time and receipt sheets stamped on lined notebook paper. He would say “Shoo!
Shoo!” to Sam to get him up and moving among the computers. Later, Anna would
stop by with her giant thermos of groundnut stew and handfuls of groundnuts
that she would twist into paper to sell as snacks to the customers. Anna had once
addressed Sam’s sex during a couple of minutes they had been alone among the
computers with a hot torrential rain outside drumming on the corrugated roof;
Sam enjoyed the fleeting release, but he could not stand the smell of her mouth
or even the short time away from his machines. Anna, too, placed no
significance to the act; it was simply a diversion from twisting the groundnuts
and shepherding the coins that she took back to her elderly mother at night. At
least she didn’t pretend anguish like the rent-girls outside.
    Beyond maintaining the generator with oil and
fetching the yellowing jerry can to purchase the gasoline from the waiting boys
with their rubber hoses and rows of 50 liter casks lining the street outside, Sam’s
job included fetching the water for customers while they used the old computers
scattered haphazardly throughout the café. He also had to maintain the router
and switches, telephone using Milton Kono’s ancient mobile to nag the
technicians when the connection to Sierra Tel failed. He stayed well away from
Boss Farid when he would visit the café to take the money and to shout at
whomever he could.
    Sam did not blame Cousin Siloi for the demand for Sam’s
money, or Sam’s beatings. It was the structure of survival in Freetown and the
tribe. In a world where there is no government to speak of, maximum untrammeled
free enterprise, private militias and threat of war, in exchange for the right
to survive under the protection of a relative was the obligation to give that
relative everything, even one’s life, if required. The notion that an
individual had personal rights of any kind was a white man’s notion for the
rich countries as France or Britain. Here, the Boss—whether crazy or criminal—was
the Boss. To run away from his cousin’s compound was disloyal not only to his
cousin but to family in the bush and to his entire tribe. Sam hoped that the
rackets that Cousin Robert was engaged in would consume his time, force him to
neglect, and eventually forget to punish Sam, if Sam could be found. But as
long as he stayed in Freetown Sam was at risk. The thousands of idle hands and
eyes that wandered through the city would surely notice him even as they
brushed the thirsty flies away from the corners of their eyes.
    However, for Sam to leave Freetown was impossible.
Sierra Leone had been at civil war when the Trans-African optical cable was
laid twenty miles off the coast. Without a government to negotiate the terms,
no undersea cable fibrehead for the country had been agreed upon or built.
Other than the satellite dishes erected by the foreign NGOs to report their
good works to their benefactors at home, the entire country’s internet traffic
was routed through the ancient tiny bandwidth wired telephone system. In
Freetown, Sierra Tel failed several times a day. Often it was dead more than it
was alive. In the city of Bo it was worse. Worse still in Kenema, deep in the
bush. Even if Sam had a passport and money, he had heard that there was active
fighting in Liberia. And he couldn’t afford the Guinea bribes to overcome the
problem of his age.
    So the Datatel Internet Café near Fisher Lane was
Sam’s new home. Of course, Sam could give up the Internet and carry a machete
like one of the Boss’ boys. He was wiry and thin and could be a thief who could
scale the walls topped with broken glass and quietly elude the sleepy guards
sharing a glowing cigarette in the warm night, noisy with insects. Machete boys
always got enough to eat and occasionally some