Haiti’s Post Elections Waiting Game

Posted on December 8, 2010 by blackdiplomacy

I have to take everyone’s word for it, that all around me Haiti is burning.  Several of us attempted to get to work this morning, only to find blockades along the major roads and some of the backalleys.  Reports continued to stream in of protestors positioned in key locations for maximum visibility and, by extension, minimum mobility of traffic. For the moment, I’m housebound, and playing the waiting game.

It seems most of Haiti is playing the same game as well.  The crowds that I did see on my attempted route to work consisted of neither the normal melange of vendors and buyers, nor the reported clumps of violent protestors.  Instead, I saw Haitians waiting.  The local radio stations mimick the same tone.  Haitian journalists from around the country report widespread unrest, with an undertone of “what next?”

The results of the Haitian presidential election, announced late last night and only after the much less followed senate and deputy races, came as little surprise to many, but were nonetheless disagreeable to most. Former first lady Manigat came out on top, followed by Jude Celestin, who was a hairs width ahead of the much favored Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”), the former musician.  Therein lies the controversy.  Many Haitians believe that Manigat and Martelly are the two true winners of the presidential election, and should therefore move on to the second round of voting on January 16th.  Even Le Nouvelliste, one of the local papers, published a cartoon the day after election day of Manigat and Martelly dancing and singing “we made it to the second round!”

As it is, though, it seems only Manigat and Celestin will move forward.  It’s also worth mentioning that Celestin and the current prime minister are concomitant to the same political party. (If all this is confusing, NPR published an easy to follow, well-detailed article this morning.) At the same time, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) has not definitively said whether or not the top two or the top three will move on.  The U.S. Embassy and other international observers have already called the election results into question.  The tertiary candidate Martelly has yet to voice a response.  And, of course, there are still official dissent channels that can be utilized in order to challenge election results.  Thus, Haitians everywhere are waiting.

But it’s waiting in a manner like we are unused to in the United States.  Even right now, there’s a mass of protestors gathered outside the U.S. embassy, not because the group has any particular qualms against the U.S., but because that area, the road in front the embassy, is one of the most safe and secure in the area and will allow for demonstrations to take place without fear of injury or violence.  Although there are those who are taking the opportunity of Haitians’ frustrations to engage in violence, it seems the majority of Haitians are expressing themselves peacefully in large numbers in what many of us might adequately describe as civil disobedience.  It’s the same waiting I observed when, during election day, many Haitians faced frustration at the polls and were not able to vote right away.  They waited, frustrated, but patient (the photo above is actually a photo I took from such a scenario, with voters outside the gate waiting patiently for their opportunity to vote, despite logistical setbacks at the polls).

This is the way Haitians wait, and to be honest, it’s very dynamic.  It’s a waiting that demands a response, and demands to be acknowledged.  My hope is that this waiting, this coalesced mass of concerned voices from Haitians, is dutifully met with a response that allows the country to move forward as one.

Violent Protests Erupt in Port-au-Prince After Election Results Are Released

December 8, 2010 by Frank

The streets of Port-au-Prince are filled with violent protests tonight after the Provisional Electoral Committee (CEP) released the results of an election that has been fraught with allegations of widespread fraud and irregularities.  In a press conference at a concert hall in Petionville, CEP Spokesman, Richard Dumel, read the results as throngs of local reporters held their phones and voice recorders to speakers hanging from the ceiling.  There were 19 candidates for president, but only the top three received enough votes to be notable.  Here is the breakdown:

Mirlande Manigat – 31.37%

Jude Celestin – 22.48%

(Photo by Ben Depp)

Michel Joseph Martelly – 21.84%

The top two candidates, Manigat and Celestin, will now go on to a run-off that will take place on January 16th.  The reason why there are countless gunshots outside our complex, burning barricades in the streets, and loud explosions filling the night is because Michel Martelly will now be left out of the second round.  A heavy favorite amongst the people in Port-au-Prince, Martelly’s followers are now flooding the streets and protesting results that they claim are fraudulent.  Jude Celestin, who is backed by current President Rene Preval, has been accused of election fraud throughout the country, which makes this announcement that much harder to swallow for the Haitian people.  At one road-block that Ben came up to, they asked him for gasoline so they could light a truck on fire that the protesters had pulled into the street.  He said ‘no’, and they then threw rocks at him.  We passed the same road-block 10 minutes later, and they had, in fact, lit the truck on fire.

We then quickly drove towards our houses (we live almost next-door to each other), but as we were driving we passed by the market which had a large group of people congregated around it.  Amongst the protesters was a man who works with the CEP that I had met while getting my credentials.  I approached him and asked him how he was doing.  He explained that he was scared, and that he needed to get out of the market area.  “I have CEP on my back,” he explained, “these guys are going to kill me.”  He looked around nervously as he scarfed down some street food.  “They’re going to burn down the city,” he whispered, “this is not good.”

He explained that the people are unhappy with the results, and that they should be…as they were incorrect. “President Preval put pressure on us,” he explained, “we were forced to include Celestin in the second round.”  I was shocked, this man was clearly scared for his life, yet he was divulging this huge bomb of information that the President of Haiti forced one candidate out of the run-off, and inserted his own hand-picked candidate into his place.  “We kicked Martelly out of the race, and now the people are going to destroy the city,” he said.  I prodded further, asking him what the correct percentages were.  “Manigat had 39%, Martelly had 27%,” he said, “and Celestin had 15%.”  If these are, in fact, the correct results, then Michel Martelly has been cast aside from the second round of an election that he fairly won a chance to participate in.

The man had been abandoned by his colleagues at the CEP who had “escaped to the hills”, and he pleaded with us to give him a ride to his home in lower Delmas, which is not a good part of town (especially considering what was happening).  Things were quickly escalating, and the people around us were starting to give the man dirty looks and yelling angerly at him.  We told him to jump on the back of the motorcycle, “We need to get out of here, NOW,” Ben exclaimed as he started the bike.  We took the man down the street to an empty street corner and let him off, going any further would have been dangerous as ahead of us in the road was a newly started fire.  As we pulled away the man stood in the middle of the road, searching for somewhere to go, or someone to bring him to safety.  He had been abandoned by his co-workers, and now had to defend himself amongst his own people, all because of a decision the CEP was forced to make.

We went straight home, passing a barricade that a group of men were putting up at the entrance to our neighborhood.  Ben, graciously, allowed me to drive his motorcycle home, as the streets were no longer safe to walk on.  “If you’re going to go, go now,” he hastily said, “and don’t stop.”  Ben is a really level-headed guy, so when he says that it’s not safe you know it’s not safe.  I accelerated down the road towards my complex as a group of men were congregating in an alley ahead of me, and made it safety home as the sound of gunshots filled the air.

The following days are expected to be filled with more protests and, I’m assuming, an appeal by Martelly.  According to the man from the CEP, these results are final, and they will now just move on to the run-off, but I was also told that the final results would not be released until just before Christmas, and that these were just preliminary.  Either way the people here feel slighted, and are upset that yet another election has resulted in the same fraud that has permeated their government for decades.

Contests

Announcing the 2011 Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art Writing Contest

 

Calling all writers: On Wednesday, October 20th, Columbia will launch its 2011 contest in fiction, nonfiction and poetry!

 

We’re awarding up to $1,500 in prizes, plus publication in our forthcoming print journal. The top works in fiction will be judged by Robert Olen Butler (1993 Pulitzer Prize winner, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain), Jo Ann Beard in nonfiction (The Boys of My Youth), and Joanna Klink (Raptus) for poetry.

Judges will select a first-place winner from among the ten finalists in each genre. The finalists are chosen by Columbia Journal staff.

 

First-place winners in each genre will receive a $500 prize, and their work will be published in Issue 49 of the journal (Spring 2011). Winners and runners-up may be considered for publication on the journal’s website.

 

The deadline for entry is January 18, 2011. The entry fee is $12.

 

Contest submissions in fiction and nonfiction must be no longer than twenty double-spaced pages. Poets may send up to five individual poems for consideration, but they must be combined into a single document.

 

Please note: judges have discretion in selecting winners and may choose not to award a first-place prize. Judges also may request edits of winning works. The contest is not open to current Columbia University students or those who have graduated within the last five years.

 

 

Contests

15 YEARS OF LAUNCHING CAREERS

Literal Latté currently offers five — count ‘em, FIVE — annual writing contests. The deadline dates given below apply every year, so there’s always a contest just around the corner.

All entries will be considered for publication.

The current reading fee for all contest entries is US $10.00, and there are discounts for multiple entries. Make sure to read the guidelines below for detailed information.

All reading fees — payable by check or money order — should be made out to Literal Latté and mailed to:

Literal Latté Awards

 200 East 10th Street, Suite 240

New York, NY 10003

 (212) 260-5532

 

Literal Latté Annual Contests

click contest name below for detailed guidelines

 

 

Contest

Prizes

Annual Deadline

Fiction Awards

$1000

$300

$200

Jan. 15th

Short Short Contest

$500

June 30th

Poetry Awards

$1000

$300

$200

July 15th

Essay Awards

$1000

$300

$200

Sept. 15th

Food Verse Contest

$500

Jan. 31st

Contest Guidelines

 

k. Margaret Grossman
Fiction Awards

First Prize
$1000

Second Prize
$300

Third Prize
$200

1. Send unpublished stories, 8,000 words max. All subjects and styles welcome.
2. Postmark by January 15th.
3. Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address (optional) — on Cover Page only.
4. Include Self Addressed Stamped Envelope or Email Address for reply.
5. Include $10 Reading Fee per story — OR —
   $15 Reading Fee for two stories.

All entries considered for publication.

Literal Latté Short Shorts Contest

First Prize
$500

1. Send unpublished shorts. 2,000 words max. All styles welcome.
2. Postmark by June 30th.
3. Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address (optional) — on Cover Page only.
4. Include Self Addressed Stamped Envelope or Email Address for reply.
5. Include $10 Reading Fee per set of up to 3 Shorts — OR —
   $15 Reading Fee per set of 6 Shorts.

All entries considered for publication.

Literal Latté Poetry Awards

First Prize
$1000

Second Prize
$300

Third Prize
$200

1. Send unpublished poems, 2,000 words max. All styles welcome.
2. Postmark by July 15th.
3. Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address (optional) — on Cover Page only.
4. Please put poem titles/first lines on Cover Page as well.
5. Include Self Addressed Stamped Envelope or Email Address for reply.
6. Include $10 Reading Fee per set of up to 6 poems — OR —
   $15 Reading Fee for set of 10 poems.

All entries considered for publication.

Literal Latté Essay Awards

First Prize
$1000

Second Prize
$300

Third Prize
$200

1. Send unpublished personal essays. 8,000 words max. All topics.
2. Postmark by September 15th.
3. Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address (optional) — on Cover Page only.
4. Include Self Addressed Stamped Envelope or Email Address for reply.
5. Include $10 Reading Fee per essay — OR —
   $15 Reading Fee for two essays.

All entries considered for publication.

Literal Latté Food Verse Contest

First Prize
$500

1. Send unpublished poems with food as an ingredient. 2,000 words max. All styles and subjects welcome.
2. Postmark by January 31st.
3. Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address (optional) — on Cover Page only.
4. Please put poem titles/first lines on Cover Page as well.
5. Include Self Addressed Stamped Envelope or Email Address for reply.
6. Include $10 Reading Fee per set of up to 6 poems — OR —
   $15 Reading Fee for set of 12 poems.

All entries considered for publication.

All currency above given in US dollars.

Remember: email submissions are NOT accepted.

All reading fees (by check or money order)
should be made out to

Literal Latté
and mailed with entry manuscripts to

Literal Latté Awards

200 East 10th Street, Suite 240
New York, NY 10003
(212) 260-5532

“Discovery” / Boston Review 2011 Poetry Contest

Deadline: January 15, 2011
Judges: Susan Howe, Nick Flynn and Claudia Rankine
Four Prizes: $500

This is the third year BR has hosted the Discovery contest as publishing partner of the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center. Please note that we do not administer this contest.

Read winning poems from 2010 and 2009.

Complete guidelines:
Four winning authors will be awarded a reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, publication in the May/June 2011 issue of Boston Review, and $500.
1. The contest is open to poets who have not published a book of poems (chapbooks and self-published books included). Those who have a book contract at the time of submission or who are subsequently awarded a book contract are not eligible for the contest if their book is scheduled for publication before Fall 2011. Individual poems that have been or will be published in periodicals or anthologies may be submitted; however, at least two of the submitted poems must be unpublished and under two pages in length.
2. Submit four identical sets of a typed ten-page manuscript. Each set is to contain the same ten pages in the same order. Include no more than one poem per page. NO personal identification should appear on any of the poems; no copyright attributions for previously published poems should appear on the poems.
3. Photocopied manuscripts are acceptable. However, in the case of previously published poems, do not send photocopied pages of the periodical or book in which the poem(s) originally appeared.
4. Please staple each manuscript; do not use paper clips.
5. Enclose one cover letter including your name, address and day and evening telephone numbers, as well as a list of the submitted poems in the order in which they appear, with copyright attributions for published poems. Do not attach this cover letter to the manuscripts.
6. An entry fee of US$10.00 must accompany the submission. Please make checks (drawn on U.S. banks only) or money orders (in U.S. currency only) payable to the 92nd Street Y, and attach them to your cover letter. DO NOT SEND CASH.
7. All poems must be original and in English (no translations).
8. No contestant may submit more than one entry. No corrections can be accepted after receipt of the contest submission.
9. Entries must be received by January 15, 2011. This is not a postmark deadline. If you wish to receive confirmation of receipt of your manuscript, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard (not envelope) and allow several weeks for its return. Due to the large number of submission received, manuscripts cannot be returned. Winners will be contacted by telephone by the end of February; all contest entrants will be mailed the names of the winners and of the judges shortly thereafter.
10. No phone queries can be taken. If you wish to hear a recording of the guidelines, or to receive another set of these guidelines in the mail, call 212.415.5759.

Mail submissions to:

“Discovery”/ Boston Review 2011 Poetry Contest
Unterberg Poetry Center, 92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue,
New York, NY 10128

The king is dead

By Jonathan Ali

Moloch Tropical, directed by Raoul Peck (107 minutes)

Zinedine Soualem (at centre) in Moloch Tropical. Photograph courtesy the trinidad+tobago film festival

The Citadelle Laferrière is a massive grey fortress perched on a mountaintop in northern Haiti, 30 kilometres south of the city of Cap-Haïtien. It was built by Henri Christophe, former slave, revolutionary, and ruler of Haiti from 1807 to 1820 — or rather, Christophe had up to twenty thousand of his fellow newly independent countrymen build it, the construction beginning in 1805 and ending some fifteen years later.

The ostensible purpose of the Citadelle Laferrière (or the Citadelle Henri Christophe, or simply the Citadelle) was to defend the country against a possible French incursion. The attack never came, but the Citadelle served another purpose: testament to the absolute power and ambition of a man who, in the space of a few short years, went from general to president to self-declared king of his country, before a military revolt led to his suicide by — as legend would have us believe — a silver bullet through the brain.

How apt, therefore, that Raoul Peck’s latest film, a fictional study of a corrupt, brutal president on the verge of being overthrown, is not only set in the Citadelle, but shot entirely on location there. Inspired by Moloch (1999), Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov’s dramatised portrait of Hitler — as well as Sokurov’s subsequent films on Lenin and Emperor Hirohito, respectively — Moloch Tropical is a sort of Caribbean companion-piece to those films.

I say the film is a fiction, but that’s not strictly true. Consider the synopsis. The year is 2004, and the president, a former Roman Catholic priest, is about to inaugurate festivities to celebrate Haiti’s bicentennial. A popular uprising begins to take shape, and the president, who is serving a second term in office after the first was ended by a military coup, is forced by the US government (who helped bring him back into power) to resign and go into exile with his family.

If all of that sounds familiar, it certainly should. But it would be unwise to set down Moloch Tropical as merely a dramatisation of the final chapter of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidency, even given the fact that that Raoul Peck (whose previous films include the excellent 2000 biopic Lumumba) served briefly as Haiti’s minister of culture under Aristide before resigning. For to say that Moloch Tropical is a film à clef and no more is to deny Peck’s considerable gifts as a filmmaker as well as the potency of this film, both as scathing political satire and inventive, sophisticated chamber drama.

The action begins with Jean de Théogène (Zinedine Soualem), known to his inner circle as Jean de Dieu, under monogrammed silk sheets in his massive bedroom on the morning of what will be his final day in office. Already we know all is not well: Jean de Dieu wears a sleeping mask, and his face twitches, as do his fingers, which lie upon an open bible; candles burn before a statue of the crucified Christ in an alcove visible in the background. As he stumbles from his bed, Jean de Dieu knocks over and smashes a tumbler, cutting his foot on a shard of glass. Thus hobbled, he limps through the rest of the film, the symbolism subtle and effective.

Jean de Dieu is married to a younger woman, the ravishing Michaëlle (Sonia Rolland), who sleeps apart from her husband and shrinks from his touch. With good reason: the president is a shameless womaniser, demanding favours of a servant girl one moment, propositioning a guest at a champagne reception the next. Sexy as she is, Michaëlle is no trophy wife; a lawyer with connections in Washington, DC, she understands realpolitik more clearly than her husband, and recognises before anyone else that the Americans intend to “drop” him.

After the president records a combative address to the nation (“We have democratised democracy,” he declares, before demanding twenty-two billion francs in restitution from France), he and his mandarins begin to prepare for that day’s bicentennial festivities. As violent protests against Jean de Dieu’s administration spread through the streets, however, the invited dignitaries begin to cancel, until the African delegations are the only ones left. “I need more whites!” one of the president’s main advisors shouts. (The razor-sharp script is by Peck and Jean-René Lemoine.)

Peck skilfully keeps a number of interlinked subplots going with various lubricious ministers as well as lesser functionaries and servants, giving the film an agreeable Upstairs, Downstairs feel. There is a storyline featuring the president’s elderly mother, who has to see her son by appointment and who — in a sly nod by Peck to the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo — accuses Jean de Dieu of whitening his skin. There is also an amusing storyline featuring a brash American actor with a limited command of French (Oris Erhuero), who is set to portray Toussaint L’Ouverture in a play commissioned for the bicentennial. This is a clear jab at the Hollywood actor Danny Glover, who for some years has been broadcasting his intentions to make film about the Haitian Revolution.

The film veers into the realm of the grotesque and reaches its climax in a plotline featuring a journalist and outspoken critic of Jean de Dieu (Jimmy Jean-Louis), who is held in the Citadelle’s dungeons and repeatedly tortured, then brought up to farcically dine with the president. “Democracy is costly,” Jean de Dieu says, before having the journalist executed via necklacing. (To spare the squeamish, I advise those ignorant of the term to google it.)

As the uprising worsens and events continue to spiral out of control, the Citadelle’s inhabitants flee the fortress like rats from the proverbial ship. Refusing to step down, Jean de Dieu continues to come undone until, naked and mumbling passages from the Gospels to himself outside the Citadelle’s walls under a full moon, he is forced to sign a resignation letter presented to him by the Americans. Thus humiliated, he rides off into exile with his wife and young daughter, accompanied by the plaintive strains of “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue”.

Key to the success of Moloch Tropical is the lead performance, and the French-Algerian Soualem is perfectly cast. He plays Jean de Dieu with just the right touch of caricature, and gives us an erratic, capricious pill-popper who is at turns charismatic, repulsive, baleful, paranoid, and pathetic. Soualem is well matched by Rolland, a former Miss France, and the two share a series of gripping scenes.

As much a character in the film as any of the actors is the majestic Citadelle itself. Peck and his cinematographer Eric Guichard wisely resist the temptation to inundate the film with lengthy beauty sequences of the fortress, restricting themselves to a few extreme long shots. Particularly effective are the long shots of the president limping along the Citadelle’s battlements, emphasising his weakness and looming downfall.

Yet perhaps the most memorable image in Moloch Tropical is not of the Citadelle or the president, but rather of his bodyguard, sprawled out in a bathtub with a fatal gunshot wound to his head, a pistol in one hand and a balled-up Haitian flag in the other.

•••

This review is part of the CRB’s coverage of Caribbean film supported by the trinidad+tobago film festival

•

The Caribbean Review of Books, November 2010

Jonathan Ali is a freelance writer and the editorial director of the trinidad+tobago film festival.

Mosley's 'Last Days' Restores Memory, But At A Cost

December 6, 2010

Listen to the Story

Download walter_mosley_interview.mp3

[18 min 43 sec]

• Transcript

 

Enlarge David Burnett via Riverhead Books

Walter Mosley has written more than three dozen books, including 11 historical mysteries featuring detective Easy Rawlins.

December 6, 2010

Walter Mosley is the author of more than three dozen novels, including many mysteries featuring the L.A. detective Easy Rawlins. His latest novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, is about a 91-year-old black man entering the early stages of dementia and the last years of his life. But Grey's life changes after he meets a 17-year-old teenager named Robyn, without a family of her own.

Robyn cares for Ptolemy and introduces him to a local doctor, who invites him to join an experimental drug study that will help bring back his memory — but will simultaneously also shorten his life span. And Ptolemy must decide what to do.

Mosley tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wrote the novel — and imagined what Ptolemy was thinking — after watching his mother's mind deteriorate from the early stages of dementia.

 

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
By Walter Mosley
Paperback, 288 pages
Riverhead Hardcover
List Price: $25.95

"When you deal with a person who's experiencing dementia, you can see where they're struggling with knowledge," he says. "You can see what they forget completely, what they forget but they know what they once knew. You can tell how they're trying to remember. ... What I saw in my mom's eyes and in some of her expressions, was her saying, 'I want to understand it; I want to understand what you're saying; I want to enter into a dialogue with you; I want things to be the way they were.' That's the crux of the novel: What would you do to have things the way they were?"

In the novel, Grey meets with a doctor who offers him a medicine that will restore the electrical connections in his brain — and his memory — but only for a short period of time.

"The doctor says, 'I can give you this medicine and there's a chance that for the next three months, you're going to have perfect memory. There's a chance that you're going to be able to think the way you used to. At the end of that three months, it's a definite you're going to be dead,' " says Mosley. " 'If you don't take the medication and you've got a good body, you might live another 10 years, but you won't know a thing. So you make the choice: three months aware or 10 years in a daze?' "

Mosley, like his character, says he would take the three months.

"Ptolemy thinks that this white doctor with a big white mustache is the devil," he says. "And he realizes that his only choice is to deal with the devil. And that is accepting death in a way, but what are you going to do?"

---

Related NPR Stories

Book Review: 'The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey' Nov. 10, 2010

'Known To Evil' Author Explores Heroes, Redemption April 7, 2010

Mosley's Detective Calls It Quits Oct. 17, 2007

Mosley's Intergalactic Coming-of-Age Tale: '47' July 6, 2006

Interview Highlights

On the condition of Ptolemy Grey's house

"He's been living in this apartment for maybe 60 years. He's 91 years old. He's been living there since he turned 30. Everything that's come into that house is still there: old pizza cartons, old boxes, newspapers, every toothbrush he ever owned. It's filled with furniture and memories and the belongings of other people in his family. It's really like a hoard of a house, but it's also his family and his memories all jumbled up together, piled so high that it almost looks like a storage unit. He can't throw away anything because he's not sure what's valuable and what isn't. It's not that he wants everything; it's just that he doesn't know how to get rid of things."

On the death of his parents

"I'm almost completely without family and it's a very odd feeling in life. I have no children. ... With me, there's nobody and it's an odd feeling. Losing my parents really set me adrift in more ways than one. It's not just losing them. It's losing the possibility of family."

On the differences between his life and his father's life

"My father's life was so decimated by his earliest experiences. His mother died when he was 7 years old, which he always said was the worst experience in his life. When he was 8, his father disappeared and he was on his own from the age of 8. It's necessarily different how we face life and how we are men in life. The difference between Easy Rawlins and that series of books and my new series of mysteries, the Leonid McGill mysteries, underscores that — what a different world me and my father lived in."

Excerpt: 'The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey'

by Walter Mosley

 

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
By Walter Mosley
Paperback, 288 pages
Riverhead Hardcover
List Price: $25.95

"Is that you, Reggie? Where you been, boy? I been waitin' for you to come by for a week. No, no, two weeks. I don't know exactly but it's been a long time."

"No, Papa Grey, no, it's me, Hilly."

"Who? Where's Reggie?"

Hilly went silent for two seconds and the old man said, "Is any­body there?"

"I'm here, Papa Grey," the voice assured. "I'm here."

He was certainly there, on the other end of the line, but who was it? the old man wondered. He looked around the room for a clue to his caller's identity but all he saw were piles of newspapers, boxes of every size and shape, and furniture. There were at least a dozen chairs and a big bureau that was tilted over on a broken leg; two dining tables were flush up against the south and east walls. His tattered mattress under its thin army blanket lay beneath the southern table.

"That was Etude no. 2 in A-flat Major by Chopin," the radio announcer was saying. "Now we're going to hear from . . ." "Papa Grey?" a voice said.

". . . half a dozen bombs went off in and around Baghdad today. Sixty-four people were killed . . ."

Was the voice coming from the radio or the TV? No. It was in his ear. The telephone —

"Who is this?" Ptolemy Grey asked, remembering that he was having a phone conversation.

"It's Hilly, Papa. Your great-nephew. June's daughter's son." "Who?"

"Hilly," the young man said, raising his voice slightly. "Your nephew."

"Where's Reggie?" Ptolemy asked. "Where's my son?"

"He can't come today, Uncle," Hilly said. "Mama asked me to call you to see if you needed anything."

"Heck yeah," Ptolemy said, wondering what anything the call and the caller meant.

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you need anything?"

"Sure I do. I need all kinds of things. Reggie haven't called me in, in a week, maybe, maybe it's only three days. I still got four cans of sardines and he always buy me a box of fourteen. I eat one every day for lunch. But he haven't called and I don't know what I'm gonna eat when the fish an', an', an' cornflakes run out."

A piano sonata began.

"What do you want me to get you?" Hilly asked.

"Get me? Yeah, yeah. Come get me and we can go shoppin'. I mean me and Reggie."

"I can go with you, I guess, Uncle," Hilly said unenthusi­astically.

"Do you know where the store is?" his great-uncle asked. "Sure I do."

"I don't know. I never seen you there."

"But I do know."

"Is Reggie coming?"

"Not today."

"Why? No . . . no, don't tell me why. Don't do that. Are you comin', um, uh, Hilly?" Ptolemy smiled that he could remember the name.

"Yes, Papa Grey."

"When?"

"One hour."

Ptolemy peered at the clock on top of his staggering bureau.

"My clock says quarter past four," Ptolemy told his great-nephew Hilly Brown.

"It's ten to twelve, Uncle, not four-fifteen."

"If you add forty-five minutes to that," the old man said. "I should be lookin' for you before too much after five. Anyway, it have to be before six."

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

Ptolemy could hear fire engines blaring in the distance. There were floods down south and Beethoven was deaf. Dentifrice tooth­paste was best for those hard-to-get places.

Maude Petit died in fire. Ptolemy could hear her screams along with the sirens that cried down the street outside and also in the fire bells that clanged way back then in Breland, Mississippi, when he was five and she was his best friend.

Ptolemy started to rock on his solid maple chair. One of the legs had lost its rubber stopper and so made a knocking sound on the parquet floor. He felt like he needed to do something. What? Save his little playmate, that's what. He was bigger now. He could make it through the fire, if only he could get there.

He could smell the tar roof burning and feel the heat against his face. He rubbed the tears away and then looked at his old weathered hand with its paper-thin, wrinkled skin. Black as that hot tar, black as Maude's happy little face.

Where was Reggie? Where was he?

The clock still said 4:15. It was just like when he used to work for the undertaker and he had to wait for six o'clock to come on the big black-and-silver wall clock that hovered in the hall outside from where he swept the floors around the tables that held the bodies of Maude and her whole family. They smelled like gamey meat cooking in his mother's father's deep-pit barbecue. The fire­men threw Maude's dog in the garbage. Maude loved that dog and so Ptolemy snuck around the back of the big green cans they used to throw away everything that the Petit family owned and he stole Floppy's body and buried her down by the river, where Ptolemy had shown Maude his but she was too shy to show him hers.

They were a match for each other, Earline Petit had said.

It was probably a match that started the fire that burned down the house, the fire captain said.

A woman was singing opera in a voice that made Ptolemy think of strawberry jam. He tried to get to his feet by leaning forward and pushing against the arms of the chair. He failed on the first and second tries. He made it on the third. Standing up hurt in three places: his elbow, his knee, and ankle. One, two, three places.

The short refrigerator was humming but empty.

The clock said 4:15.

The lady news announcer was talking about a white girl in Miami who was taken away by somebody that nobody knew. Ptolemy thought about the . . . what did Mama call it . . . the in­ferno of the Petit's tarpaper home; the yellow fire that waved like tall grass in the wind and the dark shadows that looked like the silhouette of a tall man moving through the rooms, searching for Maude like Ptolemy wanted to do, like he should have done.

The clock must have run down, Ptolemy thought. So how would Reggie know when to come if time had stopped? Ptolemy could be stuck there forever. But even if there was no clock, clock-time, he would still be hungry and thirsty, and how could he find the right bus to take him to the tar pit park if Reggie didn't come?

Reprinted from The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley with permission from Riverhead Books, a member of the Penguin Group (USA).  Copyright 2010 by Walter Mosley.

Haiti - Elections 2010 :

Preliminary results official, first round
07/12/2010 21:33:20

 

The results have finally been unveiled with a little over 3 hours late. In the second round the two candidates vying for the position of President are:

MANIGAT Mirlande Hyppolite «Rassemblement des Démocrates Nationaux Progressistes (RDNP)»
CÉLESTIN Jude «INITE»

Number of registered voters : 4,694,961 (CEP figures)
Number of voter at the presidential : 1,074,056
Turnout : 22.87%

 

 

 

MANIGAT Mirlande Hyppolite «Rassemblement des Démocrates Nationaux Progressistes (RDNP)»
Ranking : 1
Percentage : 31.37%
Number of votes : 336,878

CÉLESTIN Jude «INITE»
Ranking : 2
Percentage : 22.48%
Number of votes : 241,462

MARTELLY Michel Joseph «Repons peyizan»
Ranking : 3
Percentage : 21.84%
Number of votes : 234,617

CÉANT Jean Henry «Renmen Ayiti»
Ranking : 4
Percentage : 8.18%
Number of votes : 87,834

ALEXIS Jacques Édouard «Mobilisation pour le Progrès d'Haïti (MPH)»
Ranking : 5
Percentage : 3.07%
Number of votes : 32,932

BAKER Charles Henri «Regwoupman sitwayen pou espwa (Respè)»
Ranking : 6
Percentage : 2.38%
Number of votes : 25,512

JEUNE Jean Chavannes «Alliance chrétienne citoyenne pour la reconstruction d'Haïti (ACCRHA)»
Ranking : 7
Percentage : 1.80%
Number of votes : 19.348

CHRISTALIN Yves «Oganizasyon Lavni (LAVNI)»
Ranking : 8
Percentage : 1.60%
Number of votes : 17,133

VOLTAIRE Leslie «Platfòm Ansanm Nou Fò»
Ranking : 9
Percentage : 1.51%
Number of votes : 16,199

BIJOU Josette «Indépendant»
Ranking : 10
Percentage : 1%
Number of votes : 10,782

JOSEPH Génard «Groupement Solidarité»
Ranking : 11
Percentage : 0.85%
Number of votes : 9,164

JEUDY Wilson «Fòs 2010»
Ranking : 12
Percentage : 0.57%
Number of votes : 6,076

NEPTUNE Yvon «Ayisyen pou Ayiti»
Ranking : 13
Percentage : 0.39%
Number of votes : 4,217

ANACACIS Jean Hector «Mouvement Démocratique de la Jeunesse Haïtienne (MODEJHA)»
Ranking : 14
Percentage : 0.39%
Number of votes : 4,165

JEUNE Léon J. «Konbit Liberation Ekonomik (KLE)»
Ranking : 15
Percentage : 0.35%
Number of votes : 3,738

ABELLARD Axan D'elson «Konbit Nasyonal pour Devlopman (KNDA)»
Ranking : 16
Percentage : 0.29%
Number of votes : 3,110

LAGUERRE Garaudy «WOZO»
Ranking : 17
Percentage : 0.26%
Number of votes : 2,802

BLOT Gérard Marie Necker «Platfòm 16 Désanm»
Ranking : 18
Percentage : 0.24
Number of votes : 2,621

CHARLES Eric Smarcki «Parti de l'Evolution Nationale Haïtienne (PENH)»
Ranking : 19
Percentage : 0.24
Number of votes : 2,597

WHITE vote 12,869 1.20%

HL/HaitiLibre