“Tonton Macoute”

My wife is American, born and raised – she can’t even speak my language. Her mother is Haitian though, and sometimes she tells the children about Tonton Macoute. I will sit with my back to her, feeling my hair stand on end, not wanting to admit to even myself what I am feeling. I guess someone should know the truth, even if it’s just you.

When I was a child growing up in Haiti my mother would tell me tales of Tonton Macoute. In English that translates to Uncle Gunnysack. He was our Boogeyman – he would snatch bad children from their beds at night,put them in a sack and then eat them in the morning.

Growing up, I was terrified of being carried away for Uncle Gunnysack’s breakfast. Fear making me a model student and son, I studied hard, becoming the only boy in my village to speak English. The missionaries took me to the capital, and after another year of training I had a well paid position as a bank clerk in the bank all the white folk use. The missionaries ground on me, their prayers and stories conflicting with my mothers, until I became an athiest. I realised that like zombies, Jesus and other folklore, Tonton Macoute wasn’t real. He was just a story – a device mothers used to keep unruly children in line.

As I grew older still, I began to notice the real life horrors used to keep peasants – the children of the country – in line. Voodoo and violence ruled the minds of the men from my village, leaving them distracted and stupid enough to accept their shitty lot in life. When Dr. Francis Duvalier, a well spoken former medical doctor, became President in 1957 we thought things would change. We began to call him “Papa Doc” – a term of endearment.

Things did change- they became worse. Papa Doc made voodoo the official religion of the country, and began to claim he was Baron Samedi – the spirit of death. Papa abolished the military and the police and created what the Western media dubbed the Milice de Volontaires de la Sécurité (MVSN). In English, that means the Militia of National Security Volunteers. They were Papa Doc’s private army, using voodoo and violence to control Haiti. Priests of voodoo were often members, allowing them to abuse the superstitions of the weak. An unofficial uniform of designer T-shirts and mirrored sunglasses reflected the money, prestige and power one could earn under Papa Doc.

I… I made the decision to join. I wish I could say that it was to stop my family from starvation, or that I did it to help people. But I didn’t. I wanted, for once in my life, to be the one wielding the power. The oppressor instead of the oppressed. The hand holding the machete instead of the hand being severed. I saw their dreadful form of power – and wanted it. The people called us the Tonton Macoutes. The Boogeymen.

I remember the first time I killed someone. We had gone into their house just after midnight. My friends had been drinking, but as it was my first time I wanted to remain sober. My friend kicked in the door of the hut – it didn’t even have a lock, but we had a reputation to keep. The entire family had been sleeping in the room, eight of them – a grandmother, her daughter and her husband and their five children. My friends shook their machetes at the screaming children and Grandmother as we took their parents away. Leading them towards the beach, sacks over their heads and machetes at their throats, they barely struggled at all.

My friends took the woman away, leaving only myself and the victim kneeling before me. He started to pray and that bothered me. I was supposed to take the sack off first – why waste a sack- but I forgot in my haste. I hacked at his neck until it wasn’t there.

He had barely screamed – there hadn’t been the time – but I realised now I could hear his wife screaming as they raped her in the boat-shed. I stepped back to keep the blood from pooling on my shoes, but it was too late. I felt the warmth seep into my shoes and it felt – nice. My friend came back with his pants around his ankles, and made fun of the fact I’d forgotten to remove the sack.
We left his corpse where it was, and hung his wife in the centre of town. A warning to those who would oppose Papa Doc.

A soldier, years later, told me that Papa Doc hadn’t even made that order. My friend had just been bored and wanted to sleep with that man’s wife. Such is life, in Haiti.

I rose quickly through the ranks. The trick was to buy into Papa’s voodoo, to buy into his cult of personality in front of others – but not to believe in it personally. By doing this I could control people with voodoo without letting them control me. I don’t know if I was the only one who didn’t believe. Maybe none of us did. But it felt like they all believed, and that my insincerity gave me the advantage. Eventually, I earnt my position as Papa’s second in command – leader of the Tonton Macoute.

I got the position by killing the last leader, and bringing his head encased in ice to Papa. This was Papa’s favourite way of being informed of a death. He liked to hold the heads in his hands, talking to them. When a rumour began that this leader had been reincarnated into the body of a black dog, I organised that every black dog in Haiti was decapitated, and the heads sent to Papa Doc. He was so happy he cried.

I ensured a peephole was present in every interrogation room, so that Papa could watch without anyone being aware. We would submerge whoever we were torturing in vats of sulphuric acid, both mine and Papa’s favourite form of torture. I thought it was the best way of extracting information -Papa later told me he enjoyed the smell more than anything.

Papa ran unopposed for President for Life – a position that goes against everything on our constitution. With my help his vote came back with 1,320,748 in favour – and none against. Whatever Papa requested, I made happen.

By the time our time was done, Papa, myself and the Tonton Macoute had killed 30,000 of our countrymen. I don’t feel bad about that. It’s just one more number I’ve been ignoring since I gave up being a bank clerk.

I removed their organs and blood before resorting to the acid. Sold them to the United States, where rich people paid money to be filled with the poor. I kept all of this money for myself – my own private retirement fund. We didn’t bother testing, although we said we did. They stopped buying after a year, saying we were spreading AIDS – whatever the fuck that was. We just moved to the black market.

When Papa was killed,his son Baby Doc seized power of Haiti and my own Tonton Macoute.

I barely escaped with my life – using my secret money to flee to the U.S, where I have spent the last twenty years in hiding. I live under a false name, in a small town. Nobody knows who I am. I am no longer a rich or powerful man.

My wife, her mother, the children and I all share the one house buried in a nameless suburb. I had more money, but open-heart surgery a few years ago sucked up the last of my savings, along with almost killing me. I feel weak all the time now, dragging myself around the house until I can return to bed.

My wife’s mother was born in Haiti – she tells the children the tales. Scary tales for children, especially American children. I eavesdrop, the stories conjuring up unwanted memories of my homeland.

Tonight my daughter woke me, crying that someone was underneath her bed. I walked her back to her room and made a show of checking under her bed before tucking her in. “Who would be under your bed?” I chuckled to her softly as I kissed her forehead.

“Tonton Macoute” she sniffed at me and my heart froze. It had been years since someone had said those words to me. I spent a minute trying to figure out where she would have heard it before remembering the girls Grandmother.

“Silly girl”, I said, “Nana must have told you that Tonton Macoute only goes after bad children. He’d never take you – You’re the best little girl in the world”

“I know”, she whispered, “He said he waiting for you, Daddy”.

I feel a lump rise in my throat, a childlike weakness coming over me before darkness drops like a sack over my eyes.

UNCLE GUNNYSACK UNCLE GUNNYSACK HE IS EATING ME – twists in my mind but I am awake and I tear at the fabric in front of my eyes until it is gone and I see him.

My doctor.

Exhaling with relief, I realised I was in the familiar location of a hospital room. But what he told me made me wish it had been Uncle Gunnysack, taking me away.

My doctor didn’t know what else to say, other than that I had AIDS, likely contracted from a blood transfusion.

I have to tell my children. My wife.

They have to come in and get tested themselves.

My innocent wife.

My perfect children.

They don’t know who I am.

They don’t deserve to die.

I am home now, but yet to tell them. I sit, listening to the kids shriek and laugh at the tales of Tonton Macoute and think about the truth and how to say it.

How do you tell your children the world is too evil to need monsters?