As a kid, I devoured the novels of Alexander Dumas. I agonized at the misery of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask, and thrilled at the masterful sword battles against corruption of Athos, Porthos, Aramis–The Three Musketeers, plus one: D’Artagnan. “All for one and one for all” became a neighborhood rallying cry. Little did I know that the suffering and adventures of Dumas’ characters were often modeled on a real life character—his father.
The Black Count, by Tom Reiss, is a wonderful book in so many ways. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2013, Reiss traces the life of Alex Dumas Sr. from a poor half-French, half black slave child in the French Caribbean, to General Alex Dumas, a hero in charge of thousands of troops in the French army under Napoleon during the French Revolution, to a real life Monte Cristo trapped in an Italian prison.
The Black Count, however, besides developing Alex, the general much loved by Alexander, the famous author, is rife with historical insight. For example, the history of the French sugar plantations in the Caribbean is explored, from the first sugar cane brought by Columbus, to France’s takeover from Spain and Portugal. By France’s rule, African slavery was in full swing, and from it came Alex Dumas, son of a French nobleman and a slave woman.
Alex Dumas was fortunate. Had his father left him in the Caribbean, none of this miraculous life would have occurred. But brought to France, Alex received a fine education, one that included swordsmanship from the finest teachers. This was possible because his education coincided with the stirrings of the French Revolution, and despite the insanity rampant at that time, part of the Revolution’s philosophy treated everyone as equal. This meant abolishing slavery in the sugar colonies and treating black citizens as equals in every way.
Thus, after joining the French army, Alex rose through the ranks as one of France’s most heroic and successful generals. He commanded thousands of men, and was quite often the actual hero, once holding a bridge in Austria by himself before help came along. His strength and sword skill made him much more than a sideline strategist like Napoleon.
Unfortunately, returning from a campaign in Egypt, Dumas was captured by Italians hostile to the revolution. He spent years as a captive, ala The Count of Monte Cristo. Finally released, he made it home to his family in poor health, and by the time he recuperated, Napoleon had realized that abolition of slavery had hurt France’s sugar income. Slavery was reinstituted, and acceptance for blacks cooled considerably. His father died poor and out of the limelight, and despite his popular novels, Alexander Jr. faced discrimination throughout his life.
The Black Count is a well-told story of history, character, and adventure. And for fans of Dumas Jr.’s swashbuckling novels, to think that his popular heroes are fictional representations of the father he idolized, makes them all the more appealing to read.
I gained admission into Olabisi Onabanjo University in 2005, and I’m still in school. My Matric Number therefore is 050
but I’m still in 500 Level- not even final year! Yet I’m not in school because I repeated, neither did I resit. I’m still in school because I’m in Nigeria, because I’m in Ogun State, because I’m in OOU.
But I didn’t get here by lack of somewhere else, (lest you say beggars can’t be choosers). I could have gone to any University in Nigeria. (My results were tenable anywhere in Nigeria.) It was therefore not a dearth of options, it was not a lack of acceptance anywhere else, it was a matter of (imposed) choice.
My father had learnt that OOU had the best medical school in the country (as it did a baker’s-dozen years ago), and made me come here. Little did he know that after the crest came the trough, that after the zenith came the nadir, that after the peak came the depth.
And that’s where we are NOW.
My mates went to Unilag, UI, Uniben, Uniilorin… Of course they are House Officers now. They had hostels, generator-powered classrooms, school buses that they could take to Intercollegiate Quizzes. I have none of that, and I’m still in school. What is worse? I contribute money to buy the class generator, and contribute money to procure fuel- yet the heat is not cured, so much that the lecturer brings her own fan to class.
You see, OOU is plagued by strikes. Internal, national, external, even extraterrestrial. And who pays? I! I lose time, I waste rents and fares and now fees? Many of my colleagues lost parents in this struggle. Many fathers (and mothers) paid the first school fees of 15 000 but are not alive today to see us pay 150 000- all at no fault of ours! Yes, it saddens. I’m glad you feel my pains, but Prof does not- and cannot. Not while he’s Dean. Not while he expects me to book an appointment to see him. Not while he plays deaf, insensitive, insane.
Yet I don’t complain. I keep quiet through strikes- whether wise or stupid, whether precious or preposterous, whether logical or political. He gets paid for work he did not do; remember the ill-fated “No work no pay?” And, surprisingly, disappointingly, insanely, he expects me to pay for these lost sessions, for his unofficial leave, and, in essence, for his strike.
Does that sound sane to you? It doesn’t to me! You see, a sane mind comprehends that if you enter for a 6-year course, you pay for 6 sessions, provided you don’t repeat a class. Not so?
It is bad that School Fees have consistently increased over the years from 15 000 in 05/06 to 150 000 in 12/13 (indigene figures). It is worse that these new fees are applied across board. It is worst that I am now expected to pay for those times I wanted to learn but had striking lecturers. It is insane that I am threatened with rustication and expulsion for
refusing.
You see, in Medical School more than anywhere else, my lecturers are meant to be models of character. And when they resisted, defied, Jonathan they taught me to do the same. It should therefore come as no surprise that I shall resist this insane directive.
Interestingly, his name also starts with J; Jonathan, not Jesus.
And before you tell me that a Medical Student ought not to protest, I will tell you that although I am sheep, I am not a fool. On the contrary, I am (believed to be) sharp in mind enough to comprehend Medicine- in all its mightiness.
And that it was on such sentiments that I accepted an irrational increase in school fees. It was on such sentiments that Prof denied me the opportunity of featuring in Uniilorin’s Medical School’s Health Week Quiz. It is on such sentiments that my school bus is allegedly usurped by members of Faculty. It was and is on such sentiments that… abegi, make I no bore you jare.
It is hightime I said “Enough is enough”. And, yes, I am saying it- the peaceful way. I believe in sanity and amicability. In Psychiatry, insanity is subdued with force- you don’t let a mad man roam around, you hold him against his will till he is well. And if Prof does not sempe, he risks force, he risks violence: he wants me to steal. I gladly told my parents that the
University had accepted that I would pay 6 school fees and no more. What do I say now? That there’s a new Pharaoh in Egypt who knowest not Joseph? Or that there is some (mental) instability at work?
Thomas Aquinas said, An unjust law is no law at all. I therefore have a choice to fight back with these peaceful, respectful, amicable, words, or to raise arms and defend my sovereignty. I hope Prof listens now. And I pray he doesn’t make me turn to violence.
For in the latter case there will be no respect for grey hair as I strive to pay 300,000 for last year and this- and seek 150,000 for next year’s.
And Prof, please, don’t ever threaten me with rustication for fighting for my rights when you don’t hesitate to demand yours from Dr J in Aso Rock.
The Constitution of Nigeria allows me freedom of speech and expression (I know it’s easy for you to forget that, and I forgive you). My training in Medical School allows me to make a provisional diagnosis. Everything aforesaid is by liberties guaranteed by either or both.
By inference, therefore, you are liable and I can sue you for infringing on my rights to freedom of speech and expression- and for delaying me unnecessarily in school. And I doubt I have slandered you, in which case I tender unreserved apologies apriori.
And I for add my name but you fit forget to remember say you no suppose threaten me or rusticate me. And I
have a suspended final MB to write. Even as I am in 400 level, and 300 level, and 200 level- all at once.
For I am tagless, nameless and faceless. I am the Spirit of the OOU Medial Student. I am the Truth.
Minoan bowl depicting the Minotaur, from www.nem.tku.edu.tw
The Minotaur Speaks
By Christopher Bernard
In the darkness a line glimmers~ like a piece of spider silk, a tendril of its web~ quivers and pulls around another corner, then disappears in the gloom, trembling in the rancid darkness, hot and stale as a cellar, binding the random corners of my chaotic home.
At one end clings the man the gods have sent to kill me~ (we’ll see about that!)~but the thread’s other end winds and coils and shines, leading . . . where?
Oh, farther into the maze where father Minos left me, the bestial child his whore of a wife, my mother Pasiphaë, dropped nine months after coupling with the Thracian bull whose member she had coveted~
mating monster with monster, how did they expect to escape having a monster for their offspring!
And so Minos threw me into this foul place, scrawled into confusion like a ball of tangled yarn, no one can find a way out of, no matter how brave or cunning, a darkness I explore to find but deeper darkness, and there left me, to feed on sacrificial virgins, the beautiful, pure-skinned, untouched children of the Greeks.
I trip over their bones as I bang from wall to wall, lost, hungry, bellowing in the dark, still hearing the echoes of the weeping that come from the maze’s mouth, where the others cower, crowd, and wait their turn in the labyrinth, their death duel with the Minotaur.
The line tugs. Where does it go? It slackens again~who bound it to the one Greek they promised would kill that abortion, the bull-man~
as if I had no soul, no mind, no heart, no memory of happiness under the sun’s gaze, and only howl and snort, bucking my horns on the rocks in an agony of memory of those few weeks I knew the bright flash of day.
It tugs again, and thrums~he is looking for me, this Theseus, with his smooth face, his eyes shining with bald terror, imagining me~
one hand trembling on the rock face, the other sweating at the end of the thread. The thread! it may lead back to the maze’s entrance, escape out of this stinking darkness into the air and sun,
the immensity of light and breath of cloud and the sweet moon, the high sky above me~could it?
Of course, it could! Someone~ a lover?
someone who loves Theseus (even my mother didn’t love me!)
gave him, of the thread, one end. And the other she holds, waiting for him, standing patiently at the dark hole where she saw him disappear, frightened and hopeful, feeling each quiver and jerk with fear,
to keep her dearest love from being killed and eaten by me.
What if I follow the line itshows,sowhite,inthe darkness?
Lord sun above me, beyond this mantle of rock~ if I follow the thread, will it lead me back up to the flowery air and the sighing of the sea, back to light and life and even a hope for love under the stars, back to the heaven called day?
It slackens. Grab it, now, beast! It is so light~so frail~ how could anything so fragile be a promise a beast could believe, a hope in this slaughterhouse, this fist of stench and weeping~ my hope?
I’ll let you guide me, one way to my death at the hands of Theseus, the other to my life in a girl’s hands, bright with day.
Lead me, thread. And do not break until I am dead or free.
_____
Christopher Bernard is a poet, novelist, essayist, photographer and filmmaker living in San Francisco. He is author of the novel A Spy in the Ruins, the short-story collection In the American Night, and The Rose Shipwreck: Poems and Photographs. He is also co-editor of the webzine Caveat Lector.
rose and green and gray-blue and black and mahogany
encasing me in a kind of ready-made shell,
my feelers out and tingling, smelling the currents.
Now I look at the river reflecting the sun
and wonder whether or not to let you in,
my toes feeling the water’s edge
as I dry myself off with a towel.
I think of taking a picture of you
on the sandy spit – but I can’t
since the image of my old lover
pops up like some reminding ghost.
Old Chief Looking Glass winks at me,
the wide Montana sky opening up in a huge arc
reflecting off the river
reflecting off the you and me standing under it
and I cannot say or do anything
but pull away into my shell.
—–by Bea Garth
Milfoil
He lies with me
a descendant of the Aegean,
his head looking like
that on an ancient golden cup.
Son of the Minoans,
the hair on his chest and back
dark and curly and sensuous
as tender green shoots
of milfoil—healing all wounds
except the one in my deepest heart.
He is a more than friend
friend, this traveling companion:
we kiss and caress, our passions rising,
yet we turn apart:
he feels such love would be immoral,
he feels he will only share himself fully
with the one he loves
beyond friendship, beyond sensuality.
In the darkness he cries out,
he has had a nightmare:
he is lying naked and someone is poking him,
violating him with sticks.
I would love him but must leave him alone
despite the fact that I love his touch and kiss:
he drives me mad with pleasure,
he drives me mad with his fears,
descendant of the Aegean, descendant of Thalos.
Those eyes look at me so clear blue, gray, green
as if they were reflecting the ocean,
his hair like tangled seaweed
capping that face.
This is an adventure being with him
sharing this time and space,
our bodies holding each other
as if we were at sea while remaining apart
about to swim to separate destinations.
For now I take mental pictures
and explore the feel of the currents
and the taste of salt.
Note: Milfoil is another term used for the herb Yarrow, also known as Achillea Millefolium, or Soldier’s Wound Wort—referring to Achilles who reportedly staunched his and his soldiers’ wounds with it.
—–by Bea Garth
Long Johns
I remember
how it was
with your long johns,
your bony body
inside its cocoon
of tightly drawn sheets,
my hand
slowly drifting towards yours,
you starting to rub
against my thigh
and soon
that skin
under all that cotton,
the current
buzzing and rippling
between us,
your smile edging
that tongue nibbling
the entire bed seeming
to submerge
–our unsheathed bodies as innocent and sly
as sea pups in paradise.
—–by Bea Garth
Bio: Bea Garth is known for creating visually rich narrative poetry as well as for her unique figurative ceramic sculpture, drawing and painting. Early on Bea was influenced by her grandfather’s love of poetry as well as her great aunt’s love of Asian art plus her parents’ early occupation as archaeologists. This has given Bea a real feel of living in a multicultural and multi-leveled world. She has been an extemporaneous poetry and arts organizer off and on for many years in the San Jose, California area after also organizing many such events and small press magazines in Eugene, Oregon. For the last few years she has been editing Eos: The Creative Context, an online progressive e-zine devoted to poetry, visual art and social, political and health commentary. She is now often found painting and writing in her new studio in her fiance’s garage and kept company by her three cats. She has previously had poems and artwork published in a variety of small press magazines including Alchemy,Poetic Space, Denali,Coyote’s Dance, The Other Paper, Writing For Our Lives, Caesura, Fresh Hot Bread, Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts and the poetry anthologies Elegant Stew and Women’s Dreams/Women’s Visions.
Her work can be found online at https://bgarthart.com/
Blessed? … I’m not sure. That’s such an awkward word for me. I’ve searched back through boyhood, young manhood, adulthood, and now. Like I said, I’m not sure.
This question of religious epiphany struck me at the oddest moment. I was lying on a gurney just outside the O.R. at The Transplant Center. The time was late evening. I remember lying there listening to the banter between the surgical nurses and other personnel. Why won’t my attention act right? What? What did they say? I felt I was moving in and out of the conversation; my mind wandered back to earlier.
I’d been prepped for surgery by a big seasoned nurse who had no shame at all. Honest to God, you’d have thought I was a piece of pork being prepped for a bar-b-que pit. “Turn over, spread your legs, you’re such a baby, there ain’t no reason to be shy now … you ain’t got noth’n I ain’t never seen before, … don’t you get none of that on my clean sheets, … you ain’t never give yourself an enema?
GIVE me that!”
What were they saying … something about a party? I kept wanting to become part of the conversation; but I was like … the “invisible one.” Lying there with IV’s hanging out of my arm, no clothes on except that sheet, my head in a nylon bag … Hell, I wanted to go to a party. My thoughts were bounding like jack rabbits. It sounds like a great idea to me. It was probably just the premeds kicking in. … What was that about a thong?
Lights turned on. I was being rolled into the operating room, with a gallery, I might add. Being I was at a university teaching hospital, they had asked if I would sign a waiver so any intern interested in liver transplantation could watch. I figured it may be interesting to look at people that were looking at me ─ anything for science. Everything had happened so fast since I got to the hospital, I would have signed anything. And then, there was that prep nurse … jeeze ─ talk about irony. I was rolled around and jostled up next to the operating table and: “1-2-3” hoisted across, then gently arranged on, what kind of table is this? It was like being laid on a piece of stainless steel with an enormous rise in the center about lower mid-backbone. One of the surgeons introduced himself and his team to me. He asked me a few basic questions: “do you know where you are, do you know why you’re here, and are you comfortable?” “Comfortable?” I remember asking. No, I wasn’t comfortable. I would find out later after surgery that the table used was specially shaped to maximize the opening of the torso after they cut across the abdomen. They would then use a special medical hoist to lift and separate the ribcage. I figured it was kind of like opening up a “top fuel” dragster, so they could get at whatever they wanted to change out. And, then there were all those folks up there in the gallery. I wanted to wave, but … no, no sense in being my normal smart-ass self now. I did however look at a guy working at a shallow basin nearby, and the surgeon who was talking with me said that the newly acquired organ they were about install was “a good fit, and it would serve me well.” I was then draped, masked, and drawn on.
So, with that, we were ready. It was show-time. The young nurse that had been outside talking about the party leaned over me and told me she would be doing the catheter. How weird. Then, with a little snicker, she whispered that she was wearing a bright red thong … What… not now!
* * *
Is somebody crying? I can’t quite figure out … is somebody crying? I remember it was dark and I kept hearing that crying and it was so far away. I figured someone had died. Hell, maybe it’s me. … Is somebody crying?
* * *
“George …George … can you hear me?”
Now, who the hell is that? … Yeah, I can hear you. Why is it so dark? Where is that voice coming from? The voice I heard was close ─ wasn’t it? My mind could hear him. Why couldn’t he hear me?
“George … can you hear me? Try to open your eyes. I’m John, your nurse.”
Thirsty! My lips felt like … parched and cracked … like those river beds you see in Africa during the dry season … parched and cracked.
“Here, try this.”
There was that voice again. Who is that?
John, whoever he was, had placed something damn cold, ice on my lips. My mind wouldn’t let me open my eyes … it’s so dark, the ice … wonderful. That ice cube was the best tasting ever. Talk about bliss.
“George, you’re in ICU and you came through the surgery really well.”
Why is it so dark? Why can’t I see you? That ice is … awe-man … give me some, “More.”
“Not so fast … easy … a little bit at a time.”
I think I’ll leave my eyes closed. … Yuk! “What was that?”
“What was what?”
That’s not what I had before. “What is that? …Yuk!” Bitter … so bitter. I didn’t know what he gave me but, it wasn’t like the last. I think he was just messing with me. I never did find out.
“George, how do you feel, does anything hurt? Can you open your eyes?”
I feel pretty “good … comfortable … tired … can’t open my eyes … they don’t work. Did you hear anyone crying earlier … I did? Tired, it’s weird being here, I can’t open my eyes. … I think I have to go now.”
* * *
Jesus, what’s all that noise, where am I? Who’s tugging at me?
“George, George, Mr. Brannen, can you hear me … wakeup? It’s Laura.”
Laura, my post-surgery nurse, was right beside me. I recall, I couldn’t figure out how in the hell she got into this dream. Opening my eyes, she was smiling and informed me everything had gone really well and I was in recovery now. There was another nurse on my right dealing with the IV’s. I couldn’t read her name tag; she leaned over, smiled and whispered in my ear: “You are blessed.”
