chapter 18d  

(Rebel by Accident) 

Moïse Berri 

and the Reconstruction of the Haitian 

Space Agency 

by Jude Jarda 


18d Rebel by Accident 

Bar owner, Rico Mars, acclaimed local star disc-jockey, DJ Evasion, the recently freed Israeli captive named, Yosef Cohen-Abitbol, and notorious history teacher, Victor Gourdet, known in Mizerikod under the aliases of Professor, The Scholar and The Hexagon, come out of the crypt of the Our Lady of Seven Sorrows church. The neophyte reporter, the improvised cameraman, the confused hostage and the local news editor spent the night in that humid chamber, comforting each other and philosophizing about the true meaning of life. The four men all suffered a nervous shock after miraculously surviving that shoot out in Emcee Jones Brooklyn's military tent.  

The incident occurred while Rico Mars was interviewing the man he knew so far as Billionaire, now supposedly crazy, Jewish and known as a native of Morocco named, Yosef Cohen-Abitbol. Rico Mars was doing so with the permission of Emcee Jones, the founder of the redoubtable Diabbakas street gang. At that moment, Rico Mars was being told by the prisoner, that respected Senator Fleurant regularly organized pig fights in the courtyard of his cozy villa. These violent and abusive bouts were sponsored by Pantaléon Michelet, a powerful and feared medicine man from Grand Saline. Rico Mars was also informed by the hostage about Zilérion Campbell frequently contravening to article 15 of the 1987 and 2012 Constitutions, because the magistrate never really renounced his American citizenship. The highly respected judge was also suspected of granting amnesty to career criminals in exchange of money, and also of importing illegal weapons in Haiti with the help of his poker buddy, a local businessman and part-time mortician named, Burns Breton. Yosef Cohen-Abitbol also told Rico Mars that, Chief Police Malvenu, a crystal meth and MDMA aficionado, got his dope shipped from West Palm Beach, placed in empty cellular phone boxes, and hid his stash in a recycle bin located behind Mullet Dot Org's electronic boutique. The traumatized captive added that he recently saw Chief Malvenu avoid death from an overdose, thanks to a chest massage done with feet and knees and one terrifying intracardiac injection, skillfully administered by his villa's seasonal pest control technician and septic tank cleaner.

Victor Gourdet was writing down all that juicy information in his yellow notebook, when he heard DJ Evasion suddenly yell in Creole: “Gadé gwosè yon bazooka?” Which translates into: “Look at the size of that bazooka?”

Chuck Three-Brothers was indeed standing at the entrance of Jones Brooklyn's tent, pointing a British manufactured shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon toward his former associate's sweaty forehead. The dilated blood vessels inside Chuck's sclera seemed to tell a very surprised Jones Brooklyn: “There you go, fucker, today is your last on Earth.” Now, this completely surreal situation was not limited to the exaggerated firepower Chuck Three-Brothers brought for the execution of one single individual made of flesh and bones. The thug was also backed by seven of his peers, all of them masked and carrying ultramodern assault rifles; four were armed with RPG-7 Russian designed rocket-propelled grenades and three with Italian military submachine guns equipped with what looked like homemade bayonets at the end. All the bandits were targeting the skull of their startled former leader. Being a keen arms collector and a fan of everything martial like some people are attracted to high horsepower and prestigious cars, Jones Brooklyn felt honored to be threatened by these incredibly well fabricated killing instruments. 

“Sweet bazinga! they are simply marvelous. Where did you get those wonderful war toys, Chucky Rastaman?” 

“Shut the fuck up, you dirty disloyal boar!” Chuck Three-Brothers thundered. “You know damn well who sells us heat. We just dropped by the cemetery and opened up the right coffins before you did. Jim Falafel found my Blackberry, you vicious parasite. I read and heard all the messages my girl, Naomi, left me. Where you expecting such a happy ending when you elaborated your evil plan, you rat eating scavenger?” 

“Easy with the name calling. It sounds weird and it creates disturbing images in my head. Let me explain, Chuck, my brother. One love. Falafel and Jeff Sprinter betrayed us, big time.” 

“Bite me, Jones! Stop pretending I'm a goddamn pinhead!” 

“Calm down, partner. Bro, bro, bro... we should just keep calm, sit the fuck down and chat a little before jumping to any wrong conclusions.” 

“My grieving is done, Jones. I came here to erase you for good.” 

“Relax, Chuck, you're not the kind of man who kills in cold blood. Banban White Powder told me you used to aim at the Dominican Police's toes when a gunfight would break out after a failed deal near the border, in Ouanaminthe.” 

“Those guys were just trying to do their jobs, Jones. On the other hand, you... All right, I had enough of your bullshit! Rico! Victor! DJ! untie Billionaire and leave me with this scumbag. You don't want to be a witness of what's coming next.” 

The members of the newly founded journalistic team felt relieved for a brief moment, delighted to be non-verbally advised by Chuck they were not going to die because of a conflict they had absolutely nothing to do with. However, they found themselves facing a preoccupying dilemma. The guys were free to walk away from the military tent, but there was only one exit, which was also the entrance. Chuck Three-Brothers and his comrades had their footprints all over the place. The ruffians had unknowingly disperse the powdered milk previously spread by Jones Brooklyn to delimit the security zone traced for his guests. The poor lighting in the tent made it extremely difficult to distinguish the tangle of wires set up by the owner of the place. In the event of a rupture or too much stretching, that fine fishing net would automatically trigger the activation of Jones Brooklyn's lethal defense system and its very frightening domino effect. 

Being closer to the ground because of his short stature, DJ Evasion spotted the path of the polymer wire first. He immediately stopped breathing, his eyes wide opened, his jaw clenched. The hostage walking behind Evasion in his unfastened bathrobe gave the DJ a little push in the back and told him to hurry up and get out. Walking away from that tense situation was more than urgent. DJ Evasion moaned something unintelligible; sounding like a self-aware mammal after crossing the last swinging doors of a slaughterhouse. When Chuck Three-Brothers realized what was going on, it was already too late. Jones Brooklyn had already grabbed both handles of his nineteenth century teak coffer and release the two Colt Peacemakers decorating it. The explosive chain of detonations that followed was simply deafening. Fortunately for Victor Gourdet's television crew, one of Chuck's associates, a pathological poser, decided to throw a violet smoke grenade in the middle of the room. The gunfight continued inside a thick floral lavender cloud until there was no ammunition left, while Victor, Rico, Yosef and DJ Evasion prudently sneaked their way out of this inferno. 

Following that shocking experience, DJ Evasion rekindled with his Evangelical faith. The unpleasant whistling of a .9 mm bullet, six inches away from his brain, reminded him that fearing the Lord was a fundamental commandment. Since the incident, Rico Mars believes in a superior and universal intelligence; just like that, because nothing doesn't sound good anymore as a witty answer. Rico Mars is now convinced there is an invisible cosmic force capable of changing the trajectory of a projectile, a higher power that can shape, bend and alter the course of destiny itself. More of an animist with doubts because of his many philosophical readings, Victor Gourdet keeps asking himself whether he owes his life to a protective spirit or to the kitsch necklace he got last year from a roadside vendor near Grand Saline. Is it possible for an inanimate object to create a magnetic field strong enough to change the course of a flying ammo; or was this whole regrettable event a mere coincidence governed entirely by luck? 

Magic or not, Victor Gourdet doesn't remember much of the terrifying episode. He vaguely recalls falling head first over a concrete slab and being disconnected from reality for a short period. The strident and loud blasts persisted for a while. The editor of the Mizerikod journal closed his eyes and started wondering what suit he should wear at his own funeral. The history teacher was certain he'd been hit in the lower stomach and was about to die, so he waved goodbye to this unjust world and simply dozed off. When Victor Gourdet got his senses back, besides the huge hematoma on his brow, the extreme fatigue, the complete loss of balance, his unresponsive left arm and the fact that he didn't really recall a bunch of things like his own birth name, everything seemed fine and back in order. 

For his part, Father Romuald holds a categorical opinion on the staggering events. The clergyman maintains that a miracle just took place before their unworthy eyes. The Catholic priest insists on the fact that the damages done to the headphones worn by DJ Evasion during the shoot-out constitute a tangible proof of a Divine intervention. 


Finally, Yosef Cohen-Abitbol seems to feel much better. After months of seclusion and a condemnation to live through a waking nightmare all by himself, he can now tell his story in its entirety to an interested ear. Someone who considers him sane. Yosef however surprises everyone, when he officially rejects his religion because he doesn't fear death anymore. From now on, he defines himself as a humanist. Yosef's plans for the future are simple. He would first like to get out of this country and go on with his life, but all his papers are in a safe inside Senator Fleurant's villa. Victor Gourdet promises to help him get them back in exchange of his full involvement in the report they began filming the night before. The editor of the Mizerikod newspaper quickly adds to the oral arrangement that Yosef Cohen-Abitbol must stay in character at all time until the termination of the project. According to Victor Gourdet, pretending to be Moïse Berri will help attract the attention of the international media on the major crisis affecting the region.

Tired of being harassed by Father Romuald, who keeps calling him Vévé and My Son, worsening his confusion, Victor Gourdet accepts to return in the arms of the Roman Church Jesus, but only under the condition that Christ is always presented to him as a Black man with dreadlocks, either on paper, canvas, plaster or bronze. Father Romuald throws some Holy water on Victor's face and postulates with emphasis that Vévé survived that gun battle because the Lord of the Armies had chosen him to accomplish a much greater mission. Yosef Cohen-Abitbol agrees to join that sacred adventure, even if he just turned an Atheist a minute ago, only if he can stay behind the cameras or keep a mask on to protect his real identity and thus, his beloved family. 

“That's not a big problem,” Victor Gourdet says. “We'll just tell the world that Moïse Berri has become camera shy because of his newly caught vitiligo, crotch rash or something like that. People like mystery, that's a fact. They'll swallow any meat with the right sauce.” 

CNN, The Beeb, TV5 France and Al Jazeera are the first major networks Victor Gourdet tries to get in touch with. He is finally taken seriously and put on hold by WPTZ, Channel 5, Vermont, his fifth hundredth and twenty-first choice. The news anchor at the other end of the phone line never heard of a place called Mizerikod and doesn't have a translator to help him understand Victor's badly articulated English. The American news reporter has serious doubts about the existence of a Haitian town that is invisible on Google Earth and not listed on any search engine. Victor Gourdet explains to the man that a very obscure municipal law obliges all the construction entrepreneurs who want to work in Mizerikod to paint all the roofs of the commune in tints of green, brown or beige. 

The American journalist does not believe Victor, but he advises him to communicate with Wyclef Jean or the producers of We are the World. More important things are happening in New York and in New Jersey right now, the Vermonter tells Victor. Because of Superstorm Sandy, rich people of the most powerful nation on the planet have no electricity, no gas and no commodity, three days before a presidential election opposing a White Mormon capitalist to a Black Protestant socialist. In the Middle East, the reporter continues, the Syrian capital has recently been the scene of intense fighting between radicals, government forces and rebels; Israel and Tehran have decided to unplug their diplomatic telephones. Exasperation and a general discontent is rampant all over the globe: within the Coptic community in Egypt, the small investors in Greece, the Pashtun tribes of the Swat District, in the opposition parties of Moscow, the unemployed people of Spain, the smugglers of the Nigerian Delta, the refugees in Mali and so on. Haiti has been relegated to a secondary role. The Pearl of the Antilles has become an annual subject until the next catastrophe hits. Without a constant exposure in the media, the devastating earthquake of 2010 is just another sad story and a bad memory for the public. Even if the death toll was astronomic, it's still numbers and statistics; one more drop of water in a large basin of more recent tragic events. The competition must be taken into account, the sponsors and the viewers likewise. The truth hurts a lot: no Hollywood stars on the spot also means not enough suffering worth photographing, filming or printing. 

Hearing all this, Yosef Cohen-Abitbol remembers the false accusations Senator Fleurant used to menace him with, to make sure he would not try to escape or disobey him. Yosef tells Victor he might have a plan. As he explains it in details, he urges Victor to communicate with Télé Bruxelles via Skype, and inform the station that his news team is holding the leader of the pedophile ring targeted by Operation Angelot. The reaction of the European journalist on the other end of the line is intense, almost theatrical. The man sounds overjoyed, like if he just won a money prize or a marathon. The reporter jumps on the scoop with a lot of enthusiasm. He promptly connects Victor Gourdet to all the big European press agencies. According to the Nielsen Holdings measurement company, the Belgian tells Victor, pedophilia is much more efficient than war and famine when it comes to selling cars and beer, especially during the early evening time frame. 

But prior to show their non-existent pervert to the angry and hungry television viewers of Belgium, Victor Gourdet and his crew take advantage of the sudden attention from the Old Continent's media corporations to denounce part of the inconvenient truth about the city of Mizerikod. What is shown, live on Skype, does not need to be described. The small town of Mizerikod resembles a combat zone. The chaos in the commune had been planned for months to the last detail and without any ambiguity by an evil minded villain, Victor Hexagon reveals to a young freelancer based in Louvain. Weapon caches that have been found in private residences and in various public places support this assumption. An independent police force must be dispatched immediately to investigate the actions of the MINUSTAH, claims Victor Gourdet. The population suspects the peacekeeping mission's military staff of fomenting genocide behind closed doors. The recent revelations about the enormous oil and rare earth reserves present in Haiti could definitely seal the country's fate. The supranational oil companies, supported by their bellicose puppets, might transform an already devastated Haiti into a new Kurdistan. The ratings of the now live satellite conference triple, fifteen seconds after the words oil, rare earths and money are mentioned by Victor Gourdet. To increase them tenfold and grab the complete attention of the slowly growing American audience, Victor declares without blinking that the sexual predator they caught has a Jewish sounding name. Reuters and AFP join the information session, which rapidly becomes closer to an open debate because of the extensive use of video conference by the parties.  

Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post leap into the ring by solidarity for a fellow Israeli. Their readers want to know more about the depraved Jew. The opposition in the Knesset is asking for a picture; a member of Tkuma is convinced that a huge mistake was made and that the Kremlin is behind all this, hand in hand with the Iranians. 

All of a sudden, the journalist in Victor slides into subjectivity, while the politician sleeping inside of him promptly awakes. Fifteen minutes later, Victor The Hexagon starts answering questions using the first-person plural personal pronoun: We. When Victor begins to speak of himself, using the third-person singular personal pronoun: He; Rico Mars and DJ Evasion realize that they are witnessing the birth of a monster. 

The news team plunges head first into the eye of the storm. They bring the camera in the streets to show what is really going on to the international community, labelling themselves: The Truth-Tellers. They soon bump on a clique of angry young men occupying Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Their leaders demand the immediate expulsion of all foreigners present on Haitian territory before midnight. Their spokesman argues that the countless non-governmental organizations working in the country are behind the general disorder. They are its root cause. DJ Evasion's camera and Rico's microphone attract many protesters and militants that never had a chance to express an opinion outside their kitchen or the natural dirt mound on Place Michaëlle Jean. A mob rapidly encircles Victor Gourdet's crew. The old people want to show their boo-boos on TV and talk about the hunger problem in the rural areas of the country. They vilify the government, criticize the American Embassy for the lack of security in the cities and defend their right to exist and to die with a minimum of dignity. The young lads want to show their designer sweatshirts and let the Global Village know that they don't eat every day; the world must understand that they are all unemployed, but far from being lazy. The kids also want to talk about their future with the President and the Prime Minister of Haiti right here and right now or make them leave by force before dawn. 

The reporting team crosses the path of a group of naked demonstrators on Nelson-Mandela Avenue. These neoliberal nudists, as they've been designated by moderate insurgents, stipulate that their nakedness is a far left stand reinforcing their support for the mythical leader of the revolution; a man they mysteriously call, Nonm Resous Imèn Lan, which translates as, the Guy From Human Resources. 

A military police squad sent by a certain, Captain Pintado, with the mission to arrest Yosef Cohen-Abitbol, comes out of nowhere and surrounds the reporting team. The Corporal heading the unit wants to have a quick chat with Victor Gourdet, but with the cameras off. He shows a warrant bearing the name of Moïse Berri to Victor. The sub-officer and his men are instantly disarmed, savagely beaten and chased by hooded thugs waving machetes, pitchforks and brand new Schumann kitchen knives. Let it be known, they squeal and chant: “No one will touch a hair of Billionaire's head while he is among us and under our protection.” The message is clear. The authorities have been warned.

A chubby woman starts screaming and complaining in tongues. The Patrice-Lumumba Monument has been soiled with mud or something brown during the shuffle. A hoodlum wearing a gas mask smells a conspiracy; the Pentagon, President Sarkozy and 10, Downing Street, are immediately blamed. It all makes sense now. 

Liberating Haiti, reshaping the geopolitical map of the globe and opposing the New World Order are highly noble and respectable causes, but they surely make the average activists insatiate and thirsty. Victor, Rico, DJ Evasion and Yosef are invited to share a buffet and a case of Mouton Cadet by a group of rioters from Saint-Marc who arrived in town the day before. They stole a calf from a farm nearby and baptized it: the Bull of the Revolution. 

Rumors abound during that copious feast. For instance, a little rascal named Margarine, Gargarine or Gal Marine is said to be walking around town with a briefcase loaded with lots of dough, the only American bills available in the entire region. People are whispering on the streets that the kid tried to cash in a valid check of fifty thousand dollars at the Mizerikod Royal Bank, which is normally closed on Saturdays for local and normal people. 

Victor Gourdet is also instructed about the infiltration of the Haitian National Police by outsiders and the human trafficking business they've been operating for decades. According to an eye witness, while tailing a Canadian police officer from Manitoba, suspected of sabotage and treason, Sergeant Pyram Malvenu and Sergeant Evans Ferjuste caught that said agent trying to cross the border illegally, near Ouanaminthe, in the company of a Haitian woman he kept calling his wife. There was a shoot-out involving the Dominican Border Patrol. Three policemen were seriously wounded during the altercation. All the people involved in the gun battle ended up together side by side in a Dajabón hospital, in Dominican territory. Victor The Hexagon and his journalists are  finally briefed by three other witnesses, on the subject of that turbulent group of escaped prisoners who inaugurated a public tribunal and built a scaffold on Malcolm X. Boulevard, near Place Charlemagne-Péralte. The fugitives used short ropes, rocks and sandbags to provide a good counterweight for their newly hand-built execution device. Their first defendant, considered already judged and condemned by a jury entirely made of ex-cons, was Oscar Perceval, the warden of the municipal jail. 

Naturally, like in every collective dinner involving passionate and pissed off Haitians, somebody spontaneously decides to become an experienced politician. Indeed, after his sixth cup of wine, Victor Gourdet declares on a very solemn tone, to that spectacular reunion of thieves, Average Joes, brigands, vandals and mentally disturbed individuals, that things must change, and that they must change right now, because what the people want is change; and change is exactly the kind of change he wants to bring in to change things.

“If I topple the municipal council and take control of the city,” Victor Gourdet says with a lot of confidence, “do you swear to follow me and sacrifice your life for the sake of Justice?” 
“What kind of justice are we talking about, Writer?” a mentally sane agitator asks, knowing that Victor is way too drunk to repeat the same question properly. 

“Liberty or death!” Victor The Hexagon shouts, leaning forward and almost falling face first on the ground. 

“Liberty or death!” answers the coalition, well aware that their new leader is wasted, but definitely looking for a new town to rampage.