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  “But why would it keep them away?” Rucker asked. He knew that if that sign had been posted somewhere in the States some inquisitive white folk would have investigated it and found out what was up. Where did folk think the concepts for all those horror movies, where some nosy folks started investigating stuff that was better left alone, came from?

  Chief slowed down the Land Cruiser, which was coasting through some of the most beautiful countryside Rucker had ever seen.

  “Would you, a black man from America, venture off down a grass road that supposedly led to some white folks bold enough to live out here by themselves?”

  “Hell, naw,” Rucker exclaimed.

  “And neither will the folks who live nearby.”

  Rucker looked around and noticed that there was absolutely nothing nearby, with the exception of the animals in the area. He said, “What do you all consider to be ‘nearby’?”

  Chief started laughing and said, “You Americans are so funny. Bishop, nearby is anybody near enough to get by here without us knowing about it. If you haven’t noticed, we have a lot of land. There are enough people within walking distance to wander on our land.”

  Again, Rucker looked around. “Walking distance” took on a whole new meaning out in the African countryside.

  After driving for about twenty minutes, they came to a dirt road that led to a very modest farm nestled in the midst of acres and acres of land covered with acres and acres of watermelons.

  “You see those green watermelons?”

  Rucker nodded.

  “That’s the cheap fruit. We put those closest to the entrance, so that people can’t get to our treasures.”

  Chief drove on some more, and the green watermelons gradually gave way to yellow watermelons, and then orange watermelons, and then, when they entered the actual family compound, rich black watermelons. Rucker noticed that all the workers had guns and machetes hooked to their sides.

  “Those are my cousins,” Chief told him. “This is a family-run business. But we never know when somebody might get back here and try to find out what is going on. Our family has great wealth but we don’t like to advertise.”

  Rucker raised an eyebrow. There were several very plain wooden homes, some Jeeps, and a few old cars, horses and buggies, and Chief’s relatives all over the place. If this was wealth, he was afraid to find out what poor looked like.

  Chief started laughing. “Bishop, you are a hoot, and so American.”

  He stopped the car in front of the largest house, which had an old shed way off and out back that was so rickety it looked as if it would topple right over if one of those children running around the farm leaned on it too hard during a vigorous game of hide-and-go-seek.

  “Do you think that a poor family could own all of this land and raise this crop, and look as healthy and robust as we do?”

  Rucker shook his head. One thing that he had always noticed about Chief was how handsome and robust and healthy he always looked. Chief always had plenty of money—American money. He dressed well, and had an air of authority about him that made people stop and take notice when he entered a room. Rucker had never known Chief to have trouble getting folks to do what he told them to do. He was not arrogant or mean, just a man who knew who he was and felt real good about it. Maybe that is why Ottah Babatunde couldn’t stand Chief. Ottah wanted everybody to kiss his feet and Chief would just as soon tell Ottah to kiss his butt.

  They got out of the car amid all of Chief’s folks running to the car to greet him as if he were a celebrity. It had never occurred to Rucker that Chief was connected to anybody—especially anybody running around all excited to see him. Obviously he was, and it was an impressive display of affection for a man who was cool, even for an African. But as impressive as all that jumping up and down was, it was not nearly as impressive as Uncle Lee Lee strolling up to the Land Cruiser with that fine woman hanging on his arm.

  “Are you sure your great-great-uncle is in his nineties?”

  “Yes. Uncle Lee Lee is as old as dirt, and that is pretty old when you think about how old Africa is.”

  Rucker tried not to stare at that woman, who was a lot younger than her old man. He said, “So, how old are you, Chief?”

  “Fifty-five,” was the answer that came from a man who didn’t look a day over thirty-five.

  “Is that beautiful woman one of your uncle’s grandchildren?” Rucker asked hopefully, knowing full well from the way she was all up on Uncle Lee Lee that she wasn’t. He wanted to know how that old man was able to pull all of that fine in his direction.

  “She’s his wife,” Chief told him in a stern voice. He knew that the bishop loved women, especially the ones who looked like Uncle Lee Lee’s wife. “They just got married not too long ago. She is thirty-four, and expecting a new baby in about six months.”

  “And the father? Did he leave her or something like that?” Rucker asked sincerely.

  “My uncle is the father, Bishop. And does he look like he is interested in leaving that woman anytime soon?”

  All Rucker could do was shake his head, while Chief went and got his bags out of the back of the Land Cruiser.

  “So many questions that we will answer, Bishop. I didn’t bring you here just for a friendly outing.”

  Rucker took in a deep breath and practically smelled money. There was something about these watermelons other than their being good fruit. He wondered if it had anything to do with how good these folks looked, and the fact that Uncle Lee Lee had fathered a child with that fine woman at his age. Rucker wondered if that baby would enter the world looking like an old man. The old folks used to always say that a baby would look real old if the daddy was an old man with a young woman.

  He couldn’t help but think about the great Old Testament patriarch Abraham. He could never quite picture how Abraham got that baby. And now he had a better idea, even though he knew that Abraham’s situation had been purer and not tampered with as he suspected of this situation.

  “Bishop,” Chief said, after Rucker and Uncle Lee Lee, who was extremely quiet, had exchanged quick introductions, “you go down that hall, and you’ll find your room on the left. It’s the one with the purple-and-ruby silk spread on the bed. Get some rest and we’ll come and get you for dinner.”

  Rucker was surprised to see his bags already in the room, which was very rich and opulent. The outside of the house was plain and unassuming. But the inside was another story. Everything on the inside was luxurious, beautiful, and plush. These folks had stuff only the very rich could afford, and be able to have brought way out here, wherever “way out here” was.

  He took off his shoes and sat down on the side of the bed. He was exhausted and fought sleep as he tried to take in every detail of his room. The high four-poster bed was super-comfortable, with plenty of pillows and an extra gold silk throw on top of the spread. There was a gold satin chair, a mahogany antique writing desk, and heavy gold silk draperies at the window. Rucker took off his socks and slid his feet across the exquisite gold-purple-and-ruby area rug. These were definitely not poor folk, Rucker thought as he loosed the top button of his shirt, lay back on the bed, and fell into a deep sleep.

  Two hours later Rucker was awakened by the soft touch of a woman he would later learn was Uncle Lee Lee’s new sister-in-law. She was as beautiful and lush as her sister, only this woman was far more interested in the American bishop than her sister, who had stood next to Uncle Lee Lee with her nose turned up in the air the entire time they were standing outside.

  “Beesship,” she whispered sweetly, enjoying the way this cute American man with a trim physique, light brown skin, wavy hair with shots of silver running through it, and winning smile responded to her feather-light fingertips. “It’s time for you to get up and freshen up for dinner. There is a bowl of soapy water on the pedestal over there.”

  She pointed to the fancy wooden pedestal and the hand-painted porcelain bowl of water with some of the most fragrant soap in it.

  �
�That is the best-smelling soap, baby,” Rucker said, hoping this woman didn’t have a husband. His own wife spent as little time as possible in Mozambique, leaving him with plenty of time to explore the real landscape of Africa.

  “It is nice, isn’t it,” she answered with a smile. “I made it just for you.”

  “Uhhh… baby girl, where is the bathroom?”

  She pointed down the hall to one of three full bathrooms in the house. Chief was right, these folks were loaded. A full bath out here in the middle of nowhere took some doing, and some money.

  Dinner was good, the liquor was homemade and strong, and the conversation and company were delightful. Rucker hadn’t had this much fun since he went to his last family reunion in Grenada, Mississippi. Everybody was talking and cracking jokes, and eating and drinking all of that good food and fine liquor. Everybody, that is, but Uncle Lee Lee. Rucker noticed that although he smiled at the jokes and family anecdotes, he barely spoke the entire evening.

  It wasn’t until the women started clearing off that table that Uncle Lee Lee said more than three words to Rucker. He beckoned for Rucker to follow him outside and said, “Let’s walk around the farm to help our food settle, Bishop.”

  Rucker nodded and followed the old man outside, hoping this old man wouldn’t want to walk too far. But he knew the wish was in vain. Uncle Lee Lee was still getting folks pregnant. He probably could walk twenty-five miles one way without even busting a sweat.

  It was a beautiful evening. The stars were twinkling in the silky navy blue sky, and the moon was full, providing a natural light for the two of them, and adding to the illumination of the huge flashlights they were carrying. They walked through a few of Uncle Lee Lee’s prized sections for his watermelons, and he gave Rucker all kinds of interesting tidbits on each kind of this fruit.

  Uncle Lee Lee stopped walking and bent down to pick a ripe and fragrant black watermelon off the vine. He dropped it on the ground so that it would break open, then stooped down and scooped up a piece. He snapped it in half and gave Rucker a piece of it.

  Rucker bit a piece out of the rind and closed his eyes, that watermelon was so good. He’d never ever tasted anything like it—and that was saying something, since they’d had the most delicious watermelon salad he’d ever tasted at dinner. Plus, that homemade wine was also made from watermelons, and Rucker had gotten tipsy from drinking so much of it. Folks bragged on palm wine. But this stuff was something else.

  “You know, Bishop,” Uncle Lee Lee began in that perfect English one learns in a British preparatory school, “I am ninety-five years old, and when my woman calls me ‘big daddy’ she means every word spoken out of her mouth. And the reason my wife doesn’t pay attention to younger men like yourself, is because one, she is a decent and honorable woman. And two, she knows that there isn’t anyone walking around who can give her what she needs like me.”

  Rucker smiled. He was embarrassed. He never heard a man this age talk like this. Oh, he had always suspected that men in their eighties and nineties still talked like that. They just didn’t talk like that around a younger man like him.

  Uncle Lee Lee chuckled. “Son, you are just like my oldest boy. He is seventy-four years old and always gets so embarrassed when I say things like that.”

  Rucker was searching his mind to figure out who Uncle Lee Lee’s oldest son was. The oldest person at the table had been a man who looked to be close to sixty. He said, “Uncle Lee Lee, I hope I don’t sound rude but which one was your son?”

  “The young man sitting to your left.”

  Rucker couldn’t believe it. That “close to sixty-year-old” was the “young man” Uncle Lee Lee was talking about. Amazing.

  They walked around some more, and then made their way to that rickety old shed way off from the main house. The shed was well lighted with motion sensors. It was so old and decrepit it looked as if it were going to disintegrate into dust. Rucker wondered if that shed was as old as Uncle Lee Lee, then surmised that it was probably older.

  Uncle Lee Lee stepped up inside the shed and invited Rucker to follow him in. But Rucker Hemphill was a city boy. He was from the South, but had always lived in a town or city. He had never liked the country, and was squeamish about crusty old buildings. The bishop did not want to go into that raggedy shed. So he held his place on the porch, hoping that he wasn’t looking at Uncle Lee Lee as if he were crazy for asking him to come into that place.

  That building was so unsteady it moved from side to side when Uncle Lee Lee went inside. But Uncle Lee Lee gave no heed to Rucker’s fears. He came back outside and snatched him by the arm and dragged him up to the door. Rucker was shocked at the old man’s strength. But still, he would not go into that building. So Uncle Lee Lee went behind him and pushed Rucker inside with such force, he sailed right across the narrow and dusty room.

  Uncle Lee Lee waited for Rucker to get up and dust off that fancy suit he had no business wearing to a farm out in a rural section of Mozambique. He then went over to a wooden chest. Rucker stood back and away from the chest because it was covered with four huge spiders. Uncle Lee Lee dusted those spiders off as if they were butterflies or some other pleasant insect. One flew off the chest and landed on Rucker’s shoulder.

  “Ahhhhhhh,” Rucker screamed in such a high pitch he sounded like a woman. He was terrified, and almost peed on himself when that huge and hairy spider resting on his shoulder began to walk up toward his neck.

  Uncle Lee Lee got closer to Rucker and popped the spider off him and onto the floor.

  “Aren’t you going to kill it?”

  “No, I like them. They don’t bother anyone and they keep everybody who doesn’t need to be in my shed out.”

  “How many spiders do you think are in this building?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, ten or fifteen perhaps,” Uncle Lee Lee answered him matter-of-factly. He didn’t see what the big fuss was about. They were just spiders.

  “Are they all this big, Uncle Lee Lee?”

  All Uncle Lee Lee did was nod and say, “Quit whining and acting like an American sissy boy. They are just spiders. Now come over here so I can show you something.”

  He pulled out a huge pickle jar filled with some greenish-gray powder. He opened the jar and handed it to Rucker, who started gagging. That was some stanky stuff—smelled like toe jams mixed with smelly underarm juice and butt. Rucker handed the jar back to Uncle Lee Lee, his eyes watering the stuff was so stinky. He jumped when that big brown-and-gray spider started crawling up his pants leg.

  “Stomp your foot on the floor,” Uncle Lee Lee told him, and then got impatient when Rucker stomped like a girl, and came and knocked the spider off. He flipped open his pocket knife and sliced up some of the powder. He poured it into his hand and told Rucker to hold out his own hand, so that he could give him some.

  Rucker held out his hand gingerly, as if Uncle Lee Lee were putting a big clod of poop in it.

  “Boy, hold out your hand,” Uncle Lee Lee commanded, and then poured some of that stuff into the palm of Rucker’s hand.

  “Now, lick it up like this,” he said, and showed Rucker how to lick up the powder. Uncle Lee Lee looked as if he were licking up the powder kids loved in those candy straws.

  Rucker sniffed at the powder in the palm of his hand and gagged. He squinted his eyes tight to help quell his nausea. When he was better he closed his eyes tight, like a kid taking some very nasty-tasting medicine, and willed himself to put that stuff in his mouth, gagging and coughing and sputtering the whole time.

  “Swallow it right now, Bishop,” Uncle Lee Lee ordered and then put the jar back. He picked up one of those spiders and placed it on the rack with the jars of that nasty stuff.

  Rucker forced the stuff down. Uncle Lee Lee walked out of the shed with a gagging Rucker hot on his heels. He locked it and watched Rucker carefully, waiting on the powder to work.

  The first thing that Rucker felt was rumbling and cramping in his lower abdomen. He started sweating when he
looked around and all he saw were grass, bushes, watermelons, wildflowers indigenous to the area, and trees.

  Uncle Lee Lee assured him that this side effect would pass quickly if he would just quit being so theatrical and calm down. Several minutes later Rucker was feeling better—much, much better. In fact, he had not felt this good physically in a very long time. He felt limber, he felt more energetic, and he felt a good twenty years younger.

  Rucker wanted to run back to the house but had to slow down and wait on Uncle Lee Lee. By the time they reached Uncle Lee Lee’s house, his wife’s sister was sitting on the porch waiting on them.

  She smiled and said, “Beeeshiiipp” in the sexiest voice, took Rucker’s hand, and led him across the way to her home. He was glad it was dark, because while they were walking, his body reacted with such force and potency, Rucker would have scared somebody—unless of course that person was this delectable African violet pulling him through the front door of her house, murmuring, “Oh my… Beeeessshhhiiiippp.”

  Rucker spent a hot and passionate night with Uncle Lee Lee’s sister-in-law. Much to his delight he didn’t get tired, and his body reacted as many times as he wanted it to. It was amazing, and all as a result of taking what was less than a teaspoon of that horrid powder. Rucker couldn’t believe it.

  The next morning he walked out of the sister-in-law’s house over to Uncle Lee Lee’s house with some serious swagger in his every step. Chief was sitting on the porch waiting for him.

  “Liked that, huh, Bishop?” he asked Rucker, who just smiled and said, “Like it? Chief, man, I love that stuff.”

  “I have been taking that powder since I was in my teen years. It has kept me young and robust. You want that, don’t you?”

  “Umm… hmm,” Rucker replied. “You can’t imagine what I could do with a bunch of that stuff back in the States.”

  “Oh, I can imagine,” Chief told him. “That’s why I brought you out here, and my uncle let you try the potion. You need a moneymaker that you can sell at this upcoming Triennial Conference. And you need something that doesn’t require a lot of work to sell. You are a living witness to the power of this potion. You know it will sell, and you know word of mouth will be all that you’ll need to convince your people that you have something worth trying.”