Tim and Kevin round a corner in the road and see what’s causing the traffic jam. Two tractor trailers are overturned and pulled across the road, forming a zig zag path between them. The makeshift checkpoint is manned by about a dozen young men. They don’t have any visible weapons, but seem to be collecting a toll from motorists before letting them drive between the trailers. With no way around the obstacles, the SUV slowly approaches the checkpoint. As they pull forward, a boy runs up to the group of young men, shouting and gesturing beyond the trailers behind him. Without another word, the group suddenly scatters.
An open-sided military truck rolls into view and stops at the barrier. Soldiers jump down from the truck and shoulder their weapons, aiming them toward the surrounding crowd. The crowd shrinks back, shrieking in fear and shouting angrily. An older, uniformed man with dark sunglasses steps down from the truck and begins gesturing toward the crowd and shouting orders. He assembles a group of bystanders and directs them to begin pushing the trailers off the road. Kevin flinches as one of the soldiers slapped the fender of Tim’s SUV and gestures for them to begin moving ahead. Tim says “Merci” to the soldier and they pull away.
After getting past the roadblock, Tim is able to pick up more speed. They pass piles of smoldering tires every few hundred meters. Kevin sits back in his seat and enjoys the breeze coming into his window, even though the air is thick with the smell of smoke. He realizes that his hands are shaking and he exhales slowly. Tim glances over, “You OK?” Kevin takes a few more breaths, “I think so”. Tim looks back at the road and shifts into a higher gear, “They’ve mostly left foreigners alone. So far, the US government has stayed out of it so we’re not targets.” He gestures again toward the press placard on the dashboard, “We were the first station to broadcast the news that it was the police behind the coup, and not the Army. The people see us as the good guys because of that.” They pass the infamous slums of Cite Soleil on the right, the rusty tin roofs and cement block shacks extending as far as the eye can see. “I’m going to stay on the main roads though, just to be careful. There are still a lot of scores being settled in some of these neighborhoods.”
They continue in silence. It doesn’t seem long before they have to slow again, a line of traffic forming ahead. A dark black plume of smoke billows into the sky ahead. Tim begins downshifting rapidly and leans out the driver side window, trying to see the cause. “There’s another roadblock ahead. They’re burning tires again.” He looks quickly over his shoulder and squints at the passing buildings. “No way around it. We have to get to that intersection. I’m not seeing a large crowd though. Maybe they set the tires on fire and then left.”
Approaching the intersection, they see a large pile of burning tires in the middle of the intersection, forming a sort of traffic circle. There doesn’t seem to be anyone trying to establish a roadblock. The traffic lights aren’t working, so they enter a chaotic scrum of vehicles of all types and sizes trying to avoid each other, the burning tires, and swarms of angry pedestrians. Awaiting their turn to move around the obstacle, Kevin looks out his window at a smoldering pile of rubble. He slowly realizes that he’s looking at the remains of a charred body. Time slows and he can’t look away. The body is decapitated, its hands and feet cut off, and burned beyond recognition. Not wanting to believe what he’s seeing, Kevin slowly accepts that the musculature and bones are definitely human. It’s lying on its back, arms and legs outstretched toward the sky, as if praying and begging one last time.
Kevin finally squeezes his eyes shut, but too late, he’s certain that he’s looking at what used to be a man. The SUV begins to move and Kevin slowly opens his eyes in time to see the name on the road sign overhead, “Boulevard Jean-Jacque Dessalines”. Hero of the Haitian Slave Revolution whose rules of engagement toward the French plantation owners and their families were quite simple, “Koupe tet. Boule kay.” (Cut off their heads. Burn their houses.)