Diamond Boy

Patson spends two days at Flying Tomato Farm in bed, feverish and in pain. The morning after a white woman cleans Stumpy and gives Patson a shot in the arm, Patson wakes up feeling much better. It turns out the woman is a vet; she gave Patson antibiotics and left antibiotic pills with Boubacar. Now, the farm’s foreman says that Patson and Boubacar must leave tomorrow. Boubacar’s friends will pick them up in the morning and drive them to Johannesburg. Grace has texted Patson to tell him that Determine wants her to “work for him” in Cape Town, and she’s afraid. Boubacar says they’ll be there tomorrow. Patson asks to read Boubacar what he wrote about him. When Patson is finished, he asks why Boubacar is helping him.

After a long pause, Boubacar explains that the Democratic Republic of Congo isn’t democratic at all. When he was 14, rebel soldiers came to his village, and Boubacar went with them willingly. He hated the government, since they’d killed his father. As a part of Reverend Lubango’s Army of Assurance, Boubacar learned to kill and spent a lot of time smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. Boubacar was good at killing, so he was promoted. But one day, they were ordered to attack a village. Inebriated, Boubacar and his men killed all the villagers—and Boubacar realized only then that he’d slaughtered his family. Slowly, Boubacar realized that Reverend Lubango was a liar, and he got his men off the drugs. They found some UN soldiers who took them in. Crying, Boubacar says that Patson and Grace looked like his little brother and sister—and his sister’s name was Grace.