Eric woke up, sweat dripping down his face and onto his lap. He noticed his father pressing a button that made the window beside him descend, and he leaned closer to the rush of wind, relieved.
"Thanks," Eric said.
"It's not even hot in here," Eric's father said with a confused face.
"That's because I'm strange."
Eric's father chuckled.
"You sure are… How was the sleep?"
"Terrible."
"Not surprising, since you wouldn't stop turning."
"I was?"
"Yeah. I wish I'd videoed it."
There was a brief silence between them until Eric spoke.
"Are we in South Sudan?" Eric said, his voice carrying traces of hope.
"Yes. Luckily for you, you slept through four hours of the drive."
"Yeah, my headache's completely gone."
Eric's father glanced at him, a brief look of concern crossing his face.
"Tell you what, when we get back I'll take you to the doctor, and then we can buy some stuff for our next trip."
"Trip to where?" he asked.
"To the U.S."
Eric's face lit up with excitement.
"Wait, we're visiting Mom for the summer? For how long?"
"A month and a half."
Eric was practically bursting with excitement. He couldn't wait to see that woman again. He pictured his earliest memory of meeting her. He was just four, running up to a Caucasian woman in a very ladylike, beautiful white dress. He remembered everything clearly. She was squatting in her white heels, and her long, flowing blond hair hung down to her right breast. Her smile was as bright as the sun, illuminating her hair and making her look like a goddess incarnate. Her eyes were a light green, so transparent that he swore he could see her soul. It was a bright golden soul, the soul of a warm, kind person. She embraced him, holding him tight and kissing his cheek while spinning him around. He played with her blue gem earrings, which shone in the sun. On that day, he fell deeply in love with his mom.
"Hey, Dad, how come you never told me how you met Mom?" he said, his voice laced with curiosity and realization.
Eric's father took a moment to respond, unsure if it was the right time to say.
"Not now." His father paused. "I think the story really isn't appropriate for a nine-year-old. Well, not the full story, at least."
Eric raised an eyebrow.
"How inappropriate could it be? I mean, I already know about sex, if that's what you're worried about."
His father looked genuinely surprised, and a bit amused.
"Did they talk about it at school, or are you watching porn?"
"W-w-what? Of course not! It's sex education. The guidance counselor came to my class and talked about it," Eric said, startled by his father's weird question.
His father laughed briefly.
A few hours later
The sun began to set, lighting up the city and the exterior of the car with a bright, eye-catching light that signaled the day was ending.
Eric looked out the window with awe and appreciation for whatever god had allowed him to witness such a sight.
"Wish I had my camera," his father said with a sigh.
"You forgot it?"
"Y-yeah," his father said, his face drenched in regret.
His father sighed again.
Eric laid back in his seat, then sprang up a few seconds later.
"Wait, there's no way we'll… no, she's already done cooking—"
"Relax," his father cut in. "I called her while you were sleeping and told her we weren't going to be there today."
Eric leaned back with a sigh of relief, completely exhausted by fear. He could feel his pulse and heart beating violently, casting the illusion that his whole body was a blood-pumping machine.
His father took a quick glance at Eric's face and smiled, almost bursting with laughter.
"No thank you, no nothing. I had to endure thirty-five minutes of non-stop cursing and yelling."
"You timed it?" Eric said, his voice laced with surprise and amusement.
"Yeah." He pulled out his phone and showed Eric the timer.
"Well, Father, I envy you. It looks like your mind is awfully resilient."
Eric's father's face puffed up as he tried not to laugh, but try as he might, he couldn't hold back the side effect of one of the reasons he loved his son. He burst out laughing, and Eric, looking at his father with a big grin on his face, began to laugh along with him.
Three minutes. Three minutes of nothing but continuous laughter until they finally stopped.
"Ha ha ha ha ha… alright, hee hee ha ha ha… alright, alright, let's stop making fun of your grandma."
"Hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ha… alright, alright."
They both took a deep breath, trying not to end up laughing again. Eric really did love his father. He was given everything he ever asked for, as long as he didn't get into trouble at school, didn't fail any classes, and didn't enter his rebellious phase. That rarely happened. There was a time Eric had thrown a tantrum when he hadn't seen his mom for a while, but he was just five then. He and his father were very close. If somebody mistook them for brothers instead of father and son, they would both understand why. It seemed that whenever one of them discovered a new hobby, the other showed interest.
Just like when his father started getting into photography, Eric discovered he had a natural gift for it.
He glanced out the window. The sunset light stung his eyes, and he quickly shielded them, opening a crack between the gaps of his fingers. He noticed the sunset illuminating the entire city and the river, casting a golden glow over both. The river, like a mirror, reflected the golden setting sun and the city, as if there were another world beneath the water. The whole thing seemed almost surreal, as if God were giving them his blessings.
"Which city are we in?"
"Juba. We're 442 miles away from Bentiu. We're going to spend the night at a hotel."
Eric's heart paused.
"We're not gonna stay at the same hotel as two years ago, are we?" he said quickly, expecting a swift, reassuring response.
"No, no, of course not. We won't be sleeping with cockroaches again."
Hearing that, he took a deep breath of relief. Eric began reminiscing about the roach hotel. He could still feel his body being tickled by the little, almost unkillable insects navigating across it. Never again, he told himself.
"You hungry? My friend told me about a great restaurant in the city we should try," his father said, looking at the golden Rolex on his wrist, which shone in the sunset light.
"What do they serve?" Eric asked.
"Jollof rice and chicken, fries and burgers, with sodas. You wanna try it?"
"Alright."
Cruising through the city, Eric looked up from the window and saw colossal buildings. Even though he had come to Juba two years ago, the city was unrecognizable to him. Then again, he had been just seven back then. The buildings were a lot taller and bigger than he remembered. The streets and the highway were cleaner and more developed, and he also noticed there were fewer vendors. Had they been relocated by some new law? he thought. Eric smirked at the realization that the country might be getting wealthier. The thought made his lips curl into a bright grin at the image conjured in his mind: him actually staying at a luxurious hotel instead of one infested with a nation of roaches hidden in the beds.
"We're here," his father said, reversing the car into the restaurant's parking space.
Unbuckling their seat belts, they exited the car and entered the restaurant.
Almost immediately, a wave of kitchen noise and the chatter of customers bombarded their ears. As they got closer, the mouth-watering aroma swam up their noses.
Maybe this restaurant isn't trash, Eric thought.
"Excuse me, are you in line to order?" Eric's father said with a light smile.
"Oh, no, you can order. W-we were just waiting for them to give us our table number." The girl and her friends' faces flashed bright grins before they quickly hid them in embarrassment. Eric couldn't help but notice that the girl stuttered when talking to his father, just as all women stuttered in his presence, even the maids. Eric glanced at his father, just to remind himself why his father had been blessed with the art of seducing women.
"Oh, okay. You ladies have a nice day, alright?" he said in his American accent.
"You too," the women said, swiftly grabbing their receipt, marked with a bold 9. But before they left, they flashed him a smile, then scurried off to the higher floors, chatting quietly.
His father went over to the cashier and ordered their food.
In the meantime, Eric observed the customers. He realized that the restaurant was quite luxurious, especially the customers, who looked as rich as his father, or richer. Some also looked to be foreigners from the U.S.
"Eric, I bought us a table upstairs," his father said, interrupting his curious mind.
He followed his father to the eighth and final floor of the restaurant. It overlooked the roads and small neighboring buildings. The floor was decorated with plants that looked real, all over the railing and strung with lights. The tables were painted with scenes from African folklore, with a noticeable number painted in red. He recognized the folklore because he heard several such stories almost every day from the maids. But he couldn't blame them, since he was quite hard to entertain.
His father pointed toward one of several tables next to the railing.
"The table is over there," he said.
Eric followed him. Looking over at the other buildings, he watched as the sunset finally began disappearing between the large buildings, casting its remaining radiance onto his face. He gazed at the sunset for a little while before continuing to walk with his father.
"Table 10. Right here," his father said, pointing at the number in the middle of the table.
Eric and his father sat down, and almost immediately a young man in his late teens came to take their orders. If Eric had to guess, he was probably around nineteen or twenty. He wore a stylized white dress shirt that seemed to have laces on it, black dress pants, and the world's shiniest shoes.
"Good afternoon, sirs. What would you like to order?" he said in his best American accent, trying to seem professional.
A smirk appeared on Eric's face, amused by the waiter's horrid attempt at a foreign accent.
"Can I have jollof rice with sweet-and-sour chicken?"
His father looked over at Eric, giving him a slight gesture.
"Can I have fried rice with sweet-and-sour chicken?"
"Any drinks?"
"I'll have a Coke."
"And I'll have a Sprite with ice, please," Eric said.
"Alright, your orders will be ready in ten minutes."
With that, the waiter disappeared down the steps to the lower floors.