Trafford Publishing: West African Odyssey of Lee Roterhals

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West African Odyssey of Lee Roterhals

by August Quesada

265 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0920; ISBN 1-55395-206-5; US$23.50, C$27.49, EUR19.00, £13.50

Robert E. Lee Roterhals, a closet redneck from Atlanta, parlayed a marketing director's job into a defacto white dictator of forty million blacks who worshipped him as "Baba Oweebo."

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about the book about the author sample excerpts catalogue info

About the Book

Transferred to Kimayo in West Africa to promote his company's Queen of Sheba cosmetic products, Robert E. Lee Roterhals, a closet redneck from Atlanta, parlayed a marketing director's job to become ultimately a de facto white dictator of forty million blacks who feared and worshipped him as "Baba Oweebo."
During his youth, Lee aspired to emulate Jacques DelaCour, his maternal forebear and a Natchez plantation gentleman whose absolute power over his four hundred slaves obsessed him. A chance reading of Sir James Brooke's biography made him fantasize himself working for the white rajah of Sarawak on a railway system whenever his situation in Kimayo became unbearable for him. Forced to witness a public execution of robbers rudely awakened Lee's own dormant lust for absolute power of life and death as exercised by the Kimayo security chief on the robbers.
His improbable sojourn in Kimayo as a marketing director took a deadly turn as a he schemed to grab that absolute power as a self-styled "Khalifah of Kimayo" while mired in intrigues, assassinations, betrayals, civil war, and carrying on a mercurial romance with Liza, a lonely English woman married to the security chief, against a volatile West African backdrop.
In the German dictionary, there is a word for skinhead: kurzgeschorener but none for its "kissin' cuzzin": redneck. So a literal translation was concocted: roter (red) and hals (neck) and voila! Robert E. Lee Roterhals, the anti-hero, came into being to star in this novel, West African Odyssey of Lee Roterhals.

About the Author

August Quesada, after acquiring two engineering degrees and doing roustabout work in the wild and wooly West Texas booming oilfields of the 1950s, took off for the South American oil fields with his young bride living in a Parkersburg house on skids. Working with the latinos, he learned that Spanish was spoken in many variations through out South America infused with local Indian words and revolucion was not a dirty word.
Returning to the States, he helped plan and design pipelines and compressor stations in Houston transporting natural gas from the Louisiana swamps and bayous to the Atlantic seaboard. Commuting between Houston for weekends and the New York headquarters, he worked with a team on liquid methane processing tests and patent applications. Exploring the Gotham City's labyrinths, he ate hero sandwiches standing up at those hole-in-the-wall eateries while staying at Park Sheraton. Transferred to Columbus, Ohio, he became a group leader of nineteen engineers and technicians doing bench and wind tunnel tests, and prototype developments earning patents. Having written a manual for technical reports, he found it difficult to start writing his first novel (later abandoned) during this time and to divorce himself from the technical writing mindset he had gotten accustomed to. Moving to Chicago, he helped with evaluation studies for worldwide wildcat prospects including Somalia offshore and provided technical / engineering support for the North Sea construction projects for Great Britain, Netherlands and Norway. During this time, he experienced elitist suburbia / downtown high-rise living and high-stakes "corporate poker games" in Middle America with its foibles and Byzantine intrigues that someday he would like to write in another fiction fermenting in his head.
Restless, he contacted his former boss in South America, then in London, and got an assignment in West Africa. August realized how different Africans were and the continent itself was from what he had imagined and read voraciously before arriving. Working closely with the nationals around-the-clock in the bush and towns, he earned their loyalty and they protected him and his family in spite of the physical and health hazards enabling him to explore the animistic Africa bereft of the Tarzan and Phantom ballyhoos. He came across the imported rednecks who "inspired" him to write about his first to-be-published novel about Robert E. Lee Roterhals, a redneck from Atlanta. There is no redneck in the German dictionary, so it was translated literally as roter (red) and hals (neck). After his first tour of duty in the Middle East, he returned again to West Africa.
After his second stint in the Middle East, he retired to Florida, became involved with a local writers' club becoming its president for three years and worked to make it tax-exempt, helped organize the first authors/book fair in the community college and the first Good Earth Day fair in Panama City, joined the Citizens Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Planning Organization for Bay County and its chairman for a year (for the first time in the county, he helped appoint women and African Americans to the CAC) and, also became member of two environmental groups. He hopes to start fine-tuning his finished novel of an unlikely romance between an American engineer and a latina, both abused and psychologically damaged in their youth, in the Columbian jungle and after that, work on the roughed-out-but-more-than-an-outlined fiction of a homosexual affair between a Moslem engineer/student and his American professor played out in Texas and a mythical Middle Eastern emirdom with "ghettos" of resident expatriates.

Sample Excerpts

excerpt from Chapter 1
A queasy dispiriting depression possessed Lee as he sat with Minister Odumodu and Dele inside the roomy Mercedes Grande with a ringside view of Olundudu Beach. This late Sunday morning a public execution of convicted robbers was slated shortly. Ten bodyguards, with submachine guns slung over their shoulders and rattan switches held at ready by their sides, stood around the limousine and fretted at the restless crowd. The noisy carnival ambience in anticipation of public executions and their grim blood baths made Lee uneasy. The humid atmosphere resonated to the natives' frenzied expectancy and sharp chatters reminded him of the wild birds before a thunder storm while camping at the Oconee National Forest south of Atlanta.
Lee was not sure if he made the right decision after all, leaving that comfortable prosaic life in Winston-Salem for a more lucrative job in West Africa teeming with blacks. "I can't understand you. A rising star and my damn best district sales manager would give up his job." He recalled the last parting words of his boss, Ted Richardson, at the Atlanta headquarters. "I heard that Metro-Kimayo is a snake pit."
What the hell! Lee said to himself defending his decision. This place is weird, filthy and full of blacks. But I'm living like a Brit sahib driven around by a uniformed chauffeur. My very own steward prepares my meals. I have a full-time gardener to do my yard work. Got two watchmen to look after my security. Best of all, I'm making big bucks. Yes, big dollars. Never had so much moolah before. Sure, Ted, I'll admit this shitty place is a snake pit. What the hell! Every place has its pluses and minuses. My big plus is the marketing challenge I'm faced with. It's my opportunity of a lifetime. I can tolerate working with blacks for a while. But I'll tell you, Ted, once I've hired my team, I shall attain a sales record which shall never be equaled in Mother Queen's history. Never!
"Very absolute good-good for you this culture venue of our country." The minister impressed upon Lee the same enthusiastic fervor he displayed during a soccer match they attended last week. "Very electrifying ... very ... thrilling ... watching ... men ... die ...." He hunted for descriptive English words to express his enthusiasm for the imminent executions while Lee was becoming nauseated.
A decrepit blackmaria, with rusted edges, appeared on the scene, climbed into the beach, and zigzagged recklessly down the sand dunes through the unruly crowd. The wagon screeched harshly coming to a skidding halt near the tide's shifting edge. To Lee's amazement, no one was run over. The crowd, shouting and jumping, surged toward the wagon welcoming its arrival. Several policemen forcibly surrounded the blackmaria. While swinging rattan switches, they fanned out coercing the noisy spectators to retreat about a hundred meters away. With the mob held at bay from the wagon, some policemen beat the crowd clearing a wide path to the driven stakes, seven of them, along the water's edge. Behind each stake stood two gravel-filled steel barrels, one on top of the other.
"Kill the thiefmen! Kill the thiefmen!" The natives chanted while leaping then swaying side to side in unison. The policemen, glum-faced, hemmed in the crowd and kept vigilant eyes on them in case they should burst into the forbidden area again. While the minister and Dele watched the tense spectacle with morbid delight, Lee kept his eyes down and involuntarily glanced up when the tumultuous roar became deafening. Obliged to witness the unpleasant spectacle, Lee's thoughts fled to another time.
* * *
Once more he was a scrawny teenager, almost fourteen, trespassing into the other side of the railroad tracks, the colored shanty sprawl. He made the ultimate bet with his gang: he would visit the forbidden territory, buy a dressed coon, and bring the trophy back. Negroes, he was warned, were suspicious of strangers in their unpaved bailiwick, especially honkies. The possibility of getting beaten up, worse yet, murdered, was part of the betting brinkmanship which he bragged himself into. His buddy Rick's 12-year old sister, Sheila, was impressed with his derring-do. Lee liked that kind of adoration.
Nine blocks inside, he stopped in front of a run-down general store and noted that two sullen Negro boys, who had been trailing him in the last four blocks, scooted to the store's front porch, stared at him. Sensing impending trouble, he walked inside the store where he decided it would be safer to be among the storeowner and customers until he could plan his next move. He did not see any customer nor the storeowner after opening the screened door and entering inside; it banged against its frame. Apprehensive, he headed fast for the meat counter anticipating his long strides on the creaky floor would alert someone from the backroom. At the glass-enclosed refrigerator counter he saw piles of unmistakable scalped coon heads with their frozen gaze. Not daring to look back, he reached for the call bell atop the counter.
His hand never touched the bell. A hand blocked his mouth. Strong black arms grabbed him from behind and hoisted him bodily. Those Negro boys were bigger and stronger than he realized. They shoved him inside a closet where he crashed into piles of stacked cartons and closed the door. He never forgot the ominous clicking shut of the lock. Panic-stricken, he screamed and pounded on the door with both fists until the storeowner heard his cries and unlocked the door.
That youthful incident hardened his racial outlook about Negroes or "the other kind." The demarcation line was etched in his young mind: whites on one side and Negroes on the other side. In desegregated public places, he would mentally draw a tight circle to include his companions and himself. In his private invisible world, he saw only his hand-picked people and the Negroes would always be on the outside.
* * *
The back doors of the wagon swung open abruptly. Two policemen, in khaki shorts, heaved out a rope-tied convict onto the sand like a sack of cassava roots. The sight of the thrown prisoner caused the crowd to roar its approval reminding Lee of the ear-piercing yells last week whenever a goal was scored by the hometown soccer team. Another prisoner was thrown out and again an uproar swept over the multitude. Then, two more prisoners came sailing onto the sand. The natives were delirious, shouting and jumping wildly about. Lee's forehead sweated and his hands were clammy; he was close to throwing up. Three more prisoners were thrown down. The thrashing sounds of rattan switches hitting bodies alerted Lee, who looked up and saw their bodyguards dispersing the natives who got too close.
The prisoners, seven of them, were lined up on the sand, face down and flat on their stomachs. Stooping down at the feet of each prisoner, a policeman using a machete, cut loose the rope binding the legs of each prisoner. With their hands still tied behind their backs, the policeman helped the prisoners to stand up. Two of them looked defiantly at the rabble while the rest appeared resigned to their fate. Pointing to one of them, the minister explained, murdered a pawnshop owner and raped a salesgirl. The prisoners were led to the stakes where they were securely tied around the waists and ankles with pieces of rope. Another detail placed black hoods over their heads while a chaplain came forward, stood in the center facing the prisoners, and began reciting from a prayer book.
Suddenly the crowd became hushed with no prompting from anyone. The crushing of the surf could be heard again. While his companions watched the preparations keenly and were obviously enjoying themselves, Lee's whole body dripped in cold sweat and he kept his eyes lowered. A captain, dressed in his regalia uniform, stood at attention facing the minister inside the limousine and waited for his next command.
The minister swung his left hand chopping the palm of his other hand. The captain understood the signal and turned around shouting the order. A volley of shots rang from the firing squad. Lee gingerly raised his eyes, and saw blood gushing out of the prisoners' legs and their bodies twisting in pain constrained by the ropes. The crowd howled gleefully. One prisoner, hooded like the others, traded insults with his unseen jeerers.
"Christ! They're still alive! The soldiers missed their marks." The moaning writhing prisoners at the water's edge horrified Lee.
"No, they did not!" The minister corrected him while keeping his eyes peeled intently on the proceeding.
"So why ... aren't ... they ... killed right ... away?" Lee talked in a halting anguished voice as his threshold for distress neared his breaking point.
"For terrific crimes ... they must pay ... very ... slowly," the minister replied. "You done soldiering in Korean War, Roterhals. Blimey! This bloodletting's fiddle-faddle compared your war experience."
Lee underwent a peculiar ambivalence of disgust and exhilaration. While disgusted by the barbaric punishment, he was involuntarily exhilarated to a giddy high by witnessing the absolute power wielded by the minister. A euphoria of vicarious life and death control over men infected Lee. With a mere swing of a hand, men are shot! Lee observed nervously, feeling for the worse. Visibly upset, he was, however, intemperately excited. Something inside him had been aroused. The raw power in the minister's hands triggered his adrenalin to shoot recklessly through his body and infect his soul. Disgusted at the sight of the bleeding men, nonetheless, he was morbidly thrilled being close to one who had absolute power like nobody else in his life. I want to exercise that kind of power. Even for a day! Even for a moment!
excerpt from Chapter 5
"Ibra's Revenge" became less frequent as Lee regained his physical strength. Disabled for more than two weeks, he was eager and impatient to keep up with his new job. Dressed in coat and tie as required by protocol despite the sticky climate, he was driven in an air-conditioned Mercedes-Benz limousine by Femi, his chauffeur, to the downtown office building, the Queen of Sheba House. Outside a wiry native pedaling a bicycle while balancing a sofa chair on his head caught Lee's attention. The skinny fellow wove his way deftly through the gaps between the paralyzed vehicles and the natives on foot despite his heavy load. Lee suddenly realized that the limousine had not advanced in the past 15 minutes since crossing the Obalolo bridge. Stepping out of the limousine, he felt the hot stifling air and was exposed to the incessant chatter of the trooping natives reminding him of the black ants streaming on Aunt Mathilda's kitchen wall last summer. Rising to his full height, he saw only more vehicles packed bumper-to-bumper like disjointed snakes competing for the narrow entrance of the next bridge. The new monolithic marble-sheathed IWT communications structure looked anomalous among the sad-looking decaying buildings and old large colonial houses with peeled-off paint and rotting shingles along the crowded highway. Winston-Salem has its seedy sections, he agreed, but never derelict to this sordid extent. Remembering its quiet clean urban streets made him homesick and dispirited. Glancing at his watch, he had only eleven minutes left to reach the office before eight.
"Dammit!" he exploded. "I'm going to be late!" Back inside the limousine he was stewing, getting angrier and frustrated. WAWA! West Africa Wins Again! WAWA! rang in his ears. A white guest at Hotel Paradis, whom he met during his arrival days, told him to shout "WAWA" to vent his frustration so he can get it out of his system and survive in Kimayo. Minutes were stealing away and not an inch of forward motion. Being late was not his credo. Stepping out again, he told Femi, "Go to the office when you're able. I'm walking." A surprised Femi gawked at his strong-willed boss who was already stomping three car-lengths ahead.
Hiking under the hot humid sun was a detail Lee had not anticipated. Uncomfortable in his long-sleeved shirt and loosened necktie with coat draped over arm, he was sweating like a drenched stevedore as he strode through the native multitude. The blowing dust swirling off the unpaved streets and the open sewer stench were too oppressive for his unaccustomed nostrils. Anticipating these undesirable smells he whipped out a cologne-soaked hankie and covered his nose. Walking faster, he was very conscious of the black faces which turned to look at the impatient foreigner jostling past them. The insufferable stroll caused his mind to lapse back to an incident in his youth when he was walking alone in Atlanta's shanty town which whites then called the "wrong side of the railroad track." No, he told himself, I want to forget that nasty incident.
Still determined to beat the clock before eight, he struggled faster like an elusive halfback through the dense crowd near the heart of downtown Metro-Kimayo more aware of being a white minority of one among the bobbing horde of natives: some men in Western clothes with the rest in loose-fitting pajama-like native suits and the women in embroidered blouses and colorful wrap-around skirts. Conspicuous damask head-ties worn by the more affluent women reminded him that he was indeed in the heart of Black Africa: its cultural strangeness depressed him. Near the terraced portals of the Anglican church he warded off seedy beggars and two mangy cripples by swaying his arms outward without slowing down his stride. Setting foot on the town square a minute before eight and only a boulevard away from the Queen of Sheba House, he became hedged in by an impenetrable wall of milling crowd and was unable to move. Despite his cologne-soaked hankie the pungent body odors of the jostling crowd permeated his sensitive nose. He was very angry to the point his migraine headache was distressing him again. Angry about this stupid ugly people who breed like flies overcrowding the streets, old houses, ancient dilapidated buildings. The ubiquitous disorder of the entire town, aggravated by the filth and unruly traffic jams, convinced him these natives were not ready to govern themselves, and the Brits were to blame for granting their political independence prematurely.
Eventually he was transversing the public square whose broken-down fountain or what was left of its pristine form lay forlornly among the water-logged litter. Minutes past eight, the Queen of Sheba House, a ten-story reinforced concrete building with faded battle gray hue, at last, was waiting in front of him. As he crossed the litter-strewn circular boulevard, his attention was caught by mixed couple: arm in arm, the man was of shiny black texture like anthracite coal while the homely woman was predictably white and English, an ash blonde. There ought to be a law against interracial marriage in this country, he thought and was even more shocked when the black fellow patted her buttock.
Lee came tumbling down. The next instant he was clinging to one side of the grimy sewer, waist deep in the frothy dark stench. Open sewers were a colonial fact-of-life in Metro-Kimayo which the distracted foreigner forgot to take into account.
"Very sorry, mastuh," one young black apologized to him.
"Too bad, mastuh," said another bystander.
"Help me out of this gaddam sewer," he screamed at these natives who were impassively watching the submerged white man. They grasped his muddy hands and pulled him up while apologizing again in their peculiarly accented English. "Yeow-ouch!" Lee grimaced lifting and clutching his painful left ankle on the sidewalk while dripping uncomfortably with the frothy scum. Holding on to a security guard's shoulder, he hopped on his good leg until he was inside the building.
At the clinic, the nursing sisters sponge-bathed him.
"Robert E. Lee ... Roterhals ... uh ... m ... m," the company doctor jotted down his name in a mimeographed form held by a clipboard as Lee sat on a clinic bed. "You're named after that famous Southern general who was brought down to his knees by the Yankees during the American civil war." His eyes lighting up, the doctor guffawed unceremoniously impressed by his own erudition, then burped, which Lee interpreted as rude and an affront to polite society. "Well, well. Ain't that something," he added still relishing his smart talk and snapping his fingers to his patient's bewilderment, unaccustomed to this West African idiosyncrasy.
"Shoot! Don't rub it in." Lee felt offended by the slur on his namesake. The defeat of Dixie was a sensitive personal matter for him. He was tempted to tell the pug-nosed doctor to shut up, relieve his pains, and be gone from his sight.
The doctor sensed his sullen attitude. No further hint was necessary from the patient. Many years before he swallowed lumps of verbal abuse from other whites while then an intern at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Those racial slurs were neutralized by "Auntie" Daisy Mae, his kindly white landlady at the Baltimore boarding house, who treated him like an adopted nephew. Not all whites are despicable rednecks, he concluded. Despite the apparent negative vibes emanating from his patient, he decided to be affable to the stricken newcomer.
"I see you're from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, hm ... m ..." the doctor continued as he read Lee's documents while dutifully writing down his vital items on the form. "Land of cotton fields ... tobacco farms ... black slaves ... white masters ... white masters ..." Lee focused his attention at the doctor's white eyeballs and interpreted his slow, deliberate insinuations as a warm-up before this native would verbally slap him around about the evils of slavery. "My forebears waged wars, captured enemies, and sold them as slaves to the Europeans," the doctor carried on intriguing him further, "and who in turn, traded the slaves to the Americans for molasses, hides, and gold. I'm glad we met." He winked an eye at him. "Perhaps...perhaps, we can reopen the trade and bypass the middlemen."
Lee was incredulous, surprised by the doctor's remark which got him perplexed, confused, not sure if the doc was serious or joking. From the doctor's emerging sly smile, Lee knew then he was just a smart aleck. "Sonnamabitch!" he exclaimed. This guy is funny, sarcastic but very funny. He began to laugh, then tried to suppress himself intent on keeping his decorum in this native's presence. His inhibited chuckles broke out in dribbles, nevertheless, and soon he was joined in by the doc in an unrehearsed laughing duet escalating to loud unfettered howls earning concerned glances from the nursing sisters. Kicking a chair's leg with his injured foot, he grimaced in pain. Minutes later, they sobered up and the doc gave him a pain shot, bandaged his sprained ankle. With a wooden crutch, he ambled out to the basement garage in a borrowed clinic robe.
excerpt from Chapter 12
The squall blew farther to the east sprinkling rain lightly on the village. The wind gradually petered out in less than an hour leaving the evening sky clear and full of stars. Hand in hand the stranded couple walked along the beach while the listless sea rumbled in the distance. Kerosene lamps hanging by the huts' windows cast their faint beams of light across the frothy sands. Their cares and worries were forgotten. His total attention was preempted by the woman walking beside him. Everything around them was changing as if it were a revolving stage. The commonplace beach took on an enchanting allure as the windswept night brought memories of the wedding party. Love was in the air. Sweet words were uttered and tender affection was reciprocated. Their platonic tennis dates seemed they never happened and his dream wish of Liza as the desirable unattached lass was deceptively self-fulfilling. There was magic floating in the evening breeze as they talked, laughed, and teased each other. Every spoken word and shared glance between them intensified a mutual attraction they could not resist. Two lonely people were rediscovering each other, falling in love helplessly, romantically. The evening added another dimension to his life: he was not lonely anymore and he made up his mind she would be a key factor to any crucial decision in his life.
Tired from their lingering walk, they lay on the spread towels by their beached speedboat relishing their delightful nearness. He could not keep his eyes away from her, for he was irresistibly attracted to her, inexplicably in love. Her eyes were close, and she was relaxed in her black one-piece swimsuit. She was enticing to him--he leaned over and kissed her. Opening her eyes, she hugged him impulsively. Their emotions swelling, he was impelled to kiss her again. Locked in an embrace, he got up, carried her inside the hut. Stirring passions galvanized their carnal dalliance. They consummated their love over a fisherman's seedy mattress, serenaded by cacophonous sounds of frogs and crickets outside. Later emotionally exhausted, they fell into deep slumber, arm in arm, until the noon sun woke them from their idyllic interlude. Lee was a changed man, an intense lover, mooning over his lady-love.
"Let's get married," he implored her. For her, he was ready to run away and start a new life together. "Anywhere," conceded a smitten Lee, "as long as you're there with me."
She tittered then eyed him incredulously. Her mood changed with the blazing humid day. "You're not that serious, are you?" She tittered again. "We, get married? I'm still married, remember? Let's not spoil our thing. Hang loose, sweetie." She pinched his cheek, overflowing with lust.
"You're not taking me seriously," he complained agonizing at her frivolity. Their ardent lovemaking was fresh in his mind, and he did not want her to slip away. "There's enough petrol in the boat to reach Port Stanley and return. You can divorce Benson there, and we can get married afterwards." She giggled wounding his feelings.
"Get divorced and get married in one breath! Good gracious!" she snapped at him. "Just like that! You have everything figured out. What if Benson finds out? What will happen to us then?"
"We keep everything a secret. Later we can decide our next move," Lee persisted, still smitten.
"Oh my gosh! You're really serious!" She sat up looking annoyed.
"Sweetie, you're just lonesome and I was taking revenge on Benson's philandering. By the time we're back in town and you're sitting in your busy office, you shall view our 'thing' in a different light. Wait and see."

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