Message From The Cold

This is for all them people out there who have only bad things to say about me...this is for all them folks who call me ‘miserable’ and ‘nasty’ and ‘terrible...’

I am here today to say...I love people. If it wasn’t for people, where I would be today?

Thanks to people I don’t have to sit in one place and mope; I travel - if you only know the places I been, some flush with possibilities and underground activities, public toilets, subways and so on. I been to palaces with furnitures of gilded gold and what not. I lay with the feeble, I lay with the mighty...in fact, I can keep low the mightiest with one woosh, keep him weak for days.

So all you people who go around maligning me, saying things like, “Man, I got a Miserable Cold,” or “Man, I ketch a Nasty Cold,” let me tell you, I, The Cold, am joyful and productive thanks to you.

Yes, thanks to you I can affect, infect, have great effect on hundreds. When you carry me out, all over the place, in bus, to the bank, oh just everywhere, I flit, I fly, I float from hands to eyes to mouth, oh gleeful glee.

I especially love Guyanese who say things like, “Who? Me? Stay home from work because of a stupid cold?” (Note: my spirit will not be dimmed by such adjectives). These wonderful folks take me to work...then ohhhh, happy and glorious I am, doing the rounds of this green land, kidnapping people, possessing them.

Right now, I possess that one that call sheself Guyana-Gyal, damn mad ass that she is, telling people that if they wash they hands and keep they hands away from they eyes, nose and mouth, they ain’t gon ketch ‘the nasty cold.’ But heh, I know better than she, I make a li’l girl chile sneeze ‘pon she, wachoooooo...and since Friday night, she been in my possession...

Waahahahachooohaa...

This is a message comin’ in from The Cold.

Three little words

I do all the right things, caring, dutiful, daughterly and sometimes I-spoil-you things.

I talk, we talk, we agree, disagree, we discuss, gyaff...chat...words never short in this ol’ house.

Yet three li’l words I always find I too shy to say, three li’l words sittin’ on the doorstep o’ my heart, willing to fly if only I would release them.

I love you.

Happy bir'day, ma, I love you.

Friends

This morning as I goin’ through my chores, for some perverse reason I remember a Guyanese gal pal I used to hang out with when I been living abroad.

Lawd have mercy, this chile used to tell me, "G.G., you’re never, ever going to find the right man. That is the kinda car you want to buy? No way, those cars blow up. You want to go driving to the countryside if you buy a car? You can't, those wild drivers will force you off the mountainside. No, no, don’t go swimming in the university pool, you can pick up bacteria and infection. Haha, G.G., you’re a mad woman y’know, as I was driving by your office today I saw you walking on the road and you were looking up at the clouds, you’re a mad woman, snicker, snicker. You think your asthma is bad? Some people have worse asthma than you, if you know the terrible things they suffer. That's the doctor you’re seeing? She’s mad, she’s a nut."

"Oh ship man, why you always got to rain on my parade?" I ask she.

"Rain on your parade? Rain on your parade? I'm a realist and you're not," she say. (She sound like them opinionists what pose as columnists in we newspapers.)

As I goin' through my chores this mornin' I remember a letter one o' my aunties write...I don't remember everything the letter say, was one o' them Bollywood-dramatic movie kinda letters that wring you heart, but one line pop in me head this morning: "Choose your friends wisely."

“That thing that men drink…”

“If you listen you will hear from the corner of your ear,” Danny Kaye used to sing. Oh boy, the things I hear yesterday, what a la-lay, hey heyyy.

Yesterday me an’ my mother been to visit Auntie M. and Uncle J. Was my kinda day, watchin’ them curtains tryin’ to lick the sun-flavoured breeze pourin’ through the windows but them wild curtains get tame down with proper sashes...Auntie M. refuse to let Uncle J. knot them up in posh-less bunches. “People can tell you come from a sugar estate,” she say to she husband.

Auntie M. switching from kitchen to living room, gyaffing...chatting with me an’ my mother. Uncle J. up and down the steps, in the house upstairs, in the shop downstairs.

From the road lazy Steel Pulse lyrics float into the home, the song stop, quiet clappin’ an’ hallelujahing take over from a church I couldn’t see then the chanting wind down to a soft Amen.

Auntie M. sit in the living room, she and my mother gyaffing, my ears get lazy, barely listening 'til suddenly I ketch something and me antenna went up ping.

Auntie M. say, “The son dead. He used to take Niagra. Then the father, he too used to take the Niagra. When he hear he son dead, he get a heart attack and dead too. Like is something that run in the family, all them men want plenty, plenty woman...”

I jump up me lollin’ self from the cushy settee. “What?!? What they used to take??!?”

“Niagra. Man...you know that pill them men does drink to make them have relationship with women…”

Curry

A bad curry smell hit the atmosphere yesterday afternoon as I finish whackuuming the dust from we house.

When I say bad, I mean good. For we Guyanese, the meaning of ‘bad’ can mean ‘a whole lot.’ Or ‘very.’ Repetition, as in ‘bad, bad,’ can mean ‘extremely.’ For example: my mother gyaffing...chatting...on the phone, telling Auntie M. about a Bollywood movie we see on tv. She close she eyes and shake she head slow for emphasis like she saying no. “It good bad, bad, M,” she declare. It was extremely good, M.

Yestiday aftanoon I sit down, close me eyes and haul that baaad curry smell in ohhh yesss, what a curry, thick ‘n’ pungent with garam masala an’ garlic an’ peppa an’ onion grine up together...lemme tell you, it was the Eminem of all curries...smell like it so hot that when it hit you taste buds you cuss and hollah, gimme li’l &*%$! water right now ssss ahhh...

Ghost...almost...

Bawdawmb.

The thundah rip me from my sleep early o’ clock yesterday Tuesday morning, the first delicious sleep I enjoy after four, five nights o’coughing from asthma, sinus, I don’t know what...

...wewahwewah somewhere not far, somebody house alarm start to scream.

I suck me teeth, slink out from unda the mosquito net, barefoot, dam’ ol’ wood floor feel like a fridge, shiver me way to the other room, this room where I write, got to pull the phone line out from the CPU, I don’t know if is true but I hear about people CPU frying up with lightening ‘cause o’ the phone line and...

Hey! Somebody unplug it already. Wasn’t me, I know it wasn’t me. The last time I go near the computer on Monday was early afternoon.

Can’t be my mother, she refuse to have anything to do with computers, can’t be she, that more impossible than...can’t think of anything more impossible.

It must be Divine Intervention.

Stoppit you dam’ fool, was your mother.

Nah, wayyy too impossible, must be a jumbie...a ghost...we Guyanese people properly believe in them, some o’ we even see a couple o’ them here and there.

It must be a friendly, caring jumbie, shoots, think of all them things I can ask it to do for me, clean house and so...

My mother wake up, I announce, "A most peculiar thing happen." I tell she.

We looking at each other, me and me mother, I ain’t gon lie, I feel a li’l scared but excited but this can’t be possible, got to find a logical reason, scrape brain, scrape brain, got to find a logical explanation.

"Ohhh shucks, mummy, I know is what…when I been taking down them curtains yesterday to wash them, the one behind the CPU pull the line out."

"Oh yyyes, that is it..."

I slink outta the room like a sorry spirit, bye bye jumbie, moan, sigh, got some cleaning to do, no rest for the wicked.

Conspiracy Theory

Some people got Matthew, Mark, Luke an’ John blessin’ the bed that they lie on. Some folks got multiple personalities; some got only voices in they head. Others got a li’l red devil on they left shoulder whispering, do it, do it, and on they right shoulder they got a sweet li’l angel saying, no, no, don’t do it. Some folks got Conscience jookin’ them with a sewing needle.

Not me.

I got Hypochondria.

Most o’ the time she, Hypochondria, too busy bothering other people but when I not feeling too well, like yesterday, Hypochondria does hang around trying insinuate that I sick because of this, insinuate that I have that with no cure. Yesterday I hear she shufflin’, shufflin’ in the shadows but I had so much to do that I ain’t had time to entertain she. So she leave and go ‘long she way to I don’t know who.

Had a time when she used to bother me plenty; as I twist and turn them corners in me thoughts she been there, shadowing me with she Gothic Gal self.

Finally, I get so fed up o’ she I just haul she by she imaginary tail and fling she out.

So, like I say, is only when I not feelin’ too well like yesterday that she does try to sniffle she way back in.

Y’know, I glad I don’t take she on anymore. Because I figure out Something.

She and doctors and pharmacies In Cahoots!

Doctors does pay she to go ‘round befriending people, whispering illness in they ears. Then the people does run to the doctors. Tah dah. Doctors get rich.

Heh. I ain’t running to no doctor. When it come to doling out dough unecessarily to them, I got Scrooge in me blood...me grandfather’s father’s mother’s father’s father was Scrooge grandfather. That plus I ain’t like to take even a simple Panadol, Tylenol, no ol’ painkiller.

Then now, it got them internet doctors; you ain’t got to pay no medical bills. But I don’t bother with that either! Otherwise whatever sickness I ain’t got, the internet doctah gon make me think I have it. And then I gon run to a real doctah. See? Conspiracy all around.

Talkin’ about net doctors...early this year I meet a fellow who Hypochondria befriend. He say one day he look up WebMD for some symptoms. Nausea, faint, weak and so on and so forth. He check the diagonosis.

“Oh my God,” he say. “I am pregnant.”

Y'know, I been thinking.

This doctor business sound good. I might go into it. Except I don’t like the idea of medical school and blood and...

...horror of horrors...illnesses!

I am thinking...maybe I can just make up a certificate, swear me Hypocritic Oath and contact all them folks who suffer due they friend.

I can charge them a small piece as we does say...a small fee...and tell them, “Take two placebo and call me in the morning.”

Blugged

Cough, cough, drippin’ sinus or asthma making me cough. Or maybe a bug going around and I ketch it. Feeling blugged.

I gone to grumble to meself in a dark, moth-eaten corner.

Oh, before I go…Mike, Troubled Diva, most generous blogger you can find, got these tips for blogging.

And if you want to take a break...chillax as Dr. D say…if you like graffiti and art and so on, check out Banksy.

Colour

A car pull up at we gate. The colour of that car so loud that up to now my ears ringing. Was a metallic pupple...purple...so bright it make me eyes spin and think was Lurid Sirens Dancing.

I peep out. My mother standing by the car, gyaffing...chatting with the visitor. Auntie Prabha. Auntie Prabha was the one and only truly Colourful Car’cter what used to live in the same discreet neighbourhood we live in some years back. She’s not an auntie...but we does call all older people auntie and uncle.

Eh-eh, I think, she look proper glam in she new car! She big and round and brown and still pretty at seventy-eight with she perty nose, huge, shiney-dark eyes and pout of a mouth. She colour she hair chestnut, got a smidgen o’ translucent makeup on she face and wear fashion for older women.

She is one heckuva Merry Widow. When she husband dead, he left she with walloping wealth - investments from here to foreign lands and back. I won’t say she waltz when the man dead but she ain’t exactly grieve. As she tell my mother one time, “He rarse used to treat me so bad, and where he is now?” He never did treat she like a queen.

And queen she is, running she businesses with tight fist and tough mind.

She used to sit in she verandah in a high back chair and take over the world with she conversation. If I sit in the room facing she house I coulda hear every backside and blue streak.

Auntie Prabha never care who hear.

One night many moons ago, when I been living Abroad, me sister write to me...she still been living in Guyana. She say in the deep of sleep she hear a gyal screaming to the skies for Charran. Charran is Auntie Prabha first born son, forty years old. Like typical East Indian chirren, he ain’t move outta he parents home ‘til he marry. Before he marry girls flock he like bees to sugar...nah, like girls to wealth.

This girl was one. “Charraaaaaan. Charraaaaan. Charrraaaaan.” Like she heart breaking.

Me sister drag out from she bed, peep across the north road facing they home.

“Charrrraaaaan.” Voice screeking in the dark night like chalk on blackboard.

Suddenly Auntie Prabha appear voluminous and pink in the verandah. “Who the raaarse calling for Charran at this hour o’ the night?” She shout things about Home. Training. Manners. Cuss words.

She spy Charran behind she. “You raaarse think you gon kill me out like how you kill out you father with stress?” She turn with matriarch slow, back to the wailing soul on the road. “Look. Clear you backside and find youself home.”

After Auntie Prabha leave that fine neighbourhood, the dullness of ho hum start to seep in.

Aliens from Outer Space

Man, I ain't hear from me big brother for over a week...the brother what live in England, he does email nearly everyday.

I hope them aliens ain't kidnap he again.

Yes. Aliens. Creechas from outta space.

The first time I hear 'bout the first kidnapping was one August in the mid-nineties.

Everybody been visiting Guyana. Me from Caribbean island. Brother from England. Cousin and she husband from London - Mr. an' Mrs. Berry and they li'l Berries.

Two o' them li'l Berries was in they young teens. They and Cousin Analis been fascinated by The Grand Adventures In Life that me brother regale them with.

He tell them 'bout the time them aliens kidnap he.

It happen here, when he been living in Guyana. One night, he sleeping with the windows open. Them aliens zoom in on he and ker he up to they big white lab in outta space. They put he to lie down on a cold, cold metal table and chuk round metal things with tubes on he chest and forehead. They ask he all kinda questions and make he swear he ain't gon tell anybody what them questions was. When they done, they transport he back to here.

My mother tell them li'l Berries, "Y'all don't believe he, he just pullin' you leg."

Them li'l Berries say, "No, it's the truth, he is not lying!"

I tell he, "Boy, you can really make up story."

He say, "What you mean, make up? If other people can get kidnap by aliens, why I can't get kidnap too?"

The last time I hear from he, a li'l bit over a week, he tell me that he and wife and chile goin' to Cornwall. Haiyee! That is the place with them big alien circle designs in fields?

Heh. I hope he tek out pikchas this time...take photos this time.

Earth to brodda, come in bro.

Gone fishin'

We gardener [mm-hm, we got a sometimes gardener for this wild piece o’ plot]…he is chauffeur to he wife, transport she here on he bicycle...she does clean here two days a week. This morning when they arrive me mother been watering plants.

He tell me mother, “Last night I dream I been fishin’. If you see fish! Hundreds o’ gillbaaka. Then me dream how me buy one set o’ fish egg.” He hold out he hands nine or ten inches apart to show pounds o’ fish egg. “How me feel nice!”

I ask Rehanna and she laugh. “Yes, he wake me up five o’ clock this morning to tell me this dream.”

Fazal and Rehanna, young couple working an' saving to build they own home, put food on they table; they don’t whine no matter what woes jook them.

They baffle they neighbour who tell Rehanna, “Look at how you and you husband does go out everywhere together. I could never go out with me man like that. I prefer to go with a gyal-friend.”

Rehanna say, “Hear, me husband is me friend and me pardner. We does go everywhere together.”

Well, one time Fazal did go out without Rehanna. He been fishin’ with a group o’ fellas. He say, “Rehanna ain’t too like that, she say how me could go out and leave she alone in this place here.”

He and them boys hire a car to take them and they fishin’ rods and buckets and small shrimps and cutlass and other ‘coutrement. When the car man see what fun them boys having he say he staying. Them fellas ketch the fish, the car man clean the fish.

By the end o’ the afternoon they ketch so much they drive to friends homes and share out like they feeding the multitude.

Then they go to Fazal and Rehanna home, they fry fish outdoors and they eat an' eat an' eat and Rehanna eat an' eat an' eat so ‘til!

I swear, that joie de vivre bug is one bug everybody should ketch.

Stranger at the gate

Was like any other afternoon last Wednesday. Same ol’ sun in the same ol’ sky. Same ol’ humidity. Same ol’ me, sewing.

Kling kling kling, somebody knocking on we gate.

My mother on the phone. Argh, I put down sewing, go to the verandah.

Instinct scream and rattle me bones.

Strapping tall man at the gate. Heavy face, scar face, one cut run from ear to mouth. Eyes red, eyelids half shut down. He grin. Two, three gold teeth.

I say polite, “Hello…”

He say, “Your mother at home?”

Yikesyikesyikes, me instinct holla.

I ask he, “Who should I say it is?”

“Nigel. Tell she Nigel, she gon know.”

I scanning names in me head…Nigel…I don’t remember any Nigel and as far as I know, me mother ain’t had no argument with anybody...

“I’m sorry, she’s on an overseas call right now…”

He smile wide, “She sons? She talkin’ to one o’ them?”

“You know them?”

He say, “Yes, yes.” He call they names. “You’re who?”

Caution tearing out me insides but I tell he.

He beam. “Wait. Is you? You grow up so? I know all o’ you since you all been li’l, I use to come here as a youth with Mr. Bo.”

Mr. Bo was a jolly giant, a gentle black fella my father did employ, he did adore my li’l sister. Nigel! I remember Nigel! A young teen with the shinest smoothest darkest skin and baby face. He was Mr. Bo protégé. Nigel use to play with and bully them li’l ones and eat and just be here. Now he skin got no more smoothest darkest shine, it rusty, tough. He talking slurry, half drunk.

“Nigel!!! Oh me gosh, is youuuu…”

We start a jumble of ketching up on who doing what. He say after Mr. Bo migrate he forget about people here. Through he slurry words I pick up that he, Nigel, been in the army and a lawyer gyal Abroad been engage to he. But! She ask “too many questions” and break off the engagement. He leave the army, join the police force. Then in ‘80-something he was bodyguard for important politician.

He say, “After that I sell in the market and your mother buy from me.”

“So what you doing now Nigel?”

“Well, right now, I ain’t got a job. I ain’t even got anywhere to live, I cadging at somebody house. I come to see if your mother can help me find a job.”

Just then my mother come to the verandah; she lecture he ‘bout drinking and say even if she know anybody to send he to for a job, he can’t go to them drunk.

He say, slurring, “No, no, I don’t drink, I don’t drink Missis.” My mother continue she lecture.

He say, “I see you drive past where I live, Missis. But I never want to call out to you to bother you. I never want to come here before ‘cause I ain’t want anybody to think I been in crime.”

The phone ring, my mother go inside. I suggest to Nigel, ask the army or police or even the politician for a job. He mumble some excuses, they stretch from here to Antartica to here again.

While he mumble I thinking that he dutty he water all around, as we does say. He mess up he chances everywhere. No wonder he can’t go back.

He wave he hands to show from head to foot. “This is all I got,” he say. He turn, point to he bicycle. He clothes and shoes and bicycle was nice, not scruffy. I mean, really nice and new, not cheap looking.

I ain’t know what to tell he. He turn away, look east.

A word pop into me head. Dissolute.

Suddenly, in the heavy jaw line and mouth I ketch a glimpse of the baby face. Sadness wash over me, knock me sideways. What happen to all them opportunities you had, Nigel? How you let them slip away so?