The Mighty G roars again

Not the farts of a thousand cows, not the hot air of a hundred furious politicians can smell this noxious; not the braying of tens of union leaders on one podium can sound this offensive.

Today the Mighty G gobble up the peace, suck up the fuel and belch out carbon monoxide with one explosive Gggbubububbbggraw, punching three new holes in the ozone layer.

The Mighty Generator sit squat in a square concrete shed in the Foreignam woman yard next door...but not next to she bedroom...no no...the Mighty G push he way close, close to we fence, close, close to my bedroom and this room where I write.

When the power get cut off, even if the blackout last only two minutes, even if the Foreignam woman not at home, she security guard get strict instructions to let the Mighty G do he thing. Then the fumes invade we mouth, tinge we tongue with a bitter taste; the carbon puff around to the back of we house, fly into we kitchen.

And long, long after the power come back, the Mighty G still roaring. I shout for the Foreignam woman security guard to switch off, but he too deaf. Today, the Mighty G holler on one hour after the power trips on back.

About six months ago, when we been getting a lot o' little powercuts, my mother phone the landlord of the Foreignam woman.

"Hello, Mr. Ismael, salam...I am phoning to tell you about..." She air we grievances in the polite manner of a well brought-up woman, and she tell he about them quiet generators that don't fart with great aggression, that don't belch carbon monoxide into other people homes.

"Oh, salam, salam," Mr. Ismael say and listen to my ma. "Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry. But I can't afford to buy one of those." Mr. Ismael rent homes to many, many foreigners who work for international organisations, and he got one o' the best lawyers around town. Maybe poor, poor Mr. Ismael don't collect no rent, maybe he give his houses free to them foreigners, uh-huh.

Fortunately, the power cuts end and we forget all about the Mighty G.

Then suddenly, recently, them power cuts come back, lasting sometimes ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and sometimes four hours. I phone the electricity company to find out why; they say it is a 'line fault'. I read in the newspapers that shitizens stealing the wires of the electricity and telephone and water companies to sell to scrap metal dealers, causing great disruption. The law gon deal with them and the buyers soon, the news say.

But what about the Mighty G contributin' to noise pollution and to gases in the atmosphere? What law gon deal with owners of all them obnoxious Mighty G's?

Today, my mother had to go into town to do some business.

"Oh man, I goin’ with you," I announce.

Yes, thanks to the Mighty G I had to flee, thoughts of revenge sweetening me bitter head - play music loud at 1 a.m. when the Foreignam woman sleeping; put sugar down the funnel of the Mighty G; bribe the dominoes-playing neighbours in the house behind to bang they pieces on the board at 2 a.m.

Sob. See how the Mighty G reduce me to the lowest common denominator.

Not ice: an Eid tale.

In the hurry ‘n’ the flurry of perfuming home, laying table, preparing pots, twelve or more guests coming for Eid celebrations on Tuesday afternoon this week, we phone ring.

Husky voice on the other end, Indeera, we family friend. “Hello, guess what happened to me since yesterday...I don’t know what it is I ate and when, I have diarrhea...”

Indeera, Amerindian-East Indian, is sixty years young, always with a muttered risqué joke and a oddball tale or two thanks to a social life more zinging than she own daughter life Abroad.

“Oh darn, oh man, Indeera! I'm sorry but please try and make it, we have things you can eat but you don’t have to eat, besides, three doctors gon be here, they gon dose you up with med’cine...come nah?”

I don’t know if the diarrhea make she head bazzody on Tuesday evening or what...on the way out of she house to come here she lock sheself out.

When she arrive, a doctor friend give she Immodium and she nyam and scram...eat and run...scoot off to sort out she locked door.

We doctor friend give she a lift to she son friend, a Portuguese fella, Toddy. Toddy, a carpenter, is the door-lock Houdini, Indeera claim.

All should been well.

We phone ring. Indeera calling from she home phone. “I can’t find my cell phone. I...I...don’t know where I could’ve left it...and it’s such an expensive one, I only got it recently...I...I...”

We search for the cellie around here. No. Not here. She hang up.

She phone again. “I...I...I don’t know if it was that fella who was with Toddy...I...I don’t trust him...there is a story about him stealing before...I can’t find Toddy, he’s not at home as yet his wife says, and he doesn’t have his cell phone with him...can you check in our doctor friend’s jeep to see if I left it there?”

No, she ain’t left it there. She hang up.

She call again. She’s absolutely sure she took her purse out of Toddy’s jeep, and the cell phone is in her purse, it’s a flat, black purse. She’s calling her cell phone, it’s ringing and nobody’s answering, she just doesn’t know where this phone can be! She hang up.

Ring ring, Indeera again. “Hi. They found my phone. Toddy was the thief, hahaha. But you see, everytime I misjudge somebody for stealing, the thing always turns up.”

“But why they ain’t hear your cell phone ringing?” I ask.

“Ohh, they had a few drinks, hahaha...and my phone has a strange ring tone, not a regular sound...”

“So what did happen??”

Toddy and he Amerindian friend did take Indeera home with a bunch o’ tools...but Toddy end up picking she door lock with a bicycle wheel spoke. While he work with the spoke he rest them technical tools on the steps railing with Indeera purse. When he done pick the door lock, he pick up he tools. And the flat purse.

Toddy and he Amerindian pal then head off to buy a bag o’ party ice for more drinks. They put the bag o’ ice in the back o’ the jeep next to them tools.

Suddenly, the Amerindian fella say, “Man, this is some strange ice you buy here, it making a funny sound.”

Toddy say, “Y'know, all along I been hearing a funny sound and I thought was the engine.”

They investigate, and that is how they find Indeera brand new expensive cell phone baaping in the black purse next to the party ice.


And just think...all afternoon while preparing for the Eid feast, I been nagging my mother, we got to buy extra ice, we got to buy extra ice; she ignore me and make silent ice in we freezer.

Just because

I been so busy I ain’t know where to start. As soon as I can gather me thoughts, weave them together...hopefully tomorrow...bloggin’ gon begin again.

In the meantime, I feelin’ happy...just because. Honestly. Just because.

Because I got family and other animals who love me [they better]. I got food in me belly, roof over me head, clothes on me skin. Curtains flutterin’ and breeze whistlin' whee whee whee, trees shining gold and green, singing shhhh. I just ain’t feel like stressing.

What make you happy sometimes...just because?

I feel good…so good…

As I fixing breakfast this morning a phrase tripse through me mind. I learn it in high school from Nadira.

Nadira was in the class ahead of me, the O Levels exams class. Then she had a best friend, Madeleine, a pale, buxom gyal with wild black hair and grey eyes that shine like steel in the sun. Madeleine pass she exams and leave school; Nadira stay on another year to re-sit subjects she want better grades for.

I move up to the new class and meet Nadira; we become best friends and she tell me about Madeleine.

The last I hear about Maddie, through a long, long grapevine, was that she is now a nurse aide in a army Abroad. She get lock up one night in the army prison for terrifying some poor soldiers with a hypodermic needle.

Maddie was one scandalous gyal in a school run by liberal nuns. I remember the day she climb up on the school roof and frolic, dance and wave. Nobody ain’t know why. She dare Nadira to ride a bicycle along the upstairs corridor to the art room where they had to draw a bicycle. Nadira ride it.

Finally, Maddie and Nadira create A Scandal. Only after the scandal bruk loose Nadira discover it.

It happen when they attend a art exhibition.

At the art exhibition Nadira walk around with a notice stuck on the back o’ she school uniform. She ain’t know when Maddie paste it on.

The notice say, “I feel so good, I could s*it.”

Responsible adults of society report them. The unshockable nuns get shocked. Maddie say that “s*it” did mean “spit.” Nevertheless, Nadira and Maddie get suspended for a week.

This blastid phrase stick in me head all these years and everytime I feel good, it does tripse through me mind. Like this morning.

To the sea to see...

I walk to the sea yesterday, Sunday morning, just to see what I could see. The sun had a hangover and didn’t even peep out through she curtains at the usual wake up time, so it was a shady, grey walk.

I hop the few steps up to the top of the seawall. I look and smell and feel…feel the warm ‘n’ cool salt air trembling by. From the road I get a faint whiff of carbon. They should pass a law - every car, truck, jeep, cow, cat that poops too much carbon must clean up theyself, I grumble.

The tide was low, waves swipsing, swipsing slow to shore, to patches o’ smooth, hard sand that look like glazed, dark chocolate on cake.

Nothing new, nothing new, regular Sunday Hindu bathers with they giant water lily leaves, fruits and incense in the brown sea; a single white bird skimming over the tiny, li’l frothy, frills of waves; bird and frills looking like one.

I pass a man walking with a woman. The man lean and keen, slim ‘n’ trim with clean dark skin, white teeth laughing.

Hey! He look like. No. It can’t be. No way.

Just two inches from me I coulda reach out and touch and…no way is not him.

He gone past, talking, laughing.

I stand and stare at he back. I look down at a fella in a brown hood sweater, jog-walking on the road side o’ the wall. He looking at me looking at the man. He dark face, big eyes know that I know that he know.

I point and ask, “That fella. He look like Eddy Grant. Was him?” Eddy Grant, Guyana-International singer.

The fella nod, one nod, he so cool and me so excited like a fool.

Darn, I think, I coulda just reach out and say, “Hey Eddy, what’s a star like you doin’ in a dull place like this? What make you bring Mick Jagger here, and what make him come back one time, two times and more? Hey Eddy, I love your songs Joanna and Baby come back. And my sister is your biggest fan, she would bop to Electric Avenue any ol’ time…I swear I did hear it on CNN one day. And oh, Eddy, anytime you want more voices to add to the copyright fight here, ask me. But Eddy, what’s a big star like you doin’ in a li’l place like this?”

But I didn’t even say keh.

I head on east, remembering how a successful Jamaican artist did say to he business friend, he hope Guyana never get too developed, and the business friend say quietly, “I know what you mean, me too.”

I know what they mean, they hope that we get economic growth but they don’t want to see huge, horrid buildings sprouting; they hope we keep the rustic charm.

Now the sun wake, she peep out. Just underneath, the little frills of waves fluttering like white-gold wings, fripsing, fripsing to shore, heading for the platinum pool o’ water.

Sometimes I does go to the sea just to see what I can see.

I want to be...

The confusion I come to this week, after a traumatic drive dodging road hogs, minibus missiles, pothole traps and so on, is this...

I don’t want to be (as the chil’ren’s poem go) a lighthouse all scrubbed and painted white. I don’t want to be a lighthouse to stay awake all night.

And I don’t want to be a poem as lovely as a tree. I don’t want to be a tree.

I want to be something that can overcome rough conditions in the turd world.

I want to be badder than a bandit, more tough than the omara wood from we jungle, and more fast than we harpy eagle. I want to be more frightening than Christine, that Steven King car.

I want to be a fiery-red, armour-plated SUV, yes, a solid, bulletproof jeep zooming everywhere with my trusty sidekick, my aggressive driver, senior-citizen mama.

If I was the kinda SUV that I want to be, I can solve tons of problems.

When I launch out all heavy-duty and hollering, “Eat my dust,” potholes gon cringe and flatten in fear. No more potholes.

I gon run down bandits, no matter how big guns they got, the bullets gon just ping off. I gon make them surrender after I terrify them into thinking I gon rrrroll over them.

As for minibuses. When I chase them, they gon run yelping into the arms of policemen, crying, “Mammy, mammy, save me.”

And I gon guzzle as much gas as possible so them SUV’s, them big jeeps, can’t get no gas to buy. This mean they gon stay parked up in they yard. No more road hogs forcing little cars outta the way because they, road hogs, can’t wait. No more bullies swinging left, right, without throwing they trafficator...without signaling.

Well, if I can’t be a big, powerful SUV, I gon settle on being a teeny, li’l thumbtack. One that can move at will. I gon puncture big jeep and minibus wheels and bandits heels hee hee.

Friday 13

If you could be anything in this world...eh-nee-t'ing...

...stretch your imagination...

...what you would be?

This week, after a trip into town, I realise what I want to be.

But first, tell me then I gon tell you.

Look, is Friday 13, we better have fun.



Or else.

More Arjun

Pick a truth, any truth. A unsavoury truth, or one that loaded with irony. Pick a ugly one, a prickly one; a truth that smell like a rat. Or pick a truth that so delicious, when you sink you teeth into it, you tingle from skin to within.

Just pick a truth.

Now go to the window with you truth, hold it up to the light, turn it around, examine it. How many truths you see?

Arjun the drunk, the addict, got more truths to he story than anybody I ever hear about.

Uncle J. did say he’s not a bad fella. But Auntie M.did bitter about he selfishness; she had some compassion for he plight but she dish out some cynical truth too.

And now look, not too long after that my mother tell me, “Carpenter-man say he know Arjun family. He say the stepfather is a good man. He is the one who does take care of all o’ them.”

”Noooo man, that stepfather ain’t good,” I protest. “Auntie M. know Arjun gran’mother, she friend that the bus knock down and kill. Arjun been to jail ‘cause the stepfather molest he sister and he beat up the stepfather. Carpenter-man don’t know the insides of every single thing. Molesting is not something people does talk about openly in this country, you think the family gon go around saying it happen?”

We settle down to dinner with the two different truths - Arjun get maligned, the stepfather get maligned; we eat we dinner and the topic change.

You think it done there?

Two or three weeks ago, on me way to Auntie M. I zip past Arjun on the roadside. He shoulders bend, he head low; he staring at the grass, the road, he trying to focus the way people who brain soak up too much rum does try to focus. He hair sproinging this way, that way, shining with grease. Need a shave, clean clothes.

“I see your friend,” I tell Auntie M. “He proper look pathetic.” I tell she what the carpenter man say.

”Hm, for all you know, it could be true. Arjun sister come to we shop and she praising up she stepfather. If you hear all them nice, nice things she does say about he...”

Something there never sound too right to me, but I ain’t no psychologist so I ain’t say nothing. Who knows what the real story is. Maybe the girl and she mother convince theyself of some other truth.

A truth can be such a strange thing, I been thinking yesterday. It can be whatever we want to believe it is.

Buss it open, dash aside all the seeds you find inside...then watch them grow into other...

...truths?

Eh? What's that you're singing?

“You know that song, Kisses and Clover?” I ask my very best friend on the phone yesterday morning.

“?”

“Man, you know the song,” I insist. “The one from the ‘60’s…or was the ‘70’s? The one that sound like the music stuttering plenty. Ooh ooh uh uh ah ah ah…”

“You mean Crimson and Clover,” my best friend say. “You just did a mondegreen.”

As a chile, Cousin Analis was the master of mondegreens. She used to go everywhere with my mother, singin’ away.

“Row, row put your boat, gently down the street…”

“Good King went to Glasses Town, underneath the stables…”

Finally, she lay out the mondegreenest of all mondegreens . Up to today, nobody can’t figure out what song it is, and she can’t remember.

That day, both she and my sister been to the bank with we ma.

Li’l Analis announce to my sister in a high, clear voice that ring through the bank, make everybody stop they pens in midair, stop pushing paper, stop counting cash to listen. “I gon sing and you gon ballet, right?”

“What you gon sing?”

“Oh holy angels, free Milo.”

In a secret corner of the garden…

Many moons ago my cousin Sam come rushing to me, she shaking, she eyes bright.

“Look!!! Look!!!” She hold out a letter and a palm-size, fadey-green leaf, it press flat and dry.

She then boyfriend-almost fiancé-now husband who did studying Abroad send she a four-leaf clover in a letter.

Well, is not to say we believe in four-leaf clover and other hocus-pocus power to bring good luck, bad luck. We did just excited. Four-leaf clover exist for true. Wasn’t a lie.

I want one too!!!

Finally, not so long ago I find one in a country at the bottom o’ the globe. I nearly w…

Suffice to say I did plenty excited.

Is a teeny li’l four-leaf clover; them leaves small like me finger-nails but the way I carry on you would think was enormous. Y’know how them gyals who finally get engaged does carry on, and the diamond on they ring so li’l you got to squint you eye and turn you head to imagine that you see the diamond? That is me with this li’l clover.

Well my mother put me in my place now.

Last week Wednesday she been chookin’ around in the garden. She come upstairs holding something green she hand.

A humongous four-leaf clover.

“You lie,” I holler. You’re lying.

“What you mean I lying? Look it right here.”

I take it, press it in a book.

Next day, Thursday, she been chookin’ around in the garden. She come up holding something she hand.

A humongous four-leaf clover.

“You lie,” I holler. You’re lying.

“What you mean I lying? Look it right here.”

I take it, press it in the book.

On Saturday I looking down at she from we verandah. She chookin’ around in a small four-leaf clover patch.

She say, “Here, look another one.”

Sigh.

I take it, press it in the book.

Now I come to four conclusions.

Four-leaf clover ain’t rare.

Global-warming making things mutate.

We garden ain’t just wild, it mad.

The fourth conclusion is the most plausible one though. I come to it after a certain conversation.

I say to my mother, “You got to find a fourth four-leaf clover. One for each of your children.” Yes, even though we now got four four-leaf clovers in the house, one was because I find it. To show equality in motherly love I think my ma should find a fourth.

She say with complete confidence, not taking she eyes off the newspaper, “Don’t worry, I gon find another one.”

My fourth conclusion then is this: my mother got a four-leaf clover machine and she cranking them out in a secret corner in she garden.

Again

A six-year old girl-chile I babysit sometimes say to me, “Hear this story daddy does tell me.

‘Once upon a time in a forest it had three cows. The first one name Again. The second one name Again Again. The third one name Again Again Again.

Two o’ them cows, Again Again and Again Again Again, run away from the forest. After they gone, which cow leave in the forest?’”

“Again.”

“Once upon a time in a forest it had three cows…the first one name…”

This storytella daddy is one of me cousin high-school friend; he become like family; he wife and he children are like fam’ly too.

He got a mind that does see like a microscope, analyse like a lab, and he got a quiet way of doing…efficient, confident, working late hours sometimes, looking after sick children.

And this chap does run with a humour you can’t push down, mash down, keep down. Along the way, he share out puns as if he always baking up extras to dole out. He crack them open, crack heself up and crack we up at the way he crack heself up. Watching ‘n’ listening to he, you would never guess how he had to strugg-gle to get where he get.

I did need that kinda positive vibes yesterday when I read we newspaper. Yesterday, one o’ we opinionists declare yet again that this is a tragic country.

Ohhh mambo-kalambo, how this opinionist relish these descriptions, dishing them out again again again. Dark is this country populated by foolish people, the opinionist say, disastrous ruinous calamitous (ow, somebody please take away that Roget’s Thesaurus). Catastrophic cataclysmic, heartbreaking terrible sick, awful dreadful, the cheerless adjectives whine on again again, ad-nauseagain, the opinionist program citizens’ mind to think we’re the dregs.

I know, I know, we ain’t got First World Bliss here but all the experts say that what we program into we mind, that is how we gon be and behave…experts like super successful people, motivational speakers, psychotherapists and the little train that went I think I can I think I can.

I ain’t saying ignore the horrid realities. I only wish we had more folks talking, thinking like we family friend who see plenty tragedy - li’l children suffer, babies die - yet he understand that this is a yin-yang life.

He understand that along with tears is laughs; with the dark, light; problems, solutions; sick, heal. That is what I wish we could hear, again, again.

(Oh…waitaminnit, opionionist is the yin; friend is the yang…but I think we need a bit more yang than yin these days).

The food of possibilities

Plantain chips, thin like paper, taste teasin’ the tongue, chooking in the teeth, krispy-crakly-crunchy with salt and sometimes a li’l bit o’ peppa. Green plantain boil and stir-fry with onions, garlic, peppa - eat it with herring, mackerel, any kinda fish or meat or veggies. Sweet, soft plantain, boil and stir fry with garlic, onions, shallots.

Roast it green, mash it up, season it up with salt and black peppa and chopped onions. Blend it ripe with nuts and milk. Fry it ripe with salt and let you teeth chew on that tough-outside-soft-inside, wrap you taste buds ‘round the salt and sweet, both two-gether.

Pudding it; porridge it; sweet tart it; pancake it; salty fritters it.

The other night I cook plantains again for dinnah. In fact, two nights in one week I cook it two different ways.

I start to think how, as many nights as I cook plantain, I can have a million ways to cook it, okay, I exaggerate, not a million, but the other night I think about how is the most versatile food in the universe...that ain’t no exaggeration and it loaded with nutrition.

Plantain so versatile it got song about it too. A wutliss...wicked...rude and vulgah song, a calypso that my cousin in Seattle hear she li’l children singing and she ban the tape with that song from the children.

Imagine, she say, imagine if they go to school and sing that song, what the nice, nice American teacher gon say about the Guyanese parents of these children? She sing the song for me and how I laugh.

Plantain, in case you wondering, look like a bigger version of banana.

Yeah, plantain so versatile it got philosophy, history an’ story too.

This is the story of Anancy and the plantains.

Anancy is a African-Caribbean folk-hero, a spider what live by he wits; he cunning, conniving, crafty ‘n’ wily...every synonym stitched together...smart and sly at the same time.

One day, all them animals what live in Anancy village get one plantain each. Anancy ain’t get none.

Anancy go from animal to animal, weepin’ an’ wailin’ how he ain’t get no plantain and how he hungry. From home to home he go, animal to animal.

Ow, them animals proper feel sorry for he. One by one they cut they plantain and give he half. Well, half and half make whole and Anancy end up getting more plantain than all them animals put together.

Yes, all this I think about while I cook plantain the other night...I think how plantain ain’t just something to eat...plantain is the food of possibilities, is all the wonderful things we ordinary people can do if we only pick we mind, peel it and turn it over plenty ways.

Come to think of it...plantain got challenge too. I challenge every single country right now to tell me of a thing that versatile like plantain.

Mmm...all this talk of plantain make me swear I can smell it frying, breeze bringing from some far off home that hot, nutty smell o’ plantain chips cracklin’ in searing oil.

(Heh, Stephen Bess, this post should make you happy. Or hungry).

tickticktickticktick

Huff puff time I need more time to edit second manuscript search for literary agent polish up article for Sure Woman Dawn got to edit something for my best friend I promise he I gon do it today make beds cook tickticktickticktick time I need more time I got to sew I ain’t sew in a couple o’ weeks gone and Christmas coming I want to sell some things mother fasting for Ramadan I cook tasty I hope dinner for she everyday tickticktickticktick time I need more time something got to give yeah the blog can’t find time to blog I been thinking of not blogging anymore I think I gon go and have a li’l nervous break down is nice you just lie on the bed and gaze at the sky but I need time for that too darn tickticktickticktick

Thank you everybody for making me laugh while I had the cold.