Shaddock and sitar

In this li’l fishbowl town there ain’t nothing to discover. That is what I think when a jaded mood droop down on me sometimes. Can’t see, hear one thing new, nothing new to do.

Clang clang, a knocking at we gate. Auntie H, neighbour-mother-friend, waiting with a bag.

In the bag was fruits from they garden, a pawpaw and a sci-fi looking grapefruit, it so huge, it got the size of a soccer ball.

“Ever had a shaddock? This one’s very sweet,” she say.

In a jaded way I cut. Then laugh. Most o’ the thing is skin, inches deep, a layer o’ pale green, a layer o’ thick white. In the center of all that fuss is the edible part, it look like a pink grapefruit.

Cut, peel, bite. Oooh, it juicy ‘n’ sweet, it sweet like sin.

Suddenly. Zinnnng.

I feel sparkly. My eyes see sharper, cleaner. Must be my imagination, I think.

I go to do some sewing. I pick up a audio cassette that been languishing for months. I did buy it at a fair but never care to listen to it, “Sitar from Imdad Khan to Irshad Khan.” Never play it ’cause deep down I believe that no other player can interest me like Ravi Shankar.

In a bored way I put the cassette in the player.

Suddenly. Zinnnng.

My ears pick up on sounds lush and wild, in the eye o’ my mind a khatak dancer spinning, spinning, one hundred turns, dizzy, dizzy, whirling to the tabla and sitar.

Well, look at that, I think. In this fishbowl town, where there ain’t nothing new, I discover.

I got to remember…keep my mind open always so that newness can breeze in any time.

Spare the rod.

I feel a fury blazing like white heat from me heart to me head. I can’t think straight.

Today headline in the papers say that the “Education Ministry still backing corporal punishment.”

I ain’t even read the article, this rage flare up. All I coulda think about was that vicious, rum-boozing creature who call heself a teacher in primary school. He couldn’t teach…so he beat.

I still wish somebody would beat that bastard for going to school reeking of rum and stale vomit.

All I can think of now is that horrifying thing my brother tell we when he been visiting the other day. My parents never know that it happen. Mr. Whakker the teacher beat my brother ‘til he faint. My brother was twelve years old.

I feel like somebody skin me heart and peel it when he tell we.

Who would beat Mr. Whakker, that son of a dawg, for doing that to my brother? Mr. Whakker dead now, I hope they flogging he in hell.

All I can think of now is that so-called ‘strict’ nun in a Catholic Prep School. My sister and my cousins and cousin-in-law still look back at she in anger. The nun make a child wee sheself in front of the class.

Beat. Beat. Beat. That is all that we get in this country. I feel that’s one o’ the reasons why we got so many cowed but angry people about now. Teachers beat. Plenty parents beat. Bandits beat. Hooligans beat. Somebody always beating somebody…but is always a bigger person hitting a smaller person. Ain’t that what they call bullying?

Plenty big people here believe that beating a child is good. To beat or not to beat ain't even the question, some folks strongly feel that teachers should be allowed to do it.

Plenty people praise they parents or grandparents for beating them to discipline them. Maybe them is secretly into that Dominatrix thing now…oooh baby, hit me, hurt me, hate me, ooh, I love it.

I cool down me rage and read the news. I shouldn’ta bother.

The Ministry of Education say it support corporal punishment…but it got to be administered following “strict guidelines.”

“Strict guidelines” on how to beat a child!

They say is a last resort to maintain discipline and order.

I ain’t anti-discipline. I just am anti-beating a child. I wonder why we can't seek alternative ways to discipline. But the truth is, we so beaten, we don’t even know how to think creatively anymore.

A romantic encounter

He appear behind me like a shadow, in the village shop.

“How you doin’, baby?”

I turn ‘round slow.

Arjun.

The scrawly, oily village drunk. That dark, unwashed shadow of a creature, dragging along so many tales you can’t begin to count them. Everybody around that village got a different story about he. Auntie M. tell me that Arjun tell she, ‘you got a nice niece there, man, she proper sweet’. I splutter when she tell me this, Lawd have mercy, of all the people in this world to admire me.

“Hi Arjun, I alright. How you doing?”

“Me alright…”

I look at the sistah sitting on the wood bench against the wall, a pale-brown, dumplin’ woman, she hair in cornrows. She face twitching with holdback laugh. I pay for me goods, collect me change.

“You want me to follow you home?” Arjun offer.

The sistah eyes water up with silent laugh. I grinning too. “Nah!! Why I would want you to follow me home, Arjun?”

I leave, walk up the road. Then I stop, I think I forget something in the shop. I examine the goods in the bag.

“What wrong?” That blasted greasy shadow, standing two feet away, ask me.

“Nothing ain’t wrong, Arjun, just checking me goods.”

“Give me a raise, no?” Give me some money, no.

I suck me teeth, laugh. “I know that is what you been angling for.” I give he a few dollars and he sidle on he way.

When I get home, I still cracking up. I tell Rehana, we cleaning girl.

Rehana say, “Mm-mm. You ketch a thing!” You catch a man.

“Yyyyes, I should bring he home, bathe he and mind he. My mother would love that, a son-in-law in the house.”

Plenty laughs full up the kitchen. Then Rehana say, “A girl get a baby for he...the child still small.”

“Hm! That musta been a one night drunk mistake for that gyal,” I say.

“Nooo, she used to live with he. Then she leave he when he start to drink and take drugs.”

This was last Friday.

On Monday this week, Rehana say, “One day, Arjun see me on the road going home. He say, ‘Hi baby, I gon walk with you.’ I say, ‘No problem...where you going? To buy coke?’ He say, ‘Aaah, you know the thing, eh?’ ”

I feelin’ so jellis…jealous, I can’t contain meself. All them gyals falling over they feet for Arjun.

Let the competition begin.

Sweat like a cow.

Beware, oh men, beware. Be careful. If your scratchety, naggy, vexy wife or gyal-friend offer to do something for you, take that offer with a pinch o’ salt…cooking salt, that is. Absolutely no other kind.

Yesterday I been checking out the many uses of epson salts. “Look,” I show my mother, “It can draw toxins from you body…it make with magnesium sulfate …”

“Oh me mooma! You got to be careful. Ya make you sweat lakka cow!” It make you sweat like a cow!

“Eh?!?”

“Mr. Johnston tell me he nearly dead one time,” she continue with Bollywood-size drama in she voice.

“Mr. Johnston?”

“He was a electrician…he used to do work for we in the seventies, eighties…”

He was 50-something, married to a middle-aged woman. The two o’ them never live good; they always fighting. My parents never meet the wife, but according to he, Mr. Johnston, she was a strict, uncompromising woman. According to my mother, Mr. Johnston heself was a black-and-white man, dogmatic and proper.

My mother, chatting with he, years ago, ask he how he is doing, how is the wife and so on.

“She is a terrible woman,” he state.

One day, he and the wife had a fight. Words slicing the air, carving left and right. Finally, they lay down they words like swordsmen downing weapons, carefully. Silence settle over them.

The wife full up the bathtub for he. Mr. Johnston sink into the water, aahhh…so relaxing. He come out from the bath, he feeling nice.

Then he start to sweat. He pour with sweat, he sweat like a cow, he sweat so much, he get nearly dehydrated, he had to rush to the doctor.

“That terrible woman,” Mr. Johnston tell my mother, “she overdosed my bath with epson salts, the doctor said. She almost killed me.”

“Where is Mr. Johnston now?” I ask my mother.

“He die some years ago. He woulda been 80-something now.”

Houses don’t feel.

Sun drifting to down under in shades o’ rainy-gray. Normally she leave here in layers of pink…no bright gashes of crimson and slashes of orange…though one or two lucky evenings in the year we see she flashing out with crimson and gold.

Music playing - castanet clicking one two, one two between steel pan tapping low with soft guitar.

This evening the ol’ house feel melancholic.

But oh, stupid me, houses can’t feel sad. Or dull.

Houses can’t feel. Houses can’t miss people.

Brother gone back to England on Saturday, now is just me and me ma again.

This afternoon, just before the sun set, we sit in the verandah, me and me ma, reminiscing about all them things brother, son, tell we.

Had me rolling with laugh on the floor one night, fulling up we ears with England experiences. I hoot ‘til me back and belly hurt. He outrageous, irreverent, got a sharp way o’ reading people’s character. Very proper English boss tell he that in all the thirty years she work in that office she never meet anybody as mad as he.

Now the house feel dull. Damn, stupid house, always brooding after siblings visit and leave.

I don’t think people here recover yet from the splintering of families, from massive migration. We tear away from old lands to here, from here to new lands, and them tears still burning.

“Long ago,” my mother say in the verandah this afternoon, “When people just start to migrate, busloads o’ families and friends used to go to the airport to say ‘bye to the one leaving. They used to carry drum, accordion, pots o’ food…travelling used to take hours then. They play music and sing all the way to the airport. But when they say ‘bye, if you hear holler. Them mothers, grandmothers and sisters, even fathers, used to wail. They didn’t know when they gon see the son or daughter again.”

Well, we ain’t wail on Saturday gone, we know we seeing family again, times change, planes fly faster.

I just wish this house would stop feeling so damn melancholic today.

But oh stupid me, houses don't feel.

Page 114

I show Rehana, we cleaning girl, a photo. "Rehana, I don't know if is my imagination...what's the guy doing with he left hand?"

Laughs buss out from she.

Is a black and white photo on page one-one-four in we telephone directory. Is part of an ad asking citizens not to dig too deep into the ground for whatever reasons citizens dig.

In the photo a fella standing in a narrow ditch. He feet set apart, close to the walls of the ditch. With he right hand he holding the long stick of a shovel.

He wearing knee-length dark jeans. Down the front, on the zipper part o' the jeans is a thick, bleached-out streak. He left hand is in front o’ the streak, in a curved position. Because the photo is black and white and blurry, you can't see too clear; the left hand curved near the streak on the jeans crotch look a tad odd.

My mother say, "Ya wee wee." He wee-weeing.

My brother say, “What’s going on there? He wee-weeing.”

Next to the photo is the announcement, "Call such and such telephone numbers before you dig."

In Guyanese, to 'dig' can mean you scratching an itch real hard.

Wild things

I was telling my brother about the time Cousin Analis, she husband and she friend Jaya went to rainforest land, Iwokrama. They hike up a mountain and the young Amerindian guide say, “Shhh, stop…wild hogs in the bush…go back slooow…”

My brother snicker, “I bet he say that to add li’l spice to they trip.”

We mother say, “He musta smell them. Oh Lawd, them things stink! Nothing can’t stink more than them…I see them in London Zoo…”

I swear them crickets in the night raise they volume in agreement, “Eeka aaka nothing can’t stink eek more than wild hogs, aaak…”

Brother snicker. “Aiye, when cha-cha Deen describe them things running through bush, he say you can hear them crunching awara seed and all.”

Well! I don’t know if I believe that! To crunch awara seed a animal got to have jaws of steel…awara seed, hard and black, make outta material tougher than kryptonite.

Brother say, “When cha-cha describe wild hogs running through the bush, he say they cut a clear, clean path for miles better than a bulldozer…snakes, all them animals, fly outta they way. If you get ketch up in a tree and they down at the bottom, you better know how to jump from one tree to another to get away ‘cause they does dig down the tree with you in it.”

“You know about the time with cha-cha Deen and the wild hogs?” I ask.

Was in this same ol’ verandah cha-cha tell we that story.

It happen in the sixties, in the civil disturbance times, when he used to plant rice. He and he other rice farming friend, Papo, venture into the bush with they cutlass to get stick to make fire, to cook. Them older men give them the rifle with one bullet only.

“Use this only if somebody attack you,” them older men warn.

Cha-cha and Papo clear bush, cut dry stick.

“Heh, you see when me make so and stare into a bush!” cha-cha say. He bend down to demonstrate how he stare…then stop in horror. “Me see some eyes watching me, they red like fiyah! Me holla, run Papo, run. If you see fat, fat Papo run, he foot them nah touch ground. Me climb one tree and holla, climb Papo, climb. Hehehe, poor fat, fat Papo, if you see how he struggle. And down at the bottom them hog going grunkkk grunnnnk…”

Cha-cha decide this ain’t healthy at all. He had to do something to save he and Papo. Pow. He fire off the one bullet. Them hogs take off for the other side. Phew. Cha-cha and Papo head back to camp.

“When we tell them older men what happen, how they quarrel. Why you fire off the gun? They say, bullets precious, you can’t use them for any and everything. All you had to do was clang the flat side o’ you cutlass on a tree trunk, make one loud noise, them hogs woulda frighten and run ‘way.”

Like I always say, don’t come to Guyana for the nightlife. Come for the wild life.

Jean Labadee

“You know who can proper tell a good story?” I say to my brother. “Cha-cha Deen.” Cha-cha Deen is we father youngest brother. “Shees, he can talk just like Jean Labadee.”

Jean Labadee was a thin, gallivanting, story-telling Frenchman who dwell in a book we had as chil’ren. Was a thick, red hardcover book, Friends and Neighbours...or maybe was More Friends and Neighbours. When Jean Labadee tell a story, the audience hear the sounds, smell the smells, see the sights. No, you ain’t just imagine them, you actually see, hear, smell, feel...as if is real.

Brother snicker. “When cha-cha Deen tell you something, you don’t know what to believe. One time, he want to tell we that where they used to grow rice had plenty, plenty snake. But he ain’t say that. Instead, he say when they plough the field, all you could see behind the tractor and the plough...”

”Yes,” I holler. “Snakes flying up in the air...”

“The plough digging them up, cutting them up, and the air thick, thick with snake and the field full up with snake blood...”

Cinema drama

“Aiye, guess what,” I say.

“What?” my visiting brother ask.

“I haul mummy off to the cinema the Sunday before you arrive…we went to see Guiana 1838.”

“Reaaally? Them cinemas still working?”

“One or two now, I think. We been to Strand. Remember? They used to say Strand, the cinema in command.”

“Cockroach and rat ain’t run over y’all foot?”

“Nah boy. It old but it clean…they clean up.”

Had a time, we growing up time, this small city had quite a few cinemas, bulwarks of wood and concrete, three floors tall, balcony, house and pit. Ceiling fans and shutters keep we cool no matter how the heat simmering outside.

In those years of banned goods and scarce items, Wang Yu, Bruce Lee and vampires used to grab the audience by they eyeballs, hold them for a couple of hours, make them forget the lean times. In them heydays, the cinemas – Globe, Astor, Plaza, Strand, Metropole – ain’t had no rat, no roach. Metropole used to declare, “Metropole, the cinema in full control.”

“You hear what happen to Jim one afternoon at the cinema?” my brother snicker.

Oh no! Not that again. Cringe and laugh battle in me. Laugh win.

Jim was one o’ my brothers’ friends, they had about a thousand o’ them, teens to very early twenties, a united nation of races, colours, height and madness. Jim was the black belt karate guy with Asian eyes and Bob Marley cheekbones. Jim always had bad luck. No matter how hard he try, things always go bad for he. It get to a point that when one o’ them boys tell a sob story, them others say he “Doing a Jim”.

One afternoon after a show them boys pile out from the cinema, yelling, “Sight this…number twenty five.” Check this out, number twenty five. “Sight this…number fifty…” And so on and so forth, high numbers, low numbers, rating the strength, sound and aroma of gas released from derriere.

Jim get overly ambitious. He holler, “Sight this…one hundred.”

As the story go, it was too much of a strain for Jim; a distinct brown stain he pants; he had to dash home to change.

Talk about losing control.

The years fly; the country get run down, slow down more and more; people flee to live in other countries; li’l jumping, biting things and roaches move in to them cinemas; them cinemas struggle to convince we to patronise them; Metropole change they slogan to “Metropole, still in control.”

“I think Metropole burn down not so long ago,” I tell my brother.

Jim never did leave the country; hard times clunk he over and over.

The other day, as we strolling around town, my brother bump into El Solo, a fella he know. El Solo say that Jim finally get a break and he doing really well, running he own business.

The visitor

On Friday night, at ten, the phone ring.

Me mother who answer the phone say, “Tomorrow night? The flight landing at eight…?”

The impromptu visitor is here and I getting a view of England that, well, is a Guyanese-West Indian point of view. To put it mildly.

Since he arrive we house been bubbling with gyaff…jokes and stories…he, me and we ma sitting in the verandah. Is almost like old days when all the siblings and friends been here. Almost like old days but not completely so because only three of we from the family now here - me, he and we ma. But just like old days, tale after tale after laffs rolling from we lips.

Yes, the sudden visitor is here, tellin’ Guyana tales of thieves and numbered farts that I hear before; and a dead horse story that I never did hear before.

Welcome home bro.

Value added tax

I sittin’ here in me corner, wearin’ me white cone paper hat,
Tryin’ to understand VAT.

On the hat, if you look good you gon see
D – U – N – C – E.
That’s me.

Like most folks I fear what I don’t know.
I wonder if, like most folks, I should cuss what I ain’t understand:
%$# I, kay kakalamba, kay bullisimo.

Them sentences in the VAT booklet obfuscating, suffocating, wrappin’ ‘round me puny brain, imagine what they gon do to a man with less edication and dedication. I feel like that So-and-So in the children’s rhyme, sitting on the fence, trying to make a dollar out of ninety-nine cents.

But anyway, I want to understand, so I retreatin' in me corner, pen in hand, underlining all them confusing things about the new tax system. Then I gon ask somebody, anybody who gon kindly, patiently explain to me. I hope.

Maybe I should retreat into madness, then I ain’t gon have to worry ‘bout tax. Heh, if you see a gyal sittin’ on the seawall scribblin’ with chalk, “Oh mierda me friend, have mercy on me!” you know is who…throw me a dollar or two, thank you.