Pugilist Pete

The sound was so lawless…raucous, vulgarhh…even the early morning sun quiver and turn pale. I swear I ain’t lying! The sun turn pale with fright! I see this meself, early Saturday morning gone.

KRAWWW KARAAAAWWWW KREHH KREEEHHH

KAROW KAKAAWWW KROW KROW KROW

One scrawk after another, scraping we ears, the air, the sky.

I been downstairs investigating another pipe that Lall break on Friday - I discover this early Saturday morning, water splatta-splatta wake me up. Then the krawwking and the kreehking start up. I run to we gate.

Mr. and Mrs. Pete been up in a tree across the road, cussing the whole nation on this good Independence Day.

What the scrawwk y’all Guyana people think y’all doing, selling we parrots to foreign countries, smuggling we, making fortunes out of we. Not because them rich ferringees, them rich foreigners who live overseas want we, that make it okay for you to sell we family and friends Abroad. You think we like living Abroad, in cages? You don’t think we enjoy we independence too?

Them two green parrots make me remember Uncle Jeremiah, me mother cousin. Jeremiah is he childhood nickname; he real name is Azeez. Or Azam. Or Akbar. Truth to tell, I ain’t know he real name. He live in England, been in Guyana for holiday early 2000. As usual, the gyaff take place in we verandah.

“I saw something that made me very sad today,” he did say in he crisp, proper way. “A baby jaguar was in a cage, in town. What are you doing with that, I asked the young man. He said he’s going to sell it.”

“One o’ them men did tell me that they got to earn a living too, uncle,” I say - not that I agree with the sale of wild animals, but just for argument sake.

“I don’t think it’s right. Sooner or later, our forests will be depleted of wild animals…”

Pete the parrot in the tree screech; he missis echo he sentiments. He rrrrile them hackles on he head. He rrrraise he hands up in the air like a triumphant pugilist. RRRRAAAAKKKK he holler and he and Mrs. Pete fly away.

I wish I can rent Pugilist Pete and he missis to disturb the arrogant man we hear about on Friday...but that is another story for another day...

Idle chit-chat between the raindrops

Pee Em Ess. That is what I think Mother Nature suffering from. Bright and chirping one day. Brooding, chin long down to the ground the next day, dark with vexation against Man. Crying long, long sky-water the third day.

My ma say Mother Nature getting ole, that is why she acting up all over the world, arthritis, osteoporosis, all kinda ole age things troubling she.

I consider this. Hm, yes, I say. Could be. I can just see she, bending she back, crying, oh my aching rocks...

Lall et al

The flood linger, linger like sorrow, early midday yesterday the water been at we gateway and around the edges of we yard, hemmed in by walls. It finally leak away, say goodbye late midday.

I go for we car out on the high road yesterday morning. All we neighbours been cleaning. Everybody except we. And Fazal we gardener ain't coming to clean 'til today, Friday.

Mortified.

I walk mortified towards we car. Everybody except we been swishing, swashing, swooshing. I want to keep up with them Joneses!

Fazal is coming with Lall to clean. Lall is 19 but up to February this year he look like 14. Yesterday evening Fazal and Lall pass by here on they bicycles. Wonder of wonders, Lall now got stuff sprouting on he top lip.

Lall is pleasant but he laziness is a legend. Some months ago, Fazal did hire he to help with work here. My mother say Lall take a century to do the job.

“Boy, you take so long to finish this li’l thing I bet you don't do housework...you does help your mother?” she ask Lall.

“No,” he answer with a smile.

“You don't help your mother in the house?” my mother ask in mock-shock.

“No. She not here.”

“Why? She left you all and gone away?”

“No,” Lall say.

“What happen to she then?”

“She dead.”

“Boy, why you ain’t say so in the first place, you got me asking you all these questions.”

“You nah ask,” Lall reply in he matter of fact way. You didn’t ask.

My mother is a persevering type. She ask Lall if he does work elsewhere.

“Me use to have a job with a rich, rich man, I use to get pay $6,000 a week.”

“So why you stop working there, Lall?”

“Me father no have no job so me give he me job.”

Aiyee, maamee, paapee, I wonder if them Joneses does have talks like this. I hearing clunk, clunk downstairs, I better go and see what's happening, help move breakables...

Last night frawstration

March, April, May, whap whap whap, them months hit we whap whap whap, I try not to break, I feel so vex and helpless last night, March April May, each month one bad thing happen, one per month.

Yesterday midday, the rain lash down and whip up a li’l flood again, I pray that the water ain’t swell-up high, high like it do in January ’05 and leave we with doo-doo to wash away afterwards.

March April May, one bad thing after another, ma, I ask, why so much bad things been happening recently, grrr. I don’t know, I just don’t know, she say.

I think me back bruk, me and the gardener been lifting stuff yesterday afternoon, things that we store in the apartment downstairs. Me teeth soak, me bones saturate-up, glug, glug glug, I been out in the rain with umbrella and long boots, wading home after I park the car on a high road, wutliss rain invade under me umbrella.

My mother been sitting in the veranda, waiting for me.

“I’m sinnnnnging in the rain, I’m lauuuughing again…” I holler to she.

Lunatic laughter.

A mini-li'l flood again, oye kakamolee, all that cleeeeaning again, that is what is vexing me, oh the cleeeeaning again…

Internet bruk again yesterday, last night.

Hahahaha I’m lauuuughing in the…oh look, here comes the sun…

Broken. But not bored.

Crick, crack, a cable bruk. Bruk and crawl like it can barely swim for help under water. Somewhere off French Guiana, deep in the water, the cable snap on Sunday a.m. May 6. And in them 3 Guianas - Guyana, Suriname and Cayenne - the Net crawl.

Newspaper say we telephone company put up satellite to haul we out from the slush. But me Net move like crab with only one boonga (tentacle) in thick puttuh-puttuh mud. Like it couldn’t grab on to them satellite things in the sky. Too feeble to blog, to surf.

I coulda fall to pieces each time I see this pooter face. But after them March and April stresses…cousin divorce, flu and more flu and ole lady visitor almost going into a coma in we home and brand-new second hand fridge ain’t freezing and...

...Nah!

I gather meself together. At least I can email, I console meself.

And man, lemme tell you, I dig into living good and proper. I read. I glue them soles of me ole favourite Teva walking sandals. I watch African movies on tee vee, I visit Auntie M. I visit a cousin who come back after surgery from Abroad. I listen to a maid horror story about ex-boss; I give she advise where to seek legal counseling, but I doubt anybody gon help she, one poor woman against spiteful young man with powerful connections.

And I work on me manuscript, plant new words, thoughts, ideas. I weed it, water it. I work and work until I see them words blossom, grow buds, promise fruit.

Bored? Shhh. I ain’t want to hear no Caustic Mammy like I did hear when me was a teen.

“You’re bored?” Caustic Mammy did say when me was a teen complaining about being bored. “Only boring people get bored.”

Heh.

Ever since then, even if I bored outta me skull, I set about proving that I Ain’t Bored.

Dark Things on Wings

Paint me with citronella oil and call me Warrior-Gyal. I going on a hunt, I going for the kill and the enemy is them Dark Things on Wings.

Them Things sneak up with these May-June rains, sneak in between the pouring wah-wah, and sometimes pitta-patta. As soon as the rain ease up and them grey clouds pull back one kanchee bit, them Dark Things on Wings rush out in black flocks. I want to believe that they form unions - they arrive so thick, in unison.

Oh? My venture to kill them is a frivolous one? Skin irritation, allergic reaction and swelling ain’t that bad?

Well, what about dengue that them Dark Things cause? It come with fever to blister you, and pain so fierce even your eyelashes hurt, one sufferer did tell me. And the hemorrhagic kind make your gums bleed.

And what about malaria? That kill millions in plenty countries, kill children in different lands - every so many seconds, one child dead. I ain’t know how my mother survive it as a chile. Fever blaze she skin, chills rattle she bones and pain make she very marrow cry out.

And don’t let me talk about filaria, which them Dark Things bring, sticking parasite into you, then your leg swell grotesque, make your leg, from your knee down, look like a giant, mutant elephant foot.

How them Dark Things get this power is a story so olllld, old like the story of Man. I hear it from my mother who hear it as a chile from Long Lady, who did live in she village.

One day, me nanee, my mother’s mother, send she girl-chile to return a coconut grater to Long Lady. Them Dark Things been zinging around Long Lady yard in heavy, black clouds.

“Clap them, kill them,” Long Lady say. “Don’t make them bite you.

“One day,” Long Lady say, “the very first Dark Thing go to God.

“ ‘God,’ Dark Thing say, ‘I want to have power to kill people.’

“ ‘No,’ God say. ‘Go and bite people. If them nah kill you first then you got power.’

“So clap them, kill them,” Long Lady say.

Yesterday, in we yard I blast a basin full o’ brooms, a box with empty plant pots, all corners, with Baygon. Mother Nature haul sheself into she green-leafy cloak, screw up she face at the rotten insecticide smell. I sorry Mother Nature, I sorry, I ain’t got no other method that ain’t gon harm the land, no safe method like insect eating plant growing near Kaieteur, we interior waterfall.

I did hear that them Israeli scientists formulate a safe method, sugar and something else, put it in trees to attract them Dark Things and kill them...but until that become available...

...and until we get we own scientists here...oh but this one is a dream, we don’t seem to put much energy into science research here, and all we Bright Young Things migrate, leaving we with them Dark Things on Wings.

Aiyeee, but them Dark Things dwell Abroad too, and the list of troubles they can cause there too can read like a death chant.

Lucky for me, I got a fighting chant, a chant that my mother learn as a chile with she classmates, Mam Bruce teach them. [I wish, I wish I did know who that long-ago writer is, so I can give credit.]

We all are jolly hunters
Though we haven’t got a gun,
We’re out to slay wild animals
And we’ll have lots of fun.
The animals we’re hunting have lots of people killed,
And should you let them bite you
They will make you very ill.
Look there’s a mosquito
Smack smack smack.
There he is again
Now setting on your back.
Kill him while you have the chance
He’s a deadly foe.
The cause of all your fever is a mosquito.

Now paint me with citronella oil and call me Warrior-Gyal, I going on a hunt.

p.s mosquito is ‘he’ and not ‘she’. I kill one and had a good look.

grrrrrrrrrr.....

Somebody on My Space now using me name, Guyana Gyal, to carry on with whatever they does carry on with there. Heaven knows what they do elsewhere, using that name. I so vex me words chack up in me trote.

Is one o’ them things about me fellow country-folks that does make me fume, we thief ideas, copy other people, too much too much. I ain’t know where along we history we erase we originality.

Back to work again, rain pouring, I should dash outside with me new lemon-tinted see-through umbrella...maybe everybody gon copy me and do rain dances for countries with drought...

Wanted: Cheerleaders

Browsing newspapers Saturday morning, the ad barely ketch the corner of me right eye.

"Are you between the ages of 14 and 17? Would you like to be a CHEERLEADER for HIV/AIDS Messages?" Next to this is a sketch of a gyal with thick ponytail. She heavy limsie, that is, bangs...cover one part o' she face, the other half smiling young 'n' sassy.

I am rocking in the handmade rocking chair in the verandah; is the kinda day when people should lie under wide, gnarly ole trees by the sea, wallow in salt air and...

...and waitaminnit...cheerleaders…? 'Cheerleaders' is such a strange word to associate with HIV/AIDS - nimble, nubile lasses with skirts so short they barely cover free matinee, way heyyy they jump, and ole men dash aside they walking sticks and long out they tongue, and young men can barely make they body behave. But who is me to talk, I ain't know nothing, only what I see in them foreign movies, and I could be wrong.

And I could be wrong and they gon have boy and gyal cheerleaders, thin, plump, long hair, short hair, dreadlocks, gyals in hijab, gyals uncovered, teens with legs, one leg, no legs, boys in rags and boys in drag, after all Aids don't discriminate. Only people do.