Sdiffle.

I ketch a cole. Rehada the cleadid girl brig it. Either that, or I ketch it walkid id the raid - everybody id Guyada doh that raid got bacteria ad virus.

Yes, I doh, I doh, adother cole, I had a cole last year already. But I did read sobwhere that asthbatic people does ketch cole bore quick thad other folks.

Yesterday I tell Addie that I feel like a ole, ole latrid that aid get clead for years. Addie say ha ha ha.

Oh doh! I just rebeber! I bid skippid the asthbatic bedicatiod recedly like if I ab sob bacho bad, I dote doh how that goid to affect by breathig with this cole.

(Sdiffle).

I goid to lie dowg to thik about by fate…

Rat-at-tat.

I spot the swinjey…ole, dry-up…potato skin suddenly the other morning on we kitchen window sill. Horror swell-up in me like music in a dramatical movie, slow, rising to a crescendo. “Mummyyyyyyyyy,” I scream. “If you keep putting food-things here I gon pack up me traps and move out, I can’t take it no more.”

“I want to plant it, man,” my mother say in a nonchalant tone.

“I ain’t care, don’t leave it there, it gon attract…attract…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. “I leaving…gone…”

By no measuring stick you can say me is a bad daughter. Threatening my mother with such a drastic measure, that I gon skip town and country all because of one ole piece o’ potato skin, might make me sound like a dreadful daughter, but hear me out, hear me plight.

First, let me explain. When I say I gon flee, I am being typical product of me society. This is flight or fright territory. As soon as a two-legged rat, that is, a bandit, walk too bold people does say, I gon pack up me traps and migrate. It was a four-legged rat that had me in the grip of terror the other morning. Or rather, the memory of it.

The tamasha...trouble...start up late last year, just before my mother go back Abroad. Then, signs of a rat in the house appear like signs of somebody doing obeah…black magic…to a’ enemy. Here, a plantain get bite-up. There, a papaya get chomp-up in vicious chunks, like a’ whole hungry army been feeding. My mother buy a trap, I set it, the food vanish and the trap mysteriously end up in a different spot.

Me and Rehanna (cleaning-girl) smell the creature in hide-away corners. It was a high-stinking smell, like a dead-man bussing through a crack in a grave. But we can’t see the creature.

Rehanna say, “G, how me scared. I does think, what I gon do if I see it.”

I feel good when she say so because, as we all know, misery love company. The good feeling didn’t last though.

Cry and the whole world does laugh at you.

I learn this late last year soon after the signs of the rat. In me grief I couldn’t finish me breakfast. I push away the last bit of toast. Maybe if I exhibit enough horror my mother gon change she mind about going Abroad; she gon stay here and baby sit me, keep me safe from the rat.

My mother look at the last piece o’ toast. “You leaving that for your boyfriend?”

“Eh?”

“The rat. You leaving that piece o’ bread for he?”

Lis confirm this snickering-like behaviour that very same day. “Ow, the poor ole rat is in love with you,” she say in a’ email. “He musta say, ow, look a nice girl in this house, let me stay here and rest me ole eyes by gazing at she.”

Me sister didn’t exactly laugh. “Talk to it, apologise to it,” she email. “You got to get rid of it, yes, because rats does spread disease. Feed it poison but apologise to it and explain why you got to do that.” She is such a softie, a real bleeding-heart.

Some people take to naming the creature. Me best friend in the whole wide world call it The Midnight Rambler.

Me second brother ask me on the phone, “How is Al Zaquari?”

“Eh?”

“The rat. Isn’t it terrorising you? Oh, oh, I have a suggestion. Put up signs around the house that say BEWARE OF BAD CAT. And the rat gon read it and get really scared and run away.”

If I wasn’t so horrified I woulda give it a name too. Bolo. Everybody in Guyana know Bolo. He is the big, bad, bullying, bone-breaking character in them Chinese movies.

Soon after my mother gone Abroad, Zaquari-Bolo start to torment me.

(To be continued…I gone to lie down people, remembering this rat make me have ten nervous breakdowns…)

A - a - a - a..........................

WAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO * * *

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oops

sorry



allergies

Where have all the good boys gone?

There we was, me and Annie, gyaffing…chatting on the phone; we solve the problems of the world – pollution, starvation, politicians – everything we sort out but we couldn’t resolve the shortage of good boys here. Plenty pretty, smart girls going around, but not enough boys to match them girls.

Annie tell me how one day she been discussing this with she friend Kamini. They both want boys who is interested in things other than electronics, cars and rum.

Kamini, with all the yearning in she heart, confess, “Girl Annie, you know what I does dream about…what I does fantasize about? I walk into a room full o’ boys and I can pick, choose, refuse…”

And that wicked gyal Annie, in she usual dry manner declare, “Kamini, you need to go to Camp Street jail!”

Camp Street jail is pack-up wall to wall with fellas varying in age, size, shape, colour.

Marriage and babies.

“Gyal, hoo much pickney you got?” Girl, how many chil’ren you have?

A hand, soft but very firm, grab me wrist as I been walking by. The voice sound like a’ ole lady voice, with a quake and a quiver that age bring, but not even time coulda wear down the iron in it. It demand a’ answer Now.

Glance around me, then down. A very ole lady been sitting in, filling up, a big, white plastic chair. Next to she is my mother forty-something year old cousin who nickname is Babbie.

Babbie don’t disturb equilibrium, don’t like raising dust. When she enter a yard you don’t notice she until you suddenly find she sitting near you, asking soft, soft with a smile, how you do. I meet she for the first time a month or two ago, at a family gathering like this one. Out of the corner o’ me eye I notice Babbie half-smiling, eyes wide, wondering how I gon deal with this. She know I ain’t married or have chil’ren. What she ain’t know is that, depending on who ask me, it used to affect me mood.

When a stranger ask, I used to think, what the hell that is to you? If relatives who don’t know me well enough ask…but if them is relatives I cotton on to and like…I tell them I ain’t ready. Then I change the subject by starting a discussion about them wutliss…no good…choices knocking around the place. Family who know what I want outta life, they don’t ask. Caribbean friends don’t give a hoot. Guyanese gal-pals on the other hand does try to tell me where I should be. The caustic remark on the tip of me tongue does give me a fight while I try to hold it back.

It is a shock to some people system, nice, nice gyal like you ain’t married yet? A gyal should not walk around unfettered by man. Wha’ you mean, you nah married? Find wan bai and married am. What you mean, you ain’t married? Find a boy and marry he. What you waitin’ for? You want to get ole, ole and nah gat nobaddy? You want to grow ole, ole without anybody?

No point explaining to some people. That ain’t cutting the ice with them even in this sweltering, global warming heat. Girls must marry and make babies. That is the sum total of we worth.

That is what Naz, a stranger at a countryside function five years ago, try to tell me. First thing she ask, “You married?”

“No,” I reply, knowing what coming next.

Bang on cue, Naz had the audacity to be scandalised. She lecture and she lecture, you should marry. She pompous tone did make me want to ask, “Why? Misery loves company?” But polite as usual, I didn’t say it. I shoulda. It was close to the truth and I didn’t even know it then. A couple o’ years later Naz leave she husband for the glamour of Canada after he had a stroke.

Weeks after Naz, I rehearse cutting comments that I coulda, shoulda make. Then a’ older woman, acquaintance more than family friend, phone my mother. She know a man in America who wife die; he need a new wife; he got two or three chil’ren.

“No,” my mother say.

“Damn man looking for a free house-keeper, child minder,” I say.

“Just that,” my mother agree.

“Why these people always think that everybody want to live in America or Canada or England so bad they gon marry just for that?” I suck me teeth.

“I don’t know,” my mother say.

It wasn’t the match-making that did annoy me though because, truth to tell, I believe everybody got a right to try to find a mate; I believe in loving marriages and romance and being with a wonderful man and growing old together. It was the woman persistence on the phone, she refusal to back off, that irritate me. Fortunately, my mother cut the call short. “Islam says you must never force your daughters to marry.”

Inevitably in this small community, I meet the woman at a religious function. She sit near me and start up she chant without melody, why aren’t you getting married?

Why you don’t fix up the man in America with your daughter who husband cheat on she and leave she for the girl who work in your office? I thought. But didn’t ask.

Suddenly, the imp inside me pinch. You really should just learn to have fun with them presumptuous people.

“Y’know, I hhhhhhhate men,” I blurt out. Everybody know this ain’t true.

Not this woman though. She face grow stiff with shock. She try to shock me back. “Why? Are you a lesbian?”

“Nahhh! I imagine waking up next to a greasy, stubbly face with stinky morning breath…ewwww. Oh, tell me, what is it about married women who try to get other women to marry? They know they’re miserable...why do they want other women to be miserable too?”

Mumble, mumble, the woman say, not all marriages are miserable. Then she grow quiet.

This Sunday afternoon gone, as I stare at the ole lady with the firm hand, stare into them fierce, observant eyes ringed with grey, it did feel like the crowd of relatives and visitors did vanish from the yard under the blue tent, only me and she leave, fighting it out.

The thing that amuse me about she question was how different it been. It assume that I been married therefore have chil’ren. What to tell she? I ain’t married? Eh? As if I want to bring hell down on me that good Sunday.

Hoo much pickney you got? How many chil’ren you have?

When people ask you very personal things, make up big, big story, me first brother, the master-exaggerator, did tell me. After we father die a woman relative been trying to nose out how much money he leave for we. Me brother give she a glorious, sumptuously over-bloated figure.

“I have forty chil’ren,” I announce to the ole lady.

She grip me hand mo’ tight. Out of the corner of me eye, I see Babbie shaking up, breaking up with laughs. I start to laugh too, can’t stop grinning.

Humour is a funny thing.

According to my mother who know the ole lady from she childhood village, the ole lady response was laced with irony.

As I turn to walk away, to talk to somebody else, the ole lady move she head like she been in a daze. “Gyal, me proper like how you look so good with so much pickney,” she say.

Big Boss Man.

Big Boss Man, staff and security man been going to a community far from the city, across one river, out to sea, then down another river.

When I say river, I ain’t mean them li’l narrow ribbons that wind softly through green fields. I mean giant, brown South American water that stretch so wide, in some parts not even binoculars on one bank can help you see the other side.

The mode of transportation was a launch, but not any and every rusty affair that you see all over the place with peeling paint and wood seat that corn you bahind and roof that draw more heat than cool you down. Even though this was in them days when hardships was more regular than rocks, Big Boss was a Man with great wealth at he disposal, so you know he ain’t going nowhere without he comforts. Cushions, food, drinks been on hand for he.

Staff too pack they food. The place they going to was far, they wouldn’t get back home ‘til way after night fall. And like I say, this happen in the Seventies when hardship was more frequent than rocks. Shortages make it very necessary that, when you going long distances, you must walk with your own food, as we would say. Walk with enough to last you the whole day, plus.

Lunchtime make everybody belly rumble. They pull out whatever they wife or mother or gyal-friend pack for them.

Young security man open he ole-fashion tin food-carrier, one like what them rice farmers used to fetch they lunch with into the fields. The carrier got different sections for different food. Security man open the two containers of he carrier. The food smelling hat an’ nice…hot and tasty. He take a piece from first pan, dip it into second pan.

Before he could say Bismillah like Mulims do before they take they first bite, Big Boss Man say, “What do you have there, boy?”

The young security man say, “Chicken curry and roti.”

“How many do you have?” Big Boss man ask.

“Four roti, Sir.”

“Who cooked for you?”

“My wife, Sir.”

“Give it to me. Here, you eat this.”

Big Boss Man eat out…finish off…them four roti and all the curry chicken there and then.

Mr. Abdool tell we this story the night he take my mother to the airport, and I went along too.

My mother ask, “And what he give the young man to eat?”

“Fry rice,” Mr. Abdool say.

When my mother hear this she blow a hot puff. “But eh-ehhhh! Look at that man, eh? He nah care if the young man want to eat fry rice or not. He nah care if it got haram meat or not.” Haram meat is forbidden meat; it is meat that is not kosher (as the Jews would say). Not good, not blessed, the blood not drain-out properly.

“That is how that man did stay,” Mr. Abdool say. That is how that man was. “If I tell you more what I hear about that man, you gon cry.”

Yesterday morning, reading the papers, for no reason at all I remember the story of Big Boss Man. “Aiye, mummy, imagine what can happen to poor li’l countries that have role models and leaders like Big Boss Man.”

My mother stop reading she paper, stare into the distance. “Mm-hm,” she say and continue to read.

I stare back at me paper, trying to make head and tail of what I reading. The president of Guyana accuse the EU of bullying them African, Caribbean and Pacific countries into making some agreement or the other. I fling down the paper and leave the living-room to sweep the house, some things are just too hard to understand, especially in the pre-rain, sticky heat.

Frog Watch.

As I was walkin’ down de street…

…down de street…

…mornin’ is cool like ice meltin’ in the tropics – warm with a touch of cool. These past few days, the ice from far away lands that thaw since spring blow this way and pffftt down on we; either that or one hundred ice maidens been whizzin’ down on we from above. But this mornin’ though it is grey and cool there ain’t no rain, so I walk on down de street, down de street and not one single pretty boy I did meet, only Senhor with the preference for Lolitas.

Further down de street, a red and white food box I did see, resting at the foot of a neighbour tree by the roadside - litteratti on he way home, eat and walk, eat and walk and fling it there when he done. Sitting squat in front of the red and white box was a frog as still as a stone. Frog open he eye and glare at me.

“Huh, you think I am afraid of you?” I say to the frog and step closer fearlessly like Indiana Jones. Inside the red and white box was a little clump of soakin’ wet rice and some split peas that swell-up with rain. “Since when frogs does eat dhal and rice,” I wonder. “Oh, I see, flies on the rice and that is your feast. Well, perform for me you fat frog you, I never see a frog in action before. Zap that tongue and show me your action.” I circle the frog, waiting to see some motion.

The other stone-eye of the fat frog open more wide. “Take one step closer and I gon zap you with my tongue, dissolve you and swallow you whole,” the hard stone-eye of the frog say.

So I hurry on up the street, up the street, back to my safe ol’ home, so much for this being World Environment Week and man being in tune with nature and all o’ that…