Murder

of a relative.

Death of another – old age and plenty ailments.

Same time, auntie and uncle from Abroad been visiting too.

Wakes. Funerals [I go to one. On the day of the second one, I been so tired I flop down and snooze].

Teas and lunches and dinners with family.

Trip to the countryside, visiting folks, gyaffing...chatting...under a tree. Lunch at a grand ole estate house.

Collect plenty stories. Dissect, analyse, put together, dissect again.

Now, typing difficult. On Thursday I pull out long grass growing wild and free in a plant pot in the verandah. Hair or insect on grass sting, feel like fire-needles boring skin. Major allergic reaction.

Latest pastime - reading books; staring at fingers. Wish I can read me fortune in them itchy bumps. But all I can smell is Betnovate C ointment.

A strange occurrence.

In all me born days, I never know it coulda happen here. Even as teeny-weenie li’l tots they teach we that some things just don’t occur on the tip of South America, they only take place in other countries. Like snow.

But…bless me soul if I lie…we got a foreign season here now!

I always thought that the only seasons we get is mango season, sapodilla season…all kinda fruits in season, rainy season and the rest o’ the year is sun.

Truth to tell, I shouldn’t doubt that this foreign season is really occurring here.

It must be true.

I see it on tee vee.

And as everybody know, everything you see on all them media is true.

One business academy advertise summer classes; one wild entertainment group promoting a fun event taking place this summer, and several small schools inviting parents to enroll they chil’ren in summer programmes.

The only problem is though, we the people can’t really tell when is actually summer. Because it all depend on when them classes or events taking place. Some last for one week in July; some happen one weekend or a day in August. Others go from July to August.

Why this strange weather pattern happening here, you ask? Some folks would say that it is because we the people suck up all things foreign without discrimination; others say we get brain-washed by too much foreign tee vee.

But I say that it got to be because of global warming. Too much sun in we head, man, too much heat.

I decide, just in case them other foreign seasons take over here too, I gon do a calendar for we the people.

It go like this:

January. February. March.

Spring.

May. June. July.

Summer.

September.

Audum [that is, Autumn with the foreign pronunciation that we the people love].

November.

Winner [that is, Winter with the foreign pronunciation that we the people love].

This is what global integration is all about.

Another blackout.

My mother slip into the verandah, settle in the rocking chair; she don’t look out for falling stars like normal people. She does keep watch for that bright red light, hoping she gon see it again.

Is the most awesome, awwwwesome thing, she does say.

More than one time she see it, a wide, broad band of red fire with a long, narrow tail curving like a’ ‘s’, coming down slow, slow, down in the night-black sky, then it fade. She see it two times in we country village, and two or three times when we move to town. Me li’l cha-cha…me father youngest brother…spot that light once in the country village too; he been so scared he pelt down the road for home.

I should haul out me guitar, sit in the living room and strum some notes, think of all them jinns, invisible beings created with smokeless fire, they live all around we and take in the show of everything we do. Nah nah nah, that too scary, lemme join my mother in the verandah.

“Mummy, I forget to tell you earlier…guess who dead?”

“ Who?”

I tell she and my mother go on a rambling tale about the family history of the deceased woman son-in-law - which merchant and he wife come from India with three daughters, who they marry, what estates they inherit and how many sons and daughters they give birth to. I know, inside-out, the love affairs of them beautiful women descendants; I hear these stories many times over.

Mind drifting, I ketch on to the tail end of a story. “One o’ they cousins love to drink, this boy always drunk,” my mother saying. “A time, he go to visit he family in we village. This boy get so drunk that when he driving home back to town, he get lost. He turn on to a track that lead to waterside, wayyy out by the sea. People had to go look for he and find he and pull out he car from mud.”

Me laugh fly out and circle ‘round the neighbourhood, so loud it was.

“Aiye, mummy, remember that young boy who use to sell fish here, he father drink so much he fly up a cokenut tree and…”

He was a fair, slim, good-lookin’ eighteen year, hard-working and willing to gut the fish for some extra dollars. Anil, I think he name was. The first time my mother see he, she say, boy, me know you face, where you come from?

He was from a village near my mother childhood village, and my mother know Anil family.

“Me father been in a’ accident,” he say. “I does help me mother to sell the fish so we can go home early, and me mother can rest. ” He father love to do two things. Drink and drive fast fast fast. “One night, me father drink and drive so fast he fly up a cokenut tree. Then he land pon top a house.”

“On top a house? How he manage that?”

“Was a flat roof house, a shack-house. Them people come out to beat he and he run ‘way and hide in a bush.”

Somehow, the father manage to sneak back later to he car. Radio gone; battery gone, other parts gone, people gone. “He trying to buy new parts,” the young boy say.

Last night, we ain’t see the big red fire in the sky, maybe another night. It appear around the same time, my mother say, between seven thirty to eight thirty. Me and my mother gyaff...chat...some more, then the phone ring and two minutes later lights come back on. My mother come inside to doze and I snuggle down to watch America’s Got Talent.

Monday! Holiday!

“Happy Free Lunch Day!” I announce, reading the newspaper front page.

“No!” my mother laugh. She sound half-amused and not trusting a word I say but she voice had a li’l tone that hint, suppose, just suppose is true.

“Yes! Look!” I flip the newspaper to she, across the ole pink kitchen table that witness decades of stories, gossip, tears and jokes amongst we family and friends.

“Ha,” she give a li’l laugh. It say Happy CARICOM Day.”

“Nah man, they got it wrong.”

Caricom to some might mean Caribbean Community, but a few years ago I learn that other meaning.

A few years ago them Caricom folks had a meeting in Jamaica. A gal pal there email me. Plenty media excitement everywhere, flurry of suits, ties, important men and women hustling about and wearing relaxed smiles that look a li’l tight around the edges to imply serious business. I don’t think me friend was impressed. “Caricom is just a free lunch,” she write.

Heh. I should email me friend and tell she what happen to one of them Caribbean folks who come here to work for Caricom, in the beautiful blue-glass head-office that reflect cloud and sky.

The fella, before he move he family here, went house-hunting. Two Caricom people kerry he from north to south, east to west, up and down, in and out of Georgetown, checking out homes. At the end of the day, he go to a Guyanese friend house for dinner. Food lay out on the table like feast for a local king. Fish curry. Roti. Cripsy green bora, that is, long green beans, stir-fry with fat shrimps. Ice-cold fruit juice. The fella eat ‘til he had to open he belt.

“Lawks, I was so hungry, I didn’t have a bite all day.”

“You mean to say those guys didn’t offer you lunch?” he friends ask.

“No.”

“They were Guyanese? You mean to say, you were their guest and they didn’t offer you lunch?”

“They weren’t Guyanese, they were from two different islands.”

I should email me Jamaican gal pal and tell she, See, you’re wrong, it ain’t a free lunch for everybody.

Or maybe I should tell she about the Caricom lady who work here for a couple o’ years, finish she contract, gone back to she island and abandon she dawg. Leave it without owner or lunch. A kind lady in the neighbourhood does give it a plateful o’ food everyday.

But never mind, I like the free lunch idea. I been goin’ ‘round greeting people, Happy Free Lunch Day.

Speaking of holidays. This Guyana guvament is really falling short. Last month was a dry, dry month. Not a holiday we had. And none in sight for September either.

A little update: the book cupboard event.

The cole left me on Sunday, but one tiredness ketch hold o’ me since the book cupboard event.

The book cupboard event start on Sunday. That was when my mother and Fazal decide was the right day for the flakin’ back bedroom walls to get a bright new coat.

Days before that my mother and Fazal been watching the rain, waiting for the sun. Not good to paint on a wet day. Early o’ clock every morning my mother phone Fazal. If rain fall or if he got to work elsewhere, she say, If sun come out tomorrow...

One day last week Fazal also known as gardener also known as handyman also known as painter scrape off crumbly paint from the bedroom walls and clean them flakes from the floor. He say when he ready to scrape and paint behind the book cupboard he gon move it.

“How you gon move this cupboard, Fazal?” I ask.

The book cupboard is heavy like a pregnant cow. It is five feet, six inches tall, four feet wide and three books deep…that is to say, each shelf does hold three rows of books - back, middle, front. The book cupboard got twelve shelves in all behind two doors.

Fazal laugh like a schoolboy, teeth shine, eyes glimmer. He is a happy-chappie who don’t worry about nothing. “When the time come we gon see,” he say.

“Aw man, just shuve the roller behind the cupboard and paint it without scraping off ole paint,” I say. I been thinking, horror spreading like weed, if he only empty that book cupboard guess who gon get the job to repack.

Guess who get the job to repack on Monday.

Because guess who did promise she mother she gon clean the cupboard one day. Also, because my mother and Fazal empty the cupboard on Sunday afternoon so he can scrape and paint the wall at the back.

I been watching tee vee when Fazal come to the living room. “G, you can come help me empty this cupboard?”

“Me nah move,” I declare.

Ten minutes later, conscience and curiosity kerry me into the room to see how they progressing with the emptying of the cupboard, and to help.

It take me the whole of Monday to vacuum them shelves, repack them books according to writers, throw out ancient car manuals, old text books, crumbling novels, and to clean that entire room.

Dust. If you see dust. I swear it was in that cupboard that Africa and Arabia originate.

I don’t want to say how many books we got in that cupboard or you gon accuse me of exaggerating. Lemme just say, is plenty. Books stand three rows deep on twelve shelves, each shelf is two feet wide, each book is between one to two inches thick; one or two o’ them is fat like A Suitable Boy and The Pickwick Papers; some got the size of Things Fall Apart and Short Stories by Chekhov. Do the math yourself, I tired.

In the middle of this cleaning-up tamasha, a strange letter arrive from a literary agency Abroad. But that is a gyaff for another day. I tired.