‘The Bible’ slap ‘says’ slap ‘we are all’ slap ‘sinners’ slap. And with every slap we say ‘Praise be to God’ or ‘Yes sir hallelujah’.
‘We’ slap ‘have sinned’. Yes sir. Every one of us. Hallelujah. The pastor say that the Bible tell us that the wages of sin is death. And I start wonder if Barrington Maxwell’s death was the wage for his sin or if my death going to be the wage for mine.
He say our sins separate us from God for ever but that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to God except through Jesus so we have to ask Jesus Christ to forgive our sins. But I cyan see how Jesus going forgive a thing like what gwaan between me and Barrington especially since I not praying to nobody ’bout it. Anyway, the pastor say sin hinders prayer and if yu have wickedness in your heart the Lord will not hear you. So I guess that is that, because what is in my heart is wickedness through and through.
And then we start to sing.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus.
And after that, pastor really strike up the band and the whole congregation is bringing the place down. Everybody inside the church and everybody standing on the veranda and out in the yard is singing and clapping and raising our voices and our arms up to the sky like if we can reach up high enough we can touch God in his heaven.
This little light of mine I’m gonna let it shine.
I singing at the top of my voice. Not just from my throat but from deep down in my stomach. I singing because it feel good to just let go even though all I am thinking is what light is there in me to shine.
Next morning when I getting ready for work Mama say she coming wid me and we have to go call by the church. She already explain to Mr Chen how I going be late on account of going to a funeral.
‘Who die?’
‘Yu father.’
‘My father!’
My whole life I been asking my mother who my father is and she nuh tell me. She just say it no matter. ‘Him never had nothing good to give yu.’ So I just stop ask, and now after all this long time she going tell me him dead.
‘When he die?’
‘Last Friday.’
‘Last Friday? Yu mean the day me and Marcia come back wid mud all down our frocks and yu vex wid us?’
‘It not you I vex with. It him.’
‘Yu vex with him ’cause he die?’
‘I vex with him because he was a wicked man who never did one decent thing in his entire life. He bring shame on everybody that know him and in the end he bring shame on himself. And now he is dead, thank the Lord.’
‘So what it matter to you after all this time?’ But no sooner than I say it I wish I had bite my tongue because now she going answer me and the truth is I don’t want to know no more. I don’t want her to go tell me now that my father name Barrington Maxwell after I go beat the living daylight outta him. So when she nuh say nothing I just shut up and go finish dress and follow her to the church.
We sit down in the pew. Mama say Marcia, Barbara and Leroy got a different daddy. That not no news to me. But the peculiar thing ’bout this funeral is that there is nobody there but me and Mama. There not even any dead body. So when I think I was going to go look in the coffin to see who was laying there it nuh work out like that because there is no coffin. There is no pastor, there is no mourners. Is just the two a us sitting there. And when I ask her what ’bout the headstone and all, she say, ‘What headstone? Who yu think going pay for a thing like that?’
The rest a the week I am silently praying to Jesus Christ even though the pastor say he not going hear me, because it seem like I done kill my own father. And then Friday afternoon the police come in the shop and say they just find Barrington Maxwell and he been laying up there in the shack dead all week. That people start wonder ’bout him when he nuh turn up wid the coal and so the police go up there and he is laying there with his head beat in like a watermelon turn to pulp. And he got him pants down ’round him ankle so they have a good idea what going on up there.
I just stand there looking at them while the policeman busy telling Mr Chen all a this news. And then Mr Chen turn to me and say, ‘Gloria. You all right?’ But I don’t say nothing and then him say to me, ‘All this bad business. Not the sort of thing a young girl like you should be listening to. You go find yourself something to do out back. Go on.’
I walk and don’t look back. I just go out back and weigh out the sugar and parcel it in the sturdy brown paper ready to go on the shelf.
The police waiting for a special officer to come from Montego Bay to tek charge a the investigation. And every day one a them is in the shop telling Mr Chen ’bout how smart this Montego Bay policeman is and how they know is two culprits.
‘How yu know that?’
‘Is simple. Maxwell got him pants down so him doing something to somebody laying on di mattress there. And then di other one come up behind him and bam! Him head mash up. And I mean mash up good. So that mek two. And knowing Maxwell then one a them is definitely a woman.’
‘Yu think yu going catch them?’
‘Yah man. These people got no idea what dem a dealing wid. When di man come from Montego Bay him going sort all a dis out double quick. Yu can bet yu life on that.’
But all the time the police busy talking this way everybody know that the evidence is spoiling with all the waiting. Not that they got any evidence anyway. They not got no murder weapon. They not got no eyewitness. They not got anything that going trace back to anybody because the place up there so filthy they cyan decide what to collect up and tek to the police station or what to just put in the garbage. They knee-deep in muck. They can’t even get any decent fingerprint, not that they got anything to compare them with anyway. So it seem like maybe they wasting their time even waiting for this man from Mo Bay.
I say to Marcia, ‘Maybe you and me should go get the bus to Kingston,’ and she agree but Mama not hearing nothing ’bout it.
‘What yu mean Kingston? What you two girls going do in Kingston?’
‘I get a job Mama. Maybe work in a shop like I do for Mr Chen and I look after me and Marcia.’
‘And what about her schooling?’
‘She almost fourteen. She nearly done anyway.’
‘So yu just going jump pon a bus and leave me here wid Barbara and Leroy to fend for?’
‘You tek in your washing and yu do your dressmaking. Rightly yu not have my wages coming in but then you will have two less mouths to feed.’
Mama look at me and then she narrow her eye. ‘Yu going go all di way to Kingston just so yu can do di same thing working in some shop and go live with strangers?’
But I don’t say nothing. So she say, ‘Unless there is some reason you girls in such a hurry to skip outta here.’
And is now like she not so much looking at me as piercing right into me. Like she burning wid her eyes right into my soul. And then after some long time she say, ‘Leave di frocks here. I will put dem on di fire when yu gone.’
The bus tip and roll ’round every corner, over every bridge, up and down every hill and valley, through every little town and hamlet between Savanna-la-Mar and Kingston. All along the coast road with the sea splashing up the window all the way to Black River and over the hills through Santa Cruz to Mandeville where we wait under the big tree for the next service to Spanish Town and Kingston. It take us all day and we practically see the whole length a the island hooting and honking and screaming and shouting every time the bus come too fast ’round a corner, or nearly fall down or slide over a precipice, or have to come to a dead stop because it almost run into a cow or goat or man or cart, or because it come face to face with some big truck that carrying bananas or lumber and the driver screech on the brakes and everything that he carrying on top a the bus slide up front and fall off. And we all have to get out and go pick it up, boxes and bags and crates; things that tie up with string and things that just come loose like a roast breadfruit or a few oranges. So yu stooping down in the road collecting all a this together from outta the dirt and under the wheel hoping that these people know what of this belong to them. And then yu get back on the bus and start the whole thing over again with the driver having a few choice words for anybody that want to listen, and the whole bus wid a few choice words for him as well. Me and Marcia don’t say nothing. We just do what everybody else do. We sit. We hold on. We brace ourselves. We stannup. We fetch up the stuff. We sidung again. We nuh pay no mind to the woman and her pickney that tussle and fight over every scrap a bulla bread or orange or drop a sugar water that pass between them. We nuh worry ourselves ’bout the chickens that every now and again is running loose on the bus, and the man have to go grab them and truss them up in his little wire cage. We nuh fret on the man ’cross the aisle who want to rub himself up while he look sideways at us like he think we interested in what he got in his pants. We just sit close to one another and stare out the window, and every little while we swap seats so we tek turns in catching the breeze instead a just breathing in that heavy stink a sweat. And when yu have to stand up and go fetch the things outta the road yu feel grateful for the relief from the dress sticking to yu back and yu backside, and catching up between yu legs.
When the bus reach Kingston it stop in West Street and we get off right in the middle a the market with everyone coming this way and that wid the fruit in the basket on top a the head, and the pushcarts wid the crates a beer and soda and every kinda higgler and juicy jockeying for position and arguing and cussing so bad it almost injurious to the ears a two young girls.
‘Yu just come from country?’
So we say yes.
‘Well yu need to move yuself outta di way. Yu cyan see dis is a busy metropolis?’
We just stand back because we got no idea what he is talking about.
Mama got a friend live ’round Back-O-Wall and she write the address on a piece a paper. When we find the place it is just a room in a dirt yard full a rooms. Inside it got a little bed and table and sink in the corner. Mama say we must call her friend Auntie, so we knocking and peering through the half-open door calling out ‘Auntie, Auntie’ ’til some feeble old woman turn up bend over rubbing her back like she wear out from so much hard work. It seem like she expecting us so I don’t know how Mama get word to her.
Auntie let us in and tell me to rest the grip on the floor in the corner, and she sit down on the one rickety straight-back chair she have. When I look at her I see she not as old as yu would think. She no older than Mama. She just tired that is all. Like life already done finish her off.
‘Yu just come from country?’
‘Yes, we get off the bus and come straight here.’
‘I tell yu mama di place too small for yu to cotch more than a few days. She tell yu that?’
‘No, she nuh tell us nothing.’
‘Well I telling yu now. Yu understand me?’
‘Yes, Auntie.’
Then she start look ’round the place like she wondering where she going put us.
‘Gloria, you a sleep wid me in di bed and Marcia I going fix up a cot fi yu under di table.’
‘Under the table!’ Marcia lift up the little tablecloth and gawk at the space. ‘I cyan fit under this table.’
‘Yu legs going stick out little bit that is all.’
‘Yu really serious ’bout me sleeping down there?’
‘Yu got a better idea?’ And then she cross her arms and say, ‘Yu see anywhere fi yu to stretch out in dis here palace? What did I say to yu ’bout staying here? If it nuh good enough yu can go. There is plenty men out there happy to give yu bed space fi the night.’
‘Is all right,’ I say to her to calm her down. ‘We grateful and we thank yu for sharing wid us what you have.’
Auntie mix some condensed milk and water and get out some saltine biscuits that she must have had in that bag for three weeks they so soft. But we hungry and we eat, and we nuh complain as we crawl into the sacks she sew together for sheets with Marcia’s head deep in the shadows and me squash up against the wall feeling Auntie’s damp body clinging to me.
The next morning we got to go find some work. Auntie say that finding shop work not going be that easy since Mr Bustamante got everybody on strike and the shops in town all close up.
‘Di dockworkers done bring everything to a standstill over di increase in wages dem want and di overtime for Sundays and public holidays. Dem marching up and down King Street meking di shopkeepers close dem shutters even if deh nuh want to. And every week there is some big march or protest and barricade blocking up di road. Even just last week in South Parade dem have to call out di police and army di whole thing get so bad outta hand. And di police dem don’t seem no better. Beating every man, woman and chile dem come ’cross. So yu watch yuself when yu go out there. Yu hear me?’
I know what Auntie mean. Where we come from country not so far from Frome so we already hear ’bout all the trouble wid the sugar estates and how Tate and Lyle making all sorta promises ’bout jobs and wages and cottages and schools, and it all turn out to be a pack a lies the newspapers print. So all sorta mayhem break out wid striking and burning the cane fields and police and shooting, and four people get dead and a load more wounded and almost a hundred arrested. So I know.
I say to Auntie, ‘Is all right. I not going bother anybody in King Street. I just going go to a Chinaman and tell him how I used to work in Mr Chen shop and see if him want to tek me on.’