The Liminal War

by Ayize Jama-everett

  I split the difference of my rage and hit the yappy pale-skinned kid with the type of Staph infection that gets hospitals closed down. He falls hard, trying to spit out the epic bacteria reproducing by the billions in his throat. The others can’t understand what I’m doing yet so I cause shin splints in another three. The little girl runs quick. I barely notice. The final two put the sickness puzzle together and head toward me.

  I want to explode one of their hearts but only end up enflaming the lining. I overwhelm the brain of the last one with random stimulation for grand mal seizures. Then I switch their symptoms. Three times I switch them before I can hear Mico.

  “Stop,” he says putting his hand on my shoulder. His eyes are on the knives still in my hands. It takes too much effort to sheathe them at first. But once hidden, I return to myself.

  “Why?” he asks, as I’m jacking the skinheads for cash.

  “You got 1971 money?” I ask. Under his own volition Mico walks past the white spray paint in the alley wall: “Enoch for Britain.” All the while, avoiding my touch.

  He’s coming to life slowly, in fits and starts, because of music. Desmond Dekker’s “Israelites” blares from the little open-air market and Mico hums to it. As we walk back to the flat with groceries in hand, a boxy yellow Volkswagen blares a bass-heavy calypso tune from frail speakers and Mico does a quick jig. Passing the restaurant Tam told me about—the Mangrove—just as it opens, Mico stops so suddenly I get nervous.

  “Prentis? Nordeen? Alters? What?”

  “An ally.” Then he adds, “Someone you can’t stab.”

  “Calm down, coma boy. Who’s our ally?”

  “I don’t know. But I know their sound.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s so much quieter now. The Manna. It knows I’m here, but it’s not talking to me. Still it’s talking. I can listen in.” I pull him from the restaurant before Mico can cause a scene. Back in the flat I can see Tamara is agitated. It’s not mere frustration. It’s yet another goddamn problem.

  “My dad is alive out there,” she starts when I have piece of coco bread in my mouth.

  “Not in London,” I tell her softly.

  “But I could find him.”

  “He’d be a baby.”

  “But I could see him.”

  “He would be a baby,” I repeat slowly. “And what would you say?”

  “You’re jealous.” Guess our connection isn’t as strong as I thought. In our time she wouldn’t have to guess what I’m feeling.

  Truth is I hated the excuse for a man, her father. He was upstanding, tried to do good in the world, stood by Yasmine in a way I never could, and raised Tamara in a fashion I never could have. I called him Fish’n’Chips because that was his labor lineage. But the truth of the matter is, I’m the sad man he excused.

  “Don’t let your sounds cross,” Mico trumpets after a strong pull off some ginger beer.

  “Wot now?”

  “We—here, now—are discordant enough. Making sounds only a precious few can harmonize with. Your father is an earlier resonance of you, an unrosined bow pulling against a loose string. It will cause . . . problems to speak with him.”

  “Now you’ve got something to say?” she snaps. She walks out of his eye line as he tries to apologize. “Right. I fit to blow up the universe if I stretch my legs for a bit?” I don’t dare say a word until I hear the door slam downstairs.

  “I feel better,” Mico tells me, looking out the window into the tenement across the street.

  “Yeah, she can be a handful sometimes. But you’ve got to realize the last time she saw Fish . . . her father, was as his car exploded.”

  “That’s . . . I’m sorry for her loss.” He turns to look at me. “But I meant here, now. I’m closer to myself. The food was a good idea. Thanks.”

  “Thank me by getting a bead on Prentis. I’m not a fan of 1971 London.”

  “Not a very good place to be a black man, is it? Has it really changed that much, though?”

  “Dude, I wasn’t even born in seventy-one and I’m from the States. Not that it’s that much better there right now.”

  He nods, still in his half trance as his spindly dreads fall to his shoulders as if by command. I feel the extra part of his brain usually reserved for the Manna become active. But Mico makes a peace with his loss and keeps the search going, listening to what he can.

  “There’s a storm coming here, to Notting Hill. Nordeen will do his best to hide his movements in that turbulence. Prentis is too valuable an asset to leave alone. She will be with him.”

  “Makes sense,” I say. “Burn the house down to grab the jewels is his M.O. Usually making sure someone else is holding the match.”

  “Question is: What are the jewels?”

  “Come again?”

  “You’ve been so focused on getting your ward back, you haven’t asked why he took her in the first place.” Nordeen always wanted her, since I was his pet. I never imagined her as a means to an end.

  “I’ll be sure to ask Nordeen when we find them.”

  “And then what?” He turns to face me as I snag some bread from the kitchen.

  “We tool up, snatch Prentis back, and get home.”

  “Tamara was so convinced you wouldn’t be able to fight Nordeen she took off without you. Given your intimacy, how could she be so wrong?”

  “Make it plain, Mushroom Boy. What are you asking?”

  “I’m asking—not stating, just asking—what’s your plan when you face Nordeen? And please don’t say those entropy knives. He’s faced such weapons before and prevailed.”

  “Haven’t you heard, Mico? There is no fucking plan.”

  Tamara worked out her vengeance on our wardrobes. She got me a deep-brown fedora, wool slacks, a button-up charcoal jacket, and a three-button, narrow-waisted navy blue vest that she commanded must never be fastened. Mico got some incredibly flared bell-bottoms; a red, black, and green net shirt; and a long Prussian blue trench coat. I’d be mad, but when she emerges from the bathroom wearing a deep red and light yellow tie-dyed ankle-length skirt and a cream-colored waist-length cashmere sweater, all I can think is how much she looks like her mother. She gives us each a new pair of Chuck Taylor low tops then surveys our wardrobe.

  “Least we won’t stick out.” She smiles. “Now let’s go find our girl, yeah?”

  We cruise the neighborhood, taking turns scanning—me feeling for Nordeen or that liminal brain explosion. My girl searches minds, both happy for the relative silence her diminished capacities have given and frustrated by her lack of success. Mico listens as only he can, with his entire body. We take turns so as to not leave ourselves vulnerable to the morass of trouble on the streets.

  Residents of the neighborhood meet us with guarded greetings, by and large; Mico getting dread props from younger versions of Bingy man, some of them openly smoking joints on the street. Other folks—the younger men mostly—try to approach my daughter only to find themselves inarticulate when they come close. We walk the neighborhood, up and down Westbourne Park Road, across to Talbot, over to Colville Terrace, then as far as Chepstow Crescent—like echoing bats, cycling through our powers for hours before I notice a pattern.

  “We’re circling the Mangrove.”

  “Shush, Tag. You’re always hungry,” Tam says, annoyed that I’ve interrupted her search.

  “No. He’s right,” Mico says.

  Tamara grins hard. She’s scanned the restaurant.“Bloody fucking Christ on his pogo stick, wait till you see who’s in there.”

  The restaurant is busy, clean, and loud. It’s not just Caribbean folks. Some whites and South Asians relax at one of the twenty tables. It’s barely big enough for all the late lunch business. I can hear fights and broken dishes coming from the kitchen behind the serving counter. But it smells fantastic. Beautiful cuts of goat and beef pass us as soon as we enter. Some people are just drinking coffee, playing cards, and talking shit under posters announcing the return of Gre
gory Isaacs to London. Other folks are diving into their plates, their bodies being the better for it. While the range of my liminal vision is limited, I can still focus enough to tell the nutritional and developmental differences between those Caribbean born and raised in London versus the ones recently from the home islands of Jamaica, St. Kitts, and Trinidad; their melanin counts scream for sun not filtered by London clouds and smog.

  I follow Tamara’s eyes to a skinny light-skinned dude with baby dreads. His face is deep in a bowl of brown fish stew. I’ve only seen him in pictures before, and he’s younger than I think he should be. But even with none of the celebrity surrounding him, the lion-like visage can’t be imitated, though many have tried. That’s the tuff gong. Bob Nester Marley.

  “Yup,” Tamara says, picking up my thought. We start walking toward him, but Mico stops us.

  “Me first. You two are too . . . just let me go first, okay?”

  Tamara’s still debating in her head as I sit at a newly free table. I never thought I’d see him alive. And never imagined it would be like this.

  “Tell me you didn’t travel back in time to smoke a joint with your reggae idol.” She actually makes Mico say it before she sits across from me.

  I get three orders of jerked chicken, some mannish soup, salt fish cakes, plantains stuffed with cheese and meat, and a guava shake. Tam gets the red pea soup, green banana salad, and two beef patties. I have to slow down to not empty my plates before Tam does hers. Our cute Trini waitress is already concerned.

  “Think he’s part of this?” Tam asks.

  “What I tell you about coincidences?”

  “You can usually find them up every unicorn’s ass.” She smiles. “But he’s an ally, right Tag? I mean Marley, he’s got to be one of the good ones, right?”

  “You couldn’t pay me enough to hurt that man.” I confess, “First thing I did when I came in was scan him for cancer. Got nothing.”

  “Can’t you make it impossible for him to get it? He’s so young.”

  “Cancer is, at its core, just uncontained growth. I can’t stop the man from growing.” I wait for a second so she knows I’m not talking about Marley. “I’m sorry.”

  “If I were at full strength, or that damn sound would stop playing in my ears, I’d be able to feel my da, somewhere out in the world. I’d be less . . . anxious about seeing me real dad.”

  “Not sure I’d be able to stop myself, if your mother was alive.” She knows how much I still think about Yasmine. She was the first woman I ever loved. I felt her life slip out my hands. To even mention her fouls my head.

  “I don’t like Samantha,” Tam tells me. “Mostly ’cause I always knew she was hiding something. Wasn’t expecting all this, but, still, I know she loves you. Crossed her god for you, get me? Ya think, when we get back, you might—I don’t know—settle down or something?”

  “I’ve got your back for life, Tamara. You know this.”

  “Idjit. I’m saying, if you wanted, I’d be ok with it. Might be nice, settling down all proper family style.”

  “What the hell is he talking to Marley about?” I shift the subject. She’s talking about me having kids, more kids, but she can barely acknowledge I’m her father.

  “Didn’t even know you was a reggae fan.” Tam takes pity and lets it go.

  “Your mom rescued him from the Georgetown stoners for me.” The pleasure-tinged pain comes back with the memory.

  “Go on.”

  “I didn’t listen to music for the longest. Wasn’t part of the repertoire. When I started dating your mom she was all roots rock reggae. I just tolerated the music until she told me about his life. Then I paid attention to the lyrics. It wasn’t all peace and love. It was toil and struggle. The mire of Trenchtown. She told me about him playing in Zimbabwe through tear gas. Not stopping as the rest of his crew ran off stage. I fantasized that he was like me, like us. Liminal.”

  “Is he?”

  “Nope. More like Mico. He hears with his entire body. And something speaks through him.” I almost can’t help grinning. “But mostly—I hear Marley, I think of your mother.”

  “Anyone interested in organizing a protest in solidarity for the Mangrove 9 please come to the backroom,” a sweet-tinged Jamaican accent shouts over the crowd. “A general reminder, the smoking of sensimilla or any other drugs on the property is not only illegal but puts our credibility in serious jeopardy.”

  More than half the restaurant moves, mostly those with coffee in front of them. Even some of the wait staff. But Marley and Mico stay seated across from each other, the tuff gong’s eyes flaring up occasionally to give us the once over.

  “When I was wee she used to sing ‘Three Little Birds’ to me,” Tamara says after the bustle subsides. “I thought she made it up until I heard him sing it on an album. Strange thing about Bob Rasta? Everybody else gets the massive remix, yeah? Junior Reid, Desmond Dekker—fuck, Scratch Perry did a track with them Beastie Boys, yeah? Bob Rasta don’t get a lick. Not even a sample, yeah? S’like the man’s . . . wots the word?”

  “Inviolate. He’s coming.” I wipe the gravy and grin off my face. He’s smaller than I expected, his energy calmer. I’ve only seen him facing a camera. It’s a younger, far more intense Marley than Yasmine introduced me to.

  “This is Robert,” Mico says by way of introduction, offering a seat to the young prophet.

  “You na tell me you truck with duppy-eyed gal them.” Marley’s voice is gruff and honey smooth at the same time. The pitch is higher than I thought it would’ve been.

  “You sang for Duppy in the graveyard,” Mico says removing all accent in his voice. “You have no fear of them.”

  “Word is you’re the duppy conqueror, ennit?” Tam offers by way of concession. “I’m nothing but an admirer, soul rebel.”

  “Where ay from gal?” he asks, only half smiling but finally sitting.

  “’Round here, yeah?”

  “Your word and your sound speak different truths. Dem word dem chop up London and U.S. slang. But it come natural on your lips. Make Rasta believe you travel far to get here.”

  “The call me Taggert . . .” I try to distract, offering my hand.

  “This your ratchet man?” He takes my hand but looks at Mico. “Him a sad man, yanahearme? He a need new profession. Da ratchet na longer suit him, skill be damn.”

  “They are my . . . friends, Robert.” Mico speaks before I can. “They need to hear what you have to say.”

  Marley sighs deep and reclines into an impossible balance on his chair, comfortable on the back two legs. It’s the type of casual miracle only his kind can muster. No one else will notice it, but I scan his body to find the internal balance that matches his trick. There is none.

  “This Ras Mico a true and honorable Rasta. I can tell from his word and intention. All clear. Ras Mico tell of a demon shape like a man with a animal girl in tow. I nah see her. But Ras words put on my a memory of a dream. One forgotten. It start in Kingston and my woman. Long time Obeah attempt trouble I Rasta spirit.”

  “Obeah?” Tam asks.

  “Voodoo man,” Mico hushes her.

  “This happen before I came to the understanding of the imperial majesty Haile Selassie I. So I man vulnerable. The first night my queen and I spend together I ask she keep an eye out against vexation. So I say, last night the dream of that night come on me, but from then till now, I man canna remember what rassclot thing it was that vex me in that room that night. But a smile with no joy come from a shadow and take it place.”

  “It was a cat,” I say to the surprise of the table. “An enormous black cat. Rita saw it on a windowsill in your window, then on your chest. She frightened it away.”

  “How the hell did you know that?” Tam demands.

  “Your mom damn near recited his autobiography to me.” I think to her, then address Marley. “Does that sound right? Big black cat?”

  “What you doing with my woman’s name on your lips, ratchet man?” There’s no disg
uising his threat.

  “Easy, Rasta,” Mico interjects. “His blades are pointed at the joyless grin in the corner.”

  “You say it, and it reeks of truth,” Marley continues softly. “But if you ask if the vision still rests in my head—nah man.” I feel a buzz in the back of my throat and know Tamara has linked Mico to us again.

  “Something’s missing inside of him. I did a search of his mind . . .”

  “You can’t—” Mico starts.

  “Shut it, mushroom man,” I think. “Go on.”

  “Brain wise—like, physically—he’s just fine. But psychically, mind wise, there’s a pinprick of a hole right where he’s describing. It’s like a surgeon pulled that dream cat directly out of his head.”

  “Someone my ass,” I think hard. “It’s fucking Nordeen.”

  “And again I ask why?” Mico thinks. “Also a cat? Even a dream cat?”

  “What you getting at?” Tamara questions. But before Mico can answer, Marley’s actual voice rings through.

  “What a Nordeen?”

  “You heard that?” Tamara asks.

  “I walk with the power of his imperial majesty, the conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah, of the lineage of Solomon and Sheba. There are no secrets in my presence, Duppy gal.”

  “The smiling thing in the corner, the stealer of youths and life: his name is Nordeen.”

  “I man nah youth, and I still breathe. So what the bloodclot thief want in my mind, ratchet man?”

  “I think you’re a test,” I tell him.

  “Test for what?” Mico asks.

  “Fuck if I know. But Nordeen is a cagey fuck. I’m pretty sure he didn’t kidnap Prentis and pop back in time just to snatch a tabby from Bob Rasta over here.” Marley is pissed but agrees to give us some time alone at the table as we try to figure out the missing parts of this shit sandwich. Mico may hear a lot but he’s fucking tone deaf when it comes to emotions. He starts us off with the most troubling possibility.