Di Taxi Ride and Other Stories

by Brenda Barrett

  He grabbed another fistful of tissue and I settled down for another bout of his crying. After all I owed it to the poor man; with one phone call he accomplished what it took me three months to do.

  Ten years have passed since then, and I have advanced considerably in the corporate world, but never will I forget that job-hunting experience and how a blessing can come from the most unexpected place and through the most unlikely people.

  The Next Door Neighbour

  Our neighborhood was a typical rural Jamaican neighborhood. The houses were not very close and the main source of income for most people was farming. Many persons had enough land to plant vegetables while others reared animals such as pigs and goats. We were a small community and as such everybody knew everybody else’s business.

  If you were curious enough or yearned to know about the current events in the lives of the people of Naine, you could just ask my neighbor, Miss Dee, she seemed to know everything.

  She was Naine District’s newspaper and television station. She had the incredible ability to dramatize every district event, regardless of whether or not she was there.

  Because of our unfortunate, adjacent position to her house, our family had no privacy. Consequently, all our private and not so private family affairs were transmitted throughout the district with much exaggeration.

  When my older sister Julia, got pregnant in high school, Miss Dee was one of the first to know and she would sing to all and sundry from her veranda that “Hezekiah gal get pregnant fi di wukliss bwoy Andrew.” It was her litany for days.

  My sister and I would sit on the veranda, during her forced exile, and look over at Miss D in astonishment, as she ran around her house with a bucket of water sprinkling and chanting, “get behind me oh pregnant belly,” in hope that her granddaughter Justine would not pick up Julia’s pregnancy virus.

  My mother was always kind to Miss D, despite her penchant to create trouble for us, and so, whenever my mother gets a barrel from her parents in England, Miss Dee would always know and is generally one of the first persons to present herself for some barrel goodies.

  My father, on the other hand, was not as accepting of Miss D as my mother and he would not entertain her at our house. He made this very obvious when he built a high wall around our house, with spikes on the top, supposedly to keep Miss D from prying into our business.

  We always found the thought of the rotund Miss D scaling the wall very amusing. On hot summer nights, when we were younger and we felt like having some adventure, we would arm ourselves with flashlights and ‘war’ equipment hoping to ambush Miss D as she scaled the high wall. It never happened, because her dog would sense our presence and howl suggestively at our side of the wall.

  Things came to a head one day, when Miss D assaulted my father. He got so incensed, that in the heat of the moment he decided to bring Miss D to court. He told all who would listen, that he was going to sue Miss D for bodily harm.

  This was a big happening in our district, never before had any one gone to court for anything other than goat stealing.

  The first day of the hearing, dawned bright and lovely. We went to the Mandeville District Court; the judge presiding was the Honorable Judge Cairn, a formidable looking man with a bulldog-like face.

  Our lawyer was Elizabeth Ferron and Miss D’s lawyer was a defense attorney named Mr. Harris. The preliminaries were long and drawn out and totally unlike anything I had watched on television; there was no glamour, no excitement.

  I looked over at Miss D, from my vantage point, directly behind my father; she appeared to be sad and drawn. I was on the verge of nodding off when Judge Cairn told the prosecution to call its first witness. Miss Ferron called my father to the stand.

  After the swearing in she asked, “Could you state your name for the record?”

  “My name is Hezekiah Daniels,” my father said loudly.

  “What is your occupation Mr. Daniels?”

  “I am an electrician.”

  “Could you tell us about the events of October 13?”

  “Yes ma’am. After a hard day of work, I was on my way home when my neighbor, Mrs. Dorothy Peters, stood on her verandah with a pot in her hand and asked me to stop. She asked me if it was true that Julia, my oldest daughter, was pregnant again. I told her in no uncertain terms to leave my family business alone and to attend to hers.”

  “What did she do then?”

  “She took off the pot cover, grabbed something out and started to stone me with it. The missiles felt hot and hard. I was so stunned I could hardly move.”

  “What did she say while she threw the missiles?”

  “She called me a rapist. She said her dog has not been the same since he wandered over to my yard.”

  Snickers could be heard from all sides of the courtroom. The judge hit his gavel and warned us to be quiet.

  “What else did she say Mr. Daniels?”

  “She said my wife was a mean witch who gave her nothing from the barrel when it came from England, and that we should all die in poverty and sin.”

  In seeming objection, Miss D was shaking her head and whispering to her lawyer.

  “What did you do while she was stoning you Mr. Daniels?”

  “I stood and suffered the abuse for a while, I only ran when she flung the pot. It hit me in the back and I have been unable to bend properly ever since.”

  “No further questions for this witness your honor.”

  The defense lawyer, Mr. Harris, rose and cleared his throat.

  “On the evening of the thirteenth, did you stop at Miss Dorothy Peter’s house?”

  “Yes,” said my father, “she asked me to stop.”

  “Aha!” exclaimed the lawyer, as if he had discovered something new. “You stopped because Miss Peters asked you to? Would you then say that you and Miss Peters have a good relationship? It seems clear that Miss Peters regards you as a friend.”

  “Absolutely not,” said my father, getting angry, “its only common courtesy to stop when somebody asks you to.”

  “Isn’t it true Mr. Daniels,” said the lawyer, as he approached my father, “that you love to converse with Miss Peter’s, but when it’s your business in the grape-vine you become bitter and irrational and call her conversation gossiping?”

  “Objection,” the prosecutor shouted, “leading the witness your honor.”

  “Sustained,” said the judge.

  “Let me rephrase that,” said Harris, “when Miss Peters asked you to stop and posed the question about your daughter, were you not angry?”

  “Yes,” said my father, “she is a gossip and a deceitful witch.”

  “Ha!” exclaimed the lawyer, “you verbally abused my poor client,” he pointed to Miss D, and we all looked at her. She hung her head and looked pitiful for the part.

  “How can one abuse a senior citizen?” The lawyer asked the court. “The poor, defenseless senior citizen,” he shook his head as if he could not understand.

  “Mr. Daniels,” he asked, “could it be, that you were attacking Mrs. Peters without cause and provoked the poor lady to self defense?”

  “Objection,” shouted the prosecutor.

  “No further questions,” said the lawyer, before the judge could respond.

  My father stepped down from his seat with a noticeable slouch to his back.

  The prosecutor’s next witness was Miss Tiny, another neighbor, who had been passing by at the moment when the event occurred.

  “Please state your name for the record.”

  “Di name is Tiny Gordon Ma’am,” Miss Tiny grinned, and her blackened teeth from years of tobacco smoking, gleamed darkly for all the court to see.

  “Mi can send greetings please?” She asked laughing and clapping her hands.

  “No Miss Gordon,” said the lawyer seriously, “this is a courtroom not a talk show. Could you state your occupation for the court?”

  “Me is a pig farmer, mi raise pig,” she said, and then turned to the judge. “Yer honor,
yuh look like a pork man; yuh love yuh pork nuh true?

  Mi have a butcha shop outta road. Anytime yuh come a Naine, check Miss Tiny di pig lady; mi jerk pig, mi bake pig, mi fry pig, mi even…”

  The judge looked crossly at Miss Tiny and stopped her in mid sentence, “answer the questions that are asked by the lawyer Miss Gordon, nothing else!”

  Miss Tiny turned to the court and said, “him is a pig man fi true, only a pig man can serious suh.” And then started to laugh uncontrollably, until tears rolled down her cheeks.

  After several failed attempts to settle Miss Tiny, the judge ordered a ten minutes recess.

  When the court session resumed, Miss Tiny was put once more on the stand.

  She was obviously reprimanded sternly, because she began to act bashful by holding down her head and mumbling her responses.

  “Where were you on the evening of the 13th Miss Gordon?”

  “I was going to look at Maas Jack piglet dem; ‘im live next door to Hezekiah.”

  “Did you see Mr. Daniels?”

  “Yes’m”

  “Tell us what you saw.”

  “Mista Hezekiah is not a pork man, him nuh support mi shop.”

  “What did you see Miss Gordon?” the lawyer was clearly getting impatient.

  “Miss D started to throw things at him and call ‘im a dawg raper, seh how ‘im wife mean. Mi nuh tink suh cause mi get more than Irish Spring soap when barrel come, last year mi get one church frock.”

  “Did you see what was thrown, Miss Tiny?”

  “Yes Miss. Mi si when Miss D throw di pot with a vengeance and it conneck inna Hezekiah back and Miss Dee was laughing and holding up har titty dem.”

  “What did Mr. Daniels do?”

  “Him fall dung when di pot lick ‘im, and den git up and run, ‘im shout to Miss Dee and tell har seh ‘im a guh call di police because shi asphalt him.”

  “Do you mean assault Miss Gordon?”

  “Yes Miss.”

  “No further questions,” said the prosecutor.

  The defense lawyer cross-examined Miss Tiny but got nothing more from her. She stuck to her view of the event and occasionally advertised her butcher shop much to the lawyer’s frustration.

  The prosecutor called my mother to the stand and several other witnesses all of whom supported my father’s case. The prosecution rested. The defenses only witness was Mrs. Dorothy Peters.

  “Could you state your name for the record?” asked the defense.

  “Mrs. Dorothy Mavis Peters,” Miss D said, looking dignified.

  “What is your occupation Miss D?”

  “I am a retiree sar, but mi raise chicken and sell, most people prefer chicken over pork,” she said looking at Miss Tiny and cutting her eyes.

  “Mrs. Peters, is it true that you assaulted that man over there?” asked the defense lawyer, as he pointed at my father and looked at him in distaste.

  “No sar,” said Miss D loudly.

  “What happened Mrs. Peters?” Asked the lawyer, his voice sounding mild and caressing, as if he were talking to a fragile child.

  “Mi stan up pon mi verandah wid mi pot inna mi hand. I was viewing the districk and wondering why wi all can’t live as one, den mi mind drift pon di one Hezekiah, and mi wonder how one man can have so much war inna him heart.”

  “What was in the pot Mrs. Peters?”

  “Some dumpling dat mi did cook but mi grandpickney dem neva want dem; seh that dem too tough.”

  “What were you doing with them at the time?”

  “I was about to throw dem out, when I saw Hezekiah coming. I decided that since ‘im passing, mi a guh jus wait till ‘im gone fi throw dem out.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Hezekiah stopped and asked mi, out of the blue, how mi suh nosey inna him business. I was irate yer honor!” she wiped the corner of her eyes with a red handkerchief. “From mi bawn, mi nuh spread news pon nobody, is people confide dem business and tell mi. All mi ask Hezekiah, was if ‘im big gal pregnant fi sore foot Andrew. That’s all.”

  She looked bewildered at the judge and then at the lawyer.

  The lawyer approached the stand.

  “Don’t cry Mrs. Peters, just calmly tell us the rest of the story.”

  “Well,” she sniffled, “a piece of tempa teck mi and mi start dash weh di dumpling dem, is not my fault that Hezekiah stand up inna di way.”

  She started to bawl, “Is nine pickney mi grow, and all a dem deh a farin. Mi is a poor old lady, mi nuh faas inna nobady business.”

  Her lawyer calmed her down, and she hiccupped, her face was blotchy and swollen.

  “When mi was ready to throw out di last dumpling, mi trip and fall and di pot slip outta mi hand, just like dat. If Hezekiah was minding ‘im own business, ‘im woulda neva get inna di way.”

  “No further questions your honor,” said her lawyer and sat down.

  The prosecutor got up to cross-examine.

  “If you did not feel malice toward Mr. Daniels why then would you call him names?”

  “I did not call him names,” said Miss Dee, “I just told him that since my dog, Sheba, went over to his property tings have not been the same, and is a standard fact that ‘im wife get barrel and nuh share it up wid nobody. Every time shi get barrel is the one lickle Irish Spring soap shi give mi, dem too mean,” she hissed. “And fi tink seh pig-loving Tiny, get church dress and mi nuh get none. Dem gwaan like dem betta than people too much, and yet still har big gal guh hook up wid sore foot Andrew.”

  “No further questions your honour,” the lawyer said smuggly, putting a stop to Miss D’s bitter diatribe.

  It was no surprise that after the closing arguments, the judge ruled in favour of my father. Miss Dee had to pay all his doctor’s bills, and made a solemn promise to leave my father alone.

  We all piled up in the country bus and returned to our district, everyone was strangely subdued, I guess we were all thinking the same thing, sometimes its best not to be too meddlesome.

  Up to this day, if you come to Naine district, Miss Dee is still the neighborhood gossip, but the Daniels family is unsurprisingly left out of her gossiping.

  Love Letters From Yard

  My whole family migrated to Atlanta when I was only three years old. It was the early eighties and there was an exodus to England and America

  I am now in my late twenties and it seems as if everybody is going back to Jamaica. My grandparents said they wanted to die at home, that’s all they spoke about since they reached retirement age, so they left a year ago.

  My aunts, uncles and even my parents were in various stages of packing to leave. They were tying up loose ends so that they could all make a mass migration back to the island. It’s as if they all had the Jamaican fever, that’s all they talk about these days.

  My family was from the mountainous parish of Trelawny. Though I have not been back since my early years, they have created a picture of lush greenery and mountainous hillsides overflowing with yam, the blue Caribbean sea sparkling like jewels in the distance and the cool wind blowing through ones fingers, in my minds eye.

  I was enraptured every time I heard the name Jamaica.

  I was sitting in my Aunt’s library drooling over a painting she had done of her hometown in Jamaica; it was a market scene done in oil, of a little boy with a mountainous pile of yams before him.

  I suddenly realized that my Aunt was in the other room feverishly putting things together to leave Atlanta for good. I was not immune to her sudden need for home, heat and island breezes. I could almost feel the sun on my skin.

  She was the next one to leave; she made up her mind ages ago, but she felt as if she was not sufficiently financially independent. Besides, her house in Jamaica was not yet finished. Now she had the go-ahead and she was not wasting any time.

  My Aunt was in her late thirties; she was incredibly attractive and had the warmest smile. We were more like sisters; after all she was the youngest for my grandparents.

>   “Aunt Beryl!” I yelled, as I saw her scurrying pass me with a small box wrapped in a pink bow.

  “Yes Priscilla, I thought you came here to help me.”

  “I was, I mean I did, I just feel as if I should be going with you. I want to go to Jamaica.”

  “Honey you have a husband and children,” she reminded me.

  “That’s true Beryl, why don’t you have a husband and kids to tie you down so that you can stay here with me?” I asked inquisitively.

  It was always a puzzle to me. Why an attractive woman like Beryl opted to stay single. I was always at a loss when I thought about what life would be like without my children and husband. I pitied anyone who thought that a career was even a close second to family.

  I expected her to give the standard reply, ‘because I am too busy for that sort of thing,’ when she said, “Pris…”

  I looked up to see her sit in the couch before me.

  “I have not told anyone this yet, so don’t run off and tell my big sister, OK,” she said, referring to my mother.

  “I promise,” I piped up, eager to hear.

  “Well I am not going to tell you…” she looked behind her.

  I opened my mouth in disappointment “Beryl, that is not fair, I am begging you…”

  “Let me finish, young one,” she handed to me the box she was clutching, “I am going to show you.”

  I took it from her reverently, sensing that there was something powerful inside.

  “Now, I have an emergency at the hospital, by the time I get back all my papers should be in that crate,” she pointed to her once neat hall and gave me a stern look.

  I nodded distractedly. I could not wait for her to leave, so that I could delve inside the box.

  She stood at the door, her coat in hand and said, “that’s my life Pris, handle with care.”

  When Aunt Beryl left I untied the bow from around the box hurriedly, then the telephone rang.