by Desmond Hall
He lifted the gun from the bucket.
He never thought he’d own one, a gun. He pulled away the towel and lifted the gun out from the bucket. Removing the magazine next, he slid back the slide to peer in the chamber, angling it so the sunlight would illuminate the interior. There were scratches inside, and residue. He wondered who had used it before him, and what—or who—it had been fired at. He didn’t want the damn gun, or the responsibility of it. The idea of shooting someone terrified him—it was the worst thing about joining a posse.
He heard voices from outside, then a single sharp knock on the door. He practically threw the gun back into the bucket, replacing the towel before opening the door. Aunt Jenny stormed in, followed by Joe, who was chewing on an ice-cream stick.
“Franklyn, tell me your uncle is lying!”
At first Frankie thought she was talking about his father, but judging by the fury on her face, she was talking about him joining the posse.
“Lawd Jesus, you don’t want your scholarship no more?”
Frankie ran his hand over his hair, front to back, buying time to make sure he didn’t say the wrong thing. “Daddy has to have the treatment.”
Jenny swung around, glared at Joe. “You is a wicked man.”
Joe bit down on the stick. “Wicked?” He removed the stick. “I am the angel on Frankie’s shoulder. I am the one saving his father. You think that man would lift a finger to save me?” He grunted. “Him is embarrassed to even look at me.”
Jenny crossed her arms. “Samson is your brother.”
“Enough chatting. Is me run this posse. Not you.”
Aunt Jenny coughed the way some kids at school did when they thought someone was talking bullshit.
Joe pointed the ice-cream stick at Frankie, his face fierce. “You took the money and joined the posse. If you don’t want the money, you can give it back and back out now.”
The days and nights he had given to his studies. The parties missed, the friends he’d avoided in order to achieve the highest grades he could. Then he’d allowed himself one party… one… and… Of course he wanted that scholarship. But there was no other option. “I want it. The money.”
Jenny threw her hands in the air. “What a fuckery! Joe, you can’t do this thing.”
“It’s done.”
She spat at her brother. “A curse on your head, Joe.” And she stormed out of the house, the door slamming behind her.
She was so fearless. Frankie felt instant shame for not standing up for himself more. But how brave could he afford to be right now?
“We will jump you in this weekend, eh?” Joe’s words were like a finger jabbing at Frankie’s chest. He was going to be initiated into the posse—this weekend? His jaw began to quiver.
Joe went to the door, beckoned for someone to come forward, then repeated, “This weekend.” He went out as Winston walked in, smile crooked, chest out. He looked totally psyched… most likely for Frankie. Then he sized Frankie up. “You look like shit, mon.”
It was like what Leah had said. “Yeah, I keep getting that.” Man, he’d really screwed up with her.
Winston chewed on his lower lip. “Joe wants me to give you the lowdown on the jump-in this weekend.”
Frankie thought back to a few weeks ago—Winston’s black eye, busted lip, and pronounced limp, how he had muttered something about getting into a fight. Frankie had let it go, but it must have been when he’d been jumped in to the posse.
“You ready?” Winston asked. Frankie laughed to himself. Samson’s beatings had prepared him for the very last thing he would want for Frankie.
“I think I know how it goes.”
Winston fidgeted. “Yeh, mon, but there’s some things you should know.”
He should know that Frankie wanted nothing to do with this. “I’m good.”
“Frankie—”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Fine. We talk about it in a couple of days.” Winston brushed the back of his hand across his nose. “Me pick you up Saturday morning.”
Winston’s persistence was a pain in the ass, but Frankie had to give it to him for trying. Winston always tried.
Pointing his chin at a photo of Samson, Winston asked, “Hey, mon, why your father never joined the posse?”
Frankie didn’t have a good answer—he didn’t actually know. And he felt stupid for it.
“Whatever. See you Saturday.” Winston left.
Frankie pulled open a drawer, lifted up the thin plastic tray of utensils. Joe’s money lay underneath it. He couldn’t give it back. Damn it. He slammed the drawer shut and went into the yard, pacing. His skin felt on fire, his throat burned as well from forcing down the bile that kept threatening to rise up all night. He had to calm down. He had to calm down. A branch creaked, a dog barked, a mockingbird sang—how appropriate. Still, he focused on the bird. His mother loved birds—would leave the door wide open just to better hear their songs. Then, as if she was standing next to him, he heard it—her voice. But its clear timbre, though as sweet as her rum cakes, carried a note of dread. It was like she was calling him from the grave. So he decided to go.
On the street, Frankie passed a middle-aged man who nodded, saluting him with a machete that had been sharpened so often that the hook at the end was almost completely worn away. In faded rubber boots, and khakis worn by a whole freakin’ life working in the woods, the man veered off the road, disappearing into the bush.
Like the old guy in the wheelchair at the hospital, from behind this one could have been Samson.
At the far end of the street, one of the garbage trucks Joe had commissioned turned a corner, its air brakes pumping in preparation for its long descent down the mountain. Frankie passed Mr. Brown’s store. Mr. Brown. He had simply gone to a party, and now he was dead. Frankie had liked working there, liked Mr. Brown, but now the boarded-up store looked small, simple and in some way less important, not only because Mr. Brown was dead but because even if he weren’t, posse members didn’t work as store clerks. He wondered what rules the posse had that he didn’t even know about yet. What kinds of things he’d have to do.
Just past the rum bar, a woman he’d seen countless times walked by, posture as fine as a ballerina’s, her wicker basket as always perfectly balanced on her head, today chock-full of breadfruit and green bananas. Frankie always waved politely every time he saw her, and every time she waltzed right by as if he didn’t exist. Frankie waved regardless. The woman just continued on. He shook his head, wondering why he bothered.
The street was quiet, everyone still uneasy since the shootings. A concrete revetment to his left was smeared with political graffiti. The green markings were pro-JLP: POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. A PARTY TO TRUS’. JAMROCK NEED LABOUR. There were also old scribbles in red, the color of the PNP: PEOPLE POWER. PORTIA IS DI WOMAN WE NEED.
At last he reached the graveyard. He bowed his head, slouched down against the headstone.
He so clearly remembered the day he’d carried the bucket of freshly mixed concrete there, to make this very grave top. He had tried not to spill the mixture, using the same focus he used when carrying water from the standpipe. His father had said, “Don’t cry now. It’s time to be a man,” every time Frankie had so much as blinked. He’d poured the concrete while Samson stood, ready with the shovel, to create the most perfect slab in all of Jamaica for her.
What would Ma say to him now about joining Joe’s posse?
Closing his eyes, he imagined her duppy form, sitting right there next to him.
Franklyn, you look like you could eat. Have you been eating? I know you feel like you have to give up your scholarship and work in the posse. But it’s not worth it, baby. I don’t want to see you so soon. Though I miss you terribly.
He would have told her that he missed her also. He would have asked her the question that had been eating at him for the last three years. Why did you and Daddy wait so long to tell me you had cancer? And how could I not have seen that you
were sick? I wish I’d spent more time with you before you died. I could have, if you’d only told me.
It was yet another thing he couldn’t fix, another blade piercing his soul. He glanced to where he and his father had eaten lunch the other day. Samson should have told him Ma was sick. He had left Frankie no extra time to spend with his mother before she was gone. How do you forgive that?
He leaned forward and kissed the headstone. He knew what Ma would say. But she was a mother, not a son.
Thirteen
an hour later, Frankie boarded a bus to the hospital. He didn’t want to ride his bike into Kingston with all that cash in his pocket. Instead, he decied to “small up” himself and squeeze into a seat next to an old woman who had a box of chicks in her lap. As the bus rolled off, it filled with the stifling smell of gasoline. Frankie nodded at the woman, leaned across, and cracked open the window. He sat back and sucked in the fresh air.
The bus passed a woman in a ratty apron waving a bunch of yams, her tiny roadside shack made of broad tree branches and a few sheets of rusted corrugated steel. Mesh bags filled with more yams hung from the roof behind her. Farther along, a bowlegged man balanced a bundle of sugarcane on his head, the mountain rising up behind him, its slope thick with bottlebrush trees. A scrawny dog ran alongside, barking when the bus’s gears ground as it edged around a blind corner on the narrow road. Two shirtless boys in torn khakis stared as if seeing a bus for the first time. Behind them a concrete house sat unfinished, metal rods sticking out of its walls. Several others just like it followed, dotting the landscape. It was the very opposite of how he imagined America.
America? Shit. He’d never get there. He slumped back, wished for the millionth time that his father hadn’t come to the party. Why had he even come? To confront Joe was why. To tell him to stay away from him, Frankie. That was why.
He knew something else. No way would Samson take Joe’s money. Frankie pressed his palms against his eyes. Everything he’d done would be for nothing if Samson didn’t accept the money. The only way out of that would be to lie about where the money came from, because Samson being Samson, he would ask. The thought of lying left a foul taste in Frankie’s mouth. But the medicine might be sitting at the hospital right this very minute, just waiting for Frankie to pay. The gas fumes were not helping him think. In America, probably the buses were—oh. The scholarship! He could tell Samson that the money was from the scholarship! His father wouldn’t find out until he was better, and that was all that mattered. Plus, there wasn’t any other believable way for Frankie to get that kind of capital.
As they neared Kingston, the road widened; they were getting close to the rich part of the city now. The bus barreled past groves of fat banana trees, over railroad tracks overgrown with crabgrass, onto streets sporting sidewalks and stoplights. SUVs lined the streets here. Pastel-painted steel fences guarded three-room peach-colored concrete houses, all stacked close to each other.
Next stop was the hospital. As Frankie walked from the bus stop, he kept one hand over the pocket fat with Joe’s bills. He couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder; he felt like all of Jamaica had suddenly gained X-ray vision and could see through the cloth of his pants to the wad of cash. He wanted to count it again. No. He’d done it twice last night. Sixteen thousand US dollars—more than two million Jamaican dollars! He pressed his hand more tightly.
A crowd of people stood outside the front doors. Apparently no one was being let in; no one knew why. It could be a gas leak, was the gossip, or staffing problem, or maybe a dangerous felon had to be moved in secret. Mr. Brown had once said that Jamaican people told so many conspiracy theories they should work for the CIA.
Frankie sat between two women fanning themselves with folded newspapers, hoping he looked as inconspicuous as possible. He did math in his head, imagining all the things he could do with two million Jamaican dollars… trying not to think of every minute going by when his father was not getting the medication.
When the sliding electric doors finally parted two hours later, the crowd closed in. The same nurse Frankie had met the first time came out, to his immense relief. He hopped up, praying it wasn’t too late. Imagine if it was too late?
“Good afternoon, everyone,” she said in her slightly British tone. Jamaicans who chatted like that always had good jobs, Frankie had noticed. “First, I must apologize for the long wait. And I do wish I had better news for you.” A chorus of groans sounded out. “The elevators are broken. Unfortunately, we have not been able to repair them. I am truly sorry. The repairman has sent for a part in Montego Bay; it should be here tomorrow.”
“Make we take di stairs, then!” a man yelled, both hands flailing in frustration.
“Unfortunately, there’s an insurance issue with admitting so many visitors through the stairs. And we need to keep them clear for the doctors and nurses. But we are confident the problem will be rectified tomorrow.”
“Only in Jamaica!”
“Is the JLP’s fault!”
“No talk about JLP! It’s PNP that mash up Jamaica.”
“Rahtid! Is all day me wait, you know!”
“Lawd God, what a trial.”
“Me don’t want to hear no fuckery about no elevator!” another man yelled. The woman beside him slapped his arm.
The money in Frankie’s pocket was searing through his leg. That was what it felt like, at any rate. He had to get it to the nurse; his father had to get that medicine. Twenty-four hours, she’d said!
The nurse had raised her hands, palms flat, a call for patience. “I’m very sorry, but we have to do what’s safest for our patients. There will be no visiting hours today.”
While the grumbling increased, many turned to leave. But Frankie needed to see his dad today, to talk to him about the treatment, so he sidled over to the nurse. He knew from his uncle that most of the time, no matter how buttoned up someone was, money talked. “Miss, can I talk to you?”
She looked on the verge of repeating that there would be no visiting hours today. But before she could, Frankie, his back to the crowd, eased out an American ten-dollar bill of his own money, scared to deal with the thicker stack of notes. Too many people around. Raising one eyebrow, he gave her a clear offer of a bribe. “I need to see my father today,” he whispered.
Her eyes went from the bill to the crowd. “Please come back tomorrow. Again, I am sorry. The elevators should be fixed by then.” Then she pivoted to Frankie. “You, come back in ten minutes.”
Frankie swore he was levitating; gravity didn’t have as strong a hold of him at the moment. He fought the urge to look around to see if anyone had noticed the power he had just wielded. Ten minutes later, he strode up to the nurse, who was indeed waiting for him, to pay for his father’s life, to be the adult, large and in charge. He slipped her the American ten. “So, I can pay for the treatment now?” he asked.
She nodded yes, adding, “It’s crucial that we order the antibiotics now.”
“Order?” A puke-like sensation shot through his stomach.
“Yes. I told you yesterday, we don’t have those kinds of antibiotics on hand.”
“But… you said twenty-four hours—” He gaped. “He had to have them, you said!”
“We had to order them in twenty-four hours.” The nurse tilted her head. “Sorry if that wasn’t clear. But no worries, we are ordering them in time.”
No worries? She had no idea what the hell he’d had to do to get this money. What the fuck? He could have used the time to try and figure some other way to get cash. No worries? Shit. It was all worries with this hospital: no sheets, suspect surgeons, broken elevators, and nurses who weren’t fucking specific. He had to be more on guard when it came to treating his father.
“When will it come? The treatment?”
“A couple days with a rush order. Our supplier in the US is pretty reliable.”
Pretty reliable. He forced himself to stay calm by thinking about what might have happened to his father if he hadn’t
gotten the money from his uncle. “How is he?”
She exhaled. “He’s a strong man, your father. We have a lot of hope. Linezolid has been proven to work on highly resistant infections.”
A biology teacher had told Frankie’s class about the outbreak of antibiotic-resistant diseases. She had said it was a double whammy. Too many antibiotics were being used all over the world, and they weren’t being used properly—in a lot of cases, patients weren’t taking the full dosages: they stopped when they felt better, leaving themselves vulnerable, allowing the bugs to mutate, get stronger. “But how is he now?” Frankie pressed.
“His temperature is still fluctuating, but he’s stable.”
That didn’t sound as promising as he’d like.
* * *
Inside the lobby, skin dotted with goose bumps, Frankie looked for the sign for the administrative office, as the nurse had instructed. His hand instinctively went to his fat pocket. His scholarship dream had to die so his father could live. He went into the office, ready to pay, ready as he’d ever be.
Fourteen
this time, the fluid flowing through the tube was brown. It was the first thing Frankie noticed as he entered his father’s room. Brown couldn’t be good. Samson’s hands didn’t even flitter as Frankie came in.
He took a seat, the cheap plastic chair creaking beneath him. Pressing against his leg was the remainder of the cash: a thousand US. Bumboclot, so much money, how do most people get by when shit happens? Samson’s eyes fluttered open, and he smiled at seeing Frankie.
As he and his father made chitchat, Samson sounded weaker, raspier. He looked thinner, too—his once muscular neck scrawny. Frankie scratched at his own neck, suddenly so itchy it felt like lice had latched onto his entire body. He itched and scratched, shifted some more. They were running out of small talk. Yes, he had watered Ma’s aloe and croton plants, eaten some food, checked the security device. Now it was time for the big talk—to tell Samson about the money.
