Iron Balloons

by Channer, Colin

  You know what the girl was doing? You know what the girl was doing? Who in here this evening can stretch their mind far enough to imagine what this girl was doing now, on top of everything she a’ready did that day?

  She was singing in the shower. On the top of her voice. Like is “Prostitute” she name. And you know what she was singing? Guess and tell me. Go into the furthest part of your mind where you pu’ down ideas that don’t have no use and things that just don’t make no sense.

  The little wretch was singing, “Born Free.”

  Wha’ kind o’ idiot she think I was? Because I never finish school she think that would pass me just so? She think I don’t know sarcasm and irony? She think I wouldn’t get the point?

  Jesus Christ!

  As I start to walk up to the house now, leaves crunching under me like gravel and I get a mind to bus’ her ass with everything I touch. The pole that hold up the clothesline. A piece o’ switch from off a bush. Even down to the little floppy belt on my duster. One time I grab for the rake.

  When I step up on the back porch, I turn on the light and see Miss Noddy iron in a corner by the iron board, and a palm it for the cord, but the body was too heavy to maneuver so I put it back. And Jesus Lord, the closer I get—naturally—the louder she sound. And all I can think is, If I lose her, then the odds is that I’ll lose her brothers. For she’s the oldest. And all this Rasta foolishness is going round. And if she turn worthless, them going turn worthless too.

  Singing in the shower like a damn prostitute! What? She crazy? Or is bad she think she bad? In truth, that gal did think she bad. Singing in the shower like a damn prostitute! And worse, she was doing it for spite!

  It had to be spite. It had to be spite. Because I never ever hear my daughter do a thing like that before. Never in my life. Never in hers. Because she know my rules. But is not only the rules. She know how a thing like that would make me feel—like a mother who don’t train her children right!

  When I step in off the porch, I kick off my slippers by the door. I didn’t want the wretch to hear me coming through the house. Is like I was James Bond or Emma Peel. I go inside the kitchen. Nobody don’t hear me make a sound. And I start to search around. How come when you really want a thing you can never just find it yet? It took awhile, but eventually I found the kind of thing I had to use.

  I took my time and pass the rooms. Barefoot on the cool gray tiles. Everything turn off except the bathroom light. Sometimes I stop and listen to make sure she didn’t hear me, then I walk again. I could hear the boys snoring little bit. Good. They were asleep. It was me and she alone.

  When I push the bathroom door, the little bugger was so caught up in herself she never hear me. Nothing register to her at all. No change in light. No new shadow. No little something in the air. How you could be in a small bathroom with hot water running and somebody open the door and you don’t sense a little something in the air? You know how? When you feel like nothing can’t happen to you because you’re the ruler o’ the world.

  Believe you me, I stood up there with the extension cord in my hand for about five minutes and she didn’t see me. It was a old brown one that was suppose to throw away because one end of it was frazzle out. Well, good. Cause now it was my little cat-o’-nine.

  I listen to the singing. I watch her shadow through the blue curtain. I could hear the rag slop-slopping as she soap up herself, which mean the licks going soak. How she never see me? Perhaps her eyes was closed.

  And the more soap she soaping, and the more sing she singing, the more loud she getting loud—no, it wasn’t just me—and the more loud she getting louder, the more she start to stress the words.

  “Booooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn frrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” Like she was chanting. Then after a while she slow it down, and start to overemphasize each word until it don’t sound like a song no more, but like a political speech.

  So what a joy it was when I draw the curtain … voom … and she look at me and couldn’t talk.

  She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t scream. She open her mouth and cringe but the scream wouldn’t come out, like it frighten too, like it get a glimpse of what going to come.

  And I look at her, you know. And I see how she nice and plump and soapy, and I start to imagine all the sounds the strokes going make, and the marks they going leave.

  I size up all the juicy parts and then I start to beat.

  I brace one foot on the tub, you see. And I grab the shower curtain rail. And when I sure I have a anchor now, I start to put it on. I beat that wretch so much that one time she slip in the tub and I jump in there with her, although the water soaking me and wetting up the floor. And wha’ she do? She kick me—she kick me—and use a dirty word and say she hate me. And is that time now I really put it on.

  The boys hear the noise of course and come to watch. And before she plead with me to stop or she apologize, Karen start to tell the boys to go away.

  “Stop watching me. I’m naked. I’m naked. Mummy, they’re watching me naked. Tell them I’m too old for them to look at me. Tell them to leave me alone.”

  And when she say that now, I put it on some more.

  As I paint her body red, I look at her and say, “You think you is a woman in this place?” Whap. “You think you is woman, eh?” Spa-DIE. “What you have to hide?” Whap. “You’re brother.” Whack. “And sister.” Vap. “Same mother.” Zip. “Same father.” Vam. “And further …” Whap. “And further …” Whap. “And further …” Whap. “You’re a child.” Skish. “You’re a child.” Wha-cka-PIE. “You’re a child.” Pie. “You’re still in school. You’re still in school. You’re still in school. What you take this for? You think you’s a woman in this place?” Whappa-pappa-pappa-pappa-PIE!

  Finally, she said it: “Sorry, Mummy. Sorry. I won’t pass my place again.”

  I’m going to be honest with you. While I was beating her I began to feel a little guilty, but not too much, because I had the conviction that what I was doing was right. Because I knew—and even she told me, more than once, years later—that I was saving her life.

  You know where she’d gone that afternoon when I had to wait for her for an hour outside her school? Not to the shopping plazas. Years later, she confessed. To an apartment with an older guy.

  Claudia was fooling with the fellow. I forget his name.

  He use to own a club in New Kingston, near the Pegasus Hotel, and Claudia inveigle Karen to go with her to meet him on a side street near the school; and up in his apartment she saw him take a spoon he use to wear on a chain around his neck to give Claudia cocaine. I was so naïve about certain things, I didn’t even know they had cocaine in Jamaica those times. After Claudia snort it now, the fellow took her in the bedroom and start to use her as a mattress, and poor Karen was so nervous she start to beat down on the door until the fellow open it, and she see Claudia naked on the bed. Is run she run back to school from New Kingston why she was so sweaty. After she left, Claudia make the fellow drive her back to school and she wait for Karen at the front gate to make her promise she wouldn’t tell nobody. So that is how I saw them coming ’cross the hockey field same time.

  Listen, I don’t want to bias you against Claudia deMercardo. Is two sides to every story, but the fact remains she’s not alive to give you her own. I don’t want to get into the why of it. When I ask, I don’t get anything straight. All I know is they found her body tie up in a car trunk in Fort Lauderdale with plenty bullet in her head. Rumor had it some people took her hostage and her boyfriend run away and didn’t pay. That was maybe 1988.

  In conclusion, I would like to say that I apologize for going over time, and I know I maybe didn’t do the “how to” aspect very well. But I didn’t want to push it, cause I saw that certain details make you cringe.

  However, if you can allow me one more minute, I’d like to leave you with a bit of advice—love your children but don’t let them use that love to rule you. Harden your heart when you have to, and put it on. They str
ong, you know. You ever see them on the playground yet? Jumping and rolling and all o’ that?

  In Jamaica we say that puss and dog don’t have the same luck. I can’t tell you what will work for you. But I can testify about what work for me.

  Listen. Let me tell you something. You think I had any real trouble with Karen after I straighten her out that night? No sir. You think I had to give her something even close to that again? Not at all. I had to drop a little one slap every now and then, for sure. But nothing big like that.

  Children have memory, you know, so whenever I got frustrated with her and the arguing and the stubbornness, I use to make it go and go until it reach a certain point. After that, I just say cool and easy, “Karen, I think you’re overheating. You need to cool off. Go take a shower, nuh.”

  After that, let me tell you, she see everything my way.

  ALL AH WE IS ONE

  by Elizabeth Nunez

  On a steaming hot day on a Caribbean island that shall not be named, an African American couple, Joseph and Anita Streeter, a husband and wife in their forties, walked into the Paradise Country Club with their teenage daughter, Linda. They paused briefly at the reception desk, but finding no one there, headed straight for the changing rooms next to the swimming pool. Ten minutes later they emerged.

  Joseph, his black skin gleaming in the brilliant sun, was wearing light blue swimming trunks, his wife, whose skin was not much lighter, had on a red halter-top bathing suit, and his daughter, neither as dark as her father nor as light as her mother, her hair in braids to her shoulders, wore a white bikini that showed off her perky bosom, slim hips, and long, shapely legs. Joseph climbed the steps to the diving board, and looking to his right and left, apparently to make certain no one was in his way, bounced twice on the board and dove into the water, barely making a splash. His wife and his daughter, who were standing at the edge of the pool looking at him, applauded.

  “That was fantastic, Joseph,” Anita said when he surfaced.

  “Your turn,” Joseph countered.

  Anita climbed the ladder. When she reached the top, she turned her head to the right and to the left as Joseph had done, and noticed something extraordinary. The pool, which minutes before was crowded when she, her husband, and her daughter had arrived, was now completely empty.

  Moira McShine, who was lying on a plastic chaise under the shade of an umbrella, as her mother had advised her, since her skin tended to tan faster and darker than her lighter-skinned friends, had witnessed the retreat from the pool. She had not seen when Joseph Streeter dove into the water, but she was aroused from her daydream by Mrs. Forester’s querulous voice as she passed in front of her, dragging her two protesting children: “A big black man like that! He doesn’t care who’s in his way. He just dived in. Didn’t care if the children were there. He could have killed them. That’s why we don’t want their kind here. Why we have rules.”

  Moira sat up in time to see Anita Streeter poised on the diving board. Below her, mothers and fathers clapped their hands and called to their children to come out of the pool. Barbara and Helen, Moira’s best friends, who had invited her to join them at the Paradise Country Club, were sitting at the edge of the pool dangling their feet in the water. When Mrs. Streeter dove in, they got up, wrapped their towels around their waists, and walked toward Moira.

  “You see that?” Barbara said, and rolled her eyes.

  “What?” Moira asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “That big black woman. They always spoil everything.”

  And the Streeters did spoil everything. Children were whimpering petulantly, some shrieking, as parents pulled them to the changing rooms. Sunbathers grumbled as they slipped on dresses, pants, and shirts over their bathing suits, and teenagers rushed to line up behind the two wall telephones in the foyer to call their parents.

  “Coming?”

  Barbara had to ask the question twice, for Moira was still entranced by the photograph her eyes had taken of an elegant dark woman in a red bathing suit that showed a figure that her father would describe as “hourglass”: an ample bosom, a well-defined waist, hips that flared and tapered into perfect thighs and legs. A woman who in no way could be styled as big. Full-figured, but not big. A woman who seemed uncommonly attractive.

  Before Moira could turn away, her eyes locked with those of Mrs. Streeter’s teenage daughter, who was not in the pool. She was standing next to her father near the diving board, lips curled, eyes filled with more disdain than Moira had encountered in all her sixteen years.

  The next morning, the story was plastered all over the daily newspaper. Mr. and Mrs. Streeter were painted as two thoughtless black people, too lazy to take the long drive over the mountains to the public beach, and “boldface too boot,” in the words of one eyewitness. Just because they saw “decent people” bathing in the pool, and because the pool could be seen from the street, they figured they could stop their car and take a dip.

  “Americans!” a reporter wrote indignantly. “They think they own the world. Those two and their daughter didn’t care one cent that they were disturbing the peace and tranquility of our families trying to spend a quiet morning with their children. They just jumped right in the pool without so much as a ‘Beg you please,’ splashing water all over the little children and frightening them.” He quoted one mother who said her daughter was crying so hysterically she had to take her to the doctor. “Tourists,” fumed the reporter, “some of them have no respect.”

  But the reporter could not have been more wrong. By the time he had discovered his mistake, the printing press for the newspaper had shut down and it was too late for the editor to recall the stacks of papers that had already been picked up by the deliverymen for distribution the next morning.

  What the editor, a French Creole in his fifties thinking about retirement, was told that evening as he was polishing off a rum punch in the Red Lion Pub, was that Mr. and Mrs. Streeter were not ordinary Americans, not ordinary black people either, not even regular tourists. They were guests of the U.S. Ambassador to the island, now a republic since it had gained its independence from England some twenty-five years ago. They had not found their way accidentally to the swimming pool in the Paradise Country Club. They had not stopped their car because they had noticed people bathing in the pool and decided to take a dip too. They had gone to the club intentionally, at the invitation of the U.S. Ambassador, who had taken the precaution of indicating so in writing on a note that he had given to Mr. and Mrs. Streeter. When the family had entered the club, there was no one at the reception desk, so they had gone directly to the pool, assuming that no problems would arise if they showed the note when asked.

  There was more that the editor found out. He found out that Mr. and Mrs. Streeter were important people in the United States. Mr. Streeter was a well-known and respected Civil Rights lawyer and his wife was a professor at Princeton University, a member of the Ivy League.

  The apologies came swiftly and abundantly. The radio blared them on the hour. Before the newspaper arrived at the doorsteps of houses and shops the next morning, everyone on the island had formed an opinion on what had happened at the Paradise Country Club the day before.

  “Bet those stupid people thought their black skin was going to dirty the pool,” Horace McShine said to his daughter. (Horace McShine was considerably darker than his wife, from whom Moira had inherited her light skin.) “You’d think with Independence, now we own our own island, people would forget all that nonsense about who light and who white. Sometimes I think we harder on our own black people than the English.”

  But the Americans were not satisfied with apologies. They wanted the truth, plain and unadulterated. They wanted no pretense about frightened little children, or stories about mothers trying to pacify them. They stated their position clearly in the statement they gave to the newspaper: “Those people came out of the pool because we are black. They did not want to be in a pool with black people.”

  The manager of the Paradise
Country Club was foolish enough to be defensive. Interviewed on the early-morning news, he argued that if Mr. Streeter had shown the staff the note from the U.S. Ambassador, there would have been no problem.

  “Mr. Streeter said there was no one at the reception desk,” the interviewer countered. “And he had seen other people walk right into the club.”

  “Of course. They were regulars.”

  “Mr. Streeter said he waited for the receptionist, but nobody came.”

  “We plan to fix that. The receptionist will be disciplined. But you just can’t walk into a private club and go in someone’s pool. I’m sure you can’t do that in America. I think Mr. Streeter was projecting.”

  “Projecting?” asked the interviewer.

  “All of us live here together good, good. We are a cosmopolitan people. We have Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, French Creole, English, and black people living good, good together here. We don’t have all that racial trouble they have in America. I really didn’t appreciate Mr. Streeter’s insinuations. People were frightened. They thought he was an intruder.”

  “Like a thief?”

  “Well, not exactly like a thief. But how would you like for someone to just come in your house and swim in your swimming pool? We’re sorry for the mix-up. I myself would have come out and greeted Mr. Streeter if he had shown us the note from the Ambassador. We’re not like the United States,” he said again. “You know our slogan. ‘All ah we is one.’”

  And most of the people on the island agreed. The Streeters should lighten up. “Foreign people take things too serious,” was the general consensus of many of the passengers in the dollar taxis on their way to work that morning.

  By lunchtime, talk radio had taken over. “Come on,” said the radio host. “Skin color not like cheap cloth. It don’t bleed in the water. You could mix black and white and pink and yellow and they don’t stain one another.”