It struck me at once that from now on I could observe all crooked money changing at the bank. I could overhear scandal and rumor, eavesdrop on backbiting and tale-telling, as well as witness all unlawful maid grinding taking place between employer and domestic in the corporate area. I could walk through brick, concrete block, wattle and daub, or wooden wall to personally see which government minister had his hand in the cash pan.
To prove that all this was so, I waded through the outside wall and stepped into the unkempt side yard. After that, I sifted back through the solid wall and ended up again in my own drawing room where Mabel still slouched in my favorite chair, picking at her knuckles, her bare foot cocked atop my head.
Suddenly I suffered temptation: If my hand could pass through a wall, couldn’t it also pass through frock and drawers? Indeed, as I scrutinized the luscious shape of Mabel draped across the chair, it occurred to me that the one benefit of being a duppy was that there wasn’t a woman in the world I couldn’t feel up from now on without fear of scandal and prosecution.
To test this newfound duppy power, I ploughed my hand deep into Mabel’s crotch. My duppy fingers glided through dress and drawers and came out wriggling giddily on the other side of her fatty rump.
But her crotch had no feeling to my touch; there was no wholesome grit to the pubic hair, and the pum-pum felt empty and wishy-washy like idle land.
Although I was disappointed with the results, I remembered that it was church sisters who were always complaining about duppy riding them at night. Obviously, if Mabel had been a church sister instead of a stinking thief, things might have turned out differently. What I needed to find was a sleeping church sister I could take on a test ride.
I was pondering this hopeful thought when there was suddenly a sharp rap on the front door. Mabel didn’t move a muscle but continued to peer into space like an old woman listening to her own growling belly. The knocking grew louder.
“Who’s it?” I bellowed, and into the room through the closed door stepped a boy named Hopeton who used to live and work in the neighborhood.
For a moment I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The boy had been dead for years and yet here he was standing before me as solid as a ripe breadfruit. I blinked and squinted and my mouth dropped open. “Hopeton?” I blurted, gaping at him. “Is you dat?”
“Yes, sah,” he grinned.
“But don’t Mr. Byles shoot you dead five years ago when you try to break his house?”
“Yes, sah. Kill me stone dead.”
“So what you doing here, man?”
“I come to escort you across, Mr. Baps,” he said, waving duppy finger in my face.
“Kiss me backside!”
Before the boy could take another step, I raced down the hallway, flew through the side wall and out into the backyard, where I scurried high up into a mango tree and crouched behind a thick clump of leaves.
I was ducking behind the shiny leaves high up in the crown of the mango tree when I heard Hopeton scouring the backyard and bawling out my name.
“Mr. Baps!” he was hollering. “Oyea! Mr. Baps!”
He bawled some more, and when I finally got enough nerve to timidly peek out I saw that he was standing at the root of the tree, squinting up at me with his arms on his hips, looking peevish in the bad light.
“Hopeton!” I cried, ducking behind my leafy cover. “I wasn’t feeling up Mabel! I didn’t even know my hand had passed through her pum-pum and out her batty! I not used to duppy finger!”
“Mr. Baps, come down, sah! I don’t business who you feel up.”
“I wasn’t going to ride no church sister, either! It was just an idle thought! You can’t carry a Jamaican to hell just for thinking! Dis is not Castro’s Cuba! Socialism days done! All I did is feel up one thiefing maid!”
“Mr. Baps,” Hopeton chuckled after a long crack of silence, “dere is no hell, sah! Dere is only one place, and dat is where I come to carry you.”
I didn’t believe him—at least not at first. I stayed up there in the tree while he and I bellowed back and forth between treetop and root-bottom, but after plenty argument I became convinced that he was telling the truth and clambered down the gnarled trunk to stand beside him.
He started walking back toward the house, looking over his shoulder to see if I was following.
Dawn had broken over Kingston and a pulpy morning glow, still damp with the lingering coolness of night, was settling over the neighborhood.
I must admit that I was still suspicious, although I said nothing and quietly trailed him down the bushy side yard.
Even though I was not a religious man, I had never imagined that when I died I would be escorted to heaven by a shot thief. I don’t want to sound stuck-up but I just thought I-deserved a better class duppy guide—a chartered accountant, a barrister, or some other fully qualified professional. I could have even been content with a registered nurse or a university-trained teacher. But if I had to settle for an uneducated duppy guide, then I thought I at least deserved better than one who had departed earth via gunshot administered during the felonious act of housebreaking.
So I felt slighted and had hurt feelings that I counted so little with Almighty God.
As we made our way out from the backyard and into the house, my brain kept harping morbidly on what Hopeton had said about there being no hell.
How could there be no hell? And if there really was no hell, what happened to gunmen when they died? Must decent people be chuck-up in heaven cheek-to-cheek with the ruthless criminal element? Must I spend eternity croaking “Hosanna” in a choir with a butu rabble I would kick off my doorstep?
As we glided through the wall of my former house and into the drawing room, I was going to put some arguments to Hopeton when my chain of thought was interrupted by the sight of two burly policemen kneeling down over my dead body and in the middle of a heated argument with the maid and the gardener.
One policeman was waving my empty wallet about, showing that it contained only a twenty-dollar bill and bellowing that nobody in Jamaica dropped dead with only twenty dollars in his possession, that someone had thiefed government evidence. The gardener was blubbering that he personally knew plenty men who had dropped dead with only a dollar on them, at which allegation the other policeman took out a notepad and sarcastically asked for the names of these alleged deceased paupers.
“Names, sah?” the gardener stammered. “Me no remember exact name, sah. But me know that man dead all de time in Jamaica without money in him pocket.”
“Somebody thief dis man money,” the other policeman growled, standing up and peering hard at the gardener and the maid. “Either dat, or him not really dead.”
And to demonstrate that I was really dead, the policeman rocked my body with a wicked kick, which brought a thunderous howl of grief from Mabel.
“Don’t kick Mr. Baps!” she shrieked, jumping between my dead body and the policeman’s foot, water spurting from her eyes. “Him was de most blessed man dat ever walk dis earth.
Him give ’way him every penny him have to de poor. Nobody ever beg him anything dat him wouldn’t give. Don’t kick dat blessed dead creature. Kick me instead!”
The policeman looked as if he were willing to oblige but the gardener jumped between police foot and bawling maid, with the pretence of trying to calm her down.
“God bless Mr. Baps!” he babbled, his hand roaming over the curves of maid batty that quivered with every bogus sob. “Him was too good for dis world! Him must have give ’way all him money last night just before him dead! Him used to do dat-all de time! Remember last year Easter, Mabel, when him give ’way a thousand dollar to dat beggar boy without foot at Half-Way-Tree?”
“Yes,” Mabel shrieked, “me remember! Me remember!”
“Who de rass dem talking ’bout, eh? I never give a beggar boy a penny in me life!”
“Me know dat, sah,” Hopeton answered gloomily.
“Not to say dat I wasn’t going to r
eform someday!” I hastened to add.
While the maid spilled eyewater and the gardener told lie after lie about my generosity, the policemen looked confused and unsure of themselves. Finally one of them ordered Mabel to cease and desist with the bawling and cover the dead body with a sheet while the other grumbled that now he’d seen everything—a Jamaican dropping dead with only a twentydollar in his wallet—that this was what happened when you kept changing governments, for he remembered when Labour was in power that even the lowliest beggar on the street who dropped dead had at least a fifty-dollar on his person.
Muttering to himself about how the IMF agreement had ruined the Jamaican economy, he went outside, saying he would radio for an ambulance to pick up the dead body.
“Mr. Baps was a saint!” Mabel pealed anew. “A saint!”
“Dey walk amongst us unacknowledged,” the gardener brayed. “Some man just have a heart of gold, and nobody can see it till dem dead.”
“Damn liars!” I bawled.
“I still say somebody thiefed government evidence,” the remaining policeman glowered.
“Come, Mr. Baps,” Hopeton said, nudging me gently by the elbow. “Dis is earthly business. We on our way to heaven.”
“How we going get dere?” I asked eagerly, hurrying after him onto the veranda and out into the front yard. “A chariot of fire?”
“No, sah,” he replied. “A minibus.”
Chapter 4
Me and this duppy boy had one beast of a row all the way to the bus stop.
I ranted and raved that it was out of order to expect a decent Jamaican to take a minibus to heaven, that if fiery chariot were not available, the least the appropriate authorities could do was to provide a late-model taxi. With minibus indiscipline running rampant on the Jamaican roadways, it was too much to expect a law-abiding citizen, a former teacher who had always driven his own private vehicle, to ride unruly public transportation to heaven. I raged that there was many a person who, if they knew that the official transport to heaven was a minibus, would outright refuse to dead. For this a man spent a lifetime of Sundays wearing out his kneebone in church? He might as well go carouse and whore up himself in a rum bar.
Hopeton remarked that none of this applied to me since I had never set foot in church.
“Nevertheless,” I grumbled, “you obviously don’t know me or my strong points. For example, you probably don’t know that I am a man who always observe de golden rule. And I could tell you dat if I’d known I’d end up riding to heaven in a minibus, I’d have flouted its backside.”
He said that there was no record of me ever observing any-rule.
“Dat just goes to show how much you know!” I shot back. “De golden rule I observe is, ‘Never thief from a man unless he first thief from you.’ And everybody who ever did business with me knew dat when it came to dis one rule, I was quite the stickler.”
As this telling point struck home we trudged along in silence, for it was obvious that I had stumped the wretch. We continued quite a ways down the road before his brain could cook up even a lame reply. Finally he muttered that if we didn’t ride a minibus, we’d have a long walk to the culvert.
I drew brake in the middle of the road just as a diesel truck roared through my belly button and careened recklessly down the street, nearly fricasséeing a corporeal peel-neck chicken. “Culvert? What culvert?”
He looked pained. “To get to heaven from Jamaica, Mr.-Baps, we have to crawl through a culvert.”
“I not crawling through no damn culvert at my age!” I roared. “I was not a bad Jamaican. I paid taxes. I denounced political tribalism and bogus voting. In forty-seven years of life I grind only five maid who work for me, and I fire only one for saying no. Some Kingston barrister grind five maid a week and fire ten a month over ‘no.’ What I do dat I must ride minibus and crawl like mongoose through a culvert to get to heaven?”
“Mr. Baps,” he announced wearily, “everybody in Jamaica get to heaven through the same culvert. From prime minister to electrician down to rude parson. It is de only way!”
“But what about de bright light and de dark tunnel and de sweet music?”
He mumbled that he didn’t know what I was talking about.
So I told him about a television show I’d once seen featuring people who had died and been revived and how every one of them had testified that they felt themselves sailing through a dark tunnel and soaring toward a soothing white light while sweet music played in the background. Not a one of them had said a word about minibus and culvert.
He heaved a weary sigh and explained that the people I had seen in the television show were Americans, and that the U.S. government had indeed installed an automated portal for use by its deceased citizens. As independent Jamaicans, we had our own gateway to heaven. And it happened to be a special secret culvert.
“You know something,” I barked gruffly, “I not going anywhere with you.”
I stormed across the noisy road and headed back toward my own house. He came racing after me, bawling at me to wait, saying that I didn’t understand.
“Why should I go up dere when I can stay down here?” I snapped over my shoulder, as my duppy body glided through traffic, trees, hedges, fences, barking dog, and all other earthly obstruction and obstacle. He jumped in front of me and asked me what, above all things in the world, I liked doing best of all. I asked him if this was a riddle or a trick and he swore that it was a serious question.
I stopped in the middle of a neighborhood backyard with the dog snarling and barking up a storm and considered my mind.
The truth was that best of all I liked keeping shop for the reason that it gave me the opportunity to impose discipline and fiscal restraint over ole negar. I could cut off the credit of ole negar when they spent too much or dun their backside when they paid too little. I could enforce good posture on my district by banning all leaning and slouching of ole negar youth against my doorway or counter, and every now and again—and this was the sweetest of all—I’d catch a clerk thiefing and get to fire her backside after raising a satisfying stink.
But as I stood there in the strange backyard with a dog trying its best to bite my duppy foot, I felt ashamed to admit that such down-to-earth pursuits were what I loved best. Even when I was alive, if someone had asked me what was my first love in life, I probably wouldn’t have blurted out, “Ruling ole negar.” And now that I was dead and a duppy, I felt that I should aspire to something more highbrow like listening to a Mantovani record or reading a fat book—I don’t know why, I just felt queasy about admitting to a duppy angel that nothing in life sweeted me more than taking the rod of correction to rambunctious ole negar.
However, he must have used his angel brain on me for he grinned and said, “If ruling ole negar is you pleasure, Mr. Baps, we have plenty dat need ruling in heaven, too.”
My ears pricked up instantly.
“Oh, yes?”
“Plenty, sah. All lacking in discipline and fiscal restraint.”
“Plenty who want to trust sugar and saltfish even if dey failed to pay on account last week?”
“Thousands, sah. Hundreds of thousands.”
“So you have shop in heaven, too, eh?”
“Plenty shop, sah. City shop, country shop, supermarket shop, bazaar, emporium, and cold supper shop.”
“But dese country shops, dey not like earthly shops you find in Jamaica?”
“Oh, yes, sah. Down to cockroach and rat.”
“Duppy fly, too?”
“Yes, sah. Plenty, plenty duppy fly.”
Meantime, as we were chatting, the dog was biting at my duppy foot over and over again, and each time his teeth snapped harmlessly though my duppy shinbone, he snarled and got madder.
I looked down at him and asked Hopeton if biting dog abided in heaven, too, and he assured me that some Jamaicans could not relax without the tonic of an occasional dog bite, and if a biting dog was what I wanted to keep me-happy, one would be provided. That was h
ow heaven was: What you wanted you got. What you didn’t want, you didn’t get.
“So come with me, eh, Mr. Baps?” he pleaded. “I promise you, you goin’ love heaven. And if you don’t love it, you can migrate. And if you still don’t love it after migration, you can always crawl back through de culvert and live on earth in de bush as a Jamaican duppy.”
I thought about it while the dog kept gnawing savagely at my foot, all the time keeping up with its rowdy barking.
“Now, for instance,” I asked Hopeton, “if dis was a dog in heaven, could I give him a kick?”
“Oh, certainly, Mr. Baps,” he assured me. “In fact, I going give you a little bonus. Kick dis one before we set off for heaven.”
I don’t know how Hopeton did it, but suddenly my right foot felt as solid as a ram post, and I gave the dog a good kick that sent the brute tumbling across the yard and made him yelp bloody murder.
The mistress of the house and the maid came rushing out of the kitchen to see what was wrong with their mongrel, who was cowering in the corner whining, and while the two of them speculated aloud about what could cause the beast to behave so, Hopeton and I sauntered through a backyard hedge and headed across the road for the bus stop.
“Is duppy kick him, mum!” the maid was wailing behind us.
“Don’t be an ass, Millicent! There’s no such thing as duppy. And if there were, they don’t kick.”
“Duppy kick, mum! And duppy love to kick dog!”
Sometime around midmorning we boarded a minibus crammed to the brim with passengers: Knee and elbow jostled side by side for breathing room; nosehole found itself wedged in dangerous proximity to obnoxious battyhole and unaromatic crotch; arm, head, and limb jutted out the windows and waved like surrender flag; ironed frock and fresh pants crease melted and wrinkled in the stuffy heat from the crush of bodies, while stale exhale and armpit exhaust made the stuffy interior stink like bat manure in a cave.
During the trip we suffered through the expected vehicular indiscipline, with the driver tailgating, weaving recklessly, screeching around corners, and driving like he owned the road.
The Duppy Page 2
