The voice stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Far from showing delight at this speech from the Beyond, Mom remonstrated angrily with the medium: “I didn’t want my husband on earth, and I don’t want him now. Take him back!” The unexpected self-disclosure even after all the disdain she had showed for Dad came as a shock.
“Mom!”
“Don’t Mom me!”
“Relax yourself, Mrs. Ruff.” The Reverend Grimstick looked quite affronted.
“Relax myself? How can I? You must tell me. Was that really my husband? Was that Jimmy Ruff talking?” Jimmy Ruff resur-rectus: I almost laughed at the image the idea evoked.
The medium seemed mildly surprised at Mom’s insistence. Unfortunately, the roar of an airplane coming in to land over Kingston muted what she had to say. She was silent now; even her face said nothing.
“It’s no good, my dear,” she said eventually, now with a heavier Jamaican accent. “When I was a likkle child in Kingston, we didn’t have all these low-flying aircraft come roaring over us, nuh? It make it very hard to concentrate.” She went on to say that she was lonely. All her relatives had “gone home” (meaning they had died?). “Yes, all of them dead out. I don’t even have my grandsons here now, all of them done away with and dead out.”
The medium was possibly mad as well as, surely, a mountebank. Yet when she accurately divined not only the date of Mom’s birth but her mother’s maiden name, I was not so sure. We had no intention of hanging round for her offer of “mortuary information”: namely, the dates of our deaths. So we left the Reverend Dr. Mavis Campbell Grimstick to her spook-dabbling, and returned to the Pegasus Hotel, even more confused than before.
At last, on the afternoon of December 23, my father was flown “HUM” in the cargo hold of Air Jamaica flight JA285. Documents signed by the U.S. vice-consul in Kingston confirmed that “only the remains of Mr. Jimmy Ruff and nothing else” were contained in the coffin; no cocaine, no Kalashnikov rifles. Dressed in his white shroud, Dad arrived punctually at JFK at nine thirty p.m. local time and passed swiftly through immigration (the dead have no need of passports). My father’s long supine journey home was finally at an end. Or so I thought.
Dreadfully, unbelievably, the wrong body had been repatriated. The body belonged to a vacationing American named Coleman Goodman. “Coleman who?” my mother asked in disbelief from the kitchen. (She had just sent out the invites for Dad’s funeral.) “Coleman Goodman,” I repeated, numb with shock. Apparently, a carelessness in cargo stowage was to blame. Trust Dad’s rotten luck. Trust our rotten luck.
A week has gone by, and still no sign of my father. Wherever he is now, an abyss separates me from him; yes, we move in very different circles these days, my father and I. Maybe Dad did get repatriated to Africa after all. Maybe he has become a duppy, and is making mischief now among the living, just as he did in life. Foul play? Oh, we have talked about the possibility of foul play, my mother and I. It is now the New Year. I have just turned twenty-eight. Decca stirs slightly and begins to purr. I open a tin of Happy Heart cat food for her. Then I look out over the East River. There is no sun at the windows. Everything is more complicated and more serious than we had supposed.
PART II
IS THIS LOVE?
IMMACULATE
BY MARLON JAMES
Constant Spring
Man, look at Kingston, it so pretty from here, all them light right out to the sea.
1
This is what Ruth Stenton was wearing when she went to the Central Police Station/Criminal Intelligence Branch on East Queen Street in downtown Kingston: a sapphire halter top that pulled her breasts up from her chest but exposed sagging fat ripples on her back; white Dolce &Gabbana jeans with the logo slashed across the backside in red; a white Fendi bag that she wore like an afterthought, constantly pulling it up on her shoulder after it slipped down her arm.
The big station was busy with squaddies rushing in and out, sometimes with boys in handcuffs, papers shuffling up and down, the click-click of one-finger typing, the laughter of tired constables, and the thick cloud of cigarette smoke.
At reception, a policeman pointed left to a glass door with words printed in reverse. She stepped in and waited by the door until a uniformed constable called her over with his finger. He had just dripped ketchup on his shirt and was scowling into a box of fries from Burger King.
—Can I help you, ma’am? he said, looking from his snack to his calendar, where Friday, October 22 jumped out in bold type.
—You don’t have air-conditioning in here? she said.
—Can I help you, ma’am?
—Me is here to report a missing.
—A missing what? Cow, donkey, or goat?
—Don’t get fresh with somebody who could be your mother.
—My mother don’t look like she work New Kingston every night.
—But you fresh!
—What you want to report, ma’am?
—A missing. A missing girl. Me did call and somebody tell me to come in and make a statement.
—When you call?
—This morning. Boy, me could use a Rothmans.
—This look like Chiney shop? How long the girl missing?
—From Wednesday.
—Friday October 22, young girl reported missing. Who the girl?
—Janet Stenton.
—Relationship.
—What? Me look like no sodomite? A—
—Mother? Daughter? Church Sister?
—Oh, she is me daughter. Born 1979.
—Your daughter missing three day and you just coming to report it?
—She always a take off like she name kite. But never for so long. Plus she take me two good ears-ring. Not thiefing that? Grand larceny you call it.
—Then you is here to report a larceny or a missing?
—A larceny and a missing. Me ears-ring missing and she larcen it. That gal just buss ’way like kite. She is a little dutty gyal, that one. Never take no instruction from her mother. From she born, me say, this little one, this little one going turn slut like her auntie. Sometime me wonder if is fi her own or fi me. Anyway, she gone from Wednesday morning. Leave out before the sun even rise and is not the first time neither. But this time she take me ears-ring and me Julia of Paris shoes. Me no business bout the shoes. Imagine, she take off to go school from four in the morning? I mean to say, who love school so much that they leave four hour early? Me can smoke in here?
—No. Where you think she gone?
—How you mean? Where else schoolgirl going if she leave her house too early by herself? You no know the song? Send the gal Nicky go a school, Nicky gone turn and gone a man yard—
—No singing in here, ma’am.
—Me did hear things bout this new teacher. Him pants did too tight so me did think him was a battyman. But is so the devil deceive, praise Jesus. Anyway, you need to find that damn girl so me can discipline her.
—Discipline her, eeh?
—You going discipline her youself? Make sure take out me ears-ring cause is three hundred dollar that cost. She just like her father. One minute she here, next minute … That damn gyal a take man, you hear me? You going to the school to check bout the teacher?
—Which school?
—Immaculate.
This is how buses used to run in downtown Kingston in 1993. Because public buses were shut down by the government in the late ’80s, Japanese sixteen-seaters with names like Terminator 2 and Smooth Operator painted on the sides hit the road by five in the morning, sometimes already overstuffed with students feeling up each others’ parts on their way to classes that began at seven thirty or eight.
The girls all loved one bus, Prince Machoperi, because the driver played Buju Banton, Snow, and Mariah Carey, and the conductor really knew how to balance on the door ledge off the heaving, swerving HiAce like he was practicing to surf.
At six thirty on the morning Ruth Stenton went to Central, Machoperi was bustling north from dow
ntown toward Constant Spring, like a runaway carnival float with all those uniforms flashing by. Gray and red for Queens. Blue and cream for Holy Childhood. White for Immaculate Conception High.
As it neared Dunrobin Avenue, five miles north of downtown, the conductor, a boy barely eighteen, dressed in baggy pants, four gold-plated rings, and a T-shirt saying Damn Yankees World Tour ’91, asked a Queens girl when last she saw Jacqueline.
—Who?
—The Immaculate girl?
—Not since Tuesday. Don’t she take this bus every day? Nuh she always up front with the driver?
This is what a gaggle of Immaculate girls were doing at the school gate at 7:50 on the Friday morning that the ’ductor asked the Queens girl about Jacqueline, and Ruth Stenton was going to Central to make a missing persons report.
—Anna-Kaye Frater daddy drop her off in him jalopy yet?
—But Anna-Kaye always walk down from Manor Park.
—No, idiot. Mr. Frater drop her off in Manor Park. She walk down so that nobody would see her come out of a Ford Escort. My boyfriend Patrick say that is what his Hortense drive.
—Hortense?
—The helper, ninny.
—Jennifer Innis father driving a new Volvo.
—That’s not the only thing him driving. And another … Oh my God, Kenisha, how you sneak that hairdo into this school? It ah take life.
—Yes, my girl, it is the lick.
—Well, all you need is a crimping iron and you set.
—You see Jennifer Innis father playing golf last week? He always standing by the fence like him searching for a ball.
—The way him old, that’s not the only ball him have to search for.
—Oh my God, Prince Machoperi coming up the street! Wave, girls.
—Me don’t wave at lower-class boy in minibus.
—Rashid Shatani take that bus.
—Lie you lie. Rashid Shatani have three car.
—You can’t drive and feel up girl at the same time. You going to House Arrest 2? Ambassador Disco spinning.
—All I get at House Arrest 1 was feel up.
—Buy you own drinks and stop take drinks from boys, that is the lesson deh so.
—Anyway, they change the venue from Tavistock Terrace to Morgan’s Harbour.
—We going to Miami next week. I got Daddy to buy tickets to go see Whitney Houston. I’m every woman, it’s all in meeeeeeee.
—Me hungry. Anybody see Irie Bruce?
—Maybe the Sisters drive him away again.
—But me hungry.
—Gal, everybody know you going vomit it up before lunch break, so this way you stomach already empty.
—Shut you shit, gal.
—Wait, wait. Volvo. Shelly Jordan driving up.
—But Shelly take the bus.
—Not on a Friday, fool.
—Is near eight o’clock, wipe that lipstick off.
—Is not me using shoe polish in me eyebrow.
—Is not me put on maxipad the wrong way and have to go to nurse.
—Look. Is who that?
—Look like Jacqueline Stenton friend. You know, Miss Goody-Goody, Melissa Leo.
—Which part o’ she good if she run with Jacqueline? She only going on like …
—Why she running like that?
—Long way from downtown m’love.
—No, Kenisha, you can see anything? Open the gate wider!
—Is him. Is him. Him driving beside her.
—Car horn honking all the way down the street
—Him don’t care.
—Last week him tell me that my pussy look like it would need two finger. Like me fraid of boy that drive car. So me just play like them dumb girl that boy like and say, But how you mean?
—What-what-what-what? How me mean? Did I utter, mutter, or stutter …
—Jesus Christ, Kenisha, you say it just like him. Mind me get goose pimple at the gate.
—Come inna me car now and deal with me buddy, Did I utter, mutter, or stutter …
—My gal, then you hear say the other day Sister Mary Agatha had to come out and tell him to drive off the premises after the nasty rass park him red car in front of the grade ten for one whole hour.
—Yeah, but is a Saab though.
—Listen to me, if I don’t drape up that boy by him little balls one day my name is not Alicia Mowatt. Watch him, rolling down on Goody-Goody like him is cat and she is mouse. Little stumpy fat boy think him is man because him drive a car with a name him can’t even spell. Speaking of Goody-Goody, where is the Jeckle to her Heckle? Anybody see Jacqueline from morning?
—Not since Tuesday.
—She sick again? I have words to give that damn girl.
Why you don’t tell him to leave me alone? No, it not funny, people at school seeing him taking step with me like me is something to him.
2
This is when they found her: Monday morning, October 25, 1993. This is where they found her: South Parade, below St. William Grant Park in downtown Kingston, a place where morning roosters crowed like it was country, giving the wake-up call for madmen and whores to shuffle away and the starting signal for higglers to cart their fruit, vegetables, and chingum to the nearby market grounds, where minibuses ran a ring around the collar of the old colonial square, and Syrian haberdasheries stayed closed until nine.
This is how they found her. Faceup, legs wide in a death swing to spread-eagle. White skirt up, salmon panties down on one leg, pubic hair pulled up and roughed up. Under a minibus that had not parked there overnight.
The driver, dumpling fat and squeezing into a Michael Jackson Dangerous tour T-shirt shouted to the police that him don’t know how dead gal get under the bus. At first people thought he was lying, that he mowed her down and did not stop, not knowing the bus was dragging her along like road kill.
But she was lying beside a patterned burgundy rug as if she was rolled out of it, one hand slung cross her chest, and her school uniform was clean, immaculate like the name of her school.
Her straightened hair was parted in two, but strands had slipped out of the loosened plaits. Some hair stuck to her face, heart-shaped with wild brows, a line below her forehead. Her lips, smudged with lipstick, were parted as if to kiss, and she stared at the sky, the whites of her eyes now light blue. Maybe somebody beat her, a higgler said. You think them rape her? What schoolgirl doing out so early by herself? School don’t start till eight.
This is what the police took down for a statement: Date: Monday, October 25, 1993, 8:45 a.m. Victim, a schoolgirl from Immaculate Conception High School, was discovered under Number 35 minibus, licence plate PP 0898. Aforementioned vehicle arrived into South Parade, in the vicinity of downtown Kingston, at 5:45 a.m. Witnesses who claim to have been in South Parade from 5:00 a.m. remember little to moderate traffic. No evidence of crime having been commited or perpetrators on the scene. Witnesses claim that terminus was clear and empty before the bus came. Nobody saw a body. At some time between the bus coming to the terminus and the bus driving off, somebody killed the high school girl and put her dead body under the bus without managing to be witnessed. There also may be evidence of unlawful carnal knowledge.
Here are seven (7) things the police did not know about Janet Stenton:
1. Under her fingernails is one man. Sprinkled and spattered between her legs are more.
2. Periwinkle is not her favorite color, but she wore periwinkle panties every Thursday she left home early, four in the morning for school at eight o’clock.
3. When she left her mother’s house in Trench Town, and walked two miles to a bus stop where nobody would recognize her, it was on a Wednesday morning, not Thursday.
4. Her favorite TV show was MacGyver. She had watched MacGyver every Thursday morning on videotape for the past three weeks. The school had a note signed by her mother asking that her daughter be excused from the first three hours of school for the next five Thursdays to take her aunt to the clinic for her dialysis treatment.
Dialysis was not her idea.
5. She had already broken her hymen with two fingers.
6. Her chest smelled of Jergens talcum powder and her vagina smelled like a clean floor.
7. The panties on her left leg were not hers.
This is what Alicia Mowatt, student fifteen years old of Immaculate Conception High School, said while squeezing a ball from the nine-hole course next door after a few minutes of listening to a nun telling her class of Jacqueline Stenton’s horrible tragedy that same morning:
—What, you sure is she? Downtown? But she not supposed to be downtown. I mean, she don’t go to school downtown.
Alicia thought of flinging the ball at Sister Rose Maria just to get her to shut the bullshit about praying to God for discernment in this matter. She was no friend of Jacqueline Stenton. Damn girl acted too innocent, when she most certainly was not—that she found out only a few days ago. This was the damn Sisters’ fault, leaving him there to just park his red Saab outside the grade twelve block and watch the girls.
—Fucking monster.
—Alicia Mowatt! No Immaculate student should ever speak in such a manner, no matter the occasion! Oh Mary, mother of God! Intercede blessed Virgin. Show us the true meaning of the heavenly Father, show us the meaning.
Alicia hissed. But then she looked around and saw that another girl was missing and went outside. Fifty feet away, clutching her backpack instead of wearing it, and walking fast, was Melissa Leo.
—Goody-Goody Leo! Where the fuck you think you going?
—Alicia Mowatt, don’t bother with me this morning. Don’t bother with me.
—Where you going?
—Don’t bother with me.
—Where you going?
—You know where me going. Me going home. You uptown people can go to—
—You think is him. Not even him could—
Melissa Leo stopped.
Kingston Noir Page 11
