Blue Mountain Trouble

by Martin Mordecai

  Mama called to them from Shim’s, though it was Keneisha, Trucky’s sister, who heard her. She had walked with them — more like waddled, she was due any day — to Stedman’s Corner, sent by her mother for a few groceries. Really for the exercise, she told Pollyread, as the three of them fell into a laborious progress up the hill from Standpipe while Trucky and Bollo went home another way. The buckets of water on the twins’ heads were as heavy as Keneisha’s belly. Pollyread, who had little interest in dolls, was galvanized by real babies and anything to do with them. Jackson plodded ahead, the girls’ chirpy voices blending with the cries and coos of birds coming home for the night as evening soaked up the light from the sky.

  Jackson didn’t hear Mama’s call because he was deep in thought. About Jammy. Squatting on Gilmore land. Growing plants that he’d never seen before — nor Poppa, who knew a lot about plants. It was the one question Jackson had ventured on the way down from Morgan’s Mount. “Nothing like that grow around here,” Poppa answered, and said nothing further on the matter. Jackson had wished then, and wished now, that he had thought to pick up a piece of the unknown plant. Maybe Miss Bovell, his science teacher, would know what it was. But what Jammy and his ruffians might be growing was not as important as where they were growing it. On his ground. And Jackson was also curious about the why — especially after Bollo and Trucky’s mystifying remarks.

  “What a way you favor star apple,” Mama said to Keneisha, smiling as she came out of Shim’s to greet them, holding a plastic bag of groceries to take home. Jackson knew Mama’s views on Keneisha’s pregnancy: much too young, not churched or even living with the father (whose identity was the source of endless speculation around Valley). Another girl pickney “drop,” her future blighted. A reason for lamentation. But a baby was always welcomed with delight. Even Jackson could agree: Keneisha, the prettiest girl in Valley anyway, had bloomed around her baby belly into a glowing … star apple.

  * * *

  “When the baby due?” Mama asked. “Should be soon, not so?”

  Pollyread knew the answer before Keneisha gave it: “Soon-soon.” She’d told Pollyread the same thing on the way up from Standpipe. Babies were born all the time in Valley, but each one was a wonder and mystery to Pollyread.

  Now, though, another mystery was occupying space in her brain. Jammy. And Poppa. And the possibility that there was something about the family that others knew and she — they — didn’t. Pollyread liked to know. That was her thing. Knowing.

  Bollo and Trucky had said to ask Poppa. But Mama must know. And here she was, all by herself. With a long walk home.

  She waited. Not an easy thing for Pollyread at the best of times, and this wasn’t. The pail of water on her head made her neck ache. But if she put it down now, it would be worse when she took it up again, as she would have to. Waiting a few yards away as Mama chatted with Keneisha, who just glowed all over from her baby and being the center of attention, Pollyread stood as still as she possibly could, until she felt the water bucket drilling her into the ground of Stedman’s Corner.

  Then she noticed the smell. Sharp, burning her nostrils and eyes. And it got darker, like a cloud had covered the sun. But it hadn’t. The sky everywhere, though sliding toward evening, was clear. The duskiness was only here, over the part, the little part, of Stedman’s Corner where Mama and Keneisha stood talking and Pollyread and Jackson waited a few yards away.

  Curiouser and curiouser, Pollyread thought, remembering Alice. But this wasn’t Wonderland. Everything here that she was looking at was exactly as she’d known it from before she knew herself.

  Then the murky air around them moved. Congealed into little wisps of cloud that danced. And the pungent smell grew stronger.

  Pollyread, statue-still, trying to keep the pail of water from tumbling and wasting a whole afternoon, knew. Like it had been waiting for them.

  Jackson noticed too.

  It quivered to one side of the little group, a mass of grayish cloud as big as Mama, forming, so to speak, the third point of a triangle between the twins, and Mama and Keneisha, who were still chatting. If either of them had turned they would have looked straight into the eyes of the goat, because it wasn’t noticing the twins at all. Which for some reason made Pollyread vex.

  “What you want now, Mr. Goat?” Her tone was as sharp as it had been with Bollo at Standpipe.

  That got the goat’s attention. The cloud turned slowly and the pebble eyes bore into her. And they laughed. Shone with humor like moisture, and the air shimmered without losing the shape of itself, beard and horns and all.

  Pollyread’s face opened up in amazement at herself, and at the goat’s reaction. Without the heavy pail of water to anchor her, she’d have started to tremble.

  Sensing something, Mama turned. “What happen to you, Pol?” she asked.

  “She catching fly,” Keneisha joked at Pollyread’s open mouth. The jibe shut Pollyread’s mouth, snap. But she still couldn’t say anything.

  The goat was looking from the twins to the women to the twins. It was having a fine time, shimmying like a dancer.

  It was trying to attract Mama’s attention! And Keneisha’s. And they couldn’t see it. Him. Whatever. Only the twins could.

  That realization broke the lock on Pollyread’s frozen self.

  “Please, Mr. Goat,” she said, polite now, as she would talk to a grown-up, “why you come?” And where you come from? formed in her mind, but she couldn’t find that much voice.

  The twirling mist stilled a moment, as if listening to her. The goat’s eyes brightened, burning into Pollyread’s. She couldn’t look away. The face wavered, going in and out of focus. The head tossed, perhaps in the direction of Bamboo River — or beyond. Like he had heard her unspoken question.

  But then his attention turned to Mama again and the rotating resumed. Like when I was a child, Pollyread thought. Performing for attention.

  Mama looked right through him at the twins. “What you just say, Pol? You was talking to me?”

  “No, Mama,” she mumbled. “Not you.”

  “Stop. What is this smell?” Mama looked around — again, right through the goat. “And what this cloud doing here?” As though a child had strayed. “Is it smell so? Something burning round here?” Mama took a breath and scrunched up her face. Keneisha beside her took a step back and spat on the ground.

  Goat was not pleased. Pollyread could tell from the sudden stillness of the air. She thought it funny and was about to laugh when — again as though reading her mind — he looked at her. Hurt. His feelings. That’s what she thought, and frightened herself with the thought. A cloud, a puff of something like smoke — with feelings! A duppy goat that could read her mind. Crazy.

  Mama turned back to Keneisha. “Better go on home now. Miss G will be worrying about you.”

  “Okay, Aunt Maisie,” Keneisha said, also looking through Goat at Pollyread. “Walk good, Polly.” And turned to waddle over to Shim’s.

  “Let me help you with that pail of water,” Mama said to Pollyread, putting down the plastic bag of groceries on the ground.

  But as she watched Mama’s face coming closer to her, hands reaching out for the pail, Pollyread saw the face crumple as if grabbed from within. In slow motion, she saw Mama toppling toward her.

  * * *

  Mama didn’t fall, because Pollyread was right there. And Pollyread only staggered as Mama held on to her. But the pail, after wobbling around on Pollyread’s frantic head for what seemed like minutes — that fell, splashing water over everyone’s legs and setting Jackson to wobbling. Matters weren’t helped by Goat, whose swirls of cloud and sulfurous smell only added to the confusion. And the noise: Mama’s moans as she tried to stand upright, Pollyread shouting to Mama as if she was over at Shim’s instead of holding on to her shoulder, Keneisha crying out, “Whathappen, whathappen” as she ran back toward them. And the pail of water teeter-tottering on Jackson’s head, trying its hardest to join Pollyread’s.

  Thr
ough it all, Jackson was held tight by the thought that Mama had not tripped or been pushed. She had collapsed. Something from within had thrown her down.

  Finally getting himself balanced and stable, he carefully removed the pail from his head and rested it on the ground. It was getting darker by the minute. But that wasn’t the reason Mama’s face looked gray. And when he reached beside Pollyread and held on to Mama her skin was cold.

  He saw the same worry in his sister’s eyes.

  Mama’s breathing was mixed with little moans, as though something inside was sticking her sporadically.

  Goat was still, like a slow-burning flame, a few yards away now. He was looking steadfastly at Mama. Anxious, Jackson thought. Like the twins.

  “You okay, Mama?” It was all he could think to say.

  She tried to smile but grimaced instead as the thing inside stuck her.

  “Come,” Pollyread said sternly. “Come sit down.” And they led Mama between them to the only place in Stedman’s Corner outside of Shim’s where there was a seat, an ancient tree trunk that had fallen years ago and been worn smooth by generations of Valley bottoms. It was just where the path from the Gilmores’ house met level ground. People who lived up that way often rested there before attempting the trek up.

  “I sorry ’bout the water, Pen,” Mama said, when her breathing returned closer to normal.

  “Is not your fault, Mama. Is the goat.”

  “Goat? What goat?” Mama looked around, including in the direction of Goat.

  “No goat, Mama,” Jackson jumped in. “Water seep into her brain.”

  “I am not crazy,” Pollyread announced loudly. She appealed to Keneisha, who was still hovering around Mama. “I look crazy to you?” Then, without waiting for an answer, she pointed. “See him there!”

  Jackson, his breath like a big dumpling in his mouth, looked. And Goat was there. Looking at the little group from few meters away, still and serious as a judge, as Mama herself would have said. Had she seen him.

  “You see any goat?” Keneisha was appealed to again, this time by Mama.

  “No, Miss Maisie,” the girl said.

  Mama giggled, the sound music to Jackson’s ears. “Pen? Maybe this time you brother have it right.” Her tender tone did not appease Pollyread, who, Jackson noted, was staring at Goat with fire in her eyes.

  “Come, pickney,” Mama said, bustling to her feet. “Time to go home. I never expect to be out this late, I never even bring the flashlight, and is almost dark already. Keneisha, next time I see you, you might be a mama by then, eh? What a thing.” She gave the girl a broad grin. “Happy landing, and give Miss G a big howdy. Walk good. Mind Pen goat don’t trip you.” She giggled again.

  Jackson saw Pollyread thinking to say something but, thankfully and unusually, she thought better of it. He collected his bucket from where he’d put it down and asked his sister to help him settle it on his head.

  “I don’t finish with that goat,” she said fiercely, her voice low so only he could hear.

  Jackson looked up the path leading to their house. A little way up, there was a glow like a candle flame, illuminating the route they had to walk.

  “I don’t think he finish with us either,” he said.

  Mama and Goat were fighting. Or playing. They were shouting at each other. Or laughing. It was hard to tell in the tangle of smoky cloud and limbs. Pollyread’s feet were planted on Stedman’s Corner concrete ground like a tree that could not be moved. She couldn’t even scream. To add insult to injury, Jammy was sitting on the tree trunk, legs crossed like he was in his own living room (if he had one), laughing his head off at all of them. Jackson — of course — was nowhere in sight. Nor Poppa.

  But Pollyread woke, head ringing with the violent dream, to the sound of bees. Bees were among those small creatures — including ants, forty legs, and cockroaches — which Pollyread hated: Invariably, if one were in her vicinity, it stung her. The sound they made, like old men whispering together, was not soothing, as she’d read in a book: It alarmed her. This morning it brought her to wakefulness abruptly. And alert enough to realize that the sound couldn’t be bees — unless there was a frighteningly huge swarm of them out by the gate. So, she thought, perhaps it was (this being Sunday) a group of real old men on the path, saying their prayers. In the gray half-light that surrounded her, that crazy thought really woke her up.

  She began again, touching base with herself. The murmuring sound was coming from out in the yard. It was not a swarm of bees. The sounds were human. People talking. One of the voices was familiar.

  “James —” she heard Mama say, and a rumble, the sound she had awakened to, followed.

  As she was running through the short list of Jameses that she knew, Pollyread heard a voice that, though she had not heard it in a long time, she recognized immediately.

  “Touch not the Lord’s anointed!”

  At that, like a match struck in darkness, Mama’s voice flared. “Your frowsy head anoint with weed. And it dutty like a drain!”

  Pollyread knew the expression well, and Jammy was right to be offended. He was highly offended. His outrage was expressed in a string of words not usually heard on a Sunday morning, and certainly not in the Gilmore yard. They banged like stones against the windows of Pollyread’s ears and demolished the last shadows of sleepiness.

  But as she stamped out of her room, anger boiling with words to throw back at Jammy, she bumped into Poppa stumbling out of his room, rubbing his eyes. “Wha-appen?” All arms and legs, he looked like an oversized doll. “I hear —”

  “Jammy outside!” was all Pollyread had to say to wake him up fully and send him through the front door, grabbing his lignum vitae stick as he went. She was right behind.

  An extraordinary scene greeted them, stopping them cold for a moment: Jammy’s clenched fist raised high as Mama doubled over and spat explosively onto the ground between them. In the gray light, the sun still many mountaintops away from Valley, they looked to Pollyread like dream figures. Nightmare figures.

  A wordless roar erupted from Poppa as if tearing him open. He rushed toward the two figures, stick held high in one hand. Jammy, looking down at Mama, saw Poppa late but had the sense to jump to one side as the stick slashed through the space where he’d been. Pollyread ran to Mama, still bent over but trying to stand. She put her mother’s heavy arm round her shoulders for what support she could offer.

  “Going kill you here today,” Poppa said in a cold fury Pollyread had never heard in his voice before — and which she shared. She hardly felt her mother’s weight on her, so intent was she on willing her father to get at Jammy.

  Poppa, crouched, legs apart, his stick trailing half behind him on the ground like a broken wing, was stalking his prey. Jammy, eyes wild with weed but also from fear, had taken refuge behind the ackee tree, the nearest shield. His Rasta head peering around the trunk at Poppa’s advance looked like an outgrowth of the tree itself.

  “I never … touch … her … Mass Gillie,” he stammered, edging around the tree as Poppa began to circle it. “Never touch … her, sah.”

  “But I going touch you,” Poppa said, his voice low and urgent. “Touch you good.”

  “Miss Maisie,” Jammy called out. “I … I touch you?” Appealing to Mama but not taking his eyes from Poppa.

  Pollyread felt Mama’s body double over, as though Jammy’s words had hit her in the belly. She convulsed and vomited. Pollyread’s eyes, as if somehow separate from herself, identified a piece of Lucea yam from last night’s supper on the ground. Bent over, waving her arms while trying to stand straight, Mama was struggling with words.

  “Miss Maisie —”

  “Shut up!” Poppa barked. “And take you lick like a man.”

  Mama squawked, “Gil … bert.”

  “What?” He didn’t turn or lose his sight of Jammy.

  “Don’t … lick him.” The words were dressed in spittle.

  “Why?” Poppa, looking like a black land crab, m
oved a half step closer to the ackee tree. “Him lick you. Is you should lick him.”

  Lick him! Pollyread heard herself scream silently.

  “Him never … lick. Me.” Mama’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

  As though he hadn’t heard her, Poppa raised his right hand, the stick quivering.

  “No!” Mama’s scream was an explosion of pain. Her body sagged against Pollyread’s shoulder.

  “What happen, Maisie?” Poppa’s voice was tinged with fear.

  “Mama say him never lick her,” Pollyread shouted at Poppa, who had taken another step toward the terrified Jammy.

  Poppa stopped, but kept his hand with the stick raised. “Say what?” Pollyread couldn’t see his face but puzzlement was clear in his voice. She could see Jammy’s eyes, which were as big as the ackee seeds in the tree above him. “I see him!”

  “Gilbert,” Mama said firmly, pushing herself away from Pollyread’s supporting shoulder. “No. You think … you see him … hit me.” I see! Pollyread yelled inside her own head but kept her mouth shut. “But same time he look like he was going to hit me, the sickness take me and I double over.” Mama was breathing hard but holding herself straight and stern.

  Poppa stopped and straightened. “You sure?” He didn’t sound convinced, and turned to face Mama and Pollyread, as if searching for proof.

  That was a signal to Jammy. He seemed to fly from behind the ackee tree and through the gate, flashing past Pollyread and Mama in a smelly swoosh of ganja fumes and pursued by a livid Cho-cho, who had been stalking him right behind Poppa. As Jammy went through the gate, the little dog lunged and just missed the man’s bare ankle. His custodian’s duty accomplished, Cho-cho fetched up and marked the gatepost with pee as Jammy disappeared up the path back toward Morgan’s Mount.

  Pollyread looked quickly at Poppa to see what he would do. She was surprised at the little smile on his face, which softened his eyes. He glanced at Mama and she smiled too.

  Pollyread saw nothing funny about anything.