Trinidad Noir_The Classics

by Earl Lovelace

  “What I go do now?” is what Naomi bawl when Esa pull her away from the body, and the truth finally sink in that he gone, and her wailing so loud it drown out the sound of the surf that racing up the beach and steady licking his bare feet like a dog trying to wake up his master. “Get up, Michael, get up, son!” And nobody could say a word. Not a sound from the crowd that gather on the beach to see the thing that shock the whole of Victory that Good Friday. Up to this day a heaviness resting on the village for the way Michael get gun down in broad daylight, and nobody could make sense of the madness that make the security pull the trigger.

  Naomi wail come from way down in their own sorrow and anger and helplessness that is more than the vexation they feel for Hard Man who sit down in jail with no representation. Is the Syrians who come with they money and they big-shot connections that make them feel they have more rights than anybody so they could claim the beach and push the village out.

  What they could say to Naomi? Everybody know Naomi was Michael queen. Mammy boy. Everything he do, he had his mother in mind. The same laths and the secondhand galvanize he buy two by two to fix up Naomi roof that falling down is what Guts and the boys use to raise a tent for the wake on Glorious Saturday, a day when people should be getting ready to sing Alleluia on Easter Sunday morning.

  “Why they kill meh one good son?” Naomi ask and ask.

  And the church, gathered to remember Michael, stand witness again to her relived sorrow. And as if she know that the silence that follow was too heavy for people to carry, that they need to remember again the rightness of their still-raw grief, Miss Ivy start to preach.

  “Michael not resting. Oh no!” she say. “You know why? Is because of the injustice, the boldface-ness, the underhand dirtiness of them people who bring nothing but trouble to Victory because they feel they could own even God sea. And that Hard Man. Well, Lord have mercy on black people ’cause that boy is one of we, and is the white people money, the might he feel guarding they property that foolish Hard Man head and make him forget that he is a human being like everybody else. That is what went straight to his head and make him turn gun on Michael. Money, brethren, is what make some people feel they have more rights than everybody else. I telling you that is the disease that Hard Man catch. But God don’t sleep.”

  She move from the benches to stand up in front of the church where all eyes could see her, and Pastor Williams, realizing that she riding with the Spirit, step aside to let her have her say.

  “Greed!” she shout, pushing her bulk up on her toes as though she trying to gain height to seal her conviction. “The greed of people that can’t satisfy till they buy heaven self, I not ’fraid to talk it, brothers and sisters. But we know them people.” And she thrust out her hand in the direction of the resort, holding it stiff and deliberate like the rod of correction self. “They up to no good and that is what send Michael to his grave, big Good Friday when people should be praying, studying how them hard-hearted Pharisee hang Jesus up on a cross because he show them up, expose they wickedness, and all he wanted to do was love people.”

  And the church chorus, “Amen, sister! Speak it.”

  “That boy only do good for people. Yes, is somebody have to give due account for the innocent blood that shed. Yes, Father, on Good Friday self one year to this very day and justice not served!”

  “Not served!” the church answer.

  Is so Miss Ivy put it and nobody disagree with her words. Then, as if her testimony give little Laura courage to speak her heart, she bring her word even though is not a good year since she baptize. Laura, holding onto Papa Joseph hand, begin to tell how Michael spirit was really there in the service that morning, because when the church was quiet with only the low moaning and rocking because everybody praying deep, the same time that Miss Ivy say she hear him singing, that was when a cool-cool breeze stop just so and sweep through the gathering where everybody pack up tight like sardine in ten o’clock hot sun, and she feel her Uncle Michael passing. She say he smell like when he bathe off and dress up for Sunday evening and douse-down in Papa Joseph Old Spice cologne that he get every Christmas without fail from his daughter. Naomi always making joke that Mama Louise like her men smelling sweet, so she plan to keep up the tradition now that Mama dead and gone.

  And that was when Naomi really start to cry.

  “Out of the mouth of babes shall spring forth the truth!” Pastor proclaim.

  And the church say, “Amen!”

  Poor little Laura heart nearly break believing that she do some unspeakable crime and she run quick to hug up Naomi, saying over and over again, “Sorry, Grannie, sorry.”

  Papa Joseph had to take the child in the back of the church and try to soothe her. “Hush, dou-dou,” he say in his gentle way, and his voice ringing with a kind of pride. That was how the congregation get to know that the child have the gift to see spirits. So while they feeling how Naomi pain open up like a wound, they glowing inside to see how the church get bless and knowing that Susan, who all the way up in New York working hard like a dog, would be proud to hear how Laura growing up close to the Lord.

  Naomi cry so hard for her son that is like three o’clock Good Friday afternoon come back again and Sunil running up from the beach shouting, “Oh God, they shoot Michael!” At first people only stare like they didn’t want to believe, but everybody hear the gunshot that blast away the usual deadness of the hour when not even dog have courage to bark. Then is like feet decide before head that Sunil wasn’t tripping because next thing the whole of Victory Bay fly down to see where Michael lie down with a hole in his chest and his two eye open like he don’t believe that is dead he dead.

  Is so Naomi cry again, raw like on that same day when Esa had to hold her back from the body because she pick up the boy by his shoulders and start to shake him, bawling, “Wake up, son! Wake up! Somebody wake him up!” And the crowd stand up like they don’t know what to do, like they ’fraid to meet the naked plea in her eyes, since what she asking make them feel their own smallness that they can’t do nothing to help. They can’t fight death. Is Esa who had to break through the circle and lead Naomi away slow-slow. She hold Naomi head on her shoulder all the way and Naomi saying over and over again, “He only just leave home to breeze out little bit on the beach.” And Esa crooning to her like she is a child, saying, “Is okay, mother, hush-hush now,” and all the while her own face wash with tears that she didn’t have time to heed.

  Hard Man, the security, stand behind the chain-link fence in his black overalls and sunglasses, staring out at the crowd like what he seeing have nothing to do with him, even though he still holding the gun that hang down in his hand as if he don’t even know it there. He just stare and his mouth half open behind the fence, and the two big guard dogs barking and running wild-wild up and down like they gone crazy. Nobody see the Syrian and them who own the place. They never come out. They never come to the wake or the funeral. They didn’t even send flowers. People say they wasn’t there that day. But later somebody report that they see a face by the window upstairs, a face that nobody could name, only that it was there, witness to the whole thing.

  The church see it again, just like Naomi say. Michael watching the road from the gallery while Guts busy quarrelling about the Syrian people who move in on Victory Bay about two years ago and start one time to build fence right across the track that leading down to the beach where fishermen anchoring boats longer than anybody could remember. “You know what that man watch me in my face and say, Songster, when I tell the stone-faced Syrian that it don’t have no other way to get down to the beach? Boy, that man, with his breath full up of whiskey and the gold chain shining in the sun with crucifix resting on he chest, watch me, as man, and say the track cutting through his property so the fishermen have to either anchor somewhere else or go all the way around Salvation headland. Go ’round Salvation my ass!”

  “Take it easy on the language, man,” Michael warn, but in a kind of voice that tell Guts he with him. It w
as just that he want Guts to remember he was in his mother yard and she don’t stand for that type of talk, especially on Good Friday.

  Michael listening but his mind was travelling, a thing that happen with him every now and again, so much so that Papa Joseph, who outlive his own son as he like to boast, warn him already not to study life too deep. “Boy, you will tire your soul. One day at a time, man, one day at a time.”

  Maybe it was good advice, but Michael use to wonder if he do like Papa Joseph say, he use to wonder what he will miss out on becoming, what he will regret that he didn’t build. “But a man have to plan his life, not so?” he ask Papa Joseph. And Papa just laugh like he familiar with the idea, but that it was the kind of thing not to take serious because it prove wrong long time. Is just that Michael too young to know. Or maybe he laugh because the idea remind him of something he wanted to forget. Maybe he didn’t have the courage to remember what he never do as a man, so he laugh to throw a blanket over the emptiness inside that he didn’t fill, or couldn’t fill. He laugh because it so true what Michael say that the pain the truth cut in him make him want to ease the hurt little bit.

  But Michael never really know what was behind Papa Joseph mantra, One day at a time, man. What he sure about, as he tell anybody who willing to listen, is that life can’t live just so. You have to decide how you want to shape it, like how the children take the sand on the beach and build all kind of fancy house and thing, the same sand that everybody walking on, he watch how they dream it into shapes. “That is how you have to live.”

  So it was not that he didn’t care about what Guts was saying. In fact, everything Guts talk about was why his mind was travelling. Michael think hard about the Syrian and them who come to set up some kind of private club for people from Port of Spain to have a good time and bathe in clean north coast water, soak up sun and drink whiskey all weekend. He think about Hard Man and how he walking up and down the Syrian yard with walkie-talkie in his hand, beeper on his hip, and talk say he even have gun for guarding the white people property. And in between sucking toothpick all day, he chatting up the girls from the composite school, showing off with his walkie-talkie and passing five dollar to the ones who bold enough to answer his challenge to take.

  Just so Hard Man move from hustling ten days all over the place, as far as Grande, to watchman work on the Syrian property. And people feel it have more in the mortar because things look like it going real nice with him. Hard Man neck shining with gold and when he turn up by the snackette to shoot pool with the fellas on his day off, is brand-new threads he sporting and Johnnie Walker he drinking, straight up. Everybody suspicious about what really happening in the place but nobody have anything concrete to move on. All they could get out of Hard Man is his anthem, “Them Syrian have money to throw way, partner!” and he do a kind of one-two move, sliding his waist dainty-dainty and holding up his hands like he dancing a set with somebody, just like the white fella who break ranks and singing calypso in tents all over Port of Spain, sink or float.

  But Michael was also thinking about Esa, who come with the news that Hard Man make a move on her the other evening when she was passing through the track as usual to meet him down by the boat. She say how he appear out of nowhere and stop her just so. “You trespassing, lady. You have to pay to pass,” Esa say he tell her, and his hand reach and grab hold of his crotch and he start to smile like he already doing to her what he thinking.

  “I will kill him if he touch you. Let him touch you!” His anger had scared them both and she throw her arms around his neck and hold him to calm him because she didn’t want nothing to happen now that the baby coming.

  “Baby?” he say and pull away to watch her straight in her face. She wasn’t going to tell him then, but something in his anger, in the pure strength and purpose of it, reach right into where the child was resting and tell her the time was right to open her secret.

  “Baby?” That was what make the ground he was standing on shift and then he had to reach out and hold her to steady himself. He hold on as though he finally find the anchor he was looking for, and after the truth finish rock him, he said it: “We getting married.” Straight so. He didn’t have to think and he know it was because the decision was only waiting for him all this time to claim it. “After the child born, we going to do it.” And this time he hug her with the yes of his embrace that was also his decision to put things in place—money for the wedding and to fix up a place for Esa and the baby.

  She simply look at him and answer, “Yes,” as if a world open up that was bigger than the two of them. And that was what really settle it for him, the yes that sound like a surrender to a future.

  Then there was Queen Penny rocking peaceful down in the bay. She had some years on her but she was a good, sturdy craft. That was his future, and Esa’s. Two more payments and Mr. Oswald would hand her over. That was their agreement when he tell Michael he was giving up the fishing to go States-side by his daughter.

  “I getting old,” he say. “Forty-five years I in this,” and he look out across the wide blue of the bay.

  A kind of sadness come down between them that make Michael joke, “But you have plenty in you still, man. What you mean you getting old?”

  It was late and nobody was on the beach then, only the anchored boats bucking on the waves and two strays combing the water’s edge for fish guts. Mr. Oswald give a little laugh just to show he know the game and pass his hand down the front of his bare chest that still show his power, although the skin no longer smooth and tight. Tide was in and the bay look full and settle. Mr. Oswald take a deep breath like a man who trying to touch once again what he know to be true about himself.

  “The sea is a good life for fellas with the belly. Peter not interested. He set on wearing police uniform. Pretty-boy work, but that is his choice. I not meddling. So is only me now with Maureen done married and settle down up in Florida. She say she want me to come up and take things easy for a change. Take things easy.”

  Michael listen to him repeat the line and he wonder if Mr. Oswald was trying to teach himself what they might mean. He was a man seasoned on hard work, getting up four o’clock every morning so that before five he guiding Queen Penny out the bay, and he know he not setting foot on land until next day same time. Sun and rain beating down on his back while he waiting for what the sea will give him. Michael watch him walk to where the surf hustling up the beach. He walk into the water a little way then, bend down and draw up a handful to wash his face.

  “The boat is yours if you want it,” he say without turning around to face him. “We could work something out with the payments. But I giving you first choice.” With that he start to wade slowly toward the deep and then he disappear beneath the swelling surf.

  Not even his mother know what Michael and Mr. Oswald plan. Michael wanted it to be a surprise when he stand up on the day the last payment make and tell her that he own a boat. That was what he wanted. To announce his ownership—not that he feel it would make him a man or make people see him. No, the boat was a signal to himself and to everybody of his decision to claim his space in the world and to make his future real. Two more payments. That was all.

  But now the Syrians come and make life hard for everybody by trying to control access to the beach.

  “They wrong,” Guts was still complaining. “That is a public beach and everybody damn well know that you can’t pass Salvation side even in low tide, and besides, who he think he is to tell me where to anchor my boat? That out there is God sea, man.”

  After that Guts get silent as if he tired, too tired to even quarrel again. He sit down on the step with one leg cross tight over the other. Is all his life, since he old enough to handle his own line, Guts fishing in north coast waters with his father, and anchoring Saga Boy, the boat that he take over when old man St. Clair pass on. It use to be Promise Land then, but Guts say with his father dead and gone a new time start. So the same week that St. Clair bury, Guts decide to rename the boat. He get Miss Ivy
son, Santo, who could paint sign good though is mostly road work he doing, to write Saga Boy on the bow in red, yellow, and green, with fancy lettering that look like waves. That is how he tell Santo to make them: “Like waves cruising in on the bay.”

  But that was not enough, because like Guts wanted to make a big statement about his life now that he was in charge of his own boat. Like he wanted to say to the people that he not no little boy, although nobody would look at Guts with his salt-and-pepper head of hair and think he was no boy. It was like Guts wanted to announce his independence and to tell the world that he was the owner now that his father gone. So he buy two bottle of rum and some beer from by Harry, a fella from Grande who come all the way to Victory Bay to set up a “modern establishment,” as he like to call it.

  Harry Recreational Club and Bar was the full name, the first of its kind on the coast that have pool table and a secondhand arcade game called Speedway that always have about three or so young fellas glue onto the screen any time of the day, “wasting they mother money,” according to Naomi. Santo self paint the sign that cause big quarrel between him and Harry when some white man who on holiday sightseeing stop and say is bad English Santo paint. In the end they decide to leave the sign rather than squeeze in the apostrophe, which would only cause it to look choke up.

  So Guts boat get baptize, with some fellas on the beach drinking rum and beer from Harry club, talking and cussing politicians until it get dark and the bottles empty.

  That was before the Syrians come and say the estate that stretching for seven acres on the coast side of the main road is their own. As long as anybody could remember, that same estate was only bush with one or two mango tree and coconut growing on it. But the owners come to claim it and in two-twos a van with some men pull up. Then a truck come and drop material and fence start to go up, beginning from Salvation headland on the east where Prophet meditate every morning for twenty years before he pass away, and use to say he could hear Africa clear-clear from there. The fence stretch from Salvation right down to the boundary with the Breezy Ridge property that the retired English doctor own. No beach down below, only rocks and sea where they say the doc wife fall from trying to fly back home on whiskey and coconut water.