The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  “You park illegal.”

  “Who goddamn say I park illegal?”

  “Look at the sign.”

  “Which goddamn sign?”

  “The sign that say NO PARKING BETWEEN FOUR AND SIX. And NO STOPPING ANYTIME. You not only park, but you stop. You stationary too.” The Indian green hornet man’s voice get high and shaky. “You have therefore park.”

  “Ahmma gonna give you two seconds, nigger, to take that goddamn ticket off my car, motherfucker!”

  “What you call me? I am no damn nigger. I am Indian. Legal immigrant. I just doing my job for the City of Toronto in Metropolitan Toronto. You are a blasted Amerrican negro!”

  Well, multiculturalism gone-out the window now!

  All the pamphlets and the television commercials that show people of all colours laughing together and saying “We is Canadians,” all them advertisements in Saturday Night and Maclean’s, all them speeches that ministers up in Ottawar make concerning the “different cultures that make up this great unified country of ours,” all that lick-up now, and gone through the eddoes. One time. Bram!

  The Goliath of a man grabble-hold of the hornet by the scruff o’ the green uniform, the peak cap fall-off all like now-so, the little black book slide under the car, the hornet himself lifted up offa the ground by at least three inches, and shaking-’bout in the gulliver’s hands, pelting-’bout his two legs like if he is a Muppet or a poppet; and when I anticipate that the fellow going-pelt him in the broad-road, the fellow just hefted him up a little more higher offa the ground, and lay him ’cross the bonnet of the shining Thunderbird, holding-he-down like how you does-hold-down a cat to tickle-he under his chin; and the fellow say, “Now, motherfucker! Is you gonna take the goddamn ticket off mah Bird?”

  I pass ’long quick, bo’! ’Cause I know the Police does-be up in this St. Clair–Oakwood district like flies round a crocus bag o’ sugar at the drop of a cloth hat; and that they does-tek-in anybody who near the scene o’ crime, no matter how small the scene or how small the crime; and if um is Wessindians involve, pure handcuffs and licks, and pelting-’bout inside the back o’ cruisers till they get you inside the station. And then the real sport does-start! So I looking and I looking-off, knowing that a green hornet, even if he look like a Pakistani or a Indian, but is really a Trinidadian or a Guyanese, and only look a little Indian, he going-get help from the Police. Not one Police. But five carloads o’ Police.

  All like now-so, the road full up with Wessindians and other people, and these Wessindians looking on and laughing, ’cause none o’ them don’t like green hornets, not even green hornets that come from the Wessindies!

  I pass-’long quick, bo’. I got to face the Immigration people in a week and I don’t want nothing concerning my past or present to be a stain through witnessing violence, to prevent them from stamping LANDED IMMIGRANT or IMMIGRANT REÇU in my Barbados passport! I may be a accessory before the fact.

  But I was still thinking of my friend, the other green hornet, so I look back to see what kind o’ judgement the Thunderbird-man was going-make with the Indian gentleman from Guyana, who now have no peak cap, no black notebook, one shoe fall-off, and the green tunic tear-up. And as my two eyes rested on the scene after the fact I hear the Charles Atlas of a man say, “And don’t call the motherfucking cops! I got you covered, nigger. I knows where you goddam live!”

  I hope that this Goliath of a man don’t also know where my Bajan green hornet friend does-live! I hope the Thunderbird don’t be park all the time up here! And I start to think ’bout getting a little message to my friend to tell him to don’t put no tickets on no grey Thunderbirds, or even on no Wessindian cars, like Tornados, whiching is Wessindians’ favourite cars. And I start to wonder if he know that a Wessindian does-treat a Tornado more better than he does-treat a woman or a wife; and with a Wessindian, yuh can’t ask his woman for a dance at a dance unless you expecting some blows. Even if he give you permission to dance with his woman, don’t dance a Isaac Hayes or a Barry White slow-piece too slow and too close, yuh . . .

  I waiting anxious now, ’cause I don’t see the boy for days, these days. I feel the boy already start making money from the scheme. I walk all over St. Clair–Oakwood, all along Northcliffe, swing right ’pon Eglinton, mek a left on Park Hill Road, a further left up by Whitmore, and find myself back ’pon Northcliffe going now in the opposite direction, and still I can’t rest my two eyes on the green hornet. Fellows start telling me that the boy does-be going to the races every day, on his lunch break from ticketing people cars, and betting one hundred dollars on the nose and five hundred to show on one horse, and leffing the races with bundles o’ money. And laughing like shite.

  I walking-’bout day and night, all over St. Clair–Oakwood, and still no sight o’ the boy.

  Then, bram! I start hearing horror stories.

  “I come out my apartment last Wednesday night to get in my car, and my blasted car not there! It gone. Tow-’way!” one fellow say.

  A next fellow say, “Be-Christ, if I ever catch a police towing-’way my car!”

  “I don’t like this place. It too fascist. Tummuch regulations and laws. A man can’t breathe. I can’t tek it ’pon myself and lodge a complaint with the Police ’cause I here illegal. No work permit, yuh know? No job. Now, no car! You park your car, and when you come out in the cold morning to go-work at a li’l illegal job, no fucking car?”

  “I was up by a little skins one night,” a next fellow say. “I tell the wife I going by Spree. I tack-up by Northcliffe at the skin’s apartment. I really and truly did-intend to spend only a hour. Well, with a few white rums in my arse, one thing lead to the next. And when I do-so, and open my two eyes, morning be-Christ brek, and um is daylight. My arse in trouble now, two times. Wife and wuk. I bound-down the fire escape, not to be seen by the neighbours, and when I reach ground, no blasted car!”

  Stories o’ motor cars that get tow-’way start spreading through the St. Clair–Oakwood neighbourhood, just like how the yellow leaves does-fall ’pon the grass a certain time o’ year. Stories o’ fellows getting lay-off, no work permit, getting beat-up, can’t go to the Police in case, and getting lock-out, all this gloom start spreading like influenza. The fellows scared. The fellows vex. The fellows angry. And they can’t go and complain to the Police to find out where their cars is, ’cause, yuh know, the papers not in order. As man! And the li’l matter o’ landed and reçu and so on and so forth . . .

  They can’t even start calling the Police pigs and racists and criminals. And all this time, nobody can’t find the green hornet boy at all.

  Well, a plague o’ tow-’way cars rest so heavy on my mind, even though I don’t own no wheels, seeing as how I is a real TTC-man, that I get real concern. ’Cause, drunk or sober, blood more thicker than water . . .

  “As man!”

  I hear the voice and I bound-round. And look. I see cars. I see Wessindians. I don’t see no Police, but I frighten. I see a tow-’way truck. And I still don’t see nobody I know. But I think I recognize the voice.

  “As man!”

  I bound-round again, and I see the same things.

  “Over here, man!”

  God bless my eyesight! Um is the green hornet man. My friend! Sitting down behind the wheel of DO RIGHT TOWING 24 HOURS. I do-so, look! I blink my two eyes. I seeing, but I not seeing right. I watching, but I having eyes that see and that watch but they not watching right.

  “Um is me, man!”

  The tow-’way truck real pretty. It have-in shortwave radio. Two-way radio. CBC-FM. Stereos. And CB. It paint-up in black, yellow, and white. The green hornet boy, dress-off now in overalls and construction hat cock at a angle on his head, cigar in mouth and shades on his face, like if he is a dictator from Latin Amurca.

  “Remember the plan? The plan I tell you ’bout for making money? Well, I went to my bank and talk to my bank manager and squeeze a loan for this outta the son of a bitch.” He tap the door of the tow-truck like if
he tapping a woman. “And I had a word with a fellow who was a green hornet like me. I is still a green hornet myself, but I works the afternoon shift. This fellow I know, the ex–green hornet, couldn’t take the abuse and the threats to his person of being a hornet, so he open up a little place up in Scarborough where he enpounds the cars I does tow-’way. And me and him splits the money. I brings in a car, and quick-so, um lock-up and enpounded. If a fellow want-back his car, fifty dollars! You want piece o’ this action?”

  I get real frighten.

  “You want to get cut-in ’pon this action?”

  “But-but-but-but . . .”

  “You see that pretty silver-grey Thunderbird park beside that fire hydrand? I watching that car now, fifteen minutes. I see the fellow park it, and go in the apartment building there. I figure if he coming back out soon, he going-come-out within twenty minutes. I got five more minutes . . .”

  I start getting real frighten now. ’Cause I see the car. And the car is the same car that belongst to Goliath, the black Amurcan fellow. I so frighten that I can’t talk and warn my green hornet friend. But even if I coulda find words, my tow-truck friend too busy talking and telling me ’bout a piece o’ the action and how easy it is to tow-’way cars that belongst to illegal immigrants and get money split fifty-fifty, and to remember the Rockefellers . . .

  “. . . and I had to laugh one day when I bring-in a Cadillac,” he tell me, still laughing, as if he was still bringing-in the Cadillac. “Appears that my pound-friend had a little altercation or difference of opinion with a ’Murcan man over a car once, so when I appear with the silver-grey Caddy, he get frighten and start telling me that nobody not going maim him or brutalize him or curse his mother, that before anything like that happen, he would go-back home to Guyana first and pick welts offa reefs or put-out oyster pots down by the sea wall . . . Look, I got to go! Time up!”

  I see him, and I watch him pull off from ’side o’ me like if he didn’t know me, like if I was a fire hydrand. I watch him drive up to the shiny grey Thunderbird car, not mekking no noise, like if he is a real police raiding a Wessindian booze-can after midnight. I see him get-out the tow-truck, like if he walking on ashes. I see him let-down the big iron-thing at the back o’ the tow-truck. First time in my eleven years living here as a semi-legal immigrant that I have see a tow-truck that didn’t make no noise. I see him bend-down and look under the front o’ the Thunderbird. I see him wipe his hands. I see him wipe his two hands like a labourer who do a good job does-wipe his hands. I see him go-round to the back o’ the Bird and bend-down. He wipe his two hands again. I see him size-up the car. I watch him put-on the two big canvas gloves on his two hands. I watch him cock the cigar at a more cockier angle, adjust the construction hat, tek-off the shades and put them inside his pocket, and I see him take the rope that mek out of iron and look like chain and hook-um-on ’pon the gentleman nice clean-and-polish grey 1983 Thunderbird. I seeing him and I watching him. The boy real professional. I wondering all the time where the boy learn this work. He dance round to the tow-truck and press a thing, and the Bird raising-up offa the road like if it ready to tek-off and fly. I see him press a next thing in the tow-truck and the bird stationary, but up in the air, at a angle, like a Concorde tekking-off. I see him bend-down again, to make-sure that the chain o’ iron hook-on good. I see him wipe his two hands in the big canvas gloves a next time, and I see him slap his two hands, telling me from the distance where I is, watching, that it is a professional job, well done. I think I see the dollar bills registering in his two eyes too! And I see him tug the chain tight, so the Bird would move-off nice and slow, and not jerk nor make no noise, when he ready to tek she to the pound to enpound she.

  And then I see the mountain of a man, tipping-toe down the metal fire escape o’ the apartment building where he was, black shoes shining in the afternoon light, hair slick back and shining more brighter from a process, dress in the same three-piece suit, with the pinstripe visible now that the sun was touching the rich material at the right angle o’ sheen and shine, and I see, or I think I see, the gentleman tek-off a diamond-and-gold ring two times offa his right hand, and put them in his pocket—I think I see that—and I see how the hand become big-big-big like a boxing glove, and I watching, but I can’t open my mouth nor find voice and words to tell my former green hornet friend to look over his left shoulder. I seeing, but I can’t talk o’ what I seeing. I find I can’t talk. I can only move. A tenseness seize the moment. I do so, and point my index finger, indicating like a spy telling another spy to don’t talk, but to look behind.

  But at that very moment, the black Amurcan gentleman’s hand was already grabbling my friend from outta the cab o’ the tow-truck . . .

  FOUR STATIONS

  IN HIS CIRCLE

  Immigration transformed Jefferson Theophillis Belle; and after five years, made him deceitful, selfish, and very ambitious. It saddened his friend Brewster very much; but he had to confess that Jefferson was the most successful of them all. Still, Brewster pitied him. However, Jefferson had qualities which Brewster tried to emulate, even though JTB was not a likeable man. He was too ascetic, and pensive, and his friends hated him for it. But Jefferson had his mind on other things: a house and a piece of land around the house. “I must own a piece o’ Canada!” Every morning going to work, as the Sherbourne bus entered Rosedale, he became tense. The houses in Rosedale were large and beautiful; and so far as he could guess they each had a fireplace . . . because, man, I couldn’t purchase a house unless it got a fireplace . . . that fire sparkling, and playing games on my face in the winter nights, crick-crack! . . . and sometimes, at night, Jefferson would go to Rosedale (once he went at three in the morning) to watch the house he had put his mind on. But this house was not for sale! Gorblummuh! That don’t deter me though! ’Cause one o’ these mornings it must go up for sale, and I will be standing up right here, with the money in my hand.

  One Friday night in the Paramount Tavern on Spadina with Brewster, Jefferson had a great urge to see his property. He paid for the drinks; said he had to go to the men’s room; slipped out through the back door; and nearly ran into a taxi driver hustling women and passengers. He raised his hand to call the taxicab. But he realized that he had already spent a foolish dollar on Brewster; so he changed his mind, and mentally deposited that dollar bill to the $10,000 he had in the bank; and he set out on foot. The wind was chilly. Look how I nearly throw-’way that dollar ’pon foolishness! I am still a very strong man at forty. I could walk from Spadina to Rosedale, man. And when he heard his own voice say how wise he was, he walked even faster. Anxiously, he grabbed his left back trousers pocket; “Oh!” he said, and a laugh came out. He didn’t trust anybody; certainly not Brewster. He was very glad the money was in his pocket; and yet, for a second, he imagined that the money was actually stolen, and by Brewster. So he unpinned the two safety pins, undid the button, and took out the money, wrapped in a dirty black handkerchief. His experiences with money had made him uneasy. Any day he might need it for the down payment (although he could not have known what it would be); and if he wanted a house in Rosedale, he must be prepared.

  He walked slowly now (there was money in his hand) and when he came under a light, he counted it. Nine hundred dollars. This money went to work with him; went to church with him; went into the washroom at work and at home with him; and when he went to bed, it was pinned to his pyjamas. “Nine! Right!” He had so much money now, he counted only in hundreds. He put the money back into his pocket; pinned it, twice; and buttoned it down. And before he moved on, he made a promise to change the handkerchief. Five years! Five years I come to this country, with one pair o’ shoes!

  Sometimes, in weaker moments, he would argue with himself to get some education too. Coming through the university grounds once, by chance, he saw a line of men and women crossing the lawn, with the lawn strewn with roses and flashbulbs and cheers and laughter, and a few tears to give significance to the roses and the bulbs; and he felt t
hen, seeing the procession, the power of education and of the surrounding buildings. And he had shaken his head, and run away. The three hours following, he had spent forgetting and getting drunk in the Paramount. That was five years ago. Now, he did not have to run. He walked through the grounds jauntily this time, because he had nine hundred dollars, in cash, in his pocket. And as he came out, to enter Queen’s Park, he saw two shadows; and the two shadows grew into two forms; and one form was raising the skirt above the thighs of the other form; and when they saw him coming, the man covered the girl’s reputation with his jacket. They remained still, pretending they were shadows, until a passing car pointed its finger at the girl’s back; and Jefferson saw UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, written in white letters on the man’s jacket she was wearing. Goddamn, he’s so broke through education, he can’t afford a hotel room!

  Far along Bloor Street, the boasting water-van is littering Toronto and making some pedestrians wet; and a man holds half of his body through the driver’s window, and says, “’Night!” and this greeting carries JTB into Rosedale, quiet as a reservation.

  Five years of hard work have brought him here, tonight, in front of this huge mansion. I going have to paint them windows green; and throw a coat o’ black paint on the doors . . . The screens in the windows will be green like in the West Indies . . . I going pull up them flowers and put in roses, red ones; and build a paling, and build up my property value . . . And he goes up on the lawn and tries to count the rooms in the four-storey house. Imagine me in this house with four storeys! And not one blasted tenant or boarder! But he cannot count all the rooms from the front, so he goes through the alleyway to look at the backyard, and the rooms in the back, and . . . (a car passes; and the man driving turns his head left, and sees a shadow; and he slows down, and the shadow becomes a form; he stops, says something on the radio in the car; parks the car; walks back; and waits) . . . and Jefferson comes humming back to the front lawn, and tries again to count, and four men pounce upon him and drag him along his lawn, with hands on his mouth and some in his guts, and drop him in the back seat of the cruiser. He can hear voices, talking at the same time, coming through the radio speaker. “Good!” a living voice says. “Take him to Division Two.” And they did that.