The Girl With the Golden Shoes

by Colin Channer

  “It can take it, man. It can take it. Have faith. Is a old truck, but it good. Look how it carry all o’ we from clear down Speyside to here.”

  “Vashti, you can’t even drive a cow out you yard, but you want to give me advice?”

  “Is far she coming from, you know, Joseph. Is not just from the bridge. Is far. From way down the Atlantic side. I ain’t asking you to take her all the way. Just down to the coast road. You ain’t even have to run the engine. You could just make it glide.”

  “Have a heart nuh, Joseph,” said the woman with the red bandanna. “Have a heart. Do it, nuh. God will bless you.”

  The driver cleared his throat.

  “I have a heart,” he said. “I have a heart in truth. But I want to have a job too. So tell her get out o’ my truck.”

  The woman in the red bandanna stepped away and looked up at the disappointed girl. “Your people is a funny people,” she said, enraged. “They say everybody fight them, but they love to fight themselves.”

  As Estrella bit her lip and thought of what to say, the woman stepped up on the running board and shouted in the driver’s face.

  “Joseph, you is a worthless nigger man! A worthless nigger man! The child trying to reach somewhere and you is the only body who could help her, and look how you going on. Down by the estate you like to talk you tripe ’bout unionize, and work together, and black and Indian must help each other. And here it is now, you wouldn’t even try to help you own kind. We is Indian and we care more than you. You is a disgrace to you blasted race. You is a damn disgrace. Listen—the next time you see me, don’t tell me nothing ’bout Marcus Garvey and all them tripe. Just don’t tell me nothing. As a matter o’ fact, don’t even drive me in you blasted truck again. If you see me in you way and you driving you truck, Joseph, just run over me to rass. Just run right over my head. And run over me from behind, because I ain’t want see you blasted ugly face no more.”

  With this she tramped away.

  “In ’35 when we strike,” the driver answered, his voice low but poised to grow into a bulging force, “I take bullet in my ass and baton in my head for ungrateful rasses like you. Damn coolie! You is a blight on the black man. You is a lice. They bring you here so we couldn’t get we proper pay when free paper come, ’cause the white man know your kind would work for rum and a bowl o’ curry rice. But when I call the strike, you wouldn’t stand with me. That’s why we don’t have any blasted union in San Carlos today, and Rawle could pay we what he want to pay we. Because o’ folks like you. Everybody in the West Indies striking those times…St. Kitts, Jamaica, St. Vincent, St. Lucia…and all o’ them get their union from that, except we. Why? Because o’ people like you. That’s why we ain’t have nothing in this country.” He paused to catch his breath. “I is a old man, trying to live out my days. And you want to pressure me to prove myself to you? To bow down to you? To do what you want me to do just because you say so? Why I should follow you? You name Gandhi?”

  I ain’t want no bangarang because o’ me, Estrella thought. Lemme just take my things and go.

  “Oyi,” she called to Vashti. “Let him go. His conscience going jam him tonight.” She came down from the truck and stood beside the disfigured man.

  He put his hand on her head and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  “It ain’t nothing to sorry ’bout,” she said with disappointment. “It ain’t nothing to sorry ’bout at all. I come farther than a lot o’ people think I could go. But thank you anyway.”

  “You know, as long as we talking I ain’t know you name.”

  “Listen it good.”

  She told him with her lips against his ear. He tapped her on the shoulder with a disenchanted look on his disfigured face and said, “Don’t make anything happen to you, you hear?” and walked into the bush toward a bobbling light.

  “Is not my fault,” the driver said when he and Estrella were left alone. “If it was up to me, I would take you. But I ain’t even think it have enough petrol in this thing. And if it stop with me out here on the road, how anybody going to know? Plus my wife and children waiting at home.”

  Estrella placed her back against the door, her face away from him. “Is not me you have to tell,” she said as she thought of what to do. “I ain’t ask you for a thing. Is they ask you. I ain’t ask them to ask you. Is them is you friend. Is them you let down. It ain’t me.” She slammed her hands against the door and walked away. “So don’t say a goddamn thing to me.”

  “I ain’t supposed to do this,” said the driver, leaning from the cab. “If they find me out, is rass.”

  She turned around with a hand across her brow, her body silvered by the high beams, heard his work boots crunching down the grade, then saw his back-lit shadow slowly coming into view.

  When he was beside her, she saw that he was stocky, and wore glasses on a peanut-colored face. His silver hair receded sharply, and he’d shaved his mustache in a pencil line.

  “Let me take the basket. Come.”

  She climbed into the cab. When they were coasting down the road she asked him, “Who’s Mr. Rawle?”

  The windshield had a set of hinges where it met the roof. He’d opened it so that it formed an awning, and the wind was blowing straight against her face.

  “On this island,” he began, “it have three families that count. It have Rawle. It have Campbell. It have Salan. Rawle and Campbell is like one because o’ marriage. And soon it going be Rawle alone since Salan young daughter married Rawle big boy. Rawle own sugar on this island. Rawle own cattle on this island. Rawle own coconuts. And although he get a blow with the coconut blight, and although he had to sell off most o’ the estates so that he only have this Speyside now, and although nobody buying beef now because o’ the war, Rawle is still the sheriff in this town. You see Salan?” He glanced at her to see if she was listening. “He’s coming up fast. And I like him more, because he is a man that start out poor, and he deal with people with manners. But you have to watch him, ’cause them Jews and Lebanese is tricky like rass.” He tapped her shoulder. “I watching this scene long time, you know. I know what’s going on. I bet you a thousand pounds that before I dead Salan going richer than Rawle. I don’t know exactly how. But I know it going happen. Lemme show you how the man full o’ tricks. Just when the war break out and Rawle get lick with the coconut blight, Salan go to Rawle and said, ‘Lemme take some swampland off you hands.’ Well, Rawle like a fool go and sell him. Well, guess what? Before you know it, the Americans leasing this land from Salan to make a airbase. Now why would anybody build a airbase on a swamp? Because they need plenty land that is flat near the sea, and this place is only mountains. So the Americans use their big machine and dig down a hill and use that dirt to fill up a swamp. But guess whose hill? Salan. And guess what again? Salan want to flatten that hill long, long time, but he couldn’t find a way to do it cheap. And guess whose land they dump?”

  “Salan,” she said distractedly, while thinking, I hear he also sell the nicest shoes.

  “You’re a brains. You hear what I telling you?” He beat his hands against the steering wheel. “You get what I saying. You understand my point. So, the Americans spend their money to fill up this land with soil, and then the next thing you know they not building no base again. And the next thing after that you hear is that Salan take that swampland and planting acres and acres o’ cane. Miles and miles o’ cane. You see how the man smart?”

  “He should open a school.”

  “But it ain’t book smart that man have,” the driver emphasized. “It ain’t book smart at all. That man have common sense because he’s a common man. And that is why I like him. He’s a common man. Rawle act too high and mighty, like his shit come from Nova Scotia in a tin like sardine. And the only thing that is making him ride high right now is that Royal Standard Rum. That is the best rum it have in the world. I hear people talking ’bout Bacardi and Appleton and Havana Club like them rum is anything to talk ’bout. Listen to what I saying tonight. I take th
em rum and wash my glass before I tip the best. And is one place grow the cane for that rum and that is Speyside. That’s where grow the finest cane. And that’s why they build that factory there in that bowl that so hard to get to. You lose the quality if you make that rum from them fields it have near the sea. And that is why it burn me when them lice-head coolie never stand by me when we make that strike in ’35. Because if it had union in this country, we could boil down Rawle and all them rasses till they reach the bottom o’ the pot. A lot o’ people vex that the Americans taking over…talking all kind o’ rass ’bout how they ain’t trust United Fruit. But in a sense I glad. One man beating my ass all my life. I say let another man come and lick me and see how it sweet.”

  “You would be vex if I tell you I ain’t feel like to talk?” Estrella asked him dryly.

  “If I would mind?” he asked, offended. “If I would mind? Of course I would blasted mind. I giving you a blasted ride…you better talk to me. Them people I work with ain’t talk to me. They think I talk too much. And some say I must be a spy because how I could cuss Mr. Rawle so much and he ain’t fire me yet. But I ain’t stupid. I ain’t cuss the man to him face. I cuss him to his back. I old now. I do my time. This job to drive this truck here is the only thing I have name pension. When I was cutting and leaf was slicing up my flesh was a long, long time ago. When I born it still had slaves in Cuba. Brazil too. A lot o’ people ain’t know those things. But they ain’t read books, you see. They ain’t read books. So they ain’t know what’s going on.”

  “I like to read,” she said, interested now.

  “For true?”

  “Yes. I like it more than anything it have in the world.”

  “So how you can read but you talk like you ain’t go to school?” he asked, amazed.

  “I can speak English,” she said, switching from Sancoche. “But I have never been to school. I taught myself and I received a little help from a Chinese girl whose father owns a shop.”

  “You are a prize,” he said, pulling over. “A real, fantastic prize. What is you name?”

  “Why you want to know?” she asked defensively.

  “So I could present you with a proper compliment.”

  She leaned over her basket, which she carried in her lap.

  “I ain’t want nobody to tie up my head right now,” she said, reverting to Sancoche. “I ain’t want nobody compliment me or anything like that ’cause that is only talks. I going ’bout my business, you see me here. And that is all I want to do.”

  When they’d begun to coast again, he asked, “Why you going to town so late?”

  “I have business down there.”

  “When I leave you off,” he asked with genuine concern, “how you going to reach?”

  “I ain’t know for sure.”

  “Girl, it going be real hard to get a vehicle driving that way, you know. Unless is a emergency, you shouldn’t try to go.”

  “Is a emergency in truth for me. I sick. I real sick. I real sick o’ this place.”

  She turned so that her back was pressing on the door and placed a thigh against his seat. “Mister, you would never imagine what happen to me.”

  “Tell me.”

  But how I could trust a man who only cuss his boss behind his back? she thought. A man like that is a two-face man. You suppose to say what you feel. ’Cause talk is what make a man greater than a beast. And when you say behind a man what you want to say to his face you showing him something. You showing him that he’s a man and you is some kind o’ mule for him to ride, or some kind o’ dog for him to kick around. And people who take so much kick and ride, they mind weak. And they will talk you business when the pressure start to come. That’s exactly what happen to me. My own friends who was there when that man come out the waves tell lie and spread rumor ’pon me. They ’fraid o’ what come out their parents’ mouth.

  “Let it rest,” she told the driver. “Let it rest. But something happen to me that make me sick down to my soul.”

  In his head he said, This subject needs a change.

  “I hear that fire burning down in Black Well,” he said.

  “Which part is that?” she asked.

  “On the way to town.”

  “I never hear ’bout no place name so. Which part is that? And when you say burning, what kind o’ burning you mean?”

  “I ain’t really know. A man tell me today that they was burning down there again. You ain’t know which part Black Well is?”

  She shook her head and made a grunt.

  “That is where Salan get the Yankee them to fill up the swamp so he could plant the cane. The same place we old people call New Lagos is the same place name Black Well now. When I was a young man a Yankee priest name Father Eddie…Eddie Blackwell was his name…use to do some things out there. Have woman and all, I hear. Maybe that’s why they call it so. But still, it have some o’ the blackest nigger man you ever see out there. So maybe that’s why they call it so.”

  “You mean where it have some houses in the water on the poles?” she asked. “And sometimes out there you could catch manatee?”

  “Same one.”

  “Yes. I know out there.”

  After they’d driven for a mile in silence, which Estrella utilized to prep her mind to walk, the driver took a hand from off the wheel.

  Looking at the girl, her tousled hair, her diamond face, her upper lip, which was encroaching on her nose, he began to rub the leather knob that crowned the long gear stick that slanted from the floor.

  I ain’t able for this rass, Estrella thought. I ain’t able for this rass right now. But you almost there. It can’t turn into nothing big. If he try to force you then it have to be a fight.

  “You have a boyfriend?” he began.

  “I might,” she said flatly.

  “You do or you don’t?”

  “Why you want to know?”

  “I have a son,” he said nobly. “A nice boy. The youngest one. Nineteen years old with a good trade. He’s a mechanic down at Royal Standard. He’s a man can fix anything that break. But is only Indian girls he like. That woman in the red bandanna who just cuss me off, she carrying bad feelings for me. Why? It have a rumor that my son fooling with her girl. But that ain’t true. My son have taste. My son know better than that. My son is a educated boy. Can read and write. And her daughter would see her name on a envelope with money and use it to wipe her ass. By the way, how old you be?”

  “Old enough,” she said, smiling.

  “I ain’t want none o’ them town girls for my son. Them girls have too much guile. He need a nice country girl with ambition. A girl who could read and write.” He raised his hand to make the point. “And she must be pretty too. What man want a bright, ambitious monkey in the bed?”

  Estrella laughed.

  “I ain’t making joke,” he said. “Is a serious thing. Just like no woman ain’t have no use for no fat man. No man ain’t have no use for no ugly woman. And that is fat or slim! When you wake up in the morning and you head ain’t settle yet, you ain’t want to turn and see a face that could stop you heart from beat.”

  “So you think I pretty or you making talks?”

  “Baby, if I make talks to you, you’d ask me to marry you right now. My talks is like a sweet rum punch. It nice you when it going down, but when you done you feel regret, ’cause it will drunk you and make you give away you life.”

  “So I pretty then?”

  “Like the moon right there.”

  She leaned forward and craned her head and saw it. It was bright and almost full, and as she felt it pulling at romantic feelings in her liquid depths, the driver asked her faintly, “I could touch you leg?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, then fired: “Touch my leg for what?”

  Respectfully, he answered, “So I could give a good accounting to my son.”

  The moon illuminated certain passions. She was grateful for the ride, and flattered that he’d choose her for his son. Plus the cab fel
t oddly safe, safe in the way of a studio, a place in which to probe around. Try new things. Test limits. Rehearse.

  “But don’t go too far,” she said, and dropped her forearm in the crevice where her pelvis met her thigh. The driver’s touch was quick and light, more a test of ripeness than a fondle or caress. She took his hand and held it and they rode in swollen silence for a while.

  When they reached the intersection with the coastal road he came around to help her from the cab.

  “You’re a beautiful girl,” he told her. “My son deserves a girl like you. Some men ain’t like a girl with lip. But I like a little lip. Is the ones who ain’t like to talk I can’t take. See…if they ain’t like to talk, they like to brood. I can’t take a woman who just stare at you over breakfast when she vex. When they look at you that brooding way, you lose the taste for food. When a woman gimme lip I take it, smile, then eat my blasted food. But when they stare at me like that, oh God.” He felt he’d said too much and tapped her on the chin. “But look. I running. God bless you. I glad you make me change my mind.”

  “A man never tell me I beautiful, you know, so I don’t know what to say.”

  Across the street she saw the orange light of bottle torches glowing in the stalls where old negritas dressed in skirts and turbans sold small fritters made from black-eyed peas and served with pepper sauce, along with cuts of fried shark. She could also see the silhouettes of dogs and milling people, and smell the garlic marinade in which the cuts of shark were left to soak all day before the old negritas dipped them in the cornmeal batter, turning them to make the grainy mixture cream the meat, which they’d slide into the iron pots that had been used by their grandmothers, and the batter-covered meat would settle in the oily depths where all the salty flavor lurked and gain a brittle shell.

  Beneath the smell of fish there was the wheaty fragrance of the heavy bread the fat negritas baked in ovens built from lime and brick right there beside the road, round loaves that came out bronzed and dusty with the smoky taste of coals.