Senor Nice: Straight Life From Wales to South America

by Howard Marks

  Believing his father was promiscuous and misusing his sexual energy, Menelik stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple of Jerusalem and took it to the ancient Ethiopian city of Aksum, 400 miles north of today’s Addis Ababa. The Ark, it is claimed, now rests inside the city’s Church of St Mary Our Lady of Zion, which was built on the site of Ethiopia’s oldest Christian church. Near Aksum in the Ethiopian highlands there was a community of African Jews called Falashas who claim descent from Solomon and adhere to a form of primitive Judaism based on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, written by Moses. Now all living in Israel, they observe the sabbath, practise circumcision, worship in synagogues and abide by Jewish dietary laws.

  Born in Jamaica in 1887, Marcus Mosiah Garvey envisaged a free Negro race and believed that the descendants of slaves should return to Africa to set up their own nation state. Organising strikes and riots in Kingston, he quickly gained a reputation for his powerful oratory. Rural black Jamaicans did not adapt well to working in urban environments and learned to survive by street scams picked up from the hoodlums and freed prisoners who continued to arrive in Trench Town and other West Kingston ghettos. Gradually the area turned into a battlefield for the often corrupt politicians raging against the injustices of the establishment. Garvey had prophesied that a black king, crowned in Africa, would rise to lead all Africans, wherever they might be, out of bondage, and in 1930 Emperor Haile Selassie I, known as Ras Tafari – the feared prince – was elected the 225th monarch of Ethiopia. Garvey saw Ethiopia, the oldest monarchy in the world, as a symbol of freedom, sovereignty and African spirituality, and kick-started Rastafarianism, the spiritual nationality of Jamaica and the island’s most compelling cultural force.

  Jamaicans now had an ideology that recognised their ancestry and respected the dignity of Africa. Many acclaimed Haile Selassie as the living God and saw Marcus Mosiah Garvey, whose middle name was a combination of Moses and Messiah, as a prophet and the forerunner of Haile Selassie, as John the Baptist had been to Jesus. They identified with the Jews, who had spent generations in captivity and slavery and who had been forcibly scattered throughout the world. Jamaicans were the lost tribes of Israel who had been sold into slavery in Babylon, which is not a place but the sum of all the institutions and thinking that keep people economically, politically, mentally and spiritually enslaved.

  The pioneer of Rastafarianism in Jamaica was Leonard Percival Howell. Despite his surname and having a son named Cardiff, I could find no other Welsh connection. In 1940 Howell and Joseph Hibbert, ardent believers in the divinity of Haile Selassie, set up Pinnacle, the first Rasta commune. African music was played continually to the 4,000 formerly homeless members, who lived on the productive land in thatched huts. Howell based his sermons to the early Rastas on the Old Testament, particularly Psalms and Proverbs, teaching that if God was any colour, he was black, and that the first human beings were Ethiopians. In defiance of materialistic values and vanity, the Rastas wore torn clothes and began wearing dreadlocks, which, following the biblical precept ‘for no razor shall touch the heads of the righteous’, are washed but not combed, brushed or cut. Dreadlocks remind them of God and connect them more directly with him. Wearing matted or twisted locks of hair is widespread in Africa. The Masai of Kenya and groups in Somalia, Ghana, Senegal, Gambia and of course Ethiopia, have all worn them.

  The Rastas eschewed meat and shellfish for ‘I-tal’ food – grains, fruit, roots and vegetables – and shunned alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, caffeine, sugar, processed foods and the use of pesticides or fertilisers. Many believed themselves to be the true Jews and began wearing the Star of David. They also expropriated the colours of the Ethiopian flag: red symbolising blood spilled; gold, hope for victory; and green, the fertile land. The Rastas beat their drums, sang about love and freedom, and quoted from the Bible. Although each family was responsible for itself, a programme of unpaid communal work ensured social benefits to the community. Strictly apolitical, they refused to pay taxes to the government. Pinnacle survived several brutal British raids during which the authorities locked up the Rastas, and cut off their dreads. It was finally destroyed in the late 1950s. The Rastas, with nowhere else to go, fled to West Kingston, where they found their soulmates in the Burru people, who shared the same passion for drumming and Africa.

  Neither Haile Selassie nor any members of the Falashas nor the Ethiopian Christians smoked ganja. Marcus Garvey described it as a harmful weed and regarded Rastafarians, particularly Leonard Percival Howell, as crazy fanatics. Stemming from a multiplicity of beliefs, Rastafarianism is fraught with troubling paradoxes. Not all Rastas have dreads or are vegetarians or read the Bible or are faithful to their women or approve of reggae. Rastafarianism has no churches and is not legally recognised as a religion in Jamaica. It is a state of mind and soul arrived at through spiritual growth and awareness of inner divinity. A devout Christian, Garvey never believed in the divinity of Haile Selassie – neither had Haile Selassie – and in later life became critical of him. In 1935, Mussolini’s Italy invaded Ethiopia, occupying it for five years while Haile Selassie endured comfortable exile in England. In Garvey’s opinion Haile Selassie had betrayed his people to fascists and opted for a life of personal luxury. His dream was shattered and he died a sad man. But all this had little or no effect on Jamaica’s growing numbers of Rastafarian devotees, who continued to revere Haile Selassie as the living God and to smoke ganja in his honour. When Haile Selassie first visited Jamaica in 1966 at the invitation of Mortimo Planno – later Bob Marley’s manager – his aeroplane was greeted by over 100 Rastafarians, some wearing white robes and chanting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David.’ They threw large spliffs at the emperor’s feet. Haile Selassie was so astonished, he had to retreat to his plane for a while to recover.

  The blame or, rather, credit for Rastafarian ganja can safely be given to Howell, one of the finest growers of marijuana the world has known. For over a decade, Pinnacle’s cash crop had been ganja, the Indian word for marijuana. After the British abolition of slavery in 1834, the plantation owners had no one to work the fields, and ships from India brought workers to British Guyana, Trinidad and Jamaica. They were regular users of marijuana and introduced the plant to Jamaica, where it became popular among fishermen and farmers. There was no connection with Ethiopia.

  Howell constantly praised the virtues of the herb. It was the sacrament, ‘the healing of the nations’. By smoking it, a Rasta could arrive at the spiritual plane of consciousness. Ganja smoking heightened intellectual powers, speeded up focused thinking and prepared the user for meditation, prayer, the gaining of wisdom and communal harmony with others. Spliffs helped people forgive, relax, be calm and forget. Howell quoted numerous Biblical passages to support his enthusiasm for the herb: ‘He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man’ (Psalm 104:14), ‘Smoke went up from His nostrils’ (Psalm 18:8) and made much of reports that ganja had been found growing on King Solomon’s grave. Howell referred to ganja as ‘wisdom weed’, an elixir of divine origin.

  Ganja grown in Pinnacle quickly found its way into the Kingston ghettos, where the most prolific users were musicians. When the Rastas were eventually forced out of the security of their commune, they moved into the same impoverished neighbourhood. Sharing a love for African rhythms and ganja, they collaborated.

  Music and ganja are the archetypal tools of communication: each brings about similar physical responses in different people at the same time; each draws groups together; and each creates a sense of unity, enabling people to bond and resonate with one another. Ganja fosters musical creativity and heightens the enjoyment of listening. The most inspired, innovative and pleasurable music of the last century was created by stoners, be they jazz-age swingers, cool beboppers, cosmic hippies or Trench Town roots rockers. The effect of ganja on music appreciation and creativity is almost universal and does not fade with repetition.

  Having given this matter much thought, I think t
here are two explanations: so-called short-term memory loss and time deceleration. When I am stoned, time seems to slow down. In other words, my thinking speeds up. Musical events pass by me at a much more leisurely rate, enabling me to appreciate details and delights I would miss during a straight audition. As for making music when stoned, improvisational jazz has depended on short-term memory for its evolution. When I am stoned, my memory is quickly re-established, suggesting that what has happened is not a loss of short-term memory or a damaging of the brain mediating it, but a different manner of using it. I merely lose track of trains of ideas that are normally being recorded in short-term memory because my perceptions need far more attention than they normally do. My consciousness is heavily involved with matters far removed from mere utilitarian attention to continuity of logical or linguistic thought processes. My experience is so interesting and attention-consuming that I ignore, not lose, my short-term memories. When the virtuoso performer abandons his calculated intents, the result is not nonsense but often his finest creation. Forgetfulness is the catalytic germ of spontaneous creativity.

  Feeling happy and blessed, Leroy and I said goodbye to Mo, who gave me another spliff for the road. We drove towards Jamaica’s north-east coast on a series of secondary roads through Friendship, Clapham, Lucky Hill, Windsor Castle, Montreal, and other strangely named places. At Show Meself Corner, I decided to light Mo’s spliff. Leroy shot me a slightly disapproving glance. I made sure the ash and smoke went out of the window. A few miles from the shore, Leroy stopped the car on a deserted main road.

  ‘Llanrhumney, mon.’

  The countryside was green and beautiful with gentle hills and meadows, reminiscent of certain parts of Wales, but unlike the Cardiff suburb whose name it shared.

  ‘Are you sure, Leroy? There doesn’t seem to be anything here either. There’s not even a sign saying it’s Llanrhumney.’

  ‘Mi one hundred per cent sure, Mon. One hundred per cent sure. Believe mi.’

  ‘Have you checked it out and knocked on all the doors? I assume there are some around here.’

  ‘De is one, just one, an’ belong to di house by di wood. Mi stop de yesterday and mi chat to Marvin, di caretaker. Im know bout Henry Morgan an im know where Henry Morgan treasure buried. Mi just call im from Tuff Gong place. Im a wait fi wi over de.’

  We walked over to a building half of which was a ruin and half of which had been recently renovated. Marvin, smiling broadly and wearing just a pair of jeans and a baseball cap, was sitting on his tractor, which he started as soon as we had shaken hands. Leroy immediately jumped on to the back of the tractor and, with one hand, pulled me up alongside him. The tractor lurched forward and sped towards the wood. Leroy leaned over, pulled out two machetes and gave me one of them. Sharp and lethal, it gleamed in the sun.

  ‘What the fuck do I need this for?’

  ‘Just follow mi, mon, and do what mi do.’

  Reaching its cruising speed, the tractor tore into the wood. Without warning, Leroy raised his machete into the air and took aim at Marvin’s head.

  Leroy was going to kill him! I couldn’t stop him – he was too big. His killer eyes glared into mine, commanding me to raise my machete. I had seen those eyes before in the exercise yards of maximum-security penitentiaries. Leroy had led riots against guards and stopped fellow Jamaicans from carving one another to bits. He was one heavy motherfucker. There was no way I was going to slice off Marvin’s head, but if I didn’t, I might lose mine. I might lose mine anyway. I had obviously got caught up in some vicious posse feud and had unwittingly provided Leroy with the means of getting his target alone, unarmed, in the middle of nowhere with two machetes behind him. Obviously, Leroy would kill me next, and anyone who subsequently discovered the carnage would reasonably infer Marvin and I had killed each other in a machete fight while squabbling over Henry Morgan’s treasure. Leroy had been a senior police officer and would know all about presenting the right clues. No wonder he had found out exactly how long I was staying and which flight I was meant to catch back tomorrow. All my friends had told me I shouldn’t bother with people I had befriended in prison; they were all bad. Why hadn’t I listened? Never mind, it would soon be over. I might meet some nice angels.

  The machete flashed down, whistled through the air and chopped through a cluster of branches.

  ‘Come on, mon. Help mi chop down di bush. If wi don’t, di tractor stop, and wi stuck ina di mud.’

  More relieved than is imaginable, I slashed away at the overhanging vegetation, helping Marvin’s tractor to get through.

  ‘Leroy, I thought you were going to kill me and Marvin – chop our heads off.’

  ‘Yo is stoned, mon, too fucking stoned. Mi tell yo dat de Rasta weed too strong fi yo.’

  ‘But I saw that murder look in your eyes, in your face. You were going to kill.’

  ‘Dat ano me, mon. Yo just see a duppy. Now yo af learn your lesson.’

  ‘I don’t believe in fucking duppies.’

  ‘Shit! So yo woulda rather believe mi, yo big friend, woulda kill yo. Mi, who save yo arse all di time ina di Yankee prison woulda kill yo ina Jamaica. If mi ever see yo a come fi kill mi, mi know it woulda be a duppy. Shoulda be di same fi yo.’

  ‘All right, maybe I am a bit stoned. And a bit jet-lagged. I didn’t sleep that well last night and the tractor is making me feel slightly sick.’

  Leroy stared hard into my face. There was no need for him to say a word.

  ‘All right, I’ve seen a duppy.’

  Despite our efforts, the tractor stopped in a few inches of mud halfway across a narrow river. Marvin reversed the tractor out of the river for a few yards and then drove down into it again, but stuck at exactly the same place. Marvin asked us to get off and repeated the procedure, charging in with full revs. This time he made it. Leroy and I waded through, got back on the tractor, and motored slowly up a slight grassy incline. Near the top the hill got steeper, and we abandoned the tractor and walked to the summit, which was covered with stone walls reduced to ruins a few feet high with some old cannon and other rusty bits and pieces. There were several small caves with boarded-up entrances. Marvin motioned me to follow him. Large red letters stood out from one the walls. C-A-R-T-R-E-F spelt the Welsh word for home. I felt weird.

  Leroy went for a walk as Marvin explained to me how this had been Henry Morgan’s main home in Jamaica. The land was well irrigated and fertile, and the summit served as an excellent lookout. The boarded-up tunnels supposedly went in labyrinthine fashion all the way to the sea, and still housed plenty of precious artefacts, but they were hard to find and even harder to transport, as many of the caves had collapsed, and there were more than a few duppies down there to keep people away. The treasure was all there and would remain so. Leroy returned with a chocolate pod and some fleshy red pear-shaped apples which tasted of delicate flowers.

  The tractor trip back was much easier and thankfully, uneventful. Marvin passed out some welcome Red Stripes, and Leroy discreetly gave him some money before we got back into the car and drove away from Llanrhumney. Dusk was stealing into the hilly creases, filling them with purple haze. The sun cut itself on a sharp hill and bled into the valleys. Long shadows of hilltops flew into the fields like stalking owls.

  I had expected to be thrilled by the experience of following in Henry Morgan’s footsteps and visiting the land in Jamaica he had chosen to remind him of his Welsh birthplace, let alone discovering the possible whereabouts of his treasure. I know expectations are rarely fulfilled, and when they are tend to be anticlimactic, but perhaps my unease was because Henry had lived there during his dotage, his period of disillusionment and paranoia, when he was surrounded by the ghosts of vanished thrills. He should have spent his last years in Wales, where the blood of his ancestors had soaked the soil to keep it Welsh for always. Or perhaps my unease was because of the duppy assassin who looked just like Leroy.

  After driving for fifteen minutes, we saw the sea and came across a sign for Oracabe
ssa.

  ‘Hey, Leroy, isn’t this where UB40 live?’

  ‘Ya mon. Di house no de far from ya.’

  UB40, a Birmingham group who topped the charts during the early 1980s, brought me so much comfort and credibility while I was languishing in TV rooms in American prisons with the gangsters and the gang stars. Even the most die-hard Jamaican reggae fan or Chicago street gang hip hop devotee could never knock UB40, their music, or their incredible integrity and tenacity in ensuring the original Jamaican composers of their songs were financially rewarded. To the average United States penitentiary inmate, nothing else British was worth a fuck, except Lennox Lewis. Shortly after I was released from prison, UB40 – without having any idea how much they had meant to me – sent me copies of all their albums. When I started doing my spoken-word shows, their friends and family would invariably be in the Birmingham audience.

  ‘I don’t know them well personally, Leroy, but I’m sure if I knocked on their door, they would let me in.’

  ‘Mi check yesterday an nobody no di de.’

  ‘You checked a hell of a lot yesterday, didn’t you?’

  ‘Ya, mon. Because yo af just two night. Mi remember yo say yo wan see some live reggae. Tonight, wi ago a di hot spot. Yo remember yo meet Beano over Morgan Hotel? Lickle more wi go check him.’