Kingston Noir (21 page)
Nobody remembers her name: has no one at the
Gleaner
or the
Observer
or on JMTV ever noticed that?
Parker James’s favorite model
…
Parker James’s model wife considers retirement at thirty …
The woman leans toward the river mumma model, who leans back toward her as the seconds thunder past. The chains around the woman’s bare feet crackle. Parker says the chains have to be heavy.
More than anything else, she knows he will never change.
“What is my name?” she asks.
River mumma frowns. “How you mean?”
She slips past her and away.
She remembers Parker sitting beside her, under the bougainvillea tree, picking up her history book, and she could hardly breathe, his voice was so pretty. He had the right kind of voice for reading bedtime stories. He read the first page and the second and the third, and she found herself melting against the tree trunk. He still reads to her at night, fifteen years later, everything she’s ever loved: Shakespeare and Jean “Binta” Breeze and Naipaul and Dickens. She can lean back and lose herself in a sea of words and different worlds, his voice deep and sure, his hands on her waist afterward, so gentle and hissing into her neck.
—
You hot inside, sweet gyal
.
She used to hope that someone else would come along one day and read her stories. But she knew it wouldn’t happen. No one would sound like him and she didn’t have to fill in her name on the forms at the UWI hospital because everyone there knew who she was.
She brushes her hand up and down her body; up and down and the chains jingle and she tells herself it is just like jewelry. Parker usually hides the damage in her scalp, in the cleft of her buttocks and between her thighs. This week, he has been gleeful and unrestrained. The bruises are purple and yellow and black; fist-sized lumps across her shoulders. There is a bruise on the sole of her left foot. All for his artistic integrity.
Four minutes; river mumma is finishing her circuit—the woman knows by the rising claps—has she cried enough to please Parker? He is waiting in the front row, at the foot of the stage. The woman always walks ramp as his last model, the best in show. He will mount the stage to hold her hand and take the final bow.
—
Perfect
, Parker said, when the makeup artist brought the chains to loop around her feet and throat. His fingers trembled as he clothed her in chain, and turned her, so she could see herself in the full-length mirror. His eyes were wet. —
Did I make you beautiful
?
Scrabbling fingers on her concave belly.
—
Oh, yes
.
She can’t leave this love. And Parker will be what he is, forever.
The woman remembers her mother’s stories.
—You can hear it?
She reaches up, mimics her mother, cupping her ear.
—
Listen good: rolling calf a-walk.
She has always shivered at the strength and power of the rolling calf story. There are so few details, as if people have been struck dumb with the terror. They say that your head swells and lifts before the rolling calf comes; that you can feel your feet rising from the floor. Clanking chain and hoarse panting. Is that a roar outside? Hooves clitter-clatter, clunk. Hiss of fire, smell of smoke. Never, ever-ever look into its burning orange eyes, and if you hear it coming, curse bad words! Curse as loud and long as you can and pray the rolling calf go on past. It can bruise you with its flailing chain, even with its back turned.
Flame eyes, dragging broken chain, ripped free … from what?
Hell, hell. She knows.
She climbs the steps and parts the curtains: —
Aaaaaah
, say the audience.
Flame creeps up the cheap black fabric where her fingers cling. The orange dress he made especially for her crackles on her skin; her nostrils flare at the smell of ash. The chains are hot and violent snakes, undulating down her thighs.
Her belly is suffused in golden fire. She laughs at the candles. Thrusts her hand into a naked torch, up to the armpit; there is no pain anymore.
People scream and clutch their heads; scatter and pray. A few curse: rich and juicy epithets through the dark night air. Others float, inches from the steaming grass. She can hear Parker screaming at the end of the catwalk.
“No, no, no!”
Whoomph!
Her hair burns. Her bruises peel away under the heat, like black paper.
Walk and roll, she thinks.
Her eyes burn last.
ONE-GIRL HALF WAY TREE CONCERT
K
ingston full of them. But this one take the cake. Short shorts and a silver kitchen knife to rhaatid. People call her mad but before that them used to call her dancehall queen and before that she was Mrs. Anderson daughter and before that somebody did leave her in the trash up Premier Plaza.
Is Patsy she name. One week now she standing here, with a knife in her hand, right across from the clock tower in the middle of the four-directions square.
Traffic back up and people full up the street, but she don’t look neither left nor right. She just watch the door at the foot of the clock. And she don’t talk neither, except middle day. Every twelve o’clock—to no one in particular.
Yesterday, hear her:
Watch me and them. My feet will never have enough.
And she laugh one long forever laugh and fling back her head then get all quiet and gone back deep-deep in herself. Whole time she just rubbing her finger along the edge of the blade. Today now, is like she pick up her thought from the day before—hear her:
Trust me. There’s more to me than this badass weave.
After that, she tug up the zip on her boots and watch back the clock. The door lock with a padlock and mark with four letters:
N-O-I-Z
. The sky over Half Way Tree vex with electric wire. Hungry birds all over.
We are the children of Jah-Jah/Don’t let Babylon catch-ya—
is a one-foot dread outside the electronics shop on the other side of the street. Him sell cell phone cover and brassiere and panty—pink nylon that smell like ganja.
People say Patsy waiting for a DJ to step out the clock. A man with a razor-sweet mouth who will kiss her up and make her put down the knife all slow. That’s what she waiting for, they say. Some of them say she waiting for Governor General to step out. She did have a baby for him, them say. People say plenty things. Let them talk—they don’t know nothing. Maybe is all Jesus Christ she waiting for. Her weave long and black like john crow tail-feather. Maybe is duppy she waiting for too. Let them talk.
We are kings and queens here/The dawtas need my brassiere—
the dread tapping his one-foot.
Tuesday, twelve o’clock, hear her:
Run the tune.
Nobody don’t hardly notice. She say it small like she talking to the door. She look bad now—her weave don’t comb and her centipede eyelashes soon fall off.
Run the tune,
she say again. This time louder. One centipede fall and she don’t even blink; she just watching the door.
Run the tune!
Her voice fill with barbwire and coral weed. Play her the dancehall, people say. No, is roots cure she need, some say. Everybody think them know what Patsy need. Maybe is all hey-diddle-diddle she want, or #386 in the Sankey Hymnal. Is so Half Way Tree tune clash.
Long time before the clock build there was a cotton tree on the same-same spot—a big slave-time tree—right where the clock tower standing. That tree knew every historyness. An English soldier kill a boy under it one time. The boy spit on the ground and the spit catch the soldier’s boots and that’s
how the fight start. And years later, an ole woman dead under it. She dead with a farthing in one shoe and a free paper in the other. She walk from Trelawny to St. Andrew and was so tired; she just lay down and dead. For there is a tiredness so deep it can kill you; a tiredness that trace straight back through your blood to a far-off shore.
Nighttime, Patsy sleep not far from the clock, in Mandela Park. Rats in the park big as puss. She curl up on the concrete with two crocus bag. She is not a fool. If any man bother her she say,
I am HIV positive. I am HIV positive. I am HIV positive,
over and over. As soon as day light, she gone back to watch the clock. Mrs. Anderson live in Canada and have relatives in Buff Bay, but them don’t want anything to do with Patsy. They write letter to Mrs. Anderson that her save-from-trash daughter standing up in front the clock at HWT. Last July Patsy come home late one night from party with wildness in her eye.
My feet,
is all she say; and from that she not herself. But Mrs. Anderson can’t do anything. She have Parkinson’s and live in government housing with her niece.
I&I am a witness/This one for the empress—
Dread business going good today—
Hotness is a gift!
Only one person bother with Patsy—a high school girl that cross the street sometime and leave a patty or box drinks. Patsy don’t even look on it, but when night come she take it. The girl leave a shoulder bag with a box of Tampax in it and every day now Patsy sport the bag on her shoulder; a nice bag too—shineblack with a silver buckle. The girl just leave the things, quick, and walk off; don’t even look behind. A bow-leg girl—Merle Grove High—with her backpack and cornrow hair. Wednesday, twelve o’clock, hear Patsy:
I dance for them on the ship; 1792.
She don’t say it to nobody special, but she still watching the door.
They say the ancestor tree was silk cotton—one massive trunk, so big you could keep session in it. Still, the only thing cottonwood use for is canoe and cricket bat. And coffin. But the roots-them travel far-far underground, down and across.
People don’t know it, but is only the grace of God and the leftover roots holding up Half Way Tree; after all this time, those roots still span under the earth clear to York Pharmacy and the Tastee’s patty shop; they even travel below Hope Road, deep under the bus stop and the schoolchildren feet.
Those roots suck plenty spill blood and cares-of-life tears.
Watch yourself, people. One day sorrow ground will cry out.
Thursday, hear Patsy:
They made me do it.
Rain falling in Half Way Tree and she don’t have no umbrella. The rain coming down, coming down. She hold the bag closed, but water fill up her boots.
Rain a fall/breeze a blow/Jah-Jah call us way down low—
the dread laugh and open his mouth to let the rain fall inside, every drop of Jah-Jah water numbered. The bra and panties cover with plastic.
Friday, sun-hot; hear her:
I wheel and dance for I think they would free me.
The street busy with buses and cars and police. Public Works employees on strike. A roadblock on Hagley Park Road. An evangelist preaching dutty hell. None of that bother Patsy—her eyes on the door like is Zion gate.
Saturday, hear her:
The white man pull an ostrich feather out his hat and put in my hair. That’s when I know I can’t fly home.
People say Patsy waiting for Bob Marley to come out the clock. When Prophet Bob come she will take it as a sign to cut off the weave and turn rasta. Bob will hold up Manley arm on one side and Seaga arm on the other, just like the old days. Manley will be on the downtown side of the clock and Seaga will be on the uptown side. People say a lot of things.
Sunday, rain again. The sky gray like dutty dishwater. Funeral up at Holy Cross Church. The procession pass and three crows circle behind. Patsy look hungry. No high school girl today. This time Patsy have a broken umbrella though. Blue with
Fi Wi Versal Studio, Ltd.
mark all around; and one spoke that stick out. Twelve o’clock, hear her:
Fly away home to Zion/ Fly away home.
The birds gone and the patty shop closed. Her shorts not so tight anymore.
One time they hang a girl from the silk cotton tree. Is the kind of historyness that get tear out the book, but bad-mind can’t stop story from coming out. The girl said a brazen thing and for that they hang her. Just a young girl—with a fever baby left in the crib. They hang her from a high-high branch and when they pull the rope she hear a strange music that come from afar—from way out in the future, two hundred years. She never hear a music like that before, all roots and bassfull and one-drop beat; and her two feet dance a dance right over the spot where you see Patsy looking. And she let out a sound, jah, and give up the ghost.
Monday, again, and early. The high school girl leave a plantain tart and a bottle soda. She leave quick and catch her bus. Nice girl. Jamaica need more like that. People say if Bob Marley come out the clock, he will come holding one arm of Selassie and one arm of his father—the white man, Norval, who run leave him. Three short little man stand up together. Some of them say no, he will come with Queen Nanny, the maroon warrior sistah, and her adversary, Cuffee. For don’t historyness can keel over and change that way? Patsy watching close now, like her eyes picking the lock. The wheels in them turning. A man take a photo but she don’t even see the flash.
Calling children of the Most High/We don’t want no sufferation—
Hear Patsy:
I dance so hard, my feet couldn’t stop.
People say Patsy boots fill with American dollars. She standing on money, they say. People like to guess how much money in her shoes. One thousand dollar in each boot, a schoolboy say. How you mean? say the other one. Five thousand. No, a million. She sell her soul to DJ; is must at least one million she have. People say her poom-poom fill with evidence. She have a flash drive in there that could bring down the whole Jamaica government. Somebody give her the cash in exchange for shutting her mouth, they say. People like to talk. They madder than Patsy. Let them run their mouth.
Tuesday early-early; tropical storm warning and where Patsy going to go? Rain falling; shop soon lock up and everyone gone home. Only two dog under the piazza across the street. Hear her:
Who can’t fly, run. Who can’t run, dance.
And her two knees touch and part touch and part; then stop. Rain fall and make a pool, up to her ankles. Her made-in-China hair blow across her face. Rain beat the door, but not a soul come out.