No Woman No Cry (6 page)

D
URING THE TIME
I was getting to know Bob, he'd been exposing me to the faith of Rastafari, which began in the early twentieth century with Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican who was also from St. Ann. Garvey went to New York, where he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, to encourage black pride and advocate the repatriation of black people to Africa.

Some Jamaicans paid particular attention to Garvey's prophecy that an African king would deliver us from our situation as colonized people, and they came to believe the Ethiopian ruler Emperor Haile Selassie I to have been that person. Selassie's original name was Ras Tafari; his followers and believers are Rastafarians, Rastas for short.

Before the sixties, no one outside Jamaica knew much about Rastas. Within Jamaica, ordinary citizens viewed them as “blackheart” men who lived in the gully and were always smoking ganja (an East Indian word for marijuana). People said they would steal your children away. They didn't cut their hair or straighten it, instead letting it grow naturally into “locks,” or “dreadlocks.” The word “dread,” now used in many ways, has its origins in the Rastafari challenge to Jamaican colonial authority. Which of us is “dreadful”?

In Jamaica, Rasta was the
last
thing you wanted your children to be involved with. People said it turned its followers worthless, that besides smoking ganja Rastas didn't eat properly, wash their hair, or brush their teeth. Only the worst things were said about them—no one mentioned the Rasta message of peace and love and understanding and justice, its refusal of pain and abuse, although they silently agreed with its message of black pride.

For black people everywhere, the 1960s was a time of consciousness-raising. In the United States, people were considering not only “Black Is Beautiful” but “Black Power.” These ideas reached us too; at one time we were all carving small black fists from wood and selling them at the record shop. People bought them to wear around their necks. For one album cover the Wailers posed for photographs holding toy guns and wearing the berets usually associated with the Black Panthers.

As soon as Aunty allowed Bob to take me out, he'd begun to show me the Rasta way to live. “You're a queen, a black queen,” he said. “You're pretty just as you are, you don't need to do anything else. You don't have to straighten your hair, you can wear it natural.” After so many years of submitting weekly to a hot comb, I put mine away. Bob was also very intent on telling me how great black people were, and how far we'd come because of Marcus Garvey. Aunty was big on Garvey too, and had even given me a book about him, so I already knew about repatriation and the story of the Black Star Line, and was somewhat conscious to begin with. And certainly very aware, from an early age, of the condescension behind being called “blackie tootus.”

But after I stopped pressing my hair Aunty began to worry, my God, is Rita smoking that stuff, that terrible stuff that would make you go crazy and put you to prison! And of course she wanted to blame Bob, because I
had
started smoking a little herb, though I thought I was doing a good job of hiding it from her. When I smoked in my room, I'd squirt baby powder into the air to cover the smell. But I liked smoking for the way it made me feel—cooled out and meditative—and I think if I were to blame anyone it would have to be my father. (Though I don't blame anyone and have no regrets.) Papa was nowhere near Jamaica when I started smoking, but I remembered that sometimes he'd had a smell about him that I liked. It was only after he'd gone out to smoke that he smelled like that—which would piss Aunty off, until she'd threaten him: “Don't even come near this house!” So when I discovered that I'm liking it, I'm saying
tschoo!
It's from my father, it really doesn't have anything to do with Bob. It isn't Bob!

While we were courting, one of the many things he and I had often talked about was what you should and shouldn't eat. At the time, like most people who lived in Trench Town, I ate pork. It was always available to poor people and made up a large part of our diet—we ate trotters, pig feet, and the pig's tail that we put in our peas and rice. Stew peas and rice was one of our favorite dishes. When Bob mentioned that the Rastafari believed that you were not supposed to eat the pig, I thought he was crazy. I said, “What are you talking about? The sweetest meat, and that's what I was grown on?”

But I listened to his explanation from the Old Testament and considered that maybe there was some truth to it. Still, how could I not eat something when I had no money to make my own choices? Without money, I had to eat what Aunty gave me, and I'd wanted to avoid her discovery that I was changing my diet. This was part of her old fear, that the Trench Town rude boys would get to me. But the fight was unavoidable. Bob was now passing through the house to get me for studio. One day she'd been cooking callaloo and codfish, which traditionally is cooked down with pork. I went into the kitchen and, as calmly as I could, said, “Aunty, I won't be eating any of that callaloo today because of the pork.”

And she went crazy! She told everybody—calling over the fence to our neighbor Mother Rose, “You know Rita just tell me she not eating any of the dinner because pork in there!” And Mother Rose said, “I told you that boy …” And they started to put the blame on “Robbie and this Rasta thing.” But I was stubborn, and refused to listen, and from then on Aunty realized that I was going through changes and was trying to become more conscious, and she accepted the fact that I had to find out certain things for myself. Such as, what was really black? And why is black so
black
? Why is black so black and white so
white
?

The interesting thing to me now is that everyone wanted to blame all my decisions on other people, as if I couldn't possibly be thinking on my own. But I began to feel that we were the generation who had come to rise up. Also, Bob had introduced me to some of the Rasta elders, and after meeting them a few times and listening to what they had to say, I was convinced that these people were for real. The whole thing seemed intelligent to me; it wasn't just about smoking herb, it was more a philosophy that carried a history with it. That's what really pulled my interest, the powerful history that hadn't been taught to me in school.

I was going through those changes but I wasn't, as everyone believed, going crazy. I thought I was opening up to more wisdom and felt I should share it. I had a strong religious impulse to begin with—as a child in church, I used to get the spirit, jumping and shouting, speaking in tongues and going into trances. Long before I met Bob, I'd been reading my Bible. Now I turned to preaching the faith of Rastafari—wherever I went I'd talk about black pride and raising ourselves up. Whenever I took a bus, I'd go to the front after I boarded and say, “Good morning, brothers and sisters!” My friends said, “Rita, you sure you're okay?” And I would say, “Fine, fine …” Then I started to wear my nurse's uniform, and tied a rope of red, gold, and green (the Rasta colors) around my waist, and people began to whisper, “You know she's crazy, she's getting crazy, what a shame after all the money her aunty spent on her.” And Aunty's friends were telling her, “See now? The girl is crazy—get her father here.”

But in the morning or the afternoon some people would
wait
for my bus. They'd say, “Any bus Rasta woman take”—Rasta Queen, they called me—“any bus ‘Queenie' on, we go on Queenie bus.” Everybody knew that when Queenie was on the bus, it was going to be Bible time. “Queenie gonna teach today,” they'd say. Sometimes I would have my rod, like a walking stick. I thought I was on a mission and didn't feel in any way strange about it. I wouldn't wear bangles or earrings or perfume, only ordinary sandals, nothing sleeveless, my dress had to cover my ankles, my hair had to be covered, I used to keep it so tied up …

I realize now that whatever you put yourself through to be where you are today is all a part of you. I wasn't crazy, I was simply trying to find out who I was, and where, and why. Nevertheless, without my knowledge, Aunty wrote my father: “You better come get Rita out of here, she's mix up with these guys and this Rasta thing.”

Though Papa always kept in touch, it wasn't until I saw his response to Aunty's letter that I knew she'd written him. In Trench Town back then when you got a letter from anywhere overseas, everyone knew about it: “
Ooh
—you get a letter from America, let me see the envelope!” Or: “Miz Britton get a letter today from America, I saw it in the post, man! Is only you get a letter wid dose red stamp wid de president on it …!”

Although it was addressed to Aunty, I opened the letter and read: “Dear Sister Vie, I am very surprised to hear about Rita. But don't abuse her. Is she keeping herself clean? That is most important to me. If she's clean she'll be fine, because she's very intelligent. Don't fret yourself or worry her.”

When I confronted Aunty, she said simply, “I had to.” But by then she had divorced Mr. Britton, and I had become another breadwinner for our family, helping to support us through my work in the studio and with the Soulettes. Papa was still living in London, playing his sax and doing whatever he had to do to survive. He had been joined by Alma Jones, a Jamaican woman with whom he was to have a long relationship, and who later on would be very kind to me at a time when I very much needed some kindness. Their union had produced my sister Margaret and brother George. The last thing Papa needed at that moment was a sullen nineteen-year-old on his hands. Aunty took stock of the situation and said no more about sending me away.

Wesley, who had always lived with us, had grown into a young man now, and after Bob left for Delaware he had joined the police force. In Jamaica, police are rotated among parishes, so he used to spend most of his time living in police lodgings and came home only on holidays or weekends. He would arrive in his uniform, the talk of the town because,
ooh
, Uncle Wesley is a policeman! (This was a big thing to be in the early sixties.) As with me, people made a fuss over his bright, even teeth. Always smiling, very charming and mannerly, he was known locally as Mr. Tooths—definitely “Mister,” because he had become the man of the house after Aunty's divorce. And took his role seriously, as I would find out.

A month after Bob left we learned that Jamaica was to receive a visit from Haile Selassie. By the time his plane touched down, on April 21, 1966, a huge crowd—more than a hundred thousand people—had gathered. Most of them were Rastas or members of other African-centered Jamaican groups. Because of the masses of people, I never got any farther than the road to the airport, so I stopped and waited for the motorcade to pass by. Bob hadn't wanted me to go, but I said I was going anyway. Everybody was on the street smoking and having a nice time—it felt like freedom, freedom for black people, to see this black supremacy coming in real life.

I kept looking into the different cars and finally I saw him, this little man in an army uniform with a military-looking hat. Rastas believe that when you see your black king you will see your black god, and so when he was almost close up to me I said to myself, is that the man they say is God? They must be crazy. I didn't believe, looking at him, I just didn't believe. Short little man in his army uniform. Quite simple. With one hand he was waving side to side, and I thought, oh please God, could this be what I read about? Show me if what they say about this man is true, show me a sign so I can see, so I can put my faith
some
where, I need to hold on to
some
thing.

And just as I thought my prayer wasn't working, Haile Selassie turned in my direction and waved. There was something about the middle of his palm that struck me—I saw a black print. And I said, oh my God, the Bible says that when you see him you will know him by the nail prints in his hand. Most people think I'm lying, but I'm not lying, it happened. I don't know if it's mind over matter, but I was looking for something to identify with. And there it was.

I yelled, “Oh my God,” and went home screaming and cheering. And Aunty said, “Lord have mercy, there she goes! Now she's truly mad!” It had been raining and I was soaked, but I didn't care. Aunty thought I was completely out of it, but for me it was an awakening. For the emperor to be waving at me!

As soon as I got to my room I started a letter: “Dear Robbie, I just came back from seeing His Majesty, and I swear I have seen him …” I gave Bob the whole picture of the crowd and people beating drums in the street and smoking herb and the police didn't lock up anybody! What a day to remember in Jamaica! As for what I saw—ain't nobody gonna take that from me!

But Bob's response was, “Dear Rita, I got your letter, please take it easy, don't go anywhere. Don't go smoking at anybody's place, stay at home and read and take care of yourself and the baby!”

The first days after Bob went to Delaware, I'd been devastated. Totally devastated, really lost. What is this? I kept asking myself. Married two days ago, madly in love, and now he's gone? In my head—and sometimes aloud—I kept singing all the love songs I knew, but they kept turning into songs about loneliness, and how much I missed him. But at the same time I had to remind myself that I was now a married woman, for one thing, and two, I had to remember that my husband had gone to find a job and I had a daughter who had to be maintained. All of this brought me back to the same position I'd been in before the whole idea of marriage had intervened: Should I carry on singing or go back to nursing? At night I'd lie awake, trying to decide. Should I go find me a job, or what? Should I continue to be around Peter and Bunny and all the others at Studio One? Dream—or Vision, as he was now known—was ready and always available, and as the Soulettes still had a name we figured we still had a chance. If I wanted to, of course. We had maintained our connection to the studio and Coxsone continued to ask us to do background vocals for other groups—Delroy Wilson, Lord Creator, Tony Gregory are a few I remember.