Mom like board house even though Fabian planning to build a wall house, a big wall house so no one can say he ain’t providing for his foreign family. That’s what he call us sometimes, his foreign family. Mom hate when he say that. She say, “Okay you can call me foreign. But your daughter’s not foreign. And don’t make her feel that way.”
Is true though I used to enjoy myself for real on Big Island when I small. Who wouldn’t enjoy performers on the street juggling footballs all over their bodies; fried bread with cinnamon and butter; farmers’ markets with musicians playing; artists drawing portraits faster than you can eat ice and maple syrup on a stick; people bending up silver spoons to make jewellery; food from all over the world; huge bottom- and top-floor buses; gardens in the middle of Town with birds who necks curve into question marks? Who wouldn’t like Big Island where grandparents fill you up with rice crispy squares, cheese popcorn, chocolate squares with caramel inside? Who let you watch TV for hours flipping channel after channel from crime to cooking to sports to funny videos.
When I young people ask all the time, “Which you prefer Big or Small Island?”
“I don’t know,” I’d say.
But what I really want to say is Big Island. What child wouldn’t want bigness over smallness. Back then I tire of witnessing so much in the Village, a hardness I never see on Big Island. Mom say she grow up sheltered. Not like you she say. And it’s true I grow up where everybody know everybody business. Everything out in the open. The place Small not Big. You can’t escape the hard stories. Unless maybe if you live in one of those gated communities where easier to pretend things not happening ’cause they not happening in front of you. Like when Danu drown and no one know what to do so they leave him on his back; by the time ambulance come he dead. Or when the woman down the road killed by she boyfriend ’cause she don’t want to be he girlfriend anymore. They say he hide she in abandoned house by the park for three days before somebody find she. Imagine we flying kites next to she, and she dead in the house. Or seven-year-old Charlie who blow off he hand with illegal firecracker he father sell in the shop. The boy catch infection and die.
Back then I didn’t know death, senseless death, happen on Big Island too ’cause all I ever experience was niceness for those short weeks we visit. But then Big Island take my mother, lick she up in she own senseless death.
Why Sola have to watch me like I have no right to claim Small Island just ’cause I Big Island too. Like I belong more to Big than Small. Like claiming our language and not some damn Mother Queen language is a privilege not a right. I never want to leave Small Island in the first place. I never want to come back here after Mom die. I want to stay where I was, where I feel I belong most, Small Island.
SOLA
WE WALK TO THE fair grounds in silence until Judith says, “We suppose to meet. It’s fate. Maybe we suppose to argue too. Who knows? Only Jah know.”
She doesn’t see my eyes roll up. She doesn’t hear the beginnings of a stupse from my tongue sucking my teeth. Instead I ask if her dad is Black. This time she doesn’t take offence. Instead she says, “He Black but he think he red.”
We both laugh. I can hear Dolma telling Shy, “Sola take she colour from she father.” As if she has to make that clear from the beginning. As though her red-brown is superior to my black-brown.
“You sure didn’t take much from your dad. Maybe your mom?” I say.
“I got my nose, my eyes, my height, my hair, my walk, my build from Fabian’s side. I got everything else from Mom. Fair skin and all.” She speaks with a curve of defeat in her shoulders.
The crowd gets denser as we reach closer to the fairgrounds. The heat a slow haze sliding across the pavement. Thick air circling. Maple trees in a slump. Cedars exhausted with all that weight. Parents wishing they could turn back to air conditioners, kids skipping along sidewalks anticipating sticky popcorn, fast rides and neon-stuffed prizes.
I want to find shade, preferably under a Small Island tree like a yellow poui or a skin-up or any of the large mango trees in the Village. I want to introduce Judith to Mikey and Ma Tay, to some of the boys on the block like Frankie, Billy and the rest of the crew. I want her to meet Samuel so they can laugh at the hypocrisies of Big Island. Samuel, who was beat up so bad on Big Island they had to send him home to catch up his memory, so he could unscramble the part of his brain kicked by two men who found him and his lover in an alley behind a club. I loved Samuel. I didn’t care what he was up to behind bushes or who he loved or how he chose to spend his time up the road, which was usually on the other end of a skipping rope, laughing and telling us girls to keep jumping and why you stop? When Samuel demonstrated he was as graceful as a Spanish dancer. We girls squealed with delight and begged him to show us more moves underneath that giant wave of a rope.
I want to take Judith to school and let Mr. Jessamy question her ancestors. I even want Thompson to meet her, so he can make some kind of inappropriate comment like “Sola you making friends with hippies now?” I want Judith to come with me down by the river. I’ll lead her through the hole in the bush by the side of Mr. Loyd’s shop, tell her to watch out for the mango roots, watch her expression when she first glimpses the ancient stones, the hauntingly beautiful faces peering from boulders sitting half-in, half-out of the water, the primordial people keeping watch, protecting sacred grounds.
The roller coaster catches my attention the minute we walk up and over the bridge. The monstrous knot rolling onto itself. People screaming swirling upside down. The bridge is packed. People of all ages except the elderly. Not like back home where elders are part of everything from reggae shows to harvest fairs to barbecues and cricket games. It makes sense though. Who over sixty would be interested in knotting up their kidneys or making their bladders swing side to side or filling their stomachs with gobs of candy and greasy pogo sticks?
Judith has a roll of tickets for the rides but not enough money to get into the fair. She walks with a plan already thought out. She tells me to walk through the gates while she talks to the gateman. I listen to the story she gives the man. She tells him she has to find her mother and sisters. She has to find them because their house caught on fire from the incense her sister left burning. The house she says is okay but there is a lot of damage from the smoke. She tells the man her mother still doesn’t own a cell phone. She wants to know if she can go and look for her family so she can tell them what happened. I watch the gatekeeper watch Judith; he surveys her pulled-back dreads, her red, green and yellow t-shirt hanging loose over a knee-length jean skirt, beige sneakers that look scrubbed the night before. Judith now pleading with the guy to let her run for her mom who is probably in the kid’s area. The line stretches out two blocks behind Judith.
The gatekeeper waves her through. I manage to slide through on the heels of two Black women leading a string of teens and toddlers. Two large strollers crammed with umbrellas, bottles of water and backpacks. The ladies watch me walk past them into the crowd. If it wasn’t for this Black family going in on a family pass at the same time, there is no way I could simply walk through while the man is busy with Judith. Maybe Judith can walk through a distracted gate without anyone noticing, but me slipping through, unlikely.
Judith finds me soon after, standing by a glass booth with miniature donuts going round a track dropping into vats of icing sugar. “You might want to wait till we finish with the rides,” Judith says.
“I’m not going on the roller coaster,” I say, reaching for my change.
“You don’t see all these coupons my aunt give me?” She pulls out a roll of tickets stuck to one another. “Please.”
After the bar snaps into place we climb the unsteady track. “I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I say, watching others get snapped in too. “We are not made for hanging upside down Judith. Damn.”
We start moving slowly. The crackling hum from the tracks matches my own breath. A mad strin
g of words barely audible squeeze through clenched teeth, “How did I let her talk me into this.”
Judith grabs my hand telling me to hold tight. I swat her hand but then seize it again with the first whirl down the tracks. Judith and I screaming, our knuckles bulging balancing on the bar. Eyes clenched tight. Wind tears crawling down my cheeks. The swoosh of air wipes them away. While climbing the second track upwards, I start cursing like Mr. Bell, the man who owns the rum shop up the road from Thompson. Mother cunt this and mother cunt that come flying out of my mouth as we take another swoosh, hung upside down milliseconds before flying into the next gigantic loop. A whole marching band of Small Island curse words come sailing and swirling from my lips and I feel a gush of wind rock my belly into my toes and back up into my roaring, bellowing self. Anticipating the next rush I grab Judith’s hand and pull both our arms up and over our heads while we scream and curse and bellow some more.
We walk in a frenzy, go from ride to ride, me pulling Judith this way and that, Judith pulling me forward and backward as we try to decide on which rides promise the most spins and throws and upside downs; the most belly and toe clenching, the most anticipated yells and hollers. Both of us sucking up adrenaline like milkshakes too cold to drink but too good to stop.
Once our tickets run out, we find shade under an old maple by the 4H building. We buy snow cones and suck until our bellies and brains cool and clear from nausea and dizziness. We sit in silence long after the last pieces of ice melt in our mouths. I turn my head in time to see the family I came through the gates with; two of the kids are in strollers. Feet perched up with strawberry ice cream smeared across mouths. One mother telling her older kids to meet them at the front gate in an hour. A whoop of release as the teens make a dash into the crowd. The mother looks at me, rolls her eyes and smiles. I smile back.
“Let’s go play some cards at the casino,” Judith says.
I am burnt out and tell her to go ahead while I stretch my body beneath three birches not worrying or fretting if someone might tell me not to lie where I’m lying. And I know I am grinning a funny grin while looking up into the green leaves shimmering, the solid blue sky standing. My arms stretched out like I’m walking through a downpour in the middle of Small Island, tongue and arms reaching, challenging the sky, the clouds, the rain, anyone to say or do something. I hear Mr. Jessamy’s voice, “You’re all this Sola and more.” And it’s like I believe his words when I never believed them before.
JUDITH
SOLA TEXT TO SAY her stomach in the air still and how she can’t eat a thing. I never see anyone change their mind so fast about rides; she disappointed for real when tickets run out and she ready to ride roller coaster one last time. “Last spin,” she say like last spin is last lap round a playing field.
I text back to say I so hungry I could eat a pot of rice and peas, stewed pumpkin and a plate of fried plantain.
She write she mother cooking everything I just say. I wait for an invite but instead she say she working in the morning so she can’t meet up tomorrow. I wonder how I’ll spend my day tomorrow besides dodging Aunt Rachel’s suggestions of new friends.
I realize this the first night I not thinking about home, about Fabian, the animals, Drey, even my aunties and cousins. This the first night I feel to eat food. Good food. So I make myself a pot of rice and stew a pan full of ginger, garlic, tomatoes and cabbage, carrots and green beans. I add salt, pepper, honey, chili sauce and sit on the stool looking out over the street as the day move into night.
I left Small Island three weeks ago. Fabian say he know Mom would want me to go far with my studies.
Me telling Fabian, “Well she not here so who I going to disappoint?”
He watch me with his sad eyes and say, “You going. I arrange ticket already. Aunt Rachel will be waiting for you.”
My marks at the end of secondary school between low and very low. Seven years ago I was tops in my class. I came tenth in National Common Entrance Exams. I was the pride of family and community. Then marks start to go down. The Village had much to say. “How a smart girl turn stupid so?” “She lagging ’cause teachers fraid to beat a white girl.” “Time she get over she mother and stop making she father shame.” They say I wasting my God-given talents and embarrassing my father. They say my mother’s death not an excuse to give it all up. Fabian oblivious to talk until talk turn pregnancy talk.
I suck my teeth loud when the principal ask if I pregnant.
“Were you on the Bay Saturday night?” the principal ask.
Morning heat bubbling across my forehead. She repeat, “Were you on the Bay early Sunday morning?”
I lie.
“Well let’s hope it wasn’t you people talking about. A student half naked behind a fishing boat.”
The fisherman on the Bay early Sunday morning saw Drey and me. He must know me. White Ras, schoolgirl buying two pounds fish every Friday. Drey must know the man would say something. Drey, head down while passing fisherman, saying, “Sorry man. Sorry.” And me grinning stupid like it all a big joke. Drey’s hand reaching behind so I could catch up. When we clear, a laugh roll from my mouth. Drey look at me as if I mad, “You feel this is joke? This serious Judith. If the man talk, you in trouble. Not me, you. People don’t care what man up to, it’s women they care about.”
“I care?” I say.
I knew I wasn’t pregnant. Drey stop us before our breath get so loud we can’t hear the tide creeping toward the boat we leaning against. He stop us before we go further than usual, before hands search bra clasps and belt buckles. But the man still see us. He wait until impatience take over and then he give a little cough.
The principal say, “Let’s hope the rumour is not true.” And then she say, like she is family not principal, “Judith what happen to you?”
I stare up at the cracked ceiling playing like I not listening.
“You know what I’m talking about Judith. You came to this school tops in primary school. Everybody talking about Fabian’s bright child. And now you failing.”
Next day people still talking. Before I even reach the schoolyard, rumours now truth, and the whole school watching, laughing, smirking, stupsing in my direction. Melina pull me into the bathroom and into a stall. She get up on to the back of the toilet so only one pair of school shoes visible. “You pregnant?” she say.
Before I could answer she say, “You and Drey getting it on? Sure didn’t take you long.”
“Who say I pregnant?”
“The whole damn school say.”
A hard rap to the stall door startle us. “Bell gone. Get to class.” The prefect’s voice floating below the stall door.
We wait till scrape of shoes round the corner and then I walk out first. Same prefect waiting to say principal call for me. My eyes counting cracks in the concrete up the stairs. A few hisses from above. I keep my head down. When I get to the office there’s Aunt Jean glaring like she want to slap me with her eyes.
“Aunt Jean why you here?” I say, while Melina in my head saying, “You not hear what I say the whole school think you belly gettin’ big.”
“You tell me Judith,” Aunt Jean say.
The principal shut the door.
“Judith if you’re pregnant you can’t do both. You can’t stay in school and expecting.” Aunt Jean looking like she want to pick up the first stone.
“I not pregnant.”
Aunt Jean and the principal watching me. They trying to find fib not in the thinness of my waist but in my eyes, waiting to see if I blink too many times.
“I’m telling the truth. I not pregnant.”
“What were you doing by the Bay Sunday morning?” the principal ask.
“Hanging out.”
“With who?” she say.
“A friend.”
“With Ms. John’s boy,” Aunt Jean say. “The Rasta.”
I
was suspended for the week. I was told when I return on Monday to come without school tie. The principal turn she back as if I weren’t there. She say, “Lord what happened to this child? She letting everybody down.”
And Aunt Jean shaking her head like she the one disappointing the Lord.
“My tie,” I told Drey later that evening sitting on top the hill behind the house. “I can’t wear my tie when I return.”
That night Fabian say he don’t want me to see Drey anymore. Say I to be home immediately after school. Say I have to start contributing around the house more. Say he don’t know how to parent me. He looking up into the plum tree like he sourcing the yellowest plum while asking Mom why she not helping him and then he apologize to she up in the sky, “Sorry I trying my best.” The next week Melina come to school without a tie and is sent home. She don’t come back after that. I know it’s not about me. I know it’s about the boys who rape she behind the school a few months earlier. She feel like she the one who should be tieless. Not me. And I sick about the whole thing. I don’t care about the damn tie. I more sick over Melina not coming back to school, Melina moving to Town to be with she older sister. Melina a few weeks later at airport hugging me tight breathing like she catch cold. Telling me I damn lucky! And she going to miss me.
Fabian stuck to his plan. I going to Big Island.
SOLA
JUDITH AND I ARE inseparable for the next two weeks. Our time savoured like chocolate sucked slowly. Judith calling me in the mornings with plans to choose from: “Let’s check out the riding stable at the corner of Bell and Arlington.” “Let’s go to that cool shop where they sell all that hippy shit.” “My Aunt Rachel have a friend, said he’d let me go with him when he took tours to watch whales. We could go check him.” “Okay let’s just get on the bus and see how many times we can use our transfers?” “Let’s go check out the Gardens there’s always something going on there.”
Big Island, Small Page 3