“Slow down Judith,” I say. “We have the whole afternoon.”
“Okay well then what do you want to do?”
She doesn’t give me a chance to think before starting up again.
“What about the Farmers’ Market? We could see if a bus could drop us close to the beach?”
Her mind moves so fast it’s like she is swimming laps without ever reaching the end before turning to swim back up the same lane.
“Okay when we meet up we’ll just get on the bus and do whatever,” she says.
When we do meet up she pinches my cheek like I am her little sister and waves down the bus as if the driver can’t see us standing there. Judith says good morning to everyone she passes on the bus. They watch her and me like we’ve been drinking or smoking or both.
Not many people respond to Judith except a young girl sitting with her mom. The girl smiles just as loud as Judith and you can see her purple gum sticking through her missing tooth. Judith reaches out and gives her a bounce with her fist. But the child won’t return Judith’s greeting as her mom’s eyebrows turn severe. Judith pulls her hand away and winks.
Judith smells like vanilla ice cream and car exhaust. She wears a green knit hat with red and yellow stripes at the top. She has all her locks tucked up neatly. The hat suits her. She nudges me with her elbow as we sit down, our arms touching. I feel a warmth in my toes reaching up into my abdomen and I feel my cheeks wanting to break into a smile. We sit like that for a while, both of us in silence. But then Judith reaches up and gives two loud raps to the top of the window.
“What are you doing Judith?” I say.
“Let’s get off and see the horses,” she says. She knocks the window again.
“Judith what are you doing?”
“I want to get off.”
“Well then ring the damn bell.”
The bus man watches us through the rearview mirror. “Stop that girls,” he says.
“Stop the bus,” Judith says.
The bus man warns us. He says he is going to let us off if we don’t settle down. People are watching. The girl looks up at her mom. The mom is shaking her head.
“That’s what we want,” Judith says. “Stop the bus.”
“Judith relax man. You’re not on Small Island.”
I ring the bell while Judith bounds up and stands by the door.
“What happened to you Judith? This your first time on the city bus?”
“Second. Watch the horses, Sola.” She points at the city stable. “I remember this. I remember this from way back. I remember the horses.”
As if remembering the horses means anything to me.
In the middle of streets spinning this way and that, buildings rising into sky, buses and taxis, police cars and construction trucks, traffic lights and intersections crisscrossing to highways, a small barn with a white fence hugs a mud-packed area where two girls ride English style on two identical coffee-coloured horses with white stripes down their faces. Eight legs trotting in unison. Matching white socks. The girls are young. One thin. One fat. There is a woman in the middle, yelling at them to put their shoulders back. Heels down. And stop pulling on the poor horses’ mouths. The girls look straight ahead. Their bodies up down up down up down.
Judith climbs the fence. Leans her body on the post. One of the horses shies and breaks into a run. The lady in the middle yells, “Hold the reins tighter. Sit up. Ok walk. Walk.” The lady turns toward Judith and me. “Get off the damn fence.”
Judith says sorry with her eyebrows arcing up into her forehead and her eyes big like she is surprised by the teacher’s anger.
We walk over to the bleachers on the other side. “Why the lady so vexed man? They need to learn how to handle themselves if something go wrong. That’s good practice,” Judith says.
I feel embarrassed for Judith. Embarrassed and maybe a bit envious. I wish I could be so bold not to bother what others think of me. Judith is bold beyond bold. She isn’t bothering at all. She doesn’t even know she is being bothersome. She is just being herself. I take a deep breath and wonder how my life might be if I were more like Judith, more fearless, more not caring about what others think. My first year at school here on Big Island I folded myself up small in order to take the least amount of space possible. I was relieved the kids ignored me most of the time. With the exception of a collective chuckle whenever I tucked my shoulders beneath my ears and whispered, “I don’t know” anytime the teacher asked me a question.
Eventually the teacher and kids gave up and I sat quiet in my own small space for the rest of the term like an ornament the teacher forgot to put up. Not until Grade 7 did I become more visible. Like the time the kids dared redhead Jim to ask me if I liked bananas. He walked up to me with his giggling entourage. I saw them coming. I sat on a rock against the school fence with my head in a book, one eye above the pages. I didn’t answer him the first time he asked but the second time I spat. The unexpected spit shot from my mouth and landed on Jim’s pant leg. His face turned peach then purple. Jim shook his leg violently like a scorpion was crawling into his sock. The kids scattered. The girl with the lemony curls ran to tell the teacher. The teacher asked me what happened and once again I tucked my shoulders below my ears and whispered. “I don’t know.” The teacher walked away with a suppressed grimace that looked like the beginning of a yawn.
I was sent home after Dolma was called. She arrived at school with a flourish of apologies. Dolma said, “What kind of animal Ma Tay raise? You acting like the very animal they want you to be.”
At home, Shy’s soft voice reached across the hallway, “Good for you, Sola. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’se a joke.” I smiled walking into the bathroom. I smiled because I knew Mr. Jesamy would be proud of me too, for not bowing down, for not playing small.
More and more I recognize Mr. Jesamy in Shy and I am grateful.
That night I said yes to a game of backgammon with Shy. He must have asked out of habit because he was surprised when I said sure. He carried on cracking and shelling the tamarinds he brought from Greens, an Island shop he was managing on the city’s north side. One of the only Island grocery shops in the city. The tamarinds were shrivelled and small, nothing like the pods back home, seeds the colour of burnt brown sugar wrapped in sweet sour flesh. The dried-up pods Shy brought home looked like they had been sitting at the bottom of a box for weeks. Shy cracked them open one by one with a tenderness like he was helping a baby chick from its shell. He placed the seeds into boiling water and within minutes the apartment smelled like candy. He looked up from the boiling stew of sweetness and said, “Really?”
“Yep, really.”
“Did you hear that Dolma? Sola going to play a little game of backgammon with me.”
“Why you both acting like spitting on someone is same as shaking someone’s hand? She should be in her room writing an apology.”
“Is that what they want, a written apology?” Shy said while reaching for the backgammon set on top of the fridge.
“No that is what I want,” Dolma said. As if she were the principal delving out the punishment.
“Bananas, Dolma. The boy asked Sola if she liked bananas.”
“Is that true Sola?”
“Who cares?” I said
“I care,” Dolma said.
“You care about shit like that,” I said. It was the first time I said “shit” and probably the last.
“First you spit and now you cursing? And why you encouraging she?” Dolma said to Shy.
“I proud she stand up for she self. But next time Sola you could think of a more creative way of standing up.”
“Creative? What the hell you talking about Shy?”
“Spitting only going to turn the problem back on she instead of the real problem,” Shy said.
“Which is?”
“What w
oman. So you don’t know racism?”
“Where you going Sola?”
“Forget it. I got homework.”
“But what about our game, Sola?
I worked hard not to be noticed even when I was easy to notice. Dolma put me in the schools where there weren’t many Black kids. I worked hard on my Standard English, the Queen’s English as Judith says. I worked hard because it was a way of being less recognized, noticed, cared about, even at home — where Shy hung tight to his language, his culture, and Dolma moved between both worlds knowing when to flaunt her long syllables and punctuate with pronouns and then when to relax back into the ease of home dialect. I somehow lost the ease of home, preferred to be one way not two ways. And then it just happened and I stopped thinking of how I talked and just talked the way I’d been practicing for months and months.
With the sun stretching out from behind afternoon clouds I let my mind settle on the memory years ago, let the heat pass from one cheek to the next, let the steady beat of horses’ hooves on packed-hard soil reach into the rickety bleachers and drum up my legs. When I open my eyes Judith isn’t there. The horses and their riders are tripping over poles laid on the ground. The teacher is still barking instructions, the city traffic blowing horns, a screech of tires and a siren coming up behind. A steady thump in my chest as I lift my back from the bench behind me. I see the back of Judith’s bright green hat as she walks into the barn. My shoulders settle back into place. I follow her into the barn with a smile.
JUDITH
SOLA AND I CLOSE. We give each other talk and not take each other on. Maybe it’s ’cause we from the same place, a place where people give talk all the time, even though majority talk behind people backs. Not many backs to go behind here. Not for me anyway. And I never hear Sola talk much about friends.
Sola and I spend hours together over the next while. Sometimes we go exploring around the city. But most times we end up by Aunt Rachel’s house drinking spoonfuls of maple syrup, eating melted chocolate chips on bread, making macaroni with all kinds of fancy cheese. We blend ice cubes with whatever in the fridge, lemonade, ginger ale, ice tea, milk, Italian soda. We watch endless Youtube videos, reggae and soca. We argue who the best reggae, soca, dancehall artist. We never worry whether Aunt Rachel walk in ’cause she at the cabin for a few weeks. She a professor at the university and have time off during the summer. She say I can come to the cabin any time. But I know Mom everywhere out there and I’m not ready yet.
By early evening Sola and I walk the streets or take buses and head to centre town where the closing of summer obvious. Back-to-school-sale signs stuck to store windows, vendors with shawls covering shoulders, shorter lineups for fish and chips, beaver tales and ice cream, patios full with people talking about holidays.
One afternoon we ride the bus and get off at the horse stable in the middle of the city. I remember this place from before. I think I frighten Sola getting off the bus so fast. And then the big grey horse we see in the barn. Sola find me in the mare’s stall. I watching the horse scrape she head against the bars, crushing she closed squished eye up and down the iron. I put my hand on she dapple neck and inhale a sweet musty smell. The big grey mare gets me thinking about the story Mom tell me, the story about my grandmother, Fabian’s mother, Ms. Mary, and the large silver estate horse.
I hear Mom’s voice, “When she was pregnant with your father, your grandmother found the horse, one early morning, caught in barbed wire. Its front legs pawing the ground, clouds of dust from front hoofs. The neck twisted in an awkward position, an eerie short breath pumping through its nostrils. Your grandmother lay down and wept and that is how they found her, lying on the ground inches away from the horse’s front legs, a cloud hovering like a fairytale gone wrong. Your grandmother was stretched out singing a whisper of a hymn to the horse while the baby, your father, began to sink further down her pelvis. The ladies she worked with on the old plantation cursed her for being ‘so damn stupid’ and putting her unborn child in the midst of such misery. They thought for sure the child in her belly would come out half-horse half-human. They were certain this was a sign of misfortune for your father. But he came that same evening with two arms, two legs, a set of curls, large black eyes and a scream that knocked the neighbours down.
“The only trace of a frightened horse was when he slept. He knocked his head against his mother’s side, then later against the floor as he slept, curled up on his own mattress. He banged his head until one side bruised and swelled. He’d change sides until he had matching bruises on each side of his head. The kids made fun of him. Your grandmother believed there was a frightened spirit trying to loosen itself. Just like the horse.
“It was your father who told me the story. He said it was a hard time for him as a boy. The kids were cruel. They said he had a horse head ’cause his forehead on both sides was raw and swollen. He said he could not remember when the banging stopped. But it did.”
I ask Fabian about the story of the horse and my grandmother. He laugh then grumble something about “stupid stories my mother and your mother like to spread.”
One night — not long after we scatter Mom’s ashes off the northern cliffs of Small Island, a place where Mom love to sit and watch the wild goats gallop sideways off the steep rocks — I find Fabian banging his head against the wall. When I call out to him he cry out, “What happen?” There’s a small pink gash on his forehead. He tell me to go back to bed while he touch the raw wound with his finger.
I wonder if he feel resentful those nights I wake to the thump of his bedroom wall. Was he hating all those moments of time wasted when she alive? Wishing he could have them back? Wishing he stop the arguing between them with a kiss or a drive for ice cream or a hike to see the wild goats.
I walk out the barn with Mom’s voice following, “Take care of him Judith.”
“Take care of him,” I think. “How to take care of him when the man send me away?”
Fabian never need anyone to take care of him. Fabian stay strong even when he not strong at all. The garden carry his grief. Sometimes feels like he love Mom more than me. At times I feel like an accessory to his real jewel, Mom. I think he feel Mom the one to get him out of his hard life. She choosing him perhaps the beginning of an easier life. She like a prize, like the lotto for life. But she life vanish with one swipe of a man driving too fast. When she die it’s Fabian’s turn to choose me, parent me, but instead he bury he self in work and garden then send me away.
I want to tell Sola, but I not ready to talk about Mom. I not ready for questions. Even though I know Sola not the type to mind other people’s business. She quiet, discreet, moody. She embarrass easy. I still keep Mom quiet and sew she tight inside.
What double standard I think, ’cause I longing to meet Sola’s mom but I not willing to share my own.
SOLA
IT IS DOWNTOWN ON the steps of an old stone Catholic cathedral I learn about Drey. I want to know everything and at the same time I want to know nothing. I wonder how Judith can share the personal with such ease. And that’s what she does this particular evening. She shares a memory associated with another old stone Catholic church on Small Island. Every one of Judith’s memories of Small Island brings with it a set of my own memories. I know the church Judith talks about. I know it because it is the same church where Ma Tay took me once for their annual harvest. I remember the DJ set in the churchyard, a drunk man swaying to the pound of the base. The staticy music lashing into his body like waves crashing into rocks, yet his body swaying smooth and lyrical. I remember my own body vibrating from the inside out as we walked past the man waltzing with the DJ speakers.
When Judith mentions Drey I feel a similar internal pound coming from within, slow and loud. My throat tightens like it is trying to drown the internal tremors. Through the softness of Judith’s voice I know she is speaking of a familiar intimacy. She says she misses him. She says she wishes she were b
ack on Small Island. She says she wishes she were with him right now. I look down at the cracks in the pavement and make designs out of those small and large flaws busting up the concrete. I see eyes and mouths peering out, I see the ancient faces scribed into the stones down by the river behind Mr. Loyd’s shop.
Judith doesn’t notice me staring into the cracks. She just keeps talking on about Drey. Like the time she and Drey got caught behind the church hiding behind a fishing boat early morning, after hanging out all night vibsing with their friend Kyle who sold barbecue chicken across the road from the dance hall. She says they loved to hang out on Saturday nights, watch people and converse about who was wearing what or who was with who, or who left who at home. The DJ set blazed tunes one after the other. Thick smell of charred chicken swept with hot sweet barbecue sauce. Cinnamon and bay leaf bubbling from Tanya porridge. That night, she says, they laughed until laugh lines stuck to the side of their mouths. “Look,” she says while pointing to two shallow lines twirling through dimples on each side of her cheeks.
Afterwards they found themselves on the back church steps kissing. Judith is always kissing someone. They started making love but moved further up the Bay behind a fishing boat so as not to put shame on the very church Drey’s mother worshipped at. They didn’t realize fishermen were drinking last sips of cocoa tea, stepping out their front doors, heading for their boats and nets; they neither calculated nor predicted the sun rising so fast. They were found, she says, up against a fisherman’s boat moving to the rhythm of sea licking shore. Well, that’s how I am imagining their bodies, the sea. It wasn’t until they heard a cough they realized there was someone sitting not far from their half-dressed bodies. Drey said sorry over and over to the man while grabbing Judith’s hand and ducking behind palm trees. Judith says she was sure he knew her, sure he was the fisherman who called her out when she was in the fish market.
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