Big Island, Small

by Maureen St. Clair

  “Come and see? You feel I have time to look at a bird? Ms. Maggie say she see you cut across she yard again. Why you up there?”

  Morning light arrives with the beep beep beep of my alarm. I cant believe the night passed so quickly. I tuck the picture back in the book, press snooze, climb back into bed and close my eyes till the alarm goes again. Dolma is tapping at the door. “You ’wake?”

  JUDITH

  SOLA AND I TEXT every day. Mostly I text and she reply. She accustom now to moving she thumbs across the phone but she prefer email. She say texting take too long. So we mostly email. I email. She reply.

  I email about the guidance counselor helping me choose subjects. The woman keep checking she phone saying sorry every time she lean over and tap the screen. If she not checking she phone she complaining about she sinus while pulling in a dry cough through she nose. I choose my subjects fast ’cause I can’t stand to be around eyes that can’t focus and those false sorrys and the noise from she nose. Applied Business Math, Website Design, Accounting, Marketing plus subjects I used to enjoy, Biology (closest I can find to Agricultural Science, Fabian will be proud), History and Sociology. I also choose Diversity and Human Rights ’cause Jah know Small Island need some of that. She say I can take four the first term and four the next. She tell me which ones are offered first term and I walk out with Applied Business Math, Accounting, Biology and Diversity and Human Rights. She say she wondering what my focus is, what I want to pursue after college.

  And I say I don’t know. All I know is I going back to Small Island. Who knows maybe I start a small business. I have a few ideas bouncing around. For now I just happy I get work with RasI and Iris; that way I can save money, go home and start something on Small Island. I can’t wait to tell Sola I working at the Lion’s Den. As soon as she answer the phone I tell she. She sound surprise like she never expect me to get a job. “So what happen?” I ask when her reaction is “What? The Lion’s Den?”

  “Nothing,” she say, “I just didn’t know they were hiring.”

  “I lucky I guess. I walk in same afternoon the woman behind the bar leave. Iris say the woman’s man don’t want she working at nights. Iris ask me if I have a man who like to manage my life. ‘Me?’ I say. ‘No man can tell me when or where I work.’”

  “Well you must be one of the lucky ones,” Sola say.

  “How you mean lucky?”

  “Some women need managers.”

  “My eyes rolling Sola.”

  “Well they do.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “I can’t. I have chapters to read and an essay to write. I’ll call you tomorrow.

  After Sola hang up I think about the first time Sola bring me to the Lion’s Den. I can’t believe she never tell me or bring me before. A Small Island oasis. I meet Shy the same day and feel happy ’cause there not many we on this side Big Island. As I understand Iris’s brother own both the shop and the restaurant and Shy managing the shop while RasI and Iris running the restaurant.

  Sola say Shy meet Iris and RasI after he get tied up with a Big Island woman. The woman say they should marry to help Shy stay in the country. The marriage don’t last. Sola say the woman can’t understand how Shy have enough money to fill a barrel full of things like rice, macaroni, laundry detergent, split peas and lentils, canned tuna and sardines, shoes and slippers, bed sheets and towels, but he don’t have enough to take she to a concert. Sola say the same woman can’t understand why Shy going to Western Union every month to send money home. She start to question and quarrel every bit of money Shy spend. The more she quarrel the more withdrawn he get till she can’t take it no longer. She tell he to leave. Sola say he give up the farm work and return to the city.

  By luck Shy meet RasI and Iris same day he leave. Sola say Shy’s eyes must have pop when he spot the colours of his country, red, green, gold and black on the corner of a busy intersection. He walk in and is greeted by two impeccably dressed Rastafarians: Iris and RasI. “He spend the whole afternoon drinking Carib and eating roti,” Sola say. “RasI and Iris love his cool and positive vibes.”

  When Sola talk about Shy she talk in such a loving way, “There’s something about Shy, maybe his quietness. I’ve never heard him say anything bad about anybody. Not even his ex-wife,” she say.

  Shy live on RasI and Iris’s couch for a month or two. And then luck happen again. Iris’s brother open up a grocery store catering to Black people needs and not white people wants. Iris tell me she people been in this part of Big Island for generations and it was time “we start providing people with a choice so we can keep our food, our culture, alive.”

  Sola say she knew Iris and I would get along. “But not for the same reasons Dolma like you,” she say. “Dolma likes you because you are fair skinned and polite. Iris likes you because you were born Rasta and you both have the same way of seeing things.”

  The first time Sola introduce me to Iris, Iris turn to Sola and say, “When you going to grow locks like this one?”

  “Where you from sistren?” Iris ask me. “And who taught you to wrap your hair so neat?”

  “Same place as Sola and Dolma,” I say while my shoulders roll back straight.

  “Really? How did you get to this side of Big Island?”

  “School mostly. And part of my family from here.” I’m grateful Iris don’t ask more questions. She just smile, pour Sola and me two tall glasses of grapefruit juice and stick two red straws in them.

  RasI come out a few minutes later. He give Sola a bounce to the fist and watch me like I there to catch some style. Sola introduce us. RasI nod. He sit down with us and say, “Just so you know I defend people who choose to wear dreadlocks. I defend them only if I am certain they not wearing them for style. Only if I know they respect the history, the culture behind them.” As soon as he say this my mouth go dry. Then RasI share a conversation he had with a customer the day before. He say the man not like he. The man say he don’t support white people knotting their hair. He say he see enough white youth on the streets with their German Shepherds, their Rottweiler curled up beside them begging for money. The dogs looking more respectable than their owners. RasI say he tell this customer he shouldn’t be so judgmental, that who are we to judge these youth on the streets with their hands stuck out. They must have their own hard stories.

  Then RasI turn to me and say, “So what’s your story?”

  I must’ve turn a wild hue of embarrassment. I not expecting him to be so bold. To ask out front about my locks. I mean, I wouldn’t mind, but to prelude it with a story like that. I tell him I come from a long line of Rastafarian kings and queens. He laugh a loud screechy cackle and say, “Alright. Alright sistren I hear you.”

  Iris say, “Serves you right for calling out one judgment while making your own!” Then she say, “Don’t you bother with RasI, Judith. He truly does want to know your story he just have a strange way of asking.”

  I can’t tell whether Sola happy I get the job or if she think I trying to adopt she family and now she community. I just have to trust she cool with me working there ’cause most times I don’t know what she thinking.

  SOLA

  MY MIND LINGERS OVER Judith incessantly. From her cat-curved eyes to the spider scar stretching across the middle of her left cheek to the black coral and thick silver spiral rings on her left hand. The right hand bare except for a small callous, no, a wart on the inside of her middle finger. She wears bracelets most times on both wrists. Beaded bracelets of various colours. My favourite is the orange and blue double looped. To her neurotic ways of wanting people to like her. “Really Judith you care what Aunt Rachel’s neighbour thinks of you?” I say the day she calls vexed because the neighbour said he wouldn’t know what he’d do if his daughter came home with hair like Judith’s. Judith says Aunt Rachel laughed but not a real laugh and Judith was grateful.

  At first I am irritated with Judit
h’s incessant messages, but then I grow to expect them, starting in the morning and ending just before Judith knows I am thinking about sleep. Texts that sometimes simply check in, “You all right?” “Why you scarce so?” “This place boring.” She can’t seem to understand I am not a phone person.

  “Everyone’s a phone person. Why not you?”

  And then I have to go to my computer and tap out something because I can’t stand the tiny screen and keyboard. “What kind of communication is that?” I say. But I love getting them. I love all her messages. I am addicted. If I don’t hear from her at the usual times I worry. But I don’t let her know I’m worried. I wait with a piece of my shirt in my hand rolling between fingers. Then a buzz comes through and she tells me exactly why she didn’t write.

  “’Cause class went longer than usual.” “’Cause I ended up at the library and made myself sit in my seat and figure out the math for that day.” “’Cause Aunt Rachel come home early and she want to make me a cup of tea and I don’t want to be on my phone when she making tea ’cause we don’t talk much and I want to try.”

  Even Katrina notices something.

  “What’s up with you?” she says.

  “What’s up with me?”

  “Something’s different. Did you fall in love over the holidays?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Good one. I’ve never seen you like this before.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well first of all I’ve never seen you on your phone before, let alone texting. And you check that thing all the time. Who is he?”

  “Back home we’d say, ‘You fast!’”

  “Where’s back home? You mean in the city back home? You’ve never told me where you’re from.”

  “I’m from where you’re from Kat. And I don’t need a man to define my moods or my actions.”

  “See what I mean? Before you’d tell me to mind my own business and now you’re actually engaging in a conversation.”

  “Well if you weren’t so obsessed with men and sports and you were in the house more maybe we’d have deeper conversations.”

  I never told Kat much. We ended up living together because of Greg. He knew I was looking for a place in third year and they were looking for another roommate. We live like we are living in a dorm. We have never become that close, the three of us. Greg spends most nights at his girlfriend’s and Kat is usually at the library or on the field playing rugby or on the court playing basketball. She is insanely athletic and obsessed with competitive sports. When she is home she eats copious amounts of popcorn, drinks endless cups of rooibos tea and runs every morning at 5:00 am, even when hail threatens to break every window in the apartment. Kat is the one who convinced me to quit basketball and play rugby.

  My relationship with Judith has inspired, encouraged my relationship with Kat. Because now Kat is hanging around more and we’re sharing her popcorn, drinking tea and sometimes sitting on my or her bed while she tells me about the beautiful men in her life. That’s what she calls them: beautiful. All of them. She says they’re beautiful each in their own way. I shake my head.

  I sit in class sometimes thinking about why Judith never speaks of her mother. But I kind of like that about her. Kind of mysterious that she’s not giving everything away. Like she’s holding something back and maybe it’s out of humility, not shame. Maybe her mom is someone famous and Judith is embarrassed of her fame. Maybe Judith’s mom took off when she was a kid. Maybe Judith is embarrassed of her white mother and keeps her separate so she can be more Black than white. Maybe it’s her mother who gave her the scar on her cheek. Sometimes that thing looks so aggravated I feel it’s going to flare up, rebel, shout out and tell Judith’s secrets. I’m not sure why I don’t just ask her about her mother, the scar, her family back home. It’s almost like the mystery of Judith binds us closer together. Judith is obsessed over my mother and reticent about hers.

  And then there’s Drey. I hear about him the most. I’m curious about him. Jealous of him. Want to know more about him. Want to know less. She talks about him more than anyone else. I’m kind of used to it. He reminds me of Mikey. I will ask her more about her family, her community. When we see each other next, I will ask her. I want to know more. I want to know more about Judith. I do.

  I think of our kiss a lot. Thoughts that turn into soft rounded sensations running through my body and if I can relax my mind and ride these pleasurable waves then I am good. I have been purposefully bringing the memory of the kiss up so I can experience these sensations. But the more I think of the kiss, of Judith and me in that way, the more these same feelings show up at other times with other memories. Memories that I never even knew were memories.

  Like yesterday, while passing a pet store with rabbits in the window. And there’s Mr. Robbie showing me the pen where he keeps his rabbits. He’s telling me how they multiply so fast. How they love to make love. He’s asking me if I ever think about making love. I am laughing because I don’t know what he is talking about and all I want to do is watch all those rabbits packed so tight, their fur sticking out between small squares of wire. Mr. Robbie is taking one of the rabbits out of the pen. This rabbit knows Mr. Robbie. There is no scrambling like I am used to seeing with rabbits. Mikey picks them up by the ears but not Mr. Robbie. He scoops that rabbit up gently and puts the rabbit on the table next to the pen and pats the rabbit in long successive strokes. He keeps patting the rabbit in this way until the rabbit is searching with its nose to come up on top of Mr. Robbie’s arm. Mr. Robbie is watching me while the rabbit is moving up and down his arm faster and faster. And I can feel a tingling and dampness. I can feel the nervousness in my stomach confused with feelings of pleasure. And Mr. Robbie is asking me why I look so frightened telling me the rabbit just giving him a little love.

  I see my reflection in the glass of the pet store and I gasp. I turn around and head back to school without purchasing the notebooks and pens I need for the next day. I head home after falling asleep in the library. My phone turned off. I hear Kat in the kitchen frying an egg. And Greg clicking on the TV. I grab the cheese from the fridge for Kat and the salt and go into the living room to watch tv. I check my phone. Judith is there with five different unread messages.

  I text: Long day tired. Tomorrow.

  JUDITH

  JARED AND I MEET not long after Sola leaves for school. Aunt Rachel invite one of she university colleagues to come by and the colleague bring she son. I thinking most she friends don’t know Aunt Rachel once had a sister and now a niece. Mom tell me Aunt Rachel always been a private kinda person. She like fancy things and believe we’d all be happy if we just work harder. Mom say Aunt Rachel never agree with Mom’s way of life.

  “Your Aunt Rachel she was the smart one, the one who always had a plan, always knew she would follow the straight line, always knew she’d find a good job that paid well and she’d be living the life she mapped out.”

  Mom say Aunt Rachel never like she. Mom say she try more than once to win over Aunt Rachel but she say Aunt Rachel never want winning over. Mom say there’s always been a rickety bridge between them. Mom scrambling to find a way across and Aunt Rachel not wanting to use the bridge at all.

  Mom’s voice in my head as I look out the window and see a woman Aunt Rachel’s age and a man look like my age. I get a hug from the woman and a weak handshake from she son who introduce himself as Jared. Before he sit down, Jared walk around the room studying Aunt Rachel’s art; he stand the longest in front of the painting with rocks on the shore spilling right out of the canvas. He don’t say nothing, he just stand there sipping the beer Aunt Rachel hand him. He sit down by his mom and watch me next.

  I look back, not ducking his eyes. For some reason Uncle Rickson come to mind. He say to Mom once, “You see me. I like women your colour.” She get so vex she say, “What the hell are you talking about Rickson?”

  “I prefer whi
te women to other kind of women,” he say.

  Mom rip into him, “How many white women do you know Rickson?”

  “Well I know you and Judith and I bounce up with them all the time at the hotel. They polite and nice and cheerful. Not like the rudeness coming out of Small Island women.”

  “They’re happy, polite and nice Rickson because they’re on holidays.” Then she say she never hear something so bigoted and sexist. Rickson just laugh and laugh.

  I realize I still staring at Jared while my mind wandering over Uncle Rickson and Mom. He smile then look away. He face turn red before he look down.

  It is an awkward gathering. They drop by on their way to meet Jared’s sister and father for a birthday dinner. His father come up from the country to have dinner with part of the family who move to the city. Jared look like he scowling the whole time his mom talk about his dad. Then to change the subject she say, “I didn’t know you had a sister, Rachel.”

  Aunt Rachel get up and walk into the kitchen while saying yes she does.

  I fill in the space of Aunt Rachel’s abruptness. “My mother died some years ago,” I say.

  Aunt Rachel walk back into the living room with a bowl of pretzels and a plate of cheese. We sit awkwardly in Aunt Rachel’s living room with the death of Mom between us.

  “You like art?” I ask Jared. His eyes tracing over various pieces either on the wall or in the corners.

  “I do.”

  “What about this one?” I point to the wired mask mounted on stretched canvas. A twirl of expressions woven of wire, beads, sea glass and cloth.

  Aunt Rachel look at me as if she going to scold me.

  “Its okay,” he say. “It’s different.”

  I don’t say it’s Mom’s art. I don’t say Aunt Rachel’s sister, Pauline make that. I don’t say she not only make that but we have a box full of Pauline’s art, a box full of masks in the back room waiting to be resurrected. I don’t say how me and Aunt Rachel not ready yet and I don’t say there are other boxes back home on Small Island also waiting to be opened and shared but we not ready either, Fabian and me.