Big Island, Small

by Maureen St. Clair

  I wake up with the clang of something metal falling to the floor outside Sola’s bedroom. “Sola that you?”

  “No it’s me, Greg. I’m supposed to give you a message. Sola had to go to dinner at the coach’s house. Said she’d be home soon.”

  “What? Are you serious? She tell me to come for the weekend but then she busy all weekend.”

  Greg listen from behind the closed door. “I’m heading to the pub for something to eat. You want to come?”

  I scribble note to Sola, grab another sweater and skate down the screeching stairs.

  Sola arrive at the pub shortly after. She meet me at a table drinking a Guinness with Greg and some of his friends. By the time me and Greg arrive the table already full of pitchers of beer and glasses. “Judith why aren’t you answering your phone?” Sola ask.

  I rise up with a smile and float a fist across the table. She watch my fist with a sneer. Greg stands up, offering Sola his chair.

  “Judith you coming?” she say, ignoring Greg’s offer.

  I feel embarrass for Greg. And vex too. “What Sola. I call, text, message all week and you don’t answer and now you vex ’cause I don’t answer one time. You can’t wait till I finish my beer and eat some food?”

  Greg laugh and say we sound like an old married couple. I can tell Greg and others waiting for Sola to split a smile, to sit down, to do something to lighten the air but instead she turn and walk out. I watch people in the crowd try to greet she, tell she good luck for the game tomorrow. But she not studying anyone except, I imagine, me.

  Greg and I arrive at the flat a couple hours later singing Marley songs, Greg’s limited knowledge of Small Island music. I call Sola from the sidewalk, “Sola. Where you is? Wake up girl. You sleeping?” I sing out while climbing the stairs. “Sola man you have me for the whole weekend and you sleeping?”

  Sola out of bed as I stumble through the door. “Judith what the ass.”

  Greg and I laughing with a joke stuck in our throats.

  “You like this one too Judith?” Sola say with a leer.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “What’s your problem Sola?” Greg say.

  Sola turn round, walk back to she room.

  “All you mean is shit Sola. Judgmental shit,” I say.

  Next morning back and neck sore from sleeping on the couch. Sola left she bedroom door open but I not about to sleep in she bed after she dis me, she dis Greg. I vex for real when she turn around and walk back into she room like she have every right to say what she say. I don’t follow. I ask loud if Greg have a blanket, a pillow he can borrow me and I curl up on the couch.

  In the morning I not so vex. Sola a mystery. A complicated mystery. And I not going to lose she over a mystery I don’t understand. I’m used to that kinda shit. She sound just like back home. Like she expecting me to be someone I not. Like she expecting more. But I not going to feel shame for something she think I am. ’Cause I not.

  She gone before I get up. She leave bakes and cocoa tea for me. A note: Gone to game. See you there. Get Greg to show you where to pass to the field at university.

  I walk down to the land where the horses are and sit. I watch them take steady careful bites of grass. They go over the same area like they revising what they just ate. I revise too and think of Mom.

  She say when I born she scan every part of my body looking for anywhere a shade darker then the golden pink I come out. She look under finger and toenails, behind ears, knees and elbows but can’t find skin tone that reflect Fabian. She say I peer out from Fabian’s full-moon black eyes. She say I have his nose and my grandmother’s Carib cheekbones. Later she say I walk just like Fabian, arch back, arms swinging. She say she wait for my skin to darken and it did from baby pink to pale honey gold. She say my face full of African features that some people mistake for Big Island First Nation and then confuse with Spanish, Italian, Puerto Rican, Chilean, the whole continent of Latin America. Mom say people pay attention to me like the time Ms. Vincent, our ninety-year-old neighbour give Mom nose straightening exercises when I a baby, “So she won’t get her father’s nose,” Ms. Vincent say every time she see us. And a couple years later when my dreads begin to grow, “Why you giving this pretty pretty child this nasty hair!” Then the time Fabian and I in the market and a lady sitting behind a pile of cabbage, “Hey Rasta that your child?” And then, “What dread! Your genes weak boy!”

  I think of Sola and the way she watch me. She watch me like the teachers and aunties back home. She watch me like she did at the reggae show the fist time we eyes meet, like I playing something other than myself. Like I can’t be me if I messing up so much. When I tell Sola about Jared I imagine she have that look, the look that say who the ass you think you are. It’s as if Sola expecting me to fuck up ’cause I suppose to be more than I am.

  Cold air hit my face with a sharp sting. I unravel my head wrap and cover my neck and mouth. I stretch out on the cold grass listening to soft popping sounds the horses make with their lips. I think about this relationship with horses. This love for horses I share with my grandmother is a love without conditions. Simple. Fearless. To see that old estate horse twisting, tearing its neck and head in the barb fence, must have broke my grandmother up inside.

  I open my eyes and Greg is looking down on me. “God I envy people who can take a nap anywhere. You coming to the game?” He stretch his hand to help me up.

  From the path a two-syllable beat pound up through the ground. The field in sight. The bleachers look like they moving. A mass of blue and white swaying, horns blaring and sharp claps snapping.

  “You hear that?” Greg say. “They’re chanting Sola’s name.”

  “What?” I say.

  “They’re chanting her name. Didn’t Sola tell you she’s the star of the team?”

  Soft pounding syllables reach between my toes.

  “She must have the ball,” Greg say while jumping up to peep over people’s heads. “Hurry up. You walk just like Sola. Slow.”

  When we reach the stadium I hear myself saying, “Woah. That game wicked. Woah, that a no-joke game. Nah man Sola go mash she self up.” Disbelief soon turn to, “Yes man. Run man. Run Sola. You don’t see she? The girl like a lion. She unstoppable.”

  At halftime my head swing round and a mass of painted blue-and-white faces, clothed in the same colours laughing and calling one another. When I turn back round I notice a Black man wearing a jacket stamped “Campus Police” walk toward us. He stop and ask Greg about his leg and if he playing tomorrow.

  “You play this crazy-ass game too?” I say.

  Greg laugh.

  “Natty dread,” the man say, “What say?”

  I tell him I cool and ask where he from.

  “So what makes you think I’m not from here?” he say.

  “’Cause I haven’t heard anyone call me natty dread since I back home.”

  “Where’s home?

  But before I can answer I see Sola falling, the ball bouncing from she arms. I swear I hear the blow of she head on the ground like the whack of a djembe. “Shit Sola’s down.” I up and moving toward the rail.

  “Don’t worry. She’s fine,” Greg say.

  “That’s what this game’s all about,” Campus Police say.

  She’s down longer than usual. I can see in the way both Greg and Campus Police watching but not saying anything. A stretcher run out by two team members. “What the fuck.”

  “So you never played or watched football? I’m not talking about Big Island football you know. I mean Small Island ball, stretchers come out all the time. She’s fine,” Campus Police say.

  Kat stretching her hand out, pulling Sola up. A few minutes later she run back onto the field and not long after, the stands in a cheer of victory. Sola floating heavy in the air by the hands of she team. A human trophy. They parade she a
round the field. I watch Sola laugh like I never see she laugh before. I feel pride like pride a hug holding me tight. I lean over the rail chanting she name like the steady drumbeat we hear walking over. Greg and I beating she name out with our hands and voices. Sola looking into the stands, one hand covering eyes like she shading the sun but the sun behind she.

  I learn later it’s headache she have. Once Sola see me, she hand come down. She hold up five fingers telling me to wait. Greg disappear into the crowd.

  “Let’s go for spring rolls and wanton soup!” she say walking out from below the bleachers. She take me to the only Chinese restaurant in town. She bump shoulders with me while walking like I never sleep on the couch and she never turn she back and walk away. She ask me what I think of the game.

  And I say madness. “You all mad. That’s a mad mad mad game Sola and you mad for playing it.”

  Sola grinning like I’ve never seen before and me laughing throwing my arm around she shoulders.

  SOLA

  WHILE WE WAIT FOR our spring rolls I tell Judith it was Kat who convinced me to try out for the rugby team. The university was figuring out what to do with me. I was there on a basketball scholarship but I skipped most of the practices. The only reason I was still at the university was because my marks were good. Kat said I should give them another reason.

  Judith’s face changes from smiling to sneering. “So wait nah, so being smart not enough reason?”

  “She didn’t mean that. She meant give them another sport they can put the scholarship into.”

  I tell Judith that after the first rugby tryout I was handed a number twelve blue-and-white jersey, a red pair of shorts and blue socks. I was told to be at practice 4:30 pm every day. I was told not to worry they would talk to the basketball coach and to the scholarship advisory committee.

  Judith tells me to keep talking. She’s enjoying my loose tongue.

  So I do. I tell her how Dolma saw basketball as an opportunity for post-secondary grants and convinced me to play for the high school team. I didn’t really like playing at school. I liked and learnt basketball from the boys at the Y. They let me play sometimes. A range of boys from all over the city. Much to Dolma’s dismay, I found my stride with the boys at the Y. She almost took to her old ways when I came home one day wearing my jeans low on my waist. She almost gave me a swat to the head for that. Shy stepped in, told me to pull up my pants and quit playing I was “more boy than girl.” Afterwards I heard them talking in the kitchen, Shy telling Dolma to “cool she self.” His exact words: “Leave Sola alone, Dolma. She a good kid. She marks are the highest in class and she better off hanging on the court playing ball than hanging in shopping malls where crazy people shooting. She’s a good kid.” So I stayed on the court and kept playing ball. I stopped complaining about the school team and played the best I could.

  Shy was right, my marks were the highest in the class. English literature and creative writing were my favourite subjects. Teachers praised me for my writing all the time. I don’t tell Judith that they also told me how articulate I was because I know she’d freak out. I remember when I first bought a notebook, started to put words down. I loved them for their sound, like political, ancestral, wondrous, luxurious, illuminate, rhythmical. I played with words, strung them together like I was beading a necklace. Listened to words click clack and knock against my tongue as I spoke them out loud. When I read, I read out loud too so I could listen to words of great writers threading together sentences, making something beautiful.

  Judith smiles and asks me what I’m thinking.

  “Writing,” I say. “And why are you smiling like someone just gave you a bag full of money?”

  She says she’s smiling because she loves hearing me talk, loves to hear my stories from the past, loves the way I shape my words like I building something strong. “Words come out so easy for you. When you free up your tongue especially and Small Island come sailing through, so pretty so true.”

  I tell her how she’s sounding like me and we both laugh. I want to thank Judith. I want to stretch my hand across the table and touch hers like she does mine sometimes but I’m not like her, external with affection.

  She says, “Go on nah,” like this is the first time I’ve ever shared anything with her.

  I continue my story about playing basketball, tell her I was recruited by the university. How Dolma and Shy were thrilled. How they loved that I would only be two hours away by bus. I tell Judith I was hoping for a little farther away but leave it at that.

  The spring rolls and sweet-and-sour wonton soup are set on the table and I keep talking. I tell her about the time Dolma showed up one weekend on a Friday night two months into my first year. I looked up from my book and there she was in the doorway with a bright green suitcase rolling behind her.

  “Why you home on a Friday night?” she said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Well I never do anything but work, church, home. So Shy convince me to get on a bus and surprise you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “How you mean am I serious I here aren’t I?”

  “I have a game tonight and where you going to sleep? This is it. Two beds. Two desks.”

  “Eh eh big university and they have you fold up in this tiny room? You playing ball for them! You think they’d give you your own room! Where you going?” Dolma put down her bag.

  “The bathroom.”

  “You share bathroom too?”

  That night Dolma sat up on the bleachers behind the team. “Put number five on coach! Why you not playing all your players coach?” The coach put me on the last five minutes and I stumbled along with the ball, Dolma’s voice up above, “That’s mi girl Sola!” and then, “Eh eh what the ass Ref. You need to close your mouth and open your eyes.”

  I walked into the locker room and the whole place went silent. Then Lauren, “Your mom’s a riot Sola.” I slammed my locker and walked out. Dolma was waiting with two bottles of ginger ale leaning up against the wall beside the bathroom.

  Kat was usually out on weekends so Dolma slept in her bed. The next morning I awoke to the click of the door and Dolma balancing two cups of coffee and a greasy brown bag. “You hungry?” She sat cross legged on Kat’s bed, a piece of tomato skin stuck to her bottom lip. The steam from her coffee circling the air, vanilla flavoured. Dolma’s belly hung over the top of her jeans and she saw me watching. She asked if I thought she was getting too big. I shrugged my shoulders. Then she said, “Don’t let Big Island ideas of beauty get to you, you know. There is nothing wrong with size. Means you happy. Means you well taken care of. The kids around here all look the same. Same hair. Same nails. Same size. Same everything. You stand out like an African Queen even if your pants sag and you forget how to play ball.” Dolma laughed so hard she almost spit up her breakfast through her nose. Someone pounded the wall in the next room with a muffled “Shut up.” This made us both laugh. And the more we tried to stop the more we laughed until we were both belly up on my bed squeezing our noses.

  Dolma left that afternoon. We walked to the station. She hugged me. Her breath warm on my neck. She said, “You better start scoring some points for that team or they going to send you back to the city.”

  I sucked my teeth and told her I wasn’t going anywhere until graduation.

  Judith every so often touching my arm, watching my eyes like if she looks away I might disappear. I’m not telling her everything that’s going through my mind, just shortened pieces. My head still pounding from the game but I want to talk. Every time she touches me I feel heat rise from the bottoms of my feet like I’m walking down the Bay and the sand is just heating up from the morning sun. But then a wave of nausea comes from those same warm feet and I can’t believe these two same feelings are riding each other again. And I see him clearly touching my arm telling me I’m the only one he lets come visit. And my school shir
t still drying over the window’s edge, drying from the stain of spilt coke. And the pleasure feelings taking my feet, my knees, my stomach.

  “What’s wrong Sola? You grey like steel,” Judith says.

  And I am sliding across the plush red booth running to the toilet, hand over my mouth.

  JUDITH

  I NEVER SEE SOLA so. Arms, hands, body moving. Expressions on face like she playing characters in a one-woman show. She stage, white dragons dancing across red walls, cherry leather chairs, dimmed lights. This the first time she offer me stories without me pressuring she to talk. Stories of Dolma. Stories more positive than negative. I want to know more. I want to sit for the rest of the afternoon and into night, watch her re-enact childhood stories. But then she sink into she chair as if someone dim the lights and music fade. She eat spring rolls one after the other, lean back and stare out the window. “I’m not feeling too good,” she say. She face turn steel grey, like ash after Fabian finish roast he breadfruit. She slide from the booth, one hand over she mouth and walk-run to the bathroom. By the time I get there she vomit into the sink.

  “Damn,” I say while walking in. I lead she by the elbow toward the toilet but she stumble and hit the side of the cubicle. “Sola.”

  “The place is spinning,” she say.

  She heave up pushing she self off the wall while reaching for the toilet. I hold she steady from behind. The owner of the restaurant walk in. “Get out,” he shout. “No drinking no drugs in my restaurant!”