“What the fuck are you talking about? She’s sick,” I say.
“Out! Not in my restaurant.”
Sola’s hands spread on each side of cubicle. Fingers balancing body.
The owner watch Sola. “No. No. No. No. Get out.”
“So sick people not allowed in your fucking restaurant?”
“Out. Get out.”
“Judith,” Sola say. “Just help me outside.”
The man watching, disgust gathering in three thick lines on he forehead. Country music playing. A trail of sunlight across the red carpet, giant orange fish staring, mouths opening and closing like they saying Oh oh. Oh oh. Oh oh. Waitress by the door with bill in hand.
I pull out a twenty and a ten balancing Sola on my arm. “I want all the change,” I say. The waitress look like one of the orange fish, her mouth in an oh.
Outside I spit on the welcoming mat. “Now what? You can barely walk. You still dizzy?”
“The whole sidewalk moving,” she say.
I stick out my hand to wave a car over. Vehicles keep passing like we two people waving at a parade going by. A car stop. Two young men in a blue Toyota. Windows down.
“Can you drive us to the hospital?” I say.
The man in the passenger seat jump out and offer his seat to Sola. I squeeze into the back with him. Sola ask the driver if he can drop us home.
“My ass Sola. The hospital,” I say. “She fall down a couple hours ago, crack she head on the ground,” I say to our drivers.
One of them say she could have a concussion. They take us to the hospital which turn out to be only five minutes away.
At the hospital, receptionist ask Sola where she from and if she have medical insurance. Before Sola can answer she ask Sola if she work at the nursing home in town, “Because I think you are covered by the province. We just need to see your work permit.”
“What she talking about Sola?”
Sola tell the lady she a student. Then lady ask she if she an international student. “No, she a student,” I say. “She local.”
“Can I see your health card?”
“She don’t walk with nothing. She play rugby this afternoon. A couple hours later she start vomiting and she dizzy like someone spin she round and round.”
“She will have to call in her insurance when she gets home,” the lady say to me not Sola.
I watch she in the eye hard but she not bothering with me at all.
They keep Sola overnight. They say concussion. The first time the nurse come to wake Sola in the middle of the night he find me curl up in bed too. He laugh. “You can stay,” he say, “but not in the bed,” and points to the chair by the window. “I don’t know why you’re here anyways. Your friend is fine. They kept her because we have an unusual amount of beds free tonight. Otherwise they would have sent her home. Although the doctor is a little worried about the vomiting and dizziness. But she hasn’t been sick for hours. She’s fine. You can go home and get a good sleep. Come back in the morning. She won’t even notice.”
But I stay. I come to be with Sola for the weekend and so far only a few hours we spend together. Not even. The nurse wake she every two hours. I in and out of sleep but mostly out. I think about the reggae show. I think of we dancing. She more sway back and forth than dance like back home. I see she eyes on me when she think I not looking. She look to the stage when my eyes meet she. Maybe It’s true. Maybe I did drink a little too much. I not a big drinker. I know Sola don’t believe me ’cause the way she watch my beer last night. I could feel the stupse in my ears even though no sound fall from she mouth. At the show she watching me dance making me feel alive. And then I dancing but I dreaming too. I dreaming she watching me, I watching she. I dreaming we kissing. Then dream done, ’cause I kiss she for real. We in a park, a baseball field up against a fence. And she kissing back. But then the girl gone. She gone. And I convince she pissed for me taking such liberties. But then next day she meeting me still and I making some kind of stupid excuse, like I drunk, as if alcohol make people gay or bi or just damn free. Free like Melina on the back step.
I want to ask she about relationships but she already tell me I ask too many questions. I guess she’ll tell me when she ready. I learn how not to piss she off like when to open and shut my mouth. So why I go and tell she about Jared?
Jared. Jared in my head now. I determine to end this stupidness with he. Last time Jared and me together he say he pray he father get licked up by a vehicle. The man say he wish he father a car accident for he birthday. I start to laugh. I can’t stop. Jared watching me and he laughing too. We laugh so hard people walking by smile too. But when I get home I not laughing. I crying. I curl up on couch and cry. Tears pouring down like bust pipe.
The next morning I call Sola. I mention Jared a few too many times like I want she to know. I tell Sola how Jared and I hang out the night before, how he come to the Den and enjoy Small Island food. How we watch movies sometimes. She know immediately. She know I sleeping with the man. I wish I never call ’cause she only talking about Drey, like Drey and me married and I wicked for dissing the man.
I beg sleep take me ’cause I tired thinking too much. My back aching on the chair and my mouth dry and I so tired I feel to cry. I fall asleep. An hour later the sun busting through the thin curtains and I up watching Sola watch me. We smile, morning.
They send she home with a prescription scribbled on a little piece of paper. They tell me if she start vomit again to come back. The doctor tell Sola another knock on she head like that could do real damage. He say not to play rugby for the rest of the year.
We take a taxi back to the apartment. In the taxi I say to Sola, “I can’t believe they put you back on the field. Even I could see you were down long. What they think you just taking a rest? They must know you knock out. Even I know you knock out from way up in the stands. Sola the game insane. You ever see The Hunger Games?”
“What? Damn Judith half the time I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” But Sola not vex ’cause she mouth curve up not down. We quiet for the rest of the ride. The quiet light not thick. Then Sola surprise me, she hand on top mine. My fingers close and we holding hands.
SOLA
JUDITH IS FOLDED UP on a chair in the corner, folded up like clothes gathered in a hurry. I dream she’s in my bed. But then the nurse wakes me and asks me questions like what’s my name, how many fingers is he holding up and do you know that person over there and he’s pointing to Judith all squeezed and awkward on the chair.
“Judith,” I say, like it’s a trick question and I know I know.
Judith’s eyes open like she is surprised to see me. But it’s me surprised to see Judith because I wasn’t expecting her to stay the night. And now I’m thinking maybe it was Judith in bed with me because I can smell lavender and oranges on the sheets. Before I can say something I am falling into sleep. I am trying to wake myself up so I can tell Judith I saw her at another hospital. I saw her. I know her. I know of her. She is in the hospital getting her face sewn up. The scar. Judith I know where your scar comes from.
But I can’t push myself out of sleep and I am back once again in another hospital. The hospital on top of the hill, the one Ma Tay and I just climb. And that moon, that full moon watches us as we climb the hill. That full moon who I imagine watches so many of us sick, fevered, chopped, burnt, birthing, bellowing people make their way up. That day we are the lucky ones who don’t have to wait long because the doctor is already there, he’s sewing up a young girl’s face. The face is Judith. The talk in the waiting room is that the girl’s father fell asleep at the wheel, the car flipped onto its side and into the drain. The child pitched out of the back seat. The only injuries visible are stitches trailing from the top of her lip to the edge of her eye. The stitches are black against fair skin.
I remember thinking, how could the man, a black Rasta man, be h
er father? But she has locks too and eyes cocoa brown, cheek bones high on a round heart-shaped face like her father’s. Everyone stares at the child. Both eyes are swollen shut, similar to my one eye enflamed and closing fast.
My turn is next. Ma Tay leads me into the office, one hand hooked through my arm as though she is leading a blind elder. I don’t mind. I like the attention. I let her smooth down my plaits and softly touch the side of my face, the side that is swelling. Ma Tay walks in like she’s apologizing for the condition of her granddaughter, as though it was her hand not Thompson’s that did the damage.
I want to tell Ma Tay that it isn’t her fault, it was I who told Thompson to “mind his business” when he accused me of things I never did. I don’t understand him sometimes, like when he tells me I like “boys too much,” or how my “salt fish smell” or how I am just like Dolma, “bad minded.” I told him that afternoon to “mind his damn business” because that is what I heard other ladies tell him. This is why my bottom tooth is split through my top lip. All that anger just kept swooshing out of him.
In my dream, I hear the river ladies washing clothes, telling me to go easy on my father because he had it rough growing up. The river ladies say, “He born black like you.” They talk about Thompson’s father. They tell me, “Your grandfather fall from Ms. Elsa’s veranda and break he back. But they didn’t know he back broken ’cause nobody see him fall. They just assume he fall. They assume he drunk and so the neighbouring boys take your grandfather by hands and feet and heave him into his bed. The next morning your daddy try and wake he daddy up but can’t ’cause he dead.” The river ladies are always telling me some kind of story.
The nurse wakes me. Judith is now stretched out on the chair like she’s lying in bed but half her body is spilling onto the floor. This nurse doesn’t ask me questions, just makes sure I am fully awake before he lets me sleep again. He watches me drink a glass of water.
I can’t get back to sleep because I am thinking about Thompson, I am thinking about that day at the hospital. I knew Thompson was in a bad mood by the silence greeting the dogs’ yelps of joy as he came into the yard. He usually said lots to the dogs, like, “How you happy so? Didn’t you just see me this morning? You getting on like I come back from the dead!” Not even a “move nah!” or a “Get out of the blasted way!” Just silence opening and shutting the door. I forgot to cook the sweet potatoes and yam he cleaned before he left for work. I was too busy looping some kind of design in my notebook while dreaming about the new bicycle Mr. Robbie said his wife was going to send me. A gift of appreciation Mr. Robbie told me. He said Mrs. Robbie was grateful I was spending so much time with him keeping him company while she and the kids were away. I remember it was the bike I was thinking about because the next day there was no bike, only Mr. Robbie rubbing my eye with some kind of strong smelling cream, like camphor balls. The sun slipped behind the mountains when I heard the dogs bust into a happy yelp. I could barely see the page of my notebook but I was still drawing and making all kinds of designs that looked like funny creatures in the clouds.
At the Small Island hospital I told the doctor none of this. I stared at my feet with my shoulders slumped. The doctor kept telling me to sit up straight and look at him when he was talking. Thompson hated when I looked him in the eyes. The doctor asked what I did to make my daddy beat me. I kept my eyes steady on the floor feeling Ma Tay distributing weight from one hip to the next, feeling the agitation rise from balancing her weight. The room was quiet except for the tap of Mikey’s shoes outside the office. Mikey came with us. I remember by the tap, tap, tap of his shoes. I knew it was Mikey ’cause he was always making music out of something: feet, hands, buckets, sticks, old pieces of pipe.
“So why are you here?” the doctor asked.
Ma Tay found her voice, “We need a paper to prove her injuries to the police.”
His head snapped around to face me. “Young lady did your father do anything to you besides hit you?”
“No.” I said sharply.
“He didn’t touch you anywhere he is not supposed to?”
“No.”
The doctor leaned in and lost his American-degree accent, “So why you making report Mammy?”
“Because the girl not going back to live with she father. I taking her with me and I want proof from a doctor.”
“Well I can give you a prescription for her eye and lip but I am not a lawyer. The police going to have to make their own report.” The doctor faced me. “Young girl you must behave yourself. You must listen to your parents and respect them. In my days, lash make children more respectful. It’s true he shouldn’t hit you in the face but these days kids making their parents real frustrated. Children growing up thinking they have more rights than the adults that feed them.”
I gave the doctor one bad eye with my one good eye.
He watched me like he wanted to put more colour to my face. Instead he turned to Ma Tay. “And now government talking about banning corporal punishment from schools. Trust me this is going to cause more harm than good.”
Ma Tay sat silent and motionless with the exception of a nervous kneading of skirt between fingers. “Come,” she said as if she had to coax me out the office. I jumped up and walked straight out the door forgetting to hold it open for Ma. She pushed through, reaching for my arm, and guided me with the same gentleness with which we entered. I inhaled Ma’s coconut cream and wood-smoke skin while looking for Mikey amongst the other people waiting. He got up and followed us out.
I wake to a faint smell of Clorox bleach and crushed aspirin. Judith is watching me. Smiling. She looks tired. Dark circles under her eyes. Face pale with lines and indents in the side of her cheek from sleeping on the hand with the rings. Her smile fades as she rolls her neck from side to side. “I never feel my neck so,” she says.
“Why don’t you go home. I can meet you there later. There’s an empty bed waiting for you.”
“I stay this long. I can stay a little longer.” Then she asks me how I feel.
I say okay. But my head is hurting and my mouth is still dry. I want to tell her about my dream and what I remember. I want to tell her I know where her scar comes from, that we were at the hospital on the hill the same day when we were kids. But my tongue feels like pavement and my head like it’s wringing out my eyes. I decide to wait till the nurse comes with water and a painkiller. Judith goes downstairs to get a coffee while I travel between sleep and wakefulness. I forget to tell her about the coincidence of us in the hospital together on Small Island. And to solidify my forgetfulness further, I do something that takes me by surprise. While driving home from the hospital my hand floats down and over Judith’s resting on the seat next to my leg. I cover Judith’s hand with mine. I feel her body jerk like I woke her. She doesn’t even look down to see what caused her to jump up. Instead she looks out the window while her hand turns up and her fingers curl between mine. The ticklish warmth in the middle of my body stays ticklish and warm, there are no other feelings riding except the dull pounding of my tired eyes and the feeling I could sleep for days.
JUDITH
I DECIDE TO END it with Jared. He text me over the weekend while I with Sola. But nothing substantial, nothing that show me signs why I hanging with this man. I text him and say I want to talk. He say come over. I still tired from couch and chair sleeps. He pour each of us a glass of wine. I taking sips and my brain telling me to say something, anything but I so tired I just drink the wine and ask him how his weekend. He say how he brothers come to town and they went out to the bars. He say mostly his weekend quiet. He don’t say much. I don’t say much.
We end up on the couch watching a movie about a man who doing time for a crime we don’t know he commit but the sister convince he innocent and she studying to be lawyer ’cause she the only one who believe him. I fall asleep half way through. Too tired to ask what happen. Jared say I can stay. But I know I should go. Instead
I stay. He reach for me as soon as he get into bed. I tell myself, “Talk to the man nah. Why you don’t say something? Why you weak so?” All this rolling through my head while he taking off my panty, kissing my neck, my breasts, licking his fingers before spreading my legs and touching me. My mind still busy asking, “What the fuck you doing Judith? Why you doing this again? How to stop him now?”
And so I don’t stop him. I let my body feel his teeth on nipple, his fingers sliding in and out. I let myself groan and move with his hand. I let him take the condom from the drawer by his bed, bite it open and proceed to put more of himself in me. I take a deep breath and exhale hard as I try to shake these self-shaming thoughts from my head. The loud exhale excite Jared and he move faster. I say this is the last time while I move my hand in between us and let my fingers move with his hips till I feel a wave from my toes to knees to belly to fingertips to head. The wave recede just as fast as it come. Jared roll off me, say thanks, check his messages and send a text.
Asshole.
I get out of bed, grab my clothes, dress in the bathroom and walk out the front door.
He come to Lion’s Den a few nights later. His regular night. Friday. He doesn’t say anything about me walking out. He ask for a beer and watch soccer from the screen above while I serve other customers.
“What you want Jared?”
“A Carib.”
I suck my teeth and reach into the freezer. Place the beer in front of him and wait for him to pay.
“Can I start a tab?”
Another suck of my teeth while I slap a beer down for another man waiting for food. Men stupid like crabs, I think. And all this time I thinking I won’t have to talk at all ’cause I think me walking out is talk enough. And he not bothering to text, to phone, to find out why I walk out. So I think this is it. We done. But I wrong ’cause here he is pretending like nothing happen. And here I am still vex ’cause he never bother to find out why I walk out in the first place. And I get more and more vex each day that pass and he not call or message. And now here he is and I find myself getting more nervous than vex. I find myself checking myself in the bathroom mirror. I find myself back where I started. Damn and all I want to do is phone Sola tell she to tell me I mad. But I can’t ’cause she know I mad already and I not bringing Jared up again and she not asking.
Big Island, Small Page 10