“We might have to go soon. It look like it g’wan storm,” Patsy says.
Claudette looks up too and sees the gray clouds. Together, they hail a dollar van to Patsy’s place. By then, the sky opens up. They giggle as they run into the building, dripping wet, with their shopping bags. They make it up the steps to Patsy’s room and close the door. Claudette smiles when she sees the barrel. Her eyes then wistfully survey the room. “It always feel suh comfortable here,” she jokes, dropping the shopping bags on the floor.
“Glad yuh feel dat way.” Patsy hands her a towel to dry off, her own body wet and chilled.
“You look cold an’ tired,” Claudette says. “Ah thought yuh was g’wan shop down di whole place.”
“It still nuh feel like it’s enough,” Patsy says, looking down inside the gaping mouth of the barrel, the shopping bags lined at her feet.
Claudette laughs and comes close to Patsy, lifting her face with her hands. “Yuh heart is in it. Dat’s all dat matters.” She kisses Patsy, and Patsy closes her eyes to feel the warmth of her lips. They kiss deeply, pausing briefly for Patsy to pull Claudette’s sweater over her head. With Claudette’s help, she removes the other things. Sitting on the bed, Patsy reaches up, her fingers spread over Claudette’s body, caressing the softness of her breasts and kneading the flesh around her beaded waist and hips. Patsy catches a glimpse of the barrel again, peering at them like a voyeur from across the small room. Remorse lances her and she turns from it, burying her face in the softness of Claudette’s belly, then slowly sliding down and beyond, pleading with her lips for that love that would dissolve the seemingly unforgiving shadow in the corner.
49
HALF-NAKED CHILDREN PLAY ON GARRICK’S LANE, RUNNING around and sucking their thumbs while pulling on their dark, unruly hair. Tru passes St. George Furnace, where people used to sell pan chicken, roasted peanuts, and peppered shrimp before the recession. It takes her through the narrow zinc-fence aisle of Cooper Lane to the tenement yard, where washerwomen take down sheets and clothes off the lines, putting them inside buckets, and where women sit on steps, brown, fleshy legs open, combing or braiding their daughters’ hair, their faces bleached near-white with cake soap and bleaching creams. Girls Tru’s age move around freely with toddlers on their hips, carrying them inside boarded-up houses painted in bright blue and pink and green and yellow. There’s a mini-shop with bars over the windows, selling soft drinks, banana chips, Shirley biscuits, and an assortment of liquor. Men sit on crates, on stools, on chairs, propping their chins in their hands, appearing like those gargoyle statues rich people put on their gates, watchful yet resigned, with rum bottles held between rough fingers. She feels their eyes on her as she passes them, and long after, licking the heels of her new Puma sneakers.
Tru walks to the baby-blue house in the yard closest to a standpipe where three gravely thin mongrel dogs lick the dripping water up off the sliver of concrete in the dusty yard. The breeze carries the smell of gutter water. In this area, many of the children have rashes and boils on their limbs. There is no explanation for the condition, though it’s speculated that the drinking water that the people get from the foot of the hill might be contaminated with waste. This accounts for the trees dying in that area, wilted and gray. People have been told not to drink the water; but the water is free.
Tru can hear babies crying inside the house and the squeals of young children. A woman’s voice shouts, “Oonuh stop di noise! Marlon, come help me wid yuh brother an’ sistah dem!” Miss Olive, Marlon’s mother, is a haggler who sells in the arcade downtown. Tru used to only see her at special functions at Pennyfield Primary, when she’d come dressed in one of her colorful wigs and a nice outfit that often revealed her figure.
Tru picks up a rock and knocks on the plank by the door.
“Is who dat?” Miss Olive yells. “Marlon, guh see is who dat by di door! If is Foster, tell har me nuh deh ’ere!”
Sore-Foot Marlon opens the door. He’s wearing a mesh marina shirt and a pair of jeans cut off at the knees. When he sees Tru, he frowns. “What yuh doing here?”
“Marlon, is who?” his mother asks.
“It’s jus’ Tru, Mama!” Sore-Foot Marlon shouts over his shoulder.
“Good evening, Miss Olive!” Tru calls, biting her bottom lip and stuffing her hands inside the pockets of her sweatpants.
“Tru!” Miss Olive shouts. She appears behind Sore-Foot Marlon, a pale face—the shade of the inside of an underripe guava—bleached with the creams or cake soap the girls and boys are using nowadays. It even seems to fade her once-striking features. Her hair is already in curlers, but it doesn’t matter, since Miss Olive always has a way of making everything look like it’s in fashion.
“Tru! Long time. Where’s all yuh beautiful long hair?” She rubs her hand over Tru’s head. “Tun ’roun mek me see yuh,” she says.
Tru obeys and turns for Miss Olive to examine her. “Yuh growing tall an’ skinny!” Her eyes fasten on Tru’s flattened chest, and Tru can almost see her mind working, the question on her parted lips. Tru folds her arms across her chest.
“Yuh look jus’ like Patsy. Ah hope yuh taking good care of yuhself.”
Tru nods and forces a smile. “I am, Miss Olive.”
Miss Olive brushes Tru’s arm with her hand. “Yuh need to put some meat ’pon yuh body, gyal. Or else you an’ Marlon could pass fi twin. A nice young girl suh pretty should be dressing up nice fah young men. Ah don’t t’ink Patsy would like you dressing dis way. Man, dat gyal coulda dress!” She rubs Tru’s arm, the slight, intimate pressure making Tru uncomfortable. “Ah thought she was sending yuh all dat American food to fatten yuh up!”
“Mama—” Sore-Foot Marlon chides. Tru’s face warms.
Miss Olive fans him off, but not before stamping Tru with a do-what’s-best-for-you-and-take-my-motherly-advice look. She disappears into the house of crying babies. Sore-Foot Marlon is apologetic, hunching his shoulders and hanging his head as he closes the door behind him. Before the door slams, a little naked boy with rashes all over his arms and legs runs up to Sore-Foot Marlon and hugs his leg. Miss Olive’s voice is heard in the background calling him. “Barry! Come bathe!”
“Barry, guh back inside,” Sore-Foot Marlon coaxes the crying boy. “Ah not going anywhere far. Me soon come back.”
The little boy looks at Tru, who smiles at him and waves. The rashes cover his neck too, so much so that it looks like another skin altogether, rougher and darker. He stops crying and puts a thumb to his mouth, watching her with curiosity. Perhaps he too is trying to figure her out.
“Go!” Sore-Foot Marlon says to him.
The little boy runs back inside, and Tru turns to Sore-Foot Marlon.
“Ah want to talk to you.”
“About?”
“You ignoring me.”
“Tru, ah have no time fah dis . . .”
“You used to have time.”
“Tru . . .”
“Why yuh keeping me out?”
Sore-Foot Marlon laughs. “I’m not keeping you out. I’m jus’ busy . . . as you can see. Also, what yuh doing around here? Yuh don’t want dark fi ketch yuh ’pon dis side ah town. God forbid somet’ing ’appen to you out here. Yuh daddy might neva let us live it down. Like when he—”
“Why yuh g’wan throw dat in my face?”
Sore-Foot Marlon shrugs. “Isn’t it di truth?”
“We’ve been playing together for years. We know everyt’ing about each other. Why would you let Pope come between us?”
“What do you know about me, Tru?”
“Where’s dis coming from?”
Sore-Foot Marlon is shaking his head. “Neva mind.”
“Yuh not g’wan bring dis up an’ drop it like dat,” Tru says.
“Tru, I have to go. I have to help my mother.”
“At least tell me why.”
“Maybe di person yuh should be interrogating is yuhself, Tru,” he says. “Yuh know how much me woulda give fi stand in
your shoes? At least yuh can still afford to go to Wilhampton. Yuh father is a policeman. Yuh see dis?” He gestures with his hand to the neighborhood. “Yuh don’t have to come here. Yuh neva had to. Jus’ like yuh neva had to play fah Pope. So, when yuh see us working hard on dat field to win dat money, it’s not about you, Tru. It’s about us.”
TRU WALKS TOWARD HOME, MARLON’S WORDS CLAWING AT HER. The men steeped in rum are no longer perched on stools in the shadow of dusk. The washerwomen, the young girls, the crying babies, and the mongrel dogs are all gone, because of the curfew. Soldiers holding long rifles, and police in riot gear line the edges of St. George Furnace.
“Hey, hey! Yuh should be inside!” a policeman with a rifle and bulletproof vest roars at Tru. There are so many of them. Their shields reflect the light from the lorries and street poles.
Tru squints into the bright beams of one of the lorries. “I’m going—”
Before she finishes her sentence, the police officer heads toward her with his gun pointed. He stops suddenly when he recognizes her. “Tru?”
Tru recognizes her father’s voice. When he sees the look on her face and realizes that she’s visibly terrified, he lowers his gun. He used to tell Tru and her brothers to never creep up behind him or else one day he could draw his gun and pull the trigger. He’s not a man who likes to be ambushed. They used to laugh at this, thinking their father was just being funny. That he would never shoot his own children.
“Tru, what yuh doing in dis area?” Roy hisses. “It’s dangerous.”
“I—I was—was jus’—jus’ visiting a friend.”
“What di hell—” Roy steps closer to her. “Yuh have no business in dis place aftah curfew hours.” Another officer, whom Tru recognizes as Lieutenant Phillips, comes up to Roy from behind. “Tru? Ah you dat? Woulda neva recognize you dressed like dat! Ah thought you was one ah yuh bredda dem!” He laughs. Roy seems furious. “Stay outta dis, Joseph,” he says to Lieutenant Phillips. To Tru he yells, “Go home now!”
Roy’s caustic tone startles Tru, reminding her of that night she caught him and Marva having sex; the hatred in his command. “Get di hell out!” He signals the other officers to let her pass. And just like that, the barricades open up like a gate for Tru to walk through.
“I’m sorry . . ,” she whispers to Roy. But he doesn’t respond.
AT HOME, TRU TAKES A SHOWER AND THEN LOCKS THE DOOR TO her room. She sits on the edge of the bed, naked, and stares at herself in the long mirror on her wardrobe door. She has never felt so alone. The more she stares at herself, the less she recognizes who is staring back. She doesn’t know any women she wants to be like. Somehow, they are all joined, it seems, linked by a sanguine chain that excludes her. Her mother, Marva, Mama G, the teachers and girls at her school. Now she fears that she will forever be afflicted with the looks and touches of strangers, their cruelty, pity, perversion disguised as gentle warnings.
Seized by a frenzy of rage, Tru stuffs her favorite Pelé T-shirt inside her mouth to muffle her groans as she presses down hard on her nipples, caught between her index finger and thumb, until the physical pain makes her forget the less tangible one.
But it doesn’t help. Eventually she stumbles out of her room. Marva is home, inside the living room, fanning herself with a newspaper, her legs up on a cushion. One hand holds her belly. As soon as she sees Tru, she laments.
“Yuh father . . . did he tell yuh?”
“Tell me what?”
“You know dat woman had di baby fah him? A girl. Dat’s what she gave him. A beautiful baby girl, eight pounds nine ounces. An’ guess who di mother is.” Marva laughs to herself like she’s recounting a pleasant memory. “Iris. Can you believe it? Di same girl ah took undah my roof, fed, and send har to hairdressing school . . . she same one.”
Iris moved out a few years ago, went to Portmore when Tru started eighth grade. Tru kept in touch, seeing her in passing sometimes as she waited for the bus in Half-Way Tree. She’s still quiet and slight, with a shy smile. Tru remembers the days when Iris lived with them and Marva and Roy would have their fights. How the three witches came and gave Marva crushed coal and garlic to wear around her waist; how Marva stirred and stirred, her brooding figure always by the stove; how one day Iris took sick and had to move back to the country for a while; how Marva never spoke of her again, and Roy spoke very little. Marva continues, “Here I am, being a homemaker—doing everyt’ing in my power to mek sure di man come home to good meal, clean sheets, and pressed clothes—”
“Marva, I’m sorry.”
“Who him t’ink him is, eh?” Marva asks Tru in a conversational tone. “Yuh t’ink God put me ’pon dis earth fi walk five steps behind a man? Yuh t’ink I g’wan spend me life kissing di ground him walk ’pon?”
“Marva, I—”
“Hell, no.” She finally turns to face Tru, who is standing there in the dark, the light from the television illuminating her face. “One day yuh g’wan undah-stand. Trus’ me. One day yuh g’wan know di pain of being a mule. Yuh know why? Because di sins of yuh father. Men like dat don’t care dat dey have daughters. Daughters who watch an’ learn an’ t’ink is how man supposed to treat dem. Yuh know how much ah give up to be wid dat man?”
Tru quietly listens, silenced by Marva’s rant.
“Yuh know what di man ’ave di nerve to call me? Selfish.” Marva laughs again, her tirade unheeding. “All because ah tell him ah can’t tek it no more. It’s as if di man t’ink me is Superwoman. It’s as if I mustn’t complain or ask him fah help. You know, when he carried you here, him neva ask me nuttin? Him jus’ tell me dat him five-year-old daughter coming to live wid us, because she ’ave nowhere else to go, an’ dat was dat. His orders. I agree because ah thought I’d finally get a daughter like ah always wanted.”
She looks at Tru as if noticing her presence for the first time. Her voice drops an octave, and her eyes brim with tears as she looks at Tru. “What is it wid you? Why yuh spite me, suh? Tell me. Yuh can’t jus’ be a girl fah once? Yuh not done wid dis phase yet?” A choked plea comes from her throat. “God already gave me three sons. Two more on di way. An’ di one time ah t’ink him answer my prayer, is di one time him played a cruel joke and gave me you. Ah can’t fathom you a’tall, a’tall.”
Still shaking her head, she leans back on the sofa. “Dis is foolishness . . .” She flips the channel on the television to an infomercial. Tru recedes back into her room, locks the door, and retrieves the razor she hides inside her treasure box, overwhelmed by the torment of her lifelong grief. She uses it on her scarred right thigh, deftly carving three more marks that scream bright red against the quiet brown of her skin. The darkness returns. She wipes away the watery veil from her eyes, knowing that the heaviness that weighs on her has nothing to do with the dark, nor will the morning deliver her.
AFTER SCHOOL ON MONDAY, SASKIA APPROACHES TRU, CONCERNED. “Yuh okay?”
She walks in front of Tru to get her to stop. Tru walks around her. “Hey, slow down. I thought you said we can walk to Half-Way Tree together,” Saskia says.
“I changed my mind,” Tru replies, stepping to the side.
“Tru, we can talk—”
“I want to be alone.”
“It’s not going to do you any good to keep whatever is bothering you in . . .”
Tru flinches when Saskia touches her.
“What do you want from me?” Tru asks, stopping to face Saskia. “All of a sudden you want to be my friend. For what?”
“Because I like you. A lot,” Saskia says. “I’ve always liked you.”
“I’m not likable.”
“You are. I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone . . .”
Saskia hugs her biology and chemistry CXC textbooks, shifting from side to side, barely meeting Tru’s scrutiny. Tru is suddenly flooded with awareness as she watches her. She blinks. Seriously? she thinks to say, but doesn’t. For the first time, she’s terrified of what’s hidden behind Saskia’s shy smile, her secret gaz
e, her willingness to say hello despite Tru’s reticence and their classmates’ scorn. It surprises Tru a little and saddens her a good deal. “I—I’m—I’m sorry, I can’t right now. I have to catch the bus.”
Saskia nods and looks away swiftly. “Sure. Ah didn’t mean to keep you. I jus’ thought—” Tru senses her disappointment. “Neva mind what ah thought.” Saskia moves to let Tru pass.
Tru hurries through the school gate and into the swirls of the late afternoon chaos in Half-Way Tree, telling herself that she’d rather settle for people’s brutal reactions, their disgust, their disappointment, their bullet of saliva in her face as they refer to her as “it.”
On the bus, she looks out the window, Kingston city flying past her. Privately, she acknowledges her cowardice. Once upon a time she did everything to be liked. To be a good girl. She even lied. She would steal gizzadas her mother baked when she wasn’t in one of her dark moods. Always, her mother had a thing for numbers, for counting, and if something was off, she knew immediately. Tru liked to watch her mother grate the coconut, sprinkle cane sugar on top, dip her fingers into the dough, and meticulously bend the gizzadas into shape. She stole them because it was her way of capturing those moments, remembering them, because they were few and far in between. She stored the gizzadas in a cloth and tucked it between the wall and the bed they shared. Her deeds were discovered when the cloth was mauled by ants, which crawled into the sheets and bit them while they slept. Stealing gizzadas and lying about it turned out to be a minor offense, but Tru didn’t know that at the time. At the time what she feared was losing her mother’s love.
50
CLAUDETTE AND PATSY ARE LYING IN BED LIKE ANY OTHER SATURDAY evening, watching the small television in Claudette’s studio, when Cicely suddenly appears on the screen. Patsy pauses, the remote almost falling out of her hand. Cicely’s image on the television screen looks pale, drained. Her graceful form under the double-breasted suit she wears seems thinner than Patsy remembers; her face, with the delicate sweep of bone under smooth cream skin, is grim but still very striking, her hair long and bleached. The bangs she wears hide that scar on her forehead—a scar only Patsy sees, because she knows it is there, as essential as a birthmark. She’s standing next to Marcus as he discusses his New Brooklyn campaign with a reporter on a local Brooklyn channel. “What an ass,” Claudette mutters beside Patsy, pulling the sheet over her naked breasts. “He don’t t’ink him shooting himself in di leg, turning ’gainst him own people?”
Patsy Page 37