The Rhythm of the August Rain

by Gillian Royes

  “Is there still any prejudice against them?” Shannon asked, sliding her camera back in the bag, on her right hand the gold band her parents had given her to hide their embarrassment at having a pregnant, single daughter.

  “There’s been discrimination against Rastas from way back. It’s been a long, hard road to this point. Beatings, arrests, they’ve been through it all, particularly when they first started. The British didn’t know what to do with them other than make them outlaws.”

  “Rather like the Maroons at first.”

  “Except that the Maroons were fighters and the Rastas weren’t. They believed in peace, even if their language is—strong sometimes.”

  “But was there any connection between the Rastas and the Maroons? Have they inspired them?”

  “Jamaica’s Maroons escaped from plantations during slavery, as we all know, but what is not known as well is that they made a peace agreement with the British government, who hadn’t been able to subdue them. That agreement stated that the Maroons would capture any runaway slave and return him to the British—and that they did. They even started hunting runaway slaves for the planters.” Ransom’s eyebrows had shot up while he said it, taking it personally.

  “So the Maroons—”

  “The Maroons have a sort of iconic reputation in Jamaica. They’re seen as brave and—and combative—victors, you know, who defeated the British army. I guess they’d be called terrorists today.”

  “And the Rastafarians—”

  “They have mixed feelings about the Maroons. On the one hand, they see them as heroes, but, on the other, they’re seen as traitors to the slaves.”

  Ransom presented Shannon with two of his books and she thanked him, suppressing a desire to tell him that she owned both, had read every word and underlined several.

  “I hope you have something on the Nyabinghi,” she said, turning to the flyleaf of one.

  “A chapter or two.”

  “Great, I’ll read them before I go to a ceremony they’ve invited me to on Sunday night,” she said, knowing she’d impress him, knowing he’d be diplomatic enough not to say it was a big deal because she was a white foreigner. Instead, he inquired about what group it was and where they were located.

  “I’ve been to several Nyabinghis, but I’ve never been to the Gordon Gap camp,” he’d said while she was zipping up her bag to leave. He was standing, the curled eyelashes blinking rapidly. “I’d like to join you on Sunday night—that is, if you don’t mind.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  * * *

  You not going to church?” Beth asked for the second time.

  Shad pulled the sheet over his head. “Leave me alone.”

  “Just because your party bust, it don’t mean you should vex with God, you know.” Her flip-flops slapped the floorboards as she departed.

  Shad rolled over and sighed. The party hadn’t been a bust, it had been a catastrophe. Like a bad omen, the DJ hadn’t arrived at eight o’clock as agreed, which didn’t matter because no one had bought a ticket by nine o’clock when he finally showed up. Only a few teenagers were hanging around in the parking lot, looking for action with sly smiles, offering to help move the equipment for a small change. Before long music was blasting out of the speakers Bragga had positioned in the four corners of the bar, their vibrations making the silver balloons shiver. Free of charge in the parking lot, the teenagers had bounced up and down in time to the music.

  “Is a good thing Mistah Eric sleeping up at Lambert’s house tonight,” Shad had commented to the only paying guests, Frank and his girlfriend Marjorie, who’d brought another couple. “The noise would have kill him.”

  When Beth had emerged from the kitchen with a tray of sardine sandwiches, she’d looked around the bar. “I hope you didn’t spend big money, because it look like you not going to get it back.”

  “Pshaw, man,” Shad had responded, his heart sinking by the minute. “People come late to these parties, man. Come midnight, they showing up.”

  “We can use the decorations for the wedding,” she’d said, a little too happily. Just then, the DJ put on “My Boy Lollipop,” and Shad took Beth’s hand and swung her onto the dance floor, doing his own version of the knee-knocking rocksteady, singing along with Millie Small, trying to lift his own spirits.

  By eleven o’clock, the chairs were still neatly tucked into their tables, and the two couples were the only occupants of a lone table. At twelve, they asked for their money back.

  “I can’t give it to you, man,” Shad had protested, shouting above Justin Hinds singing “The Higher the Monkey Climbs,” the notes ricocheting off the concrete floor. “You already stay and enjoy the music. Like how I have to pay the DJ.”

  “But is no party this,” Frank complained. “We just sit—”

  “You could have dance.”

  “It depressing to dance alone, man.”

  “I don’t know why nobody come,” Shad had said, throwing himself into a chair. “They always come to my parties.”

  “If the wedding wasn’t next week, everybody would have come,” Frank said.

  “What you mean?”

  “Everybody say they waiting for the wedding, because they can eat and dance at the reception free. So Miss Brown tell me, anyway. She say nine hundred dollars hard to come by, and she don’t have to pay nothing next Saturday.”

  “Bumba claat.” Shad allowed himself the curse word Granny had slapped him for once. “You see my trial? My own wedding ruin my party.”

  “The timing just wrong,” Frank had reasoned. “They have one dress and one suit to go to the wedding, and they don’t want to dirty it up before.”

  At one o’clock, the dance floor was still shining and the boys in the parking lot had left. Shad handed over J$12,000 to Bragga, the 50 percent discount meaning nothing now. It was all money down the drain, tip money that he usually used to pay the electric or medical bills, hard-earned money. Beth had helped him cut down the balloons and the streamers, which she carefully deflated and folded while her future husband downed two Alka-Seltzers.

  Shad looked now at the sliver of morning between the drawn curtains. A mosquito whined past his ear and he pulled the sheet back over his head. The failure of the party had left him with a headache and a hole in his stomach, a hole that preferred the rosy darkness of the sheet to any light the day could offer.

  The failed party was a sure sign—he felt it in his bones—that his influence in Largo had waned. People used to flock to his parties in the old days, the last one two years ago when they’d had to shut down the DJ at two o’clock instead of four because so many people had shown up. The parking lot had been full of bopping, flirting youths, and two drunks had started a fight. Even when Shad had turned off the music and announced over the mike that the police were coming, the bar continued to be crowded with drinkers, chatting, smoking, laughing, buying one, two, three for the road.

  The joke was that he hadn’t even prepared for that party. For this one, he and Bragga had gone over by phone on Thursday the list of classics Shad wanted played—Stranger Cole, Derrick Morgan, Winston Samuels, all the rocksteady greats, and later, during his break, he’d run around the village announcing the party, telling everybody they must come. Friday, he’d bought the cans of sardines, loaves of bread, slices of cheese, for the sandwiches. Early yesterday he was already at the bar scrubbing down the floor with the stiff broom and a bucket of sudsy water. The lawn above the cliff had been cut by noon, the organizing and decorating of the bar finished by four. Everything had been perfect—for nothing. And worst yet, he’d lost his investment money in the wedding rings.

  Beth’s sandals came back and stopped at the foot of the bed. “You remember that this afternoon is my bridal shower? You promise you would look after the younger children. Joella and me leaving here at—”

  “I can’t,” Shad muttered from the pink comfort of the sheet.

  “You can’t what?”

  “Look after the children.�
��

  There was a silence, followed by the drawing in of air through small, wide nostrils. “How long I tell you that Maisie having a shower for me?”

  “I going to a Nyabinghi—”

  “What I supposed to do with the children?” She had on the voice that came with arms akimbo. “I can’t tell Joella that she have to stay home and watch the children, like how she planning for one week now what she going to wear to the shower.”

  “I have to work.”

  “If you didn’t waste your money on that party—”

  “I have to go with Shannon. She paying me.”

  “She pay you yet?”

  “Not yet, but it soon come.” He pulled the sheet higher. “Take them all with you, nuh?” Beth ripped off the sheet and threw it onto her side of the bed. “Pshaw, man.” He rolled onto his side and hugged his knees.

  “Like you not listening to me.”

  “Take them and get Joella to help you.”

  “What you talking about? The bride can’t take all her pickney to her shower! First of all, Maisie don’t have enough food to feed all of them, like how they eat down house. Second of all, Joshua just starting to walk and he pulling down everything and Miss Maisie house neat like magazine. Third of all, Ashante going to throw a tantrum because she don’t like too much strange people around her.” The arms went to the hips. “A woman can’t even get little cooperation so she can go to her own bridal shower, is that you telling me?”

  “I promise Shannon.”

  “And who is me, jellyfish? You don’t promise me, too? As soon as Maisie tell me she having bridal shower, I ask you and you say yes, you would look after them.”

  Rickia saved him. “Daddy,” she called from the bedroom door, still in her nightgown, “Bongo want to see you. He say you left a message for him to come.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  * * *

  The restaurant was spotless, the early-morning sun streaking across the polished floor, and Eric was a little disappointed that he’d been wrong. He’d steeled himself to return to a postparty mess of dirty floors and dangling decorations. Instead, everything looked as clean as when he’d left the evening before. Shad must have stayed late cleaning up, probably left shortly before dawn. It must have been a hell of a party, though, because the music had blared up the hill to Lambert’s house, and he’d only gotten to sleep after putting his pillow over his head.

  He’d had trouble falling asleep, anyway. He’d lost another Scrabble game with Eve after dinner, causing his daughter to do her victory dance, this time to the applause of her mother and all the Delgados. It unsettled him to lose to her in front of them. He pretended he didn’t care, but it showed that he knew less than an adolescent.

  The game had started before dinner. Eve had suggested it, as if she wanted to forget her parting shot the day before, the hate she’d spewed out. After her third play, she’d mentioned her birthday. “And you’re taking me—”

  “—snorkeling.” He’d nodded. “I didn’t forget.”

  “Where are you going?” Shannon had asked in a light voice from the sofa.

  “Sugar Bay, because the reef comes in close.”

  “I remember,” she’d said, almost to herself, two words into which were clearly funneled the memories of their snorkeling together at Sugar Bay, making out under a tree once and being frightened, she laughing hysterically, after a coconut dropped near her towel. Dinner couldn’t come quickly enough after that.

  Thank God, Shannon, too, had put aside her anger since their quarrel, or her quarrel with him, and she was now cool but civil, at least in public. For him, the argument had been a turning point in their relationship. He’d seen a new side of her, a rage that had never before surfaced. It had made him think twice about accepting Jennifer’s invitation for him to spend the night.

  “You’ve got to come,” his neighbor had implored. “The noise from the party will drive you nuts.”

  Conflict is better avoided had been Eric’s mantra for all his life, and he’d refused, not wanting to face the two women who’d just told him off. But, later, the thought of Shad’s party blasting reggae music into his apartment had driven him to accept the offer, and he’d arrived at sunset with a pillow under his arm.

  After the Scrabble game, the adults had dined on the back patio at the table Miss Bertha had set with candles, lamb chops, and wine. Soon after they got started, Sheba had padded out and thrown herself down on the stone pavers beside Shannon.

  “I love this dog.” Shannon had leaned over to pat its brown belly.

  “How’s your work going?” Eric had asked, an attempt at détente.

  “Fine.” She’d looked up from Sheba almost reluctantly. “I went into Kingston yesterday to interview an expert on Rastafarian history, the expert, I guess.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Richard Ransom, a professor at UWI, interesting man.”

  Not only had Eric never heard of the so-called expert, but he hadn’t liked the way she’d said it. And he didn’t like that Shannon had described the professor in such glowing terms that it had brought attention to her lips, which had curved into a coy smile in the candlelight.

  “How so?” he’d grunted.

  “He’s the go-to person, I guess, for all things Rastafarian. He’s traced their roots back a hundred and fifty years, back to the Maroons and Garvey.”

  “I read his columns in the Observer,” Lambert had said. “He’s a pretty good writer.”

  “What’s he like?” Jennifer inquired. “They never show his photograph.”

  “Younger than I’d thought, midforties, I’d say, slim build, comfortable in his own skin.” Shannon had looked at Jennifer with half-closed lids. “ Nice, toffee-colored skin, too.” The two women had laughed and Lambert had raised his eyebrows at Eric.

  “Did you tell him about the Nyabinghi ceremony?” Eric had asked, spearing a lamb chop.

  “I did.”

  “He warned you against going, didn’t he?”

  “Quite the opposite. He’s coming with us.”

  That had galled him the most as he tossed in the Delgados’ four-poster bed last night, the reggae music coming in the window reminding him that he wasn’t getting anything out of Shad’s party either. Shannon had a date, call it what you want, with the man. He’d seen the look in her eyes when she’d talked about him, too. It was lust, undoubtedly, lust for a man at least four years her junior. Thank God, Eve hadn’t been around to hear her mother going on about nice toffee skin. He hadn’t stayed for breakfast but had risen early, trudged down the hill, and taken a cold shower. It had made him feel better, although none of his usual ditties had come to him today.

  The Daily Gleaner hadn’t been delivered yet when he sauntered into the empty bar with his coffee and hard dough bread thick with marmalade. For lack of anything better to do, he sat sipping and chomping, waving to the children going to Sunday school, the little girls with hair neatly held with a dozen clips, the boys in their starched shirts.

  Bored by nine o’clock, he sat his computer on the counter and checked his email. Two letters awaited him. Danny Caines asked about the clearing of the land, and Simone wrote that she was getting ready to make her presentation in DC. He answered both with one finger, saying the same thing: all was on target for the groundbreaking, the site was almost cleared off except for some large trees, and he was looking forward to seeing them.

  Shad appeared just after noon. He was wearing the black pants he always wore to church, his head down as he trudged toward the building.

  “You’re in early,” Eric commented when the bartender approached the bar. “I would have thought you’d be sleeping in.” A stoic mouth was the only response. “A hard night, eh, bud?”

  Shad shrugged. “How’s business, boss?”

  “The usual Sunday—one coffee and a sandwich, both mine.” Eric made a funny mouth of his own.

  Shad opened the fridge. “I going to have a Coke.”

  “I gathe
r all isn’t well.”

  Popping the top off the soda bottle, Shad sat down beside him. “You could say that.” He took a long sip of his drink. “I come after church to tell you I can’t pay the money back from the liquor—not right away—although is only one bottle of rum and some ginger ale. You can take it out of my pay next week.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  Eric’s bartender took another sip, swallowed, and bared his teeth. “Nobody come.”

  “Nobody—forget the rum, then. Let’s make it your wedding present, that and the rental.”

  “I wish I could pay it, since that was our agreement, you know. I always like to follow my word.” The little man shook his head. “Times tough right now, too. I have to pay Miss Bannister to look after the children while Beth gone to her bridal shower. I can’t wait until this wedding business finish.”

  “What happened with the party, though? You always have such great—”

  “Frank say they didn’t come because they coming to the wedding for free. You ever hear such a thing? Is pure freeness Jamaicans like, I telling you. I having a good-good party with food and everything, and they couldn’t come and pay a few dollars.” Shad sucked his teeth, pulling the air slowly from back to front in a long, disgusted suck.

  “Don’t worry about it, bud.” Eric patted him on the arm. “But I can’t write off the liquor when it comes to the wedding reception.”

  “No, man, I paying you for that. I was going to buy the wedding liquor with some of the money from the party—but you know what? I was lying in my bed this morning and I decide that the wedding guests not going to see no scotch, whiskey, vodka, none of that. They think they coming for freeness, but just punch they getting, with rum and without rum. I been reading a recipe in the book Shannon give me, and I want to try it out, a daiquiri with white rum. And I going to water it down with ginger ale, too.”