The Angels' Share

by Garfield Ellis

  I asked him what happened and he sighed. “Too much haste. I try rush back to catch the bank—too much haste. Never try and pass a tractor on a narrow road. Tractors don’t use rearview mirrors, they don’t use indicators, and they don’t hear horns.”

  Una arrived close to five, an hour into visiting time. But Holly and Meagan never made it till two days later. I was there every day after school to sit with him. Soon I knew all the nurses and was pleased to overhear one whisper to the other how I really must love my father.

  I have often thought about that time, those evenings sitting there with him, those days at school, and the pride I felt when I would tell my friends that I could not play cricket that evening because I had to go and look after my father. And then I would go to the hospital and just sit with him and say nothing.

  Then one evening he asked if I had done my homework yet. And I had pulled it out and completed it there in the hospital. And that was the first time he ever looked in one of my books. The first time he ever commented on my schoolwork or made a notation on my homework. He was sick and laid up in bed with his foot high in the air in a heavy cast.

  He was in the hospital for about a month. And when he left, I visited a few times at home and spent another weekend with him. But it was never the same; time petered out and I returned to my routines and friends and games.

  It must have been a year after that that I saw him. He must have been well for some time, for there was no sign of his injuries and his walk was just as I always remembered it. There was no evidence of the accident on his face. I can’t remember why he came, but it had to do with my mother. I arrived home from school to see him there at my home. He was heading out and we met on the veranda.

  “Daddy!” I screamed.

  And he had squinted at me and smiled his dimpled smile. “How my big son?”

  “All right,” I remember saying. “You get better.”

  And he had laughed, “You can’t come look for the old man sometimes?”

  “Yeah,” I said eagerly, “yeah.”

  “I left something for you with your mother.” He smiled, rubbed my head, and walked through the door to the gate.

  It was money to buy a cricket bat. And I never had the chance to tell him thanks, for I had chased so quickly through the door to see what he had left and he had slipped so quickly into his car to go to his family.

  I am thirteen again, charging down a corridor to find him.

  * * *

  Spalding.

  The word is hard and weighted, stays on my tongue and burns into my brain with the residual fire of hot chocolate tea. It is a small town to the northeast of Mandeville that sits like a snake’s eye on the curve of a meandering black line on the map I have bought. Somehow I had imagined it was spelled Spaulding with a “u” in it.

  “Take the right turn before the next gas station,” says the man at the stall of oranges.

  “But how will I know . . . ?”

  “If you reach the gas station, you gone too far.”

  I am past the gas station. I have gone too far. I curse.

  The gas station is old and dirty. The sign says something like Texaco Williamsfield. But I am beyond that now and my tires are screeching into a turn as I spin around and seek the road that leaves the main one for Spalding.

  I have been on the road for two hours now, and I feel the length of the drive in my eyes.

  The country is lush and green around me, the hills are many and far apart, the blue and the green patch together in a lush tapestry of mounds, valleys, and massive hills rolling into the deep blue sky. It’s bauxite country and the large sign tells me that Kirkvine Works is the factory with the well-kept lawn that is rushing by. The dark brown smoke that rises from its far corner tells me where its kilns must be. Everything is cleaner than I expected. I wind the windows down, and the breeze is cold and fresh against my face. It strikes the drowsiness away. The road is long and curves upward, the surface is beautiful and good. The hills are dotted with nice houses, and a large church sits in the middle of a hill off to my right.

  I see things, but the details are flashes of green. I feel the force of the breeze, but I do not catch the essence of it. The beauty around me is a passing one, for I am filled with fear for my father.

  The Pathfinder likes the road as it makes the hills flat and cruises the grade like the straights of a Kingston street.

  I crest a hill and I am there—in a clean little town that spills onto the streets. Suddenly the road is curving away over a small bridge. The hills and the space are opening up to me again. I am through Spalding before I get my bearings.

  * * *

  So now I am here. And my heart is filled with fear and trepidation. I have been on the road for three hours. I have driven eighty miles. The police station is at the northern end of the town, across a narrow street from the Spalding Presbyterian Church whose large structure and immense courtyard contrasts starkly with the sizes of other things I have noticed in the few minutes I’ve been here.

  I park in the churchyard, then step from the car and peer up at the high steeple.

  I am not a Christian. I wanted to be baptized once, but my father put paid to that idea. I have not prayed in years. But I whisper softly that I wish He would spare my father.

  I cannot say that the panic has left me, rather it has become cold and hard and still. And as I close the door and face the little station across the road, I feel a drag on my feet for the first few steps. But I am on my way. I cross to the little station where I know there will be things I will not want to hear.

  Thirty-seven years old, and my first time in a police station. I do not know what to expect. It is a quiet place. There is a large counter and a policeman is sitting at the center of it with a large book in front of him. A policewoman is at a desk behind and off to the right. A door joins the left corner of the counter to the wall. Another large policeman leads a woman out through it. I stop at the counter, brace myself, and wish the officer good afternoon.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he responds. “How can I help you today?” He is pleasant enough.

  “I am looking for my father . . . or Sergeant Grant. My name is Dorril, Everton Dorril. A Sergeant Grant called me . . . said my father has been in some kind of accident—ran over a cliff. I have come to get him—”

  “Oh.” If he had not interrupted, I would have mumbled on till my tongue fell out with nervousness. “Mr. Dorril, ohh.” His mood is less formal than I expected—less serious. He is dark and his smile reveals false teeth in the front. He stands and I can see that he is a tall man. His uniform is neat and his belt buckle shines. “I am Grant,” he says. “So you come for your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “A nice man,” he shakes his head, “a real nice person.”

  “Can I see him? May I see my father?”

  “Oh yes, he is in the rec room.”

  “The wreck room?”

  “Yes, just go through that door, then turn left, and cross the yard to the little building behind. You will find him there.”

  “The wreck room! But why not the hospital?”

  “Why, you think him dead? I tell you something,” he laughs and sits back down, “any side him sleep on last night, you make sure him sleep on that same side tonight. Nice man.”

  I stagger through the door, my head harboring images of a room filled with wrecks—men with broken bones, men in handcuffs too sinful to move; visions of an old man suffering, broken and lonely. Why hadn’t they taken him to a hospital? Only Jamaican policemen would come up with a wreck room—a place of torture for people who break the law, and break themselves in the process.

  I shove the door wide and enter a spacious room, a polished space with tables and chairs scattered around. I see a lone counter to one side. To the other side, a large group of men are surrounding something. There is raucousness here and loud sounds. There are shouts. I do not see my father, but I hear his voice. I hear his screams. His voice is loud and high abov
e the rest. But the sounds I hear are not consistent with my expectations. These are sounds of tournament, hard shouts of combat, voices raised in exclamation, and my father’s voice, the loudest of all, is one of victory. Then I see him, fit as a fiddle, shouting at the top of his lungs, laughing in the face of the man beside him, having revealed his winning hand of dominoes only to slam them one by one with a sound like thunder on the table before him.

  FIVE

  If Father had not seen me, I would have turned from the room, jumped into my car, and left him there, playing dominoes with his new friends. That is how angry I am. But he catches my eye and leaps from his seat to fling his hands around my shoulders and introduce me as his big boy who has come to pick up the old man. And even then, all I can muster is a short nod at the crowd and a sober, cold, stony look at him and one word: “Come!”

  But we cannot leave immediately because there is some paperwork for him to complete. He crashed his car nearly twelve hours ago, has been in Spalding all day, and still has not completed his full report.

  “We did not have time,” Sergeant Grant says, remaining always cordial and always smiling. Then we have to go to the hospital where Father has a man holding space in a line for him. Even so, we have to wait another hour to see the doctor to find out about whatever hidden injury he may have from his accident.

  Then we have to make arrangements to get Father’s car from wherever he crashed it so we can be back in Kingston before night. Sergeant Grant again takes charge of that. He knows a man in a district close by, called Silent Hill, who has a large truck and a wrecker. He spends ten minutes on the phone and then returns to tell me the man will be here with the truck in an hour. So I wait while Father drinks and plays dominoes with his friends in the rec room.

  After an hour no truck has come. “That is how he is sometimes.” Sergeant Grant seems unruffled. “Always a little late.”

  After another hour, Sergeant Grant informs us that the man has called to say he had a breakdown and cannot make it before tomorrow. “Not to worry,” the sergeant says, “there is a man called Small Man just down the road with a smaller truck that should work just as good.” He sends someone on a bicycle to call him; says Small Man is old and does not like cell phones but is dependable. After another hour or so, the guy on the bicycle returns with the news that Small Man was not at home and his wife said he went to do some work at the bauxite factory and would “soon come.”

  So it is late evening before we are on our way with nothing but a promise that we will be retrieving the vehicle first thing in the morning. And even now, sitting in the cabin of my Pathfinder, my voice cannot find a path through my anger. So there is silence in the car. I am angry not just for being dragged down here for nothing, wasting my time, interrupting the most important morning of my career—I am also angry at myself because I know I cannot be mad at him for long. I know that once the silence is broken, once I begin to speak, this emotion will disappear like mist against the sun.

  Father reaches above and turns the reading lights on. A slim book of poetry appears in his hand. He reclines his seat and adjusts the lights to suit him and taps his breast pockets for his glasses. I hope he left them in the police station in Spalding.

  “Turn here,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Turn here, if you’re going to Mandeville, that is.”

  I just grunt at this. I am passing the turnoff quickly. But the brakes are good, it is a country road, and there is no vehicle behind me. I reverse and swing right.

  It is one of those evenings when the sun plays hide-and-seek with the clouds till it runs out of luck. The clouds quickly give way to the densely forested hills in the distance and all that’s left of the brilliant sun is a pale yellow glow that rims the hills but barely touches the skies.

  Night comes quickly and is cool.

  We are closer to the large bauxite plant than I was on my way up. The large kilns are visible here and the brown-white smoke curls into the sky. The air on this side has acid in it and it burns my nostrils and bothers my eyes. I wind the windows up.

  “You don’t like fresh air, no?”

  “It is pure acid out there.”

  He grunts and straightens the small spectacles on his face. I guess he feels that he is gaining ground and is in control of the silence now.

  Another layer of darkness is added with each corner I take. Now it is pitch black. I must drive slowly—I do not know the road and country people do not drive on their side all the time. They take their corners wide and their lights are stuck on the high beam. I will need time to get used to this.

  “Blow your horn when you approach the corners.” He barely looks up. “We’re coming to the red lake now. You ever seen the red lake?”

  Red lake—I have heard of it somewhere, a valley where all the acidic residue of the bauxite-to-alumina process is stored. But who cares about a damn red lake. He could have at least made a phone call. I press my horn hard and swerve into the bushes, jamming on the brakes as two cars approach at top speed, one on the tail of the other like drivers at Dover Raceway.

  “Press your horn before the corner, not when you’re halfway through it.”

  “I have driven in the countryside before.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “But they should see my headlights—the night is dark enough.”

  “Not all the time.” I feel him turn to me. “Man can’t drive vex at night.”

  Vex, you don’t see vex yet. I am sure there is a soft smile and the slightest dimpling of his face. But I cannot turn to see, for another sharp turn is coming. Headlights are dancing and I must press my horn and pray.

  “The key to driving at night on country roads is to dim your lights when you see a bright one coming and then hold your corner. Just watch your edge of the road.”

  We hit a long stretch so I glance over to him now. “Dim my lights?”

  “Not now, when you see the other driver coming with his bright lights on. Dim yours and hold to your side.”

  “Dim my lights? On this road, while he is on bright!”

  “You will see better.” He drops that with a do-whatever-you-wish tone, switches off the reading light, puts the glasses away, and rests his book on his lap.

  I hear a horn approaching. I see brightened headlights speeding toward me. I dim my lights for the hell of it. He is right, I see much better. I hold my edge of the road and as the truck passes, I do not have to brake or swerve as madly as I did the last time.

  “Red lake up the road,” he says. “You should stop and see it. Couldn’t tell when I see the red lake. It is beautiful at night.”

  “Well, we’re not stopping tonight,” I tell him. “I am tired, and it is too late, and the place is too dark.” He needs to know he did something wrong. I glance from the road to him momentarily. He still has that do-what-the-hell-you-want look on his face.

  “Watch out!” he yells.

  Out of nowhere on the periphery of the lights a dark form of a man is rolling from the hillside. I brake and swerve instinctively, pushing the face of the van into the bush. The van stands on its nose, catches a skid, and stops with its face halfway into the shrubbery on my side of the road.

  “You hit him?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t think so.” I am slightly dazed.

  “Where is he?”

  “Is it a man though?” I try to catch my breath and press my hand against my chest to still the heavy pounding there. “Where are you going?” I ask him as he pushes open the door.

  “Get your flashlight and come. And put on your hazard lights.”

  Father has already disappeared around his side of the van. I find the flashlight and make my way quickly over. It is dark and cold outside. We have stopped at a very lonely spot, close to the place the figure emerged from the slopes up through dense bush.

  It is a man and he is sprawled at the edge of the road behind the van. The swerve of the tire marks show that I barely missed him and only because his
shirt was tangled on the barbed wire that runs along the fence of the property he rolled from. In the headlights, I see he is about my father’s age. He is covered with red mud from his bare, chapped feet to his matted hair. His face is chipped and burnt, his lips are cracked. One eye is closed and the other is too swollen to open properly.

  Father reaches down to check on him and lifts his head. “He fell in the red lake.”

  “Don’t touch him.” I reach down to pull him away and am hit by a smell so foul, I have to cover my nose. “Don’t touch him. What you touching him for?”

  Father straightens and brushes his hands together like a man ready to take charge of a situation. “He fell into the red lake. We have to get him to the hospital.” He takes the flashlight from me and walks beyond the man through the bush.

  I chase after him. “Where you going?” I demand.

  But he is making his way slowly through the bush, retracing the path of the mud-caked man.

  “Where are you going?” I grab his hand. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Come, man, we have to check,” he says.

  “Check! You are not going one step farther. I don’t need to find out what happened up there and neither do you.”

  He stops and turns to me. I see excitement in his face. I see light in his eyes and am reminded of that evening some weeks ago when he took off after a mighty explosion in his backyard. While everybody else was terrified, he took charge and ran down to the source of the terrible noise. The explosion turned out to be a wine bottle from his makeshift distillery carved into the hillside of his massive yard. But this is a different night in a different place. It is a pitch-dark night, in the bushes of Mandeville, on the trail of a mysterious man who fell from nowhere. This is not his backyard, this is open-road Jamaica, and he will go no farther up that hill if I have anything to do with it.

  “Give me the light.” I grab the flashlight from him.

  “There may be other people out there. You don’t know what happened,” he tells me.