No Safeguards

by H. Nigel Thomas

  “In that case, I would have been protecting my territory, following your logic. Do us all a favour: go sit on the toilet bowl.”

  “Historian! You wish. Poor Clio, exhausted, trying to find space in your corn-grain brain. Go vent your anger on nature, man.”

  She’s got you sealed,

  sealed, man, in a tiny tin can.

  Tin-man, Tin-man.

  Pa pa pam pam.

  Slam you to the macadam.

  He slapped his thighs to create a rhythm.

  “I’ll tell you what’s eating you, man: You ain’t never gonna be bright like me. Never. That’s the acid, man: the acid that’s eating you from inside out. He stuck his tongue out at me.

  “‘You ain’t never gonna be . . .’?” I chuckled.

  “You, correcting my grammar! What do we know? Smoke is oxygen. Shit is food.”

  “For some creatures shit is food.”

  “You’re one of them: a shit-eating blat.”

  “You throw so much of it around, I can’t help ingesting some. And, speaking of oxygen, you hog ninety percent of what’s in here.”

  “So? Asphyxiate. The world would be a cleaner place. That or let me launch you into space.” He made a forward thrust with his right fist.

  I laughed.

  “You hen! Go ahead. Cackle. Lay. You and your rooster were out yesterday.” He gave an exaggerated wink and stayed silent for a few seconds, then smiled. “Dear Bro” — he swallowed, licked his lower lip, and half-closed his eyes — “no need upsetting yourself. It’s bulling alright.” He tossed his locks and continued grinning with his eyes still closed. “Perverti en hostie. But it cools the rocks.” He winked. “I better stop ripping or you’ll start bawling.”

  15

  A SUNDAY, A few months later, a day before Anna’s birthday, she came in from church around 5 pm. I had cooked — a leg of lamb; oxtail with eggplant, okra, and spinach; and red beans and rice flavoured with coconut milk, recipes I’d take from a West Indian cookbook. Because of Anna’s shiftwork, it was one of the rare Sundays when all three of us sat down to have a meal together. She seemed genuinely happy and had a good appetite.

  “Now if only we could have family devotions together,” she said. “‘The family that prays together stays together.’”

  “Yeah, that’s written on one of Madam J’s plaques. And families that fly together?”

  I chuckled and tried to get Anna’s attention.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing that you’ll understand, Ma.”

  “Cut the sarcasm. Will you?”

  An eerie silence settled around the dining table. Paul broke it. “Your religion should come with a warning: guaranteed to cause brain shrinkage. You know, Ma, Jay helped me see that your life is a desert, that your soul craves all this superstition.” He turned to me, grinned — food in his mouth — his knife and fork in mid-air, pointed at me. “Lasso Jay. Take him, tied and suited — tied especially — out to the Olympic Stadium and have your pastor dunk him, and drag him to church with you every Sunday. And when you find out he’s gay, you and your pastor can take him to the Old Port and stone him. And if the police try to stop you, tell them you’re obeying God and quote them Deuteronomy chapter 21 verses 18-21.” He winked at me, then looked at Anna. “But leave me out of it. I have a life — and a working brain.”

  “And you should thank the creator for them.”

  I gritted my teeth and held his breath until Paul said: “Thank the creator! You must be joking. Ma, he dozed off while mixing my formula. I don’t want to thank him. I wish he existed. I’d sue him — for malpractice.” He winked at me. I turned my head away.

  “I’m sick to my soul of your blasphemy. It’s everywhere. Everywhere. You even post it on the door of the apartment that I pay rent for.” Her chest heaved. She bowed her head and kept it bowed for a few seconds.

  Paul chuckled and winked at me

  She got up from the table brusquely, and headed to her bedroom, leaving half of the food on her plate.

  “Now the waterworks begin.” Paul waved his arms over the table, then suspended his open palms above it. “See, she came back home spilling foolishness and spoiled what might have been a perfect Sunday dinner. I long for the peace of my grandmother’s home.” He was the only one that finished his meal that Sunday.

  The next day when Anna got in from work, she called me into her bedroom. “Look at this. Jay, look at what Paul left on my bed for my birthday.” She was holding a coffee-table-size book.

  I peered at the title and tried not to laugh. The Kama Sutra.

  “How will I handle this, Jay?”

  I couldn’t answer right away. I was holding in my laughter. “By ignoring it,” I managed to say, my eyes moist from trying not laugh. “I guess if you were Grama, you’d be thanking him for expanding your education.” This time the laughter came, for a moment uncontrollably. “But you won’t be able to pull that off, so ignore it. Pretend, you don’t care. That would rile him.”

  Her ears were purple. “Should I say anything to him, Jay?”

  “Yes, thank him for the book. Tell him you’ll read it when you find time. He’ll be on tenterhooks waiting for your angry reaction. And he’ll be so disappointed.”

  She nodded, but I could see her hesitation, the sort of in-my-house-you-will-do-as-I-say instinct trying to censor all that I’d said. In the end she never raised the issue with Paul.

  I suspect that what happened two weeks later, a Saturday when she was off and we were all home, had something to do with the attention he didn’t get from giving her the Kama Sutra. It was around 10 am. Anna came to sit on the sofa in the living room and called to Paul to come and sit beside her, saying there was something she wanted to discuss with him. He was at the kitchen sink rinsing a glass, his back turned to her. “I’m not deaf. Tell me what you want to tell me.” His back remained turned to her. “Oh, I see.” He was laughing. “It’s that book you were reading earlier this week, Bringing the Black Boy to Manhood, or some such thing. Your pastor ordered you to read it, or what? It’s too late for any of that now.” Facing me and indicating Anna with an out-turned thumb, he continued: “Looks like she wants to overdose me with affection.” Returning to look at Anna, he said: “Is that what it instructed you to do, Ma? Too late for that. You’ll blow my emotional fuse. Might even wreck your own. Then again you probably just want to hug . . .” He checked himself.

  If I had been near Paul I would have slapped him.

  Paul chuckled. “Get real, Ma. You can’t bribe me with phoney affection. You abandoned me to Grama when I was two. But, go on. Say what you have to say. You like pay the rent and buy the food, so I have to put up with you.”

  Anna stayed silent.

  “I am listening, Ma.”

  She didn’t speak.

  “Oh man. What a life! This life! My life! Get on with it, Ma.”

  Anna said nothing.

  “Guess I’m incomprehensible. Unknowable. Dark matter, Ma. Dark matter.” He chuckled.

  A long silence followed.

  “You want to like tell me I’m a pile o’ shit. Right, Ma? So what? Say it. I can take it. I’ll even agree with you, but with a difference: you’re the cause. And if you weren’t, nature would be. My genes are probably configured for me to become a sociopath. In that case get ready to visit me in jail or to bury me.”

  Stop it! I wanted to shout. This was new.

  Anna’s eyes bulged.

  Paul taunted on, definitely enjoying himself. “Did you know, Ma, that geneticists now know that we have many of the same genes as insects, bacteria, and even plants; that without them in the first place, there’d be no humans? So, you see Ma — never mind what your bible tells you — we humans run the gamut, from hi-tech to poo. More poo than hi-tech, if you ask me. But you can’t flush me; and, alive, I’m
not compostable. Your religion hasn’t taken power yet, so you can’t have me stoned to death for heresy or disobedience. So, until I reach legal age, you’re just going to have to put up with me. Even if you hand me over to Batshaw, you’ll still have to pay for my room and board and bring me home on weekends. This Paul is shit but that Paul will be poison. You’re like trapped, Ma. Get a grip. There’s no disposing of me.”

  A long pause followed. Paul’s face became one huge smile, and one hand played with his chin while the other caressed the back of his neck. I relaxed a little, understood that he was posturing.

  Paul resumed calmly. “You should have read that book a long time ago — others too — before you came here even, before you had me. That way you’d have known you weren’t fit to be a mother.”

  “You got part of that right. I should have listened to your grandmother and never have you.”

  I couldn’t believe she’d say that.

  “The information I needed. Thanks.” Paul snorted. “You should have. I HATE MY LIFE AND I HATE YOU.” He stamped the floor, followed by a spate of noisy breathing. “Finally! The answer I’ve been looking for. I suspected it the moment I came here. You should have aborted me. My asthma is psychosomatic. Because you rejected me in the womb. Good thing you unloaded me onto Grama. At least I had nine years of decent parenting.” He nodded slowly. “We should parent you.” He stared at me, his face twisted by an ugly grin.

  “Shut up!” I said. “Shut up! Now! I won’t even ask you to apologize to Ma. Boy, how I look forward to the day you turn 18. But Batshaw will take you off our hands before then, if Nine Lives doesn’t pop you off first.” I went to sit beside Anna and put my arm around her. She was rigid.

  Paul walked to the main door and picked up his keys. “Hey, Blowhard.” He rubbed his hands gleefully and stared at me. “I finally got a sizzle out of you. Just when I was preparing to zap you, I find out you’re not dead after all.” He winked.

  I closed my eyes. “Leave. Peace. Give us some peace.” I held up my free arm, open-palm: pleading.

  Paul stuck his tongue out at me then left.

  An hour later he came back and came straight into my room. I was at my desk. Anna had gone back to bed.

  “Not again.” I swivelled around, palms open, to face him. “Cut me some slack. Please. What are you: some torturing demon?”

  He came forward, got on his knees and gave me bear hug. “Do you hate me?”

  “Yes. Now leave. You’re haunted.” I tried to undo his arms.

  “First say you don’t hate me.”

  “Paul, I don’t hate you.”

  “Not like that. Say it with meaning. With feeling.”

  “Paul, get to hell out of my room!”

  He let go of me but didn’t move. “That’s no way to treat your younger brother. I’ll forgive you if you give me a real hug.”

  “Come,” I said, shaking my head. I put an arm around Paul and felt a spasm go through his body. He was sobbing. “What is it, Paul? What’s wrong with you?” I dropped my arm.

  Paul swallowed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Everything sucks. Everything.” He swallowed again, trying to suppress his sobbing. “Everybody hates me.” He paused. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He sat on the side of the bed, silent for about 15 seconds. “I wish we could be like the times at Cousin Alice . . . There was no Ma, just the two of us.”

  I didn’t respond. Paul got up, punched me affectionately in the shoulder, and left.

  He returned two minutes later, holding open one of my texts — From Columbus to Castro — and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Tell me something, Jay.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Why do you keep defending Ma’s religion? It teaches that you and Jonathan will roast in hell forever?”

  “What will we roast for, Paul?”

  “For being gay! What else?”

  “And you, what will you roast for?”

  “I’m already burnt black. And that’s no hyperbole.”

  “How?”

  “If you open your eyes you’ll see for yourself.” After a few seconds he added: “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “In that case, keep it to yourself and stop bothering me. I’m trying to recover from your cruelty. You should go and apologize to Ma.”

  He didn’t answer. He moved further onto the bed, propped himself into a sitting position with pillows, and began reading. About 20 minutes later he called to me.

  “What, Paul?”

  “Will you come to my funeral?”

  I swivelled around to face him. “Yes, if you give me ample notice.”

  “Okay. Any day now. Better off dead than be a sociopath. Right?”

  “Not that again. Please.”

  We were silent for a long while. “Want to hear something?” His eyes stared directly into mine. “People are like houses: houses with plenty rooms.” He stopped talking.

  “So?”

  “Some rooms they don’t mind showing to everybody. Some they let a few people into. Some they let nobody into.”

  “So?”

  “If you let me into your secret rooms, I’ll let you into mine.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  Paul sucked his teeth and turned his head away. “Jay, I can’t stand it when you’re a hypocrite. You know I’m sincere.” He snorted, struck the bed with the book. “A waste of time. Why am I wasting my time? Why?” He jumped out the bed and left shaking his head.

  All that afternoon and for a long time that evening, I agonized over whether Paul was serious about suicide or was just trying out a new way to get attention. That sociopathic reference bothered me. Around ten, I walked to his bedroom door, prepared to talk to him, but then changed my mind.

  Next day, I was relieved when, just as Anna was about to leave for church, Paul went up to her and asked: “Have you forgiven me, Ma?”

  She turned her head away and opened and closed her fingers reflexively.

  “Ma, I’m your screwed up kid. Give me a hug and forgive me.”

  He moved toward her, and she embraced him. I heard the gulp in her throat. When she released him, she reached into her purse for tissue and began to dab her eyes.

  His contrition didn’t outlast the day. Anna returned from church around five. Behind her Madam J waddled in on quarter-moon legs, the floor beneath her groaning, her torso looking like a giant egg; in tow one of her bevy of nieces. Anna hadn’t told us she was having company — she wouldn’t have wanted Paul to know, would have hoped he’d be out. Paul’s eyes brightened. I had already witnessed two confrontations between him and Madam J. One on a Saturday when she’d come to help Anna dress to attend a wedding in her church:

  “So you’re the woman that’s filling Ma’s head with foolishness,” Paul said.

  “Boy, how you so out-o’-place and bull-buck so? Me is a grown woman. Me is not your age-mate. If me didn’t know Sister Kirton, me wouldo’ think you didn’t get no broughtupcy.”

  Paul giggled. He was leaning against the kitchen counter. He drummed it several times, each beat faster than the one before.

  “You mekking fun o’ me or what? You better praise God you not under my roof.” She made a butting gesture. “I would o’ blister your backside morning, noon, and night.”

  Paul clapped.

  Anna came out of the bathroom and pulled her into the bedroom.

  On a subsequent visit it was she who goaded Paul. “Boy, you is Lucifer ownself? What wrong with you? Why you giving Sister Kirton so much botheration? Why you make evil hollowing you out like woodlice inna dead wood? Boy, Jesus bring the dead back to life. With him all things is possible.”

  I held my breath and only let it out when Paul left the dinette, went into his bedroom, and closed the door.

  Today, when we were all seated
at table, Anna asked me to say the grace.

  “I’ll say it,” Paul said.

  Anna’s eyes narrowed and her shoulders straightened.

  “We’re grateful to the earth and the sun and to workers everywhere for the food we’re about to eat, and to Ma who paid for it and prepared it.”

  “So who make the sun and the earth and give the workers health and strength?” Madam J asked.

  “That’s your area of expertise,” Paul said, putting a scoop of potato salad onto his plate. He sniffed at the salad and said: “Ma, how’s it Jay’s a better cook than you?”

  Anna didn’t answer. She was putting food onto Madam J’s plate.

  Madam J’s gaze bored into Paul, her flat nose weighed down by thick, egg-shaped lenses. Her nut-brown complexion and thick lips — now glossed rust to match her auburn wig — were the only African traits visible. “Say praise God, I is not your mother.”

  “So,” Paul said, reciprocating her stare, “are you president of the Serena Joy Sorority?”

  Anita (late twenties, short, herself heavyset, very African looking), sitting on her aunt’s left, tried to stifle her laugh, choked, and headed off to the bathroom.

  Madam J clasped her hands and shook them violently, one foot pawed the floor. She lowered her hands to her lap, picked up her napkin, and began to wring it.

  Paul clicked his tongue, his lips slightly apart, his eyes opened at their widest. “Jay, look! Look, Jay. She wants to wring my neck.”

  “You is damn right. Left to me, boy, I would slap you into next week and back to last year.”

  Paul dropped his knife and fork and clapped. He winked at me.

  When Anita resumed her seat, Paul turned to her. “I call Ma Felicity Foil. What do you call her?” He indicated Madam J with an out-turned thumb.

  Anita smiled nervously and focused on her plate.

  “I’m calling a truce, okay,” he said, his arms crossed in an X, his fingers splayed. “Would be a shame if we didn’t show some appreciation for all the time Ma spent cooking this food.”

  After we’d eaten, and Anna and Madam J had settled into the living room to listen to gospel music, Paul joined Anita and me washing the dishes. “So you like The Handmaid`s Tale,” Anita said to him. We learned that she’d interrupted a teaching career in Jamaica to pursue an MA in English at Concordia and would resume her job as soon as she finished: the following April. She and Paul talked on about The Handmaid’s Tale. “You think Atwood’s book is frightening?” she told us, after peering into the living to make sure her aunt wasn’t listening. “Think again. There’s a group that believes God is preparing to set up a government in Washington based on the laws of Leviticus.”