When Grandma calls me to come for my tea, I turn away and mumble, “I don’t really want nutten from you!”
“Stacey, is what you say? You really forgetting yourself inside here?”
“I don’t have to listen to you. You can’t hear and you can’t even read.”
In one motion she grabs my braid and throws me flat on my back. The smell of the floor polish makes me want to sneeze, but I am too afraid. She drags me up by my braid and brings her mouth right down to my eyes. Every wart on her face is magnified.
Her breath hisses out of her lungs. “Listen to me, Staceyann whatever-you-middle-name-is Chin, listen, and listen good! If you smelling you-self I advise you to hold your skirt tail down. If you ever talk to me like dat again, I will break every bone God use to hold you upright!”
She releases me. “Now get out of your yard clothes and go put on your pajamas.”
The dull ache of the coco has already begun. My grandmother must be an obeah woman. Deaf or not, she knows exactly when you say something rude. That must mean something. I don’t want to be angry with Grandma anymore. I make myself think of all the good things she knows: how to soothe the terrifying sweats brought on by a duppy; how to wash out dirty white clothes so they are really, really white; how to quickly clean any size house; how to pray and make it sound like a pretty song. But all of that seems like nothing next to reading like Miss Sis.
The next morning, I ask, “Grandma, how come you can’t read? Them never have any school when you was small?”
“Ah, me child…” Grandma wipes the sweat from her glistening forehead. “Go and get the comb and make me comb your hair while me talking.” I want to hear the story, so I get the comb without murmuring.
Grandma undoes each braid and runs the comb through it. When she is done she gathers all the hair and runs the comb through the entire mass. The sharp teeth of the comb rake across my scalp. I try hard not to cry. But soon I am shrinking into the floor and wiping the cascading tears.
Grandma sucks her teeth. “Stacey, is cry you really crying? Me think you did want to hear the story. You don’t want me fi tell you?”
I wipe my face and nod.
“All right, then, stop the crying and make me tell you.”
She lifts the comb and rakes it across my scalp. I burst into a fresh round of tears. Grandma drops the comb and raises her right hand to God. “Jesus, if you not busy, come take a look at this sorrowful child!”
She adjusts my head for leverage. “Stacey, I don’t know why you is so ’fraid of this nice head of hair. Is not soft like Delano own, but it not tough like them little naygar children own either.”
She parts the hair in two equal sections, and oils the part. “Your hair is just like butter, soft and nice.” Pull. Drag. Plait. Part again. Wail.
“Only Jesus know why you bawling like that! You just want to look like you don’t have a good-God soul who own you! You want to go just go ’bout the place with a fowl nest ’pon yuh head? You don’t have no mother, but I want people fi know that you have somebody who taking care of you.”
I try to picture my mother combing my hair, but I don’t know what she looks like. We have no pictures of her. Grandma smears the sticky grease from her hands onto my face. I smell onions and scallions on her fingers as she wipes the snot from my nose.
“All right, all right, Stacey, don’t bother cry no more. Make me tell you the story that will show you how much you have to give the Lord God thanks for. Let me tell you how, from the very first day, the God up in heaven was looking after you.”
“Grandma, me know the story of how me born already. Me want to know why you don’t know how to read.”
She sighs and pulls me into the folds of her floral skirt. The fabric reeks of wood smoke, fried chicken, and washing soap. “Stacey, me gal, if I ever tell you ’bout my life—Lawd Jesus, if—” She pulls her handkerchief from her bosom and wipes her eyes. I look up into her eyes brimming with tears. I stop breathing.
“I wasn’t even eight years old when me mother, Mama Lou, stop me from going to school. She was a midwife—but she was sickly—so she did need me fi work. She couldn’t read either, so she never think that book-learning so important. Me never want to leave school, but me have to do what she say.”
I can’t think of Grandma as a little girl. And it is stranger still to see her crying. She wipes her eyes and continues. “She send me to Kingston to work with a woman name Mrs. Levy. In all me life I don’t think I work as hard as I work for that woman. Eight years old and me was peeling green bananas, soaking salt-fish, cutting up the onion and scallion to cook food. And you have to believe me when me tell you that I don’t stop working from then. It was one domestic job after the other.”
“But Miss Sis say that them have schools for big people. Why you never go when you was bigger?”
She smiles and touches my face. “Well, things not always so easy, you know. By the time me was fifteen me start to have the children. Me had to work fi feed them.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“But because me couldn’t read me couldn’t get no permanent job. One woman tell me she can’t hire me fi cook fi her family because she don’t want me mistake bleach fi water and poison the whole of them. Is only God make me find this job at the police station. Them don’t pay nothing big, but me don’t have to worry-worry meself ’bout finding work every week.”
The tears stream down her face. “Me really did want better fi them children, but you grandfather was a worthless man. Him could read and write, so you would think him would make sure them children get some schooling. But that man was a dirty sinner, and a gambler—a careless rum drinker who never come home! Every time me ask him fi stop gambling, him cuss me. If me answer him, him beat me. That is why me don’t have much hearing in me ears. Your grandfather beat out all me hearing out of me ears. And that is why me give me life to God. When nobody can help you, you only have to turn to God. Every day me ask God fi make you grandfather help me. But that man was a worthless man. Because of that, you Uncle David still can’t read a lick. But you Uncle Harold was different. When Harold was a likkle boy, all the policemen them say him could be a doctor. Him is a big policeman down in Bethel Town now. Your mother was bright too, but because me couldn’t afford the clothes she want to wear she stop going to school. But all of that is done and gone. And God know why him make everything happen. We just have to put our trust in him. He know what is best for us wretched sinners.”
I am not so sure that I want to put my trust in such a God. “Grandma, what if God wasn’t paying attention to you and that is why all those things happen to you? What if God is not listening when you pray?”
“Stacey, kibba you mouth and let me tell you something. And this is probably the most important thing me have to tell you. Trust God, Stacey, trust God and learn you book. Ask God to make you learn it good, good enough so that no man could use you as a beating stick.”
“So where is we grandfather now? Him old like you? Him living in Lottery still?”
“Lawd ha mercy, Stacey, it getting late. Is time for you to go to school. Don’t worry yourself, man—me will tell you the rest another time. Get up from there and come put on your school clothes.”
In My Father’s House
The Saturday after Delano turns six, Grandma walks us both over to Miss Cherry’s house. She tells me that Miss Cherry is going to keep me for the day while she takes Delano to see his father. My chest tightens as I watch the two of them walking away. I try to get down from Miss Cherry’s arms, but she holds me until they both disappear. She carries me inside wailing against her bosom. Marse Jeb lies in the bed moaning. He is covered from neck to toes with white sheets and he smells like cold medicine and fever grass. There is a basin of water with bits of fever-grass floating in it. I use my toe to move the fever-grass blades around.
“Stacey, take out you foot out dat dirty water! Grandma go kill me if she come back here and you catch any cold from dat sic
k-water. Now you sit down dere and don’t touch nothing else.”
Miss Cherry does not have a veranda, so I have to stay inside. I wonder when Delano and Grandma are coming back. She gives me a plate with curry chicken and white rice. It does not taste like Grandma’s. I push the bowl away. “It don’t taste good, Miss Cherry. Me don’t want it.”
“Aah! Is the salt? Marse Jeb is so sick him cannot eat salt. Lemme put some on it fi you.” It still doesn’t taste like Grandma’s.
Marse Jeb pushes his face into the wall and moans quietly. “Miss Cherry, I think Marse Jeb sick again.”
“No, man, him all right! Him just groan like that sometimes. Him all right.”
She sits and scoops me onto her lap. “Is not so him did stay all the time, you know. Him used to be a big strapping man who could cut down any bush! Stacey, you shoulda see him with him machete. Him used to sell cane in Montego Bay. Every Saturday him come down with a whole load of blue ribbon cane. Blue ribbon is the softest and the sweetest cane in the world. Him used to bring cane and jelly coconut fi me every week.” She sighs. “Well, me chile, God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform! Come drink some more water. Children with your color need them water!”
The cup smells like cod liver oil but I hold my breath and finish the water. She tells me to sleep a little while she tidies up the place. Then Delano’s excited voice drags me from sleep and for a moment I don’t understand why I am in this strange bed with Marse Jeb shaking and moaning beside me.
“Wake up, Stacey! Wake up, nuh! You don’t want to hear ’bout Montego Bay? Them have cars everywhere,” he screams. “And big buildings and stores with all kinds of things on sale. My father have a big supermarket! Me get fi pack me bag meself. And me have strawberry syrup, fi make red lemonade! And Grandma pick up a whole heap of condensed milk and sugar.”
I rub my eyes and sit up.
“Stacey, you listening to me? You shoulda see the place! Them have a drawer to put the money into. And when you press a button the drawer fly wide open! And me father have so much biscuit and bread and crackers and cheese—everything you want is right there in the supermarket. And when we leave there we go up to the big clock and we see Uncle Harold. Him is Grandma big son and him is a policeman. Him have a real gun and a real police car with a big red light on the top of it.”
I am so jealous I want to hit him. But I want to hear more, so I ask, “Him make you drive inside the car?”
“Stacey, is a police car! Only criminal must ride in there with the police! Me look like criminal to you? Then we go inside a big clothes store and buy more things fi me.”
At home Grandma opens the big bag and puts the things away. There is khaki cloth to make Delano new school clothes. He also got new shoes. Socks and briefs and pencils and pens tumble out of his new schoolbag. Grandma bought a dress for me, but I want a new schoolbag and pencils and socks. I ask Delano if he picked up any school things for me. If my father were the one with the supermarket I would have picked up things for him.
“Grandma, why you never buy no new shoes for me?”
“Stacey, you don’t need no shoes. You have your little white slippers.”
“But, Grandma, Delano get new shoes and him have shoes already!”
“Stacey, I never buy that for him. Is him father give that to him. And this new dress go look so nice with your little white slippers.”
It is one week before my fourth birthday. Delano and I are sprawled out under the ackee tree watching the black ants march from one rotten ackee pod to the next. Now and then I squash one to inhale the rancid liquid that oozes out of its big round bottom. It is Christmastime, so the bright yellow fruits with the shiny black heads are in full season. There are so many open ackee pods on the branches that if I half close my eyes I can see a big green Christmas tree with red bulbs hanging all over it. I wish I could eat ackees every day. I can hardly contain my excitement when I watch Grandma boiling, draining, and frying them up with onions and something salty. Salted codfish or salt-pork or salt-mackerel—it doesn’t matter which. My mouth is still watering from the soft, sweet fruit we had with red herring and boiled green bananas this morning. Christmastime is the best time for food in Jamaica. The only thing missing is presents.
“Delano, I wish we could get Christmas presents like the children in Miss Sis storybook. You think the missionaries will send any presents from America this year?”
Delano kicks the ground and sucks his teeth. “Even if them send things, I don’t want none! Last year, the little water gun them give me was so crack up it couldn’t hold no water!”
Grandma is inside ironing clothes for church tomorrow. I feel bad for wanting presents because Pastor Panton has been preaching against those among us who can’t wait for Christmas because their families send barrels of clothes and shoes and tin goods from England, America, and Canada at Christmastime. Such sinners, he declares, are called Christmasmongers. I don’t want to be a Christmasmonger, but I wish my mother would send us a barrel with Christmas presents wrapped up in pretty paper. I say a quick prayer to Jesus, asking him to help me to get a present this Christmas.
Delano hears me and says, “If we mother never abandon us, Jesus could never have so much power over we.”
“What you mean by that, Delano?”
“Well, Jesus is only important to people who don’t have any money. Real rich people don’t even have to go to church.”
“Your father don’t go to church?”
“Me don’t know. But me know him don’t have to beg-beg God for nothing. And when me go to live with him me won’t have to go to church either.”
I kill another ant and watch the others run for cover. “So when you going to live with him?”
“When you get bigger. If me leave you, you won’t have no big brother to tell you what to do. Me have to stay because you so little. But when me go live with him, you will see that when you rich, things is better for you.”
“Delano, you think things would be better for us if we was Jews?”
“What kinda stupid question is that?”
“Well, everything in the Bible is about the Jews them, because them is God’s chosen people. Bad things only happen to them when them stop listening to God. But God still send Jesus to come and save them. Even when them give God’s only Son to the Romans to kill him.”
“No, Stacey, the Romans only kill Jesus because it was God’s plan. God did know how everything was going to turn out already because him is God.”
“Well, is a good thing me is not God, Delano, because if I was God, and I know who kill my son, I woulda burn up every one of them!”
“God know everything, yes, but him is a good God. That is how we get the chance fi have salvation. And even if them was going against God, him wouldn’t just burn them up. Him too good fi that.”
“So if God so good, why him burn up the people in Sodom and Gomorrah? Them wasn’t even committing blasphemy.”
“Stacey, the people in Sodom and Gomorrah was doing something worse than blasphemy. That is why God have to destroy the city.”
“Worse than blasphemy? Is what them was doing so?”
“Is something really bad—something that have to do with a man who is funny. If you are a funny man, that is even worse than blasphemy!”
“Worse than blasphemy? What you mean by funny? Like when somebody tell a nasty joke?”
Delano turns away.
“Delano, tell me what you mean by funny. What them was doing in Sodom and Gommorrah that was funny?”
“Stacey, me done talk ’bout that now! You always want talk ’bout things what nobody else want talk ’bout. Come on, it getting late. Make we go inside.”
Sunday morning comes and there are no presents from the missionaries in America. I take my seat in the front pew beside Delano. Pastor Panton climbs the pulpit and begins his sermon.
“Brothers and sisters, long before the miraculous birth of Christ Jesus, he saw his own future—yes, he saw himself
hanging there from that wretched tree! Dead! Eyes closed, mouth shut—dead! But he had no fear of it because he knew that he had to do this to save us!”
A few members shout back, “Hallelujah! Praise his name!”
“Sinners! Imagine the Son of God—who had to pass through the sinful loins of a woman—nailed to that cross! Imagine that steel sword piercing his heart. Christmas is not about presents! Christmas is not about barrels from foreign lands! Christmas is about sacrifice! Christmas is about abstaining! Abstaining from all you love—abstaining so you have the clarity to consider the greatest love of all! The Good Book tells us, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ If you are a friend of Jesus, lift your voice and sing!”
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and grief to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer
People from the congregation are screaming and jumping. Miss Cherry has already fallen to the floor. Her arms and legs are flailing. I see her big white panties as she lifts her dress. The other women gather around her and throw a white cloth over her legs.
“Merciful Jesus, we thank you!”
“Hallelujah!”
“Praise him!”
“Brothers and sisters, if we do not recognize the birth of the Son of God as a part of the death of the Son of God, we are on a one-way train straight into the bowels of a raging fire. Let us use this holiday to confess our carnal sins and have the blood of Jesus wash the stains from our human hearts. If we fail to confess, brothers and sisters, we are all going to hell! Sing with me, brothers and sisters. Sing if you have confessed!”
The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir Page 3