Barry sidled his sweat-stained body beside her on the curb and puckered his lips. Nola stared in disgust at the white foam that had hardened in the corners of his mouth.
“Cho man, Nola,” he crooned with a lecherous grin, “mi boss don’t pay me this week, you know. Trust me a stout on your bill nuh, and week after next me buy you back someting nice, you see me?”
Nola turned her head to escape the stench of his mouth. “Barry,” she said, “me goin’ to school, and you is the one with a job, and me must buy you a drink?”
Barry scratched his grease-matted head and frowned. “Cho, what wrong with everybody, man? All them can talk ‘bout is work, work, work, you see me! You don’t see that is the weekend, man? Time for relaxation and good sensation.”
Nola sipped her juice and looked around. “Where Rat tonight?”
Barry sucked his teeth and jiggled his crotch. “Cho, Rat is a joker, man! Say him gone to work for one big car company uptown that sell pure expensive car. Say that him need better pay to look after him five pickney. But hear what, is white people own the company! Imagine that? Rat is a traitor, man, put himself right back in the path of slavery, you see me?”
“Nola, Petra start feed that baby with a spoon yet?” Mams shouted through the shop window. “Is not good for dat chile just’a get milk, milk, milk all the time, you know? Bet you when them start give her some good fish tea you see her start look normal, face straighten out like any paw-paw tree trunk.”
“Mi cousin in St. Mary did have a chile like dat, you know, tongue hang down pass him chin! But all mi cousin do is give the baby little ganja tea every mornin’ and every evenin’. And she boil up the doctor fish with the eye and guts and everyting in it. By the time dat chile reach one year, him a run up and down normal like every other pickney in the yard, tongue pull back up in him mouth and face pretty like anyting!”
“Mams, not a thing was wrong with Hya baby,” Ab laughed. “The baby just born ugly like sin, dat’s all, and thanks to Jah merciful grace, him face just get better lookin’ the older him get!”
Barry sucked his teeth. “That’s why me tell my baby mother them, ‘nuh look pon NO ugly face while you breedin’ my youth!’ Me nuh want no ugly pickney come out and call me Papa, you see me?”
Barry removed a pencil-thin spliff from behind his ear and sucked noisily on it as he held up a match. Then he closed his eyes and took a long draw. Nola watched curiously as the angry set of his jaw slackened with each puff of smoke, till soon a crooked smile crept over his lips again, and his shoulders moved rhythmically to the beat of the reggae. When he eventually opened his eyes, Nola recognized the familiar pink glaze.
Maybe it was the mellowness of the moment. Maybe it was the fact that she needed an escape from her bad report and Aunt May’s note. Maybe it was the glaze that had crept over Barry’s eyes, the same glaze she’d envied of Aggie, the glaze that had separated the woman from the rest of the world. Maybe it was the longing for that separation. Maybe it was all those things that made Nola take the spliff from Barry’s greasy fingers. She took it, put the wet tip to her lips, and took a long draw.
She did not even cough. It was as if the smoke had been the long lost filling for the searing cavity in her chest. At first, it crept into her like a single thread of cobweb, twisting delicately like a sliver of light through her. Then suddenly, the thread swelled, expanding within her head till it crushed everything against the sides of her body, stretching her like a taut balloon. She felt so light, so free, as if just one touch, one tiny prick, could make her explode into smithereens of silver-white sparks.
Nola looked to see if Barry had noticed the swelling of her body, and giggled delightedly when she saw that his head had swollen too. It was floating over hers with that wide grin as he reached to take the spliff from her fingers.
“See how the ting good? Make everyting copasetic, my girl!” He looked thoughtfully at the smoking tip and gave it a proud shake. “Gift from God, this ting. Gift from God, you see me?” Then he handed it to her again.
This time her head did explode, but not into silver-white sparks. It exploded into a whirlwind of colours. They were so beautiful, so stark and clear against the night sky. Nola reached out to catch them, but they flitted away from her fingers. She heard when Abediah asked Barry what was wrong with her, and Barry answered that Nola was irie. Just chillin’ to the vibe in her head.
She floated for the rest of the evening—over to the shop window to get a fish tea from Mams, back to the curb for another draw from Barry, back to the window for a stout, back to Barry for a draw, and somewhere within her floating, it hit her—how funny her life had been! Somehow, from within that glaze, she was able to see the humour of it all. And when she told Barry the story, about the witch that lived on the sidewalk, about Papa and his beatings, about the burning of the pink house, he thought it was funny too, and they chortled till they fell off the sidewalk into the stinking gutter.
Later, when she floated home, she didn’t climb through her bedroom window. She floated right through the kitchen door where Slugga was waiting over her cup of Milo, and she told her as bold as anything that she wasn’t going back to that damn school with its ‘risto’ girls looking at her funny. She told her to stay out of her life, that she’d done enough damage the first time she’d tried to fix it, and that if it wasn’t for her stupid bungle of sticks, Merlene and Dahlia would still be alive. And, furthermore, from then on, she would be calling her ‘Slugga’, because she wasn’t any damn aunty of hers! And when Nola saw the pained look overtake the woman’s face, saw the wobbling jaws snap tight, she was in awe of the power that she had discovered. She preened like a child who’d just discovered a secret button on a toy that could make it fly. It was a rush as powerful as the one she’d experienced from the weed, a magnificent surge that shot her ten feet tall, towering her over Slugga’s wilting face. It was so pitiful to see the face crumble before her. Fight, nuh! She wanted to shout at Slugga. Fight for yourself, you worthless cow!
Finally! Finally she was free.
CHAPTER
33
The days meshed into weeks as Nola stayed away from them all, doing whatever she wanted. She hardly saw Kendra or the other residents of the house, sometimes for so long that when she eventually glimpsed them, they seemed to be just part of the daze of faces that mulled on and around Palm View Road.
She spent most of her time on the curb in front of Abediah’s shop, or beneath the tamarind tree in the yard of the garage where Barry worked. Beneath that tree was where Barry took his numerous ‘breaks’. Every time his boss, Monty (the mongrel) Spaulding, drove through the gate in his sparkling blue Benz, Barry would scramble up from the cardboard and dive beneath a car, and Nola would, on cue, grab a tool and pass it to his outstretched hand.
It wasn’t that often that Barry had to leave his cardboard, for ‘the mongrel’ hardly left the cool walls of his air conditioned office to face the dusty heat outside, unless it was to go out for one of the lunches that kept him out for most of the afternoons.
Even from within her glaze, it entered Nola’s mind that it was quite a miracle that the garage stayed in business. Cars remained parked for weeks in the dusty yard while customers gesticulated angrily at the engines and steering wheels that sat idly in the shade beside Barry.
Truth was, under regular circumstances, Barry would not have been Nola’s first choice of companionship. But, that was the beauty of the glaze. Under the glaze, Barry’s stench miraculously disappeared, and when her pockets flapped emptily, Nola just followed the man’s lead and cheerfully made promises to Ab and Mams to settle her bills ‘soon, soon’. Barry became her glazed confidant, whose depth of feeling for her went no further than the depth of her pockets. It suited Nola just fine. She was tired. Tired of paddling around, barely able to keep her head above the choppy water. She didn’t have to with Barry—Barry and his hatred of the ‘White oppressors’. Barry and his love of ganja.
Even Abediah and
Mams smoked. Nola saw them rolling the browned leaves in the squares of paper, then taking long draws, their eyes fading into that tell-tale mellowness as the smoke ribboned through their locks. Abediah explained to Nola that ‘collieweed’ was good for the brain. He told her that it unblocked vessels, cleansed the bloodstream. But he always frowned when he spoke of those who used smoking as an excuse to behave violently or to be lazy. Nola knew he referred to Barry. She knew Ab was disapproving of the man’s ways, but ever since his warning on that day when Nola had first met them both, he never interfered in their ‘friendship’. Never interfered except for the comments to no one in particular as she walked past the shop towards the garage—“The fast lane can come to a sudden end round the bend.”
As to Slugga, she withdrew her speech. She didn’t even look up when Nola crossed her path beneath the ackee trees in the evenings. It was strange, to see this once commanding figure now silenced just by her presence. Truth was, if Nola hadn’t been so enthralled by her new-found ‘glaze’, it may even have seemed a bit sad. But all feelings of regret were quelled by the glaze. Instead, Nola assumed the stance of defiance, eyeing everyone with dismissive glances as she passed them in the backyard. Sometimes the baby, curious despite the disinterested cast of her features, would call “guh, guh” as Nola sauntered past, but Nola refused to focus on the child. Only stubborn Nathan would call out, “Just cut some nice fresh callaloo from the patch today, Girlie. Maysie cook up a nice pot on the stove there. Best callaloo I ever eat in all the years I walk this earth. Have some in there, Girlie. Best callaloo you ever eat!”
Mrs. Lyndsay would then murmur, “That Nola there? But I thought she and that chile Olive move out of the house?”
Petra just wore a smug look of satisfaction, one which deepened every time she saw Slugga turn away from Nola.
The only member of the household that Nola still remained in contact with was Olive. Olive continued coming in late, announcing her arrival with the customary racket. Nola was always wide awake, sometimes smoking a leftover stub of spliff as she stared into the darkness beyond the sash window. At the sounds from the kitchens she would jump up eagerly, desperate to share in the glaze on Olive’s face. Most times, Nola would help Olive up the stairs to her room, but sometimes, if the woman’s limbs were too saturated with beer to take her any farther than the kitchen, Nola would lead her into her own room and drop her onto the bed, where Olive would fall into a deep, pungent sleep. Nola would lie in her spot on the floor, finally falling asleep too, as Olive’s raspy snores coaxed her mind out of the glaze just far enough to remember that shack with its own snoring inhabitant. Sometimes, when Olive moved on the bed and rustled Nola awake, in her half-slumber Nola would think that it was Louisa up there. It was at those times that she would find the floor beneath her face wet.
Along with her attendance at school, Nola’s chores ceased. So, therefore, ended her allowance. As such, she was forced to find other means of earning money to pay for her new-found pastime of smoking weed and buying Guiness stouts from Ab. She began running errands for the people in the area. On Tuesday and Saturday evenings she watched Milly, Ruthie’s four-year-old daughter, while the woman carried food and laundered clothes to her grandmother in a nursing home. On Fridays, if the garbage truck missed its pick-ups, she would haul bags of pastry scraps and discarded dough from Mattie’s bakery to the dumpster at the end of the lane. Some mornings, if Mams was in the mood for company, Nola would sit on her kitchen step and help cut up the carrots, cho-cho and pumpkin for the stews. As payment, Mams would squeeze a couple dollars into her hand, or offer her a plate of food from her aromatic pots.
Life was good. How could it not be when nothing mattered? After a couple of months, Nola even returned to the Save Rite Supermarket. Who was the smoking lady to tell her where she could go and couldn’t go?
Nola went when the taxi stand was at its busiest—after lunchtime when the traffic was thick and the crowd of pedestrians swelled like the laden Rio Diablo. The same heat and crowd of Kingston that had at first stunned her now became her blanket. She was able to shove and push her way on the crowded buses like everyone else, haggling with the taxi drivers over fares to go from here to there. She was able to blend into the crowd and watch the supermarket, undauntedly, to search for Dahlia’s features coming in and out of its doorway. The smoking woman’s words still rang through her head—You don’t know him will kill her? The evil creature was still alive! Now it was just a matter of Nola being at the right place, at the right time, to find him.
One day she saw a man walk up to the door, pause for a second, then continue down the walkway and into the fabric store at the corner of the plaza. Nola’s heart raced. He was tall and dark, and something in his gait seemed familiar—the carefree way his feet had scraped the sidewalk, each foot turned out slightly as it stomped forward. She’d followed behind such a walk so many times. Nola chased after him, nearly running straight into a taxi as it was moving off. She held up a hand of apology at the curse words which spilled from the window, but continued to run till she was inside the plaza’s parking lot. She thought better of passing the supermarket entrance, so she entered through the exit gate. She got as far as the music shop.
The smell of the cologne immediately overpowered her. Shit! Black Honda man! What the hell was he doing on the other side of the plaza! Nola repeated the words the taxi man had just used to her, casting the man an angry look. He stared calmly back at her, a toothpick hanging from the side of his perfectly formed lips.
“Oy, girl, what you doin’ runnin’ in the plaza? You know you nearly knock me down?” Then he frowned. “Nuh you same one nearly run me over couple weeks ago in the supermarket?
Girl, why you don’t look where you goin’? You want me to ban you from this place?”
“Ban who? You don’t own the road!” Nola hissed. She tried to pull her arm away, but her rude response had tightened his grip and her arm just pumped helplessly in his hand.
He made a sound that may have been a laugh, but when Nola looked up at him, his eyes reflected no humour. The toothpick bobbed, denting his lip as his eyes narrowed. “Don’t own the road, eh?” he said, removing the toothpick and using it to point at something behind Nola’s head. “Look good round you, gal! Every ting you see, every piece of concrete in this plaza, every hinge on every door, Me! Me own it!”
Nola blinked up at him as he gently placed the toothpick back into his mouth and flung her arm roughly back at her. “So watch where you walk, or, like I say—mind I have to ban you from my plaza.” And with that, he sauntered off, looking neither left nor right as he crossed the parking lot and entered the supermarket doors.
Nola watched him disappear, then slowly turned and walked towards the fabric store.
The man was gone. She looked in every store except the supermarket, peeping in every doorway in case he’d wandered into somewhere else while she’d been so rudely stopped, but there was no sign of him. Her shoulders sagged as she headed back towards the taxi stand. She stopped by the entrance to the plaza, pondering if within her extreme disappointment she felt like battling the crowd on the bus, or whether she should just splurge on a taxi. She didn’t see when the black Honda crept up beside her, exiting through the gateway where the sign read, ENTRANCE ONLY. She did not see the car, just felt the blast of cold air as the window was wound down and a voice said, “Oy, Clumsy, get in and I take you where you need to go before you run into my car this time!”
Nola gave a stunned look into the dark interior. The cool air wafted temptingly over her face, soothing the drops of sweat that had burst free in her search for the tall man. What the hell, she thought. What worse could he do after threatenin’ to ban her from the plaza?
She repeated her inward shrug, this time so he could see, and bent to open the door. It was locked, and the man made no effort to open it, so Nola had to stick her hand through the open window and pull up the lock herself. She climbed in, the smell of cologne engulfing her again.
>
It was amazing how the crowd parted like the Red Sea when the vehicle turned out of the plaza, as if its driver commanded control of the bustling throng even outside of the plaza. As Nola sat in the cool breeze of the air conditioning and watched the sweaty, tired faces outside, she remembered the Spences, driving their brand new lime-green truck through the streets of Redding.
“So, where you live?” the man asked, his tone conversational for the first time since he’d addressed her.
Nola mumbled the address of Aunt May’s house, sure that his next question would be how to get there, but he did not ask. The car just turned left by the sunglass higglers, right by the Chinese betting shop, and began the drive through the streets that led to Palm View Road. He did not speak again, just chewed on his toothpick and nodded in time to the music. She noticed that his shirt glimmered as his arm moved on the steering wheel, as if it had been spun with silver thread. His hands were slender on the wheel, the fingernails filed perfectly straight across. They were almost like a woman’s, except for the fine dusting of dark hair on the backs of the fingers. He wore a ring with a large yellow stone on the middle finger of his right hand, the stone pulsating mesmerizingly as it reflected the red lights from the stereo.
Suddenly, he turned and looked straight into her eyes. The man flicked the toothpick to the other side of his mouth and cocked his chin at her.
“So … you goin’ tell me what you big interest in my little plaza is?”
Nola looked quickly down at her feet, at the toes so wide, the skin so rough with its tell-tale stain from the Redding dirt.
“You don’t hear me talkin’ to you, girl? I ask you a question. What interest you have with my plaza, why you comin’ there to run up and down and knock people over?”
“I … I just lookin’ round, that’s all.”
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