“Them chop off the lion’s mane, and them think them win!” the woman snarled as she pressed the bag into Nola’s hands. “Them think them tek him power, but sometimes the beast have to rise back from where them don’t expec’ it—out of the quiet forest!” She tapped Nola’s forehead. “Out of the quiet forest the beast will pounce!”
Nola nodded as the weight of the bag was released into her hands.
“But this …” Mams grabbed the bag again and shook it hard. “This dead already. This can’t dead again! You have to tek care of yourself, girl! I pray to Jah, dat as him give little David the power over the great giant, him will give you the power to strike dat Lucifer down!”
Nola rushed straight to her bathroom and locked the door. For the first time since her first night in Kingston, she removed Grampy’s towel from the mirror.
The eyes that stared back at her seemed like those of a stranger. How they’d changed. Before, they had been lost in their sockets. They’d been weak, like watery tea. She realized then that she’d never ever looked at herself through her own eyes. She’d always looked with their eyes. Redding eyes. She’d only seen what they’d seen. The blackness. That was all.
Nola leaned forward, her breath misting the mirror. Her eyes pulsed. They shone. Her eyes had broken free of the glaze, and pulsed with the gleam of the release.
She opened Mams’s bag and peered inside. The musty bundle didn’t even look like hair. The bronze colour was gone, as if the very energy had fizzled away after being severed from its lifeforce. Nola removed a lock and stared at the chopped ends, her heart raging as she remembered Ab’s bent, defeated head. She would have to tie them together to keep them on her own scalp.
She used her memory of Aggie and her wrappings to complete the disguise. First she rubbed her unused bed sheets in dirt, then ripped them into three pieces, one for her top, one for her skirt and one for her turban. The turban she used to hold the locks into place, ensuring that a few of them hung over her face to hide her distinguishing smirk. Then she added a splatter of kitchen grease across her cheeks and blackened her front teeth with shoe polish.
There! A ragged street beggar stood before her in the mirror. Nola bared her teeth at her reflection, laughing out loud at the illusion of the gaping hole in the front.
She had to sneak from the house through the front door, knowing that she was more at risk of meeting up with someone in the kitchen or beneath the ackee trees. She walked down the street instead of up past Ab’s shop, hunching her back and dragging her left leg the way she’d watched Grampy do so many times.
The beggar was in his spot, leaning against the stop sign. He always grinned at Nola when she passed, exposing a gap matching the one she had just simulated, hissing like a deflating tyre and crooning, “Sexy Jubie, come and give a man a little someting, nuh?”
Now, as she dragged her leg past him, he looked up and scowled. He thought she was another beggar, trying to trespass on his domain. The disguise had passed its first test!
She stopped by the bus stop and bought a bucket of brightly coloured heliconia blooms from a street vendor. If she was to sit by the taxi stand for hours, then she needed an excuse to be there. She’d just have to remember to call out every couple minutes, “Pretty flowas! Pretty flowas! Three dollar a stem!”
She arrived at the taxi stand a little before ten-thirty in the morning, a time which she knew would not yet see Eric at the supermarket. No one seemed to notice her as she pushed through the crowd and plopped her bucket of flowers on the ground. She chose a spot on the wall beside the ‘exit’ gateway of the plaza, the spot she thought would be the safest to watch from since it was the gate Eric never used. From there she could see the supermarket doors clearly. They were just being opened by the old man from the back room, his back bent as he shuffled to fasten the grills to the outer wall. No sign of the smoking lady.
“What you doin’ in my spot, Mammy? You don’t know say nobody but Imo sell in this spot?!”
Nola squinted up at the wide shadow. It flung a huge duffle angrily at her feet, and waved a roll of blue tarpaulin in front of her stunned face. Nola jumped up quickly, afraid that any sort of confrontation would draw attention from the supermarket.
“Sorry, Sorry … .” She caught herself. “Sarry, sarry, missus.” She switched to the flat, drawn out patois of the street. “Me just lookin’ for somewhere to sell mi flowas.” Her mind raced, remembering Nathan’s passionate argument about Kendra’s health. “My son! My son need some medicine for him asthma, and me need to get little money to buy it.”
“You can sit over deh so,” the woman said, “But just for today! Mr. Mac say that nobody must sell on him sidewalk without payin’ rent.”
Mr. Mac? Eric! He charged rent for the sidewalk? Nola disguised her involuntary gasp of anger with a cough. She nodded quickly in surrender to the woman’s instructions and hoisted her bucket to the garbage drum. There was a sign on the light post beside it, NO PISSING HERE, but the smell of urine was stifling. There was no way she would get any customers in this spot, but she had to admit that it was a little more inconspicuous than the first. The bougainvillea gave some shade, but was so prickly that it scratched her back and neck as she tried to sit on the wall, so she just sat on the sidewalk.
To see the supermarket doors she would now have to lift her head and peer over the low wall, but who was she to complain since she wasn’t paying rent?
The woman pointed at the other higglers along the sidewalk who were also setting out their wares. “You think tings come easy in this place?” She bellowed. “You can’t just come and take up prime space like that! Nah, man, you have to earn your spot! Imo start sellin’ here from before this plaza even have all them other shop!” She waved her fingers at the plaza. “When just the so-so supermarket and cloth store was there—that’s why Mr. Mac treat Imo special!” She beamed. “Give me special price, cause me was here long before all of these other ‘prentice!”
Just then, Nola glimpsed the smoking woman. She was walking towards the entrance gate from within the crowd on the sidewalk. Nola shrunk beneath the bougainvillea. Shut up, shut up, she wanted to hiss at the higgler. She quickly looked down and pretended to sort through her flowers, trying to release the higgler’s interest towards her.
The smoking woman stopped by the pushcart at the gate and bought a newspaper. Even as the vendor gave her a toothless grin as he handed over her change, the woman did not release her scowl. Nola gave an inward shrug. What would anyone who worked for Eric McKenzie have to smile about anyway?
Eric’s car entered the plaza at about one o’clock that afternoon, just when Nola’s stomach had begun to rumble so loudly that even the flies appeared startled and buzzed more erratically beside her. She’d been about to pull out the raisin bun she’d tucked into the waistband of her rags when she heard the tyres screech into the parking lot. It stopped in its usual spot in the ‘no parking’ area in front of the supermarket doors, but Eric did not alight immediately. As Nola watched from behind the wall, the car sat purring like a contented cat.
After what seemed like an eternity, Nola eventually spotted Eric’s gleaming crown alight from the car, followed by the angry slam of his car door. He strode purposefully into the supermarket.
The next head that emerged caused Nola’s breath to catch in her chest. Petra! The girl exited the car slowly, her head bent so low that Nola wondered how she could possibly see where she was going. She turned to carefully shut the car door and Nola’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Petra was as slim as a stick, with the long, shriveled face to match. How could she have changed so much in so little time? The beauty on her face was barely recognizable, spread thin like a sparse film of butter on cold, warped toast.
Petra lifted each leg slowly, hesitantly, towards the supermarket door, as if what she really wanted to do was to turn and run. Nola felt as if she was watching Mama with her jaded, robot-like movements as she swished her mop over the kitchen floor, as she chop
ped her onions and stared at nothing.
Nola clutched at her chest.
“Missus, is what happen to you? You just see a duppy?”
Miss Imo bent over her and fanned energetically with a soiled sheet of cardboard. “Breathe deep, m’dear. Don’t make your chest seize up!” She coaxed Nola.
“You want me call a taxi, Mammy? You think you need to go hospital?”
“No, no …” Nola choked. “No hospital! I just choke, that’s all. I’m alright now… just little water.”
A thermos appeared and cool water was hastily poured down her throat. Nola pushed gently at the meaty chest in front of her, nodding vigorously to let the pourer know that she’d had enough.
Nola, left to once again peep over the wall, was relieved to see that Eric’s car was still there. But now a police car was parked beside it. She frowned. It was not the first time that she’d seen that police car in the lot beside Eric’s car. Ab’s words rushed back to her, “Man like Eric have the police in dem back pocket.” He’d been right after all.
It was about 30 minutes before Eric appeared again. Alone. Nola watched as he sauntered over to the police car and tapped on the window with his keys. She couldn’t see what he pushed through the window, but he definitely took something from his left pocket and handed it over. He did not speak to the person inside, just handed the item over and sauntered to his own car. The police car immediately left the plaza, passing Nola as she bent low over her bucket of heliconias. Eric drove out soon afterward, through the entrance gateway. Alone.
So he’d put Petra to work. Nola wanted desperately to go inside. She wanted to get closer to Petra, to see if the sham she’d just seen was really as bad as it appeared from the roadside. But it was just too risky, even with her disguise.
Nola stayed by the garbage drum all day, watching the patrons of the plaza come and go, and listening to the animated conversations of the higglers. She even sold five more stalks of heliconia blooms.
Eric never returned, and Petra never came back outside. By late evening when the higglers began folding up their tarpaulins and packing their duffles with the goods that had not been sold, Nola began to think that it had been her imagination that had produced the meek figure entering the supermarket earlier. She was just thinking that, and about to take up her bucket and leave when she spotted the downcast head. It came outside followed by the smoking woman who carried a black scandal bag. Nola watched as they stopped by the same cart at the entrance where the smoking woman bought a Star while Petra stared down at her feet. They eventually crossed through the traffic and squeezed into a mini-bus bursting with arms, legs and sweaty faces.
Nola sighed. From shiny black Honda to packed mini-bus. Fate had such a cruel sense of humour.
CHAPTER
40
Barry stopped coming by the cook shop. As a matter of fact, Barry stopped walking on Palm View Road altogether. He now approached the garage from Preston Road, not willing to brave the curses, spits and calls of ‘Traitor’ and ‘Dread Hater’ that greeted him on Palm View Road.
Only one person still embraced Barry wholeheartedly—Eric McKenzie, who tucked the man beneath his wing. He had embarked Barry on a new business venture, which saw him actually up and about the garage. ‘Working’ was probably not the word that a regular person would have used to refer to the pastime into which Eric had launched Barry, but it did see great profit for the garage, and, therefore, earned the hearty favour of the Mongrel.
They began stealing cars. Yes, the garage took on a brand new portfolio—instead of repairing cars, they stole them. From the gleaming new, to the rickety old, they were all brought to the garage and separated into prized parts—fenders, bumpers, engines, steering wheels. All were harvested like butchered cows, and sold to a market which seemed to have been miraculously waiting in the wings.
Mattie was the one who filled them all in. She was able to tell them that Necka had shown Barry how to use a flattened rubber tube, sealed at one end, to slide through the top of the car windows and pump it with air so that the tube swelled and released the top of the window from its frame. A wire hanger was then snaked through to lift the lock, then the vehicle was pushed out of earshot of the owner’s home before the car was ‘hot wired’ and driven away.
At first, Nola did not believe that lazy, cowardly Barry would have engaged in such a foolhardy and dangerous pastime. Then she remembered the man’s weed-induced rantings beneath the tamarind tree. Barry believed that all rich folk owed him something. They were the reason that he was poor. In Barry’s eyes, he was not stealing—he was taking back what was his.
In due time, even more strange faces began to appear on Palm View Road and Preston Lane. The new faces parked their cars in the middle of the road, forcing traffic to manoeuvre around their vehicles. The new faces crossed the streets in front of moving vehicles, without so much as a glance in the direction of the car, continuing on their way even as the tyres screeched to panicked stops within inches of their bodies. Soon, the cars that had once used Palm View as a throughway found other routes to travel, and the traffic became considerably less, except for the new faces.
The residents adjusted quietly, no one wanting to incite any confrontations, especially after what had happened to poor Nathan, and, not to mention, what could happen to Petra and little Kendra.
Barry, in the meantime, settled nicely into his new occupation, generating so much money for the garage that the Mongrel became even fatter, his car even bigger, and his lunch breaks even longer. Eric, in turn, having set up the contacts for the successful organisation, stayed away from the garage, sending Necka to monitor the operation and to collect his ‘fees’ each week.
One day, Barry came back to Abediah’s Ital Stop. At first Nola thought she’d made a mistake, that it was not Barry who strutted towards the shop, but someone who looked like him. The person didn’t even walk like Barry.
But, it was Barry strutting towards them, except that Barry now walked like Eric McKenzie.
He approached the window as if he had not been absent from it for months. He walked right up and hailed Ab with a casual flick of his hand, then nodded at everyone else and ordered a Red Stripe Beer. Red Stripe Beer? This from a man who had once emphatically claimed that nothing held the essence of a true man like a hot stout.
Everyone became silent, looking from Barry to Ab, then to each other, as if a duppy had just wandered into their midst. He certainly didn’t look like the Barry they’d once known. The tight, scruffy rolls of uncombed hair had been replaced by tight, neat cornrows which met at the nape of the neck in a tiny puff of hair. The smelly, grease-stained shirt had been replaced by a silky gray one, the buttons undone to just above a diamante studded belt, exposing Barry’s fur-spattered chest. But the most spectacular change was the shoes. White! White, patent shoes, toes pointed to kingdom come, the fine tip ending in a spectacular finish of shiny stainless steel.
Ab was the first to speak, handing Barry a hot stout with a nod and a ‘Wha’ppenin’ Rasta?’ Mams sucked her teeth and held her chest. Ab nodded for her to go into the house and she went, muttering bitterly about the lion’s mane.
Ab pointed to the empty chairs and tables which everyone else had pointedly ignored. “Barry,” he said, “Tek your seat, Star.”
Barry nodded and raised his stout in an exaggerated salute before sitting in a chair beside the window—Eric’s old seat.
In a while, the conversation resumed, none of it directed at Barry.
“So Ab, how business, Star? Tings lookin’ good?” Barry called above the chatter, rocking casually on the chair.
Ab continued to wipe the counter, not looking up as he said, “Well, Brethren, I and I can’t complain. Jah look after him own, you nuh.”
Barry nodded and sucked on the stout bottle noisily. So not everything had changed.
“So I say, too, Star. So I say!” Barry chortled as he released the bottle spout and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
&
nbsp; “And wha’ ‘bout you, Rasta? How business down the road?” Ab asked.
“Well you know how tings go … some days better than some, you see me?”
Ab nodded. “So it go, sometimes.”
Suddenly, Barry looked over at Nola.
She was caught off-guard, especially since she’d been staring so intently at him. When he turned, his eyes locked with hers. She blinked in surprise, but found that she could not look away. There it was again—that surge of familiar emotion. Guilt.
She’d encouraged this! All this—the clothes, the shoes, the stealing … she’d encouraged it all! All those hours she’d lain beside Barry in that haze of smoke, she’d listened to his gibberish and nodded in agreement to his stupid reasoning. Then she’d dismissed him like everyone else! It was as if it was happening all over again—reaching for the machete for Papa, and killing Ellie instead.
Barry’s tree had been the pen. He had accepted her just like Ellie had, and what had she done? Left him to the mercies of that serrated tongue.
She should have warned him. She should have gone to him and tried to speak some sense into him. She should have told him of Eric’s deception, warned him of what lay beneath that sheath.
She gave him a weak smile, to let him know that she was willing to talk, but he turned his head away and looked back at Ab.
“You know, Ab, someting I been meanin’ to say … to everybody … been just waitin’ for the right time to say it.” Barry crooned.
Ab stopped wiping and looked up. Everyone else’s gaze joined his to stare at the lone, occupied chair. Barry, seeing that he had finally gotten everyone’s attention, grinned broadly, righted his chair and removed his hand from his pocket. He stood slowly, with the exaggerated movements of someone acting in a play, and placed his stuffed fist on the counter in front of Ab. Then he leaned forward as if to whisper, but spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
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