by Luke Brown
He felt the pain and sorrow that his sister must be going through. He wished that he could help it go away by enlightening her more on the topic of AIDS.
“Let him go about his business,” Myrtle said. “Time will take care of him. I’m very upset with him, too, but I don’t want to create any scandal. I don’t want anybody to know about my personal life.”
“Let me tell you the truth about this whole thing,” Dr. Leonard said. “HIV is not an embarrassing thing or anything to be ashamed of. But unlike HIV, AIDS is totally preventable. AIDS can be prevented with some of the best combinations of medications in these modern times. There’s no reason not to get tested for HIV. Early detection means the possibility of effective drug treatment to prevent the diseases related to it, diseases that we now refer to as AIDS. Those are the facts. As long as you’re taking your medications and being proactive with your health, you have no reason to be ashamed. Take it from me, your brother.” Dr. Leonard’s voice shook as if he was out of breath or about to break down and cry.
“Oh, I see. I see.” Myrtle acknowledged her brother’s explanation as she willingly soaked up the vital information that he was pouring out on the other side of the long-distance line.
“Do you understand now?”
“Yes, my brother, believe it or not, that was why I called yuh today, before yuh started yuh long, everlasting preaching.” Myrtle chuckled. “I’m just kidding. Anyway, I wanted to let yuh know that since I stopped taking all my meds, I feel so much better.”
“What? Nooo!” Dr. Leonard was alarmed. “Myrtle, did your doctors tell you to stop taking your meds? I know that sometimes they have a thing called drug holiday, but I don’t believe you would benefit from that situation. I’m almost sure that you did that on your own.”
“Yes, mon,” Myrtle confessed. “I tried it last week, and I noticed that it made me feel a lot better.”
“What about your digoxin and other medications? You didn’t stop that, right?”
“I stopped everything. I never ever felt so good and strong in my body for a very long time,” Myrtle bragged.
“No, no, no!” Dr. Leonard said hysterically. “Myrtle, you can’t do that. It isn’t only about how you feel. It’s about what will keep you alive. You’re only forty-five years old; you’re too young to be taking those chances with your life. I’m so glad that you called me, because you have to start back taking all of your heart medications. I can see it maybe being possible to hold off on your HIV meds since you’re getting too many unwanted side effects. If you choose to do that, you’ll have to see your special immunologist or HIV care doctors to let them reevaluate better dosages and probably change your HIV meds to a different set that you will tolerate much better.” Dr. Leonard pleaded with his sister. “Myrtle, please promise me that you will start back on your Lasix and digoxin and the rest of your heart medications as soon as you hang up the phone. Is that a promise?”
“Yes, my brother, but I have to go back to the clinic tomorrow to get my meds refilled.”
“Why not today, Myrtle?” Dr. Leonard insisted. “I think that you still have time to do it today.”
“Okay, my brother, I’m going to try and see if I get dem today. Okay? I love yuh.”
“I love you too, Myrtle. Bye for now.” Dr. Leonard ended their conversation, his mind troubled.
Myrtle, at age fourteen, had been a pretty little light-skinned girl. She got her good looks from Essie. If Essie was as pretty as a little terrestrial mermaid of the tropical island of Jamaica, then Myrtle was the little Jamaican “roughneck” terrestrial mermaid of the raving tropical cannabis island.
She was skinny and tall, with a perfect model shape. Her skin was as cool as the tropical island breeze in the late evening. She had long, slender legs just like Essie did when she was fourteen years old.
The main differences between Essie and Myrtle when they were fourteen were that Essie had noticeably bigger hips and much longer hair. Though Myrtle had a slightly better shape than Essie, and although she also had comely features, she was in no way as beautiful as her mother.
The real shortcomings that Myrtle had were her hair and, eventually, her attitude. Her short, dry hair earned her the nickname “Dry Head Adassa.” That used to be a popular nickname in Jamaica for girls who had very short hair that was hard to comb and style. It was originally created by a famous Jamaican poet named Miss Louise Bennett, also known as Miss Lou.
Myrtle was a pretty, quiet, well-behaved little girl up until the age of fourteen, when she dropped out of church. Though still pretty, she was not quiet or well behaved anymore.
She had started going to the Glenworth SDA Church at the age of twelve after being invited one day by her neighbor, Mr. Benjamin Mulgrave Sr.
“Good morning, Myrtle,” Brother Mulgrave said one Sabbath on his way to church. “Why don’t you come to church with me one of these days?”
“I’ll ask my mom if I can come with yuh next week, Brother Mulgrave,” Myrtle said. She was sitting on a large stone just outside her front gate.
“Okay, I’ll check back with you then.”
The following week, Myrtle was excited about going to church. She got dressed very early that Sabbath morning and went to church with Brother Mulgrave and his wife and family. She loved it so much that she couldn’t seem to stop going. She continued to attend every Sabbath and got baptized that same year.
However, she regrettably dropped out of church around the time she was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. The illness caused her to lose many school days, and she had many sick days off from school to allow her to attend her numerous doctors’ appointments. Myrtle became rebellious and less interested in school. When she did go, she would return home in the evening with her uniform dirty and torn up from being in countless fights with other students. It was as if Myrtle’s sole purpose for going to school was to start a fight.
Myrtle not only picked fights at school, but she also picked fights with anyone just about anywhere she went. The person’s age, size, or gender didn’t matter. If anyone stared or as much as looked at her, that would be enough cause for a fight. She wouldn’t hesitate to attack viciously, like a wild animal.
“What are you looking at?” Myrtle said to an older gentleman who was maybe twice her age and three times her small size. “Don’t look at me. I’m not a showcase. I’ll punch you in your face.”
“Little girl, just behave yourself and go and learn some manners,” the stranger said. He was busy and on his way to work.
“What did you say, face-T boy? You think I’m afraid of you, huh? Do yuh think I’m afraid of yuh, batty boy?” Myrtle zipped across the street with lightning speed. She pointed her index finger at the gentleman’s face and dared him to fight with her. “Yuh want to fight, haw? Yuh want to fight with me, dutty boy?”
Myrtle would start every fight, and she would pretty much lose every fight, but that neither bothered her nor stopped her. It was as if she had a death wish, but she wanted someone else to pull the trigger. Someone could have had a gun pointing at her, and she would no doubt still have been in his or her face trying to start a fight. She had no fear. She became more and more ruthless.
The funny thing about it was that her bad behavior did not in any way match her pretty, innocent looks and her petite, heavenly body. A man, or even a woman, who saw her for the first time, would be more inclined to think of making love to her than of fighting or making war with her.
One day Myrtle went to school and never came back home. Her family became very worried. Knowing Myrtle’s new violent attitude, everyone expected the worst. A week went by, and there was still no sign of her.
One month later, Myrtle sent a message to her family letting them know that she was doing fine. She was living with her new boyfriend, Dudley—who was a rich drug dealer—in a large, fancy, fabulous house in the parish of Saint Ann’s Bay. Dudley was a tall, handsome yet nerdy black guy in his twenties. He was soft-spoken, but his full, bulging eyes were red most
of the time, and he wore a mean look on his face.
Everyone was happy to know that Myrtle was alive, but no one thought for a minute that she was doing well. Essie was afraid for her being in such bad company. She was also concerned that her health was not being properly attended to by a physician. Essie sent a message back to her asking her to come home. Eventually, she did come home, but not because she wanted to. She came home because she was feeling seriously ill. By this time, she had tried marijuana and loved it. She had also become an avid beer drinker.
Essie took her to the hospital, where she was admitted. Shortly thereafter, she was rushed to Kingston Hospital to have emergency open-heart surgery. Myrtle had a mitral valve prolapse and was given an artificial heart-valve replacement. Thanks to early detection and to swift action, the doctors saved her life. They cautioned her to stop her dangerously unhealthy smoking and drinking habits and to live a less volatile lifestyle.
Myrtle did eventually drop the fighting attitude, but after the surgery and when she was fully recovered, she resumed her bad habits of smoking and drinking even more than before. For the life of her, she would not break those habits; they only got worse.
Her doctors also explicitly warned her that it would be very dangerous for her to get pregnant; she could die. However, it seemed as if Myrtle only took that as a welcome answer to her death wish. Shortly after her surgery, she got pregnant by a pleasant, courteous, good-natured Christian fellow named Ralph. It was as if she had gone looking for someone just to get her pregnant. As soon as it happened, she broke up with Ralph without ever telling him she was going to have a child.
When Myrtle went to her doctor for prenatal care, he recommended that she abort the child because either she would not live to see the child, or the child would not survive the birth. Both mother and child would not make it together. However, Myrtle refused to listen to her doctor’s advice. She insisted that she would keep her pregnancy all the way to full-term delivery.
Both the baby and Myrtle survived the pregnancy. Her son, Dean Myers, was delivered prematurely at seven months due to complications.
Myrtle lived the rest of her life in the same defiant manner. Anything that her doctors said she shouldn’t do, she did. It was as if she still had a death wish, and she dared death to happen as she went up against the odds. If you wanted her to do something, all you had to do was tell her not to do that particular thing. You could bet your only remaining silver dollar that she would be doing it, if it was the last thing on earth that she did.
There is a popular saying that goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.” Myrtle got bored with the normal activities of the day. She liked only the risky activities and risky challenges. She continued the risky behavior of heavy drinking and smoking of both marijuana and tobacco. She enjoyed a life rich with negligence and rebelliousness.
Essie and her whole family were more than ecstatic when Gena came to Jamaica to take Myrtle with her to the United States. It was no ‘rocket surgery’ they all knew that would be the only way Myrtle would survive her risky lifestyle. Moreover, they knew that she would get the best health care and medications for her heart.
Myrtle was happy too. She had hoped that Dr. NcNelly, the man who had funded the Glenworth house, would take her and the rest of the family to the United States, but that hadn’t happened. That was part of her broken dreams. Eventually, she had totally given up on going to the US to live a better life.
However, Gena had never given up on Myrtle’s dream. That was the main driving force in the first place that motivated Gena to be a pioneer and make a way for her family to live in the United States.
Gena, being the oldest child, knew everything about her family’s highs and lows. She knew that her little sister was heartbroken and disappointed with life. Myrtle often mentioned that she felt as if her life was merely one big mistake. Gena knew that Myrtle felt like ending her life because nothing mattered anymore.
Gena herself was also hurting inside, just like Myrtle, so she told herself that she owed it to Myrtle to make the dream happen the first chance she got. That was when she got the bold idea to get a visa for the Bahamas and then leave from there on a cruise ship to the United States. Once she got to the United States, she would get herself together and then come back for Myrtle.
It worked out almost as planned. When Gena felt like she was about to be crippled with fear, as she attempted to stow away on the cruise ship from the Bahamas to the United States, she thought about her little sister and how Myrtle needed her. She knew she had to be strong for her. When Gena was being abused, teased, and threatened on the ship, she found her strength by thinking about how Myrtle needed her. That was all that mattered to her then. Gena made it successfully through a lot of struggles because she thought of saving Myrtle and delivering her to the US in a sound state of mind before it was too late. This thought was always foremost in Gena’s thoughts.
But Myrtle wasn’t the first family member Gena brought to the US. An opportunity came up for her to file for her little brother Leonard, who desperately wanted to be a doctor and who was a much easier candidate to work with at that particular time.
It was not Gena’s plan to get Leonard as the first emigrant in her family to the United States. Neither was Denise supposed to be the second emigrant. But when the opportunities presented themselves, Gena astutely and brilliantly capitalized on them. Gena’s only intention initially was to make it to the United States at any cost and get her sister Myrtle, whom she knew was suffering, there, too.
Therefore, when Gena went to Jamaica to get Myrtle, she was focused and fearless like a soldier on a special rescue mission. She was determined to rescue her little sister from emotional captivity. Gena had looked forward to this mission for years. She had spent many sleepless nights thinking about how she would deliver her sister from her despair in Jamaica.
By the time Gena got to Jamaica, she was as prepared as a lawyer going to court to defend an innocent man who was wrongly accused, or a special squad poised to embark upon a mission to rescue an innocent captive.
She gave Myrtle a passport book and told her that she wouldn’t have to worry about anything. All she had to do was listen to Gena keenly and do exactly what she said she should do. If she did that, then their mission to the United States through immigration at the airport would be successful. Gena also gave her a piece of paper with some vital facts that she would need to know within one week. These were facts about Myrtle’s new name and identity.
During the week that Gena was in Jamaica, she and Myrtle rehearsed their strategy repeatedly. Gena called Myrtle by her new name to see if she would respond promptly to it. Early on the morning of their flight, Gena took Myrtle to the dentist. He extracted one of Myrtle’s teeth with very little Novocain, and within a few hours, one side of Myrtle’s face was swollen.
She was in excruciating pain. Unfortunately, this was part of the plan, necessary to make their mission successful. Myrtle’s deep Jamaican accent could be a real liability, especially considering that she would be playing the role of a native-born American in front of the US immigration officer.
Once they got onto the plane, Myrtle’s face was so swollen, she was virtually unidentifiable. When they got to immigration, the well-mannered young white officer was very compassionate because he could almost feel the pain that Myrtle was going through. Therefore, he hurried to process their documents. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that anyone would have gone to such great lengths in order to make it to the land of freedom and equal opportunity. But if he had realized the truth, he would at least have felt that Myrtle deserved a chance of freedom for wanting it so badly. He certainly would not have wanted to be a hindrance in such a driven person’s pathway.
They made it out of the airport. Myrtle was delivered by Gena to US soil, where the streets were paved with gold. Myrtle was very happy, but more than that, Gena was finally free, free to live her life because she knew she had success
fully done what Dr. McNelly had failed to do.
Myrtle, her brother Leonard, her niece Denise, and Gena’s own daughter Desiree were now happily living with Gena in New York City in her large three-bedroom apartment.
Myrtle quickly made friends and started enjoying the New York lifestyle. She liked to be the talk of the town. To say that she tasted the Big Apple was an understatement. It was more like Myrtle gobbled up the Big Apple as if she were a character in a Pac-Man game. She quickly developed a large circle of friends, both male and female. Myrtle was having a wild and wonderful time. She was truly happy as she tried to find herself in New York City.
However, she refused to quit smoking and drinking and was very set in her old ways and bad habits. She partied hard and always seemed to find the weirdest and strangest guys to be her friends. Although Gena had worked as fast as she could to deliver Myrtle, it seemed as if she was a little too late.
Against her doctor’s orders, Myrtle decided to get a job. She wanted to earn some money of her own, so she took a job in the discount department of a small retail pharmacy store conveniently located in their neighborhood.
She was very happy with the job. However, one day her boss had to fire her because, as he said, she was losing her mind. Angry and even violent, for no reason, she began breaking things left and right, aisle by aisle, in the store.
Gena quickly rushed down to 125th Street in Manhattan and took her to the closest hospital, where she was given sedatives and antipsychotic drugs to calm her down.
Myrtle was stable for a long time. However, every now and then, she had an outburst. One day at home with the rest of the family, she got agitated and started walking back and forth, pacing the floor. Hysterical, Denise immediately summoned Gena, who fearfully rushed to see what was wrong with Myrtle.