Collected Short Fiction

by V. S. Naipaul

  Hat used to say, ‘Is only a form of showing off, you know, all this quietness he does give us. He quiet just because he ain’t have anything to say, that’s all.’

  Yet you could hear Hat telling all sorts of people at the races and cricket, ‘Big Foot and me? We is bosom pals, man. We grow up together.’

  And at school I myself used to say, ‘Big Foot does live in my street, you hear. I know him good good, and if any one of all you touch me, I go tell Big Foot.’

  At that time I had never spoken a single word to Big Foot.

  We in Miguel Street were proud to claim him because he was something of a character in Port of Spain, and had quite a reputation. It was Big Foot who flung the stone at the Radio Trinidad building one day and broke a window. When the magistrate asked why he did it, Big Foot just said, ‘To wake them up.’

  A well-wisher paid the fine for him.

  Then there was the time he got a job driving one of the diesel-buses. He drove the bus out of the city to Carenage, five miles away, and told the passengers to get out and bathe. He stood by to see that they did.

  After that he got a job as a postman, and he had a great time misplacing people’s letters. They found him at Docksite, with the bag half full of letters, soaking his big feet in the Gulf of Paria.

  He said, ‘Is hard work, walking all over the place, delivering people letters. You come like a postage stamp, man.’

  All Trinidad thought of him as a comedian, but we who knew him thought otherwise.

  It was people like Big Foot who gave the steel-bands a bad name. Big Foot was always ready to start a fight with another band, but he looked so big and dangerous that he himself was never involved in any fight, and he never went to jail for more than three months or so at a time.

  Hat, especially, was afraid of Big Foot. Hat often said, ‘I don’t know why they don’t lose Big Foot in jail, you know.’

  You would have thought that when he was beating his pans and dancing in the street at Carnival, Big Foot would at least smile and look happy. But no. It was on occasions like this that he prepared his sulkiest and grimmest face; and when you saw him beating a pan, you felt, to judge by his earnestness, that he was doing some sacred act.

  One day a big crowd of us – Hat, Edward, Eddoes, Boyee, Errol and myself – went to the cinema. We were sitting in a row, laughing and talking all during the film, having a good time.

  A voice from behind said, very quietly, ‘Shut up.’

  We turned and saw Big Foot.

  He lazily pulled out a knife from his trouser pocket, flicked the blade open, and stuck it in the back of my chair.

  He looked up at the screen and said in a frightening friendly way, ‘Talk.’

  We didn’t say a word for the rest of the film.

  Afterwards Hat said, ‘You does only get policeman son behaving in that way. Policeman son and priest son.’

  Boyee said, ‘You mean Big Foot is priest son?’

  Hat said, ‘You too stupid. Priests and them does have children?’

  We heard a lot about Big Foot’s father from Hat. It seemed he was as much a terror as Big Foot. Sometimes when Boyee and Errol and I were comparing notes about beatings, Boyee said, ‘The blows we get is nothing to what Big Foot uses to get from his father. That is how he get so big, you know. I meet a boy from Belmont the other day in the savannah, and this boy tell me that blows does make you grow.’

  Errol said, ‘You is a blasted fool, man. How you does let people give you stupidness like that?’

  And once Hat said, ‘Every day Big Foot father, the policeman, giving Big Foot blows. Like medicine. Three times a day after meals. And hear Big Foot talk afterwards. He used to say, “When I get big and have children, I go beat them, beat them.” ’

  I didn’t say it then, because I was ashamed; but I had often felt the same way when my mother beat me.

  I asked Hat, ‘And Big Foot mother? She used to beat him too?’

  Hat, said, ‘Oh, God! That woulda kill him. Big Foot didn’t have any mother. His father didn’t married, thank God.’

  The Americans were crawling all over Port of Spain in those days, making the city really hot. Children didn’t take long to find out that they were easy people, always ready to give with both hands. Hat began working a small racket. He had five of us going all over the district begging for chewing gum and chocolate. For every packet of chewing gum we gave him we got a cent. Sometimes I made as much as twelve cents in a day. Some boy told me later that Hat was selling the chewing gum for six cents a packet, but I didn’t believe it.

  One afternoon, standing on the pavement outside my house, I saw an American soldier down the street, coming towards me. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon, very hot, and the street was practically empty.

  The American behaved in a very surprising way when I sprinted down to ask, ‘Got any gum, Joe?’

  He mumbled something about begging kids and I think he was going to slap me or cuff me. He wasn’t very big, but I was afraid. I think he was drunk.

  He set his mouth.

  A gruff voice said, ‘Look, leave the boy alone, you hear.’

  It was Big Foot.

  Not another word was said. The American, suddenly humble, walked away, making a great pretence of not being in a hurry.

  Big Foot didn’t even look at me.

  I never said again, ‘Got any gum, Joe?’

  Yet this did not make me like Big Foot. I was, I believe, a little more afraid of him.

  I told Hat about the American and Big Foot.

  Hat said, ‘All the Americans not like that. You can’t throw away twelve cents a day like that.’

  But I refused to beg any more.

  I said, ‘If it wasn’t for Big Foot, the man woulda kill me.’

  Hat said, ‘You know, is a good thing Big Foot father dead before Big Foot really get big.’

  I said, ‘What happen to Big Foot father, then?’

  Hat said, ‘You ain’t hear? It was a famous thing. A crowd of black people beat him up and kill him in 1937 when they was having the riots in the oilfields. Big Foot father was playing hero, just like Big Foot playing hero now.’

  I said, ‘Hat, why you don’t like Big Foot?’

  Hat said, ‘I ain’t have anything against him.’

  I said, ‘Why you fraid him so, then?’

  Hat said, ‘Ain’t you fraid him too?’

  I nodded. ‘But I feel you do him something and you worried.’

  Hat said, ‘Nothing really. It just funny. The rest of we boys use to give Big Foot hell too. He was thin thin when he was small, you know, and we use to have a helluva time chasing him all over the place. He couldn’t run at all.’

  I felt sorry for Big Foot.

  I said, ‘How that funny?’

  Hat said, ‘You go hear. You know the upshot? Big Foot come the best runner out of all of we. In the school sports he run the hundred yards in ten point four seconds. That is what they say, but you know how Trinidad people can’t count time. Anyway, then we all want to come friendly with him. But he don’t want we at all at all.’

  And I wondered then why Big Foot held himself back from beating Hat and the rest of the people who had bullied him when he was a boy.

  But still I didn’t like him.

  Big Foot became a carpenter for a while, and actually built two or three enormous wardrobes, rough, ugly things. But he sold them. And then he became a mason. There is no stupid pride among Trinidad craftsmen. No one is a specialist.

  He came to our yard one day to do a job.

  I stood by and watched him. I didn’t speak to him, and he didn’t speak to me. I noticed that he used his feet as a trowel. He mumbled, ‘Is hard work, bending down all the time.’

  He did the job well enough. His feet were not big for nothing.

  About four o’clock he knocked off, and spoke to me.

  He said, ‘Boy, let we go for a walk. I hot and I want to cool off.’

  I didn’t want to go, but
I felt I had to.

  We went to the sea-wall at Docksite and watched the sea. Soon it began to grow dark. The lights came on in the harbour. The world seemed very big, dark, and silent. We stood up without speaking a word.

  Then a sudden sharp yap very near us tore the silence. The suddenness and strangeness of the noise paralysed me for a moment.

  It was only a dog; a small white and black dog with large flapping ears. It was dripping wet, and was wagging its tail out of pure friendliness.

  I said, ‘Come, boy,’ and the dog shook off the water from its coat on me and then jumped all over me, yapping and squirming.

  I had forgotten Big Foot, and when I looked for him I saw him about twenty yards away running for all he was worth.

  I shouted, ‘Is all right, Big Foot.’

  But he stopped before he heard my shout.

  He cried out loudly, ‘Oh God, I dead, I dead. A big big bottle cut up my foot.’

  I and the dog ran to him.

  But when the dog came to him he seemed to forget his foot which was bleeding badly. He began hugging and stroking the wet dog, and laughing in a crazy way.

  He had cut his foot very badly, and next day I saw it wrapped up. He couldn’t come to finish the work he had begun in our yard.

  I felt I knew more about Big Foot than any man in Miguel Street, and I was afraid that I knew so much. I felt like one of those small men in gangster films who know too much and get killed.

  And thereafter I was always conscious that Big Foot knew what I was thinking. I felt his fear that I would tell.

  But although I was bursting with Big Foot’s secret I told no one. I would have liked to reassure him but there was no means.

  His presence in the street became something that haunted me. And it was all I could do to stop myself telling Hat, ‘I not fraid of Big Foot. I don’t know why you fraid him so.’

  Errol, Boyee, and myself sat on the pavement discussing the war.

  Errol said, ‘If they just make Lord Anthony Eden Prime Minister, we go beat up the Germans and them bad bad.’

  Boyee said, ‘What Lord Eden go do so?’

  Errol just haaed, in a very knowing way.

  I said, ‘Yes, I always think that if they make Lord Anthony Eden Prime Minister, the war go end quick quick.’

  Boyee said, ‘You people just don’t know the Germans. The Germans strong like hell, you know. A boy was telling me that these Germans and them could eat a nail with their teeth alone.’

  Errol said, ‘But we have Americans on we side now.’

  Boyee said, ‘But they not big like the Germans. All the Germans and them big big and strong like Big Foot, you know, and they braver than Big Foot.’

  Errol said, ‘Shh! Look, he coming.’

  Big Foot was very near, and I felt he could hear the conversation. He was looking at me, and there was a curious look in his eyes.

  Boyee said, ‘Why you shhhing me so for? I ain’t saying anything bad. I just saying that the Germans brave as Big Foot.’

  Just for a moment, I saw the begging look in Big Foot’s eyes. I looked away.

  When Big Foot had passed, Errol said to me, ‘Like Big Foot have something with you, boy.’

  One afternoon Hat was reading the morning paper. He shouted to us, ‘But look at what I reading here, man.’

  We asked, ‘What happening now?’

  Hat said, ‘Is about Big Foot.’

  Boyee said, ‘What, they throw him in jail again?’

  Hat said, ‘Big Foot taking up boxing.’

  I understood more than I could say.

  Hat said, ‘He go get his tail mash up. If he think that boxing is just throwing yourself around, he go find out his mistake.’

  The newspapers made a big thing out of it. The most popular headline was PRANKSTER TURNS PUGILIST.

  And when I next saw Big Foot, I felt I could look him in the eyes.

  And now I wasn’t afraid of him, I was afraid for him.

  But I had no need. Big Foot had what the sports-writers all called a ‘phenomenal success’. He knocked out fighter after fighter, and Miguel Street grew more afraid of him and more proud of him.

  Hat said, ‘Is only because he only fighting stupid little people. He ain’t meet anybody yet that have real class.’

  Big Foot seemed to have forgotten me. His eyes no longer sought mine whenever we met, and he no longer stopped to talk to me.

  He was the terror of the street. I, like everybody else, was frightened of him. As before, I preferred it that way.

  He even began showing off more.

  We used to see him running up and down Miguel Street in stupid-looking maroon shorts and he resolutely refused to notice anybody.

  Hat was terrified.

  He said, ‘They shouldn’t let a man who go to jail box.’

  An Englishman came to Trinidad one day and the papers to interview him. The man said he was a boxer and a champion of the Royal Air Force. Next morning his picture appeared.

  Two days later another picture of him appeared. This time he was dressed only in black shorts, and he had squared up towards the cameraman with his boxing gloves on.

  The headline said, ‘Who will fight this man?’

  And Trinidad answered, ‘Big Foot will fight this man.’

  The excitement was intense when Big Foot agreed. Miguel Street was in the news, and even Hat was pleased.

  Hat said, ‘I know is stupid to say, but I hope Big Foot beat him.’ And he went around the district placing bets with everyone who had money to throw away.

  We turned up in strength at the stadium on the night.

  Hat rushed madly here and there, waving a twenty-dollar bill, shouting, ‘Twenty to five, Big Foot beat him.’

  I bet Boyee six cents that Big Foot would lose.

  And, in truth, when Big Foot came out to the ring, dancing disdainfully in the ring, without looking at anybody in the crowd, we felt pleased.

  Hat shouted, ‘That is man!’

  I couldn’t bear to look at the fight. I looked all the time at the only woman in the crowd. She was an American or a Canadian woman and she was nibbling at peanuts. She was so blonde, her hair looked like straw. Whenever a blow was landed, the crowd roared, and the woman pulled in her lips as though she had given the blow, and then she nibbled furiously at her peanuts. She never shouted or got up or waved her hands. I hated that woman.

  The roars grew louder and more frequent.

  I could hear Hat shouting, ‘Come on, Big Foot. Beat him up. Beat him up, man.’ Then, with panic in his voice, ‘Remember your father.’

  But Hat’s shouts died away.

  Big Foot had lost the fight, on points.

  Hat paid out about a hundred dollars in five minutes.

  He said, ‘I go have to sell the brown and white cow, the one I buy from George.’

  Edward said, ‘Is God work.’

  Boyee said to me, ‘I go give you your six cents tomorrow.’

  I said, ‘Six cents tomorrow? But what you think I is? A millionaire? Look, man, give me money now now, you hear.’

  He paid up.

  But the crowd was laughing, laughing.

  I looked at the ring.

  Big Foot was in tears. He was like a boy, and the more he cried, the louder he cried, and the more painful it sounded.

  The secret I had held for Big Foot was now shown to everybody.

  Hat said, ‘What, he crying?’ And Hat laughed.

  He seemed to forget all about the cow. He said, ‘Well, well, look at man, eh!’

  And all of us from Miguel Street laughed at Big Foot.

  All except me. For I knew how he felt, although he was a big man and I was a boy. I wished I had never betted that six cents with Boyee.

  The papers next morning said, ‘PUGILIST SOBS IN RING.’

  Trinidad thought it was Big Foot, the comedian, doing something funny again.

  But we knew otherwise.

  Big Foot left Miguel Street, and the last I hear
d of him was that he was a labourer in a quarry in Laventille.

  About six months later a little scandal was rippling through Trinidad, making everybody feel silly.

  The R.A.F. champion, it turned out, had never been in the R.A.F., and as a boxer he was completely unknown.

  Hat said, ‘Well, what you expect in a place like this?’

  8 THE PYROTECHNICIST

  A STRANGER COULD DRIVE through Miguel Street and just say ‘Slum!’ because he could see no more. But we who lived there saw our street as a world, where everybody was quite different from everybody else. Man-man was mad; George was stupid; Big Foot was a bully; Hat was an adventurer; Popo was a philosopher; and Morgan was our comedian.

  Or that was how we looked upon him. But, looking back now after so many years, I think he deserved a lot more respect than we gave him. It was his own fault, of course. He was one of those men who deliberately set out to clown and wasn’t happy unless people were laughing at him, and he was always thinking of new crazinesses which he hoped would amuse us. He was the sort of man who, having once created a laugh by sticking the match in his mouth and trying to light it with his cigarette, having once done that, does it over and over again.

  Hat used to say, ‘Is a damn nuisance, having that man trying to be funny all the time, when all of we well know that he not so happy at all.’

  I felt that sometimes Morgan knew his jokes were not coming off, and that made him so miserable that we all felt unkind and nasty.

  Morgan was the first artist I ever met in my life. He spent nearly all his time, even when he was playing the fool, thinking about beauty. Morgan made fireworks. He loved fireworks, and he was full of theories about fireworks. Something about the Cosmic Dance or the Dance of Life. But this was the sort of talk that went clean over our heads in Miguel Street. And when Morgan saw this, he would begin using even bigger words. Just for the joke. One of the big words I learnt from Morgan is the title of this sketch.

  But very few people in Trinidad used Morgan’s fireworks. All the big fêtes in the island passed – Races, Carnival, Discovery Day, the Indian Centenary – and while the rest of the island was going crazy with rum and music and pretty women by the sea, Morgan was just going crazy with rage.