by Kerry Young
‘All that happen?’
‘No, but it better if you put out your hand.’
4
Doctrine
So what with all him bicycle talk I never get a chance to tell Zhang ’bout the commotion, and how the dockworkers bring the whole of downtown to a standstill. But it no matter. Next day it all over town ’bout how Alexander Bustamante get arrested because they think he the one leading the strike, and how the English government probably going send a commissioner to look into the disturbances , that is how they say it, even though nobody can see no point in that because everybody already know what the trouble is – no work, no food, and no hope that anything going get any better.
Zhang say it not the Jamaicans’ fault, they just hungry. He say the British set the slaves free but they didn’t give them no education or training or any jobs other than the same ones they was doing on the plantation all them years for nothing. Plus after emancipation the British plantation owners go get themselves thousands of Indian and Chinese labourers so the ex-slaves not got no jobs and now all of them just trying to scratch a living outta nothing.
And even though a lot of the disturbance is against the Chinese, Zhang say it not about them and us. Zhang say Marcus Garvey is only concerned about the African, but the African’s plight is the plight of the poor man everywhere. He like that word ‘plight’. Just like it is the plight of the Chinese peasant ‘who is right now fighting for liberty, equality and fraternity’. Zhang say Garvey right ’bout one thing though: ‘the people will never be free as long as they are colonised by a foreign power.’ Zhang say the Jamaicans same as the Chinese, poor and exploited and oppressed. He say we are ‘brothers in arms’.
Every night Zhang tell us ’bout the revolution. How the British smuggle opium into China, and how the Chinese fight to stop it, but the British send armed forces and warships, and we lose. And then afterwards we have to pay them everything we got in war indemnities, and they still carry on with the opium anyway. Zhang say the revolution is a war between ‘an army of workers and peasants determined to overthrow the feudal warlords and foreign powers; and the imperialists and counter-revolutionaries who wish to suppress them’. That is how Zhang talk.
Then one day me and the boys sitting on some empty orange crate on the corner of Barry Street trying to catch some shade when Hampton look across the street and say, ‘That bwoy well out of his jurisdiction,’ which start me and Judge Finley laughing.
Finley say, ‘Where you get a word like that, bwoy?’
And Hampton lean over to him and say, ‘Is the wrong word?’ which set me and Finley off laughing even more.
I look over and see some skinny white boy standing outside the post office trying to look mean.
‘Is a white boy?’
‘No,’ Hampton say, ‘him just like to think so. Him papa white, but his mama just some whore from West Kingston.’
‘What, a real whore?’
‘They all whores, man.’
‘So who he is?’
‘Him called Louis DeFreitas, fancy himself a big-time gangster, but him nothing but a punk.’
I turn to Judge Finley, ‘You know him?’
‘Not as such. I know about him. I know him got a gang in West Kingston.’
Then Hampton jump in, ‘Him got a gang alright, but him don’t have no inheritance.’
I look at Finley but him don’t say nothing, so I say to Hampton, ‘What you talking ’bout inheritance ?’
‘God will forgive me for saying this, but when Uncle Zhang gone all of this is yours, man.’ And him extend both arms, palms turned up to the sky. ‘Your brother don’t have it in him. Yu going to be the man. Everybody know it. I know it the first time I clapped eyes on your scrawny ass that day yu land at the dock. Uncle know it too. I can tell from the way he always putting yu right like him got yu in training for something, and how him look so gentle at yu even when him giving yu a dressing down.’
‘What everybody call him Uncle for anyway?’
‘Because he is not your papa but him look after you, man. Everybody got a uncle, or them know what a uncle is anyway. Them know yu can go to your uncle with your troubles and he will do right by yu. Them know Uncle Zhang tough, but them also know him fair.’
‘Them know all that?’
‘Yah, man. It all got to do with McKenzie.’
‘What, that McKenzie that come to my house every day play cards and dominoes with Zhang?’
‘That same one. That same McKenzie with the tartan socks. I swear every time I see that man him wearing them socks. I don’t know how many pair he got or if he rinsing out the same ones every night but he always got them. You must have checked the socks, man. Don’t tell me yu no notice.’
‘I know the socks. I know what you mean.’
‘And you never hear the story ’bout McKenzie?’
So Hampton tell me the story.
‘When Uncle come from China he sort out everything in Chinatown good because the people could see him could fight and him frighten them to hell with it. All this Chinese fighting him busy teaching you every day. People didn’t want to mess with him. But him was also kind to them showing some understanding for them situation. So after that everything was running smooth and fine till one night somebody burn down Mr Lee’s shop. And that was bad because Mr Lee been good to the people since all the trouble stop.
‘Uncle was mad so after that him go ’round asking everybody, “Who burn down Mr Lee’s shop?” Every man, woman and child; every African, Indian, Chinese and Lebanese, every Syrian, every Jew, he was asking them. Him go everywhere, every shop, every street, every bar, every yard he was there, asking “Who burn down Mr Lee’s shop?” It go on for days, man, till somebody tell him it was McKenzie and Uncle go and drag McKenzie outta a bar, with McKenzie kicking and screaming and Uncle pulling him by the arm or foot or hair or whatever him could get a hold of, all the way from the bottom of Rum Lane and all the way down Barry Street to King Street. And right here, right out in the middle of this street right here in front of yu, Uncle strip off McKenzie old shoes and tartan socks and hang him up by him feet, his feet you get that, on a wooden scaffold Uncle put up there for the purpose. And him leave McKenzie hanging there just like that for the whole day. Just hanging there, man, in this heat. I don’t know how come the man didn’t die. And all that time nobody go do nothing ’bout it because them was scared of Uncle and them wasn’t going cross him.
‘And when Uncle get to the bottom of it, it turn out that McKenzie burn down the shop because Mr Lee stop him from talking to his daughter. Talking to his daughter, you get that. Though McKenzie say he didn’t mean for the shop to burn down completely like it did.
‘When Uncle finally cut him down, McKenzie was in a bad way and Uncle pick him up and carry him all the way to his own room in Luke Lane where he look after McKenzie and nurse him better.
‘So after that, that was it. Uncle law was in force. Martial law, man. Tough justice that was, but kindness too. And I swear I think McKenzie the only friend Uncle got because him the only person on earth that don’t want nothing from him.’ And then Hampton stop and look at me, and say, ‘Apart from him family that is, if you get what I mean. Well, Uncle already give him life back, so now all McKenzie want to do is give back some friendship. That’s how I see it anyway.’
By the time Hampton finish all this chat and we look ’round DeFreitas gone but what we see instead is two white men stand up on the corner talk to one another. Then one of them turn ’round and hawk and spit right on top of the fruit on a nearby handcart. Just as casual and careless as you like. And then the two of them carry on talk like nothing happen.
The higgler turn ’round mad as hell when he see his business spoil up like that, but when him see it is a white man him stop dead in his tracks. Too late though. The white man see the look on his face and slap him down. The white man shout, ‘Who you looking at, Nigger?’ and then start take off him belt to give the man a hiding. Him so irate he don�
��t even care that his panama hat fall off his head and float into the gutter.
We run ’cross the street and Hampton cover up the higgler with his own body and I jump on the white man. Before he could even lean back to swing the belt, he fall on the ground with me on top of him punching him in the face. Him friend drag me up, just when I hear Panama saying something ’bout teaching the Chink and his Nigger friends a lesson. That is when Judge Finley step in.
‘I wouldn’t do that, mister. That boy, his papa is Uncle Zhang, Chinatown Zhang.’
Panama hesitate for just long enough for me get the strength for a roundhouse kick just like Zhang teach me. Then I punch to the throat with my forearm, and when Panama on the ground I stand back and say, ‘I am not a Chink and these boys are not Niggers. We are Jamaicans. We are brothers.’
When Zhang hear ’bout it him send for me. Him listen to me tell what happen then him say to me, ‘When I was a young boy in China the country was run by warlords. These men made very high demands on the people in terms of taxes and provisions and suchlike. They were unjust and cruel men. One day the warlord came to our village to collect his due but the peasants could not pay him. So he selected a man at random from the crowd and he beheaded him. And then he urinated on the decapitated body. And got on his horse and left. I learned two things from this. The first thing I learned is that the masses have the right to live without the fear of being robbed or exploited or abused, especially by the authorities. The second thing I learned is that one man can do only so much. I could have thrown myself at the warlord and battered him with my child’s fists. Or you can beat one white man in the middle of a Kingston street. But this does not change the way things are. And it will not make him behave any better in the future. To change things the masses must rise up. They must seize their ideal and take back their land. For it is the masses who will shake off the yoke of oppression, not individual men like you and me. That is what your papa died for, the right of the ordinary woman and man to live a decent life free from the tyranny of warlords and the domination of foreigners.’
5
Appreciation of the Situation
After they arrest Bustamante for the mayhem up in North Parade they keep him in jail for four days and then them let him go. A month after that him set up a trade union, the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union. And three months after that, in September 1938, his cousin Norman Manley, a barrister educated at Oxford University in England, who represented the strikers, set up the first national political party in Jamaica, the People’s National Party.
Manley was interested in people getting the vote and Jamaican self-government. Bustamante wanted higher wages for workers. But to me, neither of them mean much. Sure enough Manley was a true gentleman and I believe he was right that we should all see Jamaica as our country; and see the life and destiny of Jamaica as being bound to our own lives and our own destiny. But it seem to me like him think freedom was something to debate over rather than something to fight for. So maybe he was too much of a gentleman.
Busta had spirit, I give him that. And he could command a crowd. But there was always something ’bout that man I never did like. He had a kind of smugness about him. A kind of arrogance that come from him believing that he alone control the masses. Maybe it was that same thing Zhang warn me against when him say to me, ‘Don’t think more of yourself than a decent man ought to.’
When war break out in Europe, being a British colony Jamaica get placed under the Defence of the Realm Act, so there was all sorts of regulations and controls over the price of goods and foreign exchange, and censorship of the press, mail and telegraph.
Then in 1940 Britain tell the Americans they can come set up military and naval bases in Jamaica. Next thing we know there was US sailors all over the place, parading up and down Harbour Street and King Street as bold as you like all clean and sharp in them navy whites. It turn out the women like bees to a honey pot, because the honey they could smell was some crisp US dollar bills and that was surely worth the time of day. And they didn’t feel no shame ’bout it neither.
There was girls from Spanish Town and May Pen, Kingston and Linstead, and Bull Bay, all in them favourite colour. Red dress. Red shoes. Red fingernails. Red lips. Red hibiscus in them hair. And there was boys from New York and Baltimore, Washington and Detroit and Milwaukee. All of them laughing and dancing, and smooching and drinking right there in the street. Right there in the doorways of bars that got their ground-floor windows painted white on the inside.
I think to myself what I wouldn’t do to see inside one of them places, but it wasn’t no good me even thinking ’bout it. Zhang would have box my ear if him find out I been in there. But then business is business.
So one evening when I think him open to suggestion I try soften up Zhang with a nice ripe Bombay mango. With any other man you would get him a drink but Zhang never touch no liquor, never seen a drop pass his lips. So when him busy peeling the mango I say, ‘These Yanks sure spend a lot of money on women.’ But him just look at me and carry on with the mango.
Then him say, ‘What we do here?’
‘Look after Chinatown.’
‘That is right. Look after Chinatown. Not look after American sailor want use Chinatown. You see Chinese girls do this? You see Chinese fathers want daughter do this?’
‘In the old days…’
‘In old days emperor have concubine, and rich man have wife number one and number two and number three. And what was that?’
I know the answer he expecting from me so I just say it. ‘That was imperialism, and the exploitation of the peasant and the subjugation of the Chinese woman.’
‘That is right. So now, what you ask me?’
So that then was the end of the conversation and I had to think to myself what else these American sailors could be good for, because Sun Tzu’s first lesson is to use the terrain.
I send Judge Finley on a mission to loiter ’round the bars and places these boys frequent to find out what they into. It was a kind of fishing trip. And within the week Finley come back to me saying him think he catch something but it might be just a sprat. So I say, ‘Never mind. What you got?’
It turn out some sergeant down the naval base approach him to say he have American cigarettes and liquor and suchlike. The suchlike turn out to be navy surplus, which is just about everything Uncle Sam give this man to run his business, this sergeant is willing to sell to us, from cook pots to boots and T-shirts.
Me and Finley go meet him way over Windward Road in a lounge called the Blue Lagoon, a favourite of mine because everybody in there is up to something so you don’t have to worry ’bout anyone reporting them see you in there. The sergeant is called Bill, a stocky, shifty-looking white boy with a little bit of blond fluff on his head. Bill come in civvies, but you would have to be a blind man not to know from a hundred yards away that him just step fresh off of the USS Farmboy . Well even a blind man would have smell him when all that washedness and scrubbedness step through the door.
Finley stand up so Bill can see him, and then Bill come over to the table and sit down opposite me. I order up some Red Stripe and we get started. We talking maybe five minutes before Bill get himself all agitated.
‘Gasoline!’
‘Bill, calm yourself nuh. And keep your voice down, man, this is a public place.’ Bill ease back in the chair half inch but him looking red in the face and worried.
‘Bill, you want me to take your cigarettes and liquor and all them other things and I do that for you. No problem. I not complaining ’bout that. In fact, I happy for the liquor because even though we got so much beautiful rum on the island rich people still pay hefty for that Scotch whisky. But I need things as well, Bill. There is a war on. We got shortages. And what I need you to do for me is rice and gas. After all, I need gas to drive your stuff all over town. And then I will need a little extra. And Chinatown is… well, Chinatown. We need rice. And that is all I am asking you for.’
So then him settle down,
but now Bill want a fifty-fifty split and I am saying no way, we taking all the risk here. And he say, ‘You think I’m not taking any risk?’ And all the time he looking ’round like anybody care what him doing there. He don’t seem to realise how many times men been knifed in that bar in broad daylight and nobody ever see anything. Not that there is much daylight in there anyway.
But I see he have a point and I say to him, ‘I have expenses, you know, Bill, you only dealing with me, I am dealing with the whole of Chinatown. I have to negotiate. I have to transport. I have to distribute. I have to provide protection.’
So then we talk some more and I send for more beer till in the end we settle for seventy-thirty and him seem happy enough with that. And that is good with me especially since I have no intention of giving Bill any account books so he will just have to take my word for it ’bout how much this stuff is fetching.
So next thing we busy fixing up the door and boarding the rafters in Miss Tilly’s outhouse just like I say to Hampton the very first time him take me there almost three years ago. And we getting a truck to move all this surplus.
Everybody at Matthews Lane very happy ’bout the rice, because up to then it was noodles, noodles and more noodles. We even hear tales ’bout people breaking up spaghetti into little pieces and cooking it like it was rice. Though I don’t even know where they get the spaghetti from. And then there was some man uptown that was selling rice off a cart at three o’clock in the morning. Knocking on people’s door to wake them up, which was his idea of a joke, but the rice got all sorta brown bits in it so I dunno where that was coming from.
Bill’s rice was good though, and it go well with Ma’s recipes. Like instead of duck and orange it was chicken and orange juice with tin garden peas. Or curry chicken with scallion and Irish potato. Or pork with butter beans. Or mince pork balls in cabbage leaves. She even take to curing her own ham choi, and it turn out that Ma’s ham choi taste better than anything you could buy in the shop.