by Kerry Young
Plus I was selling the extra rice, like I was selling the extra gas to one or two special customers who didn’t feel like they wanted to go take the engine outta their car and turn it into a horsedrawn vehicle like all them others you see ’round the place. And what a sorry sight that was, horsedrawn cars riding down the street next to them buggies that decorate up so fancy with all sorta tassel and lace and net all over it, and all over the horse as well. So that is when you realise how little there was for rich people to spend their money on.
This little arrangement with Bill turn out good for me, but how he was getting away with this every month I didn’t know. I reckon sooner or later somebody going catch up with him, at which point I hope he know how to keep him mouth shut. So just as a sort of insurance I say to him one day, ‘Bill, you know who I am?’ And him nod his head, and I say, ‘We making good money together. We good partners. But if you cross me I kill you, you know that?’ I just say it, even though I never kill nobody in my life, and him just nod his head. Him look so frighten I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a puddle under the chair him sitting on.
The funny thing was Bill never seem to realise that I was only a boy. But then him never really look at me. He only look at the idea of me, and see Fu Manchu.
6
Advantages of the Ground
So one day Bill say to me that the American navy going send a truckload of liquor and fancy food for some big shindig the British army having at Up Park Camp. Bill say it a goodwill gesture. I don’t even know what half of this stuff is but Bill say it really nice and it going fetch a price, so that is OK with me.
The truck going leave the naval base and then turn up South Camp Road and head up to the camp. Bill going make sure that the escort that the truck got to have going leave late and travel slow. So we have to stop the truck and wave it ’round the corner at Hope Street and unload the things fast before the escort jeep catch up with us. And because everything got to happen so quick I decide to ask Xiuquan to come help us. But he don’t want to do it.
‘It no mean nothing to yu, man. A few minutes of yu time, that is all.’
‘Yu asking me to go get involved in daylight robbery.’
‘This not no robbery. This all fix-up. The truck driver expecting us. The escort expecting us. The whole thing organised, man. All we have to do is lift out the boxes and put them in the van and take off. That is all there is to it.’
But Xiuquan don’t seem like him convinced and I don’t want to just go get some stranger to come do this. People talk too much. Next thing yu know yu go turn the corner at Hope Street and find every Tom, Dick and Harry waiting there to come snatch their slice and make a run for it. No, man, I not going stand by and watch that happen. So the day before when me and Xiuquan walking up Barry Street to the post office I say to him, ‘I never ask yu for nothing before. Everything me and the boys do we do it on our own. You all righteous ’bout not doing no robbery but I don’t notice yu complaining every time Ma put food on the table that she pay for with the money that Zhang get from the pai-ke-p’iao or I get from the navy surplus.’
Him no say nothing to me. Him just keep on walking with his hand in his pocket like he not even intending to give me no answer. Maybe like he can’t even hear me a talking to him.
‘Everything that yu don’t like is what is keeping a roof over your head and clothes on your back and food in your belly.’
And then he suddenly stop and turn and say to me, ‘Yu think I don’t know that?’ And just then some rude man push past between us and almost shove me off the sidewalk so I crash into the juicy and nearly knock him and his shave ice into the street. When I look ’round Xiuquan walk off so I have to run to catch up with him.
‘I dunno why we have to keep going up the post office to check some box that not got no letters in it anyway. Who the hell Zhang think writing to us?’
I don’t even bother answer him because Xiuquan don’t want no answer. He just want to complain and walk fast and vex with himself.
‘What is it yu want, Xiuquan?’
‘I want to get up every morning and know that I’m going to go do something honest. I want to stop choking on my food because I know where the money come from. I want to stop worrying every time somebody knock at the gate that maybe it the police that come to take you or Zhang or the whole lot of us to lock us up in some stinking Jamaican jail and never again see the light of day. I want to stop thinking that maybe one day the blacks going raise up and just come murder every one of us as we sleeping in our bed at night. The Indians, the Chinese, the Jews, the whites. Every single person that come here thinking they going make themselves a home. I want to see my mother happy because she got some meaning in her life, because there is something she believe in like when she and my father was working the land doing something worthwhile and producing something wholesome. Something that made a better life, not just for them, but for every single person in that village that get to eat the vegetables they grow. The vegetables they planted and tended with their own hands, on their knees in the dry earth and in the mud when it rained.’ And then he stop talk, and draw breath and say, ‘I call that honest. What do you call this?’
The two of us look ’round as we standing there outside the post office where Barry Street cross King Street. The whole world is out here, with their hooting and honking and hollering. Every inch of the street is jam up with pushcarts and buggies and the country bus that pack up so much it actually leaning over and god help anything or anybody that standing next to it when the thing fall down on top of them; and cars that somebody should have put a hammer to rather than taking it out so all the pieces can drop off on the public road. And the fumes that is coming outta them is something else, which is why the pushcart boys is bobbing and weaving so them don’t have to sit behind there breathing it all in. Never mind trying to miss the trail that the buggies and them cars powered by real live horsepower is leaving. And when them ease past, the pushcart boys got some words to give the driver ’bout the condition of his car or how he driving it and what he think the driver ought to be doing instead of just sitting there in the road with him hand on the horn. And because it so hot and nothing is moving one inch the driver is leaning outta the window shouting at the higgler on the corner to come bring him a cold beer or a soda or maybe he want a sweet mango from the woman that squat down on the kerb with the big basket she just take down from her head with the banana and mango and pineapple and sweetsop and June plum and a few guinep. Or maybe he want some shave ice with a bit of strawberry syrup pour over it. But the higgler not paying him no mind so maybe he got to shout some more or maybe stop a boy riding a bicycle past the car or just walking in the street and tell him to go get the drink or fruit or whatever it is he want. So he is reaching for the change with his left hand in his pocket and pointing with the finger on his right hand, and hoping that he can trust this boy to come back to him with his goods so as to collect the tip he is offering. And he got to do all of this because he can’t get outta the car in case as soon as he leave it to walk to the corner it become occupied by any of the dozen of men just standing there in the street or leaning up against a post flicking through some dirty magazine.
So I look ’round at all of this and I say, ‘I call it life.’
When Hampton ask me if Xiuquan going come help us boost the truck the next day I say I dunno.
‘It no matter. If it four of us we do it and if it three of us we do it same way. And Finley going have to help not just sit there in the van waiting to be the getaway man. We don’t need no lookout anyway. This whole thing ain’t nothing more than shifting a few boxes.’
Next day when I ready to go I look at Xiuquan like to say ‘well, what you going to do, man?’ but he just sit there at the table and no say nothing so I walk out the gate and shut it behind me.
I walking up to the post office where I going meet Hampton and Finley with the van but halfway up Barry Street I hear Xiuquan shouting my name and when I turn ’round is
him chasing after me. I wait there for him to catch up and then I say, ‘What yu want?’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Yu coming with me? What for?’
‘Because yu my brother.’
‘What happen to wanting to do something honest? This thing here not honest, yu know.’
But him no say nothing. We just carry on walking and get into the van and head out on East Queen Street to South Camp Road. We park up and a little while later everything happen just like Bill say it going to. The truck come up the road. We wave it ’round the corner. Bill say we must rough up the driver and the other sailor boy with him. So I tell Hampton to hit them. Not too hard, just enough to leave a good bruise and maybe a split lip and a little blood. And he do it. So afterwards the two of them sit down on the kerb and smoke a cigarette while they watch us unload the truck.
And right in the middle of all of this I hear this deep voice say, ‘What you bwoys so busy doing with this truck?’ And when I look ’round it is some tall, scrawny policeman with big feet and a bicycle. Next thing Xiuquan push past me, jump down outta the truck and take off down the road. He don’t even stop to look back. He just got his head down and he is going.
I standing in the back of the truck and I look at the policeman. And then I look at the boxes and I say to him, ‘Yu see all this stuff in here, it belong to the United States navy and we taking it and putting it in that van over there. If you want to help us yu can pick out two or three boxes for yourself and afterwards we can drop you off with the boxes and the bicycle anywhere yu want.’
The policeman don’t say a word but he get off the bicycle and go lean it up real careful with the pedal resting on the kerb and then he take off his hat and rest it on the saddle and walk over to the back of the truck and reach out his hand for me to haul him up.
When we done packing up the van with the boxes and the policeman and the bicycle we say goodbye to the sailors and pull out into South Camp Road. I look down the street and I see the navy jeep park up down there waiting for us to finish so I just wave to them outta the window and Finley turn left and we take off.
We go drop off the policeman and help him inside with his boxes and then we go pile up the stuff in Miss Tilly’s outhouse and after all of that was done we open some Red Stripe and ease back.
When I get back to Matthews Lane Xiuquan is sitting there and when I take one look at Zhang I can see him vex with me.
‘Your mother and me fret that maybe they have you down police station.’
I don’t say nothing because I know this not a time for me to talk. This is a time for Zhang to talk.
‘You not think that maybe this dangerous thing what you do? You steal from American navy. You get catch. They put you in jail. You no care what worry you give your mother? You think this some kind of game you play with your friends? You think Sun Tzu so reckless and stupid? This thing not make you honourable. It make you thief.’
And he turn ’round and walk off up the yard to his room. I look at Xiuquan sitting there so frighten while all of this is going on. And I think to myself you weak and you betray me and I don’t feel like I want to say nothing to you. I don’t want to tell you what happen with the policeman and I don’t want to ask you what you say to Zhang. So I just walk off and I go take a cool shower and go to my bed.
Towards the end of 1943 Xiuquan announce that him leaving Jamaica. We all shocked because the first thing we hear ’bout it is the night him packing to go get on the boat the next day. Him say the US hiring farm workers for temporary employment to meet wartime needs.
I say to him, ‘So what happen about wanting to see Ma happy like her life have some meaning? Yu think you leaving us is going make her happy? Yu just going go to America and forget about us?’
‘I never said I was going forget about yu, but I can’t live like this. I want something better. Something better than being a Chinaman in Chinatown.’
Xiuquan got the suitcase resting on the bed and him walking backward and forward between the bed and dresser with his things. But every time he put something in the suitcase Ma grab it out and put it back in the drawer, so the two of them just keep passing one another in the room. I stand up in the corner and say to him, ‘Yu should have talk to somebody, yu know.’
‘Yu mean yu never know how I feel?’
‘I don’t mean how yu chat to me. I mean serious talk. I mean like saying to somebody that yu was seriously thinking ’bout leaving.’
‘Yu mean like in between you talking ’bout cigarettes and navy surplus, and him talking ’bout the glorious revolution? Well I am sick of his glorious revolution. Sick to my stomach with it.’
Then Xiuquan stop Ma in the middle of the room, snatch the shirt from her and throw it back into the suitcase. After that she just launch herself at him beating her fists into his chest and shouting something, I don’t even know what it was.
I grab her from behind, not because she hurting him, because she only a little woman, but I think she need to calm herself down for her own sake. I put both my arms ’round the top half of her body to pin her arms to her side. This is when Xiuquan start. Him looking straight at me and Ma with him back turn to the door.
‘Morning, noon and night all I hear about is the glorious Communist revolution, and the Uprising of the Righteous Fists, and how China and its people have been subjugated by foreign imperialists, and British opium smugglers, and how my own father was murdered by foreign soldiers while on a peaceful march supporting Guangzhou strikers, and how I share my name with the great Zhang Xiuquan and the poor schoolteacher, Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taiping Uprising.
‘And how Zhang Xiuquan is the big man who rescued the livelihood of the Kingston Chinese merchants; and how poverty in Jamaica is the direct result of slavery and so, even to this day, the responsibility of the British.
‘Well maybe the Chinese peasants are not all heroes, maybe they are nothing more than a bunch of murdering barbarians who think that life is cheap. Who kill Westerners when they can, and turn on each other when they no longer have the throats of white men and missionaries to slash. Didn’t Chiang Kai-shek turn against his own allies ordering the arrest of Communist Party members and massacring the Communists in Shanghai? Killing, that is all it is. What is so glorious about that? And why should I feel guilty because I no longer want to listen to it?’
When I look over, I see Zhang standing there in the doorway. When Xiuquan stop, Zhang just turn ’round and walk out. By the time I let go of Ma and run to the door I see Zhang already halfway up the yard heading towards his room. The rain is coming down so heavy the drops is hopping off the concrete but Zhang don’t even have a newspaper to cover his head the way he like to. He just let the rain soak into him so by the time he put his foot on the first step of his room his shirt is stuck to him like it been glued on with paste.
Next morning me and Ma walk Xiuquan to the dock. Zhang get up early and leave the house, so is nowhere to be found. The three of us walk the whole way in silence. Just as him ready to board the boat Xiuquan give Ma a hug, and then him hug me and I say to him, ‘You will write when you get settled?’
And him say, ‘Yah, man.’
7
Responsibility
As I watch the ship sail away I realise that I would never leave Jamaica. Never. I was committed to her, for good or bad, rich or poor, in sickness and in health. I stand there and I remember the day at Matthews Lane when I ask Zhang how come he leave China and come to Jamaica. And just the same way him do everything direct, Zhang get up from the table and march me up to the top of the yard and into his room. I never step foot inside that room before so I just stand there in the doorway and look inside. It was dark, because although it have a door the room don’t have no window. Then what I realise is, is only the first four rooms got windows. The last one only got a door. Zhang give himself a storeroom to sleep in.
The first thing that hit me was the smell of clean cotton. Then when my eyes get accustomed, I se
e that the place look like him must scrub it from top to bottom every day. And it sparse, a canvas cot to sleep on, a camphor chest, and a old rocking chair. And hanging on the wall next to his bed, a narrow-blade sword with a brass hand-guard.
Him tell me to sit, so I ease into the rocking chair. Then him open the chest and dig into it like he looking for something. When he turn ’round he got three letters in his hand. He come over and squat down next to me, and hand me the first letter. It was from Mr Chin and the Kingston Chinese merchants.
. We hear you are a fierce and courageous soldier, loyal to the Chinese people. An expert in the martial arts, a crack shot with a gun. We have trouble in Jamaica and ask you to come as swiftly as possible. You will be generously rewarded. We will pay your credit-ticket on arrival. Do not bother with the coolie crimps. Those despicable Chinese gangsters will sell you by the head to a barracoon agent. Just go straight to the British Emigration House right there in Guangzhou. Let us know when you are leaving. We will be there to meet your ship in Kingston.
Zhang lean toward me and sorta whisper, ‘I don’t know how they come to settle their sights on me. I had heard of such things and I knew that if they were not there the ship’s captain would sell me on the docks of Kingston to recoup the passage. He would sell me to the highest bidder, most likely stark naked for them to judge my full worth. So I was in no hurry to meet such a fate.’
Him whispering to me in the semi-dark like this give me a feeling that he was telling me something he never tell nobody before. It fill me with honour, and fear that maybe one day I go let him down. Then he carry on.
‘China was ruined by the foreigners with their war indemnities and taxes and imported goods. We had become a country that was half feudal and half colonised. That is why your father and I participated in the fighting. We wanted to create a China that was free from foreign control, and a country in which the ordinary man and woman could have a decent life. That is what it was all about.’