Bivouac

by Kwame Dawes

  Ferron said nothing. Uncle Wayne was not going to weep or mourn. It made everything absurd—his excuses over his sleeping around, his emotional neediness, his trauma, his darkest depressions. Ferron began to have second thoughts about asking for the key. He’d go back to Mitzie and tell her that this trip was a bad idea. He would deal with his headaches.

  “The keys to the cottage on my dresser,” Uncle Wayne said. “That’s what you come for, right?”

  “Well . . .” Ferron began, but stopped.

  “Take some beer and a woman, get piss-face drunk, sleep, get drunk, sleep, fuck, get it out of you damn system . . .” He was beginning to sound like Femi. “Hell, when my old man died I don’t remember much. I was piss-faced at the funeral. Nobody cried like me, and it was because I was worrying about whether I could stand up at the graveside—all that time in the church I was worried about if I could stand up in the graveyard.” He stopped talking and rested his palms on the table. The skin looked almost transparent and delicate in its vulnerable pinkness. “Not a damned soul there to hold your hand. Nobody.”

  Ferron shook Uncle Wayne’s hand, went to the room, got the keys, and left the cool of the home. He walked slowly to Constant Spring, his mind full of Uncle Wayne eating the mangoes with such meticulous care, such concern for detail, like a man who planned to live forever. Ferron decided that he was confused. What he could not determine was what he was confused about. He slept on the ride from Constant Spring to Half Way Tree.

  When he woke, the familiar sourness in his chest and throat made him gag. His stomach was churning. He was hungry, but too hungry now to eat. The pressure was already growing at the base of his stomach. He leaned forward and tried to force a belch. Suddenly the press of the bodies on him was stifling. The van swerved in close to the sidewalk to offload passengers, and the lurching motion made Ferron dizzy and weak. Cold sweat beaded his forehead. He pushed out of the van with the rest of the passengers and then felt himself wobbling. He held on to a lamppost and waited. A woman stared hard and questioningly at him. “You alright?” she said with more accusation and curiosity than concern. He nodded. He waited for the colors of clothing and the tilting sky, the quick flashes of moving vehicles and the din of voices and vehicles to settle. He tightened his body, willing his stomach to keep everything inside. The smell of Bombay mangoes came back to him, this time as a too-sweet cause of nausea. He walked gingerly across the dusty park to catch another bus that would take him up toward the hills.

  Unpublished notes of George Ferron Morgan

  I was reading some old letters I found on the veranda stuck away in my folders yesterday. I was trying to find the birth certificate. It is hard to believe how organized I have been in my life. It is easy to be organized when you think that the world is going to cooperate with you. An organized office or papers is a sign of optimism. You actually think that the things you have collected over the years—the letters, the manuscripts, the scrapbooks, the clippings, the old bills—are going to be useful in explaining who you are in the future. Everything is in layers—it is like an archeological excavation. On the surface of that veranda is the chaos of my current life. Nothing is in order, everything is in sloppy piles and most of it is covered with rat shit—papers have been eaten by roaches and spoiled by rainwater. The deeper I go, the greater the order. Near the certificate were these letters. In those days I was optimistic.

  They said they needed the certificate for me to get that job teaching in Mandeville. I am not even sure why I am taking this job. But I am getting to think of myself as quite useless nowadays. Here in this job, I am too close to the politics, too close to the realization that I can’t do a thing about it. I am in a prison—like a prisoner of war, sitting among my victors who are the captors. I am waiting for the trial and then inevitable execution. They look at me as if they know me to be a dead man walking around this place. It is quite depressing. Every day I am writing these editorials, pretending that what is happening is reasonable, as if the death of this dream is something that is practical now. These men are scoundrels, every single one of them. I remember when they were nothings, illiterates running around Kingston with nothing useful in their heads, preening and showing off and making no sense. When they did not even care that we were on the verge of our own revolution. Now they run things. And these working-class people around me, they are a part of this tragic mess. They don’t even know that they have been used, been sold a worthless bill of goods. I know that some of them were at the rallies, screaming with glee at that fat swarthy politician who was rolling his body on stage, sweating and shouting: “You want shoes? You want American apple? You want grapes? You can’t get none of that right now, but when you vote for we, you can get shoes, good shoes, people!” He almost said amen. So maybe I need to be elsewhere. Perhaps being at that high school, teaching these children Shakespeare, will give me a chance to escape. That will be my “Island,” my “Siberia” where the climate will be horrible, and maybe there I can write a book far from the madness of this place. If I stay here, I will die. I know this. Maybe someone will shoot me, or maybe . . . I will die. I am nothing now.

  twenty-one

  Holding hands.

  For Ferron it seemed the right thing to do. He kept looking straight ahead, very aware that Mitzie was peering at him. She was playing to the gallery, giving the people on the bus a sample of the lovers’ game. He knew her eyes had that amused brightness. He tickled her palm and felt her smile grow into a small laugh, warm on the side of his face. She sat back, pulling him back with her, and started to play with his fingers, resting his hand on her lap. Her lap was warm.

  Outside, trees rushed past. The air was growing thinner and cooler as they climbed higher into the hills. It had rained the night before and the mountainsides were scarred with dark-brown holes where boulders, which now lay broken and splintered on the road, had been dislodged. It was still slightly overcast. The wheels of the bus whistled against the wet asphalt.

  Ferron felt growing nausea. The swerving roads had a lot to do with this queasiness, but he was still also somewhat upset with Mitzie and her overacting. She was being too playful, relishing the apparent embarrassment that Ferron felt when she played this absurd lovers’ game.

  The hills rose above them, soft against the steel-gray sky. The greens were lively, almost dazzling, and strangely overpowering. They literally overwhelmed any other colors on the landscape. Small red houses dotted the hillside like ladybugs crawling on a carpet of green fur. Small, vulnerable toys. Ferron could make out the cluster of red-roofed buildings of the military training camp. They would have to walk from there, farther up into the hills, toward a darker, cooler valley of intense greens and dense foliage. To get to the camp, they would take a shortcut, a hiking trail that was almost always muddy and difficult. From there, they would follow a small uneven asphalt track for about two miles before they got to the gate of the cottage grounds.

  The people on the bus had warmed to Mitzie. They owed their presence on the bus to her. The minivan never went this far into the hills. They had already passed the junction where passengers were normally deposited to walk the rest of the way to where they were going. Mitzie had flirted with the driver, complaining about the pains she would feel in her legs after walking so many miles. She assured the driver that the road was not as bad as his conductor had suggested—and the people on the bus echoed her in a chorus. She told him that he was sure to have a few people to bring down from the top of the hill. He was flattered by the attention, by her apparent intimacy, by Ferron’s embarrassment and silence. He grinned and drove on. The conductor hissed his teeth.

  Ferron enjoyed the rush of air on his face. Tiny water droplets touched his skin and the cool on his face and body eased the nausea. He breathed in and belched softly.

  “You alright?” Mitzie asked, her eyes warm on his face.

  “Yes, man,” he said, looking away. He squeezed her hand.

  “You have sof’ fingers.” He did not respo
nd. “You know? You know?” She squeezed the hands playfully.

  “I know,” he said.

  She was counting them slowly, now. “You don’ bite you nails?”

  “No,” he said. She pressed his hand on her thighs.

  “I like your fingers,” she said. He could feel her smiling again.

  “Yes.” His voice was distant.

  “So you won’ even look at me,” she said. Then pulling on his chin, she made him face her. “You vex with me?”

  “No,” he said. Then he looked away.

  He could feel the people on the bus watching them. It wasn’t that they disapproved, but it just was not the kind of thing couples did on the bus. They could accept arms around each other or the girl resting her shoulder on the guy’s chest, but the hand-holding thing was not normal, it was alien, belonging to foreigners or people trying to be foreigners. Ferron felt as if they were trying to size him up. He was sure that they were associating this kind of behavior with softness, the behavior of a man who was less than a man, even if reliable, faithful, and kind. It was not just the hand-holding—it was Mitzie’s behavior and Ferron’s lack of predictable reaction to it. Mitzie had presence. They had watched her take command and arrange the ride farther into the hills with the aggression, charm, and style of a consummate manipulator. She was clearly a woman who could make a big man sit down while she played games with his hands. Ferron did not have the energy to pull away his hand.

  There was a skinny woman sitting in front of them on the other side of the bus. To Ferron she had the look of the woman by the morgue. Seeing her had disturbed him. It was the same ageless quality: neither old nor young, as far as Ferron could tell. She was just skinny and happy, completely immersed in herself, the kind of woman who obviously drank a lot of white rum and twirled her bony bottom around outside the bar with some huge-bellied, lustful man, too drunk to do anything about it. She was the kind of woman who was not ashamed to laugh loudly and shrilly in public, stamping her feet on the ground and pulling her skirt elaborately between her legs. She was the kind of woman who walked with a sway, legs apart, bottom jerking in an attempt to rotate, her head in the air, her sharp breasts jutting forward, and her arms swinging elaborately at her sides. This was the kind of woman that Ferron worked her out to be, and so far she was proving him right. She stared at them with her dazed red eyes, as if expecting something really scandalous to happen. She had a permanent grin on her face, one that seemed to say: Go ahead, go ahead, I want to see.

  At first, Ferron was convinced that Mitzie had not noticed the woman staring. She kept doing what she was doing as if there was no one else on the bus. But she kept increasing the sensuality of her game. It became clear to Ferron that Mitzie was giving this old/young wizened woman a show.

  “Is far we have lef’?” Mitzie asked loudly, even though she was talking to Ferron.

  The old lady cackled. “Heh, them cyaan wait!”

  “Not much farther,” he said, trying to be discreet.

  “We gwine have to walk far?” she asked, pressing closer.

  “It’s a easy walk. It might be a little muddy, but we could clean up when we get there.” He laughed slightly. He knew that the woman was waiting for her cue to break out in another cackle.

  “Where we going wash off?” Mitzie asked with an innocent look on her face.

  “The river,” Ferron replied, smiling.

  “You too bad,” Mitzie said, squeezing his hand.

  “Eh? What did I say?” Ferron asked, looking as puzzled as he could.

  “You too bad, man,” Mitzie said softly. The woman was chuckling. Then Mitzie grimaced, biting her lower lip with a wicked twinkle in her eye, and squeezed hard on Ferron’s hand. “You too bad . . .”

  “Oh God, Mitzie, no!” he said too loudly.

  The woman clapped her hands with tremendous pleasure. “Heh heh heh heh.” Her laughter was like rum, white rum, rich and sparkling, with a grating pleasure behind it that burned everything around. Ferron wasn’t sure whether it was because he smelled it on her breath, but it was the only thing that could describe the laugh. White rum. It was both sensual and abrasive at the same time. It was old—old and young, innocent and knowing, shocked and encouraging.

  “Young people,” she laughed, throwing her head back. The laughter faded into a chuckle and a repetition of the words, “Young people.”

  Mitzie was still squeezing with a vivacious smile on her face.

  “You’re hurting me,” he whispered to her.

  “You too bad,” Mitzie said. “That’s what you want nuh. Gwaan. You want to see me naked inna river nuh?” She spoke softly and into his ear. Her breath was warm. He chuckled.

  “I didn’t say that,” he said, managing to wrest his hand away. She quickly slipped her arm through his.

  “Alright, alright, I won’t squeeze it again,” she said, taking the hand. “But you sof’, eeh?” She kissed the fingers.

  “Eh-eh. Yes, Lord,” laughed the woman. “What a love making dis dough, massa!”

  Mitzie calmed down after that. She had given an excellent performance and had drawn Ferron into it. That was what she had wanted. He was not so angry with her anymore. Soon the bus grew calm. The woman, growing bored with their stillness, turned to look at the road. The conductor had fallen asleep in the doorway. Ferron wondered if he would die if he fell out, but since the bus was not moving very quickly, he decided that the man would live. He was a conductor, and they did not die so easily. They always lived when all the passengers were dead.

  The woman was the first to come off. She warned them about behaving themselves and to watch those soldiers. Ferron took that as a blow directed at him. The soldiers were the real men. But then she added that they should make sweet love and enjoy the river. She winked at Ferron. They watched her walk down the hill, just as Ferron had imagined she would, except she moved with far more elasticity than he had expected. Gradually the bus emptied until they were the last. Finally, the driver stopped the van.

  “See the path there,” he said without pointing. Ferron paid the fare, which Mitzie had managed to beat down to virtually nothing. The driver must have agreed out of sheer frustration. He was probably tired of Mitzie even though he liked her style.

  As the bus wobbled down the hill, they stood in the middle of the road and watched. Then Mitzie declared: “Lawd, ’im ugly, eeh?”

  Ferron laughed, enjoying her viciousness. Then he let her walk ahead while he directed her from behind. This was the first time she was really depending on him and it changed the way they talked. She was afraid that it would get dark with them still on the path, but he was not worried about that, he knew the way very well. The confidence he had and her dependence on it was a good feeling. They kissed once on the way up. It was accidental, almost. She was warm, giving. He sensed that she was worried about more than the darkness; she was too quiet; no more jokes.

  They left the parade square as the sun began sinking behind a cluster of hills. They walked along a narrow asphalt road which was scarred with potholes that sometimes stretched like canals across the road. Brown, thick water, like blood, caught the periodic glow of fading sunlight peeping behind leaves.

  They walked apart.

  Above them the mountainside rose sharply. It was thick with bushes and trees. Insects created a din in the silence. Apart from these, there was only the sound of their footsteps crunching on the stones, and their breathing, labored and even.

  They were not talking.

  Ferron looked up. He saw the cottage. From the porch that overlooked the road he would watch hikers crawl like ants on the black line of asphalt. Sometimes he would shout out to the hikers. He was never sure whether the people heard him or only saw him when they waved back—often with enthusiasm and energy.

  He imagined what he would see if he were looking down at them: two solitary figures walking at a distance. From up there he could make out male and female and he could see colors. He couldn’t make out faces and he woul
d not be able to tell how far apart or close they were. But if they came closer, he would see their faces. They were stern and distant, as if they were not in each other’s company. If he could get even closer, into the brain perhaps, he would see his own anger and why it was festering like that.

  Mitzie had flirted with the “sarge” and some of the soldiers. It was almost as if she wanted to destroy the growing closeness that they had felt on their way up the trail. Ferron kept hearing her silly remarks ringing in his ears, like when she said to the sergeant (who was making a joke about what they were planning to do up there): “Him? Cho, ’im is jus’ a lickle fren’. Is like my brother . . . Him wouldn’ do a ting. Is a Christian, you know? A good one too.” She was laughing and she did not stop laughing when the soldier suggested that perhaps he should come and make sure that sensible things happened up there. She thought it was funny. Ferron was angry. He had smiled, or maybe he actually laughed, but when she looked into his eyes, she saw the deadness. She was suddenly uncertain. He could tell this because her laugh faltered. She turned away from him.

  They walked the two miles in silence. When they got to the gate of the grounds she sat down on a stone at the side of the road. He could barely see her face in the darkness. He wanted to tell her that they should continue, but she seemed determined to sit there until they’d had it out. He waited, standing some way off.

  “You are not my man,” she said angrily.

  “I never said I was,” he responded, almost to himself, but he knew she could hear. He wanted to look calm.

  “Then why the hell yuh behaving like yuh is?” she shouted.

  “So you want to tell the whole blasted world that that is not so? Why yuh don’ jus make up your mind? Firs’ you start your foolishness on the bus and then you coming with this . . .” He stopped. He realized that he was shouting too. “I don’t know.”