Pleasantview

by Celeste Mohammed

  Omar felt a tiny flicker of superiority. He had seen the famous leatherback turtles a million times. He had proof right there in his bag. He felt generous, like a quick glimpse was—at last—something he could gift to Mr. Jagroop. He unzipped the duffel and felt for the square edges of the picture frame. He drew it out, from the T-shirt he’d used as padding. The picture frame was unbroken. The photo was intact.

  “Look, Mr. Jagroop. Look a leatherback.”

  Mr. Jagroop glanced down at Omar’s lap and almost choked on the ice. “Waaaaay!” he said, “That thing real fuckin’ big! And who’s that wooly-head boy with no front teeth there?”

  Omar smiled. “Me.” There he was, a grinning six-year-old with blondish-brown curls, tiny beside the turtle.

  “And that’s your daddy? That’s why you so fair and your eye-them so orange?”

  Jacob knelt on the other side, glaring at the camera. Yes, they did have the same fiery brown eyes.

  Without answering, Omar tried to shove the picture back into the bag.

  But Mr. Jagroop grabbed his wrist, still marveling. “Watch how you kneel down there like you ain’t even frighten!”

  “I wasn’t frighten,” Omar snapped.

  “Humph! Well, you better than me, son.” Mr. Jagroop patted Omar’s hand, then released him with a promise, “When we ready to make that north coast trip, you is the first man we calling.”

  Omar softened, once more. “Anytime, Mr. Jagroop, anytime.”

  He re-wrapped the picture frame. Maybe it had been a good idea to show it, after all. Maybe Josephine was right: you have to put out some of yourself, show some of yourself, if you want people to like you.

  The truck stopped.

  Omar cracked open the door and slid himself out from under the duffel bag.

  Mr. Jagroop called after him, “Don’t stay long, eh. I waiting.”

  The pink bungalow was easy to find. Its casement windows were spread wide. Its teak double-doors—the color of healthy, tanned skin—spread even wider. Hot-pink bougainvillea blossoms quivered to the tock-tock of wafting Latin music, and the aroma of boiled rice—sticky and warm—enticed Omar.

  He let himself into the yard. By the time he reached the doorway, a wrinkled Chinese woman was standing there, arms akimbo. She wore a house-dress so thinned by washing Omar could see her yellow panties and could tell she had no breasts. She picked her teeth with a matchstick and asked, “Who you come for, li’l boy?”

  While he wiggled the envelope from his jeans, Omar explained he’d been sent by Mr. Jagroop to Ms. Lee Loy, the Boss Lady. The woman snatched the packet, then swung her face toward the open door and screeched, “Consuela! Your man really send the thing, girl! Like he desperate.”

  Omar heard furniture shifting and heels hitting the wooden floor.

  The Chinese lady licked her thumb and began counting notes. Three women appeared in the doorway, cluck-clucking among themselves. They all wore makeup and party clothes. But the one who caught Omar’s attention was tiny and had the whitest skin he’d ever seen—whiter than his, maybe as white as his father’s—paper-white, making the bruise around her eye seem like the imprint of an ink bottle. She prattled—bad English with lots of rolling Rs—just like the Venezuelan fishermen who docked at Matura from time to time.

  Omar guessed this was “Consuela”. He stared at her damaged face while Boss Lady counted the thousands, and the women watched the envelope as if they expected it might become a dove and fly away.

  Mr. Jagroop barely uttered a syllable for the rest of the drive. He seemed to sink into a private pool of worry, his face taking on that look Omar had glimpsed earlier in the hammock. And now there was another face on Omar’s mind: Consuela’s; her blue-black eye. Omar couldn’t forget it. Who had hit her? Was the money for that? He stared out the windscreen, puzzling. Ever so often, though, he stole sideways glances at Mr. Jagroop. Was he the one?

  When they stopped in front of the house on Mungal Trace, the old man finally spoke. “Thanks eh, son. But let we keep this between weself, nah? She don’t bound to know.” Mr. Jagroop flicked his eyes toward the upper flat, making it clear he was referring to his wife.

  Omar made to get out of the truck but, at the last moment, turned back and shut the door. He needed to confirm what had just happened, what he’d just been a part of. He could only think of one delicate way to pry. “That place, Mr. Jagroop. The pink house. What they does there?” He hoped Mr. Jagroop would say something like “hairdressing” but, at the same time, Omar knew if Mr. Jagroop said that, he wouldn’t believe. There was a similar house in Matura—whole day, the women just sat on the porch, all dolled-up, waiting. Omar knew what went on there because Josephine had threatened to chop off his legs if he ever set foot on that porch. What would she think of him now?

  Mr. Jagroop lowered his voice as if someone else was in the truck. “Boy, Mannie get he-self in a li’l problem, nah. With the Vene girl working there. He was only looking for a li’l fun, but he have a temper when he drink. He hit she, I know it wrong. But … is my son.”

  Mr. Jagroop’s eyes seemed to be pleading with Omar to spare him further explanation. It was like seeing the old man naked. Too embarrassing; and, in the truck’s cab, they were suddenly too close. Omar stuttered, “Is okay, Mr. Jagroop. I wouldn’t say nothing. I understand,” as he cranked the door handle. He jumped down and watched the truck driving away, its trail of black diesel smoke tentacling behind, filling Omar’s nostrils and reaching down his throat, making him hawk and spit into the drain.

  He opened the gate and, from upstairs, came the explosive hiss-ss-ss! of Mrs. Jagroop throwing something into hot oil—a better smell: curry powder, onion, garlic and pepper—and then the rhythmic clang of metal on metal, spoon on pot. He used the noise as a cloak to get to his room, unnoticed by her. Did she know what a brute her precious son was?

  Inside, Omar eased the duffel from his sore shoulder and felt as if he’d been travelling for years to get to this moment. He slid the picture frame onto the dresser and, immediately, the Jagroops evaporated from his thoughts. He clawed at the red welts the bag had left on his shoulder and felt his body itching everywhere, somewhere he couldn’t quite reach, as he stared into the photo.

  “Now what?” he mumbled, daring some invisible opponent.

  Through the patchwork of greasy little fingerprints on the glass, Omar tried to see something, feel something positive about the picture. Josephine had always kept it in the secret depths of her wardrobe. She’d take it out on his birthday and allow Omar to study it and ask as many questions as he liked. But three years ago, on his fourteenth birthday, Omar had told her not to bother. His questions had deepened over time, and her thready answers—“I don’t know … I not sure … Your father never said …”—could no longer span the yawning gaps in his mind. Was Jacob alive or dead? Did Omar show up in his dreams the way he did in Omar’s? Did he wake up crying, too? Or did he belong to a new family now?

  Vapors of a painful—but familiar, unnameable—emotion began to rise inside Omar. He fled the picture and flung himself onto the bed. He reached across the nightstand for a half-eaten pack of peanuts and a half-empty Coke that didn’t even fizz anymore. He poured both down his throat, sat up and looked around. It was barely midday but the tiny room was stifling due to the thick, red curtains Mrs. Jagroop had hung over the chicken-wire window. He wanted to tie up the curtains—but then he’d have no privacy. He wanted to turn on a TV, a radio—something loud, louder than his thoughts—but he had nothing.

  Omar couldn’t stop his eyes; they returned to the photo. Ha! There was one good thing about it: it had helped him make friends with Mr. Jagroop. A fresh wave of disgust for Mannie swept over Omar. It wasn’t fair: big, black Mannie had hit that tiny, perfect, white doll; and Mr. Jagroop was cleaning up the mess. Shelling out big, big money. On one hand, Omar couldn’t blame him; that’s what a father should do: protect his son. But Mannie didn’t deserve such a father. And furthermore, Consuela didn’t des
erve to be treated like that. Mannie would never have gotten off so easy with a local girl—they had brothers, fathers, people of their own kind to defend them. The whole thing was so unfair.

  Omar swung his feet to the floor and covered his face with his hands. This weird feeling overtook him sometimes—more and more since leaving school. His skin was scorching. Palms upturned, he examined his forearms. Veins stood out, thick and blue, and he thought he could see each one throbbing. It looked like Life. So much Life. And Energy. And Power. Power, blue like electricity. Power searching for an outlet or a route to ground. Too much for him to contain. It made his eyes bulge. It made his temples pulse. It made a crackling noise in his ears and it made his heart hurt. What to do with all this Life? Some days, like today, it all backed up inside of him and Omar felt he would explode.

  He was seventeen years old. Six months ago he was swinging a lunch-bag in the schoolyard. Now, he was alone. His mother kept saying he was “a big man now”. But a man was powerful and did things with his power—things he wanted to do, not what other people made him do. Omar sprung up and began pacing the room, berating himself: he should have stood up to Josephine this morning; he shouldn’t have let her force him into coming back here, or bringing the picture; he shouldn’t have lingered at Mr. Jagroop’s store, or let himself be pressured into doing that favor—into ganging up against someone with no one on her side.

  Then, Omar had a thought that made his stomach even more queasy: what if Mr. Jagroop didn’t really like him? All that talk in the truck: about trusting Omar; saying they would call him one day to show them around the north coast. What if Mr. Jagroop was only mamaguying him to drop off the money?

  Omar rushed to the dresser and, before he could even stop himself, he’d punched its side. The cardboard panel flexed, wobbled, then fell out. That wasn’t enough for the force moving inside him. He lunged toward the bathroom and felt a whoosh! through his veins as he struck the hollow bathroom door, heard the crunching of the thin plywood, felt the shock to his knuckles and the bright, red satisfaction of his fist emerging through the other side. Omar removed his arm slowly and inspected the splinters in his hand. No pain. Just relief, and a kind of pride, as he noticed the hole he’d made was so much bigger than his fist.

  A voice. It reached Omar as if he were underwater. Then an impatient sound—blam, blam, blam—fishermen pushing off, knocking the side of a pirogue. He startled awake. Someone was banging on his door.

  It was now dark outside. Through the chicken-wire, under a low-swinging bulb, he saw Mr. Jagroop, Mannie, Dev and his father, Mr. Singh. They sat on crates, crouched over a small table, eating.

  When Omar opened the door, Mr. Jagroop dumped a big dollop of curry onto a plate and pointed to the roti they were using to cradle the bony pieces of meat and sop up the sauce.

  “Boy, come sit down,” he ordered. “You from the country; you must like wild meat.”

  Omar remained in the doorway, crusty-eyed and slack-jawed until Mr. Jagroop beckoned again. Only then did Omar peel himself from the doorframe and accept the plate. He didn’t know what else to do. Everyone was staring at him.

  He popped a morsel into his mouth and chewed slowly, assessing the meat: iguana. In Matura, they were everywhere, like chickens. Silence seemed to hum around the table and Omar knew the men were waiting for him to show some manners, to compliment the food.

  “In Matura we does curry ’guana,” he half-whispered, “but it don’t taste nice so.”

  Everyone nodded and Mr. Jagroop credited Mannie and Dev for catching the animals.

  “You does hunt, Omar?” Mannie asked.

  Omar took time clearing his teeth, calculating his reply. He felt disoriented. Was he really sitting here among these men? Had they really come seeking him? Mr. Jagroop must’ve told them how he’d helped earlier today. They were all trying with him now, he had to try too, the way Josephine had said.

  “Hunt?” he answered at last. “Yeah. I used to go in the forest with them fellas. Catch we li’l wild-meat. Do we li’l fishing and thing.”

  Everyone grinned and swapped looks that Omar couldn’t read. He’d only ever been on one job interview—at Save-U—but this felt very similar. Eventually, Mr. Singh blurted out, “Well all these months we watching you—quiet, quiet; going home every weekend; avoiding everybody. We say you is a born-again-Christian. Judgey, nah. Ain’t, Jagroop? But we ain’t know you is a real man—a hunting man.”

  One by one, the men stretched across: Mr. Jagroop clapped Omar’s back, Mr. Singh slapped his knee, Mannie and Dev fist-bumped his shoulder. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the mood lightened and the men all chattered at once, competing for attention.

  Omar found himself in the middle of a lime.

  Mr. Singh drew a flask of puncheon rum from his pocket and said, “Let we finish this.” They passed it around and, when it reached Omar, the group fell silent again, watching him. Omar hated rum, but he wanted them to see he wasn’t “judgey” so he tipped the tiniest bit into his cup, then drowned it with coconut water. The men roared with laughter. “Good one, good one,” they said, slapping him on the back again. But they skipped over him the next time the flask went around. They understood him now, Omar thought. He was a quiet fella but would never stop anybody else from having their fun. It made him wonder; maybe he’d read them wrong as well. Except Mannie, of course; that jackass who’d hit Consuela and jeopardized his hardworking father. Omar would never like Mannie, but maybe he could tolerate him—for Mr. Jagroop’s sake. Plus, Josephine had said, “Try.”

  “Omar, bring the picture, nah?” Mr. Jagroop asked. “I was trying to explain these fellas ’bout that turtle, but is best you show them the real thing.”

  Omar sprinted to his room and returned with the picture-frame.

  The group ooh-ed and ahh-ed as it made the rounds. Then they asked stupid questions, like whether turtles have teeth; if they bite people.

  Omar’s answers were brief at first, but every time he spoke, he felt a strong current—pulling something from them to him—making swirls and eddies inside him. He was winning the men’s attention and, he suspected, their respect. This kind of power was new to Omar and it rippled through the cavern of his belly like a new hunger. He leaned forward on his plastic crate, tapping the picture as he talked and talked. He shared all he knew about turtles—anatomy, habitat, seasons—everything.

  When the lecture ended, there was a pocket of silence as every man contemplated the floor. Then, Mr. Jagroop punched his thigh and said, “Well, I ready to go Matura!” He pointed around the table and everyone else agreed. “It settle then. Saturday night, we turtle-watching. And Omar, you go be we leader.”

  Omar was dotish for the next five days, as if Mr. Jagroop had uttered an obeah spell instead of a mere promise. At night in his bedroom, and by day at Save-U, Omar relived the high points of the lime—the way he’d taught the men, their admiring looks—and he imagined further ways he could impress them on Saturday’s excursion.

  On Tuesday, Save-U was in the usual mid-morning lull when Omar decided to fix the most important item for Saturday: a turtle-friendly torch. From the Home Goods lane he got a flashlight and some duct tape, from the stand with gift bags and wrapping-paper he got a red cellophane sheet, and from his cashier, Cindy, he got some batteries. While she prattled on with the neighboring cashier, Omar sat on his stool rigging the torch, taping and testing to make sure it would only emit red light—enough for the men to see the turtles, but not so much as to harm the animals. He was engrossed until Cindy banged the counter and said, “Customer.” When he looked up, Consuela was standing there at his register, waiting for her yogurt, deodorant and maxi-pads to be bagged.

  Omar dropped the torch and began fumbling for a plastic bag.

  “Sorry,” Cindy said, “this one does move slow.”

  “Is okay,” Consuela answered, “I know him.”

  At that, Omar’s head jerked and he finally met her eyes. She was as white and as bea
utiful as he remembered; the bruises were almost invisible—except to him, maybe. A red blouse partially covered her breasts and she wore red leggings topped with a thick gold belt. The belt had been pulled so tight it made her exposed midriff look like one of the corn muffins made at the in-store bakery. Omar dropped his head again and fussed with the yogurt.

  “You did went by the house,” Consuela said, her voice loud in the quiet of Save-U.

  It was an accusation and Omar was sure his co-workers had heard. The tips of his ears and his neck were on fire; red enough, he guessed, for everybody to see his guilt. He picked up the deodorant and felt himself grow even redder at the thought that this was how Consuela smelled: Powder Fresh. Then came the feminine products. As Omar handled Consuela’s maxi-pads, his prick began inflating and unfolding itself like a life raft. And because he didn’t understand why, when all he really felt for her was pity, he shoved the bags across the counter and turned away.

  “You es no a very nice person,” she said. “Just like tu Papa, Jagroop.”

  The rest of the week passed and Omar never told Mr. Jagroop about that incident. Instead, on mornings, he helped the old man load the trucks. On evenings, Mrs. Jagroop came downstairs to hand Omar a plate of roti and talkari, a home-cooked meal. And on Thursday night, after she’d left, Mannie appeared at Omar’s chicken-wire window, head bent like a timid stray.

  “I just come to say thanks, nah. For helping Daddy. You save he ass, there.”

  Omar was tempted to say, “Is your ass I save! Stop hiding behind your father,” but something about Mannie’s sheepish face made Omar hold his tongue.

  They were almost the same age. Boys. Boys made mistakes.

  In one week, Omar had moved from wasting in no-man’s-land to feeding on the fringe of this family, and he was determined that, after Saturday night, he’d have a permanent place among them.