Pleasantview

by Celeste Mohammed

  He pulling me out the chair. Pulling hard.

  “No,” I say, trying to free-up my arm. “I not going nowhere!” I try to make myself heavy. I grip-on the handle but Mr. H so strong he make one pull and the aluminum chair spinning in a half-circle. “No! No!” Another big tug and I land on the tile floor. Damn hard: my insides shaking-up; I picturing purple jello. “Oh God, the child!” I say.

  I try to scramble to my feet. My arm slipping from him, so Mr. H grab my ponytail. I crying and kicking, still screaming “No! No!” but he dragging me to the office door.

  He screaming too, “Security! Security!” Footsteps running-up behind us. Two man grab me—one each side—and they pull me up. “No! No!” I refuse to walk so they carrying me through the store. My legs dragging on the ground like a invalid. Everybody watching—customers, sales-girls—everybody. The fuckers dump me outside on the pavement, in Pleasantview Junction, like a bag of stinking garbage. I cry out one long, last, “No!” and I pelt my shoes behind them.

  As the taxi reach the apartment, I practically run out and kick-down my own front door. It still swinging on the hinges when I charge through the front-room and head straight for the chest-of-drawers—the one thing Janice ever give me. I remembering her advice now and yes, I know what side my bread butter on. I not bringing no innocent child into this world—this ketch ass world—call Pleasantview. I not watering down milk and rationing pampers—have the child crawling ’round with shit in he batty for half day—’cause I don’t know when next I could buy. No sick child—snatty-nose turning pneumonia—deading on my hand ’cause I can’t pay for doctor and medicine. Nah! Before it come to that, let me just done everything right now! Put everybody outta they damn misery!

  I start groping inside the panty-drawer. My fingers knocking camphor-balls—Clax! Clax!—against the wood. Tiptoeing, I reach deeper and feel the box with the garnet ring. Then, I feel a long lump near the top right corner. That’s it! I pull out the white envelope, rip the side open and the notepaper fly out, sailing down to the floor like a parachute. When I bend for it, all the cash in the envelope tumble out and settle ’round my foot—a money puddle. I step out of it and grab the cordless phone from next to the bed. I dial, but my fingers trembling so much, I have to start over. I make the appointment with Dr. Narayansingh—Tuesday at 10:00.

  I make another call right afterward. To Mr. H cell phone. Vishnu answer, “Nah. The Bossman busy.” He hang up.

  I curl up on the bed, cordless in hand. I call back a million times but no answer. I just want this whole thing to be over. None of this woulda happen if I didn’t get pregnant. I just want to go back to normal, like how it was before last week—before the baby—when I was the person Mr. H love, instead of the person he hate. But as I pull the coverlet over my head I have this sinking feeling: things might never be normal between me and Mr. H again. Not even if I go Tuesday. Is like something slip outta balance between us today. It have me asking myself if I could ever lie-down under the man again, now that I know he ain’t ever going to give me the price I calling. For what he taking. For what he did take that first day, in the office.

  Is the feeling that I peeing-down myself that wake me. My eyes open to a room full-up with shadows—I must be sleep through the whole afternoon. I swipe inside my thigh. Wet. Sitting up, I stare at my fingers. A black water, black like Coca-Cola, but more thick. I smush it and it thin out enough for me to see it actually red—a dark, Beaujolais red. Blood. And something more spongy. Clots? Flesh? I feel another big gush pass from me. I jump off the bed and run to the back door screaming for Miss Ivy.

  She find me on the floor, clutching my ball-up cotton dress like it could ever plug this leak.

  “Father! Tell me you didn’t try for yourself,” she say, grabbing a kitchen towel.

  “No,” I say, “I was sleeping when … the blood … it just come down….”

  “Don’t worry,” she say, “sometimes they could still save it.”

  She bawling for Mr. Winston—he have a car—and they help me in the back-seat. By the time I rest my head on Miss Ivy lap, the towel between my legs soak-up and it have blood everywhere: on the upholstery, the glass, Miss Ivy robe; on Mr. Winston hands as he easing the vehicle out the long, narrow yard. My blood? The baby blood? It have any difference? Our blood. We losing too much.

  I start screaming, over and over again, “Allyuh hurry up! Please! Please!” because I suddenly realize this is my last chance. It have a baby—a real, live baby—right now in my belly. The two of we is a family right now, and we didn’t have to ask nobody permission for that. And I realize that I never, ever in my life want anything more than what I want right now: to not lose this child, this chance. Every other fear done leak out and gone with all them clots.

  Finally, the back tires drop from the yard to the road. Mr. Winston hands shaking as much as mines, but he bawling, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. My sister does work Casualty. I know the nurses-and-them. Don’t worry.”

  “No! Not the General Hospital,” I say. “Santa Marta Private. It closer. I have money. Reverse-back, reverse-back! Now!”

  I squeeze Miss Ivy hand. Finally, I know the answer for what she did ask me last week. Decide your mind, she did say. Who you really want, she did say. So I tell her now, “The child, Miss Ivy, is only the child I want. Run quick. In the drawer by my bed: a white envelope.”

  The Ides of March

  CORPORAL SHARPE

  THE DOORS OF THE PLEASANTVIEW POLICE station had been locked since 11:00 PM. Anyone needing assistance would have to shout from the gate. Corporal Sharpe and his officers were snuggled away, upstairs, in the dormitory.

  Sharpe lay with one arm behind his head, staring at the TV, twirling his moustache. He paid no attention to the movie, Legends of The Fall, or the officers’ ole-talk. His mind was on the Station Diary’s notes from the night before, the fifteenth of March:

  Pleasantview Savannah … political rally of the PNM … police officers from Pleasantview Station as well as Northeastern Division Task Force (NEDTF) … PNM candidate, Mr. H, mounted the platform … gunshots … Mr. H unharmed … escorted to his vehicle … another loud explosion … NEDTF rushed to Mr. H’s vehicle … Mr. H found bleeding … wound to his abdomen … female suspect and pistol seized by NEDTF and taken to another police station … Mr. H in critical condition. Enquiries continuing.

  The incident read like a highly organized, multi-person attack, the first shots within the venue being a diversion to get Mr. H to his car for the real shooter. A murder conspiracy. And the whole thing was big, big news too, except the newspapers had gotten an important detail wrong: it was NEDTF—those big-boys in Port of Spain—not the local Pleasantview police who had the suspect. This station’s holding cell was empty. But still, Sharpe lamented, if only he’d been on duty last night! If he had been on duty, some of that favourable press might’ve rubbed off on him. In fact, if he had been on duty, he would have used every trick in the book to make himself a big fuckin’ hero in the story. He needed that, he needed to change his image with The Seniors up in Police Headquarters. The new, holier-than-thou Commissioner was on a crusade against “bribe-taking officers”. Allegedly, Sharpe’s name had been called; allegedly a transfer—to some bushy station behind God’s back—was coming by way of punishment. No way. Sharpe needed to stay right here in Pleasantview: his income depended on it.

  Commercial break. Sharpe rose to pee and grab a snack. He shuffled his slippers across the black-and-white square tiles, and pictured a draughts board. The game was his favourite rumshop recreation and he felt its rules offered a tactical approach to life’s problems. Rule 1: assess the board for weaknesses. In police-work, for sure, weaknesses were everywhere. Some informer not questioned, some evidence overlooked, some move not made—Sharpe just needed to find it. There had to be a way to huff this nice, fresh, shooting incident, to pocket it for his own benefit.

  A noise came from outside. A metallic clanking: somebody banging the padlock aga
inst the gate. The sound alternated with that female ghetto-yodel Sharpe often heard around Pleasantview, “Oy-yo-yoiii! Oy-yo-yoiii! Officer! Officer!”

  Thinking it was some drunkard whore wanting to sleep things off in the cell, Sharpe yawned and scratched his balls, ordering, “Sentry! See what going on there.”

  A young-police went to the metal louvres, always slanted so the lounging officers could look down upon the world without being seen themselves.

  “Ahhm … Corpy,” the young-police said, breath snagging, “it looking like … a bear?”

  “A what?” Every officer, including Sharpe, rushed to the window.

  Was it an after-effect of the movie, a trick of the mind? Sharpe had to blink a few times. In the dark, hobbling along the fence-line, there appeared to be a grizzly bear.

  Sputtering overhead light showed the thing covered, head to foot, in dark fur. It bent over, grabbed something, then turned and hurled it toward the dormitory window. At the plax! of stone hitting louvre, everyone jumped back and Sharpe said, “Shiiittt!” but, in the same moment, he recognized it was not a bear but a human. And he recognized the human as Miss Ivy, that old lady from Panco Lane who paraded around in a fur coat.

  Relief brought the baritone back to Sharpe’s voice. “Goodnight, Tanty. What’s your problem this hour?”

  “Goodnight son,” Miss Ivy replied, “the officer-in-charge, please.”

  “We closed, Tanty.”

  “Yeah, but it urgent. I have some hot, hot information.”

  “’Bout what, Tanty?” Sharpe was only asking for the amusement of his men. He knew from his wife that Miss Ivy was a babysitter by day and a seer-woman by evening. Her area of specialty was cutting cards: using a deck of playing cards to foretell people’s futures. She had quite a following—mostly women—and a kind of fearful reverence surrounded the old quenk. Nobody in Pleasantview messed with Miss Ivy because they believed she knew things. Sharpe didn’t subscribe to that foolishness, though. He was sure she was here to waste police time with some nancy story, some imagined tragedy.

  Then Miss Ivy said, “Is about the shooting last night. Mr. H, nah.”

  All eyes in the dormitory landed on Corporal Sharpe. He frowned and pursed his lips, assessing the board for his next move. He knew, like everybody else in Pleasantview, that Miss Ivy had worked as housekeeper in Mr. H’s house for ages. The fur coat was a hand-me-down from Mrs. H, given to Miss Ivy upon retirement. Miss Ivy sashayed through the streets of Pleasantview wearing it, Sharpe believed, as a reminder to all that she was a woman with connections. It was possible, she might actually know something about this shooting. Something he should know as well.

  “Ok, Tanty. I coming,” he answered, and sent the young-police downstairs to open the gate and the door.

  While he put on his uniform, Sharpe once more weighed his position and the stakes. Transfer him to some cane-land outpost? An officer like him, with fifteen years’ experience? He could not suffer that indignity! Worse yet, if he was transferred, he’d have none of the leverage he enjoyed in Pleasantview. He would be starting over, and reduced to mere salary. How was he supposed to send his daughter to university on a policeman’s salary? She’d been accepted to study medicine, starting this September. He had promised her that she could go.

  The charge-room usually smelled of piss and mold, but this time, as Sharpe entered, he got the unmistakable odor of wet fur—a doggy smell. Miss Ivy’s elbows and breasts sat on the counter as she scoured her face with a small red towel. When she saw him, she swung it onto her shoulder and began babbling.

  “This thing on my mind whole day, Officer. Since it happen last night, I studying what to do. But I make up my mind. I don’t have long again in this world—the Bible say three score and ten, and I is done three score and eight. I want to meet my maker with a clear conscience. So that’s why I come. I have to say something.”

  Miss Ivy pounded the counter to the beat of the last words, then fell silent. She wanted Sharpe to draw it out of her, it seemed.

  The Corporal leaned in, propping a hand under his chin. He affected the polite-but-bored expression of a bartender. Inside, though, he was feverish.

  An excruciating moment passed before Miss Ivy blurted out, “I know who try to kill Mr. H.”

  “Us too, Tanty,” Sharpe said, throat tight with this big lie.

  “No, no. Allyuh think allyuh know. But allyuh only holding the trigger-puller. I know who is The Mr. Big behind the whole thing.”

  Sharpe’s fingers climbed his chin to his moustache and began twirling again. “Well,” he said with a shrug. “I’m waiting. Give me a name.”

  “Nah, I have to start from the beginning. Allyuh have coffee? Bring some, nah? A chair too. And something to write.”

  MISS IVY

  Exactly seven days before the PNM rally, seven days before Mr. H was shot, Miss Ivy had gotten a mysterious message from her best friend, Agnita: “Come this evening. It urgent. Walk with the cards.”

  But Miss Ivy wasn’t sure she’d be able to make the visit. All the parents knew they were supposed to collect their children by five-thirty. Yet somebody always had an emergency. That day, March 8th, it had been five-year-old Jabari’s mother. She’d sent a message with another parent to say she’d pick him up by seven. What could Miss Ivy do? She couldn’t put the child out in the road. And, without any pickney of her own, Miss Ivy felt like a mother to them all.

  Glancing off and on at the big Coca-Cola clock on the wall—the one with the polar bears, a Christmas gift from a parent—Miss Ivy chatted with Jabari as she fixed his dinner. She chopped the brown ends off his bread-and-butter sandwich, she added a second dollop of condensed milk to his tea—he liked it really sweet. The boy was standing on a cushion, pretending to surf, and though his eyes were fixed on Miss Ivy’s black-and-white TV, his mouth chattered constantly.

  “Mama Ivy, you know what?”

  “What, son?”

  “My Aunty have a new Hindu man name Jagroop.”

  Miss Ivy wanted to burst out laughing, but she was afraid Jabari would be spooked into silence. She played it cool, asking in a casual tone, “Eh-heh? How you know that?”

  “He does come by we. He did bring a yellow UNC jersey for Aunty, but my Grandpa say she can’t wear that and still live in we house.”

  Now Miss Ivy did burst out laughing. Jabari poor thing, he didn’t know better. Election time was the worst time to leak out family politics. It could mean cut-eye from strangers, cold-shoulder from friends, or even “loss work” for his parents. But, as a seer-woman, Miss Ivy followed a personal code. “All skelingtons safe in my closet,” she told her clients.

  “I know your Grandpa since we small as you,” she nodded at Jabari. “That sound just like him. A staunch PNM.”

  As he slurped his tea, Jabari prattled on about Jagroop: that he had a big black truck with shiny wheels, that he took the boy for drives in it, that they went all over the place, but they couldn’t go to East Pleasantview because that’s where Jagroop’s family lived and he didn’t want nobody to see.

  Miss Ivy was still paying close attention when the boy’s mother came hustling in, full of apologies. The polar bears on the wall said it was 6:25. Barely enough time to make it to Agnita’s and back before dark, but Miss Ivy would try, for her best friend’s sake.

  Long, winding and dismal by day, Evans Street was downright scary as night approached. There were no proper street lamps. Some, long ago smashed by young fellas wanting privacy to do their business underneath. Others told their age with a constant hum and flicker. Things were even more dangerous these days, with the rash of election-time road works.

  A fat wind came off the mountain and barged its way down the street, nearly tumbling Miss Ivy into an open manhole in the pavement. She caught her balance just in time, drew the fur coat even closer around her bulk, and began to cuss—not even caring if people in the passing cars noticed she was talking to herself.

  “Suppose I did fall in and de
ad? Eh? Every election is the same damn thing! Suddenly, box-drain and pavement. Drain and pavement. As if we could eat and drink concrete. The people want water!”

  “And light,” Miss Ivy added, glancing up at the flickering street-lamps. What they really needed in Pleasantview was light.

  Her hands stroked the puffy edge of the coat’s hood as she consoled herself. Her old boss, Mr. H, would surely win the next election and, when he did, he would fix everything. He might have a lot of bad ways, he might be the village ram, fucking anything in sight, but you couldn’t fault Mr. H for being a successful man-of-business: he would fix Pleasantview. Nobody could bully and get things done like him. Most people in Pleasantview were afraid of him but Miss Ivy wasn’t. She and Mr. H, they had an understanding. To this day, every time she popped into his cloth-store, he’d always find her in the aisles, fold a couple hundreds into her palm and wink. Unofficial payment. For all the secrets she’d kept over the years, and for continuing to keep them now, especially from Mrs. H.

  Agnita’s bungalow came into view around the corner. Miss Ivy could just make out her friend, seated on the tiny verandah of the house that had remained unchanged since they were children.

  “Oyyyyy!” Miss Ivy hollered, as she swung the gate.

  “Ayyyyy, girl!” Agnita replied.

  Squeezing herself into the other wicker chair, Miss Ivy said, “So I see we get pavement, doux-doux.”

  “Yes, darling. Voting-time. That’s why I ask you to come. This election go be trouble. I frighten bad.” With the help of her cane and the chair handle, Agnita rose from the seat, even as she lowered her voice. “Come, let we go inside. Somebody might hear from the road.”

  “Is about my Hezekiah.” Agnita’s voice was somber at the dining table now. “I overhear him last night, he and he friends, in the bedroom.”