Pleasantview

by Celeste Mohammed

  2. A traditional refrain to each verse of an extempo war. Derived from the French, “sans humanité”, which is loosely translated as “without mercy.” Extempo is a calypso artform where verses are made up on the spot, in response to a particular stimulus or challenge, usually in a lyrical war between two or more calypsonians.

  Epilogue: Kings of the Earth

  JASON WAKE UP EARLY O’CLOCK, BUT he didn’t come off the bed because it woulda look too fishy, especially on a Monday. He had a secret plan this morning, a kinda Mission Impossible thing, starting from the parlour on Watts Trace, then to the Muslim man waiting behind the masjid. Jason lie down there, a li’l nervous, rehearsing what he had to do and say, until (finally!) his mother, Judith, pound the bedroom door and bawl, “Boys, time to get cracking.” Jason slide off the top bunk and start tickling Kevin, his li’l brother, foot.

  “Hurry up, Small Man. I busy this morning,” Jason say.

  Kevin groan and turn, but didn’t wake up. When Jason tickle his belly, Kevin whole body was hot, hot.

  “W’happen, Kev? You okay?” Jason say.

  “I not feelin’ good,” Kevin groan. “Where Mammy?”

  Jason run in the kitchen for Judith.

  “Oh God, don’t tell me this child sick again,” she say, and she stop pasting corn beef on bread. She jab the knife at Jason and say, “I never had so much trouble with you, but this next one … he like a egg.”

  “He can’t help it, Mammy.”

  “I know. But is me alone.” She slam down the knife, and corn beef splatter. “Doctor bill—is me. Pharmacy—is me. I done use up all my holidays behind this boy, I can’t stay home again.” Judith chest was moving fast, fast—up and down—like a cry trying to buss out and she trying to trap it inside.

  Jason watch his mother and feel so sorry for her.

  “Your father was sickly just so, you know. Same bronchitis all the time. He should be here now, to help this poor child. But where he is? In America, with he nose stick-up inside that white-woman crotch.”

  There. Every time something go wrong, Judith always bring up Luther. The man leave five years now but, for Judith, he come like a ghost in the house causing trouble. Jason switch off his ears, leave her on one end of the counter and went to the next end, by the medicine cupboard.

  He fish out the Panadol. “I giving him this and some juice,” he say.

  Judith nod, but she staring like her mind far.

  “You want me stay home from school? I could stay with him, if you want.”

  Judith nod again, but with a small smile that make Jason feel better. “Tell him I coming now,” she say. “Lemme finish with these sandwich.”

  It feel like a long time Jason sit down on the bed, patting Kevin, before Judith reach and shoo him. She hug Kevin, tell him not to give Jason no trouble for the day, promise him she coming home early and she carrying him doctor tomorrow. Jason leave them and went to feed Growley, change his newspaper—stink of piss—and full his water bowl.

  By the time Judith come back out, she had on work clothes and the seven o’clock news did start. “Don’t let him bathe,” she say, eyeing the TV. “Just a li’l sponge-off around ten. And if he don’t want the corn beef, make a pack-soup.”

  “I know, Mammy,” Jason say, resting down his cornflakes and milk. “Is not like is the first time. Don’t worry, nah.”

  “Hush,” Judith lift she hand like a policewoman. “Turn up the volume, there.”

  Police clash with a Jamaat down Rio Claro. The reporter show a clip of a round-face black fella, with Muslim topee and tunic, riling up a crowd. JOSEPH X: COMMUNITY LEADER, the writing on the TV say. The fella had a Yankee twang, saying words like “oppression” and “discrimination” and “retaliation” and making them sound so highfalutin and nice.

  She point to the TV and say, “Steups. Them black-Muslim-and-them is the worse. Always jihad-this and jihad-that. Police should shoot they ass. A setta bloody criminal, twisting religion to cover they bullshit.”

  Jason insides start twinging-up. He picture what Judith woulda do if she know he going by Pleasantview masjid this morning.

  She grab she handbag and continue complaining out the door. “I working for Dr. Hosein donkey-years and I never yet hear him talk hard. You know how much patients does can’t pay and he does tell them is okay? He does live good with everybody, not like them li’l black boy who feel you must step off the pavement for them, because they wearing long beard and long tunic.”

  Jason close the door fast, fast behind Judith. Then he run across by the couch, just to make sure it had no Datsun 280C waiting downstairs this morning—Judith did claim she break up with Selwyn, she man-friend, last week. That fool used to walk in here like he build the place, shouting and calling Jason “boy” and telling him “bring this … bring that.” Who the hell Selwyn did feel he was?

  Jason stay there a li’l while, shifting from knee to knee on the couch, watching through the louvres, waiting for Judith to get in a taxi. If she did only look up behind her, she woulda catch him, and she mighta think he being overprotective. But Jason did just want to make sure she gone.

  He bathe fast and put on his school clothes (“Always wear uniform,” Parlour Man did say. “Less suspicious, nah.”) Jason peep in the bedroom to make sure Kevin still sleeping. He rip a page from his notebook and write: I COMING BACK NOW. He leave it on the kitchen table, weigh down by the bottle of peanut butter.

  In the parlour, it only had a lady buying newspapers, so Jason didn’t have to wait long for Parlour Man attention.

  “Morning,” he say, unzipping his Spiderman lunch kit. He put it on the counter, near the semicircle gap in the burglar proof where Parlour Man serve people. “Two juice and a aloo pie, please.” That’s what Jason was supposed to say every time.

  Parlour Man chuckle. “Is okay, son. Nobody here.”

  The lunch kit disappear, then come back all zip-up again, only a li’l heavier.

  “Remember your thing in there too, eh.” Parlour Man say. “Don’t forget to take it out before you give them the bag. You want a snack? Here.” Parlour Man throw two pack of chocolate wafer on the counter. Jason did prefer vanilla, but he didn’t want no problems with Parlour Man, so he take the chocolate and ride out.

  As he step out the parlour, Jason two eyes meet and make four with Silence, the big boss of Lost Boyz gang. Across the road, Silence stand up in his gallery in boxer shorts and a wife-beater vest, and Jason had the feeling the man been watching the parlour for a while. Jason pores get bumpy like pineapple skin so he wave and walk off fast as possible. He didn’t even know if Silence wave back.

  In the room behind the masjid, Jason give the lunch kit to the Muslim man and watch him take out a white plastic bag, the kind Judith use home for garbage. Lawd-a-mercy! She would shred up his backside if she know he in here dealing with a black-Muslim. She could talk big, but Judith couldn’t even give Jason “allowance” like them other children in school. Why he should feel bad about getting it somewhere else? A thing he hate was how, on Saturdays, Judith always come by the jooking board while he scrubbing the neck of his school shirts, just to remind him, “Take it easy, eh. I still paying the Chinee for them thing.” Like he was a burden to she.

  The man swing the lunch kit by the strap and Jason catch it, light and empty now. Last week, the thing in the plastic was brick-shape and so heavy Jason corn beef sandwich did get squash. The man dip in the pocket of his tunic and pull out a blue hundred dollar. He had it pinch between two fingers when he say, “Here, Small Man.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jason say, reaching for the money, but he end-up grabbing air because the man flick the note away.

  “Next week, somebody important want to meet you,” the man say.

  “Yes, sir.” Jason wonder who it is he talking ’bout. The word “important” make him remember the Yankee fella on the news. But all that wonderment get wash ’way when Jason grip the money.

  In two steps, he bounce out the doo
r feeling happy like pappy. Two guards—boys looking li’l older than him—was waiting outside the room to walk him back to the masjid gate.

  “Wha’ yuh smilin’ so for, Smallest?” one boy ask Jason.

  “Nothing, nothing,” he answer. This hundred, combine with the hundred Parlour Man did give him earlier, combine with the two hundred he did earn last week—his first week on the job—mean he was just one delivery away from the Jordan sneakers he wanted so bad.

  He wish he didn’t have to go back home to see ’bout Kevin. He wish he coulda head straight in school and tell Shaka he get through with another successful mission. Few weeks ago, it was Shaka who did pull Jason aside after football and ask him if he interested in a li’l hustle. For a Form Three fella with moustache-and-thing to notice him like that, Jason did feel kinda special. “Easy money,” Shaka did say, “How you think I end-up with a Nintendo and three different Jordan? Clean money, too. All you doing is toting a bag. Police can’t lock you up for that.”

  Jason had to admit, as he walk back home, the money didn’t feel so clean, but it feel real good anyway. He wasn’t hurting nobody. He wasn’t in no gang. He was just helping out his-own-self, that’s all.

  The next week, it had a different man in the back room. Although a white topee cover-up most of his head, on the sides, hair like dirty sheep wool—a kinda blondish brown—was curling out. The fella face was white as a white-man but he had a nigger nose and nigger lips, and that same curly hair make a bleach-out afro on his jawline. The weirdest thing, though, was the man eyes—so light brown they was almost orange—darting and flickering like two mini flambeau.

  The man rest his palm on the desk and say, “Gimme the bag nah, boy.”

  Jason thief some more glances as he push the bag over. He never yet see a white Muslim, all the ones walking ’round Pleasantview was either black or Indian. Or maybe this man was some kinda albino, like the lady in the choir at Pleasantview RC Church where Jason went.

  The man re-zip the bag but he keep his hand on it, the same way Growley does claim a toy bone.

  “Sit down,” the man say, and Jason follow because he couldn’t do nothing else.

  “You frighten I tell you sit down?”

  “No, sir,” he lie.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jason, sir.”

  “And your title?”

  “Archibald, sir. I’s Jason Archibald.”

  “Humph. Brother Younis really say you’s a respectful fella. How much years you have, Jason?”

  Twelve, sir.

  “Most fellas your age mighta shit they pants by now.”

  “I ain’t frighten.”

  “You ever look inside the plastic bag?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How come? You not curious?”

  “Sir, excuse, ahhmm …” Jason swallow the crapaud in his throat and continue, “if I could just get the thing, please. I go be late for school, nah.”

  “Ain’t school does start 8:30? You have a good half-an-hour still. Jason, I different from Brother Younis. I hadda know ’bout you before I give you my money.”

  Jason wanted to get away from this pushy, weird-looking man, but he wanted the money more, so he stay there answering plenty questions, all the usual ones grown-ups does ask children they now meet: where he living, with who, how much brother and sister he have, what subjects he like in school.

  At long last, the man smile and slide the lunch kit across. He wave a small fold of money, the blues on top covering the purples, the greys, the greens and reds.

  Jason watch them blues like how thief does watch mango on a tree.

  The man peel one off and put it on the desk, “For today,” he say. Then he peel off a next one and rest it on top the first. He move quick—Voosh—and push the money across the desk like is something for Jason to sign. “Come li’l earlier, next week. Seven. I go be here, not Younis.”

  Jason grab them bills. He shove them in the pocket of his uniform pants to meet-up with what Parlour Man did pay him earlier. Finally, he had enough for the new Jordans. He had more than enough.

  “Yes, sir. Seven o’clock,” Jason say, jumping out the chair so fast it skate on the floor tiles.

  “Wait,” the man say, when Jason almost by the door, “I’s Brother Omar. No more “Sir,” okay?” The man stand up, and he was real tall, he had to bend to pass through the arch doorway behind the desk.

  As usual, them guard boys flank Jason as he step down from the room and march him out.

  Two zebra crossing later, Jason stroll in the schoolyard in time for Assembly. Lining up in the courtyard, Shaka see Jason and use his eyebrows to pitch the question: How it went? Jason reply with a big-man nod—the kind that go chin up instead of down—but he really wanted to jump and wave the three hundred dollars warming his leg. More “allowance”, he figure, than any other boy in the history of Pleasantview Government Secondary School.

  Saturday morning, Jason didn’t even care how fishy he look. He wake extra early, finish his most important chore—scrubbing the bathroom—then he ask Judith if he could go Pleasantview Junction to meet Shaka.

  “For what? I done tell you: my blood don’t take that boy. He have a sneakiness ’bout him.” She was stripping off the sheet-and-them because Kevin did pee-down again. He wasn’t a hundred percent better but at least he was eating solid food—cereal—and watching cartoons in the living room.

  “Nah, Shaka is a cool fella, Mammy—he just quiet,” Jason say. “W’happen, the Form Fives had a raffle and two-ah-we win Sneaker King vouchers, nah. We going early—soon as they open—to choose a shoes.”

  “A-A that remind me,” Judith say, dumping the sheets in the washing machine, “your father send some shoes and jersey for allyuh. It by your grandmother. Since you going out the road, is best you pass for it before you go Sneaker King. Next thing: you waste your voucher and end up with two same sneakers.”

  “Steups. You know Daddy is a shithound. He does only send a setta cheap, cheap ‘I Love New York’ jersey, and a setta fake sneakers mark ‘Adidas’ but with four stripe instead of three. I passing by Granny after I buy my thing.”

  “Awright,” Judith say, wringing the washing machine knob ’round and ’round—too much times—like she distracted.

  “Well, I gone,” Jason say. Behind him, water start to gush.

  “Ahhmm … Selwyn coming tonight,” Judith say, over the water.

  He spin ’round. She back was half-turn while she cutting open a pack of Breeze detergent like is surgery she concentrating on.

  “I thought allyuh vex,” Jason say. “I though you say he wring-up your hand the other day, and you not taking no shit from him that you ain’t take from Daddy.”

  Judith start sprinkling Breeze like mad in the water. “Well, is Selwyn who carry me and Kev by the doctor. Is he who pay and is he buy medicine. The man might be a jackass but at least he’s a willing fella, he does try to help me out.”

  “I don’t want him here!” Jason bawl.

  Judith slam the machine lid and face him. “Boy, catch your damn self. You bringing a cent inside here? You paying any bill? No! But you tellin’ me who I could bring in here? Ha, Lord! Just move from in front my face. That’s why I’s can’t stand you sometimes, you know. You does look just like your father and you does get-on just like him. He leave and gone but does still want to call and police my nanni. He fast-and-outta-place. And you worse!” She try to shoulder past Jason but he was taller and, probably, stronger. He make one push and she fall back against the machine.

  In a way, the push feel real good—like something he did want to do long, long time—but in a next way, it frighten him that he could manhandle his own mother so. And the look on Judith face, too: how she eye get wide, wide and then small, small as she start to get up. He see when she watch the mopstick. He know she woulda beat him like a Good Friday bobolee, and he know he woulda fight she back this time. He didn’t want to hurt his mother.

  So Jason run out
the house.

  Straight down the steps and down the street, but when he reach the main road he stop running and start walking. No taxi—he just keep walking. Why she had to say he just like his father? In fact, no, it good she come out and say it plain. Now he know why she always vex with him for no reason. But if Luther so bad, why she stick-up on a man worser than Luther? If it hadda be so, why she didn’t go by Selwyn house when his wife not there? If Judith only know how hard it was to fall asleep them nights, with all the giggling and the noises coming from her bedroom. Them nights, Jason used to feel like mashing-up something. That’s what happen just now: he didn’t mean to push her, but he just trip-off. He didn’t mean it. He wish he could love his mother like when he was little, but she wasn’t making sense to him no more; he done outgrow everything she had to say ’bout everything—especially Selwyn.

  Jason start to feel tired and like he want to cry, but when he watch ’round, he done reach Pleasantview Junction. He slow down, pull out his rag, wipe his face and neck. His heart keep racing, though, and he feel it wouldn’t stop. But, across the road, Shaka was standing up outside Sneaker King.

  Jason breathe in deep then breathe out long and slow, like he strangling off his home-self. Then, he put on his school-self—the cock lip, confident one Shaka accustom with. They bounce knuckles and went inside the store. Jason wasn’t sure if was the cold air blasting when they push the door or the big wall with so much pretty sneakers, but he feel a cool calm coming over him. Or maybe the coldness was inside him?