We had been going for about half an hour when I hear a scream and there is this blur of a woman jumping into Claude’s arms. I recognized her as the little half-pint of a woman with the curvaceous body and her short little shorts. Beside her are two women equally curvaceous, dressed in pretty much the same way.
She had been away. Out in the country, had a baby . . . She was so sorry she couldn’t come before, but every Carnival she thought about the band.
“How is the band? Where the people?”
“The people,” Claude said, upping the tempo of his voice and sweeping a hand to include the few of us around him, “we are the people.”
He said it with an ironic pride that didn’t seem to register on her.
“Well, what you waiting on? Mud us up.”
He dipped into a bucket of mud and he plastered her body and he anointed her face and hands and he did the same to the two women who had come with her. At the end of the ceremony, the fellars on the du-dup start up again with a new energetic beat as when a new stickfighter enters the ring, whistles start to blow and the iron start to ring, with a fresh joyful, exalting rhythm. One woman, calm as a priestess, straightened her legs, pushed out her bottom, bend forward, her hands down, like she going to touch her ankles and she lift up from that position, looking back behind her delighting in the contour of the bottom attached to her body, and with that admiring look, as if to celebrate its presence, she stepped off into the Jouvay morning dance, the sight so appealing that women and men invite themselves into the band. Seeing Claude as custodian of the mud, they asked his permission, and this time he wasn’t reluctant, he was so accepting that he himself began to mud them up; and I figured it must have been at that moment that it hit him, the sense that we were the people we were waiting on.
It was an awesome feeling and frightening and grand and so simple. I suppose Claude noticed it, because he was embracing the people who had invited themselves into the band, mudding them up, as if he now knew who he was and where he was going and what he had to do.
When the mud was done, he held on to Arlene and she held him in consolation, her head on his chest, both hands around his waist. Orlando opened a bottle of rum and passed it around. I take a shot. Then I feel a hand round my waist and holding me is this woman who had come with the half-pint into the band. I hold on to this woman, lifted and sobered by the welcoming and saluting touch of her hand so that I put my arm around her and embraced her with a deserved and cherishing love, and we went down the street, slow, joyful, me and she and all of us, sailing on the town.
After Jouvay, we drive down to Macqueripe Bay and wash off the mud in the sea. At one of the roadside eating-places we had bake-and-shark. After that the lime mash up. Claude and Arlene went back to their place; the half-pint of a woman and her friends were going to play mas in Port of Spain later in the day so they couldn’t accept our invitation to come to Cascadu.
When I get back to Cascadu it was late. Night was beginning to fall and people were going home. I didn’t mind it, though; I had a good time and a tomorrow to look forward to.
Carnival Tuesday
Tuesday was the day of pretty mas, on the streets, all the big costumes of the imagination, all the grand themes
of life, the splendid limbs of youth, the celebration of spring, the affirmation of life, women and men in the finery of feathers, beads and skin, bands celebrating the events that had impressed our history: pirates, knights of the Crusades, nobles of the Elizabethan court, New Guinea totems, pilgrims, conquistadors. My aunt Magenta and Clephus were at the front of their Africa Band, with their pharaohs, their princesses with locksed hair, the pyramid they had ostensibly labored on, their masks, sacred birds, their musicians; Gypsies, Red Indians and Black Indians with their tepees embroidered with their history, China’s dynasties.
In the midst of all this pretty mas, I hear the pitch-oil tins beating the frenzied jab molassie beat and when I look I see coming through the crowd the fierce jab molassie band blackened with black grease, people getting out of their way, and behind them, another not discordant sound, the tassa drumming and the chutney music and the red flag in the air above the heads until at last they come into view for me to see Manick with his red flag waving, surrounding him, a band of barebacked men and gaudily dressed women dancing with delight and spirit, and Manick in the costume that I recognized as the one described by my aunt Magenta as the one made by his father, with mirrors and glitter and swan’s down, Manick himself dancing not so much with abandon, with care, with an exultant sobriety, turning this way and that so that we could see all sides of the offering of his costume. I stood and watched them pass, the flag bobbing like the mast of a ship that had lifted anchor and was making its way on the rhythm of the waves, out the harbor.
Up to that time I can’t talk, I can’t say nothing, I just drinking in everything that was happening, and then they call me on the stage. And in my mind I am repeating my mantra, trying to summon my voice from the darkness of silence:
I am King Kala, maker of confusion, recorder of gossip, destroyer of reputations, revealer of secrets. In the same skin, I am villain and hero, victim and victor.
I reduce the powerful by ridicule. I show them their absurdities by parody. I make their meanings meaningless and give meaning to meaning.
I am the protector of the people’s vexation, embalmer of their rage, Singer of their praises, Restorer of their Faith, I am a stickfighter come out to dead, I am a warrior come to bust people head. I assassinate the mighty with melody and arm the people with laughter.
And I see them all there, the big band of contraries and togetherness in this temple of soul, and I begin to feel my voice back in my throat. I could talk.
And what will I tell them? What will I sing? Because before me is the audience in the VIP stands, the politicians and business people, the lords of the land. And for a moment, the temptation is there: now is my chance to wine on them, now is my chance to crow. Now is my opportunity to let them know that I had seen the foolishness of their pride, the performance that is their importance. But I was better than that. I had traveled far to get here. With the melancholy of discovery, I am seeing past the costume of their skin and status to the people inside them, the people inside their heart, playing roles according to their script, everybody rehearsing for a play they playing in their heart but don’t yet have the heart to play. I look out on the monument of people:
“People,” I cry out . . . “People, are you ready to dance? Are you ready to get on bad? Are you ready to mash up the place?”
And I sing now about harbors we had found and harbors we must leave. Of the optimism we need not fear. Of the care we must take not to blight our adventure with cynicism, or devalue our experience with blindness. I sing for the band of hefty big-bottomed women holding on to the railing and wining, for the little jab molassie masqueraders beating tin pans and threatening for money, for the gathering that come into this grand cathedral of song and spirit to celebrate that self of themselves that they get a glimpse of on this occasion each year.
Ash Wednesday
Next day was Ash Wednesday. The campaign for the elections had the town busy, with people now in the costumes of their parties waving their flags and their emblems, trumpeting their logic and their passion for their version of the Promised Land. These programs went on, with calypso singers and chutney singers, with moko jumbies and Midnight Robbers and then they came to an end.
Victory at the Polls
Then, the elections. After the votes were counted, the New National Party had triumphed and the PM was PM once again. Up and down the islands car horns were tooting and supporters celebrating the victory. We watched it on TV. The next day was the swearing-in ceremony. That was what my aunt Magenta and Clephus wanted to see. I went with them to Port of Spain, to Woodford Square where the swearing-in ceremony was to take place. We were there from early morning, because Aunt Magenta insisted that she wanted to sit in a spot where the PM would see her, so he coul
d, if he wanted to, tell her something about Franklyn. We got her the spot. But, although she was right there when he waved at the crowd, I don’t think he saw her.
It was a good display with a stage for his swearing-in, and the bleachers used to seat the guests. It looked fine, the stage covered with a red carpet and cushions on the chairs for the dignitaries, the judges, the religious leaders, the champions of business and the political representatives of the people.
The Carnival characters were pressed into service. The moko jumbies, towering above everybody, seeing far ahead and seeing far behind, led the way, preceding the PM’s entrance into the park, and ahead of them the Paramin blue devils in a ritual clearing of the space, scaring evil spirits away, these spirits portrayed by the bat and the dragon and the jab-jabs and the imps. And then he came, escorted to the podium by king sailors with huge headpieces, the fancy Indians, burroquites and the monumental creation that looked like what Peter Minshall called Tan Tan and Saga Boy. This time, however, Saga Boy had a razor in his pocket and a knife in his shoe and Tan Tan wasn’t a tantie, she was a jamette with a long wig of yellow straightened hair and a voluptuous body. Music for the ceremony was provided by the National Steel Symphony Orchestra, its members in bow ties and dark suits, and the National Tassa band. The National Chutney Singers sang, the bele dancers danced and the President spoke. They didn’t have a calypsonian.
After the program was over and the PM sworn in, I saw the Carnival characters hanging around, the jab molassie and the devils and the dragon and the king sailors, walking aimlessly as if expecting that more would be made of them, like actors unhappy with their performance, sitting around remorsefully, wishing that they could be called back to act their roles again, so this time they would do them better. This time they would show them. This time they would mash up the place.
Lunch had been prepared for them, and they were given lunch boxes and they sat on the bleachers in the park and had the meal.
The Cruise Ships Leave
Two days later, the cruise ships began to leave the harbor and we all went down to the wharf to see the visitors off. It had a lot of speech-making and sad goodbyes. But we needn’t worry, the PM said. Be of good cheer. They had left behind plans that should we follow them would enable us to construct for ourselves a world as wonderful as the one they had built for themselves.
Later that month, I went with Claude to help Dorlene move from the rest house back to her home. Her powers had begun to wane, and although they weren’t exactly putting her out – if she wanted she could stay – she felt she might as well make a clean break of it and go back to her home, like Makak in Dream on Monkey Mountain.
Wedding
At home, my aunt Magenta had accepted Clephus wedding proposal and had already been measured for her bridal dress. For the wedding, church people came in to scrub out the house with lime and red lavender and whitehead broom, and to smoke it out with incense. And all around there was softness, the days cool, the sun bright. The couple didn’t want anything too fussy and too big and they wanted to do it and get it over with quickly. Even so, all our neighbors were there and although he wasn’t too sprightly, Manick father and Elsie. Clephus family had come in from Tobago with a wedding cake in the shape of a horseshoe, three good-sized lobsters and seven bottles of the aphrodisiac, pacro water. Aunt Magenta had Shouters people from churches all over the island, with drums and tambourines and bells. For the wedding, my aunt Magenta had chosen for her dress something African, with an elaborate head tie and yards of colorful cloth that would be drawn around her body so that you could see the richness of her skin and the heft of woman. Clephus hair was getting thin and the entire top of his head was getting bald. He shaved his head so that the whole was shiny and smooth but he left his sideburns which he had shaped out with a razor to resemble that of the Blackfella who had starred in the movie King Solomon’s Mines. He had an African outfit as well. I rented two tents from Manick and we set them up in the yard. All around there was a Sunday calm and softness.
At the wedding ceremony, the Shouter Baptist leader officiating called us all together and talked about love and enduring. Then it was time for speeches. Clephus spoke about what my aunt Magenta meant to him and my aunt Magenta talked about how much of a companion and support he had been to her since that Easter he passed and helped her catch the chicken. I wished them well, and everybody in Clephus family from Tobago wished them well, and I talked a little bit about the example the two of them had given of people cherishing each other, that I must say brought tears to both their eyes. We had lunch, curried goat, chicken, lobster from Tobago and pigeon peas and paratha and chataigne and bodi and corraili that Manick’s wife sister make, then a program at which Constable Aguillera sang in a slow, sentimental tempo “Lady” for them to stick the cake. Then, when the dancing started, he sang, by public request, what had become a hit song for that Carnival, his calypso “Don’t Take My Coverlet.”
And we drew closer to each other like family. Claude and his wife, Arlene, were there, deep in conversation, as two people who had just met and were getting to know each other. Claude didn’t talk to me about going away, and I didn’t ask him any question. Constable Stephen Aguillera and Ramona Fortune were talking earnestly to each other. During the course of the afternoon, he had been very attentive to her, getting her drink, bringing her cake; but now he sat beside her with a transcendent satisfaction, not trying to convince her to stay or anything, just exuding delight at their being together, she holding his hands in her own and stroking his fingers one by one with the gentleness of someone who wished it were otherwise, but now had to say goodbye.
I was thinking of Sweetie-Mary and Sonnyboy. Just after that Carnival, Sweetie-Mary had packed her things to leave Sonnyboy. I saw her at the grocery when I was buying drinks for the wedding.
“I can’t live the life he want to give me,” she told me. “You know what it is. He think he spiting the people for not recognizing him. But how could you be spiting people by letting them force you into becoming somebody who is not you?”
When next I went to their business place, she had not left yet, but there was a coldness between them, and her leaving was imminent. Sonnyboy was very hurt. He hardly wanted to talk.
He couldn’t understand why she would want to leave him at this time when the business was better and they were so much more comfortable. He spoke to me about their life, the things they had been through together, the future they could have. Somehow the conversation turned to the time when he volunteered to be arrested as a freedom fighter, and I reminded him of the movie in which his magnificient dying did not find favor with the director.
“Yes,” he said, tiredly, as if a new insight on life had been revealed to him, “King, it is just a movie.”
“Yes,” I said.
He had a rag in his hand and was wiping the counter. He looked up sharply, with a bit of surprise.
“But with you as the star.”
He looked at me, looked away, then looked at me again; but he didn’t say anything.
I was still looking out for them.
Afterward we stayed together in the yard, the old fellars in a tent with enough food and liquor to keep us happy. Inside, the young people were dancing. Outside it had grown darker and still, with overhanging clouds giving off a heat that had you feeling the need for hurry, all of us talking, everybody telling their story of these last years, of who did what, of how things made them feel.
In the middle of the remembering, we hear a roaring.
“Rain,” I said. “The weather change.” And everybody looked to the sky.
“Look,” Claude said. “Look! They going,” pointing at the clouds. “They going.”
“What?”
“You blind? Look them there: the jab molassie, bat, robber, jab-jab, babydoll, pan man, dragon, moko jumbie.”
All I saw were drifting clouds.
“Yes,” I said, pretending to see what he was pointing at.
I could feel t
he wind blowing. Then the rain that had drizzled a bit on Carnival Tuesday started falling in earnest. Most of the company went inside the main house where people were dancing; Manick wife wanted to dance and he and she followed them but I sit down in the tent, hitting the grog and going over in my mind the stories that each one of us had to tell, thinking how I might put them into calypso.
After a while the place begin to grow lighter and the music from the house and the chatter from the dancing people to sound louder and more inviting. With a few drinks under my belt, I was charged up now, ready for dancing. I stood up to go inside to join them. When I look outside was to see Sweetie-Mary holding Sonnyboy by the hand, coming in from the rain that was easing up now, with a new music that when it stopped would leave a clearer sky.
Acknowledgments
In salute of steelbandsmen Neville Jules, Boogsie Sharpe, and my friend Nestor Sullivan; calypsonians Slinger Francisco (The Mighty Sparrow), Leroy Calliste (Black Stalin), Winston Bailey (Shadow), Emrold Phillip (Valentino) and David Rudder; writers Keith Smith and Jennifer Rahim; masman Peter Minshall; my artist friends Jim Armstrong and Eddie Hernandez; George Baboolal from the Valencia days; Hollis Pierre and the Matura villagers; Baas, Aji and the Rio Claro crew; and all who provided inspiration and support for this book.
Is Just a Movie Page 29