Authors: Kerry Young
And then I think to myself sure enough Sun Tzu right ’bout all these things, but maybe life not just a matter of strategy. Maybe it about something more than that, or something different anyway; something different from just ducking and weaving and manoeuvring; something that got more to do with what Zhang say ’bout benevolence and sincerity, humanity and courage.
And then I think ’bout the time I had with Gloria when Hampton and Ethyl go up to Oracabessa. And when I was listening to Zhang and Ma talking into all hours of the night. And all the time I have with Michael. And I start think that maybe there is something an individual can do that make a difference.
I ring Louis DeFreitas and ask him to come meet me at the fried-fish and bammy shack over Port Royal that Michael love so much. It is a place of peace to me, a place of calm beauty, and reasonableness. It is a place where men can talk from their hearts and not have to strike a pose or take a position.
When Louis come over there he look relieved to be catching a bit of cool breeze instead of being trapped in the still heat of West Kingston like he is used to. His face look pale and puffy. And he got his thinning hair slick back. Maybe he even look a little like he stooping. Not straight and upright like he was in the old days. And he been losing weight as well.
I say, ‘I want to thank you for coming.’ Him just look at me and nod his head. The waitress put down the food in front of us and rush back inside to the air conditioning.
‘I have a little problem, Louis, and I think you can help me with it.’
DeFreitas look at me, but him still no say nothing. He just fix on the fish and start to eat.
‘We did a lot of things and we said a lot of things in our youth. And I don’t know ’bout you, but there was some of them I wish I hadn’t done. I wish I had thought better of. But look at us now, we old men you and me.’
DeFreitas look at me for the first time like maybe he just start listen to me.
‘I got no fight with you, Louis. You use Samuels to sell your guns in my neighbourhood and I didn’t say nothing. I give you back the guns and I even give you Samuels.’
‘And you get to keep Chinatown in a fair exchange.’
‘Yes. I get to keep Chinatown and I not grumbling ’bout that.’
DeFreitas ease back.
‘Then what happen to Samuels happen to him. And I didn’t say nothing. I didn’t say nothing even after you send Mrs Samuels to me to look out for. Even though you and I both know that was really your responsibility what with Samuels being your man at the time.’
DeFreitas start pay attention to me now like him wondering where I am going with all of this. Him back stiffen a little and he grab on to the walking stick with the silver fox head for some sorta comfort even though him still sitting down. And right then I see that him done cut off the long fingernail on his little finger.
‘That whole thing with Samuels cause me a lot of trouble with my wife and her leaving me and such. But I not blaming you for that. That was my own stupid fault. Just like it was a stupid thing for me to go hire up Kenneth Wong. Hampton warn me against it and I didn’t pay him no mind. But then that is one of the things I do in my youth that I regret. Not that anything can be done about that now. But Kenneth getting killed really turn Fay against me and that is when she decide to run off to England with my children. And I can’t tell you how that grieve me.’
DeFreitas start to look at me like maybe he understand what I talking ’bout. Like maybe he got some regrets of his own.
‘And even though I know this whole thing with Kenneth had something to do with you, I didn’t say nothing. Well now I got a problem with a situation involving my son-in-law. Your nephew, Anthony, giving him hell down the dock. My son-in-law can’t get nothing done because Anthony got the usual little gang thing going on down there. I don’t know if he working for you or if it just a freelance thing, but then a while ago somebody go threaten my son-in-law with a knife and now him ’fraid for his life.’
I stop and I look at DeFreitas. He look at me like maybe there is something ’bout this that he care about.
‘I know you a father and grandfather yourself, Louis. Me, I only got the one grandchild, and I would like to see her grow up with a father as well as a mother.’ I take a pause. ‘I never ask you for nothing before. In fact I never ask nobody for nothing my whole life, but I asking you this. Get Anthony off the dock. Get him go take his gang and run his scam somewhere else. And get him leave my son-in-law in peace and good health. Do me this one favour.’
DeFreitas don’t say nothing. He just rest up the walking stick and carry on eating his food.
Then him say, ‘You right. This fish and bammy really good.’ And then him pause and I just wait. ‘I will talk to Tony for you, but I not making yu no promise, yu understand.’
41
After Edward Seaga get elected in 1980 things get better, but his government couldn’t grow the economy enough for people’s liking so by 1989 Michael Manley was back in power. But him older now, more circumspect, and I think the fire had gone.
Then I start to think that maybe it wasn’t just from Manley that the fire had gone. It was gone outta me as well. And maybe it was gone outta Jamaica. It was almost like the whole island move into a different phase of life. We live through our turbulent youth and come out the other side. And that other side was a place of acceptance. Not a place of contentment, it didn’t feel as happy or as comfortable as that. Maybe it was a place of resignation. We become resigned to how things was, and we just decide to try do our best with that.
It wasn’t a bad place to be. We had a kinda truce now that put a stop to the violence, and encourage back the foreign investors and the tourists. There was less talk of Africa and the Rasta revolution, less prophesising ’bout how Babylon was going to fall. Some said that instead of hope there was surrender. Me I just think that maybe we miss our chance, and I remember how many times Zhang say to me that people were against communism because they pronounce the word wrong, that if they pronounce it right they would feel better about it. He would say, ‘Emphasis not at beginning like comm-unism. Emphasis in middle, commune-ism.’
And even though we still struggling to sort ourselves out after the English come here three hundred years ago and set everything up so careful and tidy – Africans on the bottom, the Indians, the Chinese, English on top – I think we doing OK. But I wonder to myself how many other countries there are like Jamaica? How many other countries been through what we been through? How many of them still going through it like us? All because some long time back somebody decide to pick themselves up and sail halfway ’round the world to come colonise us. And it not just about the English and the slaves. It about the Americans and the money.
So one Sunday I go take a drive to see Michael and I stop off at Holy Trinity on the way. I park the car under the shade of a mango tree and go inside. The church practically empty. It surprise me. Every other time I been there the place was busting at the seams, all the pews packed and a whole heap of people standing, some of them all cram together at the back. The sun shining down on the altar, and hanging on the wall behind it a life-size carving of Christ on the cross and, above that, a stain-glass window of the same thing in blue and red and yellow.
But this Sunday there was just a few young people getting them First Communion, in a heavy heat because the ceiling fans wasn’t doing a thing to help. So people was sitting there fanning themselves and listening to the priest tell the young people that now they received the body of Christ, Christ was inside them and they should behave like Christ. That people interpret everything from within the worldview they have, and therefore they cannot understand another perspective unless they suspend their own past experience and what they think they know, and seek to understand what they see. And that Christ would help them to do that, like a uncle or godfather.
Afterwards, when I see Michael, I give him the envelope I bring for him. He take it and look at me and say, ‘What is this?’
‘That is the arrangements for my funeral.’
‘Your funeral!’
‘I reckon it time I sort a few things out. I not going live for ever.’
When he go to open it I stop him. ‘There will be plenty of time for that when it happen. You can let the glue rest till then.’
Him look at me sorta quizzical so I say, ‘I feel like I come to a new place what with Zhang and Ma and Henry and Cicely gone. And then a while back I had to go ask a man for a favour. A man that I distrusted my whole life. And I discover that maybe my life don’t have to be all ducking and weaving and manoeuvring. Maybe I could afford to take my foot off the gas, especially after I get a fright about how all of this could end, and manage to make it through OK. So I think it time for me to count my blessings and stop reaching after something that maybe was nothing more than a idea I had about myself. Maybe it time I just be who I am and settle for something that is real.’ And then I laugh and say, ‘That is till the time when the Almighty make up his mind to come for me.’
Michael just sit there and look at me kindly like him taking confession. And then I say, ‘I get a letter from Mui. She going come home. She done with all the excitement of them big important cases that keeping her busy this last little while and she say it time she come home and make herself useful. After all these years, eh? Anyway, I thought you would want to know if she not already tell you herself, that is.’
And right then I think to myself I glad I keep the knife and little notebook for her. Maybe when she come home she can decide what she want to do ’bout Helena Meacham.
42
Sun Tzu say, ‘
Of the five elements, none is always predominant; of the four seasons, none lasts for ever; of the days, some are long and some are short; and the moon waxes and wanes
.’
Gloria decide she going have a party for the baby. It nuh make no sense to me but she say, ‘So what, we can’t have a party to celebrate our granddaughter’s birthday?’ And I just agree to go along with it even though I can’t see how a little thing like that going know the party for her, and we going have all these grown people just standing ’round the place with a piece of cake and bowl of ice cream in their hand. But that is what Gloria want. And maybe I feel like I have something to celebrate as well because since Miss Cicely go leave us the supermarkets and wholesalers and such, and since we get the vacation and cosmetics business on a right footing, we legal now. We completely legitimate. No more driving chickens and cigarettes ’round town. In fact I can’t even remember the last time I go over the Blue Lagoon.
We have the party up in the house in Ocho Rios and in truth I don’t think Gloria is celebrating the baby at all. I think she celebrating a new life. A new life for me and her. Maybe the life we should have had all along.
Everybody come up to the coast. Finley and his wife, Hampton and Ethyl, Clifton, Merleen Chin and John Morrison, George and Margaret, Milton, Marcia and the two other girls from Gloria’s East Kingston house. Even Margy Lopez show up with some woman we none of us ever see before. And then we have the guests of honour, Esther, Rajinder and baby Sunita. It was family.
I stand on the veranda and look out at the calm, blue Caribbean and I think how glad I was that I manage to sort out that wharf thing with DeFreitas and how only last week I tell Gloria ’bout the arrangements I make for her and Esther if anything should happen to me, and she just laugh and slap me on the arm and say, ‘What going happen to you?’
And then I realise that I wouldn’t complain if I happen to drop down dead right there. I start picture the whole thing, how they take me to the hospital and start go through my pockets. A pocket-knife with two blades and a bottle opener, a cigar packet with three Flor de Farach Farachitos, two wads of notes – Jamaican dollars and US dollars – some wooden toothpicks in a silver container, and a black leather photo wallet with the figure of a crane under a pine tree engrave on it, and inside a photograph of Mui in her barrister wig and gown and opposite it one of me sitting down holding baby Mui, and Xiuquan standing next to the chair.
I think about my life and how hard I tried to find something to believe in. Something that would mean something to me, like how Zhang had his stories of China and the masses throwing out the foreigners and making a life of their own. Like how Mr Manley say, Jamaicans had to make an identity, and dignity and destiny for ourselves. But it wasn’t the same for everybody. Like Gloria was always telling me, not everybody had their sights set on building a nation. Some people just wanted to put food on the table. And I suppose that was me as well because even though I talk Zhang’s high ideals I was still busy just making money and fixing any problem that anybody wanted to bring to me. I try hard to believe that out of many we could be one people, but when the shooting start I couldn’t make up my mind to go get myself killed over it. Not like my father did in China.
But like Zhang was always telling me, everything got consequences. Everything you do or don’t do is connected to everything else. So any time you do something you making another thing that will be waiting for you ’round the corner. And then I start wonder if Michael is right ’bout God and all of that, and how the Almighty is fixing to punish me for all the things I done.