This is the road where wild men and wild dogs does roam. None of them with no home. Panting. Ranting. With guns and blunts at the hips. With unsheathed phalluses and froth at their lips. This is the road where rum does drink and dice does roll. Where man does get chop and burn up for cards they hold. This road where police does gun down youth. And they he-was-a-good-boy avenging family does follow suit. Where they lawlessness does read on Trinidad nightly news. This infamous road where my teachers does say you must never go. This place I am living at nine years old. This road of seven or so church and about five auto repair garage. All of them bussing price fuh people when they charge. Though they never fix nobody underbelly or soul. This road where one of those kinda mechanic shops can grow and thrive. A tented un-repair place little girls does disappear into and army men and hounds don’t find them alive. All of which I have to pass by on my way to the store. Because mummy sending me to collect a tin of peas she somehow didn’t get in the grocery just the day before.
This road I hate to my core.
Blue rubber slippers slap my heel. My soft toes clench the thin thongs that keep the slippers from sliding off my feet. My ankles strain against the terrain of one-inch rubber with no incline, no arch, no lift. A white plastic bag rustles alongside my right thigh, squeezing out between my balled-up fists.
I don’t want to do this.
Past Baptist Hill and Covigne Road axis point. I turn right at the joint. Skip my fingers along Mt. St. Rose imposing iron gate guarding the singing holy flock from that outside carousing throng and those intoxicated reprobates. I hop the puddles pooling the pockmarked asphalt astride the dripping standpipe. And hold my nose as I walk by the barrels on the other side full of garbage bags we does all pelt in at night.
This don’t feel right.
Something just off today, my belly keep clenching to relay. Go back up the road. It want me to obey. But mummy say…
I band my shoulders tight. The vertebrae ache from giving them no respite to be supple flesh. My spine is a rod the lasering sun cannot melt. Not yet. Neck in a stay-strong-be-alert brace. My eyes dart left to right as ahead I face the stripped car parts cave. This car parts cave of wrought iron stalactite teeth. This car parts cave backed by a river and trees. This car parts cave into which more than one girl has been dragged and never again seen. Unfound by police. I can feel concealed men’s loud stares spear out from its depth. And cannot breathe.
How to ease around the shadowed curve of this mechanic shop’s tents that I never see doing any repairs. Now that I’m here. Here, where I am roped to the kerb, unable to extend my leash into the middle of the street knowing dollar car drivers don’t slow in approaching blind corners. And most of their scrap metal assemblages don’t have horns either, and some again don’t even boast a loud muffler.
I don my invisibility cloak. I put on a dropped head that don’t know what does go on in that place where the lights come on at night. And roll my arm sockets to the front like Ms. Turpin instructs in P.E. when she teaching us how to stretch our body. My upper arms now conceal my chest. But I still let my arms hang, not fold. Can’t look vex. Next, it’s a must to restrain any swing my thick thighs bring to my hips. And I don’t let my eyes slip out past their blinders like those resentfully worn by Black Beauty and Ginger. I am not interesting. Might be a little slow. I have nothing appealing. Leave me alone.
From this point, I will not exhale deeply again till I reach back home. I am now in the thick of Covigne Road.
Still walking, the next trial I am face-forward ignoring is Tanty Carol husband sister family sitting in they upstairs and downstairs gallery, rubbernecking. Collecting the news. A pack of hyenas beady-eyeing everything happening. Never moved to action, always amused.
I can’t subtly become bow-legged here where they’ll stare and point and snicker. And, though using my fingers to pull my short pants that riding up back down would be quicker, any conspicuous attention drawn to my crotch would be red meat, a red flag to the glazed eyes of the men that watch.
And this is where my father choose to live. And why yuh doh wear yuh cute little Carnival suit is the consolation my mother choose to give for making me go in the parlour to buy the pigeon peas we somehow didn’t get just yesterday in the grocery. The peas that she say she need to hurry up and make something for hungry daddy to eat, so she don’t get beat when his Western finish playing on TV.
Breathe.
Aye, smallie. Pssssssst. Eh, darkie, come leh meh ask yuh a question, nah. Aye, gyul, waz yuh name. Yuh fraid? Doh frighten. Ah jus want tuh talk tuh yuh. Come, nah. She nice an tick, eh. Look at she backside nah. Ah want tuh beat it out. Sexy smallie, look over here, nah gyul. Ah ha something tuh gi yuh.
They laugh. I keep trooping past. Eyes and arms at attention. Don’t blink back the heat in your eyes too fast. Hold on to the sweating plastic bag. Don’t hear them, Camille. No shallow inhalation. Don’t swallow again. Don’t gasp.
Yuh feel yuh too high and mighty awah. Aye, bitch, yuh eh hear meh calling yuh. Come here, gyul. Yuh lil cunt. Is a big man like me yuh need tuh give yuh wah yuh looking for, yuh know. Darkie, doh study dem fellas, eh, I have wah yuh want. Right here…
A brown blur rushes out the corner of my line of sight. I am a marching Buckingham Palace guard unseeing, unhearing, unprovoked. Without fright. Out of frame of my fixed gaze, a brown haze bounds back close to me. The very edge of my field of vision is trained, inconspicuously, on the men lining the left-hand side of the road. They mustn’t see me look.
Any interest will goad these men to take up the invitation of a nine-year-old whose eyes happen to fall on them. And I am alone. And the one or two simpering young women liming with those fellas won’t be any help. And the men will book it from their perch on overturned beer cases and garbage bins, and cricket wickets and elevated rusting car rims. To come touch.
I have to keep my eye on them and make sure they too drunk and high to do more than watch. And I can’t let all these people out the road see how much those nasty words getting to me. I can’t be soft. Because they’ll increase if they know, if I show, if they see they have any power over me.
Xylophone ribs brush my thigh. And the brown smudge at the right, out of my peripheral sight, is now beside my knee.
A snarl reverberates. A growl from deep in the throat. Loud. Long breaths pant. Bristles scrape my calf. Something wet, pointy, sharp begins to puncture the side and back of my knee. Aaaaahhhh! No! Noooooo! I leap forward to run. Soft arms wrap around me. Jutting breasts stop my progress.
Hahahaha. Wham tuh she. Wuh it is happen dey. De dog just playing wid yuh. Doh frighten. Look she scared, yes. It good fuh she. Big gyul like you fraid a dog. Watch, he gone up he road. He gone. De ting more scared a you. Allyuh too damn sometimeish. Humble yuhself. Lil bite it gih she. Yuh eh hear how she bawl. Ha ha.
Breathe, dahlin. Look you drop yuh money. Here, yuh have a pocket? Watch me good, yuh know who I am? Yes, Ms. Sybil. My grandmother brother wife tells me to breathe again. Cushions me in the cradle of her pillowy arms. Hugs me to her vast bosom. She waits until my heartbeat slows. Matches the rate at which hers goes. Peers into my face till my wild eyes focus and can see distinct shapes properly.
Ms. Sybil trains her gaze on my face till my bright white vision can muster recognition. Until I am capable of communication with her who lives in the house beneath my father’s on the hill. Of course, I know her. But my body is trembling still. My lungs wheeze, puffing air through rattling teeth. And my brain is going on hold every time that brown fur tries again to come close to just me.
I am trying to make Ms. Sybil let go so I can run. She doesn’t. And the insane dog not done. Again, it barks. Again, it comes. I back back, spin, shift, and hold on to Ms. Sybil’s dress. Brown fur stands on end. Charges at me. Its sharp yellow canines drip spit. Ms. Sybil pivots, shouts mash dog, and blocks it. The dog does not want to play. That dog not going away.
Not much taller than me, Ms. Sybil leans my head on her shoulder. Where yuh reaching? By Spikes? Yes, just there, I tell her. And she turns our feet to head back down the street from the frenzied rotations I’d spun in my attempt to run. Yuh mammy mustn’t send yuh to make message so young. She should wait till you older. Too much tings happening out dis road, chile. It not like it use tuh be. Ms. Sybil keeps her arm round me. And I do not hear the men lining the road that talk. I do not focus on the men lining on the road who gawk.
And my hiccupping gasps ease. Ever so slightly. As Ms. Sybil loud, nasal voice soothes my ears with her dahlin and sugah and hugs and head touches to her auburn-dyed hair. And her gold bracelets and gold rings’ chime relax my spine. And the sliver of gold in her smile charms me every time it sparks in the sunlight. Suffused in orange and gold warmth, hair, and skin, Ms. Sybil walks me within a safe distance of Spikes shop, stops, and lets me go in.
I am barely taller than the 3ft wide counter I am standing behind waiting in the non-line as bareback men laugh with Spikes, throwing back small glasses of amber rum in chalky mouths, and ordering beer chasers, loose cigarettes, and other items transferred with closed fists I know nothing about. Till I back away to the left of the tall crowd to stand in front the glass door fridge holding cheddar cheese, pennacool, ice-cream, and sweet drink. Spikes’ nine-inch tv blares a football game and I cannot think.
The stink of spirits and unwashed armpits choke me in Spikes’ boxy shop. Shelves of dry goods stack up behind the portly man with eyes that never rise above my neck, above the sleepy half-mast at which they’re kept by weed. His loud blue paint, dark ceiling, centrefold magazine spreads, and faded Christmas decorations peeling off the wall close in on me. I am the lone girl in the parlour on a day decent people does be in their house or in church or on a family drive. It’s not the time nor the day of guaranteed wives making small grocery instead of going all the way down the main road to that older supermarket or to Kelly’s.
And the leers and the jeers, and the aye sexy-smallie blares, and men’s inching closer with smirking lips and outstretching fingers to me; and Spikes not studying I asking for a tin of pigeon peas behind him please; and the bad dog waiting up the street; and mummy sending me down the road so she don’t get beat; and my father stretch out on the couch tick-tock hangry all bring down my pee. Past what my bladder can hold. Past what my trembling body can any further control. Past what my pride and intelligence can fold within me.
Fear drips down past my mother’s cute little Carnival suit pants, courses over my nearly-pierced knee, onto the blue rubber slippers. Making a small pool at my feet.
Standing in the puddle of my pee, I just want to flee. If Spikes can’t hear me, he’ll see this green. The five-dollar bill and the red singles land amidst my interjected demand. Just this and a tin of pigeon peas, please. The peas and the three ice-lollies I picked out the freezer for my sisters and me. A twenty-five cents each distraction treat. These lollies I’ve taken out the fridge go in the plastic bag. The peas finally reach my hand. And coin change I leave behind.
Urgency that should have been heeded before there was no more time finally grants me mummy’s needed peas. I step out the gloom back into the sun-drenched street. Please don’t let them be able to see.
My cute little Carnival suit of burnt orange and brown could keep down suspicion. Can’t it? Can suppress wagging tongues and realisation. Won’t it? Squeeze my thighs. Keep the wet portion inside. Bend my head. And hide. Don’t survey the hungry wolves on either side.
I am a child. If nothing else, wetting yuhself will remind. Don’t pay attention to me. Nothing to see. Nor laugh at. Splat. The next drop lands on my hand holding the bag above my waist so it drapes over the sodden pants. Two more end their descent on my clenched fingers. And the sun lances my crooked neck.
Let these people, these high people, these drunk people, these stoned, boned, unhomed people; these snorting, guffawing, rough people; these falling down, dirty in the drain, tough people; these cloned people, these smelly, rum belly, crusty, dusty, corn foot people; these have no house, knock about, slack mouth people; these no education, no direction, aimless, nameless people I will leave and if ever I return to visit Covigne will still be here people; these on the road, never up to no good, rising to nothingness people; let these ignorant people who fraid a book, who hold me in contempt for my ability to read, not catch a look. Let them not see.
A hand lands on me. Soft, staunch, smushy. A hand of age, unhard. A hand old enough to have learnt to talk where words can’t. The hand speaks calm to my lower back. The hand articulates comfort to my waist. The hand whispers, brace. And I do.
Ms. Sybil’s hand guides me and the left-behind money and the tin of high sodium dressed in green and the cute little Carnival suit in which mummy wanted me to preen to go down the road to save her from he who she choose to marry, and with whom in marriage she chooses to tarry, up this road where mummy and daddy choose to live.
Ms. Sybil’s hand guides me past Ms. Okee selling gas tanks and flour across the concrete and woodlice bridge. Past sexy-Wendy who not selling pholourie because is Sunday. Past the upstairs and downstairs gallery full of my aunt husband family ready to bray. Past that mechanics garage where girls remain unfound to this day. Past the Baptist church where I hear loud grampa shoeless on the altar saying yes beloved, starting to pray. The Baptist church where my father family worshipping behind the high red gate. Up the hill. To my father’s house. Where mummy still waiting on me. To deliver her something for my father to eat. So she don’t get beat.
No, dahlin? Ahright, daz okay. I have just shaken my head at the sight of the gallery gate and front door. I don’t walk to walk through there where daddy will be stretch out on the whole couch to watch TV. Where daddy will be taking een his Westerns and his kung fu movies. And will see me. And will bark wham Uricka, calling me by my hated middle name derived from his, stating his claim. And will snap at me when my wet rubber slippers squeak over the carpet and I won’t resist keeping my head bent and I don’t explain why big gyul like you embarrass the family name. No more. No added shame.
Ms. Sybil walks with me, her hand still shoring up my waist and my back that shakes and my spine that wants to cave in on itself. Walks with me around my father’s house to the side door instead. To the white half doors atop the rough-hewn concrete steps that will let us into the washing room. The little jail cell size rectangle off the kitchen holding the washing machine, the jukking sink, the cupboard, the beer cases, the buckets, the singing mop, and the hairy broom.
Cyatreen, good day, good day. Ms. Sybil calls into the curtain hanging down to the bottom half door. The top half of the door remains open from wake to nightfall. This is the door Ms. Sybil sends her little grands to ask for sugar, some ice, or salt.
Today, Ms. Sybil asks for nothing more than for mummy to come. Cyatreen, look dis chile here. Somn happen out de road. Ah had was tuh kerry she home. She wants mummy to come tuh explain yuh how it nuh good tuh send de chile out dere by she self, nuh. Doh mind she was lucky Ah was dey. She calls to mummy to come to tell her everything that went on. To come from the kitchen where she supposed to be cooking the food that not done. The Sunday lunch daddy belly tumbling waiting on as his eyes eat their fill of white cowboys glorying in scalping their ‘wild Indian’ kill.
But mummy doesn’t arrive from the kitchen’s right side. That hand at my waist that matched my stride through tight-throat grief, while my eyes leaked and my wet slippers squeaked, has given my neck relief from its bow. I unlock the bottom door, stand on the threshold, able to begin to lift my eyes a centimetre now.
Ms. Sybil didn’t let them clown. Not when we passed Wendy shop. Everybody liming ask if she going up the road. And Ms. Sybil tsked and said yes. Ah taking de chile home. And Wendy reply was to me. Gently. Okay, iz alright, yuh hear luv, doh study nuttin. Iz alright. And I didn’t have to face my plight alone.
Now Ms. Sybil’s tone—that caring, fretting, back-patting, there-there-alright note—in her bright orange and gold voice allows me to recess the noise of blood rushing through my ears.
And I hear it when Ms. Sybil calls again.
Metallic forks clatter against glass plates. Muted thuds sound from wares landing on wood over which cloth is draped. Ericka and Sherrie giggle between slurps and a story of their dollies they relate. Daddy smacks. A wooden chair scrapes over ceramic tiles.
Mummy appears through the kitchen door from the left-hand side. Her long pinkie fingernail picks a morsel of rice from between her incisors.
She smiles.
—Camille U. Adams (The Forge Literary Magazine)