Chapter 1 “Why yuh deh yah?”, “didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh?”
“Why yuh deh yah?”, “didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh?” The rotten lie sprang from her new dentures like brownish-green shit from newly raped butt-hole. As shit strutted from her grasshopper ass-looking mouth, the place jumped into a blade of grass silence or, maybe, it was as noisy as thirsty dried brown leaves shivering in a cold night breeze, I can’t say for sure but, something extreme or mild had happened to the audio. I could not hear anything, or maybe the opposite was true, and I could hear everything, either way, I decided to look.
I looked at her face that was as beautiful as a half-white new moon swimming like a goddess in the ancient black river, an ugly expression rippled the moon’s image, it swam like Caribbean born crocodiles in the belly of the opaque water, I thought it was anger, but the more the expression rose to the river’s surface like dead bodies to breathe fresh air, the more obvious its identity became, it was jealousy hiding in plain sight, it’s possible I not seeing the emotion right, maybe I was seeing her wrong, I doubt I saw beauty correctly.
Perhaps beauty looked natural, and she was not beautiful and was more like a plastic rose, just decoration. Her face would be oval if it was not for her pointy chin, which was buried in brownish dust like old coffins, her eyelashes were long, black and fake like most funeral dresses, the only sign of life her face gave, the only beauty her face possessed was the expression that tugged on her face when I had entered the salon, and she said in swine fart tone “why yuh deh yah?”, “didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh?” Perhaps the expression was admiration and not jealousy; perhaps, they are the same things; or completely different things.
My almost invisible ears’ attention, visibly wandered downward to her black tights that sounded like panty rubbing on pubic hair. I could hear her big butt stretching the tights material like a hand pulling back a stone in a bingy (catapult), the sound of the transparent pattern on her tights licking her legs and stopping just before her voluptuous pussy excited my ears, it sounded like dancehall music in a Go-Go club (brothel). I am lying, and the truth is I don’t wish to dance away from the truth intentionally or otherwise. Her black tights with a transparent pattern that revealed enough of her legs to sway a pious man to lust were as silent as a middle finger, somehow it was loud but inaudible. What was embarrassingly audible to me was the proud repressed pervert that trek freely in shackles in the shadows of my unconscious mind.
My caged demon felt like a thirsty boy, or perhaps a hungry girl, but I am hoping that it’s a starving male child because I have always felt it slithering out the shadows like a famished thief in into the scorching chill of the dark moonlight, seeking an opportunity to feast whenever a delicious female is present, it would be mentally awkward if it’s a girl but I would not be surprised, there are occasions when an attractive male’s presence summoned it like a magnet would a sowing needle and that’s when its shackles get tightened even more. But I could be wrong and it is not boy nor girl but beast or god from a primitive time.
An adult with a child-like voice growled a delightfully frightening whisper that instantly turned me off yet in the same instance my dick was scrumptiously rock hard stiff and might have tasted sweet and sour like a tambourine fruit, I could feel my swollen balls shriveled like a Seville orange, proof of the flavorful yet distasteful serene inner conflict happening on the outside of dialog or maybe it was present inside an absent monologue, I can’t be certain how to label such a discourse, but what I have no doubt about maybe is that like an unfed coward warrior god like beast the proud yet shameful howl whisper sprung from out the shadows “ Rick, Rick mi genna, yuh fi bring to light, yuh repressed desire fi have the guilty pleasure of having your dark amphibious eight inch penis ‘breed’ in the stream that settled between har inviting legs that are as ravishing as when the shimmering sun swims in the Nile” I ignore the inner chatter to embrace and mumble out sweetly, a bitter-ish rebut to Kay “ a yah suh we did agree fi do it”
“this wi agreed to?” she asked sarcastically while her under-washed hands that were as black as pimento seeds, were over a man’s bowing head like a white-sand royal palm tree’s mid-day shade. The ugly-ish tropical beautician’s oily fingertips thrust then melted into his dry wooly hair like shea butter or maybe it was curly wet hair that fondles her dry fingers like Jergens lotion. I am never sure about things like this but what I am sure about is that she was attending to another buddy while we swap spit. “if it can be like when mi plan it then it can happen yah suh” her lip-gloss lips kissed loudly and vilely like the devil screaming on second thought it was not her lips, it was her goddess-like tongue that tied the words together like a conjunction while my eyes were fixed on the foggy mirror that had been broken into a rectangle that displayed a perfect shape, her butt. “but” I stuttered while the phallic blow dryer spoke fluently to 231 pound black swine colored middle age young granny’s head back that was weighing down the black lazy boy that sat like a midget adult, standing near the whaling wash sink, that was being tended by kay’s grape colored assistant that was flawlessly sweet in every way except in her repugnant conversations. “ one barefoot boi approach me outside, him look alright but me no want no bare foot man, him car luk nice still, him did drive one a di new Honda dem, but mi no think a fi him, him did a beg mi buy him lunch, mi gi him mi number still” Kay assistant said, in a Delilah-ish tone to which Kay said” eeh, yuh gi him yuh numba, a cuda not even fi him car” this conversation took place the previous time I was at the salon, the time we agreed that we could do it there.
Sub Chapter“why yuh deh yah?”, “ didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh? Inverse”
Kay’s assistant must have been a horrible good clone of her, they even had similar-sounding names, her assistant name ways Cay, they both had baboon size butt cheeks, they could easily be mistaken for twin butt cheeks, and the only crack of a difference between them was their age. Kay was old but you could not tell by looking at her flaws in her pristine face, her wrinkled hand-back that felt smooth on my craggy rock-like skin, and her over fondled breast that slept lifeless below her midget neck like a dead ginger-colored cat cuddling in a sports bra revealed her age.
Cay wore make-up but had no need for make-up, her dark brown eyes had no bags, no pockets of wrinkles, nothing to carry old age to her admires mind. Cay’s breast was high and firm like a horizontal mountain. Kay had the scent of hill dust just before it rains. She smelled like morning dew on mowed green grass, she was nature fresh and must have only tasted one or two non-impactful raindrops, the storm of time has yet to showered on her, she was drowning in youth and swimming in beauty, like a present-day snow white in her prime.
Kay was not an ugly duckling but somehow with time, she became a ravishing swan. Her beauty got better with age, like roots wine, and most spirits. The older she gets, the better she looked. I don’t think she saw it that way, I could sense a bit of envy, the kind snow-white stepmother had. “yuh assistant body luk nice, yuh can mek mi know har?” I whispered in her tiny ears, to provoke her “ yuh nah come mash up this” was the response she spat at me like a dead body releasing its soul to the dirt or the heavens. I could smell her envy inhaling its first breath. It now has life, and like a babe crawled over her face, some might say it’s not envy, but rather insecurity, I would say both accounts are true. I was amused to see her clench her teeth and sway her hips which I interpreted as her displaying to me that she was angry and attractive.
Kay’s assistant look terrifyingly beautiful but in comparison to kay she looked dull albeit she had the color of youth, Kay had real beauty, Kay had a soul that spewed tantalizingly on her on healthy cocoa-colored skin like repulsive sores. Cay and Kay looked so much alike but were undeniably different in age and spirit.
In dull C- Sharp, Kay slutty virgin tongue moaned lively “ yes rick we can do it yah suh” which sounded like pornhub background music to my perverted hearing, perhaps I was not hearing properly, and it was not like boning music and it was more or less the sound of a zinc roof being trampled. She was never a musical being, more of a noisy actress.
Her tone-deaf goat skin-colored hands haphazardly rammed slimy shampoo that I imagined tasted like a swine’s cunt, in an espionage-looking client’s donkey tail like hair that seemed to smell like dry cowshit. Her manure-looking hands maneuvered in her client’s shitty hair confidently yet nervously like a mongoose playing Peter Tosh’s guitar. Then something off-key waltz its self into existence, something out of harmony with the instruments in play. I might be wrong, and it was not random it might have been in total synchrony with the tune Kay was dancing to. A sane man in his late 40s or early 50s whose hair seemed to have taken a brutal beating from a sharp Gillette razor that was only merciful to his eyebrows, he smelled like aftershave, “Mr. Boldy” had a light-ish dark complexion and a nose shaped like an energy-saving light bulb. He acted as if he had a mental power cut; he was behaving absurdly like a lifesaving murderous pervert saint. He took a knife out his pocket half the size of my erected penis and tried to penetrate the door that was as closed as a woman’s legs when blood washed her eggs away “open up” he mumbled in a terrifying funny manner. It was like the sound a woman makes when she faked a climax. It was pure theatre, Kay, not afraid of him, and her actions could not convince me otherwise. “The female James bond client had been the mastermind behind the eerily familiar occurrence,” I thought.
Kay shoved the frightened door violently closed and missed the first attempt at poking the tiny vertical hole on it with a key. Finally, the silver key slipped into the petrified door hole for a second, and properly closed it like eyelids during deep sleep; she then opened loudly her lips that reminded me of ice-cold water being used to wake the sleepy, as they trembled. Her voice sounded like something one would hear in a nightmare, her scent was conflicting, she smelled like frozen fire or maybe it was scotch bonnet pepper on a fridge door. The Air Condition was on but somehow I felt like I was in a furnace when her eyebrows touched her neck back and she spoke “ One mad boi keep on a come inna the shop and threaten to harm mi, that’s why am I locking the door” “threatening to harm you?” I asked with disbelief oozing through my pores “ yes! Mi no know why the Secky don’t stop im from coming on the plaza” she said with Oscar-winning eloquence. I then mumbled to myself “a who this cocky nose gal yah a try frighten?” but what I said to her was “yuh safe man, I got you” she then responded with a fuzzy grin that seemed to be covering something sly, like the demonic saint glow in a black cat’s eyes being made dull or almost invisible by lashes. She then sank her paw in the cow shit hair spy-looking client that seemed to be organizing something sinister on her WhatsApp.
Kay was determined to spook me, as the frightening idea of a brutal death or like the terrifying concept of an evil devil but I was either too foolish or too agnostic to be spooked by reality or fantasy. The she-inspector gadget with the bullshit hair seemed to had directed via text messages all involved in the salon theatre on what to do, maybe she had been messaging her lover and I was just paranoid and spooked.
Her assistant seemed to have gone outside to signal Mr, Baldy or maybe I had been inside too long and the spray fumes had me hallucinating. “How dem know sey I was coming to the salon?” I interrogated myself “maybe it was all random, more of a coincidence than a conspiracy to make me shit myself and change my overworn underwear” one thing I didn’t imagine was that the moment she told me “ Yes Rick we can do it yah suh” as she agreed that we could have the live poetry and haircare event at her salon, Mr. Baldy appeared like a bolt of harmless lightning from behind a low dark cloud, hoping to have me poo brief.
The yes she told me meant nothing it was as if she promised me a radiant petal-eating butterfly but gave me a repulsive fly-eating web-toed bullfrog; it’s possible it was not a flying insect that morphed into a jumping amphibian but something more human than animal. It was spite, a spiteful promise that was transformed into something to bring me shame.
Sub Chapter“why yuh deh yah?”, “ didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh” feelings a Carry
I should have felt ashamed but instead, I felt greatly satisfied like a sensitive mushroom-shaped dick that ejaculated quickly into a numb vagina. I was tired; yesterday and the day before I had been campaigning relentlessly at the “Go Green” affair from the beautiful Footprints Café to the enchanting Eden Garden’s Resort and Spa, I didn’t even get the chance to masturbate. You must think I am inventing excuses like a criminal defense barrister and your judgment of me may be right, I may have felt ashamed to prematurely end what should have been a three days campaign but what I had said was also true. I felt a sense of relief when she exclaimed “ we caan do it yah suh” I was ashamed of my relief but disbelief made me uttered my discontent like an atheist in church, “but this is what wi agreed to” she rolled her vicious eyes at me, I felt like a pin and they were a pin eating bowling ball coming at me, she smite my dreams to the ground, when she spoke uncanny words that seemed to come from a nightmare “if it can be like when I planned, we caan do it yah suh” “ you spiteful bitch” I thought but said out loud “ like when you planned it?” “yes wi had decorations, chairs and a beautiful stage fi di performers and patrons “ she said with an air of loathing, to which I responded “if a beauty yuh a worry about, you can put aside your ugly feelings, mi have a team outside ready fi adorn the salon with the finest fabric” she cringed and stop talking for a few minutes, I imagined, she was imaging a new excuse, maybe she was considering whether or not to say yes “ I was not going to be here todeh, the only reason I came here todeh was because a client asked me to, I am actually cuming from church” I looked momentarily at her tights that barely covered her private and thought “the pastor must have had an hard time todeh at church” I then asked her with disbelief hanging carelessly from my mouth corners like whiskers “ you was not going to come todeh? mi no understand why yuh wudnt come, I did gi yuh 3 day passes with the dates fi each event” her face took on the look of something that has been road killed as her eyes staggered like phantoms of light wires on asphalt as she stared lifelessly at the mahogany wood draw beneath a bulb decorated mirror reflecting on how to respond or maybe it was the look of a pitiless driver that was about to tire the neck of a mongoose , I can’t be certain if she had the look of the dead or the look of a killer, but I saw fresh green blood spewing when she opened the tomb shaped draw, she didn’t pull out an ancient corpse of a famous mummified pharaoh but might as well she had, what she pulled out was presently dead and invalid like last year’s calendar, it was a few of the 3 days event passes I had given to her to sell “ a few not all, what happened to the others, did she sell them? Is it that she can’t find them?” I thought as she handed them over like a coffin that she was a pallbearer for and I was the grave, their final resting place.
Soull then made a sharp entrance into the usually vibrant salon that was dull by excitement; his sanguine eyes could see revulsion in the unbiased mirror like an ugly person and revulsion on the board-like wall as if it was wet paint. However contrary to what Soull bloody eyes saw was the reality. The salon had the warm color of understanding crawling up the wall like army ants and the mirror didn’t reflect a violent disgust, what it reflected was different perspectives embracing. I am a horrible liar, the brutal truth is that the opposite of the latter was true, I think.
Soull had thick lips like mango tree bark, his lips had to be thick because it was covering more teeth than anyone elses’, a giraffe’s long neck helps him to eat from tall trees, and a lizard’s skin color helps him to camouflage with his surroundings but Soull’s addition tooth didn’t prevent him from excessive babbling but rather the opposite, Soull spoke more words in one conversation than a packed hair salon, yes he out spoke a posse of women, but today he only had a few words to say. “Rick is everything ok?” my rebellious eyes and every part of my treasonous body told him the truth, except for my loyal tongue. My tongue lied “ Yes mon, everything good gena” Kay looked at him rudely, the way a horny pervert looks at an 11-year-old girl’s tits but without the seduction. A stare that confirmed that we were in turbulent waters, and Soull knows I can’t swim, people have seen logs that swim better than I do.
Kay opens sternly her foam lunch box which had a dead fish buried in onions, carrots, okras, and steam. A repugnant fishy odor slapped my unprepared nostrils to dizziness; I have always had a submarine deep hatred for seafood. I think the experience was different for Soull, he was a fervent fish lover. The scent seemed to make him gay, probably there was something else being communicated when she opened that foam box and declared like a famish seagull,” “I love fish” who cares if you like eating sea scavengers?” I thought to myself with a grin. The rude look that she had greeted soul with changed into a kind outfit, but it wasn’t of a charitable fashion. It was more like the stare a Shepherd would give a sheep, a kind instructive look. After the gaze, Soull started behaving queer, happier than usual. I could be mistaken, and there was nothing odd about how Soull behaved, his behavior may have been consistent with one that has been bewitched.
After Soull went out of the salon, a crocking lizard-colored chap, a little younger than I was, with an unkempt afro like Sam Sharp menacingly crawled into the salon, I believed he is the hero that saved me from the embarrassment of seeing a closed salon. Hercules without the lofty muscles or strength sat like a crippled old lady, then he and Kay started a lady-like discourse, like two gossipy girls. His true character became known to me, he was no hero, he was more a villain, he was not there to spare me embarrassment, he was there to compound shame “mi no know a wah that him inna, yuh see how him cum yah and gwan like him can dress?” Kay then gazed momentarily, where I stood with rancor tugging at her face. I felt her round eyes captured me like a wild bird before she released a blade to my throat. She wasn’t trying to capture with her eyes but to instruct me to go, like a gunshot in an Olympic sprint, before her tongue spat at me “yuh waan see how him look bush yesterday and the day before and today him look like a country donkey inna frock” they both giggled contagiously if you were within 6 feet of them like I was, you were likely to have caught the giggles like a plaque. But not me, I frowned publicly but privately I was flatted.
Her sturdy hands slammed tactfully black gritty hair oil in his Sam Sharp’s dull afro, and fan breeze pushed the flavor of the oil to the crevices of the salon, it had a fruity carroty scent and something magical, I watched it turned a head of dry brown bush into cornrows “a lot of patrons went to his event” the ghost colored lad with the half-finished cornrows said with his gazed fixed on the hot blood leaving Kay’s face along with the giggles and returned with a bitter frown concealing or revealing envy. Kay awkwardly smiled, then questioned him rhetorically “ Suh him mek nuff money?” the lad swerved oddly from his chair with elbows splayed behind him poking the defenseless mirror that revealed how firmly his hands clench his non-existing hips into existence as he answered her rhetorical question “yes, mi would sey so” they talked about me as if I was in another country and not in the very room which they stood. “Could they be talking about me?” I thought with a limpy chuckle resting on my lips.
All reservation that I may have had, that the ghost with the cornrows and salon witch was not talking about me rapidly ambled into oblivion when the salon witch said with her head swerving from side to side like a pendulum “the only reason nothing no happen him today is because a the money whe him gi the likkle bwoi pon the did bus”, “the fucker lucky” the scarecrow with the cornrow said while stabbing the air with his thumb. To be fair he was handsome, he looked nothing like a scarecrow with his deep eyes, his sunflower-colored skin, and his perfect muscles that sprouted from his bones like daisies from the ground. But it was hard for me to see nothing more than just a scarecrow, a croaking lizard with Sam Sharp afro now cane rowed, because of his croaky utterances, or maybe I was too sensitive my forehead wrinkled as my eyebrows tried to touch my hairline as I thought “how did they know this?”
Sub Chapter“why yuh deh yah?”, “ didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh” reflection
The shy dirt that usually hides in crevices like house spiders, were now bold and conspicuous like annoying mosquitoes after the rain, the usually wet mop was dry and crippled made more motions than the petrified broom in the face of tumultuous dirt. Filth was everywhere, even on my unpopular brand brief, which was my favorite, the lucky one that I have been wearing since the beginning of the Go Green campaign. My bed was unkempt, the sheet was like dried up leaves on the ground instead of fresh leaves to adorn the tree. The toilet bowl had shit stains climbing its marble walls, and the toilet seat had tawny piss stain seated high. I managed to brush the cigarette scent off my tongue but I had not the strength to wash the toothbrush before or after I used it. I didn’t bathe, I still had on my lucky brief that I had put on from the beginning of the campaign and the pants from yesterday, and the only thing I changed was my shirt. I put on some old spice roll-on and sprayed on some Axe fragrance. The only thing I had the strength to put away was all the money I made from the campaign so far with exception of a thousand dollars that I intended to use for bus fare and to buy something to eat. I was exhausted but I had to go to kay’s salon early. I had a gut feeling something was not right and I also had the feeling that someone would try to swindle me out of my money. I hate being right that something is going to go wrong.
I stopped sloppily, a smirk inspiring outdated Chinese pussy colored coaster bus, it sputtered at the bus stop, I entered cautiously like it was a vagina I suspected of having an std. for some reason, I wanted a gritty condom but that would not protect me from the pussyhole bus, the bus was in want: in want of paint, air freshener, engine grease and upholstery yet the crab cunt looking conductor wanted his full fare. He bellowed with a smile “bus fare roun di back seat “I handed to his cupped clawed hand with coins crying like zinc being beaten, a $1000. He clenched it between his right thumb and another finger and then used his other hand to hold it captive in a prison made by his middle finger and his pointy finger, like a cigarette, then he released to me $880.00; the bus then stopped “they just going to change a tire” I thought with grimace oozing through my eyes. Then it happened a lightweight boy no heavier than my left arm, shook the bus with his presence, his face looked like a black chewed then pinched bubble gum. He stuck his right hand on a seat and another in the air “could anyone be so kind, and help mi with some money to get food” I smelled his pain, it had the scent of dirt and an empty stomach, he was about a quarter of my age, but I could see his full-grown appetite, that seemed to only be able to be satisfied by love or family or both but he only asked for money. Instantly I plucked $200 from the $880 and handed it to the destitute boy and thought his demeanor of defeat would change, it didn’t, his gesture was as stubborn as a rock, but I was a mountain beside a pebble, I felt above him, elevated, even superior, “it always felt better to give than to receive” I thought with a guilty smirk. Honestly, I had not given him to feel good, having less money never feels good. I had not given him for people to notice, the last thing I wanted was for people to see me giving away money. I gave him because he reminded me of someone, I gave him because I saw my kid self in him, the only difference is that I stole I didn’t beg.
I stole roundish stain redden Guinep and sweet Mangoes from abandoned parks and absentee neighbors’ trees, then sold them with my cousin Doodoo bug and Kaddie Thews, Doodoo bug head had the shape of guava and the color inside it, she was a little shorter than I was, she was about the height of truck tires with a drive that made me insecure. She was a year younger than I was she had permed sunburnt grass-colored hair, she was brilliant, book savvy, but I always found a way to outsmart her out of money and outrun her long legs that won her countless goals medals. Kaddie Thews; with her potato skin-colored was cunning, she had the aura of a tomboy even though you would never find a more feminine female, her personality was that of a baby monkey, agile and fearless, she was the youngest, but her bravery made us toddler in comparison.
One evening before the stars came out to adorn the sky, we tasted a piece of heaven and felt hell on earth. We had sold all of our stolen fruits but had forgotten to take down the sign we had etched on the half-open gate, “Mi ago buy itzakadoozie” Doodoo bug cheered, “ yes yes” Kaddie responded “ how will I give them less money, Kaddie sold the most, Doodoo bug and I sold almost the same, but it was my idea, even though Kaddie did the dangerous climbing on the vicious-looking trees, I climbed as well and Doodoo bug duty was to keep an eye out for if anyone was coming” I thought.
By the time we returned from the shop, my aunt was home, she had a violent look in her eyes like a mad dog “ she must have seen the sign” I thought with a ball of spit passing down my throat. “Good evening” I tried to say with a huge lump of frightened air at my throat. “ why unu deh a the gate a sell?” it sounded like a question but not the type you answer, her empty loops started to make sense when she used her cheap thin black leather belt to beat us senselessly as if we had assassinated someone important, and we were now paying for that crime heftily with swells, bruises and temporally scars. We cried like pigs being slaughtered slowly. “Yes auntie, no auntie” back then, I thought we were being beaten because we stole the fruits or because we sold at the front gate of our home or because we were too young or maybe it was for all three. I recently learned that my auntie was mocked as a child for selling fruits in the market with my grandmother and had not healed from that, and that is why we had gotten beaten that day, I could be wrong, and there is no psychological or rational reason, she just did because she felt like it and she could.
Sub Chapter“why yuh deh yah?”, “ didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh” it can happen on the outside
The croaky croaking lizard finally lost his croak and not just his tail, and crawled to wherever he came from. Snow white’s cruel and loquacious stepmother quietly resumed eating little girl’s beating heart, no that’s not what she was eating, it was the ocean’s vultures she was eating, those scale-less pinkish-purple triangle tailed beast, with eyes like a passion fruit seed, those vile tiny boned, balls-less bottom food chain sea scavengers. I held my breath as she feasted, just before my lungs collapsed, some fresh air came to my ear it was silent. No more compliments riddled with insults, no more “him lucky him gi the youth the money” or “yesterday him luk good, today him luk like donkey inna frack”. You thought there was complete silence? Her averted eyes spoke words that guilty stubbornness would, I had to gag the mouth of my pride and give this ugly woman that was seductive a compliment “Mi pretty friend Kay wah gwan?” I could tell she was not expecting that direct yet subtle praise, she closed the foam box, pulled back a few strands of hair that wondered on her forehead, wiped away the piece of fish flesh that tugged on her bottom lip, and then looked at me with a suppressed smirk, “me deh yah” it seemed as if it was coming from around a bit of seafood in her mouth. I then stared at her; with a gaze, I had hoped would not be defeated by soft breast and find its way to heart like green blood. “you are a good person, that has always been good to me, I don’t deserve anymore good from you, but I am afraid I must ask for one more good, how do I get more good from you? How will we move forward?” my stare didn’t even manage to touch in-between her soft breast much more her defensive heart, she wiped more grease from her lips and spoke as if food still remained at her throat. “you can keep it outside”. Which was a kind way of saying “ it can happen here suh” I then remembered when one of her assistants interrupted her response with frivolous laughter the last time I was at the salon, and Kay looked at her the way a lioness look at a deer and said in a playful tone “ mine mi affi fight yuh fi free” “ had she gotten paid to sabotage me, had she gotten paid to embarrass me” I thought with one eyebrow jerked up, the treachery for pecuniary advance thoughts kept going around and around in my head, it dizzied me. My eyelid climbed down to my Ackee shaped nose for a second, while my lungs captured some stray oxygen. I was internally preparing to keep the event on the outside.
I jerked the fiberglass door opened, the way one would a fridge or a microwave door, and felt the presence of Soull’s icy spirit straightening bent legs, on the body, of inside soursop colored crippled table, That his messiah-like touch made stand impressively. That was not what was miraculous about Soull, what was is his ability to sniff out problems and something stunk. The heartbeat movement his detective’s nostrils made, was his body’s way of communicating “I smell the stench of issues” with that big brother problem-solving look in his eyes and his butt planted on the table he asked “ fam everything good” I looked at him with my fingers and thumbs tweezing away the hair from chin, I considered lying only told half-lie,” everything gud, just a minor change, kay think its best we do it on the outside, it will give a passerby the chance to view the custom merch” I said with my eyes all over the place like a fly, unable to fix them on the turd or molasses that stood before me, out of fear of getting caught, smacked or simply discovered, perhaps who stood before me was not shit or sugar but freshwater capable of satisfying my thirst to keep up appearance.
I was completely taken back soul didn’t seem surprised, angry, sad, or happy he was nonchalant, like a rock would be after hearing a joke or sad story. Maybe he was not without reaction and was reacting inside to having the event on the outside. “ that gud mon” fumbled slowly from his over teeth mouth like a clipped mustache as he broke his crossed legs like a clumsy glass dish on the unforgiving floor, he then rose from the smooth cotton white table like a fork clenched with fingers, he ambled sluggishly to the island grill restaurant, and rubbed without thought his empty belly as if it was full.
He ruptured to the lonely table with a company of fries, which reeked of buttered potatoes, and must have felt hot with tiny salt grains. In a ladylike, baseless voice, he asked “do you want some of my fries rick?’ I accepted but the question tormented me, not so much the question, but how the question was asked “why does he sound like a half erected penis was fondling his throat and not fries?” I wondered “but who could resist island grill season fries? It would be easier to for a man to refuse oxygen, stop breathing and accept death” I thought with a silly smile “but was it wise to accept?” I further thought with an austere look tugging at my face “there was something queer about how he offered those fries” I could not get his horrible attempt at speaking like a woman out of my thought, the more I focus on unrelated thoughts the more annexed they became to the offer “ was it communicated to him when Kay tugged the top of the foam box open? Or was it random? Like thinking about red car moments before a red car appeared. Was it to drive me crazy? Maybe I had bumped my head when I came through the fiberglass door. Why does it bother me so much? Am I homophobic or is there something gay in my unconsciousness?” the more I thought about it the more I realized it did not bother me, perhaps? I eventually went on to think about some irrelevant thoughts like whether or not I had spread my bed before coming here?
Two young lads in black t-shirts with the words (Poetry BLOC) etched on the front and (security) printed in white on the back ambled into the open matches box-shaped plaza, that had tiles with the color of Sulphur and smelled like fresh fire, freshwater, hot oil, and people.
One of the lads was taller than the other, the way the middle finger was taller than the thumb. The taller boy had short wild hair that resembled unchecked thoughts, he smelled like out cigarette and bruised Ganja blunt, he seemed to not just be missing a few front teeth but also a few vital screws, he was not crazy, just absent-minded at times, but Whenever he was present he was jovial, he stayed closed to me like my sense of humor during disturbances.
The shorter of the two seemed pleasant in comparison; his facial hair was exactly where he wanted as if he had a barber or razor blade in his top pocket. He had a sharp silence that cut through the noise like a sword in a man’s throat, his Shaolin like aura evoke mistrust but the contrary was true he had the integrity and disposition of a churchgoer, I am always suspicious of good people and have a deep loathing for church people, I always second guess them for a good reason. They are always lying and they believe their lies, perhaps they were telling the truth but they had no evidence, just faith. “fambly, whe wi fi do today?” he asked like a proselyte “ soon tell yuh” I said with my eyes fixed on the familiar figure gaiting towards the entrance of the plaza like a bilious mule. It was not a non-productive half horse half donkey, it was worse it was Soull’s mate, the contriving pink.
Pink had arms of a construction worker, the complexion of wild dry dust, his face evoked wet cement, shoveled and piled, but he was not ugly but hardship tugged on his face but contrary to his appearance was his personality, he spoke English like an American cartoon character, like Deedee in Dexter’s laboratory to be precise, which oftentimes made me ponder whether he was being authentic or not or if it was just a ruse. Because he came from a violent-ridden community in Jamaica. Where men were hard but there was something soft and immature in him, nothing gangster. He reeks of homosexuality, oh yes that is it, he being a batwing made sense, what didn’t make any sense was that perhaps he was oblivious or thought that I was oblivious to him being a covert battoush, maybe the reverse was true, all he talked about was women. Could his deviant mannerism be a pretense? People are usually the opposite of what they seem. Maybe I have made the mistake of hastily labeling him a batthug? After all, one can never really know a person after a few encounters, knowing a person is a process that takes time, but even with knowing that I still think he is a battunga.
He was the last member of the team to arrive in the four-dimensional open matches box-shaped plaza “where is your t-shit fish?” bum-flicked feverously from the tip of Soull’s tongue. “fish like yuh gal!” Pink promptly responded with a smile that touched his neck back, he then tugged incessantly at his pleated hair like a lamp cord, and with light in his dark brown eyes flickering which implied he posed some sagacity. He gave an ill-considered excuse “yuh know sey mi did wash the shirt and all now it no dry” Soull shook his head left to right and then said “ah faggot, help mi put some T-shirt on the table” pink patted soul gently on the back and they started to unpack and folding the custom t-shirt that was to be placed on the soursop belly colored table.
While they were engaged in gay bantering and humor, Spolly the witty mattress sponge color Rasta man whose lacs laid inconspicuously in a black tam, that was etched a little bit above, the healed wound, that was slice away from his almost non-existing eyebrows “ when mi aa bwoy, mi use to have the fastest bike a Rema, Spolly the biker they use to call me, I made the most dangerous stunts seemed as easy as breathing air, I never once had an accident, well that’s not true, I did once when I was not doing any stunts at all. A car was heading in my direction at the speed of light and I was riding at ten times the speed limit. Just before we collided like raging bulls, I managed to turn left, left into Rema’s gully. The next thing I remembered was waking up in the hospital with a billion stitches connecting the left and right side of my forehead like a bridge, which is when I decided to stop being Spolly the rider, to Spolly the poet.” He would often spat out of his heart when asked about his scar, it was said without shame, or pain, he seemed proud and even gaiety about the scar as if it was some boon, which was the reverse of what one would expect.
We all sat like sugar on the rectangular donut shape blue berry-colored bench with sweet distractions becoming bitter, the more honey poured, perhaps it was bitterness becoming sweet “ why yuh deh yah”, “ didn’t I sey it can happen yah suh” ricochet, echoed and reverberated in my head like an empty room with nothing but these utterances, I am not sure when those words became quiet, I am not sure when furniture came into the room and quieted the echoes, I started thinking other thoughts “ It was already a successful, campaign, I needed the rest, I really don’t have the energy to host today, this curse is a boon in disguise” “let us share some poems” I loudly suggested with such alacrity, Soull, Spolly, Pink surprisingly and myself bellowed out a plethora of spoken words fervently until we had a small audience of would-be passerby gathered in open matches box plaza-like watches sticks in a matches box. Just as things were about to get heated up. The plaza security came running like cascade waters at dun rivers falls “ but unu easy, a who give unu permission to be making noise and a sell shirt” he said with a stern face over a mischievous grin, “Kay the owner of the salon” I said smiling though I was annoyed “ only me can give permission!” he said with a strange smirk that I was familiar with, it look like the look the traffic police in Jamaica had when they wanted you to pay them to prevent you from getting a traffic violation ticket. “ this cunt nose Bombo Hole want to grip mi balls and shake me down” I thought with an unhappy smile, I directed him away from the crowd , went into my pocket reluctantly and gave him $500, he took it, placed it in his top pocket “ a two a wi a work today” he said suggesting that he wanted double the amount “ yo mi frass fambly, mi ago check if mi friend dem have no money” I ran to where the others were gathered like a gazelle being chased by a lioness “ yow soul, yuh know sey a extort the secky want extort mi, fams yuh no have no funds on yuh?” “how much funds suh?” he asked with a bit of reservation in his eyes “$500” “ah mi ago see whe can gwan” while soul searched the strangest thoughts found me “should I have given that wretch, that bully, my lunch money, my bus fare, my only money? No, I should have packed and gone, but how could I pack and go? Such humiliation, such shame, and loss of faith it would have caused. It’s a good thing to pay that horrible security to save face. But why does my heart remonstrate? Have I already lost faith? Oh, how they must think of me like a headless jack horse, a jester at best, a joke, but why must I care about their opinion, their unreasoned opinion that is not the child of reflection. They are only here because of envy, only a fool would think they are here because of admiration or duty. I may not be wise but a fool I am not, perhaps I am a fool, I did pay that wretched security”
Soull was either unable or unwilling to help pay the contriving security when he returned from his search he said nothing and he was gone for so long I didn’t remember why I was waiting on him. When I did remember, I didn’t bother to ask him about the result of his search, instead, I announced loudly “I would like to make a presentation for second place, for the recently held Wurd Fi Wurd freedom campaign” with my eyes fixed on Soull I invited him beside me to collect his second place courtesy of Jamaica Wine Company. He exposed all his 64 teeth like a stripper would her hard nipples, with his shoulders dancing exotically and his chest-high he came to collect his prize, A bottle of wine.
Soull took a few impulsive jabs at the wine cork, the top broke and fell like a severed head, but decapitation was useless, what would be useful is removing the spine, crippling what prevented green fermented bloodlike grape juice from walking on our famished palates. Instead of pulling the bone up, soul pushed the bone down, and hot blood spewed from the bottle’s neck onto Soull’s unsteady hands then settled lazily on the tiled floor. The stench of wine perfumed the dull ceiling, the gritty words written on the wall “ why yuh deh?” “ didn’t I sey it cann happen yah suh” ebb the portent now dead and its tasty blood brought us felicity start writing here…
