See Chapter 1, 2, 3.
When it’s not too crowded, and I actually can sit down, I like riding the trains. Especially the ride on one of those trains with the gray seats. If it’s not packed with bodies, I sit in the middle where the plastic windows are. I pretend I’m watching a movie.
I stare at the flickering red number 1 train, the blue A train, the orange B train. The steel surface lightens traveling between the beams in the tunnel. It reminds me of old black and white moving pictures–picture movies. The cars are really rooms in an apartment. It’s a play, and the people are all mimes with painted white faces.
By the end of my ride, I don’t want to get off. Since the interruption begins with the trapped doors, stiffly opening at my stop. Swiftly signaling an exit, there’s only a few seconds left to scatter into a directed destination. As the scampering memories I buried and forgot were real–each impatient and unpredictably taking their turn; all wanting to be remembered–hungrily race outside.
“So, why are you late, again? Come here and tell me why you’re late, Ms. Ironside.”
Njeri found she couldn’t speak just then, instead she stood at her first year teacher’s, Ms. Rojas, desk staring at her shoes. Her eyes, they move from the tip of her black shiny oxfords, the ones that her father bought for her during one of his trips to England, to the neighboring classroom, as she notices Miss Ali taking out her whip. Miss Ali begins to chase after Geraldine Mitchell, the fastest girl in school, who everyday at recess time ruled the playing field. Even Geraldine, who outran the fastest runners at the Boys’ school down the hill, and who won all of the track meets at Sports and Games day, couldn’t outrun the inevitable. Cornered, Geraldine bawls, even when she hasn’t felt the whip’s sting.
“So you’re playin dumb now? Well, stand over there and play dumb,” Miss Rojas orders, and points to the far corner of the room.
Every day now, Comrade has been waking up late, then, rushing Njeri and Joshua to school: Njeri at San Fernando Girls’ Government and Joshua at the Boys’ School down the hill. But by the time they got there, the assembly had already praised God, sung the national anthem, and was heading to the classrooms. Sometimes it was a little after the hour.
As punishment, Njeri and the rest of the late-comers were made to stand in the late-line where there was never any shade from the hot sun. Not only were late-comers beaten and humiliated by Principal Huggins herself–huffing and puffing after each heavy stroke–but late-comers were forced to spend part of the morning cleaning up the trash around the playing field, singing:
He has de whooole World, in his hands
He has de whooole World, in his hands
He has de whooole World, in his hands
He has de whole World in his hands
Njeri stands in the corner of the classroom where she faces the wall with all the ants. The corner was designated for dunce and trouble makers.
“She wasted the whole morning away, when she could have been practicing her spelling and her tables,” Ms. Rojas says to the rest of the class. Finally overcome by the boredom of re-counting how many ants were coming and going on the wall, Njeri goes to Miss Rojas’s desk and the explanation almost makes it out her mouth, “Meh fadder dat drop meh late.” Something Miss Rojas already knew, given that she and the other teachers gossiped about where Mr. Ironside acquired the money to buy a brand new 1981 Datsun, costing more than the amount of money they earned from teaching in ten years.
“People here struggling to make ends meet, and don’t have the money for big time motorcar. He must be stealing the union money. That crook,” Miss Rojas whispered to Miss Ali, as Comrade pulled up in the slick black, air conditioned–with tinted power windows–big time motorcar.
Almost sweetly, Miss Rojas says, “All you had to do was say that.” Then she removes her large ruler from the desk drawer and pulls Njeri’s tiny hand out. Five stunning strokes on the palm.
Later, at the end of the school day, Njeri stops to watch the mini parade her school puts on for the students. It’s the Friday before Carnival. And she’s enthralled by the festivities, the masqueraders parading on stage. In a circle they dance their best gyration–showing off the intricate designs the creators spent sleepless nights sowing together for the judges. Engulfed with the dancing– the Calypso music resonating from the large speaker boxes and the bright colored feathers from the Red Indians, trembling with each beat–Njeri forgets to wait by the school gate for her mother.
Achaia and Joshua searched the entire school for her. One of the neighbors, living on the same street as the Ironsides, sees Njeri and offers to take her home. From Poole Street’s opening, the crowd is noticeable, standing outside on the front yard of the Ironside’s house. Njeri wonders, what could be going on? The commotion of heads, bobbing for a better view, incites her short legs. Her navy blue socks reaching her ankles, dirtied now as she steps into puddles.
Some cover their mouths, the rest just turn away their looks. Whispering under their breaths, they move aside to let her through. Njeri begins to float aimless in this sea of half looks and bobbing heads. Someone holds her hand. Miss Galerie, the next door neighbor. She guides Njeri nervously through the crowd, and she asks, “So how… how was school today, Njeri?”
“Whey mammy?” Njeri blurts out, forgetting about the Red Indians, the steel-band music, and the Midknight Robber’s black, broad brim hat with little bells at the rim. A feeling of responsibility for the unsettling suspense began to carve a space inside of her.
“Yuh mammy alright. Doh cry baby. Yuh mammy alright. She comin back soon. She gone to de hospital. She comin back soon. But look,” Miss Galerie says excited as Njeri begins to bawl.
“Look at wha yuh mammy leave for you. Dis toy car yuh Uncle Eustace say to give yuh.”
The next day, Njeri wakes up and runs straight to the verandah for her mother. Achaia, sitting quietly, looks out at the long road leading out of Poole Street, her left elbow resting on the banister, propping up her chin. Her sunglasses hide the swelling, the bulged eye-lid and the blood-clot pupil, from the morning’s sun. Afraid of disturbing her, Njeri returns to the room she and her sister, Serena, shares and asks,”Sreena, Sreena, wha happen to mammy? Why she wearin dark shades and it not dark yet?”
“You don’t wear dark shades in the dark, stupid.” Serena replies annoyed.
“But she wearin it in de house. Is bad luck to wear dark shades in de house.”
“No,” Serena says rolling her eyes. “Wearing a hat or an open umbrella in the house, that does bring bad luck. Daddy bust her eye yesterday. Satisfied?”
“But why daddy bust she eye?”
“Stop asking what does not concern you.” Serena says in her most grow-up eight year old voice. She leaves the room with her books snug between her arm and waist like her teacher.
No one said a word about that evening again. They all agreed in silence that it never occurred. Njeri was unable to find the words to describe what she believed as her part in the why Comrade busted Achaia’s eye, since it was never explained or considered by anyone else. Njeri blamed herself.
∞
The neighbors unable to ignore the events taking place under the Ironsides’ roof, they gather one by one outside.
“Mammy! Yuh go kill him!!” Serena cries. Achaia slaps Serena away and grabs one of Comrade’s cutlasses.
“But you stupid or something.” Comrade yells, backing away.
“Something must be wrong in your head. You better put down that fucking cutlass before…”
“Before what, Comrade?” Achaia spits out, stamping her feet and raising the blade above her head.
“Before what? Tell me,” she yells. “Why I cyar go see my own brother.”
As Achaia glance down to pull her skirt up, Comrade leaps toward her and snatches her hand with the cutlass. He wrenches it away, and throws the blade in a corner. He quickly returns to put his hands on Achaia. They fall to the ground, and he immediately pins his weight down, restraining her upper body. He smothers her mouth until her raging scream becomes a muffled sound. She struggles to break free of his hold while he cuffs her in the eye, the face. Again and again the sound of his hand smacking her face travels, echoing through the ears of the hallway, traveling to the children’s room, pounding with each heart beat. Achaia trembles tired and slow. With hair caked in blood and sticking to her face, she gives up. Her body lies limp on the floor.
LOVE, LUST, SCI-FI & MONSTERS
TSTAR EP
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