Beg You A Dollar, Nuh? (Part 1 of 4)
In the Beginning
As I handed him my dollar, my heart swelled within me, and a lump the size of a spaceship landed in my throat. I looked at him as he reached for the money with unshielded enthusiasm. He looked as if time had painted its presence upon his face with uneven strokes. Daubings of white, silver, and gray had created a motley of hair strands in places where healthy black follicles once swayed to the rhythm of a cool island breeze. His skin drooped and sagged in grand Shar-Pei style, but his eyes were alive, and his smile was broad. He looked seven months pregnant too, swollen with years of unreserved indulgence and iced cold beer. “Tank yu,” [Thank you], he said in a thick Jamaican accent. My heart burned within me, a blending of anger, sympathy, embarrassment, and disgust. How long had he been in the U.S.? Apparently way longer than me. Why was I giving him my dollar then? What was his story? Here I was still stalking survival while he — with palms outstretched — had spiritlessly and shamelessly surrendered.
My Story
I spent the first 15 years of my life in Jamaica without a father because the American dream had shackled mine and carried him away. I received only one visit in intervals of three or so years which yielded a brown-skinned doll to compensate for the absences in between. The last doll was my favorite. The others were made of a thin, plastic-like material and whenever they fell, their heads cracked open. But this one was different. In many ways, she was a reflection of me: short, middle-eastern brown, slim, solid, attractive, and sporting a pixie cut, off-black hair, medium brown eyes, and a perennial smile.
I grew up almost poor. When I first came into awareness of myself and my surroundings, I was living with my grandparents and my sister, Loren, in rural St. Ann on what seemed like acres and acres of land brimming with trees of every specie: avocado, breadfruit, ackee, mango, star apple, orange, banana, papaya, apples, and scores more I can’t even remember. We grew tons of coffee, yam, cocoa, potatoes, sweet potatoes, dasheens — you know, ground food. The coffee I remember well, however, because we would use a wooden bat to mortar fresh coffee beans immediately after picking them, then make the strongest, most amazing coffee ever! The taste of a large chunk of bread soaked in pure, unadulterated coffee was a precursor to everlasting happiness and energy! I would run in and out our small pink house, up and down the hill that set the house at a distance from the dirt road, dancing in between the clean clothes that hung on the line, under the trees, across the way, and wherever my dusty feet would take me.
“Si dung no pickney,” [Sit down, please child] my grandmother would suggest firmly. But her plea fell on deaf ears. Life was good. Good though I never listened. Good though my grandfather could not walk. Good though I had never met my mother. Then grandmother died, and I and Loren, who was roughly a year and a half older than me, were sent to my pregnant aunt and her two boys in Kingston. I was four, maybe five years old. My mother finally showed up when I was nearing six and the stress of five children under the care of my aunt — a single mother — had turned into physical abuse.
I didn’t get along with my mother. None of us did. Not me, not my older half-brother, Garth (whom we met when we went to live with my mother and my stepfather), not Loren. The concept of a social agenda or fun was outright blasphemy. School trips, slumber parties, birthday parties, creative dancing classes, even parent-teacher meetings were to her chagrin and we learned quickly not to even bring them up in conversation. It was pointless. Her priorities were on us being “good girls.” In fact, she was the archetypal Caribbean mother depicted in Jamaica Kincaid ‘s “Girl”:
This is how you sew on a button…this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down…; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard…; this is how you set a table for dinner…; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well…; don’t squat down to play marbles — you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers — you might catch something…; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot.
The rattle, my friends, was real! My mother made sure her children (the girls, of course) knew how to cook, wash, clean, and take care of a home. And though I mastered the skill, I never ever wanted it to be the defining characteristic that set me apart. But not if she could help it! As we approached adolescence, Loren and I took an interest in church, and getting there was married to first cleaning the floors to a spit shine on our knees with a brush made from dried coconut; cooking dinner for the entire family; and handwashing the dirty laundry, folding them to perfection, and putting them away! We didn’t have boyfriends either; we didn’t dare dream. If we had male classmates who were mere friends, we kept that to ourselves too, particularly when puberty winked at us and joined the sorority. It was a straitjacket of the worst kind. So I longed for my father. With every roar of a plane engine that passed overhead, my yearning intensified, and my impatience ballooned. For when he came, good times came with him. And mother was on her best behavior, sweet as cherries ripened to succulence in the warmth of the Caribbean sun!
Daddy was everything! When he came, we were oh so happy. We would comb the Jamaican landscape, discovering authenticity in whatever form it came — food, people, places, things. In fact it was on one of those escapades that we discovered that my father had a son which meant Loren and I had another brother! His name was Ricardo! He was 11 years old, quiet, and shy, living with his grandmother in the parish of Clarendon. His mother was half-Indian; thus, he had mounds of rolling curls on his head and he was brown-skinned and skinny. Apparently, he had never really traveled beyond the borders of rural Jamaica, so on those rare occasions when he opened his mouth to speak, not one word of English escaped his lips. We had to listen very carefully to understand him! He was young, without an agenda, and easy-going like our dad, and over time, we got to know him a bit better. Discoveries of this nature are not uncommon within the Jamaican culture. In fact, Loren and I had also discovered another sibling of ours — a sister, Pat. But we had known about Pat from the beginning since my mother would talk openly about the feud between her and Pat’s mother (Ms. Henry), for Pat was only five months older than I was. Daddy would often tell mother that he was going to the gym and was lifting weights. “A mussa did Ms. Henry big hell-eva titty dem him did a lif up!” [It must have been Ms. Henry’s humongous breasts he was lifting] she would say, rolling her eyes.
Like most island folk, mother was deeply in love with America. It held promise; Jamaica did not. Of course, we had universities — the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Technology. But with a home-made business as a seamstress bringing in just enough for food, we could never afford either. Still, she was thrifty. She operated as banker for “partners” where friends would contribute a set sum of money (called a hand) — sometimes even two hands — into a kitty and then select when they wanted to draw out the total sum from all contributors for day to day living or emergencies. Being the banker meant she could borrow small sums between weekly or bi-weekly draws for day to day living and return it before payout time. “A di people dem paaaadna money mi borrow,” she’d often say to explain why we were getting by. But that wasn’t entirely true because there was Br’er John, our stepfather. And he had an important job at Jamaica Broilers, a major chicken supply chain equivalent to a Perdue in the US. So we didn’t have to make do with whatever was cheap and available. But sometimes we did because depending on him was risky: a smoke weed, chant down Babylon, talk shit, then whoop her ass type a risky.
“Yu neva even put no shuga in a di chicken,” [You didn’t even add sugar to the chicken] he’d start.
“A who you know a put shuga in a chicken? [Whoever puts sugar in chicken?] She’d fire back.
“But a wha di bombo claaaaat…” [What the fuck!]
And we’d just scatter. God forbid any of us insisting on the insanity of his argument. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. For we had been through it all before — at his house in Spanish Town when we first moved in with them and even after she left him years later and bought her own tiny house made from concrete slabs, which Loren’s husband later nicknamed “the oven.” We had made a pit stop at our grandmother’s in Kingston for two or so years where we occupied the maids’ quarters built independently of my grandmother’s expansive main house complete with every bell and whistle. These quarters consisted of three rooms attached side by side — somewhat equivalent to a railroad apartment — except that the shower with toilet was directly in front of the three rooms and was of tip toe quality. Br’er John never visited us there. But when she popped us into that oven, he re-entered her life bit by bit, spending more and more time away from his five- or six-bedroom house to join us in the devil’s sauna. And even though this was now her house bought with her money, he was still up to his antics. So we opted to indulge in fruits and ground food and chicken. Fruits were cheap. And fruits were free. We could always walk and pick mangoes or walk and beg mangoes or walk and steal mangoes. But we rarely had to do that because he provided. Still, he was not our father. Our father was in America and we were going there even if the woman he married was her greatest rival.
“Yu faada seh him a wait pan Dora fi sign di paypa dem. Mi no know if a arthritis ketch har or wat, but she caaan sign dem yet. Talk bout she did ago sen fi oonu faaas faaas when she reach a ‘Merica. A pretty bway she did a look fi bring off har ugly kyaas-yaiy self! Ooonu no si ow ooonu faada look good! (Tchiupe). Wen Gad did a gi whey ugly, da woman deh did deh a di front a di dyam line. Di front mi seh! But im did waan go a ‘Merica. Well good fi ‘im! Si deh! Im deh a ‘Merica! Ten years an im still married to the dyam crockel! Lawd Gad! We jus ha fi pray fi im. [Your father says he’s waiting on Dora to sign the alien registration papers. I don’t know if she came down with arthritis or what, but she still can’t sign them as yet. She was talking about how she was going to send for you guys quickly once she got to America. She was only trying to land a handsome man to tone down her ugly cross-eyed self. (Hiss teeth). You don’t see how handsome your father is? When God was giving away ugly, that woman was at the front of the line. The very front! But he wanted to go to America. Well, good for him. See? He is in America! Ten years and he’s still married to the damn kraken. Lord God! We just have to pray for him].
It took three more years for God to finally answer mother’s prayers and Loren left in August 1983. Alone. She showed no real emotion when the news came, but I’m sure she was excited. I mean, this was America, and Pat was waiting for her. Still, as she was my only full sibling, I was sad that she was leaving. I had never been without her before. We had been together in the country with grandmother when half-way home from pre-school, I lost the battle to the contents in my colon that simply wanted out; together at our aunt’s house in Kingston where she whipped us until we had huge black and blue wales on our skin for weeks on end; together at all the places my mother called home between Kingston and Spanish Town, watching as my stepfather beat the crap out of our mom for one reason or another. We had slept in the room and in the same bed since I came to awareness, and we chatted constantly. We didn’t talk about emotional things, interestingly, but we talked nevertheless. We went to church together, got baptized together, and when school let out early and/or there was an activity (e.g. sport’s day) that would not interfere with the time we were expected home, I would go to her school and hang out with her and her friends. I liked being around her. She was my big sister. She was my friend.
In May 1984, eight months after Loren left, Ricardo and I also set sail across the ocean, leaving behind unforgettable memories of cool breezes, hot sands, warm beaches, captivating landscapes, and congenial people…like my friend Annie. I met Annie in school and she quickly became my best friend. We lived a mile apart with a humongous tree by the side of the road marking the half-way point between both our houses. After hopping off the bus from school, we would journey past her house, which was only a block away from the bus stop, and head toward the big tree with the sun pelting us all the way. We had every intention to split up and go our separate ways once we reached the tree, but that was rarely our experience. We would arrive at the tree, then journey to my house, then turn back and head toward the half-mile marker just to finish a tale or two. Sometimes the chatting would get so good, we would get to my house, then turn around and go the full mile to her house, then back to the big tree, laughing all the way.
When I saw Loren again, spring was in full bloom in New York. Old Man Winter had embraced her a bit too tightly, I suppose, and she looked pale. I soon got over the shock of her living in a refrigerator and going from brown to near white, and we settled down to a traditional chat for the hour and a half it took us to get to White Plains, NY. Ricardo didn’t speak much, but he had always been a quiet one. The City of White Plains was clean, classy, affluent. And I liked living there. The home my father propagandized — not so much. Home was a one-bedroom apartment that he originally shared with Aunt Dora and their U.S.-born only child, Sophia. Now, he was incrementally adding each of his other children for a total of seven people packed tight like a sumo wrestler in a preemie’s diaper. When I walked in that day, I was confused. “But where’s my room?” I asked, rounding corners and investigating thoroughly. My father laughed and sucked the air through his teeth several times, his signature laugh. “This is it mi dear,” he continued. I was speechless.
Daddy was a handsome man! He looked the splitting image of Mohammed Ali, like they were identical twins really. Friends who had that once in a lifetime opportunity to visit that apartment and browse his photo album were shocked.
“Oh my God,” they’d say. “I didn’t know you knew Mohammad Ali like that!”
“No,” we’d say. “That’s daddy.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” was always the response.
Soon they learned the story of how he had walked into some place at one time and everyone stood up and started cheering. They really thought he was Ali! That was his draw with women — that face, that charm. Then, there was his personality. He was incredibly easy going, incredibly slow to anger. Just calm. Dead sea calm. In fact, I had never seen my father angry. Instead, laughter was always in his throat. Nothing ruffled his feathers. Nothing! Once, I had wanted to pee one too many times on one of our excursions into the country areas of Jamaica, and he bellowed out, “Again??” But that was an anomaly. He could get along with anybody from any race, any culture, any country. In fact, Daddy could probably have made even iron Hitler relax, maybe even repent. And because of that, he had friends galore. His laughter, his attitude was just infectious. Daddy didn’t talk much at all, so I can’t say we truly knew him. But what we knew was that he liked to laugh. And when he did, he would end by sucking air between his tongue and his canines several times. That easy spirit never failed him. It was his defining characteristic, his pungi in a world full of venom and upheaval.
Over time, we discovered that daddy had a vehicle, a 1959 classic Rolls Royce look-alike that could have made us proud. Except it was yellow. And it was a taxi — a way to make money…well, sometimes…whenever he needed quick cash. Most times, however, it was parked outside the homes of countless women — “aunts” — spell bound by charm and collecting hundreds of dollars in parking tickets that he nonchalantly stuffed inside the glove compartment. When they accumulated to a certain point, Aunt Dora would simply take care of them for she worked two jobs, sometimes three. She was a registered nurse at a major hospital in Westchester County and also a part-time home health aide, caring for an old White man in Rye, NY. So a couple of days out of the week, she did not return home; she was earning a living.
