Image courtesy of Will Russell. Shared via a Creative Commons license.
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The Morning After
I had a dream the other night. One in which life as we know it took a turn for the worse. The next morning everything seemed as it should. Except for the clouds. Laventille Hills, a village of colourful ascending homes overlooking Port-of-Spain, remained rugged and steep, populated by trees and people. It had never conceded to the clouds until today. They were gray and low, pulling one’s gaze away from the yellow, pink and green homes that on a sunny day made God’s blue sky jealous. The villagers went on with their day, oblivious to my dream.
It was rainy season. Ms. Mary, my next-door neighbour, was sitting on the veranda sipping tea, rubbing her leg in anticipation; the local weather-vane.
“Mornin’ Rollins!” she said.
“Right’o Mother Mary, mornin’!” I responded in kind.
With my head to the sky, I was attempting to find the missing pieces of the previous night’s dream. Until Mayan, my friend and co-worker at the automotive factory, appeared with Lupe standing right behind him adjusting her hemline and such.
“What happen to you boy?” asked Mayan.
I stared blankly in his direction, then back to Lupe, still primping. She decided her hair was better let down instead of pinned up.
“Ah want to be free. From all restraints,” Lupe said, smirking at me. The girl knew what she was doing. I could hear Mayan talking, but was not giving him all of my attention. Only beautiful Lupe could get into my head and push my dream sideways like a sliding glass door. Long flowing hair and a peasant skirt was hardly proper attire, or even safe, for work at the factory.
“Boy come before we n’up late!” Mayan said, lines of curiosity disturbing the sharp handsomeness of his Carib-Indian face.
“Yeah man, ah comin’. Leh meh just full up dis canteen first.”
Mayan and Lupe walked ahead of me, slowly, and down the hill that led to the factory, looking back as if they thought I would disappear from existence if they went too far too fast. At the standpipe, I filled my canteen with cold early-morning water and allowed my dream into my head again.
***
Work was work: long, monotonous and filled with dread. Talk about layoffs and how them damn Coolies taking over the place continued. Things was changing and like most men I felt hopeless.
“Mr. Boss-man say ‘not to worry’ wid he lyin ass! Ah doh believe dat shit! Ten, fifteen years we makin’ car, and is jus’ so dey want to kick we out’a it! All dey want to do is placate my ass wid ch’upid talk,” said Larry, one of our co-workers at the factory, during lunch break.
Other men nodded. Some disagreed; some were unsure.
“But Larry wuh we go do? Strike? Hope d’union go back we up? If dey doh want we here no more I say we take d’money and leave d’wok!” said Mayan.
Larry looked at Mayan and nodded. Mr. Boss-man was turning the corner with he crew. There would be more coming, more brothers and friends to fill our jobs after we’d been forced out.
“Here he come with that stupid grin on he face. As if to say we were to trust him or something,” said Larry.
“Ay, fellas. What good today?” said Mr. Boss Man.
Nobody say nothing to him. Every man head down in he lunch pail or sippin’ from a thermos. Only Mayan and Larry eyeballin’ him.
“Oh, ok. I see how it is. When all’yuh ready to talk come see meh nah…”
The bell to return to work sounded. Backs turned, feet shuffled and lunch pails snapped shut. Everyone got up from the benches in the factory yard, and those who were standing put out cigarettes or stopped reading the newspaper and headed back inside to continue the workday.
***
That evening I returned home having made a decision. I was going to quit the factory and take the package offer with partial pension. Sylvia, my wife, couldn’t understand why. I myself wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but I hoped to assuage her with the purchase of new curtains and church clothes for Easter. We had never had any children; the house was ours, and we both had skills to bring in money aside from my job.
How can the town survive the inevitable? Racial tension is on the rise. ‘They,’ the descendants of East Indians are taking our place. Government is on their side. Or is it that blacks have lost focus?
Either way, I knew men like Mayan and Larry were planning retaliation.
***
“How d’hell did that happen?” Sylvia asked, directing my eyes as she pointed toward a hole in the upper right corner of the bedroom wall. We were lying in the bed. She got up and proceeded with making coffee as usual. But this day, I had nowhere to go, no thermos to fill from the pot. Now that I had retired from the factory I was sure Sylvia planned on milking me for all the housework she could get. Fixing the wall would be my first job.
There was enough to keep me busy for a while. Life was good, but distractions had taken away from my time with Sylvia. One day I observed her telling her friend Theresa that she ain’t had no loving from me going on four weeks. Theresa suck her teeth and look at her in a way that only she could get away with.
“Gurl, count yuh blessings, I doh have no man to complain ’bout!” she said.
Sylvia was kneading flour to make bread, and she stopped long enough to consider the advice.
“For truth, gurl,” Sylvia agreed, working her fingers in the dough. “But you could’a had a man long time ago. What happen to Curt? He was nice.”
“He was on meh too much. Act like he doh have not’ing better to do, always askin’ me question. Yuh know he ask meh to marry him three times!” Theresa said.
Both women laughed and then seemed to reflect on how trivial their so-called troubles were. The smell of the day’s lunch bubbling on the stove and the dampness of sweat stained dresses against black skin was all living was about. They were so used to being in the house alone for seven to nine hours at a time, never did it cross their minds to whisper. I was sure that my walking away against the strain of floorboards and the gentle slam of the door did nothing to change their minds.
***
From Above the Clouds…
Mayan and Larry had gone over the plan several times. They had a few other men on their side: A guard, one of the supervisors, some from the clean up crew. Mayan was hot with anger; mostly because Rollins, his long-time friend from primary school days, had not joined him. Lord knows it wasn’t the first time they didn’t see eye to eye.
“Mayan, listen to meh man, listen. I have a bad feelin’ about dis…” Rollins tried to reason, but Mayan just stared blankly back at him. No love registered in his dark handsome face. Just hurt, anger.
Rollins moved toward his friend, reaching out an arm that never touched Mayan’s shoulder. He stopped short. Mayan reached across the table to pick up a piece-a-iron.
“Move from in front’a meh before a bus-’way yuh face!” he shouted.
Not sure what to do to make an appeal to Mayan, Rollins forfeited, raising his arms to signal some sort of end. In silence he picked up his tool bag and walked out from his friend’s work-shed into the front yard and out the gate. Mayan continued to work on the bomb that would bring the town to its knees.
***
The next morning Mayan, while eating the bake and fish breakfast that Lupe had prepared for him, went over the plan with the girl once more. This time he made her repeat it back to him. He needed added assurance that she understood. As she spoke, he watched her face.
To Mayan, Lupe was the most beautiful woman that ever was, and as far as he was concerned there would never be any challenge to her. All the men in the village coveted her, married or otherwise. Not even moral Rollins could hide his feelings for her. But Mayan was the only one that had managed to get the girl to live with him and do everything except marry him. He was even willing to have himself condemned by the Catholic Church. Having the girl with him made Mayan’s shoulders a little less tense; for now that would have to do.
“Yuh finish, darlin’?” Lupe asked.
“Yes baby gurl, dat was just right. Any coffee left in dat pot?” Mayan asked.
“Just two swallow, not much,” Lupe answered him absently. Her back was turned, her attentions now directed to washing cups, plates and a pot or two.
She was born Guadalupe Martin. After five years of living she was brought to Trinidad and left behind by God knows who. An orphan raised by the nuns, Lupe ran away the first chance she had. “Strict,” “ridged” and “conformity” were her least-favourite words even if she couldn’t spell them or recognize them written on a page.
Now nineteen years of age, she was no longer running. Staying in Laventille had afforded her a place to live, a man to warm her bed, admiration and opportunity. She had seen most of the Caribbean islands and some of Europe. Many things, and everything, but the love of women. Her inability to relate to or interact with other members of her sex was almost a chronic disability. Men were easy; she just seemed to know naturally what they wanted and how to please them. Women represented punishment, disdain and jealousy: “Look at she. Look how she walk and move she ass,” “Nasty, loose piece-a-gyal, come here to tief-way we man.”
Not even Sylvia would warm to her. The two women wanted to want or need each other on some level. Unbeknownst to them, each was thinking of the other more than would appear normal, neither making their desire for the other public. Mayan encouraged Lupe to be friendly every Christmas or when they had a Friday night lime at the Rum Shack. His efforts were fruitless.
“Go on, talk tuh d’chile, Sylvia,” Ms. Mary often encouraged. Two years since Lupe’s arrival, Sylvia was unable to offer friendship. On any given day, Lupe would walk down the street, past the two women, going to the Shop or toting a bucket of water. No words were exchanged. Lupe herself was used to expecting nothing from women. Not even a standard “good morning.” Unacknowledged, sitting on the side of the veranda every day, Ms. Mary would watch Sylvia, who was watching Lupe walk to the factory with the other men.
***
As she and Mayan neared the office building, Lupe’s concerns and fears about the whole plan had begun to rattle her nerves. She had been given the job of distracting the boss and his men at the entrance of the factory, getting them to talk and flirt. It was what she always did anyway. Lupe had secured her job this way as a clerk in the front office building. Nothing out of sorts.
She could hear Mayan saying, “Jus’ act normal, aw’right. Not’ing kya be irregular. ’Cause dey done know we up to somet’ing, dey jus doh know what yet. Ok?”
But that morning Mr. Boss Man wanted to talk to Lupe in his office. He smiled at her. Standing behind his desk, tapping a pen on a beat-up clipboard.
“Ah just want to assure yuh that although we have to let go some of the men, your job is secure. After all, what is this place without you?”
She watched him, lips moving, a constant attempt to push back his damp greasy hair from his oily bird-like face. It was in that moment that the young girl remembered that this was no ordinary day. Timing was of the essence and fifteen minutes had already gone by.
“Hear what ah say, Lupe?”
“Ah so sorry, I daydreamin’. Thanks so much but I should go. You is a busy man, don’t want tuh take up all yuh time…”
Any other day she would have prolonged the conversation, extended a hand to him accompanied with a compliment of his thick head of hair or tie choice. Mr. Boss Man chalked up Lupe’s sudden disinterest in the conversation to the nervousness she may have felt concerning the security of her job. Lupe was long gone. But before he could drop his clipboard and make a move to exit the room, the air stopped its flow and the space between his ears was dealt a painful blow. Disoriented and confused, he stumbled out of the room into another filled with flames.
***
Lupe, outside of the office compound, stopped to turn and look behind her. All entrances were on fire and the explosives in all major passageways had gone off, trapping workers inside the steel and stone of the factory walls. Mr. Boss Man was probably dead.
Lupe felt ill all of a sudden. Her body was shaking, covered in a cold sweat; mouth dry, heart pounding. Her feet were propelling her away from the burning building on their own. Sylvia, Theresa and Ms. Mary were all outside looking, astonished by the blackness of the sky.
“Oh lawd, what goin’ on here?” someone wondered aloud.
In a matter of minutes the sun was blocked by thick encroaching smoke. Across the hill and down into the valley, the factory, the once great symbol of wealth was no longer visible to the people who helped in its establishing. Lupe, unaware of her tear-stained face, pushed through the crowd that had gathered along the high road, fell, scraping her knees on the jagged surface, got up blindly and continued to make her way up the hill. Sylvia tried to call out to the girl when another part of the factory exploded, absorbing her screams and the gasps and pleas of the crowd to The Lord God, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
***
Laventille Hills never saw Lupe again. The residents would not miss her. Mayan, without fear or remorse, soon emerged from his hiding place. His supporters yelped and grunted in agreement with the faux re-establishment of racial balance. Blinded by the veil of smoke unfurling before their red hued and dark brown faces, they could not see the sadness and hurt of the others, the families of the “replacements”, the new cane cutters who had no nice houses with fancy bricks and who lived in galvanized shacks with dirt floors. Mayan’s followers could only see themselves (“We better than them…”). The what and the how of it all were unknown. But tomorrow was coming, please God.
Laventilles’ hills remained blanketed in smoke and soot the rest of the evening and night. The fire had not spread, and no more wake services or funerals had to be arranged except for those unfortunate men and women who were now ashes and dust.
“Mmm, mmm, dis not right. The dead have to rest, it kya done like dis…” Ms. Mary said. She always repeated her concerns and fears the same way. Her moaning kept the town up into the wee hours of the morning. Sylvia and Rollins cared for her in silence.
Rollins thought, “She talkin’ old time t’ing, nobody ain’t believe in dat nonsense no more.”
Day come and night follow behind like any other. Lupe was somewhere running and hiding, gasping for air and losin’ she good mind. Ms. Mary was sayin’ she prayers, the same way, again and again. In a backyard somewhere up in the hills, d’people dem was plannin’ and movin’ people around to suit their demand for reclamation. All I go’ say about Mayan is somebody must have make him busy in he head so bad that he find he’self standin’ over Larry, he body chop up and dead. Brenda, d’knowenest neighbour in Laventille, found Mayan standin’ over him breathin’ heavy, wid a cutlass in he hand, so cover in blood it have yuh t’ink him make like dat. She come hustlin’ up d’road to carry news ’bout what she know for sure, and how Mayan was crazy long time now.
Somebody in a backyard buryin’ somet’ing between some colourful flags. Another somebody rockin’ in a chair wid dey eyes closed. D’floorboards on d’veranda creakin’ under d’chair as if dem feelin’ pain. Day gone and come back. D’sun, shinin’ down hard on the hill; is like God wanted to see everyt’ing, or he wanted we to notice how ugly we was. D’white people come to see ’bout dey burn up buildin’. Everybody watchin’ at dem. They lookin’ important but nobody know why. Somet’ing tell meh dis is not the tomorrow dey was hoping for.
Life went on as usual. God show up enough times to keep d’Devil away from we. Maybe Mayan never might get control a he mind and he body again. Ms. Mary still prayin’. Brenda still runnin’ she mout’. Somebody say Lupe hidin’ up in Toco. Rollins doing aw’right; he managing, I guess. Sylvia tendin’ she garden; she tellin’ Theresa that she getting too old for playin’ game with man heart like dat. D’white people fixin’ up dey business. Nobody know how dat might concern dem. Like Mama used to say, before the Sugar in she foot kill she, “And that is that, then.”
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Mark James Cooper is a writer from Trinidad & Tobago. He is a graduate of Temple University with a B.A. in English Education and Africana Studies. He currently lives in Philadelphia.