A Tale Of Two Brothers.

A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS
Derek Selvon
Lucille Abercrombie's personal space was her five meter square
bedroom with lilac painted walls in a fine house in an affluent
community on the island. It was furnished with an intricate patterned
mahogany closet that stored her elegant wardrobe; a dresser with a big
circular mirror; a bravura chest of drawers for her lingerie; a desk
with her PC, a tall aluminum shoe rack and her exquisite, feminine
brass bed with pink and white satin sheets; soft, dreamy pillows and a
fat white puffy bear with a stupid face. There were no posters of
music idols or sport stars on the walls but those of lurid jellyfish;
fantastic, ethereal butterflies and unicorns and copies of Van Gogh
and Monet masterpieces and a luxurious purple hued carpet covered the
floor. There wasn't much of a cluster but at sixteen she had already
collected one hundred and seven dolls, numerous music CDs, books and a
diverse assortment of trinkets and other keepsakes, all shelved within
reach of her eye beams. She lived there with her father; a Criminal
Court judge, her mother; a psychiatrist and Shanti the obsequious,
illiterate East Indian maid she knew since she was born.
Her parents, who slept in different rooms from each other, were
second generation natives of European ancestry but despite her ethnic
features, Lucille had the bottomless eyes of an islander. Her father;
fifteen years her mother's senior, appeared inattentive to everything
but his own ruminations. He dearly loved and ignored Lucille, bought
her the best education and provided for her needs and wants through
the credit cards he put in her possession. Her mother juggled her own
career with the administration of the domestic affairs, charitable
fundraisers; business dinners; cocktail parties; a few discreet
extramarital relationships and her dependence on prescription drugs
for symptoms of corporeal complaints that she knew were psychosomatic.
Shanti cherished her 'Lucy' and although Lucille abhorred her
simplicity and ignorance, she depended on her care and comfort. Having
all and more; Lucille remained egocentric, world-weary, disconsolate
and introvert and yet there was something abnormal and brilliant
about her: something her father's prudence compelled him to encourage
her self-induced isolation.

Lucille possessed a prodigious intelligence: she was a mnemonist.
She remembered everything. She could recall every experience;
everything she ever read or saw or heard. She could access from her
memory every mental picture, conversation, aroma, dream and name with
the clarity of the presence. Logically, this condition was both a
blessing and a curse. She ambled through every syllabus, always ahead
of her classmates, so she had the time to read whatever she wanted and
read she did. She even exhausted her father's library. Her erudite
educators found her fascinating but she felt like a circus oddity in
their presence. Some students considered her to be snobbish and
unapproachable and avoided her altogether; others were exceedingly
affable and sycophantic but she was cognizant of the reason why and
hated it. Then there were those who were openly hostile and jeered
whenever she walked by with her head bowed and her arms hugging her
books – Lucille was the only Caucasian student there. After striking
achievements in her ordinary and advanced level exams there was still
the issue of whether she would pursue law or medicine and what
university, so she retreated to her room, spending hours on the
internet and eating sweet things while assessing her options and she
was in her room when they came in the back door.

The effervescent and urbane Raphael Salvatore took each breath of
life as if every living day was made especially for him. He was the
same age as Lucille and lived in the same neighborhood. Art,
cyberspace and speed was what his religion was all about. When he
wasn't painting or surfing the internet, he was either on his
skateboard or dreaming about cars and like Lucille, he had few
friends. His father was an Italian-American who worked for an oil
company that came to exploit the rich petroleum and natural gas
reserves on the island. The company left and he stayed; importing and
marketing industrial and agricultural equipment and exporting
Caribbean sculpture and fine art. Raphael's mother, Preya, was his
father's housekeeper; a devoted Hindu who later became his wife. She
was very beautiful and the man cherished her. She suffered a terrible
experience in her early life but the years were kind and she was
blissfully contented with her family. She came from a rural village in
the southern part of the island where she lived with her family. They
were sugar cane farmers who augmented their livelihood with subsistent
farming and animal husbandry and grew all the rice that they consumed
annually.

Preya was a secondary school student when she was viciously
assaulted and raped one evening while doing a chore in the family
garden. Her women tried to conceal it, understanding that their
culture was built on the of the marriage institution, the importance
of virginity and the benefits of social support; but Preya became
pregnant and increasing the shame of the family, she gave birth to a
dougla. The word is one of the Hindi words for bastard, but on the
island it is used to describe a bi-racial person of African and Indian
derivation. Preya was "spoiled", worthless for marriage, ostracized
and hidden at home. Some endorsed that she was to blame for what
happened to her, others said worse. It was even asserted that she
would somehow by association, infect the virtues of the daughters of
other Hindu men. So arrangements were made and the infant, a boy, was
adopted by a black family in the village who were of the Shango faith.
He was named David and the ignorant cruelty of children and the
vicious insensitivity of adults were always there to remind him of his
genesis. He developed into a juvenile delinquent and then, a sadistic
criminal. Preya worked as a maid for one or two affluent families
until she met the man she married.

It was near the day's end one Friday when it all started.
Dr.Abercrombie was tending to some decorative plants in her flower
garden and Lucille was sitting on the concrete bench near the front
gate, reading a book and keeping her company. The cool and quiet of
the evening was devastated as Raphael came tearing down the street,
his skateboard screeching on the asphalt. The houses were a blur on
either side of his eyes when he saw Lucille looking at him, blushed,
tried to do something impressive, hit the speed bump, raised three
feet in the air, lost it, tumbled twice and landed in a sitting
position right in front the gate; breath knocked out and ego hurting.
Lucille laughed out loud and covered her mouth.
"You alright?" she asked, emphasizing concern to apologize for the
laughter and went to the gate.
"Yeah" he stood up, ruffled but shaking it off like a superhero. He
looked at her for an eternal second, stilling breathing hard.
"You sure?" she persisted.
"Yeah," he made a show of dusting himself off, "what you have
there?" she held the book at an angle to show the title; An Angel at
My Table by Janet Frame.
"It's Australian," she offered.
"Yeah, I did it last year." The adrenalin was subsiding and the
testosterone kicked in so he did not comment further on the literature
but with an awkward smile said "I am Raphael."
"I know who you are," she laughed again; "I'm Lucille."
"Yeah, I came to your birthday party and you pound my nose." His
eyes absorbed all of her face and rested on her toes.
"Ha! You remembered that? Boy you were something else! I was eight
and you wouldn't stop jumping around and bothering me. You bawled like
a baby when I hit you and I got in trouble." Her eyes left his and
examined his lips and shoulders, but it was a discrete glance. "I use
to see you in your uniform on some evenings; you graduated?"
"Yeah; I did A's last year but don't ask what am planning to do now."
"I know what you mean," she laughed, "come and sit down for a
while." She unlatched the gate to let him sit on the bench and there
was a bumpy silence as they looked at each other full in the face. She
could smell his perspiration and he was lost in her eyes. He opened
his mouth to say something when Dr. Abercrombie came from the side of
the house wearing long rubber gloves and a funny denim sun-hat and
noticed them sitting there.
"Oh, Raphael is that you? How is your father?" she asked and
without waiting for a reply, she just walked through the front door.
"That's a nice hat," he observed quietly and Lucille satirized with
a giggle. They talked and talked and talked until a dark blue blanket
speckled with tears began to cover the sky and the smell of ladies of
the night blossoms lingered in the air. As he made to leave he said;
"By the way," and pointed to the book in her hand as she opened the
gate for him, "your author is a lunatic."
"True. True." She laughed in agreement.
"Goodnight, Lucille" he said, looking at her with a thousand
unspoken sentences locked in his lips.
"Hello Raphael" she said softly and he walked into the night with
his skateboard under his arm and humming birds quivering in his belly
and Lucille walked to her room with knees that were not her own.

David was inherently malevolent – that was the long and short of
it. He seemed to be estranged from the womb from all the sentiments
that made people humanely human. He lacked or refused to exercise
moral judgments, empathy and commiseration. The 'Mother' or priestess
who adopted him was good to him; there was always plenty to eat and
she instructed him well in the mores and dogma of her religion. He
learned of Shango: the god of thunder, Eshu: the god of vengeance and
Ifa, his servant and the Orishas; lesser gods who could be invoked and
appeased to fulfill various human needs and desires. She taught him
about flora that could be used to heal or hurt and incantations and
rituals and animal sacrifices that would do the same. Still, all the
good (according to her ethics) that she tried to instill in him was
overwhelmed by the dense darkness in his soul and he remained an
instrument of evil; an entity with a face contorted with fear and
anger and pain and hate, in a robust body that was clad in handsome
blue-black skin, walking the island and leaving victims along the way.
He was not part of a gang but he sometimes needed them to exchange
his swag for money and the gangsters who knew him were afraid to
betray him. They called him 'Spirit' because he could ascertain
esoteric conversations and information he couldn't possibly know about
and there was a superstitious rumor that he could harm or kill without
being present. When he was fifteen or so, during an altercation, he
stabbed a villager in the thigh and slashed another down the length of
his torso, for which he was made to spend three years in a detention
center for boys. Later on, before he was twenty, he beat a Hindu
pundit so badly that the man lost an eye and he was sent to jail for
five years where he enhanced his criminal education. Nobody understood
why he was always angry and nobody really cared; he was simply
warehoused as punishment with little attempt at reformation like other
young offenders on the island and at twenty-seven he was responsible
for the deaths of seven people but was never arrested or tried for any
of them.
He had women, many women; usually of the kind who are attracted to
compelling and aggressive men, to whom he gave gifts of money or
stolen jewelry and they in turn provided solace and satiated his
perverse sexual demands. He never loved any, basically he just
couldn't; but some in particular were actually in love with him. The
thoughts and memories that employed his mind consumed him like a
cancer: he knew how he was conceived; he found out that the rapist was
the brother of the woman who raised him and was chopped to death by
unknown assailants; he believed that his biological mother despised
him and he remembered the disdain the villagers had for him and being
constantly beaten up because he was an ethnic minority living in a
village mostly populated by Hindus. Foremost in his memory was the
physical and sexual abuse he suffered in prison and now he carried a
handgun. The world was, without a doubt in his mind, the very way that
he perceived it.

Raphael was now a frequent visitor to the Abercrombie home. It was
four months since that Friday when he fell off his skateboard and into
Lucille's heart. He worked for his father's company during the day and
pursued tertiary Art classes two evenings a week. There were long
phone calls and electronic mail but his visits were the apex of
Lucille's day when they would sit and talk about everything or nothing
at all; just sitting in silence or looking at each other with hearts
pulsating in harmony. Their love was young and pure and of course,
venerated by them both and maybe, just maybe, like a rock it would
endure the discordant waves of life.

Pablo was a cocaine addict and a thief. He was a skinny,
frightened, dim-witted twenty-five year old that would do any thing
for his next fix and had done time before for petty crimes. They
called him 'Cat' and David sometimes gave him money to get his drug
but with no altruism - Pablo was a good climber and that could be
useful. David gave him two cocaine rocks one night and arranged to
meet him the morning after in a place he knew that nobody would see
them meet. He pulled up in his own car and told Pablo to get in.
"Boy, yuh really smelling stink! Look ah have something in the
back seat for yuh." Pablo reached for the white plastic bag he saw
there and looked inside and grinned. It contained a T-shirt, jeans and
a cheap pair of canvas shoes.
"Yeah man, respect." Pablo fondled the fabric of the T-shirt.
"Doh tell me thanks boy – is work we goin' an' work and doh fuck up
– this is serious thing; yuh will make some good paper."
"Yeah Spirit, yeah man." He easily stooped to David's charismatic
dominance. They traveled in silence until they came to an isolated oil
field road and David stopped the car.
"Jump out here and wait for meh," David pointed in his face, "an'
doh let nobody see yuh, eh?" He gave him a rock and a pack with a few
cigarettes in it and warned again; "doh let anybody see yuh – yuh hear
what ah telling yuh?"
"Yeah man Spirit, respect man, respect." David watched him as he
walked through some bush and sat under a big silk-cotton tree to smoke
the coke. He drove up to a nearby bar, parked his car, locked it and
walked in. The bartender nodded upward in greeting.
"Wha' happenin'?" he said.
"Stress boy; stress." David shook his head and drooped his
shoulders. "Dat fan belt now bus' on meh dey. Is stress ah telling yuh
– gimmeh ah P.Q. and a chaser dey. Dis is trouble boy; real keep
back."
"Punchin'?"
"Yeah barman, ah chasing with a Red Bull."
"Ice?"
"Nah – bring it just so." The bartender gave him the hundred-proof
rum and David drank it all in one swig, and drank the chaser directly
out of the can. He lit a cigarette and shook he his head, feigning
frustration. "Hear nah barman, is orright if ah leave meh car park
here and gone get dis ting?"
"Yeah man, that eh no problem man – it have a place right down so.
Doe take it on so man; car doe go in the hospital man, is only
people." David paid the man and thanked him and left the bar.
"Arsehole," he muttered and stopped a taxi that was going in the
direction where he left Pablo. He stopped the taxi short of his
destination, walked the rest of the way and led Pablo to a small
wooded area to a car partially hidden with cut bush and shrubs, opened
the back door and gave him a pair of number plates, a screwdriver and
a small spanner.
"Here, change them number plates," he ordered, "an' change them
stinking clothes yuh have on." He gave Pablo another rock and crushed
one in a marijuana cigarette for himself. "Yuh remember what ah tell
yuh, Cat? Is work we going an' work; doe fuck around me today. Yuh
hear what ah telling yuh?"
"Yeah Spirit, I cool man; respect man, I cool like dat, man."

Dr. Abercrombie came home early in the day and said she wasn't feeling
well but Lucille knew that all she really wanted was to self-medicate
with her precious pills and sweet brandy. The judge had left at his
usual ungodly hour and Shanti was working in the kitchen; she
dutifully presented breakfast to her employer before he left for work
as she always did and stayed in the kitchen routinely preparing the
food to cook for the afternoon and evening meals. She felt sleepy in
the quiet midmorning; mesmerized by the flute-like cooing of the brown
doves and the murmuring wind on the leaves of the trees out back and
looking forward to her midday TV soap opera and afternoon siesta.
Lucille was sitting on her bed in union with her I-pod and a little
box of chocolates, trying to complete reading the lunatic's book. As a
result of her exceptional memory abilities, reading was a complex
activity for her. She linked words, numbers, feelings and events with
colours, shapes, odors, things and people. Her cerebral imagery for
words impeded comprehending entire sentences but with time, in her own
way, she was able to grasp whole chapters with relative ease which
enabled her to finish reading a book in very short time. It seemed
impossible to concentrate now because images of Raphael invaded every
crevice in her mind.

David parked the car a little way from the gate to Lucille's house
and donned a canvas coverall. He gave Pablo a side of transparent
black stockings and neatly folded a red knit-cap with cut out holes
for eyes and covered his own hair with it. He looked at Pablo.
"Doe fuck up and doe jumbie meh…ah warning yuh. Yuh hear?" Pablo
swallowed hard and nodded. "It have ah rich judge living here. You get
de money and the gold alone; none ah dem big electric ting yuh
accustom t'iefin'. I will handle de judge." He gave Pablo two used
brushes and two gallons of paint and they walked to the gate. David
calmly and quietly opened the gate and let Pablo in and Pablo followed
him to the back of the house.
"Put down de paint," he told him and took out his gun and held it
close to his thigh. They put on their masks and entered the house
through the back door with David in front. Shanti saw them and stood
up from where she was sitting, spilling the basin of vegetables she
held in her lap and clutched the paring knife she was using close to
her chest in both hands but before she could cry out, David took two
strides toward her and slammed the butt of his gun above her left
temple. She stumbled backward, her eyes rolled upward and she fell
like a calabash mango on thirsty earth. "Gone check out dem rooms an'
dem," he told Pablo and Pablo warily entered Dr. Abercrombie's room.
He found her sleeping and noticed the half empty bottle of brandy and
glass on her nightstand. He smiled and went about his work with the
stealth that his nickname implied, filling the bag that held his new
clothes with her jewelry and cash from her handbag, then quietly
closed the door and move to the judges room. David was drinking from a
bottle of scotch that he held in a kitchen towel, his mask rolled up
to bridge of his nose, and he was looking down at Shanti. He motioned
to Pablo to hurry up when he came out from the doctor's room and his
eyes settled on the door to Lucille's sanctuary.
David opened the door and stood looking at her for a short time
before she saw him; when she did, she bolted upright on her knees and
yanked the earplugs from her ears. He held the gun where she could see
it and walked toward her bed. Lucille cowered, crossing her wrists in
front her face.
"Doe bawl. Yuh hear what ah telling yuh? Doe bawl." He whispered
loud and harsh and she nodded dumbly. "Where de fucking judge? He
here?" she opened her mouth to speak but there were no words, so she
shook her head, gawking at him with wild terrified eyes. David scanned
the contours her body through her pajamas and jammed the gun against
her neck. He put his face close to hers, his bloodshot eyes with
dilated pupils piercing through his mask. She could smell the cocaine
and alcohol and marijuana on his breath.
"Ah could smell yuh cunt…yuh white fucking slut; ah smelling yuh
cunt." He grasped her breast and pinched the nipple between his thumb
and fore-finger. "Ah want some and ah taking some. Gyul, if yuh only
bawl; yuh go dead today. Yuh hear what ah telling yuh? Yuh go dead
here today."
"No…please…no," she pleaded weakly and struggled helplessly; "look
I have jewelry over there…take it and go away. Please?"
"Ah takin' dat too; yuh mudder cunt! Allyuh feel allyuh own dis
country, eh? I tell you I want dat? Yuh feel yuh better dan me? Eh,
yuh feel yuh better dan me?" Holding the gun to her neck he shifted
his other hand from her breast, running it down her waist, her abdomen
and violently grabbed her vagina. She held the hand with both her
hands and Lucille screamed like she never had in her life.
"Shanti! Daddy! Help me! Help me PLEASE!" David slapped her hard
with the back of his hand and she fell across the bed crying loudly.
Pablo came in the room, plastic bag in hand, and saw what was
happening.
"Oh God Spirit, we eh come here for dat man; som'body go hear man."
"You know what I come here for?" David shouted. "You know what I
come here for? Yuh fucking spranger! When last yuh get ah cockstand?
Go and get dat gold dey and mind yuh business; yuh mudder cunt
spranger!" he turned back to Lucille and she wrung her hands.
"Please mister…please leave me alone. What did I ever do to you?
Please leave me alone. Please." David looked at her and exhaled and
she saw his eyes soften for a second in the mask but the noise had
roused Dr. Abercrombie from her slumber and she stormed through
Lucille's door. She saw David with the gun, Lucille on the bed and
Pablo in the corner with the bag; her drunken face was a mask of
confusion. David looked at Pablo and without taking his eyes off him,
pointed the gun at Dr. Abercrombie and shot her in the nose. The noise
was deafening and blood went everywhere and Lucille screamed. David
aimed the gun at her, thought better of it and slapped her hard,
shutting her up.
"Spirit, lehwe go nah man – som'body go hear for shore." Pablo was
truly frightened now.
"Okay, orright; lehwe go man, lehwe go." He put the gun in the
coverall's pocket and made to step over the doctor's body but Lucille
spat at him:
"You fucking black simian savage! Look at what you did! What did I
ever do to you? What did we ever do to you?" David spun around.
"What you callin' me? Yuh white fucker! What you callin'me?" he
cuffed her cheek with his fist, fracturing her jaw and knocking her
out. He turned to Pablo. "Lehwe go…walk. Walk and doe run." They went
outside with the plastic bay, took up the paint cans and brushes and
casually walked to the car. Lucille woke up, stepped in her mother's
blood with her bear feet and walk to the living room, leaving her
footprints on the carpet. She sat on the couch, turned on the TV with
the remote and began watching Shanti's soap opera.

David drove the car with Pablo to another secluded area near the
bar where his own car was parked and made Pablo pour the cans of paint
all over the car's interior. He opened the trunk and took out a
fan-belt, a tool box and a plastic bottle of gasoline. He poured the
gasoline all over the paint, put the coverall and the masks in the
car, inserted sticks of matches up to their heads, horizontally, into
five cigarettes, lit the cigarettes and put them in the car and closed
the door. They put the plastic bag in the tool box and took it and the
fan-belt back to the bar with them. David ordered more drinks and had
Pablo pretend to install the fan-belt while he drank and chatted with
the bartender. There weren't many patrons at the bar but it was still
hot and smoky and noisy. When they drove away from the bar David tried
to placate Pablo.
"Cat, doe study how ah talk tuh yuh dey yuh know; but dem
people.... dey doe care 'bout men like me and you. I doe study dem yuh
know. In dis judgment, I takin' what is mine and you must do de same
ting. Is one set ah fight down an' oppression, but yuh see me? Nobody
eh fucking around me again. I say bu'n dem man….bu'n dem! Chant down
dis system! Ah really sorry ah call yuh ah spranger man." Pablo
remained morose and silent. The withdrawal was setting in since his
last fix and he was really depressed. They passed by the area where
they left the car and they could see black cloudy smoke ascending and
David felt satisfied. He persisted;
"Yeah boy Cat, doe study dem because dey doe study you. I go make
sure yuh i-ree boy; I go big yuh up. Doe worry; anybody mess with yuh
will have to deal with me. I know yuh is ah good soldier an' ting jus'
hard out here in Babylon, but doe study dem man – just take what is
yours, man….just take what is yours and doe study nobody. How much
money yuh tink we get dey?"
"I eh know, ah few hundred…ah few thousand and de gold an' dem
have plenty stone an' some I eh know if is gold or not."
"Dat go be pressure to sell boy; ah'll tell yuh what…you keep all
de money – ah will see what ah could do wit de gold. I eh need no
money I could always get dat."
"Yeah man Spirit. That go fix me real nice. Real nice man….but ah
really could take a smoke, man." Pablo became exhilarated in spite of
the hunger burning in his psyche.
"Yeah boy – me too. Lehwe fine somewhere and build somet'ing." He
pulled unto a gravel road in a sugar-cane field and drove a mile or
more until they came to a guava tree on the side of a slow moving
tributary and they got out and sat under the tree. He gave Pablo the
last of his marijuana, a leaf of wrapping paper and two more rocks.
"Here, you build it," he said and Pablo deftly went to work. When
he was finished he offered it to David to light but David wave it
away. "Nah, you spark up. You big up; I go smoke just now."
Pablo lit the cocaine laced joint and began greedily sucking on
it, making a choking repulsive noise as he tried to hold the smoke in
his lungs while David just stared at the water. When he passed it to
David, David took a long deep drag, held his breath, pulled out his
gun, shot Pablo pointblank behind the ear and exhaled. He tranquilly
continue to smoke as watched the black hole in Pablo's head and the
earth drinking the blood then he got up and search the pockets of the
new pants and found some hundred dollar and lesser bills. He kicked
the body.
"Nobody does rob me yuh mudder cunt spranger," he said to it,
"yuh was dead since ah pick yuh up dis morning." He went to the
plastic bag in the toolbox in the trunk and took out all the cash,
folded it in a wad and put it in his pocket; the pieces of jewelry he
tucked under the tools. He soaked Pablo's body with gasoline and lit
it; "Bu'n so, fucker," he mumbled and drove away. He indulged in
disparagement of himself as he left the cane-field. How in all his
planning could he not foresee the obvious; that the judge would most
likely not be home in the daytime. He preferred to operate in the day
when illusions could be boldly created and his narcissism could be
enhanced; the night had many eyes and ears. Still, in the face of his
disappointment he was delighted that he hurt the man who sentenced him
to five years of pain.

Lucille wasn't there for her mother's funeral nor did she witness
the further invasion of her room by the police detectives and other
forensic personnel. She was spared the additional ordeal of visiting
relatives and the media publicity as she lay grieving and healing in
the private hospital where the judge concealed her. She spent every
waking hour living and reliving the horror and tragedy of her mother's
murder with the clarity of recall that she possessed. With her
father's consent, she received psychiatric guidance from her mother's
long-time friend and colleague; an avant-garde, who, like Lucille,
lived with an analogous mental condition. Lucille was warmed and awed
by this woman's personality. A Swiss-born psychiatrist, philosopher
and a student of the Noetic Sciences; she contributed a great part to
Lucille's recovery. Lucille later read all of her books and she became
a lifelong friend…..and there was the ever-present Raphael. Raphael
was either at her bedside or in the waiting room. He brought her
sweet, flavored milk drinks and fruit juices because she couldn't
chew, read to her and finished her sentences for her because it hurt
when she tried to talk and let her stain his shirts with mucus from
her nose and tears from her eyes.
Shanti became blind from the blow to her temple and subsequent
surgical treatment provided only partial vision. The philanthropic
judge arranged for her to have a monthly pension and she retired to
live with an older sister. This was another great loss to Lucille.
Raphael and her absent-minded, distant, grieving father were the
closest people she had left. Her father's health deteriorated and he
suffered a stroke. He finally had to give up his practice, stayed
mostly at home in the care of a nurse, began using a cane to help him
walk and gave up driving for himself. Lucille healed and grew closer
and closer to Raphael and they quickly became pregnant; postponing the
university question and then Raphael suffered a tragedy that bound him
to Lucille forever.

Preya was in the laundry-room with her back to the door when she
heard a dull thud, felt a flashing pain in her head and saw red pin
pricks of light as everything before her eyes was engulfed in
darkness. When she regained consciousness she was lying in her bed and
someone was sitting next to her but she was disoriented and couldn't
see clearly who was there. When she tried to move, she couldn't and
when she tried to talk she found that she couldn't speak. She had a
severe pulsing headache and tears spilled from her eyes increasing her
lack of visibility. The person sitting next to her wiped her eyes with
the edge of a bed sheet and her confusion turned to real terror. She
did not know this man. His skin was black as midnight with thin,
matted, kinky, curls of hair on his head and deep, pronounced furrows
in the middle of his eyebrows and bright, vitriolic eyes peering out
from a face like a dormant sea of glass. She struggled to sit up and
looked up and down to see her hands and feet tied to the bed. Preya
was naked. She shook her head from side to side and bawled and gagged
from her blouse that was stuffed in her mouth. She turned her
poignant, quizzical eyes on her captor.
"Oh, so yuh doe know meh?" David brandished one of Preya's large
sharp kitchen knives in a surgical gloved hand. "Well, is a long time
ah wanted to meet yuh."
He pulled the knife the knife across her chest; slashing deep
into both her breasts and she arched her back and screamed into the
blouse.
"Sufferin' is a hellava ting, yuh know. De more yuh feel it, de
les' yuh does care. Ask me; I go tell yuh." He watched her as she
looked at her breasts with the same eyes that kept asking him why over
and over again.
David put his left hand flat on her belly and pulled the skin
upward and with the knife in his right hand, he made another deep
gash, cutting through the stretch marks between her navel and the
mound of her vagina and Preya screamed and trashed as her blood gushed
and pooled before being absorbed by the bed. David cuffed her nose
hard to settle her down and as blood bled from her broken nose, she
watched with dismay as he plunged his hand into her abdomen and pulled
her uterus and one of her ovaries out of the gash and let it bulge out
on her belly and before she could go into shock he removed the blouse
from her mouth and she gasped a long thin breath. She did not try to
scream but sustained breathing evenly as endorphins continued to
inhibit the pain and she looked at the man who was staring her full in
the face without emotion. A flicker of recognition flashed in her eyes
and she noticed the child with no name and David saw it.
"Or-hor, so yuh know meh now?"
"It wasn't my fault," she gurgled ruefully. "Oh God, I so sorry. I
so sorry. It really wasn't my fault."
"Woman, everybody fucking sorry. But doe worry: ah go send yuh
real son for yuh." Her eyes barked new anguish and fear as she
realized the meaning of his words, but before she could speak, he
plunged the knife through her wind pipe and into her spinal cord and
left it there and in the evening Raphael came home from work with his
father and ran to his mother's room to find out what she cooked for
dinner.
                               
                                               ********************

Helen Catania Salvatore was born on a cool January evening to two
young parents who believed that the world was a beautiful and evil
place. They didn't care to meet new people and they certainly didn't
want to establish friendships with anyone; but they were not afraid.
The tragedies they experienced and the birth of their daughter brought
them so close together that they hardly needed to speak to each other
to communicate. They lived in both the Abercrombie and Salvatore homes
which they shared with their fathers. Raphael assumed the management
of his father's business, who had taken to spending more and more time
in his home country since the murder of his wife and Lucille
established three cyber cafés in the city and kept her infant daughter
with her everywhere she went, utterly evading the notion of hiring a
sitter even when one was truly needed. Helen was pure life. Her birth
blessed her parents with comfort and healing and in many ways endowed
them with strength. She had her father's copper skin, bushy, jet black
hair and her mother's Caribbean blue eyes. At two and a half years
old, Helen's every waking moment demanded her parents' care and
attention. There was simply no time left for grief nor acrimony nor
hate nor fear. They were busy and pragmatic; building and protecting
their nuclear family.


Inspired by his granddaughter's vivacity and contemplations of
his imminent death, the aging judge went about putting his house in
order. All of his real and personal estate he had already willed to
Lucille, with the exception of contributions to a few charities. He
decided that the home that he and his wife had built together, where
she lived and died and where Lucille was born should be renovated. It
was one of his intentions that he kept prevaricating even before
Dr. Abercrombie's death so he contracted the services of a
construction company known as the C.C.C. or Cygnus Construction
Company Ltd and the work began. The company's name and logo, a
stylized swan was printed on all their vehicles and the uniforms of
the construction workers. Lucille spent more time at home during the
renovations, managing her business from there and Raphael came home at
every opportunity just to be with them. It was noisy with the sound of
power-tools and the men shouting to each other and Helen would peep
through the curtains at them with fascination.

Raphael was on the back porch playing with Helen that Friday
evening at the end of the fortnight when all the workers left to go
back to base to collect their pay. It was just before sunset when a
vehicle honked outside the front gate which was already locked. After
the attack the judge had installed a new gate with a remote controlled
locking system and security cameras around the perimeter of the house
with monitors inside. The judge looked at the monitor and recognized
one of the company's pick-up trucks and casually opened the gate from
the living room and went back to his musing. The worker drove up the
driveway and parked, exited the vehicle and walked to the back of the
house and found Raphael and Helen. Raphael noticed him and lifted up
Helen and held her to his chest. The worker was wearing the company's
cover-all uniform.
"Evening. Evening boss," the worker called, "ah jus' come to pick
up de chop-saw an' some odder tools for dem boys tuh use tomorrow on
ah next project."
"Yeah, go ahead but I can't tell you where what is."
"Nah, it ent much – I know what they want." The worker looked up
at the ceiling of the porch. "Allyuh doing de porch too?"
"I don't really know. I suppose so. I don't really live here."
Helen had already lost interest in the worker and squirmed in her
father's arms, wanting to go on the floor. Raphael sat on one of the
porch chairs, held her on his lap and offered her one of her mother's
old dolls that she was playing with and left on the chair.
"Yeah, but here could use some fixing up for true." The worker
say down partially in another chair and pointed upward, "Yuh see dat
stain dere? Dat is water leaking through. All where de paint raising
up on the wall here so with de mildew – all dat is water and dese
tiles startin' tuh loose out too." He leaned down and tapped one or
two of with his knuckles and they made a hollow sound. Raphael nodded
politely. He really didn't want a conversation, but the worker seemed
easy-going, familiar and bold in the way he invited himself to sit and
talk about his observations so Raphael was tolerant and the man went
on.
"Boss, ah tell yuh; it have a man down Central – if yuh see how
sweet he do dat overhang behind he house. He put some kinda graphite,
black an' white an' gold tiles with wrought iron chairs that paint in
ah kinda flat black and gold-chrome an' ah center table with ah glass
top that have de same kinda black an' gold pattern - but is ah chess
board an' de men is glass but with de same kinda gold pattern on dem.
When ah tell yuh dat place lookin' nice. It really, really look nice."
The worker drew a breath and Raphael was now very interested. They
began a conversation on construction aesthetics and various
construction contractors' work while Helen tried to poke out the
doll's eye with her index finger. She wanted to go back on the floor
but her father kept her on his lap in spite of her protests. The
worker, seeing the discomfort, made as if to go about his business but
Raphael asked his name.
"Dey does call meh Spirit, but meh name is really David.
Everybody know me - ah does do meh little private jobs on the side. Ah
sorry ah doe have none ah me cards on meh, but ah will leave one for
yuh when ah come tomorrow." He took two steps away, paused and turned
around. "Hear nah boss; ah could bother yuh for a little glass ah
cole-water, please?"
"Yeah. No problem." Raphael said and called Lucille. When she
came out Helen jumped off her father and ran to her mother to be
rescued by from the monotony. Lucille nodded to David and Raphael
asked her for the water.
"Just let me settle her in and I will bring it out," she said and
to David: "would you prefer some fresh orange juice? I just made
some."
"Yes, thanks madam. Ah really thirsty." He held his throat between
his thumb and forefinger and swallowed.
The men went back to their conversation and Lucille hurried
inside with her precious, God-given child tight in her arm and close
to her pounding heart. The judge was snoring in his easy chair with a
book in his lap but Lucille ignored him and rushed to her room. She
put Helen in her playpen, grabbed a big bar of chocolate from her
desk, opened it, shoved it in her daughter's hands and Helen began to
eat with relish. She locked her room and ran into her father's study,
opened a draw and took out a small old wooden vanished box. It was
inlaid with velvet and contained an old Colt semi-automatic and four
magazines. The weapon was given to her father by her grandfather and
Lucille had often seen him cleaning and polishing in with pride. He
even let her hold it once or twice when she was younger and explained
a thing or two about it and its history. She took it out and with some
difficulty, slammed in a magazine into the handle and ran back outside
to Raphael.
With the pupil of eyes contracted and with two trembling hands she
held the gun pointed at David and rocked from side to side like a
caged animal. Raphael sat in his chair and stared at her as if she had
gone raving mad but David stood up.
"Where de fuck you going wit dat? Yuh know how to use dat?" He was
confident but not really shouting. "I jus' come here tuh talk tuh yuh
man – an' you want tuh fucking kill me? Well fuck you an' he an' Preya
an' yuh fucking mudder! All ah allyuh mudder cunt!" He reached in his
coverall pocket and pulled out his gun and pointed it at Raphael but
kept looking at Lucille.
"Fuck all ah allyuh," he said to her, "dis ting go done tuhday."
"Yes it will," she whispered and her eyes flashed and she
discharge four rounds into his chest and neck. Spirit slumped back
into the chair he was sitting in and his gun fell to the floor. He
turned his eyes on Raphael.
"I is yuh brudder…" and like a rolling stone reaching inertia, he
died with his eyes and mouth open.
Justice Abercrombie came out, struggling on his cane and
clutching his chest with the question on his face. He looked at the
bleeding body, the gun on the floor and Raphael standing in shock. He
took his gun from his daughter's hand and she spoke.
"It was him. He murdered Mom and hurt Shanti. He hurt me. His
eyes. His voice. His smell. Why would he want to do these things to
us? Why us? Who is he?"
"I have seen his face before, but I can't place it. No doubt that
van is stolen." The judge peered at him intently above his spectacles
balancing on his nose, looked at Lucille and hugged her with one arm.
"You were protecting your family. No one will blame you – you did the
right thing. Let us go inside. Come Raphael this is not a good thing
to be staring at."
Raphael went in first and started crying. Bawling. Lucille held
him tight but her eyes were dry. The judge called a superintendent of
police and spent a short time on the phone talking with him.
"They will come now." He said when he hung up. "Listen to me and
speak what I tell you to say. Raphael control yourself and pay
attention." He spoke to them clearly and quickly, urgently making sure
that they understood him and Raphael said:
"I heard about him - my mother told me. He was her son. How could
he cut her like that? How could he think he could call me his brother?
Oh God….he came here to kill me? Where is Helen?" When Lucille told
him she was alright, he started crying again. He didn't cry when he
discovered his mother nor did he cry at her funeral. Helen began
calling for her mother from behind the bedroom door. She was sticky
and thirsty from the chocolate and Lucille answered and went to attend
to her precious, God-given child.

The Preasure Release Valve

THE PRESSURE RELEASE VALVE

Derek Selvon

The world was still flat back then and you couldn't feel the

August sun burn your face and shoulders or the searing hot asphalt

under your bare feet. Two months holidays from school meant one thing

to a thirteen-year old boy living in his fourteen-year old nation;

play. Play as hard and fast as you can before the sun sets or worst –

you get called inside to do a chore or run an errand and every boy on

Knox Street, San Fernando knew this. From the time the kis-kee-dee

woke you in the morning, you brushed your teeth and powered up on a

high-octane fuel of tea and bake with salt fish or smoked herring or

cheese or the ever-faithful Blue Band Margarine and you went outside

to face the day like a rapacious predator preying on time. Run, don't

walk. Cricket, football, schooch, three-hole, giant step/baby walk,

red light green light one two three, hop scotch, moral, tag or rescue:

do what you want. Every unfenced yard, every mango or guava or bird

pepper tree, or shallow-bennie plant was everybody's property- you

could make a "chow". You were laughing or crying, arguing, quarreling,

fighting or just "liming". You could scoop up seven colours and

jumperbelles from the drain with a Klim-pan or make a kite with brown

paper, flour paste, coconut leaf stems and your mother's old sheets or

shoot green lizards with hard grass stalks from slingshots made from

rubber bands and bicycle spokes. But if you wanted to show off how

brave you were and risk getting into trouble and a possible cut-arse

all you had to do was pelt a stone or two at Tire Service.

The Tire Service Company Ltd. Was housed in an old, ugly, two

story, acre large galvanize building surrounded by a galvanize fence.

The front of the structure was on Cipero Street and the back was on

Knox Street. Rubber pellets, old tires and bales of assorted wires and

cables were delivered at the back and the end product of new and

repaired tires were packed on trucks for transport at the front of the

building. The galvanize would reflect the sunlight during the day like

a blinding beacon but at night after the workers had left, the

compound was poorly lighted and dismal and foreboding noises came from

there. One was a creaking; banging clatter that occurred all through

the night, which my father explained was caused by the cooling and

expansion of the steel and galvanize that contracted in the heat of

the day. The other was a thunderous hissing that shattered the silence

two or three times a night. My father said it was caused by a

"pressure release valve." The latter haunts my nightmares even today.

I named it "The Girl Screaming Monster Noise."

Throwing stones at the building was entertaining because it made a

loud noise on contact, but it was nothing compared to the ruckus the

machinery inside made. The problem was Mr. Cooper; the foreman with a

colossal mustache, hated it. He asserted that it was hazardous to his

men and would rush outside the gate with his hands on his hips and

barrel belly protruding.

"Who do dat?" he would shout. "Why allyuh so? Who do dat?"

You were quickly identified by your loyal playmates because one; you

were stupid to do it in the first place and cause trouble, two; nobody

wanted to drink medicine for your fever and three; Mr. Cooper knew

every boy by name and would sometimes reward you with shiny ten cent

and twenty-five cent pieces if he affirmed that you were 'good' but

would without doubt complain to your parents if you were 'bad' or

"wotless" as he would say. The money could buy Snow Cones from the

unhygienic vendor who passed by on his bicycle in the hot midafternoon

sun. Still, pelting a stone at that building was something you just

had to do sometimes.

We lived next door to the Company on Knox Street, the galvanize

fence bordering one side of our yard. It was home and everywhere else

was somewhere else but with two daily newspapers, two AM radio

stations, one television station and a big public library in San

Fernando; you couldn't escape the link with the rest of the universe.

There was Dr. Eric Williams, the nation's first Prime Minister,

wanting to build schools all over Trinidad and Tobago, cane farmers

and oilfield workers were striking in protest for better wages and

conditions and Black Power activists in dashikis and sandals were

staging protest marches for, well, black power. The police were

indiscriminately beating citizens and Rastafarians were "chanting down

Babylon". Teenagers wanted to be a hero like Luke Skywalker and be

able to disco dance like John Travolta and own a color TV and the

biggest record players with enough LPs and 45s to last a lifetime and

afros that won't go flat on one side; bell bottom pants with bells as

big as their sisters' skirts and shoe heals as tall as El Cerro del

Aripo . I needed somebody to please explain to me why they were

building so many nuclear bombs when there were already two World Wars

and millions died and what it meant that the country was now a

Republic?

It was the end of one of those days when the malevolence came

home and I began to die. Andy, Ricardo and I were sitting on the curb

talking about cigarettes and the two sisters down the street and

speculating about breasts and masturbation and mulling over how fast

Haseley Crawford really was when my father called me. I went to him

and he was sitting on his work bench smoking a cigarette; the glow at

the tip was brighter than the fading sunset behind his silhouette. His

command was simple; the one usually reserved for this hour:

"Go an' wash yuh foot an' pick up ah book."

I complied without gripe and was settling downing to some hot tea

with hops-bread and black pudding (blood sausage) sliced, dipped in

egg and fried when Roger and Terrance, cousins from next door came

bounding up the stairs. They were both about seven or eight years old,

their eyes were wide and wild with exhilaration and they were out of

breath.

"Uncle Irving! Uncle Irving come quick! It have a chile crying in

Tire Service!" Terrance gasped each word.

"Hush yuh mouth boy, is cat mating. Is so dey does go." My father

dismissed him with a wave of his hand and a wry smile.

"No Uncle Irving is ah child! It saying mammy!" Roger hopped from

foot to foot. My father sucked his teeth in disgust.

"Boy, ah tell alluh dat is how cat does go." But he got up and went

into his bedroom and came out with his Colonial army-issued flash

light: a brass World War Two monstrosity that could bash the head of a

man or a hippopotamus. He took deliberate but hurried steps down the

stairs and I left my dinner and hurried at his heels. If this could

ignite his interest, it was in all probability too good to miss. Roger

and Terrance were already out the gate to the part of the fence on the

street.

"Come on this side Uncle Irving. Come on this side." Merle and

Teresa, the mothers of the boys were already there.

"Dat really sounding like a chile, Uncle Irving." Merle said with

confidence as we approached them.

"Alright, alright. Allyuh hush leah mih see." But he listened, his

head tilted on one side. He would have the final say for he was the

perpetual expert on every topic and in every situation.

"Hush allyuh," Teresa said to the boys and we listened. I could

hear Neighbor Rodney's eight-track distorting a 'Bob Marley and the

Wailers' song down the street.

"Mammiee, ma-mee." It sounded like a cat in heat to me; but my

father knew better.

" Kelvin! Kello!" he called, "come out here boy, come quick."

Kelvin came out on his porch in his underwear scratching his

testicles. He was my father's nephew; the son of an older sister and

Merle's husband. He was a short, red, burly man with shoulder length

hair and a rich beard and a tattoo of the head of a Native American

chieftain on one arm and a ship's anchor on the other.

"Eh? Wha' allyuh seein' dey? Ah manicou?" but he wasn't about to be hurried.

"Come quick boy." My father insisted. "Put on ah pants an' come quick."

"Is ah baby Uncle Kello," Terrance informed at the top of his

lungs, "come an' see."

"Hush yuh mout, you." Teresa admonished. By now there were faces

in the windows and inquires from the verandas.

"Wha' it is? Wha' allyuh see?" Mrs. DeVertuil and Mrs. Herbert

came inquiring in their thin nightwear and slippers. Mr. Herbert was

bareback. A little crowd would soon assemble.

"Whey it is? Whey it gorn?" Kelvin came out with a flashlight and

a baton to kill the manicou. I could see him thinking: curry and yam.

"Kelvin, put down de wood and help meh wid dis galvanize. You hold

dis." He gave me the flashlight. "Flash the torch where ah could see,

eh." That was a warning.

They both held the edge of a galvanize sheet and ripped the nails out

but we could see nothing inside the compound.

"Hush allyuh. Let we listen." Kelvin said and the people stopped

breathing. My father went through the fence into the compound and

Kelvin and I followed. The beams of the flashlight created eerie

dancing shadows all around me. "Hush, hush. Listen, listen."

"Mammy? Mammy?" I crawled through some tangled steel and came face

to face with a troll or a demon dwarf or some kind of fiend come to

life from a Heman cartoon and it started to hobble toward me. "Mammy?

Mom?" At the same time the pressure release valve went off right

beside me, louder than I ever heard and something came out from my

chest never to return and a scorching iron burned on the canvas of my

mind the image of a three year old girl. Her tiny hands were tied in

front of her with red and black electrical wire. She wore a bloody

white vest and her pretty pink panties were tied around her neck.

One eye was blood-shot from a blow and the other looked out helplessly

from a plastic face stained with tears and mucus and semen. Blood and

shit left tracks on her legs and

feet and her vagina was a torn little mass of flesh slowly dripping

little drops of blood.

I bawled and she shuddered and screamed and screamed. The noise from

the pressure release valve ended and there was hot steam everywhere.

My father said softly;

"Kelvin, lift up this chile, leh we go from here." She protested

in fear but he took her up and we went back through the fence and it

was like bringing the neighbors waiting there a gift from hell. He put

the child to stand in the street and sat down beside her and said

nothing. My father said nothing. I looked at everyone and the girl

looked up at everyone. Merle broke the silence;

"Oh God," she said, "is ah chile in truth. Wha' happen, she

fall down?" Teresa stood with her arms fold observing the girl with a

perplexed look. I watched her face as the complete horror pierced her

understanding and she wailed from the depth of her.

"Oh God allyuh, somebody rape this chile! He rape de chile, he rape

de chile!" She kept spinning round and round, shaking both hands at

the wrist as if pleading with everyone to make it all go away. The

women surrounded the child, fussing and crying uselessly. The men

backed away from her like she had a disease. The girl started to

scream once more; terrified of the many hands on her.

"What is 'rape?'" Terrance asked meekly. Mrs. DeVertuil noticed

him and spun him round at the shoulders.

"Allyuh chirren – go from here. Go across de road!" she ordered

and a group of four feet tall people submissively moved.

A car came speeding up the street stopped about fifty feet from

the gathering and a man and a woman came out. I recognized them as the

young couple who had just moved in on Cipero Street two houses down

from Tire Service. They were both teachers. The woman walked slowly

toward us and everyone just stared at her.

"Raquel? Raquel?" she asked and the women moved away from the

child, "Raquel!"

"Mammy!" the girl shrieked and her mother snatched her up in her

arms, clutching her to her chest.

"What? What happened?" Nobody answered. Nobody met her gaze. Some

turned and walked away. She held the child away from her and looked at

her and saw it all in a one second fleeting glance and the fountains

in her heart broke.

"No, no, no! Baby, baby, baby! Raquel! Raquel! Who will do this?

How somebody could do this?" She wept and wept. Her husband took four

or five hasty strides toward them, then turned around and walked away.

Hurried toward them and walked away again. He covered his ears with

his hands and looked at the sky in every direction as if something big

was falling from there. The infant fell asleep in her mother's arms,

or at least I thought she did. My father went to the man.

"Dis chile have to go by the hospital, now-now." He told him.

Mrs. Herbert and Merle helped the mother up. Teresa put out her

hands to help with girl but the mother shook her head and tightened

her embrace. They huddled toward the car- a picture that would make

John Lennon call for war or Brezhnev launch one his precious ICBMs. As

the car drove away, the pressure release valve bellowed again and

nobody spoke for a few seconds, then Merle said:

"Ah tell allyuh it was sounding like a chile yuh know" and

everyone started to talk at once. They became judges and doctors and

parents, police and yes, politicians – all politely supporting each

other's opinions; agreeing to the last syllable. The conversations

changed to different but related topics as each felt ashamed to be the

first to go indoors. My father said to me;

"Go an' wash yuh foot an' go in yuh bed" and I went home. My

dinner was still on the table but I went straight to bed and the

pressure release valve didn't sound again that night. I heard my

father come in and light one of his cigarettes with his Texaco Star

lighter and I slept away my last night as a child.

No bare feet children came out to play on Knox Street the next

day or the day after but eventually they did. I never played on the

street again, ever; I became an adolescent and later a confused young

man in what was supposed to be a Brave New World. Teresa was sick for

a week with Merle fussing over her and a policeman without a uniform

came by and asked questions and took notes. A little article about the

soon to be forgotten episode was tucked away on the middle page of the

newspaper and the roaring of the pressure release valve evolved into

the sinister Girl Screaming Monster Noise to accompany my nightmares

of sinister dwarf demons and trolls with bloodshot eyes menacingly

screaming "Mammy! Mammy!" as they tortured bloody naked children tied

with electric wire.

I saw Raquel again four years later. It was Independence Day

and she was with her mother on Cipero Street waiting to see the parade

with a red and black and white paper replica of the national flag in

her hand like the insulated wire and white vest she wore that night.

She was singing; Jesus loves the little children, all the children of

the world.Her eyes darted from side to side, looking everywhere but

seeing nothing. She was locked away in her own little head, away from

the world where the children who Jesus loves lived and I hated her. I

hated her for the loss of the thing that left my chest that night and

for letting the dwarf demon kill her mind and for the Girl Screaming

Monster Noise in my brain that woke me up some nights sweating and

terrified and I hated the nation where the trolls with bloodshot eyes

hid and ate and lived and I hated Jesus who doesn't protect all of the

children that he loves all of the time. A month later; John Lennon was

murdered and a year later Dr. Eric Williams died. He didn't build all

the schools he wanted to, but the ones he did build produced many

professionals and intellectuals and many semi-literate you thugs with

cocaine and beautiful guns. The year after; Brezhnev also died but his

ICBMs stayed alive; hibernating and waiting.

San Fernando, in time, became a city. Cipero Street became a

businessmans' paradise. Tire Service was torn down and houses on Knox

Street were enclosed with an assortment of high walls and barb-wire

fences. New multi-story buildings were built and a park where parents

won't let their children go and play because of the violent

pseudo-American young men playing basketball and pushers and

prostitutes who existed there on the sunset coloured evenings and on

the cool guilty nights. There was no Mr. Cooper to police the

morality, rewarding the good with shiny coins and judging the bad as

"wotless". Since the world was no longer flat, I jumped on a planet

with new wars, new Olympic heroes and hip hop and dance hall, compact

discs and Pac-Man and Space Invaders and Video Arcades and Cable TV

and cell phones and personal computers and HIV/AIDS. A planet where a

sneer was more acceptable than a smile, where defiance was more

tolerable than compliance, where a man's clothing described his worth

and where babies were born without fathers and people forgot to be

afraid of hibernating nuclear bombs. A planet where the Girl

Screaming Monster Noise came to live with me.