Miguel Street

  I gave my word.

  He said, ‘I want you to find out if the number draw.’

  The draw was made about six weeks later and I looked for Bolo’s number. I told him, ‘You number ain’t draw, Mr Bolo.’

  He said, ‘Not even a proxime accessit?’

  I shook my head.

  But Bolo didn’t look disappointed. ‘Is just what I expect,’ he said.

  For nearly three years this was our secret. And all during those years Bolo bought sweepstake tickets, and never won. Nobody knew and even when Hat or somebody else said to him, ‘Bolo, I know a thing you could try. Why you don’t try sweepstake?’ Bolo would say, ‘I done with that sort of thing, man.’

  At the Christmas meeting of 1948 Bolo’s number was drawn. It wasn’t much, just about three hundred dollars.

  I ran to Bolo’s room and said, ‘Mr Bolo, the number draw.’

  Bolo’s reaction wasn’t what I expected. He said, ‘Look, boy, you in long pants now. But don’t get me mad, or I go have to beat you bad.’

  I said, ‘But it really draw, Mr Bolo.’

  He said, ‘How the hell you know it draw? ’

  I said, ‘I see it in the papers.’

  At this Bolo got really angry and he seized me by the collar. He screamed, ‘How often I have to tell you, you little good-for-nothing son of a bitch, that you mustn’t believe all that you read in the papers?’

  So I checked up with the Trinidad Turf Club.

  I said to Bolo, ‘Is really true.’ Bolo refused to believe.

  He said, ‘These Trinidad people does only lie, lie. Lie is all they know. They could fool you, boy, but they can’t fool me.’

  I told the men of the street, ‘Bolo mad like hell. The man win three hundred dollars and he don’t want to believe.’

  One day Boyee said to Bolo, ‘Ay, Bolo, you win a sweepstake then.’

  Bolo chased Boyee, shouting, ‘You playing the ass, eh. You making joke with a man old enough to be your grandfather.’

  And when Bolo saw me, he said, ‘Is so you does keep secret? Is so you does keep secret? But why all you Trinidad people so, eh? ’

  And he pushed his box-cart down to Eddoes’s house, saying, ‘Eddoes, you want box-cart, eh? Here, take the box-cart.’

  And he began hacking the cart to bits with his cutlass.

  To me he shouted, ‘People think they could fool me.’

  And he took out the sweepstake ticket and tore it. He rushed up to me and forced the pieces into my shirt pocket.

  Afterwards he lived to himself in his little room, seldom came out to the street, never spoke to anybody. Once a month he went to draw his old-age pension.

  XV

  UNTIL THE SOLDIERS CAME

  Edward, Hat’s brother, was a man of many parts, and I always thought it a sad thing that he drifted away from us. He used to help Hat with the cows when I first knew him and, like Hat, he looked settled and happy enough. He said he had given up women for good, and he concentrated on cricket, football, boxing, horse-racing, and cockfighting. In this way he was never bored, and he had no big ambition to make him unhappy.

  Like Hat, Edward had a high regard for beauty. But Edward didn’t collect birds of beautiful plumage, as Hat did. Edward painted.

  His favourite subject was a brown hand clasping a black one. And when Edward painted a brown hand, it was a brown hand. No nonsense about light and shades. And the sea was a blue sea, and mountains were green.

  Edward mounted his pictures himself and framed them in red passe-partout. The big department stores, Salvatori’s, Fogarty’s, and Johnson’s, distributed Edward’s work on commission.

  To the street, however, Edward was something of a menace.

  He would see Mrs Morgan wearing a new dress and say, ‘Ah, Mrs Morgan, is a nice nice dress you wearing there, but I think it could do with some sort of decoration.’

  Or he would see Eddoes wearing a new shirt and say, ‘Eh, eh, Eddoes, you wearing a new shirt, man. You write your name in it, you know, otherwise somebody pick it up brisk brisk one of these days. Tell you what, I go write it for you.’

  He ruined many garments in this way.

  He also had the habit of giving away ties he had decorated himself. He would say, ‘I have something for you. Take it and wear it. I giving it to you because I like you.’

  And if the tie wasn’t worn, Edward would get angry and begin shouting, ‘But you see how ungrateful black people is. Listen to this. I see this man not wearing tie. I take a bus and I go to town. I walk to Johnson’s and I look for the gents’ department. I meet a girl and I buy a tie. I take a bus back home. I go inside my room and take up my brush and unscrew my paint. I dip my brush in paint and I put the brush on the tie. I spend two three hours doing that, and after all this, the man ain’t wearing my tie.’

  But Edward did a lot more than just paint.

  One day, not many months after I had come to the street, Edward said, ‘Coming back on the bus from Cocorite last night I only hearing the bus wheel cracking over crab back. You know the place by the coconut trees and the swamp? There it just crawling with crab. People say they even climbing up the coconut trees.’

  Hat said, ‘They does come out a lot at full moon. Let we go tonight and catch some of the crabs that Edward see.’

  Edward said, ‘Is just what I was going to say. We will have to take the boys because it have so much crab even they could pick up a lot.’

  So we boys were invited.

  Edward said, ‘Hat, I was thinking. It go be a lot easier to catch the crab if we take a shovel. It have so much you could just shovel them up.’

  Hat said, ‘All right. We go take the cow-pen shovel.’

  Edward said, ‘That settle. But look, all you have strong shoes? You better get strong shoes, you know, because these crab and them ain’t playing big and if you don’t look out they start walking away with your big toe before you know what is what.’

  Hat said, ‘I go use the leggings I does wear when I cleaning out the cow-pen.’

  Edward said, ‘And we better wear gloves. I know a man was catching crab one day and suddenly he see his right hand walking away from him. He look again and see four five crab carrying it away. This man jump up and begin one bawling. So we have to be careful. If you boys ain’t have gloves just wrap some cloth over your hands. That go be all right.’

  So late that night we all climbed into the Cocorite bus, Hat in his leggings, Edward in his, and the rest of us carrying cutlasses and big brown sacks.

  The shovel Hat carried still stank from the cow-pen and people began squinging up their noses.

  Hat said, ‘Let them smell it. They does all want milk when the cow give it.’

  People looked at the leggings and the cutlasses and the shovel and the sacks and looked away quickly. They stopped talking. The conductor didn’t ask for our fares. The bus was silent until Edward began to talk.

  Edward said, ‘We must try and not use the cutlass. It ain’t nice to kill. Try and get them live and put them in the bag.’

  Many people got off at the next stop. By the time the bus got to Mucurapo Road it was carrying only us. The conductor stood right at the front talking to the driver.

  Just before we got to the Cocorite terminus Edward said, ‘Oh God, I know I was forgetting something. We can’t bring back all the crab in a bus. I go have to go and telephone for a van.’

  He got off one stop before the terminus.

  We walked a little way in the bright moonlight, left the road and climbed down into the swamp. A tired wind blew from the sea, and the smell of stale sea-water was everywhere. Under the coconut trees it was dark. We walked a bit further in. A cloud covered the moon and the wind fell.

  Hat called out, ‘You boys all right? Be careful with your foot. I don’t want any of you going home with only three toes.’

  Boyee said, ‘But I ain’t seeing any crab.’

  Ten minutes later Edward joined us.

  He said, ‘How many bags you fu
ll?’

  Hat said, ‘It look like a lot of people had the same idea and come and take away all the crab.’

  Edward said, ‘Rubbish. You don’t see the moon ain’t showing. We got to wait until the moon come out before the crab come out. Sit down, boys, let we wait.’

  The moon remained clouded for half an hour.

  Boyee said, ‘It making cold and I want to go home. I don’t think it have any crab.’

  Errol said, ‘Don’t mind Boyee. I know him. He just frighten of the dark and he fraid the crab bite him.’

  At this point we heard a rumbling in the distance.

  Hat said, ‘It look like the van come.’

  Edward said, ‘It ain’t a van really. I order a big truck from Sam.’

  We sat in silence waiting for the moon to clear. Then about a dozen torch-lights flashed all around us. Someone shouted, ‘We ain’t want any trouble. But if any one of you play the fool you going to get beat up bad.’

  We saw what looked like a squad of policemen surrounding us.

  Boyee began to cry.

  Edward said, ‘It have man beating their wife. It have people breaking into other people house. Why you policemen don’t go and spend your time doing something with sense, eh? Just for a change.’

  A policeman said, ‘Why you don’t shut up? You want me to spit in your mouth? ’

  Another policeman said, ‘What you have in those bags?’

  Edward said, ‘Only crab. But take care. They is big crab and they go bite off your hand.’

  Nobody looked inside the bags and then a man with a lot of stripes said, ‘Everybody playing bad-man these days. Everybody getting full of smart answers, like the Americans and them.’

  A policeman said, ‘They have bag, they have cutlass, they have shovel, they have glove.’

  Hat said, ‘We was catching crab.’

  The policeman said, ‘With shovel? Eh, eh, what happen that you suddenly is God and make a new sort of crab you could catch with shovel?’

  It took a lot of talk to make the policemen believe our story.

  The officer in charge said, ‘I go like to lay my hands on the son of a bitch who telephone and say you was going to kill somebody.’

  Then the policemen left.

  It was late and we had missed the last bus.

  Hat said, ‘We had better wait for the truck Edward order.’

  Edward said, ‘Something tell me that truck ain’t coming now.’

  Hat said very slowly, half laughing and half serious, ‘Edward, you is my own brother, but you know you really is a son of a bitch.’

  Edward sat down and just laughed and laughed.

  Then the war came. Hitler invaded France and the Americans invaded Trinidad. Lord Invader made a hit with his calpyso:

  I was living with my decent and contented wife

  Until the soldiers came and broke up my life.

  For the first time in Trinidad there was work for everybody, and the Americans paid well. Invader sang:

  Father, mother, and daughter

  Working for the Yankee dollar!

  Money in the land!

  The Yankee dollar, oh!

  Edward stopped working in the cow-pen and got a job with the Americans at Chaguaramas.

  Hat said, ‘Edward, I think you foolish to do that. The Americans ain’t here forever and ever. It ain’t have no sense in going off and working for big money and then not having nothing to eat after three four years.’

  Edward said, ‘This war look as though it go last a long long time. And the Americans not like the British, you know. They does make you work hard, but they does pay for it.’

  Edward sold his share of the cows to Hat, and that marked the beginning of his drift away from us.

  Edward surrendered completely to the Americans. He began wearing clothes in the American style, he began chewing gum, and he tried to talk with an American accent. We didn’t see much of him except on Sundays, and then he made us feel small and inferior. He grew fussy about his dress, and he began wearing a gold chain around his neck. He began wearing straps around his wrists, after the fashion of tennis-players. These straps were just becoming fashionable among smart young men in Port of Spain.

  Edward didn’t give up painting, but he no longer offered to paint things for us, and I think most people were relieved. He entered some poster competition, and when his design didn’t win even a consolation prize, he grew really angry with Trinidad.

  One Sunday he said, ‘I was stupid to send in anything I paint with my own two hands for Trinidad people to judge. What they know about anything? Now, if I was in America, it woulda be different. The Americans is people. They know about things.’

  To hear Edward talk, you felt that America was a gigantic country inhabited by giants. They lived in enormous houses and they drove in the biggest cars of the world.

  Edward used to say, ‘Look at Miguel Street. In America you think they have streets so narrow? In America this street could pass for a sidewalk.’

  One night I walked down with Edward to Docksite, the American army camp. Through the barbed wire you could see the huge screen of an open-air cinema.

  Edward said, ‘You see the sort of theatre they come and build in a stupid little place like Trinidad. Imagine the sort of thing they have in the States.’

  And we walked down a little further until we came to a sentry in his box.

  Edward used his best American accent and said, ‘What’s cooking, Joe?’

  To my surprise the sentry, looking fierce under his helmet, replied, and in no time at all Edward and the sentry were talking away, each trying to use more swear words than the other.

  When Edward came back to Miguel Street he began swaggering along and he said to me, ‘Tell them. Tell them how good I does get on with the Americans.’

  And when he was with Hat he said, ‘Was talking the other night with a American-damn good friend-and he was telling me that as soon as the Americans enter the war the war go end.’

  Errol said, ‘It ain’t that we want to win the war. As soon as they make Lord Anthony Eden Prime Minister the war go end quick quick.’

  Edward said, ‘Shut up, kid.’

  But the biggest change of all was the way Edward began talking of women. Up till then he used to say that he was finished with them for good. He made out that his heart had been broken a long time ago and he had made a vow. It was a vague and tragic story.

  But now on Sundays Edward said, ‘You should see the sort of craft they have at the base. Nothing like these stupid Trinidad girls, you know. No, partner. Girls with style, girls with real class.’

  I think it was Eddoes who said, ‘I shouldn’t let it worry you. They wouldn’t tangle with you, those girls. They want big big American men. You safe.’

  Edward called Eddoes a shrimp and walked away in a huff.

  He began lifting weights, and in this, too, Edward was running right at the head of fashion. I don’t know what happened in Trinidad about that time, but every young man became suddenly obsessed with the Body Beautiful ideal, and there were physique competitions practically every month. Hat used to console himself by saying, ‘Don’t worry. Is just a lot of old flash, you hear. They say they building muscle muscle. Just let them cool off and see what happen. All that thing they call muscle turn fat, you know.’

  Eddoes said, ‘Is the funniest sight you could see. At the Dairies in Philip Street all you seeing these days is a long line of black black men sitting at the counter and drinking quart bottles of white milk. All of them wearing sleeveless jersey to show off their big arm.’

  In about three months Edward made his appearance among us in a sleeveless jersey. He had become a really big man.

  Presently he began talking about the women at the base who were chasing him.

  He said, ‘I don’t know what they see in me.’

  Somebody had the idea of organising a Local Talent on Parade show and Edward said, ‘Don’t make me laugh. What sort of talent they think Trinidad
have?’

  The first show was broadcast and we all listened to it in Eddoes’ house. Edward kept on laughing all the time.

  Hat said, ‘Why you don’t try singing yourself, then?’

  Edward said, ‘Sing for who? Trinidad people?’

  Hat said, ‘Do them a favour.’

  To everybody’s surprise Edward began singing, and the time came when Hat had to say, ‘I just can’t live in the same house with Edward. I think he go have to move.’

  Edward moved, but he didn’t move very far. He remained on our side of Miguel Street.

  He said, ‘Is a good thing. I was getting tired of the cow smell.’

  Edward went up for one of the Local Talent shows and in spite of everything we all hoped that he would win a prize of some sort. The show was sponsored by a biscuit company and I think the winner got some money.

  ‘They does give the others a thirty-one-cent pack of biscuits,’ Hat said.

  Edward got a package of biscuits.

  He didn’t bring it home, though. He threw it away.

  He said, ‘Throw it away. Why I shouldn’t throw it away? You see, is just what I does tell you. Trinidad people don’t know good thing. They just born stupid. Down at the base it have Americans begging me to sing. They know what is what. The other day, working and singing at the base, the colonel come up and tell me I had a nice voice. He was begging me to go to the States.’

  Hat said, ‘Why you don’t go then?’

  Edward said fiercely, ‘Gimme time. Wait and see if I don’t go.’

  Eddoes said, ‘What about all those woman and them who was chasing you? They catch up with you yet or they pass you?’

  Edward said, ‘Listen, Joe, I don’t want to start getting tough with you. Do me a favour and shut up.’

  When Edward brought any American friends to his house he pretended that he didn’t know us, and it was funny to see him walking with them, holding his arms in the American way, hanging loosely, like a gorilla’s.

  Hat said, ‘All the money he making he spending it on rum and ginger, curryfavouring with them Americans.’

  In a way, I suppose, we were all jealous of him.

  Hat began saying, ‘It ain’t hard to get a work with the Americans. I just don’t want to have boss, that’s all. I like being my own boss.’