Pao (18 page)

So now me and Clifton both know we got a situation. After all, the perversions of white people is one thing, but Jamaicans doing that sort of nastiness, no. And definitely not a young girl like this. Not in Jamaica. Once she set foot inside that car she become guilty. And judge and jury wouldn’t be too fussy ’bout what them punishing her for.

I say to Clifton, ‘We have to get this girl off the island tonight. Yu going have to take her to Cuba.’

‘Cuba! How me going do that?’

‘Yu have to take a launch, man.’

‘I can’t take out a police launch at four o’clock in the morning for no good reason and take it to Cuba. Yu mad?’

‘Well you of all people, Clifton Brown, I would have thought would understand a situation like this. If this girl stay here tonight she going end up in jail for sure, while her little white girlfriend flying free back to England on the morning breeze. Is that what yu want to happen to her? Look at her, she nothing but a child.’

When I look at him I can see that I got him convinced, so I say, ‘Alright then, but yu going have to keep her somewhere safe tonight and then yu can put her on the morning flight to Miami. All yu need for that is some US identification and a ticket.’

‘What identification? What the hell you talking ’bout?’

‘Passport, man. Driving licence.’

‘And where yu think I going get that?’

‘Is independence weekend! Yu know how many Americans out there right now drinking liquor and living it up. Go arrest somebody and let them cool off in jail while yu take them papers. How come yu can’t ever think nothing for yourself, Clifton?’

Just before him go I tell him to try keep the thing outta the newspapers at least till after the holiday weekend done.

When I go back to Matthews Lane I put the knife in the safe and try get a couple hours sleep before daybreak.

The next morning Meacham come see me on him way to the airport. He park the nasty grey Rover car outside the shop across the street, and I see the girl sitting there like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

Him come in the shop and I say to him, ‘The car clean enough for you?’

And him say, ‘Yes.’ Then him just hand me a envelope and when I look inside it I see it full of US dollars. I half begin to wonder where him get so much money from so fast overnight, especially on a holiday weekend, but then I realise I don’t care. At least he have the good manners this time to put it in a envelope, not like how he just hand me the naked bills when he pay me to get rid of Merleen’s baby.

I think him see himself as paying for a service. And I think him expect me to go give him the knife. But then I start think ’bout how this man going fly outta here and leave me with all his responsibility. I got Merleen Chin and baby John Morrison, and I got Marguerite Lopez, which is what the waitress call after Clifton done sort out the business with the driving licence.

I got all these people to look out for and put through school and everything. So I look at Meacham and I say to him, ‘I was thinking of something regular.’

Clifton do the business with the newspaper thing as well because the story didn’t reach the
Gleaner
till the Wednesday morning, 7 August. It make page four, squeeze between the Coral Gardens murder case and a hit and run in Savanna-la-Mar. There it was. ‘No clues in stabbing of youths.’

On Friday 2nd August two youths were found stabbed to death in the car park of Club Havana on the Windward Road in Kingston. The youths, Winston Morgan and Aubrey Williams, both aged 13 years old, were from Kingston in the parish of St Andrew. Police have no clues and have yet to arrest anyone in connection with these fatal woundings.

19

Reputation

A week or so after that I go visit Margaret Morrison and the baby. I take some peanut brittle for her and a little shirt and pants thing for the baby that far too big for him but Margaret say is OK he will grow into it.

Well, Mrs Morrison right. You can’t tell from looking at him that his mother Chinese. Baby John look just like a regular big-frame baby white boy. Funny thing is he even got a full head of ginger hair just like George. If you didn’t know no better you would even think that George Morrison him papa.

Margaret entertain me royal with tea and shortbread biscuits. She so happy with the baby she can’t thank me enough. She say it change her whole life. She say it give her life meaning. She say every day she thank the Lord that He bring baby John to her. She say she and George happier than they ever been their whole lives. I never hear anybody carry on so much over a pickney. I feel like I want to say to her, ‘Is just a baby, you know, Margaret,’ but I don’t say nothing because it would hurt her feelings, and I don’t mean to do that.

Then she turn to face me, and she turn her whole body right ’round so she looking at me square and direct.

And she say to me, ‘I would like to ask something of you. You don’t have to give me your answer straight away, but I would like it if you would at least consider it. I beg you, just think about it before you respond.’

I can’t imagine what she going say to me.

But then she say, ‘George and I would like to ask you to be John’s godfather.’

Well, you could have knock me down with a feather. ‘Margaret, I honoured that you ask me, but   ’

She put her finger to her lip like to say shhh, and then she say, ‘Take some time to think about it. Please. It would mean such a lot to us and I don’t want the decision to be hasty. Please just think about it.’

Next time I see George I tell him he got to talk Margaret out of it.

‘I can’t be no baby godfather. All the things you and me do together and then I going stand up in church and say what?’

‘I have spoken to her about it repeatedly, but Margaret has her heart set on this. I don’t know what else to say to you, Pao.’

‘Is not me you need talk to. Is her.’

But Morrison not paying me no mind. It seem like he actually want me to be the baby godfather as well. He just prefer to lay the whole thing on Margaret like it her idea alone. This is what I guess anyway after him say to me, ‘You talk about the things we have done together and what of it? Wasn’t it kindness that you showed to Merleen Chin, and the waitress from Club Havana, and even Meacham’s daughter? You care for your children and Zhang and your mother. Even the girls in East Kingston tell me how lucky they feel with you looking out for them. Anyway, we don’t know anyone who would make a better godfather for John, because in a way you are the person who gave him life. So who better to help him understand how to live it?’

I reckon all this talking with Margaret make Morrison done lose his mind, so I just shrug my shoulders and walk off. I can understand Margaret maybe thinking she doing something good by the child because she dunno nothing. But Morrison should know better. Maybe he just forget what we been doing. Like every now and again he forget he not supposed to be drinking liquor.

Father Michael think maybe the godfather thing OK if I ask God for forgiveness and go to confession and Holy Communion and I say, ‘No, man. We already been through all of this.’

‘Then why don’t you just say no?’ That stop me dead in my tracks.

‘I think you need to face it, Pao, there is something that the Lord is trying to make out of you. Some lesson He wants you to learn. Some corner He wants you to turn. Maybe you just need to let Him do His work with you as He is doing with Karl and Mui.’

So right then I see in his face for the first time ever that maybe he think he make a mistake.

‘What you mean, Karl and Mui?’

He take a deep breath. ‘Both Karl and Mui have been baptised and received their First Holy communion. Karl attends Mass regularly with Fay, and Mui also attends during the time that she spends with me.’

I just look at him in complete disbelief. ‘And this is what you been doing with her all this time she coming here and I think you taking an interest in the child?’

‘I am taking an interest in her. Mui belongs to a group of young people who are studying the Catechism in preparation for their Confirmation.’

Well right then I feel like just swinging my arm and boxing him. I can’t believe how he betray my trust like this.

‘And you never think, in all the time that you and me spend together, you never think that maybe you mention any of this to me?’

‘Mui asked me not to.’

‘Mui asked you not to? Mui is a child. You and me are grown men. Is you and me should be talking to one another not just you go talking to some child.’

I can hear myself now and I can hear how much I shouting. Michael just stand there, calm in him little space that always surround him. He just stand there with him hands clasp in front of him.

Then after some long time him say to me in that still voice he got, ‘I know you think that you are a bad person. But in this life good and evil are not always as clearly delineated as you think. Good people sometimes commit bad deeds. And bad consequences are sometimes unintended or unforeseen. Virtue does not reside in particular actions. It resides in the settled moral state of the individual.’ Then he stop and draw breath and say, ‘One thing I do know is that you can never come too late to redemption.’

I just walk out his room and slam his little door.

When I ask Mui ’bout it she say it true. She ask Father Michael not to tell me because she know it only make me vex and she really want carry on with it. She really like Father Michael, and then she say to me, ‘And Papa, there is really a lot to learn, you know.’

20

Manoeuvre

So right in the middle of all of us sitting there in the shop counting the money from the weekly pick-up, I got Samuels giving me some long political speech ’bout how bad everything getting in West Kingston. All ’bout unemployment and poverty; and how the people losing hope; and how they running outta patience; and how it all going lead to open warfare in the streets. And him telling me all of this as if I can’t see for myself how West Kingston busy dividing itself up. Like everybody don’t know that Trench Town belong to the People’s National Party and the Labour Party got Tivoli Gardens, and how all the rest of them fall. Every little township lining up to face off with next door, and this is Samuels’s explanation for why, even after I already tell him to stop it, he still busy selling guns in Chinatown.

So I say to him, ‘I tell you this before, and I going tell you again. West Kingston is West Kingston, and this is Chinatown.’

‘Yu nuh see what happen with the Chinese riots already?’

Well now this just make everybody stop. And them all turn ’round and look at me because they know how vex it make me the way people like to talk ’bout the
Chinese riots
. So I say to him, ‘Don’t say nothing to me ’bout no Chinese riot. There was no Chinese rioting. It was the Chinese that was catching hell, and Chinese shops burned and homes vandalise, and people harassed in the street.’

‘That is what I mean. The Chinaman got to protect himself.’

So right then I just jump outta my seat and grab Samuels in the collar with my left hand and make like a two-finger gun with my right hand and stick it in his temple and shout, ‘POW, POW.’ Real loud.

And then I sit down and I say to him, ‘How you like that for this Chinaman protecting himsel
f
? I expect one of your .365 Magnum sound a bit louder than that.’ But Samuels not paying me no mind, so I just say to him, ‘I don’t want you selling no more of Louis DeFreitas’s guns in Chinatown, you hear me?’

And he look at me and say, ‘What make you think they come from Louis DeFreitas?’

‘Don’t mess with me, man. I know where they come from. And I know DeFreitas getting them on special delivery straight from the CIA.’

‘Nobody know that. That is pure rumour.’

‘How you think all them guns getting on the island? You think the rude boys flying up to Miami and bringing them back shove in their hip pocket?’ Samuels just sit there and look at me so I say to him, ‘This here is a family. It not no posse with anybody looking to make themselves a reputation so that they can go sing a song and make a record ’bout it.’

I ask Zhang what him think because I know for sure Samuels not going do as I tell him to. Him making too much money with DeFreitas. And I don’t want no guns in Chinatown because the next thing is everybody going have to be going heavy every time they step out the yard. But the thing that really worrying me is that maybe this thing with Samuels is the way DeFreitas going find to creep into my territory.

Zhang say to me, ‘Sun Tzu say, “
What is difficult about manoeuvre is to make the devious route the most direct and to turn misfortune to advantage. Thus, march by an indirect route and divert the enemy by enticing him with a bait
.” ’

Zhang say Sun Tzu also say, ‘
Those who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and justice
.’ So the first thing I do is start reclaim the neighbourhood. I have to make them so loyal to me they would never think of doing any kind of business with DeFreitas. I start visiting with people not just for the weekend pick-up, but in the middle of the week as well. Calling in sometimes just to share a bowl of tea with them; taking the time to ask ‘How is business?’ or ‘How is the family?’ On occasion I take a small gift for the baby or a present for the son or daughter’s wedding; I exchanging recipes and news of this week’s best buys. I taking part in the neighbourhood gossip ’bout Madame Huang’s daughter who make terrible pickle: ‘Never going to get a husband with pickle like that.’