The Saltbox

By Calvin Moir

The book is about a prodigal son that returns under different identity to betray his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463432928

Calvin Moir

Calvin Moir was born in Belize, Central America where he studied journalism. After becoming a columnist and reporter for the local newspapers, he turned his attention to the creation of books. The Saltbox is his fifth novel. He now lives in Colorado, with his wife.

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© 2011 by Calvin Moir. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/01/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3293-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3294-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3292-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011912124

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

PART TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

PART THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

GLENDA LADYCAT COULD SEE it coming—but it was still horrifying to watch. No one knew better than her that there was always some abnormally intensified ruination striking us. She was a quaint woman of important matters, and in her, there was something out of the ordinary.

Before her daughter, Leonie Jones was murdered, she distinctly told her not to leave Belize City for the bush with her lying, drunken, worthless boyfriend, Myles Bailey, or that would be the end of her.

Ma Leonie did not listen. Her mind was set, like a wild fig tree. Perhaps Glenda wanted complete control. Maybe she tried to force her values on Leonie, and Leonie saw a chance at running away. The more Glenda tried to talk to Leonie, the more firmly she resisted. Even if Leonie needed to stay put, she was probably put off by Glenda’s manner. Leonie wanted to get away from Glenda, clean. She wanted her life to end. To her, the past months had been trying. The times we lived in took her from the heights of joy to the depths of despair. A funeral could not go by without her commenting, I wish it was mine.

Glenda must not have set a good example. She could not have been the kind of person she wanted her daughter to be. Likely, it was the last thing she thought about as she looked at her favourite child: ‘She’s old enough to live on her own.’ Later, when I tried to stay home, Glenda’s oldest sister, Drusilla said that I liked convenience. For me, there was nothing convenient about this new arrangement. I’m not being ungrateful—just honest!

Leonie was twenty-eight years old when she died. I was three, and her daughter, La Vern Bailey, nine months. I couldn’t take more of this.

Our new home was within spitting distance of the Cayo River, with wood and thatch outbuildings unpainted and rusty-looking against the green fields and the majestic mountains where the Sibun River originates and the fog, which was no more than cloud, comes pouring down. The entire Kekchi village consisted of thatch huts and dirt trails Stepfather called picados, or pecados that branched off the rocky entry road. The small grownups with dark olive skin and straight liquorice hair and half-naked children performed their regular duties. Most of them were barefoot, and the women were dressed in native skirts and blouses and wore bead jewellery. Fowls, hogs, horses, and meagre dogs, all critters to Ma, shared the countryside and roved the hamlet searching for grub. The thatched-roof houses had dirt floors, no inner partitions, and no furniture, other than hammocks, except ours. To one side of the houses were the kitchens and hearths. Ma wasn’t going to prescribe to any of those; that I knew. She wasn’t pleased with the idea of smoke coming through the thatch roof, into our eyes and lungs.

We were first scrutinized cautiously and then greeted warmly by the villagers.

If only Ma had listened. Why take the surest road to destruction, as if her neurosis were the true enemy? Young and pretty, her care and love for these men were pleasantly consistent, which did not surprise and trouble me at all, at all. However, men here are known to roam, not wanting to make commitment, owing to poverty. Yet, my father, whom I did not know, was not that poor. It was Ma who was desperate, with not much time for luxury. Not with her entire family being needy, and she living from hand to mouth, as if her very mind was saying she deserved it. I should have grown up with my father and stepmother, never wanting for anything, and never expecting to achieve anything less in life. To me, the world is composed of two distinct classes: the-have and the-have-nots. Those educated ones that have it all, run things. They manipulate and devour the best of every bloody thing. The others, in the majority dumb and poor, do not matter much, getting poorer all the time. But who knows exactly what amount of exciting, unharvested, clean food sources, the future holds? It is dazzling to think about what the world would be like with virtually unlimited amounts of inexpensive, uncontaminated food.

The next misty morning we were awakened by the noisy fowl cocks, forest birds, iridescent ocellated turkeys and howler monkeys. When a stray dog came by looking for grub, the rugged Myles with the quiet manner threw him a fiery hot Scotch Bonnet pepper that made him sneeze and run to the river. When he came back, he brought a bitch along, and they started doing badness outside our door. They were at it for a good while, not missing a stroke, and became stuck, as if glued together, pulling from opposite direction in a tug-of-war to get away. The village children looked on, giggling, until finally, an adult threw a calabash of water on the copulating mutts, and they yelped and separated without shame and supremacy. Because they ate leftovers, you did not want to step in their shit that stank to heaven.

I wouldn’t say I was bright, and I listened more than I talked, so I was definitely not eloquent, and with a corny sense of humour. So it could very well be that I heard the story too many times. Myles didn’t treat Leonie well. She was his dog, even though he treated her worse than a dog, Glenda said. He was full of malice, eager to abuse her in every way possible. Glenda said he got perverse delight from hurting. Yet, I had in fact witnessed the incident leading to Mother’s death. So when folks doubted my memory of the event, I questioned the probability, even if I described every detail from the night of the wasteful act with unhinged impartiality, as if I were a stranger discussing another person’s loss. I had a good memory if nothing else and it served me well. The big people did not own the ability to remember, and they couldn’t take my personal tragedy away.

Leonie was witty and vulgar with it. She had an answer for everything. Don’t break a long, loud wind. She would say your shit cutter is gone, for bad behaviour she must refrain from saying sphincter muscles. A terrible thing awaited her, however; now that she found it, she could not let it go. Her mind was bilious with a repressed independent spirit. It was so heavy with self-determination she could hardly see. That observation saddened the big people beyond words.

As I recall the move, it took all day to reach Fishbone Thistle. You walk to the Pound Yard Bridge with your clothes and provision, wait and wait for freight and passenger camion or truck or any vehicle that would take you, some of which had fancy or peculiar names, like boats do, such as Jacaranda, Beloved, Grounds for Divorce, Illegal Entry, and Santana Rose. Then again, Belizeans have names for everything. A shanty is better known as a-dog-sit-down house. And either they cannot pronounce certain words, or they simply refuse to. Now, if you were to add foot, dory and horseback to your travel—it was more eternity. At journey’s end, you could have travelled only moments away, because there were no good roads anywhere. And there were all these places to go hunting and fishing, which in some places was overgrown with mangrove roots that made it dark and eerie. And so many remote villages to reach as you penetrate deep into the veiled rain forest of beauty and splendor, with animals the natives never saw. And for the purposes of self-preservation, the animals did well not to be seen, for there was the danger of ending up in a pot with gravy.

The windows of our kitchen opened to more trees and fields. They did not swing open on the side. They hung vertically and you push them forward and held them open with a stick. The pudding pan for washing dishes sat on an attached shelf extending beyond a windowsill. I sat on it and smelled the village and petrol from a mechanic shop across the way.

I never saw Mother cry. That this compassionate woman should in her heart harbour sadness, was a thing I could not uncover. Yet, hearts were not hard to break.

La Vern was left-handed like Myles. Ma placed the left hand in a sock to encourage her to use the right one. Left-handed people belong to the Devil, Ma said.

Myles, the Devil incarnate with dark arrogant eyes—cruel eyes, bled sapodillas for chicle at a chiclero camp, for export to England or somewhere about the place, when he was not cutting sugarcane up north for the sugar factory. The coagulated milky juice is the main ingredient of chewing gum, but tastes awful. Now, the fruit of the sapodilla is delicious with flakes of chewing gum around the seed. Myles’ eyes reminded me of sapodilla seeds—black as midnight, like his hard and ghastly heart. He was so somber, but I missed totally the bullying meant to frighten us and made him unrestrainable that even reasoning could only feed the ever-rising devilry. Glenda saw it all and it generated stomach-turning fear. To Myles, it encouraged joyousness.

Ma cooked on the hearth he cleaned up for her, which helped chased the mosquitoes and other pesky buggers away. Down by the river, she washed and pinned our clothes and things on a line shored up with a line stick, in our yard.

I was afraid of the pit latrine. She told me not to look down the hole. What are you looking for? La Vern was lucky. She went in her nappies, and Ma didn’t mind. And if we had to go after dark we hauled out the chamber pot from under the bed. But we were not allowed to sit forever on the pot; for upon my grandmother’s word, it would give us body-come-down, her refrain for haemorrhoids. Grandma was never less than trying to change the English language, while the intellectual in me was greedy for knowledge.

In the back, a scattering of waist-high amole plants had stopped growing. Ma let me play in the yard. La Vern sat in a carton box a lot, acting lively and interesting.

Leonie was not too industrious and didn’t know how to work the land for food. Tell her about growing flowers and keeping a pet she had to feed. That was her line, instead of establishing herself. It was a little village girl who told her that the amole is a soap tree. We knew harsh soaps with lye. The red berries of the amole were tender like little tomatoes. Another girl told me that bird-picked fruits were the sweetest, and peccaries were delicious smoked and stewed.

Leonie boiled our white clothes in a lard pan or baked them in the sun on a sheet of zinc. That’s bleaching. A Garifuna woman, who traced her ancestry to the early 17th century, when the slaves intermarried with indigenous Carib, passed by with a basket on her head and asked her what she was cooking.

Ham, Ma said.

The lady looked at Ma and cackled. I may be cabbage-looking, but am not green. If you had said land crab, I’d believe you. People don’t boil ham if it’s not Christmas. Want to buy starch?

It was true. And I got to eat mustard at Grandaunt Drusilla’s then. Christmas had unexpectedly accorded me the surplus of her house. Now I would have to struggle my whole life to reach the standard of living I never knew, a struggle that this village could make tougher if I couldn’t recover from it fast.

Ma bought a gill of starch made from cassava for our clothes, in case we had to go to town. This, too, had to be cooked into tapioca before use by judgment, not measurement. Belizeans don’t bother with exact science. But instead of starching and ironing our clothes, Mom fed the cassava fabric stiffener to La Vern and me with condensed milk. You need carbohydrate to grow, she said. But growing up was uneconomical. It meant new clothes and shoes, and we couldn’t afford anything. And what we could not afford was not worth worrying about. Which was why I never received my First Communion, missed Confirmation, early school plays, and never joined this or that social group.

As a villager, I saw plenty. It was easy to go to bed hungry with food laying waste in the wild. I discovered how dangerous an institution stepfamily was. Finding Father would soon become the most important thing to ever happen to me since I was born. Now I could not trust anyone but myself. Myles made that reality clear enough. He was a bad man, a pitiless symbol of death, like the rosita checkerspot butterfly.

CHAPTER TWO

MA MUST NOT HAVE known the powers in her control, like retaliating, and not taking any nonsense from anyone. She would look at Myles, who knew his might, in that subtle way that’s almost yielding, but then again, so did I, with hope or with dread, for he had in his hands the family’s life or death, the hardship or comfort. With absolute power, he spent his time flittering between boldness, resentment and misconception.

I wondered if Glenda had ever furthered and praised her children. I knew that she corrected and disciplined them, even hitting Clair in the head with a mortar pestle when she was pregnant with Dee, knocking her out cold.

Glenda too, was harsh and cruel. Would her training protect me from ways that could deprive me of joyousness?

What is this shady part of people that has always caused them to scorn, enslave and degrade their colleagues, as if there were no limit to the madness?

We are born with an inherent need and desire for dignity and freedom. Still, slavery is alive and thriving—even though to some it is a well-kept secret. Desire can be compulsive, selfish or vindictive in its manoeuvring, but the intention is the same: the controlling of the other person that is the aim of the tyrant. So successful was this antisocial tyranny that it had become obscure.

To be sure, Ma was not yet ready to escape her cruel master. However, after this, you will realize that she would be a slave forever, in her own mind, for the curse of slavery still haunted her in some form and disguise. A lot of talk had been given to the social sins of Myles Bailey, with him receiving much of the blame. Yet the reality is that he had been conquered by deliberate manoeuvring.

Did he plan the following crisis? Was this a sudden turn in thought—or was it the same tragic flow? The context here is very important. Mother could do little to fix the mess… . There was no way out of the ugliness that was Myles Bailey. It was designed from the beginning to become that way.

It was all right for a spell or so until one fine evening in May before the fire flies danced, we ran out of kerosene for the glass lamp. Myles went across to the machine shop. Earlier, I had seen him in his undershirt sitting on the ottoman that he and Leonie slept on, looking at his silver watch. The ottoman was opposite the bed I shared with La Vern.

Myles drank heavily. Maybe that’s what Glenda hated most about him. Personally, I have nothing against the sauce, just my critics, who pretended to be viceless and did not want to be told.

Myles returned with the petrol. He filled the lamp and gave it to his unsuspecting woman. Then he placed the bottle near the lampshade on the dining table and lighted the lamp with a silver cigarette lighter from his pants pocket.

He walked away from her. Of course, the silly dove never heard of stop, drop, cover your face, and roll if your clothes catch fire.

In retrospect, I could tell that Myles’ mind was a cauldron of mischief and evil. If he had a religion, he hid behind it, like everybody else. Before she could replace the shade, the vessel exploded, setting Leonie on fire. My heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wings. My beating heart was among the worst occupation of my entire life, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and in every way. It punished me when I was bad, and it never rewarded me for being good.

I did not understand. Myles would not kill a mosquito, if you asked me. Sometimes… when I reminisce… I think, am not so positive. After all, they say everybody is capable of murder.

Myles did not help her. Instead, he secured the door, sat on his bed and watched his woman burn, as if she were a peccary or a curassow on an unattended barbecue pit.

I could smell her sweetish, flawless skin cooking, as the flames singed her dark brown hair. Her hair smelled like the seared feathers of the critters that were scorched for the pot.

I do not remember hearing her cry for help, or being rescued. But an indescribable grief seized my heart. I was being punished and knew that I would never be happy again. No one, it seemed, could protect me from unhappiness.

My mind run toward the memory and pried it loose. This isn’t just idleness—remembering is a door to the soul, after all.

Myles looked pleased. Unless somebody settle the grounds in these men’s coffee, crime against women won’t be reduced, respect for women will continue to erode, and untold numbers of children’s lives will be ruined—all at an ever increasing cost.

What was in the lamp—gasoline, diesel? How could I help? To this day I cannot stand the smell of fuel without attempting to enter her world, and becoming a link between her nonbeing and my actuality.

Why? What possessed him? How did Glenda know the cut of his jib and that he was not fit for decent society?

Gradually, I viewed the facts in their entirety. It wasn’t only the locked door, the lamp with gasoline, and the pneumonia, the most common infectious complication among hospitalized burn patients. It wasn’t any one single thing. I was declaring these two criminal acts, and found that they were done as part of a whole domestic-violent act.

After that La Vern paid for his sin. He became scarce like good cheese, and Leonie never forgave La Vern for being his daughter, and resembling. The rest of the family saw Myles in La Vern too, and she caught hell for it. Later, La Vern became stubborn and aggressive. It was as though she were trying to sabotage her family life of a home. The Devil wanted her to be unhappy. He gave her the best advice on how to abhor her youth. Like me, the child needed doctoring for emotional and behavioural disorders. She was anxious, but not as withdrawn as I was. She exhibited herself to seek male attention. She did not want to hear about love. The girl just wanted a good screw. La Vern also was unable to control urges and postpone pleasure, and had a duller sense of right and wrong. Satan wanted her to detract from the wisdom and experience of her guardians. As for me, I do not like to be touched and fussed over; not used to it. Leave me alone.

My mother should have stayed at home on East Street, in the city, with her mom, who loved us and Glenda’s other two children, Creech Jones, whom I was named for, and Clair Sinclair, whose daughter, Dee, was six months my senior, and stammered like a dog. Now Sis Drusilla Ladycat, Grandma Glenda’s oldest sister, (there were five girls and two boys) a tall, vigorous, aggressive broad-faced gal with rope plats, fetched us and we went back to town in what I thought was a hired van. It could have been an ambulance.

I remember lying beside Ma on the floor of the van. Confronted by the day’s events, my mind was drawn back to the fire scene. Though I had been a child, I had been brought into the presence of a cold, calculating killer. Myles gained a reputation for being a murderer, but I knew it was only the refined spiced rum, a disquieting serenity.

Leonie Jones was hospitalized in the Belize City Hospital on Eve Street. Even then she would not allow Myles to swing at the end of a rope. On her deathbed she blamed herself for the mishap. Her loved ones called her a bloody fool behind her back. I thought she was one hapless bitch.

Glenda, who was afraid of a simple telephone she did not know how to use, was now challenged by the notion of a killer walking the streets drunk, and a crocked lunatic on top of it.

Everybody has faults. Wasn’t Drusilla demeaning, irritating, and annoying?

Ever since sin entered the world, we have been guilty of every transgression.

Creech Jones brooded over his sister. So did Clair. But it was only for Glenda, who could barely hold up, talking to Creech Jones that his temper did not erupt.

Like Clair, Creech Jones hated Myles Bailey for what he did. The same Creech Jones, who beat up his mother’s boyfriend—for what? I do not know, except to think that he did not want his mother to have sex with a man who was not his father. Boyfriend’s mouth sore and raw, Glenda had to feed him oats and custard for days.

God will lash him for that, Glenda said. That was after Creech Jones went to prison for one of his friends, who stole from a vendor at the open market by the Swing Bridge.

Creech Jones would not let his friend go to prison. Mother would not allow Myles to be tried and sentenced. It seemed as if loyalty to rogues ran in the family. But I had an appointment with fate, absolutely. I was fenced in by anger, defiance and illusion, and I knew where they came from.

CHAPTER THREE

LEONIE’S LEFT BREAST WAS burned clean off. What was this—mastectomy? I loved the suckling, admiring her pale reservoirs, like grapefruits, now this. The hole in her windpipe dripped black blood that was blacker than the nights in Fishbone Thistle.

Her doctor said, when the last drop of blood dripped from her windpipe, she would die.

I never saw her alive again because of hospital rules; no young children allowed.

She had allotted me to Sis Drusilla, begging her to take care of me. And then she told her mother to give La Vern to her father’s people in Corozal District. She’ll be just like them, Leonie said.

What did that mean? Someone I did not know was lurking out there and it tormented my mind, like a fish about to be spooked by fishermen.

The persistent stranger who sought for signs of society in this sad dangerous, uncivilized man perceived a reckless amount of hot blood.

But no one is perfect, and I was afraid to judge and be judged myself. So as far as I knew, there was nothing worse to come from Myles. He had a conscience to bother him now. It was nervous with some illuminated potency, even if he had not seen his evil deed as a decline, with its suggestion of powerless morbid impulse.

Almost a whole month went by. There were plenty distractions that have had nothing to do with drugs, alcohol, or ego, which were the little powers in Myles’ control.

La Vern was haunted. She got into every single thing, eating sand like an earthworm, falling down stairs, and looking more and more like her father every day.

She was clumsy. She could overturn a bowl of flour easily that you’re about to knead, getting white from head to foot, as if it were Ash Wednesday. She brought no joy to my heart. She was shallow, immoral, or ferocious. The child could not resist bad influences and stick to the standards that she knew were proper.

As time went by, I tried to be a distant, uninvolved brother.

I did not like her one bit. Why? I think the family spent too much time comparing her to Myles and his relatives—all negative stuff. Then again, I did not like too many people, house cats, rats, dogs and snakes. Give me nice critters, like the owl that flew into Sis Drusilla’s parlour that night, as she listened to the radio.

To Sis Drusilla, it was a bad sign, a burdensome conceit, indeed. She lived by obeah, the local spiritual principle, and by native superstition, like bringing whelks into the house, causing bad luck or death, opening umbrellas in the house, sweeping at night, dreaming of a nude person, and placing hats on the bed. She honoured death, demons, sorcerers and darkness, instead of conducting herself in a way that typifies the opposite. Moments later, she heard the news: Leonie had died. What strong constitution she had, living an entire month, in her condition. When I get old like her, I hoped to be as strong, for Drusilla told me, they don’t make humans like that anymore. The younger generation is wiser, but weaker, she said.

I could only guess that she was sacrificed in that hut, in the village, because her lover saw that she wanted him to like her, and perhaps all he wanted was respect. Perhaps jealousy was involved, which led to hatred. How could I forget the terror as much as the hurt, the acute illogical reality of a dream of watching flames lapping her body, like the soughing tide against a seawall, swallowing it, and frightening me like that?

Glenda was enraged and wept bitterly. Not Sis Drusilla, who raised Leonie. Drusilla was accustomed to crying for her dead dogs only. This placed us apart. There was never such a terrible person, besides La Vern, and I wondered with wonderment what I had done to deserve her hospice. I had thought someone strange—only someone truly outside my scope of understanding peculiar people, could have made this awful woman.

Leonie’s body lay in state at Drusilla’s house that was in Cousin Blanche’s yard. She was stretched out in Creech Jones’ bed, dressed in white, like a bride, with gloves, veil, stockings and high heels. I kept looking at her face, hoping she would open her lovely eyes and stare back, but no; she was still, so pretty, so sweet in such grievous silence. Her charred and blackened remains were removed, but the scars remained in my mind for good. At the burial ground, Creech Jones passed La Vern and me over the grave with dead box to Clair Sinclair and said, Motherless, fatherless, and grandma knows the rest. Supposedly, this little ceremony of passing us over the grave by a couple, who were in great shape all together, would prevent the spirit of the dead woman from returning to haunt us, as if we had killed her, as if she had it in for us. What about the adults—how did they protect themselves? Ah, do for Christ’s sake. I was frightened by such logic. Why were grownups so idle and ready to leather your ass with a belt when you act silly, and there was no one to put them in their place when they erred? Life is a fragile actor and the world’s an impolite and unbenevolent place. I can’t take myself too seriously and be rude all the time. But what had gone wrong? Amidst the crying and objectivity of friends and neighbours, the answers did not come easily. Familiar excuses did not ease the pain at all. Excuses such as, accident, drunk, devil-possessed and dementia, are usually thrown about as the cause of abuse like this, seemed weightless when weighed against nefariousness of the torment and the manner of the tormenter. There was far too much evidence of calculated planning by Myles Bailey to simply explain this away as an impulsive act. His treachery was so deep that he would strongly dismiss the plain truth that he needed to face what was right and what was wrong. The couple had proven with violent and woeful account that they did not know how to get along with each other, or deal with their personal problems. Yet goodness was not ingrained in any of us. This is acquired attitude coming straight from divine teaching. Even I claimed abuse problems as an excuse to shift the blame for my bad behaviour: Abuse made me do it. Do you see why?

That night, Drusilla shocked everyone by falling asleep on the very bed that held the dead body, without changing the bedding and turning over the mattress. Such drastic measure twisted my innards. But I had lived with abhorrence before—that moment when mother was set on fire. I survived then. Surely, a little gesture as post love and possession from Drusilla shouldn’t get to me much.

Soon, Drusilla abandoned me to my ailment that was lurking around the corner to get me. This caused me to feel useless and separated. It made me pursue any ghost of happiness around. Yet, I was defeated by bad spirits of discouragement. So I pouted all the time until my mouth almost touched my knees. My inactivity led to boredom and isolation. Drusilla said, Look at your mouth, long like an anteater’s. She told La Vern’s hers was long like a snook’s. It could be that I did not like Drusilla’s style; still, I could scarcely ignore it, for she disrespected me. She saw me as very weak and an easy target, and I was.

Glenda and Drusilla shared me between them, like a needed piece of garment they altered and patched over and over. It was a life of chaotic childhood, of a lad bouncing from one house to another, of angry moods and random punishment, impulsiveness and recklessness, restlessness by design and not by choice. In fact, being in their care, I really do believe that they caused the disintegration of my personality, and even full-blown psychosis. Else why was I unsocial and looked so haggard and grim?

This was too much. I wished I had a father to blame it on, but I didn’t have that excuse.

La Vern had one. After a while, her father started coming around Glenda’s place to see her. I stared at him—man without shame, remorse—the silver cigarette lighter and silver watch. They suddenly grew sharp, like peaks and ridges out to get me, as I fell from the world to which he held so strongly. Nothing then would appear to have equipped me to survive my days around these people mentally sound, much less to emerge and make something of myself.

He sat and stared at us, playing by his feet. How I wished I could go on an incredible journey into his possessed mind and take a shocking glimpse of the power to wreck lives and break hearts.

For years Glenda condemned him behind his back. She had mentioned their encounter in the street one time. No malice here. Still, after all the hate, I never understood why she allowed him back in her home, with his mystical blackness of heart.

I did not hate Myles, but it was no surprise that he caused me to consider my own father.

I had no sense of my father’s presence, no hazy memory of him, or faint image of his looks.

These men had me absorbed in vision. What I saw was weird; strange spirit of evil. It foretold events shaping up in my life that most definitely would affect me. And so I endured a lifelong wrestle with the whip called obsession.

It all started when I became obsessed with Mother. Into my very being stretched the vast expanse of deep shadows, which became larger and threatening. Something terrible inside me started to develop. Surely, I was falling headforemost into hell.

I was angry. Jesus Christ knew that I needed to have forgiveness and peace with God even more than mental and physical healing. But imagine the terrible unrest and misery that flooded my soul, as one night, in bed with Drusilla, I couldn’t sleep. I felt haunted. Then something occurred to me. The ceremony at the graveyard is based on tradition and superstition, yet held some significance to it. You see, the reason why some people speak as strongly for protection against the dead as they do is because they are aware of unearthly presence they mistake for dead people. So that in the dead of night, when I heard determined footsteps coming up the stairs, I knew that I was in for it.

The little house was still. I trembled as I sensed a defined or convincing presence. The being called the pet name my mother had for me. Pompey. She knocked, called. She sounded like Mother, sweet—not dreadful and terrible. Open the door.

Creech Jones slept by an opened window, facing the south gate where the woman passed. Why hadn’t she bothered him? And why couldn’t she shut up and go away? Could Creech Jones and Drusilla hear her? I could not speak for fear and trembling.

I never felt so much fear, the night got on my nerves. The hair stood up on my body. My knees knocked together. Would I be induced to choose her as my personal guide and follow her all the way to Hell?

I would be doomed if I did.

Trusting her; obeying her—even onto death; abiding in her warmth through dedication; complete surrender, and a joyous, happy relationship, only then would I be safe from worshiping God and receiving his promise of everlasting life, in the coming new world.

I did not answer her. I was scared to death. She sucked her teeth and retreated in the fearful night.

Next day I told Drusilla what happened. She said she heard. All day long I could not forget last night. What a night! Next night, same thing; I could not sleep. I knew what would happen. Too well did I remember the oppressive source. I did not want to see a gruesome night vision and closed my eyes tight, listening.

I was certain I was being watched. I had no heart for the stranger’s eyes. Wish I could remind her of her rebellion and pride against God, and the consequences. She was an angel turned demon. She had to be.

I was frightened horribly. Imagine the desperation. I didn’t have long to be in suspense.

She willed my eyes open, or I had an impulse to gaze at her. At sight of that bloodless creature, I was paralysed with fear. By the jalousie on the opposite side of the small room, stood a woman, whom I could see plain in the shadows. She wore a dark, floral summer dress, with buttons from waist to neck, and on the short sleeves. I could not see her feet because I was lying behind Drusilla.

The form stared at me with decided intentness. Terrified, I tried to scream. She moved toward me. Even through the fluttering, interchanging dark, I recognized her from Mother’s photograph in the parlour.

I had tried to look away, but some strong hidden inducement kept my eyes on her. Mother died. I saw them burying her. But for a minute of mystification near to dizziness, I had wondered if somehow she had managed to return from the grave, and had actually come back for me.

My hair stayed up. My tongue got heavy. The skin crawled. My heart pounded. With vile boldness, she did her work! She knew exactly how she was going to do it.

She leaned over Drusilla and picked me up, and held me close, and with her bumptious face next to mine, said, Pompey, come with me, darling, pet. Why don’t you come with me? I could not answer, so she kept on repeating it, coaxing me with her dulcet voice, interrupting the dead silence of the mysterious night.

A demon from hell, she was imitating Mother, who is in her grave, waiting for the resurrection. I saw her. It was a sight of such kind that when I had seen it, I could no longer wish to look at Mother’s picture. Oh, yes! She wanted to kill me! I took a close look at this thing to make sure there was no mistake.

Amazing! Why would my mother, who was so loving and kind talk this way to me, of all people, and expose me to danger? It’s because she was not my mother! This thing was trying to seduce and betray me. Her words were sweet, maybe obscene. They were the bloody reality of abduction in full swing.

God gave me then a powerful voice to scream my head off. She put me down. Drusilla awakened. Creech Jones flew into the room and pulled the chain of the drop light of nominal wattage. The spectre vanished. I shook.

Though I took a while telling them what happened, Drusilla and Creech Jones saw wicked angels at work that were preparing the way. In fact, spirit beings were always creeping into our midst, and some were called upon to aid in obeah magic at home. Drusilla felt my heart that was jumping about, and gave me a glass of water from the mug on the wash hand stand to cool me down. Creech Jones rubbed me down with bay rum to help calm my nerves and make me breathe easier.

For a while, I was afraid to be alone; afraid of the dark. The night scared me. Strangely, I was not afraid of the lonely, deserted streets, as long as there were no trees that fattened and scattered, creating shadows. What frightened me was being alone at night in the little house. I stayed awake all night, thinking she would return. I fell asleep only when I saw the sun coming up. My friend, ginger snap eating Dickie Chavez’ oldest sister, Jinx Clemens, told me to throw sesame seeds on her the next time. She would have to pick them all up and count them, and would be banished for good. I told her I wouldn’t do that to Mother. The truth is, however, having her count a bunch of little seeds could delay her wingless flight. And I could not have her linger, making me worse.

Was I plain crazy? Jinx was not the only one talking about throwing things. Half-crazy Dickie threw pennies in the air and watched and giggled as we poor children fought over them on the ground. Grabbing, he called it. We couldn’t wait for the craziness to bite him, a part of his bitchery, really, for he was haunted, or restless, and mischievous, heating up metal on our