Under the Calabash Tree: Footprints, Places, Faces, and Time: A Collection of Short Stories

By S. T. Shah Roath

A collection of short stories that capture events and experiences that span the years between the 1960s and 2021. Guyanese folklore, history, practices, and lifestyles are weaved together to create fictional scenarios that mirror the times. Places, faces, and times leave their mark on our memories like indelible footprints. These footprints can often become visible in the choices we make, the lives we live, and the heritage we pass on. This collection of short stories is a work of fiction built upon folklore, oral history, memories, news stories, the author's imagination, and life experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798987136652

S. T. Shah Roath

Dr. Seeta Terry Shah Roath is the writer of "Under the Calabash Tree: A Collection of Short Stories", "The Demerara Series", and other fiction and non-fiction works placed mostly in Guyana and the wider Caribbean.

Book preview

Copyright 2023 Roath Publishing UNITED STATES

Set in Guyana at different historical places and times, 1960s-2021, this collection of short stories is a work of fiction built upon folklore, oral history, memories, news stories, the author’s imagination, and life experiences.

Any resemblance to real people (living or dead), events, and places is purely coincidental.

____________________________________________

ROATH PUBLISHING

308 Meagher Street, Judith Gap, Montana, 59453 USA

October 2023

Roath Publishing supports copyright for established and emerging diverse voices. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of this publication in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and Roath Publishers to continue to publish books for readers worldwide.

ISBN: 979-8-9871366-5-2

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To all who impacted these stories in some way, including:

William, Nizamudin, Terry, Suzanne, Rajdaie, Bhanmattee, Cheddie, Kamala, Nadira, Indranie, Davika, Mahendra, Rajendra, and my students over the years.

The short story apologises for nothing. It exults in its shortness. It wants to be shorter still. It wants to be a single word. If it could find that syllable…

Steven Millhauser

The Ambition of The Short Story

The New York Times, 2008.

Cover photograph: Sunset, Guyana East Coast Demerara.

Photo credit: S. T. Shah Roath

Preface

The short stories I have written in this collection are of varying lengths. Some are short, short stories while others are a little longer, yet others are much longer. Some have a single plot, a single scene, and a single experience. Others are more complex with multiple characters, and multiple scenes. Yet others have satirical implications. All these stories came from the heart, emerging as living tales that just had to be written at the time of their conception.

Although not presented here in chronological order, these short stories capture events and experiences that span the years between the 1960s to 2021. Guyanese folklore, history, and experiences of the 1960s to the 2000s are explored both in a personal way and in an abstract manner that assumes that the author and reader have shared knowledge of the times and places. Fact and fiction merge to form a kaleidoscope of life in Guyana as many may remember. Young readers can explore Guyana’s landscapes as it was and is yet emerging as a land rich with resources of culture, nature, lifestyles, and so much more than any of us can begin to imagine.

Contents

The Black Cat

The Flouncer’s Money Pouch

The Kite Buss Away!

The Sweetest Lick!

The Home Coming

The Bandstand Stage

The Sinking Ship

Elusive El Dorado

Tengo – The Pork Knocker

They Call Me Ole Higue!

The Seawall

A Village Treat

I Found the Village!

The Genips Sweet Bad

The Climb

Blossoming

I Got Tired Waiting

Finders and Seekers

The Mighty Kaieteur Shares a Secret

The Broken Pencil

Glossary

Afterword

A black cat with yellow eyes Description automatically generated

The Black Cat

(1960)

Mabel was cleaning fish under the standpipe in the backyard when a black kitten emerged from under the house. She had never seen it before. It looked so starved and cried so feebly that she was tempted to give it some of the butterfish scraps, but realizing her intention, Mama Beryl had screamed at her from the kitchen window.

Don’t feed that cat.

Mabel was startled at the order and enquired as to whether the poor hungry animal should starve.

That cat is a bad omen. I tell you, have nothing to do with it.

But Mabel couldn’t ignore the cries of such an innocent creature. When Mama Beryl had gone inside, she warmed some milk and fed the cat by the back door. She watched him slurp with such speed that her fears were confirmed. He was indeed hungry.

The satisfied kitten mewed and rubbed his side on the bottom of Mabel’s nighty. Taking pity on the kitten, Mabel made a little bed with an old shirt, under the table that held the kerosine stove. She sneaked the little black cat in while Mama Beryl slept.

That night, Mama Beryl, who was eighty-five years old, passed away. To this day Mabel has not stopped blaming herself. The black kitten?

The morning Mabel found Mama Beryl dead in her bed she never saw it again. How it managed to get itself out of the locked house she never knew.

END

A person sitting on a snowboard Description automatically generated

The Flouncer’s Money Pouch

(1964)

Long John jumped over the fence and ran through the yard, barely missing the frisky lamb skipping around its grazing mother. The sound of the masquerade drums coming from Pike Street was beckoning him. They would reach Gordon Street soon enough, but Long John did not want to wait. He was waiting almost the entire year already! This was the first masquerade band of the Christmas season to enter Kitty village. 

Another fence to scale before reaching the last house in the lot then onto Pike Street! Oops, he had forgotten there was a shallow ditch on the other side of this fence. Never mind. A little mud on his pants and wet ‘yotten’ boots was nothing. The two pennies jingled in his pants pocket as he shook off the dripping water from his long pants and resumed his loopy running.

Although he could hear the flute and kettle drums of the masquerade band, he still could not get even a glimpse of any part of the band. Not even the long lady’s head bobbing almost as high as the streetlamps. But wait! Wasn’t that a Flouncer rounding the corner by the calabash tree?

And sure, it was. The Flouncer was followed by the Mad Cow! Then a kettle player! By the time Long John reached the Flouncer, the whole band was playing in the Pike Street yard! And boys and girls from neighboring yards were flocking to throw money at the Flouncer.

Long John pushed his way to the front of the crowd and threw his first penny. He watched it bounce on the grass and land below the hovering butt of the Flouncer as the dancer was maneuvering a difficult dance move to pick up a cent that had rolled under his feet on the rocky soil. Success! Cents and pennies were skillfully retrieved without breaking the flow of the masquerade dance. But not before the Mad Cow had found a little girl to run behind as she squealed in fearful delight back out the gate and onto the street.

The rest of the band followed, and the parade continued up Pike Street heading toward the train line. Bam-bam Sally was jerking her buttocks gleefully down the road followed by the stilt dancers rivaling Long Lady, the Mother Sally, whose head was bobbing at the height of the streetlights. The strong scent of garlic pork coming from Miss. Margaret’s kitchen window was a reminder that Christmas was just around the corner.

The sounds of the masquerade drums brought people onto house steps, at windows, and out to stand on their bridges. The Masquerade Season had begun, the first band of the year was here, in Kitty. The long note and thrill of the flute music drifted on the wind, but the toast of the flute man sounded out loud and clear as all music stopped for the poetic message to be heard, even the mouth organ was silent.

"Scatcha!

Christmas comes but once a year.

And every man must have his share.

But poor Brother Willy in de jail

Drinking sour ginger beer!

Music!"

The drummer hit a beat and the music started again. Even sweeter than before. The parade continued up Pike Street. Long John and many others followed as they were free to roam the village this sunny weekend before the Christmas school break.

Children teased the two Mad Cows and ran away screaming in glee as the costumed masquerade dancers chased menacingly after them. Many landed in potholes, some even stepped into muddy street drains and the cock-a-belly fish some were catching in their milo tins earlier that morning. Even Boysie fell into the muddy drain and wet his freshly starched white Sunday clothes. Peter held onto the almond tree on the roadside. Suresh and Pooran’s white paper boats narrowly escaped under a wooden bridge in the slowly moving water currents.

As the masquerade band moved up the street, Long John ended up almost at the rear of the crowd. He heard a sobbing child and looked back above the heads of shorter children to see the little girl whom the Mad Cow had rushed earlier, sitting in the middle of the rocky road with bleeding knees. He walked back.

Hi Pinky, let me see your knee.

Hurting bad Long John. Look it bleeding so much blood! She sobbed out the words.

Here let me take you home. Your mummy will take care of it for you.

Not waiting for an answer, Long John lifted the little girl effortlessly and took her to a nearby cottage. He walked around the house and up the back stairs. Pinky’s mother was standing at the