7

1946:

A New Life:

There’s nothing left for me

Of days that used to be

I live in Memory

Among my Souvenirs

My apprenticeship in the urban milieu in the care of my father’s siblings put a merciful end to my driftwood infancy. After a brief stay with my father’s brother, Uncle Thom, a period where there was some dispute as to my where I would be lodged permanently. I was assigned residence with my father’s youngest sister according to his last wishes before his death. Gloria, recently married, was to be my new mother, and I her first son.

Family Gathering circa 1946, Kingston, Jamaica

The reassurance of continuity in my care dulled the aches in my being. My new mother, her husband and their small child changed neighbourhoods frequently within the general area in the south eastern part of Kingston called Franklin Town. In Kellits I had changed residences twice after the death of my grandmother and in the nearly ten years of my life in Kingston I changed address seven times; Rousseau Rd., West Avenue, Portland Rd. Seabreeze Ave. Waterloo Rd., Dunoon Rd. near Windward Rd. and finally before emigration to Canada, #10 Dunoon Rd. Despite the bewilderingly frequent displacements, life began to take on the comforting tedium of routines: school, play, church, play.

My new found sense of well being, however, was sorely tested at West Ave. and Windward Rd. when one night fire raged through the nearby asylum for the insane, prematurely releasing the inmates into an ill prepared community. In the resulting chaos, I was a frightened onlooker from the street just above the spot where a crowd had gathered to witness a murder by one of the escaped inmates. In this agitated period the anchor of my security through the numerous changes of households was the seemingly immutable presence of the house occupied by my paternal grandparents at #10 Dunoon Rd. My most vivid recollections have their focus in that spot.

The house at #10 Dunoon Rd. was the centre of gravity for my father’s family. The residence had no frontage on the road that gave the house its address and the lot seemed to have been a surveyor’s afterthought. From all appearances the property seemed to have been annexed from the backyards of about five adjacent properties. It was a strange non-conforming piece of geography orphaned from some municipal plan or the other. Thee residence had access to Dunoon Rd. only through a lane which ran perpendicular to the main road.  After perhaps 100 ft., the lane passed an entrance to the front yard of the house before continuing in an ‘L’ shape to the back of the house running completely down one side of the house.

The house itself had nothing to distinguish it from the other modest residences on the road except for the presence of an old automobile which seemed to have taken root and grown out of the ground in the backyard. The automobile in a backyard in 1945 was still a bit of a marvel even if it was only the carcass of a car. The  first time that I saw that old car, it was crawling with children jumping on and off, pushing and shoving to get at the steering wheel. I longed to be part of the fabric of this place, if for no other reason, to get a turn at the steering wheel.

A sampling of the tribe of cousins in the family: circa 1946

Although I lived with my new parents some distance from Dunoon Road, I sometimes visited the residence of my grandparents on weekends. I was occasionally able to go onto the old car but being the youngest among the tribe of cousins who lived there, turning the steering wheel was never a possibility. A host of older cousins and their friends from the neighbourhood would dominate the steering wheel and  would even decide who among the younger ones would be admitted onto the old car.

This old car provided as much joy to the children of Tendunoon and the neighbourhood as it caused concern to the adults. The sheet metal on the body, especially on the fenders, displayed advanced cases of rust and corrosion thereby guaranteeing lacerations, contusions, abrasions, punctures, scrapes, stabs, rips, blood, sweat and tears. It seems not a day would pass without the near obligatory automobile accident ie. child jumps on then jumps off this stationery statue of a car, bleeding from finger, arm, leg, foot or head.  The old car was a magnet for children!

Past the old car, the back yard had an enormous tamarind tree. This tree was an alternate venue for groups of kids, playing on or around a rope swing or climbing to get the very few green tamarinds which may have escaped the attention of others. There was never a crop of tamarinds left to ripen, to brew the deliciously tangy beverage or to make the tart, sweet tamarind ball candies which were so sought after, especially by the adults. Year after year the same anticipation on the part of the adults of a bumper crop of ripe tamarinds, would give way to the same complaint that this healthy, abundant looking tree produced absolutely nothing but a few sour green immature tamarinds which disappeared overnight. “What good was it anyway?”

The unrealistic adult expectation of a ripe crop could only be imagined in the absence of the neighbourhood kids who, of course were the undisputed owners of anything produced by that tree. Among the children no matter how small the tamarind, it became desirable. To wait for fruit to become bigger was absurd, the consequence, of course being that some other child, scouring the tree for evidence of fruit would relieve the tree of its added burden, and relieve you of the concern of planning its future consumption. Since the fruit of the young green tamarind closely resembles the foliage, it was fairly difficult to spot the desired fruit, but there were at least a dozen pairs of youthful eyes making twice daily inventories and observations of the produce on that tree in tamarind season. The tamarind tree was a magnet for children!

Far up the tamarind tree, beyond where easy eyes can see, further yet than a stick could reach, up there in the realm of the wasps and the bees there exists the probability of bigger green tamarinds, indeed even the remote possibility of mature, ripe ones. This calls for more sophisticated harvesting techniques than sticks. Stones!!! Slingshots!!!

Neighbours to the right of them! Neighbours to the left! Neighbours to the north of them! Neighbours to the south! Neighbours to the east of them! Neighbours to the west!

Now, plan fullness is not among the natural endowments of little boy children. Single mindedness is the natural mindset. When the single mindset of reaching fruit (in this case tamarinds, but in most cases mangoes) intersects with the appropriate tool (in this and most cases stones) the results are frequently a hasty scattering of children. Consider the following:

Boy spots tamarind fruit high up in tamarind tree, issues general alarm.

“Rahtid man, ah tink ah see wan up deh,  at di en’ a dat limb deh!”

“Yeh man, mi see it too!”

Three boys dash off scrambling around the vicinity of the tree, searching feverishly on the ground for stones, sticks, small heavy objects, anything that can be flung towards the small, hard, green, sour, unappetizing, barely more than a blossom tamarind. If they succeed in bringing down the current object of their attention they will chew on the fruit, make faces at the sour taste of the fruit, spit out the pulp and agree that it is beyond eating, only to begin again circling the tree to find other little inedible tamarinds to target. The intense trio return more or less simultaneously with hands full of stones heavy enough to be launched authoritatively, light enough to generate some speed and power. They deploy themselves instinctively in an arc, far enough away from each other so as not to impede their flinging co-conspirators.

Without any command, almost in unison, the little platoon commences the assault on the unfortunate tamarind (on other occasions, on other trees or fence posts, the quarry is an unfortunate lizard). Today the positions that they have assumed beneath and beside the tamarind tree guarantees that missiles will be raining down on the yards of two of the neighbours. And so it is that two showers of stones from two of the marksmen find their mark on the corrugated metal roofs of a neighbouring house causing considerable noises to the residents therein and minor co-lateral damage to the metal protecting the residents from the elements. The third fusilier comes dangerously close with his fusillade to striking a woman seated in her backyard, reading the newspaper.

“Lawd av mercy, dem pickney dem gwein kill mi!!!” she shrieks, bolting out of her contemplation of the Daily Gleaner and rushing toward the shelter of her house.

Before the other irate neighbours, the victims of errant ordnance from the barrage of artillery on their roof can gather their wits, the troops have scattered, heading down the lane, away from the backyard for some other neighbourhood, already concocting some alibi, plausible or otherwise, while still in full fight from the scene of the first assault on the tamarind.

***

Nature periodically conspires to avenge herself for the destruction of these nasty little male human beings and frequently the instrument of payback is nature’s flying squadron of wasps and bees.

The trio of tormentors of tamarinds have sworn off throwing stones at fruit in the close confines of the backyard of Tendunoon, at least, that is, until they forget the effects of the thrashings they received after the three neighbours sent a delegation to parents and guardians of #10 Dunoon to demand reparations for the property damage to roofs, as well as the psychological suffering of the traumatized Gleaner reader.

Once again around the tamarind tree, they decide that to search out and get fruit they must now climb, since the neighbours are now extra vigilant. The climb up the tree for the first fifteen feet is uneventful, the sturdy limbs providing a stable perch from which to reach for the next limb. All three of the adventurers reach this plateau. Fifteen feet up, the branches get somewhat smaller and bend on contact from the weight of the lead climber. One of the boys fearing the effects of gravity, decides to stop at this level, the other two continue to climb. Twenty feet up a second boy decides to abandon the quest for tamarind and sits bouncing on a limb while Sir Edmund Hilary, the third climber strikes ever upwards, where the air is rare. And then it happens!!!

The bouncer has disturbed a nest of wasps attached to the branch on which he is bouncing. A hundred wasps with a single mind and a single purpose swarm. Sir Edmund Hilary on the highest branch is the first to scream, for the wasps have traveled upward. With deadly accuracy the flying, deranged hypodermics find their way up from his knees through the legs of his short pants, peppering his thigh and uncovered genitals with their indignation. For the next two days he will be genitally concerned.  He will swell up and be the owner of a stubborn semi-permanent erection. The lesser Hilary, the bouncer, has not escaped retribution. A squadron of wasps has split off from the main force and pulverized his head and hands. Soon his eye balls will be eclipsed behind the planet sized lumps below his forehead and he will be visually impaired for two days.

Both the afflicted climbers begin a descent too rapid to describe. The least Hilary, he who stopped at fifteen feet, escapes the attack and reaching for the branch on which he stands, grasps it with both hands and deftly swings to the ground. He hit the ground running! The upper two engage in an uncontrolled but steady, progressive drop from their loftier perches and hit the ground swelling while running.

Next year in tamarind season they will undoubtedly repeat the worrisome escapades of this year with two variations, different neighbours, different wasps.

I live in Memory Among

My souvenirs

***