‘This not no robbery. This all fix-up. The truck driver expecting us. The escort expecting us. The whole thing organised, man. All we have to do is lift out the boxes and put them in the van and take off. That is all there is to it.’
But Xiuquan don’t seem like him convinced and I don’t want to just go get some stranger to come do this. People talk too much. Next thing yu know yu go turn the corner at Hope Street and find every Tom, Dick and Harry waiting there to come snatch their slice and make a run for it. No, man, I not going stand by and watch that happen. So the day before when me and Xiuquan walking up Barry Street to the post office I say to him, ‘I never ask yu for nothing before. Everything me and the boys do we do it on our own. You all righteous ’bout not doing no robbery but I don’t notice yu complaining every time Ma put food on the table that she pay for with the money that Zhang get from the pai-ke-p’iao or I get from the navy surplus.’
Him no say nothing to me. Him just keep on walking with his hand in his pocket like he not even intending to give me no answer. Maybe like he can’t even hear me a talking to him.
‘Everything that yu don’t like is what is keeping a roof over your head and clothes on your back and food in your belly.’
And then he suddenly stop and turn and say to me, ‘Yu think I don’t know that?’ And just then some rude man push past between us and almost shove me off the sidewalk so I crash into the juicy and nearly knock him and his shave ice into the street. When I look ’round Xiuquan walk off so I have to run to catch up with him.
‘I dunno why we have to keep going up the post office to check some box that not got no letters in it anyway. Who the hell Zhang think writing to us?’
I don’t even bother answer him because Xiuquan don’t want no answer. He just want to complain and walk fast and vex with himself.
‘What is it yu want, Xiuquan?’
‘I want to get up every morning and know that I’m going to go do something honest. I want to stop choking on my food because I know where the money come from. I want to stop worrying every time somebody knock at the gate that maybe it the police that come to take you or Zhang or the whole lot of us to lock us up in some stinking Jamaican jail and never again see the light of day. I want to stop thinking that maybe one day the blacks going raise up and just come murder every one of us as we sleeping in our bed at night. The Indians, the Chinese, the Jews, the whites. Every single person that come here thinking they going make themselves a home. I want to see my mother happy because she got some meaning in her life, because there is something she believe in like when she and my father was working the land doing something worthwhile and producing something wholesome. Something that made a better life, not just for them, but for every single person in that village that get to eat the vegetables they grow. The vegetables they planted and tended with their own hands, on their knees in the dry earth and in the mud when it rained.’ And then he stop talk, and draw breath and say, ‘I call that honest. What do you call this?’
The two of us look ’round as we standing there outside the post office where Barry Street cross King Street. The whole world is out here, with their hooting and honking and hollering. Every inch of the street is jam up with pushcarts and buggies and the country bus that pack up so much it actually leaning over and god help anything or anybody that standing next to it when the thing fall down on top of them; and cars that somebody should have put a hammer to rather than taking it out so all the pieces can drop off on the public road. And the fumes that is coming outta them is something else, which is why the pushcart boys is bobbing and weaving so them don’t have to sit behind there breathing it all in. Never mind trying to miss the trail that the buggies and them cars powered by real live horsepower is leaving. And when them ease past, the pushcart boys got some words to give the driver ’bout the condition of his car or how he driving it and what he think the driver ought to be doing instead of just sitting there in the road with him hand on the horn. And because it so hot and nothing is moving one inch the driver is leaning outta the window shouting at the higgler on the corner to come bring him a cold beer or a soda or maybe he want a sweet mango from the woman that squat down on the kerb with the big basket she just take down from her head with the banana and mango and pineapple and sweetsop and June plum and a few guinep. Or maybe he want some shave ice with a bit of strawberry syrup pour over it. But the higgler not paying him no mind so maybe he got to shout some more or maybe stop a boy riding a bicycle past the car or just walking in the street and tell him to go get the drink or fruit or whatever it is he want. So he is reaching for the change with his left hand in his pocket and pointing with the finger on his right hand, and hoping that he can trust this boy to come back to him with his goods so as to collect the tip he is offering. And he got to do all of this because he can’t get outta the car in case as soon as he leave it to walk to the corner it become occupied by any of the dozen of men just standing there in the street or leaning up against a post flicking through some dirty magazine.
So I look ’round at all of this and I say, ‘I call it life.’
When Hampton ask me if Xiuquan going come help us boost the truck the next day I say I dunno.
‘It no matter. If it four of us we do it and if it three of us we do it same way. And Finley going have to help not just sit there in the van waiting to be the getaway man. We don’t need no lookout anyway. This whole thing ain’t nothing more than shifting a few boxes.’
Next day when I ready to go I look at Xiuquan like to say ‘well, what you going to do, man?’ but he just sit there at the table and no say nothing so I walk out the gate and shut it behind me.
I walking up to the post office where I going meet Hampton and Finley with the van but halfway up Barry Street I hear Xiuquan shouting my name and when I turn ’round is him chasing after me. I wait there for him to catch up and then I say, ‘What yu want?’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Yu coming with me? What for?’
‘Because yu my brother.’
‘What happen to wanting to do something honest? This thing here not honest, yu know.’
But him no say nothing. We just carry on walking and get into the van and head out on East Queen Street to South Camp Road. We park up and a little while later everything happen just like Bill say it going to. The truck come up the road. We wave it ’round the corner. Bill say we must rough up the driver and the other sailor boy with him. So I tell Hampton to hit them. Not too hard, just enough to leave a good bruise and maybe a split lip and a little blood. And he do it. So afterwards the two of them sit down on the kerb and smoke a cigarette while they watch us unload the truck.
And right in the middle of all of this I hear this deep voice say, ‘What you bwoys so busy doing with this truck?’ And when I look ’round it is some tall, scrawny policeman with big feet and a bicycle. Next thing Xiuquan push past me, jump down outta the truck and take off down the road. He don’t even stop to look back. He just got his head down and he is going.
I standing in the back of the truck and I look at the policeman. And then I look at the boxes and I say to him, ‘Yu see all this stuff in here, it belong to the United States navy and we taking it and putting it in that van over there. If you want to help us yu can pick out two or three boxes for yourself and afterwards we can drop you off with the boxes and the bicycle anywhere yu want.’
The policeman don’t say a word but he get off the bicycle and go lean it up real careful with the pedal resting on the kerb and then he take off his hat and rest it on the saddle and walk over to the back of the truck and reach out his hand for me to haul him up.
When we done packing up the van with the boxes and the policeman and the bicycle we say goodbye to the sailors and pull out into South Camp Road. I look down the street and I see the navy jeep park up down there waiting for us to finish so I just wave to them outta the window and Finley turn left and we take off.
We go drop off the policeman and help him inside with his boxes and then we go pile up the stuff in Miss Tilly’s outhouse and after all of that was done we open some Red Stripe and ease back.
When I get back to Matthews Lane Xiuquan is sitting there and when I take one look at Zhang I can see him vex with me.
‘Your mother and me fret that maybe they have you down police station.’
I don’t say nothing because I know this not a time for me to talk. This is a time for Zhang to talk.
‘You not think that maybe this dangerous thing what you do? You steal from American navy. You get catch. They put you in jail. You no care what worry you give your mother? You think this some kind of game you play with your friends? You think Sun Tzu so reckless and stupid? This thing not make you honourable. It make you thief.’
