Pao

her.

I take a finger and I wipe a few strands of hair away from her eyes because they wet and stuck to her face. And she let me do it which I know is a good sign. So I say, ‘What we going to do, eh?’

‘Why did you marry me, Pao?’ And that is when the wave of shame wash over me because I didn’t have no proper answer for her.

‘You married me because my father is Henry Wong. Isn’t that the truth? Honestly?’

I reckon the least I can do is face how ugly my own intention was so I say, ‘Yes. Yes it the truth. That is how it start, Fay, but that not how it is now, not since the honeymoon. When we was at the hotel I see a different side of you. You must admit yourself we cross a bridge that week you and me. Don’t tell me it didn’t mean nothing to you.’ And I take her hands in mine.

She let me stay there kneeling down holding her hand and then she say to me, ‘I can’t live like this, Pao. Can’t you see that you and this house are the punishment my mother picked out for me? This is the suffering she wants me to have for the rest of my life.’

‘What suffering?’

‘The same suffering that I had as a child when she used to beat and starve me and lock me in the music room and take the key with her when she went to church.’

I can’t believe what Fay is saying to me. Not that I think she lying but I can’t believe that Miss Cicely carry on like this.

‘What she beat you for?’

‘For always being too much of one thing and never enough of another.’

I can’t understand what she saying to me so I just kneel there and look at her, how serious she is ’bout this like she under some kinda obeah spell that she can’t do nothing ’bout.

‘It don’t have to be like that, you know. We don’t have to just sit back and let Miss Cicely decide what kinda life we going have together.’

Fay don’t say nothing to me, but the next day she stop crying and when I come home from work I see she been out the yard to go get some flowers from the market that she arrange in the vase in the bedroom where it look real pretty.

11

Weather

Then Finley tell me that the police get themselves a new sergeant from Montego Bay. They put him in the North Street police station to help fight corruption, which I think is rich because half my money going to the police to make sure them look the other way. So anyway I say to him, ‘Maybe we should go meet this sergeant,’ but Finley not sure if that is such a good idea.

‘What you going say to him anyway?’

‘Maybe we just say hello, and wish him well with him duties, which most likely him going have to start right there in the police station,’ and we laugh. ‘Well, after all them sending him after us so the least we can do is shake the man’s hand.’ So Finley say he will think on it. Sun Tzu say, ‘ By weather I mean the interaction of natural forces; the effects of winter’s cold and summer’s heat, and the conduct of military operations in accordance with the seasons .’

A week later Finley’s big idea is to get Round One Chin to invite Sergeant Brown to address the Wholesale Provision Merchants’ Association. Chin not sure if he too happy ’bout it because even though he think maybe it a good idea to hear what Sergeant Brown got to say, he nervous ’bout getting involved with the police. He say everybody happy paying the protection and keeping Chinatown business in Chinatown. He say we don’t need to be inviting no outsiders to start interfering with us. We can handle everything ourselves just like we been doing since Zhang get here all them years back. So I have to say to him it alright, we not going do nothing but listen to the man for a few minutes.

So a couple month later Sergeant Brown come to the meeting, and at the appointed moment Chin stand up on the platform and announce how pleased he is to have with us this evening ‘Sergeant Clifton Brown of the North Street police station who is going to talk to us about how his work controlling corruption in the downtown area is going to help the Chinese merchants’ community’. And we all clap our hands. I take Finley and Hampton with me as well because I reckon we all interested in seeing what this man look like and finding out what he got to say.

When Sergeant Brown stand up, me and Hampton just look at each other. Later on when I get introduced to him I put out my hand to shake and then I clasp both my hands ’round his. And I hold his hand a long time while I look him in the eye. And the longer I am holding his hand, and the longer I am looking him in the eye, the more he is realising that we have a bond now and I will be relying on him to fix any little problems we have. Because just the way we recognise him, is just the same way him recognise me.

When we walking home afterwards I say to Hampton, ‘How did Sergeant Brown seem to you that night we catch him in the alley with that bwoy?’

‘That not nuh bwoy, man.’

‘Sure it a bwoy.’

‘No, man. You make it sound like it a child. It a man alright and him young, but it nuh bwoy. You going give Judge Finley the wrong idea.’

‘Alright, how did Sergeant Brown seem to you the night we catch him in the alley with that young man ?’ I say it like that for Hampton sake.

‘Calm.’

‘Calm, like him do it before.’

‘Yah man, like him do it plenty time before.’

‘I reckon a man in his position got to be desperate to go take a chance like that, eh? And if him so desperate, and him so calm, then I reckon it not the first time. And it not going be the last.’

I look at Finley. ‘What we need is someone to keep an eye on him. Someone he not going suspect. Someone maybe like a young man .’

And Finley say, ‘My wife got a nephew, Milton, his papa just get run down by a drunk Englishman driving reckless down Constant Spring Road, now Milton the head of the family with a mama and four children to keep.’

‘He know how to look after himself?’

‘Yah, man.’

‘Tell him to come see me.’

When Milton turn up the next day I see that he is nothing but a boy. And I think well I was only a boy myself when I start up in this business so maybe the situation not too bad. I reckon that he too young to be going picking up the money from Gloria. Them girls would make mincemeat outta him and relish every minute they spend making him blush all over his body. So that was definitely out. But you can’t pay a man to be doing nothing but follow Sergeant Brown day and night so I settle to let Milton do some driving – chicken and eggs and maybe drop off a few cigarettes, even though any half-conscious policeman would notice that this boy ain’t nearly old enough to be driving no van.

Still, and this is exactly the sort of thing Sergeant Brown need to be looking out for, those boys of his always happy to see that US dollar bill. They can make anything happen or not happen, disappear, come back, turn upside down when you flash them a few bills of old George Washington, or even better Mr Abraham Lincoln. And if things get really serious then you just pull out Mr Andrew Jackson for them. Because with the police, these is the faces you know you can always rely on.

So that was it even though I had a little worry in the back of my mind ’bout what Milton was letting himself in for with Clifton Brown. Especially because them little pouty lips and smooth skin make him look so young.