‘Thank you, Uncle.’
‘But you not going get your name come first like Merleen. Chin Yang Vacations don’t sound too bad, even though I still think Yang Chin would have sound better. But Lopez Yang don’t work. I think it got to be Yang Lopez Cosmetics.’
‘But it isn’t just cosmetics we do now. We have a whole range of bathroom and kitchen products as well that we retail out of our own stores not just outlets in department stores like we used to. That is what I was telling you and showing you earlier this afternoon.’
‘So what yu want call it?’
‘Plain and simple, Yang Lopez.’ She hesitate, and then she say, ‘Do you mean a fifty-fifty partner like you did with Merleen?’
And I say, ‘Yes. Fifty-fifty. The papers all drawn up, except for the name, and I going have the accountants sort it out and bring them over next week so you can sign them.’
‘So fast?’
‘No reason to wait.’
When we go back up to the house Margy go inside and come out with a parcel. It beautifully wrapped in a heavy stripe paper of green and brown and blue.
‘I got this for you in New York but I feel a little embarrassed giving it to you now after that conversation. Please believe that this was for you anyway.’ And then she hand the package to me and I take it from her and unwrap it.
She say to me, ‘The Flor de Farach was manufactured in 1958 and shipped to Tampa prior to the 1962 Cuban embargo. The shop’s proprietor bought the entire consignment and now he is selling them in this wonderful shop on the corner of Fifth and East 46th Street. When I bought them he said I wasn’t just buying a box of cigars, I was buying a piece of history.’
When I open the box it got layers of packets of little Farachitos. I lift out a packet of five and sorta look it over.
‘I know you get Cuban cigars here all the time but these were so tiny and cute I thought even Gloria might approve.’ Then Margy look at me all expectant and say, ‘Try one.’
So I take one out and unwrap it. When I smell it, it got a sweet nutty aroma. I light it and I take a puff. Margy look at me like as to say how is it?
Well, I think Margy good enough to go buy me a present so I not going say nothing ’bout the Americans and their Cuban embargo. I say, ‘It taste like the beginning of something new. Something sweet and adventurous. It taste like freedom.’ And she pleased with that.
When we leave Margy’s I just say to Milton, ‘Let’s go to Ken Jones Aerodrome and jump on a helicopter back to Kingston, and you can come pick up the car some other time.’
37
In 1980 Manley lose the election and Edward Seaga become prime minister when the Jamaica Labour Party take power. They say that seven hundred and fifty people get killed in the months running up to that election, and they reckon that whereas up to 1976 the gangs was using sidearms, mostly the.365 Magnum, by 1980 they was using rapid-fire M16 rifles.
By the next year we break off diplomatic relations with Cuba and we get back the US aid and foreign investments start flooding back again.
But even though the foreign investment good, it mean we not really in charge of our own destiny. Is the foreigners in charge of our destiny, because is them telling us what to do, and them deciding what going get cultivated or developed, and them deciding the time frame, and them deciding how much investment them putting in for how much profit them taking out.
Every day the street filling up with more advertisement for Pepsi and Sprite and Coca-Cola, and IBM and Citibank and Cable & Wireless, and Nestle, and KFC and Burger King and Esso and Texaco. And all I can hear is Zhang in my head saying ‘you back in the grip of the foreigners’. And I think yes, but this situation completely different. Because in the old days everybody could see that it was the British that was responsible for the slavery, whereas now it seem like we are the ones responsible for this mess we in. Nowadays it hard to see how we being controlled by foreign powers because this new kind of imperialism come wrapped in a cloak that look like help.
The other thing that strike me ’bout the way Jamaica changing is how everybody start talking ’bout Africa. Is like we ‘Out of Many’, but the ‘One People’ seem to be just the Africans. Is Africa this and Africa that. Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. And ever since the world discover Bob Marley, everything turn to Rasta and reggae. It like they think the only true Jamaican is a African. Like they forget that the original Jamaican was the Arawak Indian and after the Spanish and British get through murdering all of them we was all imports. Every last one of us. But it no matter, all I see and hear every day now is how we got to get back to Africa.
You can hardly see a Chinese man on the street these days. Their feet don’t even hit the sidewalk between the Mercedes and the tennis court, or the golf course, or the airport tarmac on them way to their next vacation. And that’s the ones that still here, the ones that didn’t leave Chinatown to go jump on a plane and never come back. I reckon I must be the only Chinaman left in Chinatown, because even though the signs still here – Chin’s Bakery, Chen’s Groceries, Hoo’s Cleaners, Lee’s Hardware, the Golden Dragon, Panda House, Bamboo Garden – the Chinese have long gone. And now, when I step outta the yard at Matthews Lane, all I see is a mass of black faces looking at me and wondering what the hell I am still doing here.
Still, I reckon things good enough for Mui to come home if she still want to, so I write to her and tell her that. But it seem she too busy. She all excited with some big case that taking all her time and she want finish with it before she come. So I say alright. When yu ready then.
38
‘I going move to Beverly Hills.’
‘California?’
‘No, over Long Mountain. Don’t fool with me, Gloria. Yu know what I mean.’
Gloria turn ’round where she standing at the stove and she look at me. And then she drop one shoulder and raise one eyebrow and stick a hand on her hip all in one smooth move.
‘You going move to Beverly Hills?’
‘I going buy a house and move outta Matthews Lane and move to Beverly Hills. I think it time.’
‘So what bring this on?’
‘The whole thing gone to hell, Gloria. Ever since we come here, ever since I was a boy, we reckon we was going to make a better Jamaica. A Jamaica where we was all brothers. We was going to drive out the foreign imperialists and we was going to shake off the yoke of colonialism and oppression. And now since Manley lose the election it all gone to hell.’
‘All that talk ’bout imperialists was Zhang. It was Zhang that was always talking ’bout the right of the ordinary woman and man to live a decent life while you was busy robbing the US navy and driving chickens all over town. And you still busy making money now even though
I nuh like the way she mimic me like that.
‘That not fair, Gloria.’
She look at me a minute, and then she soften and she say to me, ‘Alright, OK. Tell me what you do to make a
