better Jamaica. What you actually do to help the people.’
‘I give Michael Kealey all that money all these years for his poor relief and such. And I support the government social reforms.’
‘And where you get all that money from?’
‘What it matter where I get it?’
‘No. Tell me where you get it.’
‘You know where I get it. And you also know that I never hurt nobody that didn’t have it coming, and I didn’t take no money off of nobody who didn’t enter into business with me of their own free will.’ Gloria making me vex now and I can hear my voice raising up.
‘So you spend your whole life making all this money outta people through their own free will and now you going come tell me that you all dejected because the revolution lost and you going go exile yourself in Beverly Hills?’
And then she sort of ease back, like she just rest all her weight on the back leg there, and get herself comfortable. And I know I was in for it.
‘You want talk ’bout revolution, but this was never your revolution. You never been poor, not so poor you hungry; you never had to find yourself a job or put a roof over your head. You never needed to get yourself an education. You were never made to feel degraded or ignorant or worthless because of the colour of your skin, and have to stand there like a damn fool while them shut every door in your face, and while you watch even the most stupid white people moving up instead of you. You didn’t have to feel the shame of what been done to your people, and witness how that shame sit on your mother and father and brother and sister, and neighbour and acquaintance. No, you live in Chinatown all this long time because you was comfortable, and now you not so comfortable you have the choice and the money to go move to a mansion in Beverly Hills.’
I can’t believe she just say all of that to me. I say to her, ‘So it alright for me to carry on my bad ways when I can come in handy to fix this and that?’
‘I never said nothing to you ’bout your ways. If you remember right, that is how you and me meet when I come to ask you to help me with the thing with Marcia. That was how you and me start. And I never had no feeling ’bout how you put that sailor boy in the hospital. I not talking ’bout what you do, because at least that have a kind of honesty to it. I’m talking about how you talk.’ She pause a bit and then she say, ‘There not going to be no revolution here, Pao. This is not China. It is Jamaica. And that is not how Jamaica is.’
I just say to her, ‘So I take it you not going come live with me in Beverly Hills then, which is what I come here to ask you.’ And she just look at me like she reckon she already say enough.
I go away and I think about it, and I can see Gloria got a point. It true I never had to go get no education or job or any of the things Gloria talking ’bout, but then I dunno what she expect from me. After all, what she expect one man to do? Isn’t it the masses that got to rise up? Isn’t it the masses that got to seize their ideal and take back their land? Isn’t it the masses that got to shake off the yoke of oppression?
And I supported that. I give Michael Kealey all that money and I support Manley. So fair enough, a lot of US dollars leave the country illegally, but that would have happen anyway, with or without me. And for my part I give back a good chunk of that money.
And if she think I should have done something more than pass over the money then it because she just choosing to forget. Like she don’t know how many PNP supporters was getting shot in their bed after somebody kick down their door in the middle of the night; and how they stab the Peruvian ambassador to death in his own house, and gun down national security minister Roy McGann, and the PNP candidate Ferdie Neita in broad daylight; and how they shoot Bob Marley in his own back yard because they think the Smile Jamaica concert was him supporting Michael Manley. And that was way before him get Manley and Seaga to join hands on stage at the National Stadium that night. And all the time we saying ‘Better must come’, every political rally end up in a shootout or confrontation like what happen at Old Harbour, or the night me and Hampton get pinned down by gunfire on the road coming through Spanish Town after we go listen to Michael Manley address a meeting. It because she choose to forget what happen to Kenneth Wong, and because she nuh seem to realise that the only involvement yu could have was to either run for government or pick up a gun. And I wasn’t about to do neither.
So I go buy the house anyway, from a Chinese man that was heading for Canada. It right up the top of the mountain, with a front gate guarded by two stone Chinese lions and a winding driveway, and five round white columns running from ground to roof on the far side of the semi-circular carport. The front door was a double door, wide and red, and above it the Chinaman already paint the Tai Chi surrounded by the eight diagrams of the Pa Kua for good luck and prosperity. The garden set to lawn, with shrubs, mahoe trees, mango, calabash, tamarind, and a single lignum vitae that stand all alone at the far end. The white of the house look good with the red roof, and the red awning that shade the terrace ’round the back where the swimming pool at. I pleased with it. It big and bright, and it catch the sun, but it cool on the inside.
Hampton and Ethyl move with me, and Finley and him wife, and Milton and Tartan Socks because McKenzie not got no family and he got nowhere to go anyway. I sorta turn the place into Yang Compound. Sun Tzu say, ‘
I hire up some boys to make the place secure because I didn’t want nobody coming in here and shooting me the way they waltz in and shoot Bob Marley just for organising a concert. I reckon the gunmen would really fix me if they ever find out how much money I give to the PNP.
When I leaving Matthews Lane I have to go fetch out the knife Meacham daughter use to murder them boys down at Club Havana, but when I go take it outta the safe I find it not the only thing in there. There a little notebook as well. So I open it and start to read.
Merleen Chin: Crying as she is leaving Papa’s shop. What makes a young girl cry so much?
The little book turn out to be some kinda diary thing that Mui been keeping all them years back. She got everything note down in it. Mama kneeling down in the confessional one side of Father Michael while they got a chain drape ’cross the curtain of the compartment the other side of him so that nobody can go in there. Merleen Chin crying as she coming outta the shop that afternoon. Mrs Samuels in such a state Hampton got to drive her home. Papa and Mama fighting and Mama leaving Matthews Lane. Father Michael visiting Lady Musgrave Road and Mama and Grandma Wong arguing. The sad policemen that arrest Karl. The ugly grey English car park outside the shop with the young girl sitting in it that Karl say is a Rover 100 four-door saloon that belong to the English army man. Uncle Kenneth and fingernail man standing on the corner of King Street and no matter how much we shout and wave at him he just ignore us and carry on pointing and yelling at some big group of men across the street.
But I didn’t see no fox’s head all I saw was the shiny silver top of the walking stick and him, fingernail man, sitting on a orange crate at the bottom of King Street with his chin resting on his hands leaning on the top of the stick. But Karl say it was a fox’s head and he say that the English chase the foxes down on horseback with a pack of dogs that tear them apart. And then the hunters smear the fox’s blood on their own face and cut off the fox’s tail to keep for a trophy.
I nuh read the whole thing but I start think that if she so smart taking all of this in, and writing it down like this, and using the safe for her own personal hiding place, then maybe she deserve to have the knife as well. Maybe I shouldn’t go throw it in the sea like I planned. Maybe I should just keep it for her and the little book as well in case one day, who knows, she might find some use for them.
That first night in Beverly Hills I take my cot and put it out on my bedroom balcony and I go to sleep under the clear Jamaican sky. I smell the freshness of the eucalyptus and I listen to the silence, which my heart welcome after all them years of sound systems booming out the ska and rocksteady and reggae that drift across town on the evening breeze. And I think to myself maybe I finally find some peace. Maybe I finally find myself a place to put down my head and call home.
Sun Tzu say, ‘
