Lloyd had first gone to sea with his grandfather before he was a year old, so his mother said, just for a spin around the Harbour, over the shoals of gray and green, into the flat calm water of the Port Royal mangroves. His mother said he had not cried. Later, when the boy had learned an awkward doggy-paddle that he could keep up for many hours in the water, he wondered about that first sea trip, which he did not remember: Where had he sat in the boat? What would have happened if the boat had hit a reef and sunk? He was sure his grandfather would have carried him safely in his arms to land.
I am Conrad, Maas Conrad they call me, except for my grandson Lloydie, who calls me Gramps, and I come from a line of fishermen. When I was a boy, we lived in a fishing village called Great Bay, part of the Treasure Beach area of Jamaica’s south coast. We were a family of six sons and we lived in one of the concrete nog houses set back from the beach, on a small hill. My father took us all to sea, one at a time, each in our turn. I was the youngest and, as I watched my brothers leave and go to sea, I longed to be with them.
They came back telling of things I wanted to see for myself, dolphins and sharks and leaping rays, turtles as big as canoes and the royal colors of marlins and jewfish that hid in underwater caves. They told of a kind of jellyfish that floated on the surface of the water like a plastic bag, a man of war, they called it, and they said it had stinging tentacles so long and so long-lived they could sting you days after the jellyfish had died. They listed the names of different types of sharks—nurse and tiger and mako and hammerhead and white tip. They talked of barracuda and dolphin fish and cutlass fish and wahoo and mackerel and how to take a wenchman off a hook, holding down the dorsal spines so they would not stick into your palm and get infected.
They learned to swim and use a mask and snorkel and a spear gun. They learned to draw a seine net and make a fish pot and where to go with a hook and line, up on the slabs of rock on the bluff. They knew about the phases of the moon and tides and when the sea breeze came up and when it died. They knew where and when the kingfish ran and when it was not safe to eat a barracuda. They learned to drive a boat and repair an engine, and one by one I saw their muscles grow, and their spines lengthen, and their eyes turn to slits suitable for staring at horizons. They became men on the sea, men in fishing canoes, men in bars with stories. They became big men in the community while I was still a boy.
2
Next morning, Lloyd woke early. It was a Saturday in August, just after the long Independence weekend, and the summer heat made it impossible to sleep late. His mother had left the house to meet the fishers as they came to land, to buy the best fish. Already? Lloyd thought. A new fisher already? She should wait. Suppose Gramps come back with his fish, and she done buy already? Had his mother already written off his grandfather?
He wondered where his father was. Vernon Saunders did not live with them, but he visited often and filled the two-room house with complaints. Lloyd did not understand how Gramps could have had a son like Vernon. Maas Conrad never complained. For him, words were used to get things done. Pass the bait bucket. Leaving at four sharp. Squall coming.
But his father talked a lot. The house was too hot; they must get a cheap fan from Princess Street. He had been fired again, but it had been a stupid job, not enough money. He had plans, ambitious plans, he could be somebody, but the big man was against him. His friend Selvin was fixing up a car for him, nothing fancy, but he could run taxi with it. And there was a money job coming up, a secret job.
Although when times were especially hard, Lloyd’s father did go to sea with Selvin. Vernon was a sometime fisher, for he said fishing was for old-time people. The most frequent sentence he sent Lloyd’s way was: Bring me a rum, bwoy. And his mother would always retort: You bring any rum inna the house? When you bring rum, then you get rum.
Lloyd did not look forward to his father’s visits, but as he dressed that August morning, he wondered if he had heard anything about Maas Conrad or if the fishers at the Gray Pond fishing beach had news. Perhaps one of his father’s friends who hung out at the beach might know something. Lloyd decided he would find his best friend, Dwight, and they would begin looking for Gramps. He was glad it was the summer holidays and he did not have to go to school.
The fish and bammy were still on the two-burner stove from last night, covered with an oily cloth. He ate with his fingers, standing, looking out of the front-room window. The rain was over and the morning shone. He could see a slice of Kingston Harbour—it was calm. He especially loved to be at sea on calm mornings, when Water Bird would skim across the water, stern low, bow high, and the speed was the best kind of drug. He preferred big waves to the usual chop of Kingston Harbour and calm seas best of all. He liked the days when not even the slightest
