I remember the loss of Snowboy in the 1960s, how the communities mourned and how a fund was set up by our prime minister, Alexander Bustamante, and how the discussions were about which children should benefit from the fund as the men who were lost at sea had more than one family. That was the first time I heard the word “illegitimate.” Once the fund was started, the lost fishers were forgotten, their lives exchanged for money. I always wondered who owned Snowboy and whether they continued to send boats full of fishers to sea. By then my parents were both dead, my father of some wasting sickness no one ever named, a skeleton in the Black River Hospital, his skin turned from black to gray.
Only Luke and I were still in Great Bay when Snowboy went to drift. We lived in our old house, me with Jasmine, Luke with Cordella, who I never liked. By then, we were going farther and farther to catch the same amount of fish. It was hard to make ends meet.
I remember the rains from Hurricane Flora when the pond overflowed into all the houses that had been built too close. Only the lignum vitae trees held firm—the coconut trees were uprooted, every last one. We lost our roof and nearly all our possessions. The farms of St. Elizabeth were washed away. It rained for weeks and the land turned a strange, unnatural green. Goats died from eating the acid green grass. The sea was churned up and fishing was bad. It was then that Jasmine’s old desire for Kingston took hold of her.
28
Lloyd and Dwight made their way to Newport West next day. Lloyd told himself he was on a quest. His sidekick was Dwight. Black Crab would know where he could look for Gramps. And if it was Portland Rock, he would go there next.
The Shotta bar was a plywood structure with a slanted tin roof, like a lean-to. Dancehall music throbbed from two large speakers on either side of the bar. Two old men with lowered heads sat on bar stools. Beyond them, a fisher worked on a fish pot under a sea grape tree. There was no beach.
The barman had reddened eyes. Lloyd ordered a Pepsi in two cups without ice and the barman brought them. The boys sat at the bar and looked around. Apart from the two men at the other end of the bar, there was a thin black man sitting right in front of the speakers with a cell phone to his ear. He was dressed in torn jeans and an undershirt and another cell phone buzzed on a metal table in front of him.
“We ask the barman for Black Crab or what?” Dwight whispered.
“Shh! Just cool,” Lloyd said. “Make us wait a little and see what happen.”
Nothing happened. The man on the phone ended his call and wandered outside. The barman closed his eyes and his head fell forward. A mouse ran across the packed dirt floor. It was hot in the tiny bar—the sea breeze had not yet come up.
Lloyd rapped the bar and the barman jumped. “You know a man name Black Crab?”
The barman’s head came up and he met Lloyd’s eyes. “What you want with him? You not from ’round here?”
“Bournemouth,” Lloyd said and instantly regretted it. It was best not to tell anyone where you lived. “Just want ask him a question, boss.”
“Black Crab don’t so much like question. But you young still. CRAB!” he shouted over the music. “This yout’ here want a word.”
The boys turned to see the thin black man who had been on the phone walking toward them. He did not look scary in the least. As he walked up to them, Lloyd saw he was older than he had first thought. He had a seagoing look around his eyes, which were scored with wrinkles. His arms were ropy, as if he spent hours drawing a net. His skin was black but it had the fisher’s tinge of salt. “You askin for me, yout’?” His voice was soft but Lloyd heard an echo of menace in the simple words.
Lloyd slid off the stool and stood in front of the man called Black Crab. “Boss,” he said. “Me is Lloyd. Lloyd Saunders. This my friend Dwight. We from over by Gray Pond fishin beach. Me—”
“How you come to be lookin for Black Crab?”
The truth or a story? Lloyd decided on the truth. “Me is lookin for my granddaddy, Maas Conrad him name. Him lost at sea. Him go the Pedro Cays, eleven day now, and him don’t come back. Nobody heard from him. So—”
“What that have to do with me? Where you get my name from?”
“We hear,” Dwight said. “We just ask around and we hear. We hear say you know about the foreign people what come here to buy dolphin. We hear you is a big man so we come find you.”
Black Crab did not react to Dwight’s voice. His eyes remained fixed on Lloyd, who became aware that the two old men were leaving the bar. The barman followed them, shaking his head. The music pounded and the bar was too dark. “Boss,” Lloyd said. “Me don’t mean no disrespect. Please. Me don’t care if dolphin catch for whatever reason. Catch them all, me say, long as man can eat a food from it. But my granddaddy, him is an elder. Him hold to the old ways. All me want know is if him see sumpn him not suppose to see and if him is hurt somewhere, alone somewhere. That’s it. It don’t go no further than me and Dwight. Me can’t hurt you, me know how to keep my mouth shut. Me is not a informer.” Lloyd stopped. He had not said the right words, the words that were in his heart. Is he dead? Will his body ever be found? Will
