Black Crab stared into Lloyd’s eyes. “Informer to dead. Right, yout’?”
Lloyd nodded. No one spoke and the music blared. Finally, Black Crab said, “Where you granddaddy fish from?”
“Gray Pond beach. That’s where him keep his boat.”
“What him boat name?”
“Water Bird.”
“You have a cell?”
“No, boss.”
“WINSTON!” Black Crab bawled and the barman came running over. “Pass a paper and pen.” Winston looked under the counter and Lloyd saw his hands were trembling. He handed over an exercise book of the kind the boys used in school and a ballpoint pen. Black Crab tore out a piece of paper and wrote on it shaking the pen to make it write. “This my number. Call me in a week—”
“A week!” Lloyd said. “Suppose him is hurt, starvin, no water, somewhere on the coast or lost in the boat with no engine.”
“You love you granddaddy, yout’. That a good thing. Me did have a granddaddy too. Awright. You call me tomorrow. Then you throw away that paper. You forget the name Black Crab, you hear me? You go school, you play a little ball, you help you mother, you go sea, you do whatever you do. Me don’t want see or hear from you again, seen?”
“Yes, boss. Thank you, boss,” Lloyd said. “Tomorrow.”
The boys turned to go. “Me can ask you one thing, boss?” Dwight said. Lloyd pinched his arm but the words were out.
Black Crab said nothing but his eyes narrowed and moved to Dwight’s face. Lloyd was suddenly afraid for his friend. “Why them call you Black Crab?” Dwight asked.
The man called Black Crab laughed. “But see here now. Why you think? Them call me that ’cause me love eat black crab!”
We became poor. It seemed to happen overnight—smaller catches, the empty market. The two women squabbled day and night: who had lit a fire too close to the line of washing, who had failed to clean up after themselves, which man was the better fisher, whether or not the little money Luke and I brought home should be split equally. The house I grew up in became a place of strife.
And then Jasmine got pregnant. It was not an easy pregnancy—she vomited day and night for nine months. We were constantly at the Black River Hospital. We owed Maas Lenny for taxi fares we could not pay, the clinic was free but the medications were not. And the advice of the doctor was always the same—Jasmine needs good nutritious food, protein especially, and rest. My woman became thin with a round high belly like a smoothed beach rock. The schoolgirl who sat with me in the Arawak cave and held my hand was a flickering memory.
The fishing was especially bad after Hurricane Flora and the heat was a torment. I saw the reproach in Jasmine’s eyes when catches were bad and we ate only rice or dumplings for supper, maybe with some pear when it was in season. Cordella swore at Luke and he stopped coming home. I went to sea alone and came back with a few small caesar fish, day after day. I did not know whether to sell the fish or give them to Jasmine to eat.
The word Kingston became a chorus in our house—Kingston-Kingston-Kingston. Jasmine said there were jobs in Kingston, opportunities, progress. And there was a harbor, Kingston Harbour, so if Luke and I were bound and determined to continue fishing we could do that. Maybe the fish were biting there. But the word Kingston always sounded heavy to me, like something falling, something that would do damage when it landed.
Then one day Luke came to me as I readied Silver for sea. Where you going? he said.
Guinea Shoal, I answered.
Don’t make any sense. It fish out clean.
I shrugged. What else me going do? Plant skellion for Maas Gladstone? Cut bush for the Parish Council? Break stone for Public Works?
Luke looked behind him and dropped his voice. We need one good catch, he said. To tide us over ’til the fish start bite again.
Ee-hee, I said. Tell me sumpn me don’t know.
He reached into his pocket and took out two sticks of dynamite. This is how we going get a good catch.
You lick you head? Where you get that?
Man in Alligator Pond. Them say them do it all the time. One time, bredren. One time.
I wished for my father then. He would tell us not to do this thing and we would listen. No, Luke, I said to my brother. But together we pushed Silver into the sea.
29
Lloyd spent the next morning in Liguanea with his mother, wrapping fish, thinking of Maas Conrad, Black Crab, and Portland Rock. He and his mother talked and the stiffness between them eased. “Gramps was from country, true?” he had said to his mother. Talking about his grandfather kept him alive.
“Ee-hee,” she said. “St. Elizabeth parish. Treasure Beach. Great Bay.” She stopped to deal with a customer. “I used to like country,” she said, when she had finished.
“Which country?”
“St. Elizabeth.”
“Same like Gramps?” His mother nodded. “But not near the sea. Your granny had a small farm near Lititz. Grew skellion and pumpkin. Used to go there in the summer.”
“There was a river?”
“No river. We had to cut guinea grass to put around the plants to keep water in the dirt. Is a dry place, St. Elizabeth.”
Lloyd knew his mother’s mother had died when she was a young woman. “What happen to the farm?”
“Oh, one of the outside children got it. Was okay with me. Me was done with farmin by then. Fine when you is a pickney, runnin up and down inna the hot sun, but . . .”
Lloyd wanted to keep his mother talking. He racked his brain for a new subject. “You like being in Kingston then?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew how stupid they sounded, like something the son in an American family on TV might say.
Miss Beryl looked amazed. “If me like Kingston? What
