Songster

by Jennifer Rahim

North Coast

(Originally published in 2002)

Miss Ivy say she hear a singing trail through the church, sounding just like when Michael use to raise a few songs after the fishing done, and he by himself in Queen Penny bailing water in the shallows. His voice walking easy over the water and up the beach to where Mr. Oswald, who own the boat, and Sunil, the other fella that fish with them, checking the lines to see that everything ready for the next trip.

Everybody in Victory Bay know that Michael could sing. The boy have voice oiled and smooth like the Birdie crooning only a fool breaks his own heart. That is how he get the name Songster. So when Miss Ivy swear is Michael spirit that pass through the gathering last Good Friday, during the time that Pastor Williams call the church to silence so memory could swell and speak love for the dead, people didn’t object, and some, like Mother Francis and Mr. David even, nod their heads as a confirmation. Is true, Michael not resting.

Nobody jump just so and believe any word Miss Ivy bring and that is because when she make baptism and Pastor Williams and the appointed believers lay hands and pray down the Spirit, Miss Ivy like she decide, when she raise up from where she get slain, that she is chief anointed prophet and seer of the Calvary Hill Renewal Temple of the Word. She say she see heaven open up like how it open for St. Stephen, and a man in white robes stretch out a long golden rod and touch her tongue.

Since then every time you look sharp is like prophecy dropping from the sky freesheet, and bad spirit following everybody. Then Pastor, who don’t like to cross a soul and believe that everybody have to make their journey, decide to put his foot down when the prophecy come from Miss Ivy that the doc himself send a message that the country in a royal mess since he gone, and because he can’t leave his people in need, he want everybody to pray to him for the party to rise again like in ’56. Well, that is when Pastor put a ban on Miss Ivy prophesying.

Michael coulda sing anything, just call the tune and he gone clear with the lyrics, just like how kingfisher get carried away with their song when morning come, sweet too bad, and even the bed-sick get up and walk. So when Miss Ivy say his spirit still walking and that he singing, the church wasn’t too quick to dismiss her word. Michael was a man who, when the mood take him, use to turn up in the middle of the service on a Sunday morning. He sit down quiet-quiet in the back listening to the lesson, not even joining in the amen-chorus when Pastor speak a truth that call for confirmation. Michael just sit there listening, with his eyes close, like he praying, although he is a man who make it clear to everybody that life have to live and you can’t hide in no church. And is so Naomi plead with him not to talk so. That God don’t sleep and that a man is more than the bread he labour for.

But everybody know Michael heart is gold and that is why he couldn’t resist the church even though he stay by himself in the back. So he stay until Mother Crichlow raise a hymn he know, like “The Lord Is My Shepherd,” that she bring out in a kind of long elastic wail, sounding like pain and victory, conviction and plea, all mix up in one. That is when out of nowhere Michael voice come sailing in, not drowning out nobody, but easing a kind of lightness and sweetness into the mournful stream of the congregation singing as if the hymn is a testimony to a faith they had to carry like a cross through their days. Singing a hope that heavy with the weight of a belief they had to pick up every day and roll away from their living, when poor people have children to feed, work to find, sick that can’t pay for doctor, sons lost to rum and white powder, daughters with belly and no man to take responsibility, house to finish build, and nowhere to turn, and a life that asking every morning for a chance to live, demanding a chance to feel that this Victory Bay that have the taste and smell of salt is a home in truth.

In the middle of that kind of tormented faith, Michael singing break in from the back bench where he sitting by himself, with only old man Toby on the other end, close to the door, only because the bad chest-cold he get so long ago wouldn’t leave him. Michael voice like a firm but sweet seconds-pan teasing out a rhythm that make the tired hymn sound new, pulling the voices together, and carrying their loads with its spirit that fresh like river water and the strong purpose of trees, reminding the church just where it going and what it dreaming. And Naomi so proud, she just sit down on the front bench rocking and softly praying, “Merciful Lord, mercy,” with a kind of gratitude that everybody feeling, and they glad to hear somebody testifying to how their hearts find wings again in the beauty of Michael’s voice.

That his spirit not at rest didn’t come as no surprise. Everybody know Michael never do bad to nobody. In fact, from the day he born, Naomi swear he was a godsend, an angel that come to spend time with her. And everybody know that since he small Michael love to help people out. That is how he live, giving whatever he could give. Whatever you want—a hand to raise a roof, some small change to buy a little kerosene, a chicken coop to fix, fishing line to untangle, walls whitewash for Christmas—Michael there ready to help.

“What I go do now?” is what Naomi bawl when Esa pull her away from the body, and the truth finally sink in that he gone, and her wailing so loud it drown out the sound of the surf that racing up the beach and steady licking his bare feet like a dog trying to wake up his master. “Get up, Michael, get up, son!” And nobody could say a word. Not a sound from the crowd that gather on the beach to see the thing that shock the whole of Victory that Good Friday. Up to this day a heaviness resting on the village for the way Michael get gun down in broad daylight, and nobody could make sense of the madness that make the security pull the trigger.

Naomi wail come from way down in their own sorrow and anger and helplessness that is more than the vexation they feel for Hard Man who sit down in jail with no representation. Is the Syrians who come with they money and they big-shot connections that make them feel they have more rights than anybody so they could claim the beach and push the village out.

What they could say to Naomi? Everybody know Naomi was Michael queen. Mammy boy. Everything he do, he had his mother in mind. The same laths and the secondhand galvanize he buy two by two to fix up Naomi roof that falling down is what Guts and the boys use to raise a tent for the wake on Glorious Saturday, a day when people should be getting ready to sing Alleluia on Easter Sunday morning.

“Why they kill meh one good son?” Naomi ask and ask.

And the church, gathered to remember Michael, stand witness again to her relived sorrow. And as if she know that the silence that follow was too heavy for people to carry, that they need to remember again the rightness of their still-raw grief, Miss Ivy start to preach.

“Michael not resting. Oh no!” she say. “You know why? Is because of the injustice, the boldface-ness, the underhand dirtiness of them people who bring nothing but trouble to Victory because they feel they could own even God sea. And that Hard Man. Well, Lord have mercy on black people ’cause that boy is one of we, and is the white people money, the might he feel guarding they property that foolish Hard Man head and make him forget that he is a human being like everybody else. That is what went straight to his head and make him turn gun on Michael. Money, brethren, is what make some people feel they have more rights than everybody else. I telling you that is the disease that Hard Man catch. But God don’t sleep.”

She move from the benches to stand up in front of the church where all eyes could see her, and Pastor Williams, realizing that she riding with the Spirit, step aside to let her have her say.

“Greed!” she shout, pushing her bulk up on her toes as though she trying to gain height to seal her conviction. “The greed of people that can’t satisfy till they buy heaven self, I not ’fraid to talk it, brothers and sisters. But we know them people.” And she thrust out her hand in the direction of the resort, holding it stiff and deliberate like the rod of correction self. “They up to no good and that is what send Michael to his grave, big Good Friday when people should be praying, studying how them hard-hearted Pharisee hang Jesus up on a cross because he show them up, expose they wickedness, and all he wanted to do was love people.”

And the church chorus, “Amen, sister! Speak it.”

“That boy only do good for people. Yes, is somebody have to give due account for the innocent blood that shed. Yes, Father, on Good Friday self one year to this very day and justice not served!”

“Not served!” the church answer.

Is so Miss Ivy put it and nobody disagree with her words. Then, as if her testimony give little Laura courage to speak her heart, she bring her word even though is not a good year since she baptize. Laura, holding onto Papa Joseph hand, begin to tell how Michael spirit was really there in the service that morning, because when the church was quiet with only the low moaning and rocking because everybody praying deep, the same time that Miss Ivy say she hear him singing, that was when a cool-cool breeze stop just so and sweep through the gathering where everybody pack up tight like sardine in ten o’clock hot sun, and she feel her Uncle Michael passing. She say he smell like when he bathe off and dress up for Sunday evening and douse-down in Papa Joseph Old Spice cologne that he get every Christmas without fail from his daughter. Naomi always making joke that Mama Louise like her men smelling sweet, so she plan to keep up the tradition now that Mama dead and gone.

And that was when Naomi really start to cry.

“Out of the mouth of babes shall spring forth the truth!” Pastor proclaim.

And the church say, “Amen!”

Poor little Laura heart nearly break believing that she do some unspeakable crime and she run quick to hug up Naomi, saying over and over again, “Sorry, Grannie, sorry.”

Papa Joseph had to take the child in the back of the church and try to soothe her. “Hush, dou-dou,” he say in his gentle way, and his voice ringing with a kind of pride. That was how the congregation get to know that the child have the gift to see spirits. So while they feeling how Naomi pain open up like a wound, they glowing inside to see how the church get bless and knowing that Susan, who all the way up in New York working hard like a dog, would be proud to hear how Laura growing up close to the Lord.

Naomi cry so hard for her son that is like three o’clock Good Friday afternoon come back again and Sunil running up from the beach shouting, “Oh God, they shoot Michael!” At first people only stare like they didn’t want to believe, but everybody hear the gunshot that blast away the usual deadness of the hour when not even dog have courage to bark. Then is like feet decide before head that Sunil wasn’t tripping because next thing the whole of Victory Bay fly down to see where Michael lie down with a hole in his chest and his two eye open like he don’t believe that is dead he dead.

Is so Naomi cry again, raw like on that same day when Esa had to hold her back from the body because she pick up the boy by his shoulders and start to shake him, bawling, “Wake up, son! Wake up! Somebody wake him up!” And the crowd stand up like they don’t know what to do, like they ’fraid to meet the naked plea in her eyes, since what she asking make them feel their own smallness that they can’t do nothing to help. They can’t fight death. Is Esa who had to break through the circle and lead Naomi away slow-slow. She hold Naomi head on her shoulder all the way and Naomi saying over and over again, “He only just leave home to breeze out little bit on the beach.” And Esa crooning to her like she is a child, saying, “Is okay, mother, hush-hush now,” and all the while her own face wash with tears that she didn’t have time to heed.

Hard Man, the security, stand behind the chain-link fence in his black overalls and sunglasses, staring out at the crowd like what he seeing have nothing to do with him, even though he still holding the gun that hang down in his hand as if he don’t even know it there. He just stare and his mouth half open behind the fence, and the two big guard dogs barking and running wild-wild up and down like they gone crazy. Nobody see the Syrian and them who own the place. They never come out. They never come to the wake or the funeral. They didn’t even send flowers. People say they wasn’t there that day. But later somebody report that they see a face by the window upstairs, a face that nobody could name, only that it was there, witness to the whole thing.

The church see it again, just like Naomi say. Michael watching the road from the gallery while Guts busy quarrelling about the Syrian people who move in on Victory Bay about two years ago and start one time to build fence right across the track that leading down to the beach where fishermen anchoring boats longer than anybody could remember. “You know what that man watch me in my face and say, Songster, when I tell the stone-faced Syrian that it don’t have no other way to get down to the beach? Boy, that man, with his breath full up of whiskey and the gold chain shining in the sun with crucifix resting on he chest, watch me, as man, and say the track cutting through his property so the fishermen have to either anchor somewhere else or go all the way around Salvation headland. Go ’round Salvation my ass!”

“Take it easy on the language, man,” Michael warn, but in a kind of voice that tell Guts he with him. It was just that he want Guts to remember he was in his mother yard and she don’t stand for that type of talk, especially on Good Friday.

Michael listening but his mind was travelling, a thing that happen with him every now and again, so much so that Papa Joseph, who outlive his own son as he like to boast, warn him already not to study life too deep. “Boy, you will tire your soul. One day at a time, man, one day at a time.”

Maybe it was good advice, but Michael use to wonder if he do like Papa Joseph say, he use to wonder what he will miss out on becoming, what he will regret that he didn’t build. “But a man have to plan his life, not so?” he ask Papa Joseph. And Papa just laugh like he familiar with the idea, but that it was the kind of thing not to take serious because it prove wrong long time. Is just that Michael too young to know. Or maybe he laugh because the idea remind him of something he wanted to forget. Maybe he didn’t have the courage to remember what he never do as a man, so he laugh to throw a blanket over the emptiness inside that he didn’t fill, or couldn’t fill. He laugh because it so true what Michael say that the pain the truth cut in him make him want to ease the hurt little bit.

But Michael never really know what was behind Papa Joseph mantra, One day at a time, man. What he sure about, as he tell anybody who willing to listen, is that life can’t live just so. You have to decide how you want to shape it, like how the children take the sand on the beach and build all kind of fancy house and thing, the same sand that everybody walking on, he watch how they dream it into shapes. “That is how you have to live.”

So it was not that he didn’t care about what Guts was saying. In fact, everything Guts talk about was why his mind was travelling. Michael think hard about the Syrian and them who come to set up some kind of private club for people from Port of Spain to have a good time and bathe in clean north coast water, soak up sun and drink whiskey all weekend. He think about Hard Man and how he walking up and down the Syrian yard with walkie-talkie in his hand, beeper on his hip, and talk say he even have gun for guarding the white people property. And in between sucking toothpick all day, he chatting up the girls from the composite school, showing off with his walkie-talkie and passing five dollar to the ones who bold enough to answer his challenge to take.

Just so Hard Man move from hustling ten days all over the place, as far as Grande, to watchman work on the Syrian property. And people feel it have more in the mortar because things look like it going real nice with him. Hard Man neck shining with gold and when he turn up by the snackette to shoot pool with the fellas on his day off, is brand-new threads he sporting and Johnnie Walker he drinking, straight up. Everybody suspicious about what really happening in the place but nobody have anything concrete to move on. All they could get out of Hard Man is his anthem, “Them Syrian have money to throw way, partner!” and he do a kind of one-two move, sliding his waist dainty-dainty and holding up his hands like he dancing a set with somebody, just like the white fella who break ranks and singing calypso in tents all over Port of Spain, sink or float.

But Michael was also thinking about Esa, who come with the news that Hard Man make a move on her the other evening when she was passing through the track as usual to meet him down by the boat. She say how he appear out of nowhere and stop her just so. “You trespassing, lady. You have to pay to pass,” Esa say he tell her, and his hand reach and grab hold of his crotch and he start to smile like he already doing to her what he thinking.

“I will kill him if he touch you. Let him touch you!” His anger had scared them both and she throw her arms around his neck and hold him to calm him because she didn’t want nothing to happen now that the baby coming.

“Baby?” he say and pull away to watch her straight in her face. She wasn’t going to tell him then, but something in his anger, in the pure strength and purpose of it, reach right into where the child was resting and tell her the time was right to open her secret.

“Baby?” That was what make the ground he was standing on shift and then he had to reach out and hold her to steady himself. He hold on as though he finally find the anchor he was looking for, and after the truth finish rock him, he said it: “We getting married.” Straight so. He didn’t have to think and he know it was because the decision was only waiting for him all this time to claim it. “After the child born, we going to do it.” And this time he hug her with the yes of his embrace that was also his decision to put things in place—money for the wedding and to fix up a place for Esa and the baby.

She simply look at him and answer, “Yes,” as if a world open up that was bigger than the two of them. And that was what really settle it for him, the yes that sound like a surrender to a future.

Then there was Queen Penny rocking peaceful down in the bay. She had some years on her but she was a good, sturdy craft. That was his future, and Esa’s. Two more payments and Mr. Oswald would hand her over. That was their agreement when he tell Michael he was giving up the fishing to go States-side by his daughter.

“I getting old,” he say. “Forty-five years I in this,” and he look out across the wide blue of the bay.

A kind of sadness come down between them that make Michael joke, “But you have plenty in you still, man. What you mean you getting old?”

It was late and nobody was on the beach then, only the anchored boats bucking on the waves and two strays combing the water’s edge for fish guts. Mr. Oswald give a little laugh just to show he know the game and pass his hand down the front of his bare chest that still show his power, although the skin no longer smooth and tight. Tide was in and the bay look full and settle. Mr. Oswald take a deep breath like a man who trying to touch once again what he know to be true about himself.

“The sea is a good life for fellas with the belly. Peter not interested. He set on wearing police uniform. Pretty-boy work, but that is his choice. I not meddling. So is only me now with Maureen done married and settle down up in Florida. She say she want me to come up and take things easy for a change. Take things easy.”

Michael listen to him repeat the line and he wonder if Mr. Oswald was trying to teach himself what they might mean. He was a man seasoned on hard work, getting up four o’clock every morning so that before five he guiding Queen Penny out the bay, and he know he not setting foot on land until next day same time. Sun and rain beating down on his back while he waiting for what the sea will give him. Michael watch him walk to where the surf hustling up the beach. He walk into the water a little way then, bend down and draw up a handful to wash his face.

“The boat is yours if you want it,” he say without turning around to face him. “We could work something out with the payments. But I giving you first choice.” With that he start to wade slowly toward the deep and then he disappear beneath the swelling surf.

Not even his mother know what Michael and Mr. Oswald plan. Michael wanted it to be a surprise when he stand up on the day the last payment make and tell her that he own a boat. That was what he wanted. To announce his ownership—not that he feel it would make him a man or make people see him. No, the boat was a signal to himself and to everybody of his decision to claim his space in the world and to make his future real. Two more payments. That was all.

But now the Syrians come and make life hard for everybody by trying to control access to the beach.

“They wrong,” Guts was still complaining. “That is a public beach and everybody damn well know that you can’t pass Salvation side even in low tide, and besides, who he think he is to tell me where to anchor my boat? That out there is God sea, man.”

After that Guts get silent as if he tired, too tired to even quarrel again. He sit down on the step with one leg cross tight over the other. Is all his life, since he old enough to handle his own line, Guts fishing in north coast waters with his father, and anchoring Saga Boy, the boat that he take over when old man St. Clair pass on. It use to be Promise Land then, but Guts say with his father dead and gone a new time start. So the same week that St. Clair bury, Guts decide to rename the boat. He get Miss Ivy son, Santo, who could paint sign good though is mostly road work he doing, to write Saga Boy on the bow in red, yellow, and green, with fancy lettering that look like waves. That is how he tell Santo to make them: “Like waves cruising in on the bay.”

But that was not enough, because like Guts wanted to make a big statement about his life now that he was in charge of his own boat. Like he wanted to say to the people that he not no little boy, although nobody would look at Guts with his salt-and-pepper head of hair and think he was no boy. It was like Guts wanted to announce his independence and to tell the world that he was the owner now that his father gone. So he buy two bottle of rum and some beer from by Harry, a fella from Grande who come all the way to Victory Bay to set up a “modern establishment,” as he like to call it.

Harry Recreational Club and Bar was the full name, the first of its kind on the coast that have pool table and a secondhand arcade game called Speedway that always have about three or so young fellas glue onto the screen any time of the day, “wasting they mother money,” according to Naomi. Santo self paint the sign that cause big quarrel between him and Harry when some white man who on holiday sightseeing stop and say is bad English Santo paint. In the end they decide to leave the sign rather than squeeze in the apostrophe, which would only cause it to look choke up.

So Guts boat get baptize, with some fellas on the beach drinking rum and beer from Harry club, talking and cussing politicians until it get dark and the bottles empty.

That was before the Syrians come and say the estate that stretching for seven acres on the coast side of the main road is their own. As long as anybody could remember, that same estate was only bush with one or two mango tree and coconut growing on it. But the owners come to claim it and in two-twos a van with some men pull up. Then a truck come and drop material and fence start to go up, beginning from Salvation headland on the east where Prophet meditate every morning for twenty years before he pass away, and use to say he could hear Africa clear-clear from there. The fence stretch from Salvation right down to the boundary with the Breezy Ridge property that the retired English doctor own. No beach down below, only rocks and sea where they say the doc wife fall from trying to fly back home on whiskey and coconut water.

“Only four feet of land—that is all the Syrian have to give up to leave the track open for we to reach the beach,” Guts say all of a sudden, breaking up the silence. “You think that is asking too much, Songster? Four feet of land . . . and now he want to build wall all the way down the slope to make sure we can’t get through.”

“Well, it look like them people don’t want we on they beach. They don’t want fish guts stinking up they place. Maybe it not about the land because between you and me, four feet a land ain’t mean nothing to a man with seven whole acres in his hand. Maybe they trying to tell we that we not welcome to use the same sea with them and they Port of Spain friends. Maybe they don’t want we close enough to interfere with they business, get in the way of they privacy. Is really about us, Guts, not the land. Is we they fighting to fence out.”

“Fence we out! Man, I born in this village. My father and grandfather dead right here. I go dead here too. Fence me out because I on . . . that is God sea, man. You ain’t hear me. That is God sea!”

Guts small frame get rigid and Michael hold the challenge in his hard stare long enough for him to recognize that he too carrying the same pain. And it was only then that the anger subside in him and his body relax and there was nothing more to say.

Guts pick up and say he gone to cool-out by the school-ground where bachelors batting against married men. Michael watch him until he disappear down the road. Then his mind stay with Queen Penny. He study how she must be just rolling lazy from side to side in the bay. Wednesday morning was the last time she went out with only he and Mr. Oswald. Sunil didn’t go that time. He miss again because he was sick, or that is what his mother send Kamal to say.

“He sick bad. Doh want to eat self.” His eyes remain plant on the ground like he shame or ’fraid. Michael only listen but all the time feeling like he want to tell the boy that he don’t have nothing to ’fraid, that he could look up off the ground and see that the world not judging him, not him. But he didn’t say nothing because he didn’t want to make it any harder for the boy. He didn’t want him to know that he hear the whole story already. So he just let Kamal finish the message that he memorize.

The little fella look so shame. That is what really hurt Michael, that the boy carrying all that weight for nothing. The jersey Kamal wearing hang up on him and it have a dirty print of the Statue of Liberty that mark I Love New York. Kamal finger hook up in a hole in front. The finger twirl and twirl, stretching out the hole while he talking. And Michael heart all the time feeling like it want to break. He want to run over by Sunil and shake him for not staying away from the poison Lion pushing. Sunil anthem fix in his head like a beat-up ballad.

“I done with smoking, Songster. I done. Lion could keep he powder.” He swallow down the beer Michael just buy for him, his hand shaking as he try to steady the empty bottle on the counter. “I could stop any time I want, and this time, man, I not getting tie up in that thing again. Look how thin I getting.”

Michael avoid looking at him as if he didn’t need the confirmation or he couldn’t bear to fix his eyes on the truth that raw as flesh on Sunil lips, a truth that he choose to hide from his own self like a man trying to hide from his shadow.

That was the same day Hard Man crawl into the bar, prop the sunglasses up on his head and order a bottle of rum loud for everybody to hear. Then deliberate like he turn to face Michael and Guts, “You fellas drinking?” and before they could answer, he tell Harry wife who was working that day to bring two clean glass for his pardners. “Help yehself,” he say.

Sunil ain’t wait a second before he start to pour a straight rum for himself, while Michael sit down there watching Hard Man in his face.

“What happen, man, you not drinking my rum?” and he start to laugh so mucus that everybody turn around to see what was happening.

“I doh drink bad rum,” Michael answer and he ask Harry wife to bring another beer for him. “Real cold,” he say and he keep his eyes hook on Hard Man. The place get dead with only the music blasting in vain from the speakers. Everybody watching to see what going to happen.

Hard Man pretend he get cuff in his face and he stagger back a few steps. “Oui, boy, you hitting hard today! But suit yourself.”

But the whole thing so false that nobody even laugh and Hard Man look around as if he want to make sure that the bar was his audience. Then he take up the bottle and walk toward the section with the pool table, moving like a man who know he on show and that he sure the danger he feeling in his own blood expose. Just when Hard Man certain he in full view of all who in the place, he stop and take a hit straight from the bottle like he is a badjohn in a old western.

“You doh have to drink my rum, Songster. No sir, but I go drink what is yours any day. That is a nice woman you have there, man. A nice woman.” He never turn to face Michael, not because he ’fraid. No, he wanted to give him his back before he raise up his hands above his head, one holding the rum bottle, and start to do a wicked wine to the chutney tune that was blasting from Harry speaker boxes.

“Whey! That is wine, brother!” somebody bawl out from the shadows of the bar.

The beer bottle just miss his head and explode on the far wall. Hard Man freeze. The place get like a cemetery when like in slow motion he turn around this time to face Michael, his right hand prop in front by his waist balancing on something below his shirt.

“Is me you want to hit, man? Is me?” he say, making as though he could hardly believe Michael try to lick him down.

Then the shout ring out, “He have a gun, Songster!”

Same time Harry dash out from somewhere behind the counter and start to hustle Michael toward the road. “No fighting in here, man. Not in here.” And Sunil too was pushing him from behind, “Cool it, man. Let we go from here. Forget he, man. Let we go.”

“She sweet too bad!” Hard Man shout behind them. And when Michael, who was in a tight vise between Harry and Guts, get a chance to glance back, Hard Man was dancing out in front of the shop with Pearlie, one of the regulars, a signal to the entire village that he claim victory, and sealing at the same time his right to do what he want. And Sunil only repeating, “Leave him, Songster, leave the man alone.”

So when Kamal finish giving his message, Michael just dip in his pants pocket and fish out the last three dollars he find, put it in the boy hand and say, “Give that to your mother.”

Not even then the boy lift his eyes to meet his. He just speed out of the yard like he running away from the shame and the gratitude that get mix up in his abrupt, “Thanks, Mr. Michael.”

All that—the Syrians, Esa, Queen Penny, Sunil, everything Guts say—roll up in one hard ball and stink in his chest so Michael feel he need to breathe again. That is when he decide to take a turn down by the beach.

“I tell him don’t go in the sea,” Naomi announce to the church. “I tell him people not to bathe in the sea on Good Friday. And he tell me he just going to breeze out little bit. That is all. He say he not bathing.”

Naomi pause and the silence so heavy it get hard to even breathe. “Right there they shoot my boy, right on his spot. He never go close to the white people place. Is right there they shoot the boy where he use to tease me and say he could look out at the horizon and see the future. Right there . . . that was all he went down on the beach for, to sit down on his spot and dream about where he was going.”

And that was when Esa come forward from where she was sitting down next to Mother Crichlow, who is the great-aunt that grow her. Esa hand Miss Ivy the baby and straightaway throw her arms around Naomi and start to rock. “Michael gone, Mama Naomi, he gone. Let him go,” she say. “We have to let him go.” And so she rock Naomi until she get quiet again. Then Mother Crichlow raise a hymn and the church start to sing, “Then sings my soul, my saviour God to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art!” And Pastor step up to Naomi and lay hands on her head and start to pray loud for healing, and for Michael spirit to leave the living and find peace. And all the while the church sing strong and steady like is Jesus self they want to make come down from the cross and ease the pain and the hope that tighten in everybody throat.

The singing build and build till it swell like a wave threatening the shore, and just as it get to a point where the emotion ready to break loose, Sister Elsie ring the brass bell one, two, three times and is heaven self open and rain down mercy because everything that they carrying, all that they feeling, come rushing out. All Naomi loss and pain, their own grief and anger, because Michael gone too soon.

Who will believe Sunil, the only man that see how Hard Man pull the trigger when Michael stand up with nothing but words for his weapon? These days Sunil dragging himself all over the place like he don’t have no home, no name. And is true Hard Man sit down in jail, but he have his own story about self-defense because Michael had a score to settle and all he do was try to protect himself. Against what? A man with empty hands? Against words? As if words could break bones. Chut, man! And the Syrians still there, fencing up the place. They go on like nothing happen, fête throwing almost every weekend as normal, and they have a new security in black overalls with walkie-talkie and sunglasses, walking up and down the yard. The fellas on the block call him Carbon Copy.

All that and more pour out and the singing start to subside again, not because is defeat they accept, but because in the singing they hear again their promise and strength to suffer the right to be there in Victory Bay like they was people in truth with flesh that could feel and love and dream. They sing until they convince themselves again that they real and their living was an acceptance that not even death, or the Syrian who own the politicians and the lawyers, could deny them. It was only then that the singing ease into a stillness that hold everybody like an answer that asking its own question about their acceptance.

Is like the silence wake up Esa baby because all the time, through all the service, he sleeping a sweet sleep and just so he open up his lungs and announce his presence. “But look at my crosses,” Miss Ivy say, “this child practicing scales.”

And everybody laugh and agree how the boy following his father. That was what make Naomi rise up from her grief and tell Esa to bring the child and she hold him up right there in the front bench like she seeing him for the first time. Then she tell Esa, “Is time we christen this child. We wait too long to name the boy and present him to the Lord. Esa, what you calling this boy child?”

And Esa swallow hard and her two eye full up as she watch the boy how he smiling back at Naomi face and say, “Michael. I calling him Michael.”

That Easter Sunday Naomi cook a big feast. “Is a feast for Michael,” she say, “and I want everybody to come.” That was all and nobody dare to ask for more. So after the service, with the Alleluia still singing in their blood, the whole church end up by Naomi house. Everybody was there, down to Sunil who try to stay clean for the day though he look all the time like he want to run away. Naomi fry chicken and curry duck. Sunil mother help Esa make the dhalphouri, and they work so nice together Naomi make a joke and say they better open a roti shop in front the house. It even had Mother Crichlow special pepper sauce and Guts get the fishermen to chip up and they buy white rum with Harry throwing in a free bottle as his contribution. On top of that Naomi bring out the cashew wine she curing for two whole years.

People eat and drink and fête to Papa Joseph cuatro till Monday come. And just before midnight when Guts head was hot with rum and talk about the fisherman union that he calling the fellas to start to put pressure on the Syrians and to guard their affairs, Naomi take baby Michael in her arms and walk out to the road with him. She could see the Syrian place, how it light up with all the doors and windows wide open, and people was fêteing on the verandah to a tune the Birdie sing about a man in the queen bedroom. But Naomi ain’t take them on. From the house it look like she was showing Michael the stars.