THEY PULL UP before the pink stucco home of Colonel Martin Luther Phelps. The town is still pretty much asleep, a half dozen cookfires burning, some sleepy-eyed children stumbling around carrying water, a tall man stretching in his doorway like a lion. When the blue van chugged uphill into the town, abeng blowing from the window, drums and people inside wailing away as if celebrating the end of a long and mournful war, the few people who were up and about merely stared after the van in puzzlement. Some small boys carrying water on their heads saw the van and, recognizing it, called out the name of the American who owned it. But that was the only sign of recognition or welcome they received, until they got to the Colonel’s house and shut off the motor, opened all the doors of the van, and let the Captain blow and blow on the abeng, making it howl in hurt and anger at the Colonel’s closed door.
At last, Colonel Phelps opens his door and peers out at the people gathered by the road before his yard—Bowra, huge and glowering in his pith helmet and bright green suit, and the two old women, their arms folded across their chests, and Harris and tall Charles and even tiny Gondo staring darkly at him, while the drummers pound away and the Captain blows on the abeng. Colonel Phelps is clearly rattled, surprised, embarrassed—he must not have believed the American and the Rasta would actually do what they said they were going to do, carry the Maroon Colonel and his officers and musicians all the way from Gordon Hall in St. Mary’s so they could join the Maroons of Nyamkopong in their celebration. How else to explain Colonel Phelps’ surprise, his lack of preparation and ceremony, the fact that when they arrived at six in the morning the town is half asleep and even the Colonel of Nyamkopong himself has to peek out his closed door and wonder who is making such a racket out there?
Agitated, hopping tentatively forward onto the porch, then rushing nervously across his yard in his bare feet, wearing only his undershirt and beltless pants, Colonel Phelps embraces his brother Colonel, gushes over the stern-faced women and the scowling men, apologizing all the while for not expecting them this early in the day, he believed they were coming, he knew they were coming, of course, of course, but he thought they wouldn’t arrive until tonight when the celebration actually begins. He is a tiny, nervous man next to Bowra, fawn-colored and brittle before the black-skinned, implacable, bearlike man from Gordon Hall.
Did Johnny tell you we would come this morning? Harris demands. Johnny knew what to do, he tells Phelps. He knew to arrive at Gordon Hall at midnight on the fourth of January and carry us to Nyamkopong. He knew to bring us here safely so we could sit and have consultations with you and your officers on this day and tomorrow concerning important Maroon business. Did he tell you this?
The drums have gone silent, and the Captain has shoved his abeng back into his pocket. Colonel Phelps looks confused. Johnny? he asks. Johnny? Who is Johnny? Do you mean Nonny?
No, you idiot! the Colonel shouts down into the man’s narrow, frightened face. Johnny! he says, and points over at the American.
Oh, yes, yes, now Colonel Phelps understands. Johnny! Yes, yes, Johnny did say he would arrive this day with the people from Gordon Hall, yes, indeed he did say it, but it didn’t seem possible to the Colonel that it could be accomplished—after so many generations of separation and so much distance… It seemed too good to be true, he says to Bowra, his voice oily and in control again, and he takes one of the man’s paws in his hands and leads him to the porch.
Seating Bowra in one of the plastic lawn chairs and the women in the other two, he pulls the American aside and draws him into the living room. Working rapidly, he grabs glasses and a nearly full bottle of rum from the sideboard and orders the American to take the drinks outside while he gets dressed and his wife prepares food. Tell the Colonel I’ll soon come, he says, almost pleading. Then he says the American’s new name, as if trying it out. Johnny?
Yes, Colonel.
Can you help me out?
How do you mean?
I mean—can you let me have some money? How many of them are there?
Nine.
Yes, yes. Nine. Well… I should feed them and give them plenty to drink, you know. I mean, they came all this way…
Truth, Johnny says flatly. Truth. And he fishes in his pocket, draws out his money, and hands the man two tens. That’s all I’ll be able to give you, Colonel.
The man folds the bills and stuffs them into his pocket, then pushes Johnny outside and, as the American steps onto the porch, starts hollering for his wife in the bedroom, shouts several quick orders at his son, demands to know where his uniform is, he needs his uniform, get the fire started, kill a chicken, the red one, the red one, you idiot!
Outside on the porch the group is silent. It has started to shower and everyone has crowded onto the porch for shelter. Johnny sets the rum and glasses in front of the Colonel and steps to the side where the Rasta stands, while the others grab for the bottle. Water! Bowra bellows, and just as Johnny moves for the door, Phelps’ son, a boy of about twelve, comes running out with a Mason jar of water, sets it carefully down on the low table next to the Colonel, and rushes back inside.
Martin Luther Phelps don’t got no manners, the American says to his friend in a low voice. The others are gulping angrily at their drinks and whispering among themselves. The sudden shower has become a rainstorm and has grayed out everything beyond the yard. The doors of the van are standing wide open, but the rain is so heavy that no one seems willing to cross the yard and close up the car.
“The man’s a monkey,” the Rasta declares and starts to work rolling a spliff.
Gradually, however, Colonel Phelps gets matters under control. The rain lets up and the day becomes merely a cloudy, cool one. Under the woolly gray sky, trees drip loudly and run-off water from the tin roofs trickles into rain barrels. By the time the Maroons have emptied the first bottle of rum, Colonel Phelps’ son, also named Martin, delivers a second, and the smell of chicken frying and yams baking in the coals has started drifting around to the porch from the kitchen in back. It is then that the Colonel of the Maroons of Nyamkopong finally appears, and it’s a different man this time from the one who an hour before was skittering confusedly about in his undershirt and bare feet. This man is straightbacked and walks like a graduate of West Point. He wears a pith helmet that’s cleaner than Bowra’s and unbattered and a uniform that must have belonged originally to a British policeman—dark blue with a Sam Browne belt across his chest, a crisp white shirt and dark blue tie underneath, and glossy black shoes.
His son comes stumbling out behind him, carrying a heavy straightbacked wooden chair, and when he sets it down before Bowra, Colonel Phelps sits and ceremoniously pours himself a glass of rum. It looks perfect now: the two Colonels, both men in full regalia, facing each other with raised glasses, the Gordon Hall entourage standing back quietly while the smell of a feast being prepared encircles them and sunshine breaks through the clouds and brings the brilliance of the green hills and cockpits into sharp focus for miles—so that, with apparent relief, Johnny and the Rasta, who have been glumly mopping out the van, walk smiling back to the porch to stand with their friends from Gordon Hall and enjoy this moment.
There is a brief speech from each of the Colonels: first Colonel Phelps toasts his beloved brethren from Gordon Hall and their common ancestors; then Colonel Bowra prays for peace and prosperity for all Maroon people. They each dribble a bit of rum on the floor of the porch for the dead and empty their glasses in a swallow. As if on cue, Harris starts to sing and Pie and Steve go to work on the gombay and bamboo stick as the women, Charles, the Captain, and Gondo come shrieking and bellowing in. Finally both Colonels, having refilled their glasses, join the song, their faces wide open and happy, for it is a song that Colonel Phelps evidently knows as well as his counterpart does, a song that goes back over two hundred years to the slave ships and for hundreds of years before that to West Africa and the Empire of the Coromantees, a jubilation song that leaps and jumps about disjointedly, so that a person who has not heard its words and tune hundreds of times cannot sing it.
The two men stand and throw their arms around each other and kiss each other’s cheeks. All is forgiven. The Maroons of Nyamkopong and the Maroons of Gordon Hall are one—two of the chambers of the heart of Jamaica have been joined, and the world seems stronger, purer, more lucid for it. Terron the Rasta, the serious man, smiles sweetly, and the white American’s eyes are wet with tears.
Suddenly clattering over the rise and skidding to an abrupt halt behind the blue van there comes a green-and-cream-colored Toyota Land Cruiser with four uniformed cops from Maggotty inside, a round-faced sergeant driving and three dour patrolmen carrying shotguns. The Sergeant, a dapper, mustached man with a broad smile and a trim but soft-looking body, steps out and strolls languidly across the yard to the porch. The other cops remain inside the Land Cruiser, holding their shotguns between their legs like umbrellas.
The Maroons have gone silent and, except for the two Colonels, have all taken a single step backward, even Johnny and the Rasta, opening an alley for the Sergeant, who strolls through the group straight for Colonel Phelps, extending his hand as he nears the man and smiling even more broadly than when he left his vehicle.
Martin, he says, as if greeting an old family friend. All dressed for the celebration, I see. You’re a day early, though, aren’t you? It’s tomorrow, isn’t it? The celebration?
Now Bowra too has taken a step backward and away from his position at the side of Colonel Phelps, and, like the others, he has covered his face with a curtain, as if he were not himself but an actor playing himself. No one looks at anyone else. Everyone is watching the police sergeant’s hearty black hand shake Colonel Phelps’ limp brown one.
Yes, yes, that’s right, the celebration is tomorrow, Phelps says rapidly, averting his eyes from the steady gaze of the smiling sergeant. Yes, tomorrow, January sixth. For the birthday of Cudjoe…
But look at you, all dressed up in your dancing suit!
Well, yes … yes … but … it’s because of my friends here, he says, waving his hand weakly to indicate the nine from Gordon Hall. This is the Colonel of the Maroons from Gordon Hall … and these are his officers…
Ah! The sergeant exclaims and reaches out to grasp the big man’s hand. Colonel…?
Bowra. Sergeant…?
Kemp. Quickly he turns back from Bowra’s mask to Colonel Phelps’, which has a thin, nervous smile trickling over its lips. Well, then, Colonel, may I? he asks, nodding in the direction of the half-full rum bottle.
Yes, yes, of course, just a moment while I go get a glass, he says, scuttling from the porch and quickly returning with a clean glass, pouring off three fingers of rum and handing it to the man. There you are, Sergeant, he says uselessly, turning away and refilling his own glass and abruptly emptying it into his mouth.
The Sergeant lifts his glass with ceremony and toasts the health of the Maroons of Gordon Hall. They nod acceptance, and then he too empties the rum into his mouth and sits down, taking Colonel Phelps’ wooden chair as if it had been set out for him alone.
Phelps stands opposite him like an eager waiter. The others have begun to collect into a tight knot behind their Colonel. Johnny and the Rasta, as if they too were Gordon Hall Maroons, have fallen into formation with them. An outsider viewing the scene would surmise that the thin man in the pith helmet and dark uniform was petitioning his chief for some favor and that the group of people behind the big man in the bright green suit was waiting its turn to present its petition. Doubtless the Maroons, at some point, perceive how they look, or would look, to a stranger, because as one they take a few steps randomly away from the porch, and the group disperses. Brooding alone and in pairs, they walk off—Johnny and the Rasta returning to the job of mopping out the blue van, the others wandering around as if investigating the yard and immediate neighborhood. Everyone makes a large circle around the police car and looks through or past it, as if it were invisible or not there at all. Things have clearly gone wrong again.
The Sergeant and Colonel Phelps go on talking in low voices on the porch, the Sergeant pouring himself a second drink, the Colonel quickly following. Then the Sergeant stands, waves to the three inside the Land Rover to follow him, and steps inside the house after the Colonel. Carrying their shotguns familiarly under their arms, as if they have been out bird hunting, the three red-stripers stroll across the yard and enter the house, where through the window they can be seen standing around a table, filling plates with chicken and rice, beans and yams.
The rain is falling again, lightly but steadily, as if settling in for the day. In a few moments Bowra and the others have arrived at the van and are climbing wetly, grumpily inside, for the first time seeming uncomfortably crowded in the van. They are tired and bad-natured, arguing crossly with one another in low voices.
Harris reaches forward and pokes Johnny on the shoulder. Where’s their abeng man? Don’t they have an abeng man? Tell me that!
Yes, they have one. I’ve heard him play it. He’s an old man, older than the Captain. But he plays it well.
Hah! he said and lit his pipe. Where is he, then? Tell me that.
I don’t know.
Bowra turns his bulk in his seat and stares at Johnny. And where’s this Mann you told about? This Secretary of State or whatever they call him. Is he the mouth-man?
I don’t know… I don’t know where he is.
Entering the conversation as if waking from a nap, the Rasta in a thick voice says simply, Mann won’t deal with that monkey Phelps.
Does he know we’re here? Johnny asks the Rasta. Maybe we should go to his house…?
No, Bowra answers.
He’s not the Colonel, Harris adds, explaining patiently the protocol of the situation. He’s only the Secretary of the Maroons of Nyamkopong. This man down here, this monkey with the police all around, he’s the Colonel, and it’s his duty to make all the preparations. Your Mr. Mann knows all this, and if he’s not here to welcome his brother Maroons, and if the abeng man isn’t here to call out our arrival to the rest of the people, and if there are no drummers and no one to sing with us and no one to sit down and eat and talk with us about matters of great importance, no one except that monkey of a Colonel and his friends from the police, then it’s because the Colonel has not done his job.
Why don’t they kill him? inquires Bowra, his brow wrinkling in apparent puzzlement.
What?
Why don’t they kill him? Cut off his head.
Kill him? Johnny asks.
Kill him. And make your friend Mann be the Colonel.
That’s what you’ve got to do. Especially now, explains Harris.
The rest joyfully agree. Kill him! Chop him up! Throw the pieces to the dogs! Kill the monkey! Kill him! Kill him!
Johnny looks at the Rasta, who has a light smile on his face. Should they kill him? he asks his friend.
Who?
Colonel Phelps.
No, I mean, should who kill him?
Oh … well, you… I mean, the Maroons of Nyamkopong. You know, like Harris says, kill the Colonel and make Mr. Mann the Colonel. Should they?
Sure.
Johnny turns away. I thought the Colonel was elected, he say quietly.
He is, Harris explains. But sometimes you have to kill him to get rid of him. Then you have an election so you can have a new Colonel, because when you become Colonel, it’s for life.
That’s not the way it’s done here in Nyamkopong, Johnny says proudly. Here we have elections every couple of years. We don’t have to kill a man to get rid of him, he points out defiantly.
You do if the man keeps winning the elections, the Rasta answers, and everyone laughs, especially Bowra.
Looks like the monkey man wants us to come in, Charles suddenly says.
Indeed, for there he is, standing on the porch and waving for them to come to the house. Johnny cranks down the window and cups his ear with his hand, and Colonel Phelps calls out for them to come and eat.
Babylon had his fill, the Rasta observes. Our turn at the trough.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, they climb from the van and trudge across the muddy yard to the porch and one by one enter the living room, where the Colonel’s wife has set out platters of food on a makeshift table, an old door laid across chairbacks. Most of the platters are empty, however, and all that remains are a dozen chunks of yam, some cold rice, the back and wing of the chicken, and a handful of red beans. The Colonel’s sour-faced wife enters the room with a plate stacked high with sliced white bread and places it in the center of the table. Then she quickly disappears into the bedroom, closing the door tightly behind her. Beyond the living room, Sergeant Kemp and his men are standing in the back doorway, smoking cigarettes and picking their teeth and peering through the rain at the hills.
Soon I’ll have more food, Colonel Phelps promises, as the group studies the remains of the meal. I’ve just sent my boy to the shop for more rice and tinned beef. There will be plenty for all, he assures them. Plenty.
Harris once again takes over. He grabs a plate and swiftly ladles the rest of the food onto it, all the rice and beans, the few cold chunks of yam, and the bits of chicken. Then he matter-of-factly presents the plate to Bowra, gives him a fork, and steps away. As if attending a church supper, the Colonel carries his plate outside to the front porch, sits wearily down there and begins, almost sadly, to eat. The others stand around in the living room, silent and alone. After a few moments, Colonel Phelps moves jerkily toward the back door and joins Sergeant Kemp and his men. They edge aside and make room so he too can stand and watch the rain fall grayly against the green hills.