HOW TO BEAT A CHILD THE
RIGHT AND PROPER WAY
by Colin Channer

Good evening, fellow classmates. I’m very please to appear before you to present my five-minute “how to” speech in Speech 112 this evening.

I know many of you had a long day at work, so I’m going to be brief and to the point. I had a day off today, but that don’t mean I should just go on and on because my energy is up.

By the way, professor, we could open the door? These trailers hot like jail. And while you doing that, can I ask you to give me a little break if I go over five minutes, please? I have a lot on my brain tonight. You’re shaking your head. Consider it a graduation present. After this semester you won’t have to see ol’ Ciselyn again. You smiling now. You little devil you. You smile just like my youngest son.

So, fellow classmates, I need to explain something to you before I start. If you notice, I don’t have any cue cards. What happen is that today I change what I had plan to talk about. So what I did the cue cards for don’t really make any sense again. So, as the young people say, I’m going to do it on the fly.

So let me start over again. I’m very please to appear before you to present my five-minute “how to” speech in Speech 112 this evening. I know many of you had a long day at work today so I’m going to be brief and to the point.

My speech this evening is called “How to Beat a Child the Right and Proper Way,” and the reason I decide to speak on this topic is based on the fact of something I saw today that remind me of something that took place on a Tuesday night in Jamaica thirty-four years ago, in 1972. Some of you never even born yet.

Anyway, today when I was in a Duane Reade on Broadway, over by Wall Street, buying some panty hose and some chocolate for my grandchildren, I saw this child of about seventeen back-answering her mother. Everything the mother say, the child back-answer. You know how these children nowadays can go on. Just rude. When the mother talking to her, you know what she was doing? Popping her bubble gum and rolling her eye. She fold her arms and shaking her leg, and sometimes when the mother say something serious to her, she look on her mother and laugh. The child just rude and out of order. Anything the mother say, she contradict her. If the mother say, “A,” she say, “B.”

But anyway, I wasn’t really paying them any mind, you know, because I’m not a person that like to put myself in people’s business. Plus, I was in a mood where not a thing was going to bother me, because I was coming from a luncheon for my daughter Karen. I can’t really remember the place. Fancy place though. When you walk in there you see class. What it name again? It has a name like a person. But for the life of me I can’t remember what. Fancy name though. French.

But anyway, a lovely place though, down Wall Street with plenty columns and chandeliers. Her office give her a big honor today, that’s why you see me dress up like this, with my hat like I going to church. Cause you know me. I’m simple. I don’t like fuss.

But anyway, when I reach the register now, the mother and the daughter come up behind me, and the arguing was still going on. Just bloo-bloo-bloo-bloo … bloo-bloo-bloo-bloo… mother and daughter back and forth, and my poor ears couldn’t eat grass.

So when I sift through all the bloo-bloo-bloo, I pick out that the little girl get into bad company. She won’t do her school work or go to school, and the mother went up to her school to talk to the guidance counselor, and the little girl tell her off. Tell her off in front o’ the guidance counselor, the principal, and her English teacher. Denounce the mother and call her all kind o’ names.

So this is what the mother was trying to talk to her about in the pharmacy now, when the argument start.

Some things the little girl tell her mother I couldn’t even say in class. No child suppose to say those kinds of things to their mother. When you look at the little girl, you know, you can see that deep down she is a nice little child. But nothing more than she feel she big now because she turn seventeen, so her mother mustn’t say nothing to her. When I tell you, nice looking girl too, you know. Small in body but you can see she have a nice shape. She have hips. And her hair is so tall and nice. Tall down almost to her bottom. And when you talk about wavy and thick. And don’t talk about shine. And to top it off, she have a beauty spot on her cheek beside her nose. Have an Italian look. Pretty girl in her green plaid uniform, so you know the mother spending money to send her to the good Catholic school. But just out of order. Just out of order. Just out of order. And rude. Just calling her mother stupid and denouncing her how she don’t know anything, and shouting after her how when anything happen she always take the guidance counselor and the teacher side.

When she say that, you know what happen? I feel like turn around to her and say, Whose side she suppose to take? She’s your mother.

But I keep my mouth shut.

So anyway, I couldn’t get the little girl and her mother out o’ my mind even after I leave Duane Reade. But I had a lot o’ time before class, so I went to get me exercise—you know, walk around.

That is how I keep myself fit, you know. I like to walk. That’s how come I don’t move from one thirty-five from I come to this country. I lose a little o’ the height though. You know, the bones and age. But I born with height to give away.

By the way, when I say I like to walk, that don’t mean I like to walk any and anywhere, you know. I don’t like to walk in parks and all that kind o’ thing. I like to walk in Manhattan. I like to walk in the city. While I walking, if I see anything for my children or grandchildren I can stop and pick it up. Or if I want some tea or something to eat, like for instance if I get some gas, I can stop and take my time, then start to walk again. Plus, when I watch New York 1 I hear ’bout too much women who get rape off while they exercising in the park in broad daylight. I don’t know why they bother go and tempt fate for. You think is yesterday man like to rape woman in bush? So you know this now and going to go out and run beside the bushes with you leg expose in shorts? Listen to me, I never once hear ’bout a woman getting rape in front o’ Rockefeller Center at half past 12. So what that tell you? Stay with the crowd!

So anyway, Wall Street is one o’ the areas where I like to walk. Down there is like England to me. You have your little streets and your old white buildings. And almost anything you want to shop for you can get down there. Plus, is a orderly kind of place. Is a business place. Down there, you don’t have nobody running up and down like they wild. Take for instance Times Square or further down where I work in Herald Square—too much wildness up there, man. Too much young people idling with no ambition or nothing to do. Just running ’bout the place and talking loud. If they bounce you by accident, they wouldn’t even say, Excuse me. And when they ask you a question is like they don’t know the word please. But sometimes you can’t really blame them. When children come like that, is the parents’ fault.

Speaking of fault, you know if they don’t organize a luncheon for me at Macy’s, is my fault. As I mention Herald Square I remember that this month make it thirty years since they took me on. If they know what I know, they better have a luncheon for me like my daughter office had for her this afternoon. Even if is just accounting alone. Or is hell to pay!

But anyway, when I say I couldn’t get the girl and her mother out of my mind, it was the mother I couldn’t forget, in truth. And when I walk about two blocks I start to hear a voice telling me to turn back. And I kept telling the voice that is not my business. But the voice wouldn’t stop, and all the fight I keep fighting it, you know what I do? I spin round and turn back down to Duane Reade.

The way I was stepping down Broadway, people must be think I was mad. Because you know how down there stay—everybody moving like they have battery, or somebody wind them up. Just voom-voom-voom-voom … voom-voom-voom-voom. Worse, is summer, so all the tourists come and make the place more pack. And they don’t know how to walk.

So imagine my dilemma now. You know how the sidewalks down there stay. Hardly two people can pass. And is me going one way, and is them coming the other way. And is me boring through, and is them getting mad. But I don’t care, because I had to talk to that mother. I had to talk to her. Because when I take a stock, I realize that her hands were so full and she don’t know what to do.

And … hmm … let me tell you …

Hmm … ahh bwoy …

You see my daughter Karen, who I went to the luncheon for? She might be a Senior Vice President at JPMorgan Chase now, but don’t think it did always look like she was going to turn out the right and proper way. At one time it look like she was heading for the gutter fast, fast. But you know what save her? I, as mother, did what I had to do. Because, le’ me tell you something, you know: Once they go past a certain point—these children?—don’t think it easy to bring them back. When certain kind o’ rudeness come, you have to nip it in the bud. When they want to spring up like they fertilize themselves and act like they big, but you know for a fact that they small, don’t wilt in front o’ them. Stand up firm! Hold your ground! Push them back. Sink them down again below the grass, and stand up over them like you have a machete in your hand. If they push up they head again before they time, don’t hesitate. Take one swing and chop it off.

So anyway, when I reach by this big store here … the one where you can buy everything from clothes to luggage but your mind always tell you to really look ’pon the label good—Century 21—I think I glimpse the two o’ them, and I stop to focus. And you know what? It was the two o’ them in truth.

When I almost reach them now, I call out to the mother.

I say, “Excuse me, miss. You were in Duane Reade?”

I could touch her on her shoulder, but I don’t like to touch people in this place. Since 9/11—especially down that side—everybody get extra jumpy, m’dear. Next thing, you touch somebody and them turn round and think is terrorist and shoot you.

So, when I call her now, the mother stop and look at me and say, “Yes. Is something wrong?” She must be see a little thing in my face. Cause I’m a person like this, you know. I can’t play hypocrite. And I can’t take hypocritical people. I’m like Flip Wilson. What she name again? Geraldine. Don’t you cry and don’t you fret, cause what you see is what you get.

Anyway, the mother had on a tan coat that catch her to her knee. Not a dark tan, but more like … you know those Clarks shoes? Same color as these chairs here you sitting on. It was a spring coat with a belt round the waist, and from I see that I know her dress was not in good condition. Because now is May, and is just too hot for that. Plus, she didn’t polish her shoes. Some twenty-dollar pumps. And the shoes itself was lean.

And when I see that now, I say to myself, Dear God. Imagine, this woman sacrifice for this child so much and this child treat her like dog mess. The parents who do the most get the least thanks.

Breeze was blowing. And like how they don’t have the World Trade Center again, it was coming right through … whih-whih-whih … from over by the Westside Highway. I had to turn my back and take off my glasses before it blow off. For if it blow off, is me same one have run it down, and next thing dirt blow into my eye and blind me.

You’re laughing. But is true. You can’t take any chance again, you know. Not when you’re old. I accept that fact. When the breeze start, I say to myself, Glasses, hat, and frock. You wondering why I say frock? Heh! People nowadays wi’ scrutinize you same way. No matter how you’re old.

So anyway, I ease over underneath one o’ the awnings down by Century 21, and the mother and the daughter follow me. And when I straighten out myself now, I say to the little girl, “Sweetheart, I overheard you in the Duane Reade. Why you talk to your mother like that? I can see you’re a nice girl, from a decent home. Look how your mother work and send you to school, eeh. And look how your uniform neat and nice. Why you speak to Mummy like that? You not to do that, sweetheart. When you talk to Mummy like that, you will make her feel embarrassed, like she don’t train you at home.”

That little wretch! You think she pay me any mind? No sir. She just take her mother hand and say, “Come on, Ma. Let’s go.”

But is like what I say gi’ the mother a little choops o’ strength, and she pull her hand away from the girl and wipe her face. But still yet, when she talk to me, her voice sound like she can’t mash ants.

Hear her: “She’s going through a very hard time.”

So I say to her, “Ma’am, I understand. But you’re her mother. No matter what she going through, she must know she can’t talk to you like that.”

When I say that now, you know what the little girl do? She fold her arms and whisper, “Mind your effin’ business.” And believe you me, she didn’t say “effin’.” She said the actual word. When she say this to me and done, she turn to her mother and say in a kind o’ tired voice, like she’s the one suppose to be frustrated, “Let’s go.” Then she swing herself and walk off.

And believe you me, the mother was going follow her.

When I see that, you see, I grab onto her hand and say, “Don’t follow her up. Don’t follow her up. Make her go on. Make her go on. If you follow her up, all you going do is make her think she can lead you. Don’t make that child lead you like she have you on a chain. You’re a woman. She’s a child.”

Now, you could see the mother know it was sense I was talking, you know, but she so accustom to making the child treat her like a little puppy, that she start to whimper now, “Jessica. Jessica. Jessie. Jessie. Come here. Come here.”

And you know, the little demon never even look back at her mother and say, Yes, dog?

When the daughter pass and gone round the corner now, I take my other hand and turn the mother face to me. I look at her and say to her softly, cause I know she was feeling the pain, “Look here, miss. I know how you feel. But never mind. Never mind. I go through the same thing, a’ready. She has money to go home?”

She shake her head and say, “Yes.”

“She normally go to school by herself?”

“Yes.”

“And come home by herself?”

“Yes.”

“So let her go on then. Let her go on. Don’t follow her up.”

She cover her face and start to bawl loud, loud now. You could stay across the street and hear. So, I put my arm around her like she’s my friend long time and hush her. And as I hushing her now, she start to tell me how the girl was a nice, nice girl until she turn seventeen last year. After that, she don’t know why, but the girl start to follow some friends into a bad crowd. And now she want everything to be her way. And she not studying her books.

She didn’t exactly say “bad crowd,” but that is what I pick from it. I know how to pick things out o’ things, you know, and how to make sense out o’ nonsense. If you ever hear how much money that mother spend on psychologist! And how she waste the guidance counselor time! When all she had to do was what she as a mother was suppose to do. But I know why she didn’t do her duty. She ’fraid.

Anyway, as I’m listening to her now, I realize that when I thought she and her daughter was Italian, I was wrong. To tell you the truth, I can’t tell you exactly what she was. But is not Italian. She look Italianish though, and she had a funny accent. But Italians in they forties not coming to America again, like one time. And you could tell how her accent thick that she didn’t live in America long. Plus, I know Italians. I live with them.

When I just come to America in 1976, is mostly Italian use to live near me, you know. That was up in the Bronx … up by Boston Road and Eastchester Road there—3678 Corsa Avenue, the first house I own in this place.

Serious as a judge. You might see mostly West Indians up there now—though I hear a lot o’ Hispanics moving in—Lord Jesus. But it was pure Italian up there in my time. Even now, out in Long Island where I live now, guess what? I buck up on Italian again. Is like they love me. Perillo one side! Moretti next side! Polish in the back.

So when I say the woman wasn’t Italian, I know what I talking about. But you could tell she was some kind o’ cousin to them though … something from round that side. I’m not so good with the European setup, so I can’t tell you where exact. But that don’t mean I don’t know the continent though, you know.

My son Andrew, the one who follow Karen—the bond lawyer—he must be send me over there about six or seven times a’ready. Everything first class! But I didn’t go where use to be the Communist part though. And I think she’s from over that. Listen to me, Communism come in like germs, you know. When you think it gone, it come right back and hold you. And when you think you have the medicine, it change on you. It evolve! Look at Russia. They say they free, but is Communism still. Can you imagine if I go make my son pay for me to go over there and something happen to make me can’t come back? What I would tell Mr. Macy’s Monday morning?

Thirty years at Herald Square, and never missed a day! Never been late! Perfect record. Thirty years! That’s why I can do as I like up there. They don’t bother with me. You know why? I’m a dedicated, disciplined worker. And these days especially, when workers like to jump from place to place, you can’t beat that.

So anyway, as I said, they wasn’t no Italian. But Italian was never the point. Here was a mother in distress. And this was a distress that touch something in my mind. As it touch me now, I told the woman that I went through the same thing with my daughter Karen, who is older than her. The woman, as I said, was in her forties. Karen must be fifty now. For I’m sixty-eight.

“You see, when they get like that and you try with them,” I say to her, “and you keep on trying with them, and they still not hearing, is only one thing left to do. You have to beat they ass. Don’t make America turn you into any fool. You don’t come from here. As there is a God in heaven, when children—especially girls—start to act a certain way … like they is equal to you … you have to put them in they place. And don’t make them or anybody else frighten you ’bout police and child welfare and all o’ that. If you know exactly how to beat a child—call the police? You mad? After what they get from you?

Hmm … they wouldn’t dare!

When the woman run off screaming down the street, a voice say to me that maybe I didn’t really bring my point across. Maybe I didn’t fully explain the whole thing with the police. So I start to think how when you look at the state of young people in this country today, there’s a lot of parents who could benefit from knowing how to grow their children right. What to do when they start to bend away from how they brought them up. How to grab ahold of them and straighten them out.

So it’s this voice and this incident, my fellow classmates, that made me change my speech from “How to Make a Budget and Stick to It” to one more beneficial to the world these days: “How to Beat a Child the Right and Proper Way.”

By the way, professor, I see you giving me the signal that I’m over my time, but I should point out to you that neither Singh nor Avila nor Cumberbatch are here this evening to give their presentation, so you might as well give me their time. And look. See, everyone agree. Why you think they clapping for?

So, Professor Hansen and considerate classmates, to understand why I behaved the way I did today you have to understand a little bit about my life.

I was born in Jamaica in 1938, and although you mightn’t believe it, when I was coming up I was very poor.

My mother and father had eight of us. My father was a postman, and my mother use to work in a sweetie factory, making lollipops and bubble gum. When you have those kinds of work in Jamaica, especially in those days, things was very hard. It’s not like up here, where if you are a postman you can live a decent life. Down there they use to pay the postman like he was a child riding a bicycle and all they had to do was give him pocket change. But he use to have to pedal round the city in the heat with pounds and pounds of mail.

So when you see me now, don’t grudge me. I’m coming from very far.

Now, the house where I grow up was at 2a Saunders Lane in East Kingston. It was a board house, a rent house. It was smaller than this trailer here. By the way, professor, I can’t take this room. It make me feel like I waiting for bail. Anyway, all of us live in that one-room house. But you know something? We keep it clean.

There was about six house in the yard and only one pipe outside by a mango tree, where everybody have to go and brush their teeth and bathe. And one kitchen too, where everybody go and cook, although sometime you use to just catch up a wood fire and cook your food on that.

I’m the last of all the eight, and I watch as all of my brothers and sisters turn twelve and my parents take them out of school and send them to a person in the area to learn a trade. But I didn’t want a trade. I wanted a profession. From I was small I want to be something important in life. I don’t know where the ambition come from, but that is what I have inside me from I born.

But anyway, it didn’t look like life was going to work out like I want. Although teacher said I had the brain in primary school, my parents didn’t have money to pay for the exam to pass and go to high school. And even if I did pass the exam, who was going pay for the uniform and the books?

Plus, you know something? My parents never think it was important. None o’ them never go to high school yet. And none o’ them never know nobody that went to high school either. But for me to go and learn a trade like making hats or sewing clothes was a normal thing.

To cut a long story short, I got to go to high school, but not the whole entire time. My bigger brother, Ezroy, was twelve years older than me, and he use to be a mechanic for the railway until a diesel engine drop on him and crush him up in 1953. Well, he use to like to gamble a lot. But he use to lose all his money because he was dunce.

So when it was coming up to exam time, I went down to the train yard by West Street and tell him that I can help him to win. He ask me how, and I explain to him that Crown & Anchor and most of those games with dice use things from maths, and I knew my maths very well.

He didn’t believe me at first, so I took him down to the market where some men had their boards set up. It was a Friday evening and everybody get them pay and the crowd was big. All the women had their baskets with their yam and banana and their fruits out on the sidewalk. And when you walk you have to make sure you watch where you put your foot—for if you step in somebody basket or knock over them things, is war.

So I tell Ezroy I need to watch how the dice playing for the first twenty throws, and when I finish now, I take him one side and tell him how to bet. But only in him head. I tell him not to put down any money. Afterward I take him one side and ask him how much money him bet in him mind and him tell me. Then I ask him how much money him make in him mind and him tell me too. Then I ask him if him ever win money like that before and him say no. Then I say to him is time to bet with the real live thing, but first, we have to make a deal. The first set o’ winnings have to go to me because I need to pay for some exams.

So that is how I get to go to high school—Ezroy. He paid all my fees until he died. That school doesn’t exist anymore. Salem College was the name. When Ezroy died I had to leave the school at fourteen, with no trade now, and go and look for work.

By the second week I get a job at National Tanning Industries, which make handbags and shoes.

But believe you me, I only spent five years on the factory floor before I got an office job. All the while I was stitching bags and shoes I use to put away a little money to take some correspondence course. In those days, high school exams in Jamaica use to come from England, from University of Cambridge. But if you didn’t go to high school you could still study and pass, because they had schools up there that would stay from there and teach you, so long as you have the money and the time. So one day I see a advertisement for one o’ them in the paper and I write to them, and going back and forth, and back and forth, is how I pass six subjects in Senior Cambridge by myself. To tell you the truth, I didn’t pass English; but I get distinction for maths.

When I get my results, I go to work extra early the next morning and wait for Mr. Parnell—rest in peace—who use to own the place. Mr. Parnell was a Englishman. And you know how they strict a’ready. So I make sure put myself together spic-and-span, and when I see him step out o’ him blue Cortina I go up to him and show him the paper with the passes I got.

He said, “Miss Thompson. Congratulations. I’m so proud of you. I hope you keep it up.”

One thing I use to love about Mr. Parnell is that he knew every worker by face and name. And let me tell you, today I know every single person who work at Herald Square.

Anyway, I said, “I don’t have anymore to keep up, sir. I pass my subjects now. What I want is to apply for a office job. But I know the people who work up there won’t give me a chance because I work in the plant and I’m not fair skin. Not that I try, but they wouldn’t even let me see a application if I ask them. I know how they stay. But I know you as a fair man, Mr. Parnell, so I come to talk to you.”

Mr. Parnell face turn red and then him start to laugh. But him wasn’t laughing at me. I just catch him by surprise.

He said to me, “Miss Thompson, we looking for somebody in bookkeeping. But we need experience, so we don’t have anything for you up there right now. But keep up the good work, okay.”

I said, “Mr. Parnell, as long as it have to do with maths, I can do it. Just let me watch somebody do it for a week. When that week done, I want you to give me a test. I don’t want anybody else to gi’ me the test—I want you—because they will sabotage me, because they don’t want all like me to work up there because my skin too dark.”

Mr. Parnell kind o’ hold down him head and mumble. What I pick out of the mumbling was, “What you saying is true. It’s not right. But I understand.”

“But if I fail the test,” I say to him, “then I don’t want to work here anymore. Because I can’t pass subjects like this and be sewing handbag and know that certain people working in the office and they only pass worm.”

So that is how I end up doing accounts, until now.

By that time I was already married and Karen was already born. My husband was a solider man—Dalton was his name—and, basically, we get married because I got myself in trouble. Stupid, man. Stupid. Lose my focus. Get my priorities out o’ line.

Marriage? I wasn’t ready for that, but that became my lot in life because I made a bad mistake. And even though it was a big mistake, I wasn’t going to add to it by disgracing myself and my family by bringing no bastard child. It was a stupid reason. I agree. But I was only eighteen, and that is how it went in those days. Plus, I had the example of my mother, who was a Mrs. She wasn’t any common-law wife or concubine.

Suffice it to say, the marriage didn’t work. My husband was an alcoholic, but I have to say he didn’t use to womanize. And by the time I left him in 1968, I had three children to care for. Karen and Andrew were three years apart. Roger came four years behind.

When I left my husband, I didn’t take anything. I just leave everything, because I couldn’t stand the arguing anymore. Next thing, I say I want to take something, and him say it should stay, and it boil into a fuss and get loud like a market, and then is just a big disgrace. Plus, whoever leave a marriage should prepare to leave everything behind.

Hopefully it won’t come to that. Hopefully you can work it out. But if it not working out, make up your mind before that you won’t make things like furniture and all o’ that hold you back. When you got to go, you got to go.

When I was walking out o’ that house, which was at 1c Deanery Road, I made three promises to God: one, I wasn’t coming back; two, I was going to buy my own house very soon with only my name on it; and three, all o’ my three children was going reach further than me in life. So it meant I had to take a second job.

By the time I had to beat my child the right and proper way, it was 1972, and I was heading up accounts at the plant, which was down on Foreshore Road—they rename it Marcus Garvey Drive later on—a hectic area near the wharf. In fact, the plant was in the same compound as the wharf, for most of those shoes we use to make was to export. A lot of other factories were around or nearby, down on Spanish Town Road. Beer. Rum. Tiles. Paper. Ice cream. Mattress. Cornmeal. Ice.

The plant was also near to a little airstrip. In fact, sometimes I use to look out my window and see eye-to-eye with some o’ the guys who use to fly those little planes. No exaggeration. Wave to them sometimes. Sometimes when I feeling mischievous I use to even blow them a little kiss. And when I was bored or tired, sometimes, I use to stand up by the window and watch the harbor pilots use the tugboats to guide in those big cargo ships coming from all across the world.

If you doubt me, you have to remember that my office was third floor—upstairs—and most of the buildings around was lower than us, mostly one-story and two-story, so we in the office could see everything. Sometimes we use to watch the white sea birds them just glide in and perch on the big red cranes they use to use to take the cargo from the ship. And you know what we do sometimes? Gamble. In fact, we use to gamble nearly every day. Not for any big money or anything, but like for who going buy who lunch. Well, you know that as the boss I was the bookie. I use to give them the odds—how many birds was going to perch on a crane in a hour? If a crane was full o’ birds, which bird was going be the next one to leave? Yes, man. I was the house. And you know why? The house always win. And I don’t like lose. I was born to lose in life, but I find a way to win. So I not going go back to lose again.

We had moved up to Havendale by that time, far from where we use to live at Deanery Road. We lived in Range between Havendale and Deanery Road. Havendale and those places was like night and day. Only new-style house was up in Havendale, and the area was not like how I hear it turn now, a place where any and anybody can live. In those days, is only bank manager and people like that use to live up there. Lawyer, doctor, politician, businesspeople. Is only people like that could afford to buy the lot. If you have a teacher or a nurse up there, it was because their husband was something else. No sir. They couldn’t afford to live up there without help.

How it went is that you had to buy the lot and get a contractor to build your house how you want it. But you had three or four that use to do most people house. You don’t have those type o’ house in New York, so I can’t even give you a example for you to see what I talking ’bout. You have to go to the older parts o’ Florida to see what I talking ’bout. Solid, concrete house with steel bar inside. And even Florida not building house like that again. As soon as storm lick Florida—boof—all the new house blow down. Frame house. All they do is clap some piece o’ cheap board together and disguise a pretty look around it. And people buy them, for they look nice. In Jamaica, frame house is what we make to keep chicken round the back. Fowl coop.

So anyway, we reach Havendale now, and everything is behind us. Progress time! Every time I think about that house is like water want to come to my eye. It was the first house I own. When you talk ’bout land space. My lot was a half-acre, and you still had some bigger than mine. And everybody use to keep up their lawn, and line it round with flower beds, and plant they croton or bougainvillea hedge beside their fence. To tell you how the land was big, when we moved there, Roger, my last boy was eleven years old, and he couldn’t throw a tennis ball to reach his brother on the back porch from down by the back fence.

But to be honest, it was hard to keep up. We were the only house I knew that didn’t have mother and father there, and I didn’t want anybody to think of my children as less. Because, let’s be frank, I was a divorcée—worse, without the schooling or the color like them. So although the two-job thing was tiring, I use to keep it up.

I use to drop the children to school every morning and pick them up every evening in the blue Cortina that I buy from Mr. Parnell for a very good price. I’ll never forget the license plate, R 7255. Boy … that Mr. Parnell. When I was thinking how to buy the house, I went to him and he lend me five thousand dollars to put on what I had saved up myself, and we shake on it to say I’d pay him back little-little over time. No paperwork. You know why? I was a dedicated worker, and although I had the chance I never t’ief.

So anyway, when I picking up the children is really on my lunchtime, because schools use to over between 1 and 1:30. What I use to do is: pick them up, bring them home, and leave them with Miss Noddy, the helper, who use to live in, then go back to the plant. When I leave the plant at 5 o’clock, I use to batter with the traffic all the way from the waterfront to New Kingston, which was brand new those days, to my second job in the office at the Pegasus Hotel.

That hotel is still there. Still nice. Tall and broad like a big domino. Blue on the front and white on the sides. But it look a little different now, because the golf course across the street, they turn into a park. I don’t know why that make it look different, but is true. You still have all the flags in front of it, so it still look official. But without the golf, a little bit o’ something gone.

I use to work at the Pegasus till midnight every night, then drive home alone to 64 Border Avenue. When I reach, I barely had the strength to eat a little dinner. I use to heat it up myself. I never use to bother wake Miss Noddy. I wasn’t like some people who use to bother their helper whatever hour they come in. Some people never have no conscience, you know.

After I eat and done now, I use to bathe off the day and go to sleep for a few hours to start all over again.

But in truth, the first thing I use to do when I go home wasn’t eat. Every night I come home I use to make a beeline to the children’s room to leave a Cadbury chocolate for them in their bed. Each one like a different kind. Roger like Dairy Milk. Andrew like Whole Nut. And Karen like Fruit & Nut. And if I ever mix them up, you see, they use to tease me and laugh and play all kind o’ jokes like bring me a slice o’ cheese if I ask for a slice o’ bread. Then when they see the look on my face, they use to just bus’ out in a laugh. In truth, we use to have a lot o’ fun. Those were very good times.

On Saturdays now, I use to drop Karen down at the Singer store in Tropical Plaza for her sewing lessons, then take the boys to YMCA, because they use to like to swim.

Then while the children at their lessons, I use to go up to the Pegasus to do any work left over from the week. If I had the time or the feeling, I would go up to the doctor’s compound at the university, where I had a doctor friend. This would only happen sometimes. I didn’t want nobody spreading rumors. And rumors was easy to start, because in Jamaica those days you didn’t have a lot of cars, so everybody know is whose car park up at your gate. And they use to watch and see for how long. Plus, that kind o’ friendship wasn’t very important to me. That kind of friendship will distract you. And next thing you know, you start to put man before your children.

Listen to me, when you decide to go it alone, you have to go it alone. When the children get big now and gone, you can think ’bout yourself. But when they small, you have to be responsible. Next thing you bring in a man on them and you think the man is the greatest thing on earth, and when you hear for the shout, as soon as you turn your back, the man taking all kind o’ step with your girl child. Or next thing your son can’t get on with him and that make the boy can’t concentrate on schoolwork—and to get an escape, now, the boy go turn Rasta and start to smoke ganja and get worthless. I see it happen. Is not guess I guessing. I telling you from experience. I giving you facts.

Anyway, when I pick them up after they lessons now, I use to take them for lunch at the hotel. After all, children should be exposed. And when they finish with they lunch, they use to do their homework in the office with me, then all of us would go home. If not, we’d most times stop off for a movie at Premiere.

When you have to be moving like that everyday, everything has to be on time. So I trained the children a certain way. I made them understand certain things. And one of them is that when I’m ready to pick them up, they must be ready for me.

Every school in Jamaica has a big tree where children wait for their parents in the afternoon, and all three o’ my children went to different schools. So if one of them late, it make the next one late, and so on down the line. When they’re late then I’m late. And although Mr. Parnell liked me, he was an Englishman, and English people worship time.

Liver damage kill the children’s father two years after I left the house at Deanery Road; so all I’m thinking every day is that there’s no one to look after the children if I lose my little work. They had uncles and aunties, yes, but they couldn’t do more than take care o’ their children or themselves.

So anyway, this is how the story really start: One evening when Karen was about sixteen, I went to pick her up at school and she wasn’t underneath her tree. I nearly went mad.

When I really look under the tree, I saw a girl that look like she could be in her class. And I say could because I was too busy working to go to any PTA. So in reality, I use to hear the children calling various names at home, but I didn’t know who was who. Plus, when I use to pick up the kids in the evenings, I only use to have a little time. So it was open and shut. Open car door. Jump in fast. Shut car door. And drive.

So I clap and point to call the girl—none of the boys didn’t know her name—and she told me that Karen was gone with Claudia deMercardo to Woolworth’s in Mall Plaza to window shop, and walk up and down, and flirt with boys.

When I heard that, I thought I was going to go out o’ my mind. Now, the girl didn’t say exactly what they’d gone to Mall Plaza to do. But that is what I pick from it.

You see, although my mother wasn’t a educated woman, she had a lot o’ common sense. And from I was a little girl, I use to hear her say that you have certain signs that wi’ tell you if a girl going grow up and behave like a prostitute. And is not just because she’s my mother why I agree with her. I take my own two eyes and see it, so I take it as truth.

Take what I say and mark it. Write it down if you want. You ready? Here we go: Any girl that like to walk up and down from store to store after school instead of going home to study, because her eyes are in love with pretty things; and any girl who like to pluck her eyebrows so she can look like a big woman when she is still a child; and any girl who like to sing in the shower like she want the whole world to get excited that she naked in there—you take it from me, Ciselyn Thompson, that girl is going to be a prostitute. She have a whoring nature. She have certain intentions in the back o’ her mind.

Now you might say I’m being harsh or that a girl might have inclinations, but that don’t mean they have to come to light. You listen to me right now. You have grown men who could see these things in young girls before the girls see it themselves. And these men use to make it a point o’ duty to go up to the plazas and prey on aimless girls. Friend them up. Buy jumbo malt for them at Woolworth’s. And soon after that now, they start to give them little things. Little earrings. Little chaparitas. And tell them to tell their mother and father lie that they school friend give them for they birthday. Then after that now, they start to give them car drive. Pocket money come later. Then when the child least expect it, they start to pressure her for sex; and nine times out o’ ten, they give in.

Now, you use your own brain and sift what I just tell you before you answer. If a girl sleep with a man because him give her things and money, is not a prostitute that?

Yes, professor … I see you giving me the signal again, but I can’t stop now. I have to go on. Bear with me. Bear with me. This thing is too important. Way beyond this class.

My fellow classmates, that girl that Karen went to the plazas with, Claudia deMercardo, use to pluck out her eyebrows till all she leave back was a line. At the age of sixteen that girl already had a dirty reputation. She was—excuse me—a damn mattress.

I use to say to Karen when she use to ask if she could shave her eyebrow, “That look good to you? That look good? What sense they leave that line for? They no might as well just finish and done and just shave it off. What? They eye need a Parisian moustache?”

I use to talk to Karen about Claudia deMercardo all the time, because she was always asking Karen to ask me if she could spend the weekend at her house. Her people was real money people. They use to own in-bond stores and gas stations and a car distributorship. Where they use to live had everything, from pool to tennis court. And as far as I knew, people with that kind o’ money never really like people who black like me, especially when they think they white.

So whenever Karen ask me if she could go up there, I use to tell her no. Any parent who allow their sixteen-yearold daughter to do her eyebrow like that is not responsible. They’re slack! And slack parents make all kind o’ slack things go on in their house. Next thing you know, they allowing Claudia to drink, and have boys coming there and all those kind o’ things.

Listen, man. Let me tell you something. Boyfriend and that kind o’ thing couldn’t work in my house. Boyfriend? For a girl in school. University is a different thing. That time they’re grown. But high school? You must be mad!

I use to instill it in Karen every day: “Don’t put man on your head. Put your books.” I use to remind her that Claudia deMercardo and those fair-skin girls she know from school don’t have to pass no exam to get ahead in life. As soon as they finish school their parents giving them a job in a business. And even if they do start from the bottom, in two twos they reach the top, regardless of qualification. I told Karen, “They not like me and you! People like me and you must have a profession.”

But at the time she didn’t want to listen to me. She wanted to follow fashion. She wanted to act like she was carefree, as if she didn’t know is me alone she have to make everything work for her, and that if I slip, she slide. She wanted to rebel.

You know I had to wait for Karen for a hour? You hear me? A hour. I kept on saying, “Lord Jesus, I wonder if something happen to Claudia and Karen.” Because I couldn’t believe that Karen would do that to me, when she know I only have my lunchtime. And is not like now when you have cell phone and can call people and say you’re running late. In those days, if you late you just late, and by the time you get to where you was suppose to be, everybody face done make up a’ready, and everybody jump to their own conclusion. So it don’t even make no sense you try explain.

So in my distress now, I pu’ down my forehead on the steering wheel, and my mind just drift away. Then all of a sudden, Roger touch me on my back and say, “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, see Karen there.”

When I look up I saw her running fast across the hockey field with her short plump self, her blue skirt and cream blouse dark with sweat. I don’t know where the blue tie was. She must be take it off. Claudia was right behind.

When the deMercardo gal see me now, she slip off one side and leave her friend to come and talk to me alone. Now what kind o’ true friend is that?

I said to Karen, “You don’t consider me?”

I said it so softly I could hardly hear myself. The tree was next to some tennis court, which was right beside another court where some girls was playing netball. And anywhere you go netball girls always loud.

She didn’t answer, so I asked her again, and raise my voice a bit. Same time now, the girl I ask for Karen when I just drive up, come up to my window and say, “Oh, you find her.” Then, before I could answer, she ask a question. But it really was a comment: “You’re Karen’s mummy’s friend?”

I say, “No. I’m Karen’s mother.”

She squint up her eye and look at me good, then she put her head into the car a little bit and take a look at the boys.

“Oh.”

Then she gone.

I knew what she was thinking—how I could be their mother and be dark like this? Well, the answer is that their father was a red man. He looked like a Puerto Rican in his features, but he had brown hair and hazel eyes. In just color alone, in certain light, you could make mistake and call him white. And you know something? That’s the only thing he ever give those children—a fair complexion to make things a little easier for them in life.

Anyway, when the girl left, I say to Karen, “Missis, beg you just get in the car.”

And you know what she said?

“When are you going to get off my back? Why’re you always harassing me? I’m like a prisoner. I can’t go anywhere.

No matter what I do, no matter what I say, I can’t be right. Just leave me alone, Mummy. Just leave me alone, man. Just lef’ me, Mummy. Just lef’ me. You think I don’t know why you going on like this? Is because you see me with Claudia, and you don’t like her. Why you always going on like she do you something? Is what she do you, Mummy? Is wha’ she do you so? Well, you know what? I don’t even care. Because Claudia is my friend. Right? Claudia is my friend. But you just don’t want me to have any friends. I don’t know why? I don’t know why? Well, she’s my friend, Mummy. She’s my friend. See it there. She’s my friend … and you better believe that dirts. And as a matter of fact, I don’t care what you or anybody else have to say. Claudia is my friend. Claudia is my friend. And who don’t like it, bite it.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I don’t even know if I did want to say anything. Perhaps if I did say anything, I would just sound like a fool.

She got in the car and slam the door. I had turn off the engine to save gas, so when the shame take me and I try to leave, the car couldn’t move off. Pure confusion take me. I confuse so till I forget which way the key suppose to turn. You see my distress?

While I there fumbling with the key, every now and then I take a glimpse through the window at the girls under the tree, and I see them watching me with their fair-skin self. They acting like they not looking, you know. But every time they see me look, they cover their mouth like they eating banana chips, or act like they tired and cover their mouth like they going to yawn. But they never cover their eyes though, and when I look at them I see pure laughing. Some o’ them was even running water.

So we on the way home now, and Karen is sitting in the front seat, and she just can’t keep still. She have her school bag in her lap and she hugging it up like is her boyfriend, or like she have something in there to hide. And so she moving, so she snorting. You’d think she was a bull. Bouncing back against the seat. Bracing her shoulder on the car door to get away from me. Sweating. Trembling. Breathing hard.

To tell you the truth, that’s normally the kind of thing I would just box her for. Before that she’d done one or two little rude things, back-answering and the like. And sometimes I use to have to give her a box for that. But this kind o’ bad behavior she was showing now was just a different type.

I had to drive on Constant Spring Road by the plazas to get home—it wasn’t a one-way then—and as I drove I heard a voice saying in my head, You can’t make children rule you, you know. If you don’t control them they wi’ break away. And when they break away, you can’t always catch them back. That’s when they end up worthless.

Listen to me, when a boy end up worthless is bad and not too bad. But when a girl end up worthless is a different thing. You can talk what you want to talk about equality, but with some things you have to accept that is just so life go.

Let me ask you something: If a girl waste her time and end up leaving school without any skill or education, or any way of getting ahead—let’s say a job with prospects, or acceptance to a college, and let’s say all her friends from school move on—you think that girl can feel good about herself? She might seem happy-go-lucky, and her face might always have a smile, but something else is going on inside.

When a girl begin to feel worthless is a easy thing for her to start act like she worthless in truth. She start to lose her confidence. She start to need attention, especially from men. And this make her start to dress and act a certain way. And when that happen, men just start to take advantage, start to full up her head with lie, cause they know from experience what she want to hear. You see, when that happen, before you know it the girl start bouncing round the place, and she might even feel as if she having a lot o’ fun. But to them she’s just a mattress. A place where they lie down and get relief. And from that, is just a matter o’ time before she breed and the bastard children start to come with more than one last name. Of course now, she can’t mind them on her own, so she need the man them for support. And you think they going give her support unless she give them back something? And if you give your body for money, you is what?

So all along the way, Karen going on like how I tell you—with her bad bull self—and even with what the voice was saying I couldn’t find the strength to discipline that child.

Because let me tell you, I’m the kind of mother who will discipline a child anywhere anytime. I don’t like to do it. But if I have to, I will.

If I gi’ you the look, and you act like you don’t see it, then I sneak up on you and gi’ you the pinch. And if the pinch can’t stop you, you getting something hot on your behind. Who don’t hear must feel.

But looking back at it now, I’m not even sure if is strength I didn’t have. I think I was just confused. I was just in disbelief. I never thought my daughter had it in her heart to talk to me like that.

When we get home, she come out o’ the car, and instead o’ opening the gate so I could drive in, she open it just enough so she could walk through by herself. So Roger jump out quick time and open out both sides.

To tell you the truth, until that happen I didn’t even remember that the boys were in the car. They were so silent. I wasn’t even sure who was driving home, who was really at the wheel. Because it wasn’t me. If it was me then it was only partly me, because I didn’t feel as if the whole o’ me was there.

I left the children with the helper, Miss Noddy, and spin round same time to go back to work. When Miss Noddy was closing the gate, I saw Mrs. Lee Yew watering her lawn across the street, and I remembered to ask her to make an appointment with her husband about Roger’s eyes.

I couldn’t concentrate when I got back to work. Luckily for me, it was the middle o’ the month, so the work wasn’t heavy that day.

There were twenty-eight of us in the office. Most of the others use to work in a open area with nothing to part the desks. A smaller set use to work in twos and threes in some little office separate with glass sheets, but they didn’t have a door. Only me and Mr. Parnell had a office with a door. He needed one because he didn’t have a manager. He use to run the place himself.

At around 4 o’clock, the office maid came into my office and ask if everything was okay. Miss Minto was her name. From she see me lock the door, she know something wasn’t right, cause I wasn’t the sort o’ person use to lock up myself. Anybody could come inside my office anytime. Same thing at Macy’s today. Ciselyn? She’s Miss Open Door.

So anyway, when Miss Minto ask me how I was, I told her everything was fine, but I was begging her a cup o’ tea.

Although I can’t take the smell o’ cigarettes nowadays, I use to smoke a lot that time. It started when my husband use to come home drunk at Deanery Road and mess up himself—sometimes the soldier uniform too—and I use to have to strip him off and clean him like a baby. I use to smoke to kill the smell.

When Miss Minto bring the tea, I went and stand up by my window, which was right between two big bookcase. I had a ceiling fan in the office, but I couldn’t turn it up because it would blow all the papers around the place, and I couldn’t open the windows fully cause the sea breeze would be worse. So the office was hot and had a salt and dye and leather smell.

I start to daydream now. Is so long ago I can’t remember what exactly was on my mind, and then my eyes drop on the parking lot below me, and I saw the spot where I approach Mr. Parnell years before. I see my car, which use to be his car. I had every reason to feel proud o’ myself, but all I feel was shame.

After a while I put my forehead on the window, then ease round and lean up with my back against the bookcase. I use to like collecting pretty calendars, and I had one from China on the wall. It was one o’ those that was a big poster with the months in a pad on the bottom, and when you finish a month you just tear it off. They had a pretty girl on the poster part, and she had a pretty fan. I use to always like to look at her. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just because she use to look attractive. There are some people whose personality just shine in the way they smile, and even when you see them in a picture you can know they nice. And she was one of them. So sometimes when I was feeling down or something, I would smile and look at her. My little Chiney friend.

So anyway, I get tired o’ looking at her, and to be frank, she wasn’t doing anything to ease my mind, and I find myself looking through the window again, smoking up the glass. Every time I blow, everything get cloudy and I feel like I could hide away, then the smoke get thin again. And the ashes? I just kept dropping them on Miss Minto floor.

We use to say the floors belong to her cause it was she who use to go down on her knee and take the coc’nut brush and clean them once a week. All we use to do was tramp on them. They use to say the office people use to walk and stomp because we never use to have to buy no shoes, for Mr. Parnell use to give us half a dozen pair every year.

Anyway, as I was thinking of Miss Minto and her floor—is like something come to light—I realize what was bothering me. Yes, it had to do with Karen, of course, and her behavior. But the thing itself that was depressing me was how she talk to me—like how most people talk to their maid. Is like she feel like she could talk to me anyhow and nothing wouldn’t come out of it cause I don’t have any status in life. Like I’m just this little dark girl who is right where she start out, and don’t reach nowhere, like I not good enough to be her mother.

As I start to think of this, I start to notice my reflection now. I could see it when I did a little thing with my eye.

In those days, I use to part my hair in the middle and flip it up like Doris Day. But it was hard to manage, you see. I had to press it every Friday evening. If I miss a Friday, it would get coarse and unruly, and all the straightening would come out. I look at my cheeks, and they look so hard, so—what’s the word again?—pronounced, even though I dab a little rouge on them. They look so unladylike, so tough. Then I begin to examine my nose. For all the times I use to clamp it, it was still the same … spread out like a van run it over, or a big truck lick it down. And the blue eye shadow? It only advertise how I was black.

Jesus Christ, I thought, you know you really, really black? Why you bother even try with makeup base? That kind o’ black can’t hide. You black like doctor never take you from your mother belly. Like him grab you from a clinic that was burning down …

And when I take in all of this—you tell me, what I could do but cry? So that is what I did. I smoke my Benson in my brown skirt suit and think about my daughter, then I look at myself … and cry.

Later that evening, while I was working at the Pegasus, Roger called to sweet me up. Poor little heart. When the switchboard put him through, he told me that he need me to help him with some homework for his English class.

Now, Roger don’t call me at work unless is something important, and him never need me to help him with his homework yet because Andrew was always there to help. Plus, on top of that, he was extremely bright—passed his exams for high school from grade four, when most kids took it in grade six. And in any case, most of them who take it didn’t pass. Karen was one o’ them. She take it three times in a row and fail.

So I ask him, “What’s the composition about?”

“Well … Mummy … my teacher asked me to write a composition on a work of art.”

“Lord. So now we have to go to National Gallery?”

“No, Mummy, because I selected you. You want to hear what I put in there already?”

I start to smile now.

“Yes.”

And then my bubble burst.

He said, “My mother is a most resplendent example of God’s imagination. He made her more beautiful than all the creatures. My mother’s beauty is special. Do you want to know why it is special? Most people’s beauty is on the outside, but that kind of beauty is only skin deep and will not last forever. My mother’s beauty is of the permanent type. Her beauty is on the inside, and that is the kind of beauty that will always last. How does that sound so far?”

I said, “Oh, my little husband, that was so nice. You say all those nice things about me? You make me feel so good, Pops. Bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye, Mummy.”

I start to cry again.

When I left there, no one in that office knew that anything was wrong, for I’m a woman like this—I don’t show weakness. Everything could be wrong with me, but you’d never know.

It was 9 o’clock when I get home. Roger was in his room finishing off his homework, lying ’cross the bed with a dozen model planes hanging from the ceiling like they going to bomb him.

Fright take him when he saw me, cause I usually come home after midnight, and on top o’ that he didn’t hear me when I come in. What happen is that as I was driving up the road a voice just told me to leave the car outside and walk round the side to get a better understanding of what’s really going on. So instead o’ bringing the car into the carport and opening the front door from the veranda, I came in off the back porch, where we use to store old things, and Miss Noddy use to wash and press the clothes.

“How you come home so early, Mummy?”

I put my finger to my lips to make him quiet down himself.

“Where is Miss Noddy?” I asked.

“She gone to church. She soon come back.”

“Where’s Andrew?”

“Over by the Lee Yews. Bobby taking him up with econ.”

“How come I don’t hear your sister?”

Roger push up him glasses on him nose and say, “She’s in the living room … I think.”

I sat down on the bed beside him.

“Roger, beg you tell me. What she do since she come home?”

Him start to hem and haw.

“Well, I don’t know, Mummy, because I was doing my homework in my room. I ate my dinner at the table, but I did my homework in my room. So maybe you have to go and see for yourself.”

“I see.” I kiss him on his cheek. “You finish your composition, Pops?”

“Oh … yes. Yes, Mummy. Thank you very much for the help.”

“Ahh, Pops. Life is not a easy thing. You hear?”

So I’m walking down the corridor now. The house had three bedrooms on each side, with the living, dining, and kitchen in the middle going down, from front to back. When you come off the front veranda you’re right in the living room.

Each side had its own bathroom. If you count Miss Noddy bathroom off the porch around the back, then call it three. My room was in the front, on the right-hand side. From the front door I had to pass through the living room and a heavy curtain to a passageway to reach it.

As I was going into my room, I glimpse Karen through a crack in the drapes. She was in the living room. Still in her uniform, playing the radio, the record changer, and the TV same time, like we have money to waste, like deMercardo is my last name.

Now, I don’t know ’bout you, but there is certain things that can’t happen in most West Indian house, and mine is one o’ them.

1. You can’t gallivant in your school uniform. As soon as you come home you suppose to take it off. That is something you suppose to respect and revere. That is not something you just wear round the place like that and disgrace. Plus, they are expensive. When you start to drudge them out, before you know it they start to rip up here and there, and things start to stain them up. So when that happen, how you going to go to school in the morning like you’re suppose to be—neat and clean? And you better go to school neat and clean in the morning. If you go to school untidy it mean neither you or your parents have any pride or ambition. And let me tell you, if you don’t have pride or ambition, you ain’t getting nowhere in this thing name life. You have to reach beyond the span o’ your arm.

2. You can’t watch TV before your homework done. School is your vocation as a child. So you can’t put fun before your studies. I hear these children nowadays complaining that school ain’t fun. Well, it ain’t suppose to be fun. Is like medicine. It ain’t suppose to taste nice. God gave man the brains to make medicine for cures, and education is a medicine to counteract the idleness that grows like mold on top o’ the brain. If you don’t counteract it daily, you’ll be sick with idleness and sloth all your life. When you finish your homework and your studies, you can do whatever you want to do—within reason. I like my little TV too. I like to watch this English fellow Simon on that show where the people try to sing and become a star. He’s a man that don’t put up with no foolishness. That’s a man who tell you straight. Some new people in my department call me so behind my back, you know … Simon. But you think I care? Who you think decide they bonus every year?

3. You can’t have on three big appliances at once, especially when is things for enjoyment and not for work. Electric current isn’t cheap. So when you’re watching one show on the TV, and listening to another show on the radio, and playing music on the record changer same time, you’re just being wasteful and greedy. You can’t even enjoy the three o’ them same time. And even if you could enjoy them, what you could absorb? To even think about that is idle, and as you know, the devil find work for idle hands.

I went into the bathroom to bathe but I change my mind. The water was running and everything, but I change my mind and turn it off. I just went into my room and lay down. I didn’t even turn on the light. I just lay down in the dark. I start to roll from side to side to twist myself out o’ my clothes. I was so down I couldn’t bring myself to sit up. To tell you the truth, I never even care ’bout neatness. As I take off the clothes I just fling them down. When I scatter them now, I just lie down plain in my panty and brassiere, just listening to everything going on.

A little drizzle had come down earlier, and the rain smell was coming through the louvers from the flowerbeds. Every now and then a bus pass by. But what I mostly heard was cars. Somebody’s dog just wouldn’t stop barking. Just arr-arr-arr-arr-arr. The crickets were going and the tree frogs too. When they start, you know, is like a video game. But the loudest things to me were in the living room. I could also hear the shower crackling like fire. You’d think it was a flame.

The radio was playing reggae music. I never use to listen to it, so I couldn’t tell you what group. To me, every song use to sound like boogooo-doop-boogooo-doop-boogooo-doop, so I couldn’t bother with it. And I didn’t like that radio announcer, a fellow by the name of Errol Thompson who use to make a lot of noise with this stupid rubber ducky. I hear he use to smoke a lot o’ weed.

I could follow what was on the TV too. She was watching this Burt Reynolds show—Dan August. To me the show was stupid. Whenever Burt Reynolds chasing down a criminal, the same thing happen every time—him going to run upstairs or climb on something high, then dive on the criminal back like Tarzan.

But the worst thing though, was that she was using the record changer to play out my Al Green. Now, I don’t know ’bout you, but my records is my records. I know is CD time now, but still. The children know I didn’t like them to play my records, because just like how they didn’t like to full back the ice tray, they didn’t like to put back my LPs in their case.

Is either they don’t put them back or they mix them up. But something always have to go on. One time I find a Curtis Mayfield and a Engelbert Humperdinck force up in a jacket for The Student Prince. What could Curtis Mayfield and Engelbert Humperdinck have to do with The Student Prince? And I won’t even tell you what they did to my Mantovanis.

Let me tell you—to this day I love my Mantovani. If I don’t play a Strauss waltz every couple o’ days, is like I don’t feel too good.

But anyway, I really wanted to say something to Karen when I was lying down. But I didn’t know where to begin, because you know what? I began to feel a little rage. You know why? I stayed in the bed and hear Roger go to her and ask her if she did her homework. The way he was asking her, you could tell he was trying to warn her, or make her come to her senses … hint her a little bit, you know … give her some help. That is what I pick from it. And you know what she said to him? Ungrateful little wretch?

“You little informer, you. What? Your mother call you from work and send you to spy? Well, I don’t do any homework. You hear? I don’t do any. And you better move out o’ my way before I t’ump you. Don’t I told you and Andrew not to come out here?”

“But Mummy—”

“Roger. You must be think I ’fraid for Ciselyn Thompson. She like to go on like she bad, but I don’t ’fraid for her.”

“Karen—”

“What happen? You going wring out my name?”

“But, Karen, Mummy—”

“You don’t hear I say must leave me alone? You want a t’ump?”

“I going tell Mummy.”

“Yes, double-oh eight. Tell your mooma when she come home tonight.”

I hear when Roger walk off and come like he was coming to my room door, but for some reason him turn back. And in my mind I see when Karen cut her hazel eyes and use her hand and flick back the light brown hair I use to wash and condition every week because it was too long for her to manage. Before I authorize her to cut it to her shoulder, it was tall, way down her back.

I stay in the room and call to her.

“Karen.”

She didn’t answer me. So I sat up in the bed and call her name again. This time with a question sign—“Karen?”—for I was trying to ask her if she forgetting herself.

At the same time, I was trying to ask myself if the person outside was really and truly the first child I bring into this world or a alien. Because the way the anger had me trembling, whatever it was out there, whether it come from my womb or not, I was ready to take its life.

A voice inside my head was telling me to take the bedside lamp and go out there, that I shouldn’t even bother to put on a robe, to just march out there in my panty and brassiere and take the lamp and bus’ her head. Just kill it!

But thanks be to Jesus, God stayed in heaven and stretch forth His hand and take the thought away from me. That’s all I can say—God stop me. Because I know my daughter heard me. Because I know my voice. And I know that house. And I know that child. So although the radio was playing, and the TV was on, and the record changer too, I know for sure that child heard my voice in that house.

But the damn gal was feeling so powerful after she put me down in front o’ her friends that she thought she was on top o’ the world. Like she was some kind o’ … you know … royalty … like she could do anything she want without considering the price.

A piece o’ heavy breathing take me in the bed, you see. And the room start to feel like it closing up. And my head start to beat like somebody put a speaker box inside it like a car. And I quick time put on a duster and run down to Roger room and ask him to go over next door to Mrs. James, who was a pharmacist, and get a Valium for me.

When Roger gone I went out on the back porch to get some fresh air. Karen heard me in my panic—she had to—but she didn’t come to see what was wrong.

When Roger come back I told him to use a razor blade and cut the ten milligram in two and give me half, then I send him to make some green tea for me. After that I turn off the light and si’ down in the dark.

When I take the pill and drink the tea now, I say to him, “Pops, I’m going to tell you something, and I hope you wi’ remember it when you grow up … the parents who do the most get the least thanks. I’ve done everything a mother can do to make that girl happy, to make that girl’s life a success. But she hate me like I do her something.”

“Mummy, she don’t hate you. That’s not true.”

I say, “When she took her exam to go to high school, she took it three times and never pass. Now, if I was like most other mothers, I would make her go to a junior secondary school or a technical school, which you know is where you go when you fail. But I couldn’t make her feel shame like that. I know she had it hard when me and Daddy didn’t work out. Then shortly after that, God took him away. She was the oldest and she remember him the most, and she was very close to him, so she feel it more than you and Andrew. You two were too small. I didn’t want to give you children a broken home. Roger, I didn’t want that at all. As there’s a God, I didn’t want to do that to you. But what I was suppose to do? Stay with the man and make him carry we down?”

“No, Mummy.”

I say, “You know how many nights I clean piss and shit off the floor down at Deanery Road, Pops? You know is from cleaning shit and piss why I start to smoke? You know when Karen fail her last chance to pass her exams I drive around to every single high school in Kingston that take girls, and beg the principal to take her? You know I tell all those principals is my fault why she never pass her exams, because I was the one to leave the marriage and break up the home, and that is why she couldn’t concentrate?”

“No, Mummy.”

I say, “Pops, you know how many times I tell your father to come and look for you children, and him promise me him was coming, and never come? You know how many times, Pops? You know how many times? Pops, you think I like working two jobs?”

“No, Mummy.”

“I hate it down to the ground. But is what I have to do to make life for you children … so you can come out better than me. I can’t believe your sister denounce me like that in front o’ her friends, Pops. After everything I’ve done. The parents who do the most get the least thanks. Pops, you love me?”

He said, “Yes, Mummy,” and came and hug me up.

I said, “Pops, you think your mother pretty?”

He said, “Yes, Mummy. Of course.”

I said, “Inside and out?”

He said, “And upstairs and downstairs too.” But he didn’t tell me, “Yes.”

Years later, some time after his first book come out, Pops and I was talking ’bout what happen that night. By that time he was in this thirties and was teaching English at UCLA. I had gone to visit him just to see what was going on.

When I let him know how much I needed him to tell me I was pretty, Pops said he couldn’t understand it at all, because he use to think I was a gorgeous girl, so gorgeous that he use to be in love with me when he was small.

Now, I could have said to him, Well, how come none of your girlfriends ever look like me yet? How come is pure fair-skin girl with long hair you like? But I didn’t want to make him feel bad. What would be the point? He was doing his best to butter me up. So why try to catch him in a lie?

But that night, though, out on the back porch—let me tell you—that little darling really help to calm his mother nerves. Yes, I had my tea and Valium, but they were not enough.

Listen to me. Let me tell you something. Don’t make ghost fool you. Nothing can lift you like the love of a child, any child, but especially a child who’s yours. I had two in that house, but only one was showing me any kind o’ love.

I’d be the first to tell you I was defeated, that I found myself in the situation where what Karen thought of me was the thing that mattered most in life. If at that moment she’d come to me and told me she wanted to spend the rest o’ the month up at Claudia, and if I felt that it would make her come and tell me that she love me, and she not ashame o’ me, I would drive her up to Claudia myself. And if she say she was going up there to live for the rest o’ her life, I would crawl on my knee and beg her not to go. I’d tell her to stay and I’d let her do as she like. I’m not ashame to say it, now. That is how I felt. No lie!

And let me tell you, if that girl had used her common sense, or even humbled herself a wee, I might have been her slave for life. For let me tell you—when your child has you in the kind o’ position like Karen had me, you’re her slave for life, like that woman I saw today in Duane Reade; and whatever they want to do, they do; and whatever they don’t want to do, they don’t do. And if they turn out good in the end, they’ll say it was in spite o’ you. And if they turn out bad … well, of course, it was because o’ you. Any which way you turn, you lose.

Pops went to bed around 10 o’clock. I heard his brother come in through the front door at 10:30. He said hello to his sister two times. She didn’t answer him at all. All the time I could hear her moving through the house. Going to the pantry, the fridge. Then at 11 o’clock, I hear when everything in the living room just one by one shut down.

I called out softly, “Karen?”

She didn’t answer, so I called again. This time my voice was louder, but even more loving in tone.

Who says I didn’t try? You know what Karen do? She slam the bathroom door. And before she slam the door, I hear some teeth get suck.

I didn’t want the boys to know I was crying, so I walk down by the back fence. You want to see me feeling in the dark. For if you move too fast and the clothesline catch you, head gone clean, one time.

So, I feel and feel until I found the stand where we use to bleach the clothes. And I drop my face into my hands and bawl. You’d think somebody dead or I just got a telegram that I lose my job. I don’t remember how long I was bawling for, but it was a good amount o’ time, and is while I was bawling that she made her big mistake.

At first I didn’t hear it. Then I hear it, but I didn’t know is what. Then I figure out is what, but I couldn’t believe that what it was is what I hear.

My fellow classmates and professor, I could hear it just as you can hear me now. Clear, clear, clear, clear, clear. But let me tell you, when I really decide for true that I was hearing what I hear, I cock my head and listen it good to be more sure again. And when I think of what Karen was doing, and how what she was doing indicate where she was going to go, going end up down the line, a spirit rise inside me and a voice say—and when I say “say,” I mean “say,” like how I’m saying this to you here now—“You better get off your ass and go in that house and do what you have to do. Otherwise, you going to lose that child. Don’t care if she hate you. Don’t care if she never talk to you for the rest o’ your life. Don’t care if she even go as far as change her name so nobody won’t know she’s your blood—go in there and do what you have to do. You can’t make this pass. You can’t make this pass. You can’t make this pass at all.”

You know what the girl was doing? You know what the girl was doing? Who in here this evening can stretch their mind far enough to imagine what this girl was doing now, on top of everything she a’ready did that day?

She was singing in the shower. On the top of her voice. Like is “Prostitute” she name. And you know what she was singing? Guess and tell me. Go into the furthest part of your mind where you pu’ down ideas that don’t have no use and things that just don’t make no sense.

The little wretch was singing, “Born Free.”

Wha’ kind o’ idiot she think I was? Because I never finish school she think that would pass me just so? She think I don’t know sarcasm and irony? She think I wouldn’t get the point?

Jesus Christ!

As I start to walk up to the house now, leaves crunching under me like gravel and I get a mind to bus’ her ass with everything I touch. The pole that hold up the clothesline. A piece o’ switch from off a bush. Even down to the little floppy belt on my duster. One time I grab for the rake.

When I step up on the back porch, I turn on the light and see Miss Noddy iron in a corner by the iron board, and a palm it for the cord, but the body was too heavy to maneuver so I put it back. And Jesus Lord, the closer I get—naturally—the louder she sound. And all I can think is, If I lose her, then the odds is that I’ll lose her brothers. For she’s the oldest. And all this Rasta foolishness is going round. And if she turn worthless, them going turn worthless too.

Singing in the shower like a damn prostitute! What? She crazy? Or is bad she think she bad? In truth, that gal did think she bad. Singing in the shower like a damn prostitute! And worse, she was doing it for spite!

It had to be spite. It had to be spite. Because I never ever hear my daughter do a thing like that before. Never in my life. Never in hers. Because she know my rules. But is not only the rules. She know how a thing like that would make me feel—like a mother who don’t train her children right!

When I step in off the porch, I kick off my slippers by the door. I didn’t want the wretch to hear me coming through the house. Is like I was James Bond or Emma Peel. I go inside the kitchen. Nobody don’t hear me make a sound. And I start to search around. How come when you really want a thing you can never just find it yet? It took awhile, but eventually I found the kind of thing I had to use.

I took my time and pass the rooms. Barefoot on the cool gray tiles. Everything turn off except the bathroom light. Sometimes I stop and listen to make sure she didn’t hear me, then I walk again. I could hear the boys snoring little bit. Good. They were asleep. It was me and she alone.

When I push the bathroom door, the little bugger was so caught up in herself she never hear me. Nothing register to her at all. No change in light. No new shadow. No little something in the air. How you could be in a small bathroom with hot water running and somebody open the door and you don’t sense a little something in the air? You know how? When you feel like nothing can’t happen to you because you’re the ruler o’ the world.

Believe you me, I stood up there with the extension cord in my hand for about five minutes and she didn’t see me. It was a old brown one that was suppose to throw away because one end of it was frazzle out. Well, good. Cause now it was my little cat-o’-nine.

I listen to the singing. I watch her shadow through the blue curtain. I could hear the rag slop-slopping as she soap up herself, which mean the licks going soak. How she never see me? Perhaps her eyes was closed.

And the more soap she soaping, and the more sing she singing, the more loud she getting loud—no, it wasn’t just me—and the more loud she getting louder, the more she start to stress the words.

“Booooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn frrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” Like she was chanting. Then after a while she slow it down, and start to overemphasize each word until it don’t sound like a song no more, but like a political speech.

So what a joy it was when I draw the curtain … voom … and she look at me and couldn’t talk.

She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t scream. She open her mouth and cringe but the scream wouldn’t come out, like it frighten too, like it get a glimpse of what going to come.

And I look at her, you know. And I see how she nice and plump and soapy, and I start to imagine all the sounds the strokes going make, and the marks they going leave.

I size up all the juicy parts and then I start to beat.

I brace one foot on the tub, you see. And I grab the shower curtain rail. And when I sure I have a anchor now, I start to put it on. I beat that wretch so much that one time she slip in the tub and I jump in there with her, although the water soaking me and wetting up the floor. And wha’ she do? She kick me—she kick me—and use a dirty word and say she hate me. And is that time now I really put it on.

The boys hear the noise of course and come to watch. And before she plead with me to stop or she apologize, Karen start to tell the boys to go away.

“Stop watching me. I’m naked. I’m naked. Mummy, they’re watching me naked. Tell them I’m too old for them to look at me. Tell them to leave me alone.”

And when she say that now, I put it on some more.

As I paint her body red, I look at her and say, “You think you is a woman in this place?” Whap. “You think you is woman, eh?” Spa-DIE. “What you have to hide?” Whap. “You’re brother.” Whack. “And sister.” Vap. “Same mother.” Zip. “Same father.” Vam. “And further …” Whap. “And further …” Whap. “And further …” Whap. “You’re a child.” Skish. “You’re a child.” Wha-cka-PIE. “You’re a child.” Pie. “You’re still in school. You’re still in school. You’re still in school. What you take this for? You think you’s a woman in this place?” Whappa-pappa-pappa-pappa-PIE!

Finally, she said it: “Sorry, Mummy. Sorry. I won’t pass my place again.”

I’m going to be honest with you. While I was beating her I began to feel a little guilty, but not too much, because I had the conviction that what I was doing was right. Because I knew—and even she told me, more than once, years later—that I was saving her life.

You know where she’d gone that afternoon when I had to wait for her for an hour outside her school? Not to the shopping plazas. Years later, she confessed. To an apartment with an older guy.

Claudia was fooling with the fellow. I forget his name.

He use to own a club in New Kingston, near the Pegasus Hotel, and Claudia inveigle Karen to go with her to meet him on a side street near the school; and up in his apartment she saw him take a spoon he use to wear on a chain around his neck to give Claudia cocaine. I was so naïve about certain things, I didn’t even know they had cocaine in Jamaica those times. After Claudia snort it now, the fellow took her in the bedroom and start to use her as a mattress, and poor Karen was so nervous she start to beat down on the door until the fellow open it, and she see Claudia naked on the bed. Is run she run back to school from New Kingston why she was so sweaty. After she left, Claudia make the fellow drive her back to school and she wait for Karen at the front gate to make her promise she wouldn’t tell nobody. So that is how I saw them coming ’cross the hockey field same time.

Listen, I don’t want to bias you against Claudia deMercardo. Is two sides to every story, but the fact remains she’s not alive to give you her own. I don’t want to get into the why of it. When I ask, I don’t get anything straight. All I know is they found her body tie up in a car trunk in Fort Lauderdale with plenty bullet in her head. Rumor had it some people took her hostage and her boyfriend run away and didn’t pay. That was maybe 1988.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I apologize for going over time, and I know I maybe didn’t do the “how to” aspect very well. But I didn’t want to push it, cause I saw that certain details make you cringe.

However, if you can allow me one more minute, I’d like to leave you with a bit of advice—love your children but don’t let them use that love to rule you. Harden your heart when you have to, and put it on. They strong, you know. You ever see them on the playground yet? Jumping and rolling and all o’ that?

In Jamaica we say that puss and dog don’t have the same luck. I can’t tell you what will work for you. But I can testify about what work for me.

Listen. Let me tell you something. You think I had any real trouble with Karen after I straighten her out that night? No sir. You think I had to give her something even close to that again? Not at all. I had to drop a little one slap every now and then, for sure. But nothing big like that.

Children have memory, you know, so whenever I got frustrated with her and the arguing and the stubbornness, I use to make it go and go until it reach a certain point. After that, I just say cool and easy, “Karen, I think you’re overheating. You need to cool off. Go take a shower, nuh.”

After that, let me tell you, she see everything my way.