I have cheated death.
I have heard it on wires and patches in a distant land. I have seen it pass when all alone in a hospital ward, my family far away and unaware.
But death stalk you. Death is never far away.
During the school holidays we pick up odd jobs here and there to boost the funds. George Watson at Lucas has connections, and now he’s not chasing us off the square on his bicycle or looking to lock us in the changing-rooms he will often hear about a little opening here and there.
He gets a few of us in at the National Stadium, John Murphy and Garrick Grant and me, cleaning up mess. One day, boys, one day. It’s north up Mountain View Road from Rollington Town, past our school gates on the left and then down Arthur Wint Drive, definitely a bus ride for us.
The job’s a bad one and the pay’s worse. At the weekend John Murphy and I tell Garrick we’re not going back on Monday. He wants to buy his first TV, now he’s got a little room of his own, so he says he’s sticking with it whatever.
Garrick’s a good kid, raised on Madison Avenue, the short cul-de-sac that backs on to Lucas from the east side, directly opposite my house on St James Road. The zinc fence at the bottom of his yard doubles as the boundary fence on the outfield. He’s a church-going boy, no bad bone, and everyone likes him.
When we ride the buses, we do something we call bail-off – jumping out of the open door between stops, when we’re passing the spot we want. We’re skill at it, hanging out the front to let someone in, hanging out the door as the jump spot approaches.
So Garrick is going back to work on Monday morning, back to earn the dollars for his first television, and he hangs out the door of the bus, waiting for the spot, and when the spot comes, the bus swings out to overtake, and he bails off.
And the bus swings back in, and Garrick is still there, and then Garrick is under the wheels, Garrick is under the wheels, under the wheels.
And Garrick is gone.
I wanted him to stop that work. The money was small, and his friends were playing at Lucas. I wanted him to be playing cricket with us. We live without televisions. Who can die for one?
Death stalk you.
I want him to be playing with us. Instead, there is a gap in the field and a space in the batting order.
We deal with it like kids do, through fear and tears. No one can catch a bus now. We will walk, even if the hot distance takes us long, long. The memory sits on our shoulders and breathes darkness on our faces.
As we kids in the West Indies team grow into men, you settle into friendships just as at home. Me and Wavell Hinds, the Lucas boy and the Kensington kid, come together under the flag, Marlon Samuels and Ramnaresh Sarwan soon to join us too. All about fun, all about watching out for each other.
When Runako Morton joins the team he is an instant hit. He may be from Nevis and he may have that islander accent but he reminds me of my old Jamaica partner Leon Garrick, a madman to some yet a madman who is crazy for you too. The relationships build, and we bring the best out of each other. No ringleader, just come up with a plan and go. You instinctively know what to say and what not to say. You run jokes. You travel the world, bright-eyed and alive, and you find the good spots and you have good times there in them.
Morton has a reputation. A joker, a clown. He cries when he is out, except the times when he smashes all his kit instead. He is all or nothing, and when he is in the middle he is a stubborn guy. Authority does not sit easily on him.
He is also a serious warrior. You want him on your side. But it is sometimes hard to keep him in the side, because the all-or-nothing messes with his head and takes him to dark places.
In 2001 he is expelled from the St George Cricket Academy in Grenada. They call it ‘disciplinary reasons’; what actually happens is that he’s late arriving, on account of being at his wedding in Barbados, and is found absent without leave, on account of going back to Nevis to see his new wife.
A year on, his aggressive batting winning him a place in the West Indies squad for the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka, he asks to be allowed to fly home because his grandmother has died. Except once he’s left it turns out one of his grandmothers died 16 years ago, and the other one is still walking and talking and pleased to see you.
All that is true. So too is that sometimes we don’t really know what a man is going through. He is married and passionate and all these things are happening around him. He is a troubled man.
And he is also a proper hard-core player. If he respect you and rate you he will have your back like nobody else. He is a friend and warrior and he will not let a friend fall.
When it is just me and him alone, when I become captain, we roll a lot. Just the two of us, our relationship just fantastic. I know I can trust him and I know that trust will be repaid. When Stanford is calling the heavens down during that crazy month in Antigua, Morton is at my side every step.
And yet he’s all or nothing.
In the DLF Cup in Malaysia, playing against Australia, he comes in to face the second ball of the innings after Brett Lee has nailed me down lbw to the first. With 241 needed to win off the rest of the 50 overs, Morton carefully blocks his first ball, then his next, and then his next.
Morton blocks his first 30 balls. On his thirty-first he is lbw to Nathan Bracken for nought. It is the longest duck, in terms of balls faced, in the history of one-day cricket. It takes him almost an hour.
We play Australia again, this time in the Champions Trophy in Mumbai. In the match where I get a little angry at Michael Clarke. Morton saves us with a superb 90 not out, garlanded with a massive straight six back over Glenn McGrath’s head. All or nothing.
He gets criticized for his technique. He gets criticized for the things he has done, and he has done some bad stuff. There is no doubt about it. Bad stuff. When he gets pissed off he can really be up in your face. But he is under a lot of stress, and everyone has their bad times. Everyone has their times when they give it away. Deep in he is a really nice guy; on the field he will do anything for you, no matter how much it hurts him. He just needs an arm and a bond.
One day he calls me, just before I go to play in the South African T20 league for the Dolphins. He calls me and you can hear the pain.
‘Chris, you know if tings okay I wouldn’t come to you. But tings ain’t pretty at home.’
He asks me to lend him some money to see him through. I’m just sorting out a few things for the trip to Durban, give me a few days and I’ll wire it to you.
I am travelling for a couple of days, and it kind of slips my mind to do that for him. And I am sleeping in the hotel, weary from the long ride, and I hear a knock on my hotel door.
Use sleep an’ mark death. Sleep foreshadows death.
Fidel Edwards. And he tells me he’s had a message about a car accident.
‘Morton, man, Morton crash an’ dead.’
‘Fidel, go sleep. Go relax yourself.’
‘Serious Chris.’
‘What yuh mean, crash and dead and what?’
I know from his face. ‘Serious man! Go on your phone . . .’
Straight away to my phone. Straight away to the news. Pictures of Runako, and the letters ‘RIP’.
It’s there, and yet I can’t process it. Morton can’t be dead and gone. I’ve just spoken to him.
I have just failed him.
I had made a promise to him with funds and everything, and I haven’t fulfilled that. Now he passed and gone. The hurt takes over, and breathes darkness on me once again.
I flew two days west and spoke at the funeral. To let the people know he’s a warrior. To tell them that I know the passion he had and the determination and guts that marked his character. To let them know that if I’m to go on the field, I will walk with 10 Runako Mortons. Any time, any day.
During the last Caribbean Premier League I went to visit him in the cemetery in Trinidad. Me, Dwayne Bravo, Sulieman Benn. To the cemetery, to his grave. Sit an’ have a few chat an’ a few drink. He loved his whisky, so I poured a few over there.
When he crashed, I learned from talking to other people, he had a lot on his mind. The way he had been living wasn’t the best. He was under tremendous stress and pressure, and they said he had a few drinks.
You get warnings in life, and the wise man heeds them.
Maybe the Lord took him out of his misery. Maybe the Lord took him away from it all. He couldn’t face what was ahead of him, and the Lord say, ‘Com’ wit’ me.’
His last List ‘A’ match was for Trinidad and Tobago against the Leeward Islands at Port-of-Spain. He and a team-mate were arrested on the evening of day one, on charges that were later dropped. And so, next to his name, on his last scorecard in his last big game, it simply says, ‘absent’.
Gone but not forgotten. You don’t forget men like Runako. Absent, but always with us.
Death stalk you. But don’t fear death.
When things scare me, I remember that hospital ward. Meet darkness with light. Do everything to the fullest. No waiting and wondering, no compromises, no apologies.
Planes scare me. The older I get, the more they scare, and the older I get, the more planes I have to take.
In the sky your heart just go – oh! And with the turbulence and the drops and how does this stay up, sometimes you pray, just land this plane safe. Sometimes you pray, just get me out of this, please . . .
So attack it. Come down the pitch to the fiery bowler. Attack it in different ways: early flight, stay out partying all night and go straight from club to airport, sleep on the plane. Awake on the plane, I’m having a drink for sure. Start in the lounge, take a drink up there. If I’m going down, I’m going like a king. Like a king, sipping on a glass of champagne. If the plane lands and the fear still lingers, you walk out and you kiss the ground, and the first words off your lips are, ‘T’ank Gad! Before I get back on dis plane, I’m partying tonight!’
I fear my body failing.
Fate can have plans to rip yours to pieces. When John Murphy and I are 15, playing Minor Cup, playing Junior Cup, he is at his usual up an ackee tree when he slips jumping at a branch and lands on his right arm. His wrist is dislocated, and the hospital is distant, so another friend just pulls it back in. From that moment he can no longer turn his wrist.
He is a wrist spinner. He was a wrist spinner.
He is forced to switch to pace, and the same magic is not there. His chances slip too, and the dream begins to wither on that tree.
Fate and injuries you cannot control.
Sometimes you’re coming back from an injury, and you get injured straight away again. It happens again, and you wonder how much more you can take. You wonder if it’s the end, even if you are working as hard as you can and following every instruction. I have had sciatica, the deepest nerve pain, and sciatica doesn’t go. You try so many things and so few make any difference. The rest of your body can be in amazing shape, and it doesn’t matter. The sciatica wins.
Losing hurts. I might not show it. You might not see it from me, yet inside it’s burning up.
Don’t get me wrong. You have to lose. But sometime what the critics say after you lose can be harsh and hurt. So you stay away from those things, avoid the newspapers and television, even as my dad Dudley sits in his room in my house and reads all the ones I buy for him and watches it all on the flatscreen I have installed for him. Stay away from those things, because they’re going to trigger you off, and you’re going to be upset.
These days I try to clear my brain of them all. I don’t keep extra baggage these days. I empty my mind.
Some people are lost in the doubt. What if I do this, what if I do that? Some people are lost in the past. Why did that happen? Why x?
It’s ridiculous. There is only one way to be. Do it now. Get on it.
If I’m going down, I’m going down in style. I’m going down blazing. Going down blazing, swinging the bat, swinging the blade.
Even if I’m in the hospital, give me a shot a rum. Gimme a shot a drink, ar-kay? And then say goodbye.
I have to go down in style. I’m not going down blocking. I’m not going down leaving the ball. Who knows if there’s another innings? Who knows if there’s another match?
And when it comes, my funeral is going to be a proper party. My funeral is going to be a big dance. Everybody is dance, everybody is having fun. Gone, but not forgotten. Just know I’m partying with you guys. And I dance, I really dance.
Don’t worry about what might happen. If the ball’s there, hit it.
Don’t worry about the miss. Don’t worry about the edge. Play for the glory. Play for the six.
You can’t die in darkness. You must come into the light.