Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

I am digging in her cupboard while she is at her choir meeting. I pass my hands melancholically along the doors’ wooden panels, grieving the house... Gruesome were its stories, lonely were its nights... I imagine toppling Parker from atop the San Fernando Hill, watching him tumbling, tumbling into the city, where he becomes a barely visible dot crashing soundlessly amongst the buildings, disappearing forever.

Parker likes to roost on the unfinished upstairs landing, his face to the moon, his back to the stairs. When overstuffed, when sitting with his legs dangling over the edge, I will approach him. While he gazes at the sky, I will show him what it feels like — what it looks like when the sky is falling. He speaks to God here too, while she prepares the room.

I need to build the courage. Enough force to push him over and enough liquor to ease my fear. If he does not die, he will break his legs. Creaking doors will be replaced by creaking bones. He will only have a glimpse before he falls — the colors of her dress and the scent of her perfume.

These things I have already stolen. They sit beside the tins of tuna in my bedroom closet. She will probably blame the spirits. Insist it was the man on the stairs with the face of the devil.

My palms sweat as I begin to doubt myself. He will be arriving soon. And I will be waiting in the darkness like the many times he has waited for me. I picture him falling like a stone to the earth, the worms chewing through his ears and wriggling in his pockets.

I continue digging through her cupboard and its mess, throwing aside plastic bags and toilet paper rolls. May throws away nothing. Saving for a rainy day, that’s all. I am looking for the Coca-Cola among the groceries May hides in her bedroom. She developed this habit when I was five years old. If I did not do as she said or as well as she expected, I was left without food and given tap water to drink. Sometimes she sold me her wares at half-price — a tin of sausages for two dollars, a pack of maxi-pads for four.

I find a letter to God on her dresser. She writes messages to Him on pieces of paper and drops them into the collection pan circling the pews. While others drop money to purchase a spot in heaven, May tries for free advice. Perusing this letter, I nearly choke on the crumbs at the back of my throat. It is not a letter to God but a letter to Carol, begging her for advice. My mother knows.

She tells Carol I am pregnant, that Parker found my secret writings on pieces of paper inside the box below my bed. She says that I have always been a whore, I have always been unworthy, always been beyond the assistance she has offered me. That Parker spoke to my boyfriend about my scribbled confessions. That my boyfriend left because I had been with someone else. I realize now that May has taken Parker to see the pastor, to cleanse his unapologetic soul of what he has confessed. But May does not write this in her letter. Parker will blame it on the liquor. I will be blamed for leaving doors open.

I am nauseous. The worms are stirring.

I should have known. I have been careless. I should have settled this before it had a chance to grow. I should have settled him before he had a chance to make it happen.

I thought I was dreaming. I stirred slightly to the smell of rum on my lips and a firm grip on my wrists. Then she was there. Had come home early and found us. She beat me till I woke fully. Then she cradled his crying blubber in her steel arms, his jelly skin, his cries for help. Her victim of evil. I was left to clean my own blood. That was the day I began to see roaches, began to smell rum in corners of the house. I thought that I was crazy. That I was just like her...

May used to say that two man-rat can’t live in the same hole. She used to say the same for two women. She fears me now. That I have something inside me she could never give him. I want to leave her. I no longer want to carry her with me, nestled in my underbelly, festering below my skin.

They have returned.

May is in the kitchen singing about Jesus, and the pigeon is upstairs looking at the moon. Creeping in the shadows, I can hear him breathing, murmuring songs from choir practice, and snapping his fingers. The light from the sky glimmers on his forehead and the dust from the walls crawls onto his clothes. May’s dress itches my legs, her perfume smells like stale flowers. I am barefoot and I am armed. Clutching a razor, I hope to hurt him with one swipe.

May says the taller the building, the closer to God. The landing is high enough. If I can catch Parker off-guard and squirming, I can push him without resistance. I hope he topples with his face to the soil. The rum is settling. I feel the dirt between my toes, underneath my nails. Between my fingers. Buried in the ground beneath his swinging feet are shards of glass and bits of galvanized steel. Hidden amongst the splintered wood and bits of concrete scattered in the backyard.

Wisps of melody float from the kitchen window below. “Jesus reigns, Jesus saves... Jesus is there for you always.”

I sneak behind his silhouette propped upright by bulky arms and coarse fingers. My hands shake as I get closer. Doubts swim through my mind. I can’t do this. What if he hears me? What if he grabs me? The wishy-washy feeling of seasickness, the buzzing of rum fluttering through my eyelids is dragging downwards in my throat. If I can do this, I can mute the voice pacing the stairs of my mind at night. I can bury her forever. I hover over the unmoving figure; he does not sense me.

In a flash, I drop forward. I slice his right arm. He jolts upright, gurgling and slobbering. Before he can scream, I kick the back of his neck. There is blood on May’s dress now, red spilling onto yellow printed flowers. Falling to my knees, I slam my body against his back and push, push. He squawks frantically, arms flapping, “Maaaaay! M-m-maaaaaaaaaay.”

“What de ass you making so much noise for, man?” Then, “Jesus Christ, ah coming up now.”

I grow hysterical, my shins grazing the floor until they sting. Only seconds have passed. He turns and is somehow on his feet. He smiles with sick certainty and swings to kick me in the stomach. I skirt backwards on my bottom, wooden splinters scraping my thighs.

“Marie, what you really think you doing?” he asks calmly. Edging closer, he staggers. Enough for me to spring forward. I hear footsteps. Elbows to chest — “What the fuck?” hurling from May’s throat — I push and push. He falls backwards, his head hitting the floor.

May lunges at me. She claws like someone drowning just beneath the surface. Nails scrape through flesh. She draws blood. I feel teeth. And just like that, I fall.

The sky turns for a long time, and I feel a frenzied kicking inside me. Then I lie watching the sky, the frenzy subsiding to a fluttery squirming. I close my eyes as blood fills my mouth, remembering when I called her Mommy, the times I loved her as a child...

Something heavy thuds against my chest. Parker, coughing blood. Everything blurs.

I sense her beside me, hugging his trembling blubber in her plastic arms. I can barely hear her, vaguely bawling, tearing at the flimsy dress with bloodied flowers, a hovering shadow as the black of the night fades to gray. I think she says she loves me.

Maracas

Trinidad never promised me anything. And I never trusted the confused strutting. From the time I came to visit as a shy child and them lovely Maracas waves chewed me up and spat me out — when I saw teenagers dressing like big people, rich homes flashing TV-style; everybody rushing, buying food, driving and eating and drinking, talk flying, pecong — I told myself, Is a place for adults . I promised I would come back. But it never invited me. No, not once. No matter how many times I came. That’s because it’s always busy keeping up with itself, getting on, carrying on at a rate. Horrendous rates. From Piarco Airport to Port-of-Spain, every time, I could see the mess’a the place right there. All along the road, without shame or design. Ignoring my arrival.