Kerry Young - Pao

I look at him and I say, ‘Where you get a thing like that?’

‘I borrowed it from an ex-army friend.’

So I turn to Morrison and I say, ‘So he still have at least one ex-army friend here on the island then.’

But Morrison just want to shush me because he don’t want me getting on the subject ’bout how the English only want to know you when it suit them. Or more like, when they got some little job need doing that they don’t want to soil they little white hands over. Is 1963, we independent, but we still servicing them.

When I open the car door I see the seat got blood all over it, and the steering wheel and the gear-stick as well. Blood all over the interior where she open the car door from the inside to get out. I close the door and I walk back inside, and the two of them follow me. I pick up the telephone and I ring Hampton.

‘Yu need to go get Milton and the two of yu come over here with what yu need to clean up a car.’

‘What! Yu mean right now?’

‘What yu think I ringing yu for this hour of night if I don’t want yu come do this thing right now?’

Then just before I leave the house Meacham say to me, ‘She dropped the knife. Do you think there is much chance that the police will find it?’

‘None at all,’ I say to him. ‘Not that the Jamaican police incompetent or lazy, you understand. But I already got the knife. I pick it up in the car park earlier this evening and I keeping it nice and safe for you.’

By the time I cut ’cross town to the waitress house Clifton Brown already there waiting outside for me in a parked car. When we knock the door a man face appear at a side window and then him come and open up.

‘Is you, Uncle. We ’fraid maybe it be the police.’ And he let us in.

The waitress turn out to be him little sister, a girl of just sixteen. She lock herself in the bathroom she so ’fraid, but when her brother tell her to come out she do it. And just as she pass him by, him reach out and box her, like a slap in the back of her head. But the slap seem to get weaker from when it leave him hand to when it reach her head. Then him sit her down and tell her to tell me what happen. So it seem like him vex with her, but him still care for her and worried for her as well.

‘The white girl been coming down the club all week. And every night she talk to me a little. And I talk back. Then tonight she ask me if I want go sit out in her car with her, where it a bit more quiet and we can talk. And I say alright.’ She stop and she look at me like she wondering if she want to go on. And I look at Clifton because he the one that need encourage her now she on his territory. He the one that need set her mind at ease.

So he say to her, ‘I think we know where you going with this and it alright. Believe me, you in fine company with this.’ Both she and me look at him sorta quizzical, but then she carry on.

‘When my break come, I go out there and one thing and another, and then she say to me if I want get in the back seat of the car with her. She say we can get more comfortable. I don’t know what come over me, I just say yes. We was in there for a while and then the next thing I know there was this banging on the car window and a lot of laughing and hooting. And when I look ’round there was two boys. Just children really. But they acting like they gone mad, screaming and running ’round and banging on the car. I just panic in case all their carry-on attract someone attention. Anyway, before I know what was happening she jump outta the car with this carving knife and was slashing at one of these boys. She was in a frenzy. I never seen nothing like it in my life. It was like she just become a completely different person. And while all this was going on the other boy just stand there staring at her. So I was shouting, ‘Run, run,’ but he didn’t move. It was as if he was glued to the spot and then she swing ’round with the knife and catch him throat. And that was when I run, and come home because I didn’t know where else to go.’

So now me and Clifton both know we got a situation. After all, the perversions of white people is one thing, but Jamaicans doing that sort of nastiness, no. And definitely not a young girl like this. Not in Jamaica. Once she set foot inside that car she become guilty. And judge and jury wouldn’t be too fussy ’bout what them punishing her for.

I say to Clifton, ‘We have to get this girl off the island tonight. Yu going have to take her to Cuba.’

‘Cuba! How me going do that?’

‘Yu have to take a launch, man.’

‘I can’t take out a police launch at four o’clock in the morning for no good reason and take it to Cuba. Yu mad?’

‘Well you of all people, Clifton Brown, I would have thought would understand a situation like this. If this girl stay here tonight she going end up in jail for sure, while her little white girlfriend flying free back to England on the morning breeze. Is that what yu want to happen to her? Look at her, she nothing but a child.’

When I look at him I can see that I got him convinced, so I say, ‘Alright then, but yu going have to keep her somewhere safe tonight and then yu can put her on the morning flight to Miami. All yu need for that is some US identification and a ticket.’

‘What identification? What the hell you talking ’bout?’

‘Passport, man. Driving licence.’

‘And where yu think I going get that?’

‘Is independence weekend! Yu know how many Americans out there right now drinking liquor and living it up. Go arrest somebody and let them cool off in jail while yu take them papers. How come yu can’t ever think nothing for yourself, Clifton?’

Just before him go I tell him to try keep the thing outta the newspapers at least till after the holiday weekend done.

When I go back to Matthews Lane I put the knife in the safe and try get a couple hours sleep before daybreak.

The next morning Meacham come see me on him way to the airport. He park the nasty grey Rover car outside the shop across the street, and I see the girl sitting there like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

Him come in the shop and I say to him, ‘The car clean enough for you?’

And him say, ‘Yes.’ Then him just hand me a envelope and when I look inside it I see it full of US dollars. I half begin to wonder where him get so much money from so fast overnight, especially on a holiday weekend, but then I realise I don’t care. At least he have the good manners this time to put it in a envelope, not like how he just hand me the naked bills when he pay me to get rid of Merleen’s baby.

I think him see himself as paying for a service. And I think him expect me to go give him the knife. But then I start think ’bout how this man going fly outta here and leave me with all his responsibility. I got Merleen Chin and baby John Morrison, and I got Marguerite Lopez, which is what the waitress call after Clifton done sort out the business with the driving licence.

I got all these people to look out for and put through school and everything. So I look at Meacham and I say to him, ‘I was thinking of something regular.’

Clifton do the business with the newspaper thing as well because the story didn’t reach the Gleaner till the Wednesday morning, 7 August. It make page four, squeeze between the Coral Gardens murder case and a hit and run in Savanna-la-Mar. There it was. ‘No clues in stabbing of youths.’

On Friday 2nd August two youths were found stabbed to death in the car park of Club Havana on the Windward Road in Kingston. The youths, Winston Morgan and Aubrey Williams, both aged 13 years old, were from Kingston in the parish of St Andrew. Police have no clues and have yet to arrest anyone in connection with these fatal woundings.