Kerry Young - Pao

A week or so after that I go visit Margaret Morrison and the baby. I take some peanut brittle for her and a little shirt and pants thing for the baby that far too big for him but Margaret say is OK he will grow into it.

Well, Mrs Morrison right. You can’t tell from looking at him that his mother Chinese. Baby John look just like a regular big-frame baby white boy. Funny thing is he even got a full head of ginger hair just like George. If you didn’t know no better you would even think that George Morrison him papa.

Margaret entertain me royal with tea and shortbread biscuits. She so happy with the baby she can’t thank me enough. She say it change her whole life. She say it give her life meaning. She say every day she thank the Lord that He bring baby John to her. She say she and George happier than they ever been their whole lives. I never hear anybody carry on so much over a pickney. I feel like I want to say to her, ‘Is just a baby, you know, Margaret,’ but I don’t say nothing because it would hurt her feelings, and I don’t mean to do that.

Then she turn to face me, and she turn her whole body right ’round so she looking at me square and direct.

And she say to me, ‘I would like to ask something of you. You don’t have to give me your answer straight away, but I would like it if you would at least consider it. I beg you, just think about it before you respond.’

I can’t imagine what she going say to me.

But then she say, ‘George and I would like to ask you to be John’s godfather.’

Well, you could have knock me down with a feather. ‘Margaret, I honoured that you ask me, but ’

She put her finger to her lip like to say shhh, and then she say, ‘Take some time to think about it. Please. It would mean such a lot to us and I don’t want the decision to be hasty. Please just think about it.’

Next time I see George I tell him he got to talk Margaret out of it.

‘I can’t be no baby godfather. All the things you and me do together and then I going stand up in church and say what?’

‘I have spoken to her about it repeatedly, but Margaret has her heart set on this. I don’t know what else to say to you, Pao.’

‘Is not me you need talk to. Is her.’

But Morrison not paying me no mind. It seem like he actually want me to be the baby godfather as well. He just prefer to lay the whole thing on Margaret like it her idea alone. This is what I guess anyway after him say to me, ‘You talk about the things we have done together and what of it? Wasn’t it kindness that you showed to Merleen Chin, and the waitress from Club Havana, and even Meacham’s daughter? You care for your children and Zhang and your mother. Even the girls in East Kingston tell me how lucky they feel with you looking out for them. Anyway, we don’t know anyone who would make a better godfather for John, because in a way you are the person who gave him life. So who better to help him understand how to live it?’

I reckon all this talking with Margaret make Morrison done lose his mind, so I just shrug my shoulders and walk off. I can understand Margaret maybe thinking she doing something good by the child because she dunno nothing. But Morrison should know better. Maybe he just forget what we been doing. Like every now and again he forget he not supposed to be drinking liquor.

Father Michael think maybe the godfather thing OK if I ask God for forgiveness and go to confession and Holy Communion and I say, ‘No, man. We already been through all of this.’

‘Then why don’t you just say no?’ That stop me dead in my tracks.

‘I think you need to face it, Pao, there is something that the Lord is trying to make out of you. Some lesson He wants you to learn. Some corner He wants you to turn. Maybe you just need to let Him do His work with you as He is doing with Karl and Mui.’

So right then I see in his face for the first time ever that maybe he think he make a mistake.

‘What you mean, Karl and Mui?’

He take a deep breath. ‘Both Karl and Mui have been baptised and received their First Holy communion. Karl attends Mass regularly with Fay, and Mui also attends during the time that she spends with me.’

I just look at him in complete disbelief. ‘And this is what you been doing with her all this time she coming here and I think you taking an interest in the child?’

‘I am taking an interest in her. Mui belongs to a group of young people who are studying the Catechism in preparation for their Confirmation.’

Well right then I feel like just swinging my arm and boxing him. I can’t believe how he betray my trust like this.

‘And you never think, in all the time that you and me spend together, you never think that maybe you mention any of this to me?’

‘Mui asked me not to.’

‘Mui asked you not to? Mui is a child. You and me are grown men. Is you and me should be talking to one another not just you go talking to some child.’

I can hear myself now and I can hear how much I shouting. Michael just stand there, calm in him little space that always surround him. He just stand there with him hands clasp in front of him.

Then after some long time him say to me in that still voice he got, ‘I know you think that you are a bad person. But in this life good and evil are not always as clearly delineated as you think. Good people sometimes commit bad deeds. And bad consequences are sometimes unintended or unforeseen. Virtue does not reside in particular actions. It resides in the settled moral state of the individual.’ Then he stop and draw breath and say, ‘One thing I do know is that you can never come too late to redemption.’

I just walk out his room and slam his little door.

When I ask Mui ’bout it she say it true. She ask Father Michael not to tell me because she know it only make me vex and she really want carry on with it. She really like Father Michael, and then she say to me, ‘And Papa, there is really a lot to learn, you know.’

So right in the middle of all of us sitting there in the shop counting the money from the weekly pick-up, I got Samuels giving me some long political speech ’bout how bad everything getting in West Kingston. All ’bout unemployment and poverty; and how the people losing hope; and how they running outta patience; and how it all going lead to open warfare in the streets. And him telling me all of this as if I can’t see for myself how West Kingston busy dividing itself up. Like everybody don’t know that Trench Town belong to the People’s National Party and the Labour Party got Tivoli Gardens, and how all the rest of them fall. Every little township lining up to face off with next door, and this is Samuels’s explanation for why, even after I already tell him to stop it, he still busy selling guns in Chinatown.

So I say to him, ‘I tell you this before, and I going tell you again. West Kingston is West Kingston, and this is Chinatown.’

‘Yu nuh see what happen with the Chinese riots already?’

Well now this just make everybody stop. And them all turn ’round and look at me because they know how vex it make me the way people like to talk ’bout the Chinese riots . So I say to him, ‘Don’t say nothing to me ’bout no Chinese riot. There was no Chinese rioting. It was the Chinese that was catching hell, and Chinese shops burned and homes vandalise, and people harassed in the street.’

‘That is what I mean. The Chinaman got to protect himself.’

So right then I just jump outta my seat and grab Samuels in the collar with my left hand and make like a two-finger gun with my right hand and stick it in his temple and shout, ‘POW, POW.’ Real loud.

And then I sit down and I say to him, ‘How you like that for this Chinaman protecting himself? I expect one of your.365 Magnum sound a bit louder than that.’ But Samuels not paying me no mind, so I just say to him, ‘I don’t want you selling no more of Louis DeFreitas’s guns in Chinatown, you hear me?’