V. Naipaul - Collected Short Fiction

He looked up at the screen and said in a frightening friendly way, ‘Talk.’

We didn’t say a word for the rest of the film.

Afterwards Hat said, ‘You does only get policeman son behaving in that way. Policeman son and priest son.’

Boyee said, ‘You mean Big Foot is priest son?’

Hat said, ‘You too stupid. Priests and them does have children?’

We heard a lot about Big Foot’s father from Hat. It seemed he was as much a terror as Big Foot. Sometimes when Boyee and Errol and I were comparing notes about beatings, Boyee said, ‘The blows we get is nothing to what Big Foot uses to get from his father. That is how he get so big, you know. I meet a boy from Belmont the other day in the savannah, and this boy tell me that blows does make you grow.’

Errol said, ‘You is a blasted fool, man. How you does let people give you stupidness like that?’

And once Hat said, ‘Every day Big Foot father, the policeman, giving Big Foot blows. Like medicine. Three times a day after meals. And hear Big Foot talk afterwards. He used to say, “When I get big and have children, I go beat them, beat them.” ’

I didn’t say it then, because I was ashamed; but I had often felt the same way when my mother beat me.

I asked Hat, ‘And Big Foot mother? She used to beat him too?’

Hat, said, ‘Oh, God! That woulda kill him. Big Foot didn’t have any mother. His father didn’t married, thank God.’

The Americans were crawling all over Port of Spain in those days, making the city really hot. Children didn’t take long to find out that they were easy people, always ready to give with both hands. Hat began working a small racket. He had five of us going all over the district begging for chewing gum and chocolate. For every packet of chewing gum we gave him we got a cent. Sometimes I made as much as twelve cents in a day. Some boy told me later that Hat was selling the chewing gum for six cents a packet, but I didn’t believe it.

One afternoon, standing on the pavement outside my house, I saw an American soldier down the street, coming towards me. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon, very hot, and the street was practically empty.

The American behaved in a very surprising way when I sprinted down to ask, ‘Got any gum, Joe?’

He mumbled something about begging kids and I think he was going to slap me or cuff me. He wasn’t very big, but I was afraid. I think he was drunk.

He set his mouth.

A gruff voice said, ‘Look, leave the boy alone, you hear.’

It was Big Foot.

Not another word was said. The American, suddenly humble, walked away, making a great pretence of not being in a hurry.

Big Foot didn’t even look at me.

I never said again, ‘Got any gum, Joe?’

Yet this did not make me like Big Foot. I was, I believe, a little more afraid of him.

I told Hat about the American and Big Foot.

Hat said, ‘All the Americans not like that. You can’t throw away twelve cents a day like that.’

But I refused to beg any more.

I said, ‘If it wasn’t for Big Foot, the man woulda kill me.’

Hat said, ‘You know, is a good thing Big Foot father dead before Big Foot really get big.’

I said, ‘What happen to Big Foot father, then?’

Hat said, ‘You ain’t hear? It was a famous thing. A crowd of black people beat him up and kill him in 1937 when they was having the riots in the oilfields. Big Foot father was playing hero, just like Big Foot playing hero now.’

I said, ‘Hat, why you don’t like Big Foot?’

Hat said, ‘I ain’t have anything against him.’

I said, ‘Why you fraid him so, then?’

Hat said, ‘Ain’t you fraid him too?’

I nodded. ‘But I feel you do him something and you worried.’

Hat said, ‘Nothing really. It just funny. The rest of we boys use to give Big Foot hell too. He was thin thin when he was small, you know, and we use to have a helluva time chasing him all over the place. He couldn’t run at all.’

I felt sorry for Big Foot.

I said, ‘How that funny?’

Hat said, ‘You go hear. You know the upshot? Big Foot come the best runner out of all of we. In the school sports he run the hundred yards in ten point four seconds. That is what they say, but you know how Trinidad people can’t count time. Anyway, then we all want to come friendly with him. But he don’t want we at all at all.’

And I wondered then why Big Foot held himself back from beating Hat and the rest of the people who had bullied him when he was a boy.

But still I didn’t like him.

Big Foot became a carpenter for a while, and actually built two or three enormous wardrobes, rough, ugly things. But he sold them. And then he became a mason. There is no stupid pride among Trinidad craftsmen. No one is a specialist.

He came to our yard one day to do a job.

I stood by and watched him. I didn’t speak to him, and he didn’t speak to me. I noticed that he used his feet as a trowel. He mumbled, ‘Is hard work, bending down all the time.’

He did the job well enough. His feet were not big for nothing.

About four o’clock he knocked off, and spoke to me.

He said, ‘Boy, let we go for a walk. I hot and I want to cool off.’

I didn’t want to go, but I felt I had to.

We went to the sea-wall at Docksite and watched the sea. Soon it began to grow dark. The lights came on in the harbour. The world seemed very big, dark, and silent. We stood up without speaking a word.

Then a sudden sharp yap very near us tore the silence. The suddenness and strangeness of the noise paralysed me for a moment.

It was only a dog; a small white and black dog with large flapping ears. It was dripping wet, and was wagging its tail out of pure friendliness.

I said, ‘Come, boy,’ and the dog shook off the water from its coat on me and then jumped all over me, yapping and squirming.

I had forgotten Big Foot, and when I looked for him I saw him about twenty yards away running for all he was worth.

I shouted, ‘Is all right, Big Foot.’

But he stopped before he heard my shout.

He cried out loudly, ‘Oh God, I dead, I dead. A big big bottle cut up my foot.’

I and the dog ran to him.

But when the dog came to him he seemed to forget his foot which was bleeding badly. He began hugging and stroking the wet dog, and laughing in a crazy way.

He had cut his foot very badly, and next day I saw it wrapped up. He couldn’t come to finish the work he had begun in our yard.

I felt I knew more about Big Foot than any man in Miguel Street, and I was afraid that I knew so much. I felt like one of those small men in gangster films who know too much and get killed.

And thereafter I was always conscious that Big Foot knew what I was thinking. I felt his fear that I would tell.

But although I was bursting with Big Foot’s secret I told no one. I would have liked to reassure him but there was no means.

His presence in the street became something that haunted me. And it was all I could do to stop myself telling Hat, ‘I not fraid of Big Foot. I don’t know why you fraid him so.’

Errol, Boyee, and myself sat on the pavement discussing the war.

Errol said, ‘If they just make Lord Anthony Eden Prime Minister, we go beat up the Germans and them bad bad.’

Boyee said, ‘What Lord Eden go do so?’

Errol just haaed, in a very knowing way.

I said, ‘Yes, I always think that if they make Lord Anthony Eden Prime Minister, the war go end quick quick.’

Boyee said, ‘You people just don’t know the Germans. The Germans strong like hell, you know. A boy was telling me that these Germans and them could eat a nail with their teeth alone.’

Errol said, ‘But we have Americans on we side now.’