V. Naipaul - Miguel Street

It was easy to recognise the detectives. They were wearing a sort of plain-clothes uniform-brown hats, white shirts, and brown trousers. They were writing in big notebooks with red pencils.

And Eddoes didn’t look scared!

We all knew that Eddoes wasn’t a man to be played with.

You couldn’t blame Eddoes then for being proud.

One day Eddoes brought home a pair of shoes and showed it to us in a quiet way, as though he wasn’t really interested whether we looked at the shoes or not.

He said, brushing his teeth, and looking away from us, ‘Got these shoes today from the labasse , the dump, you know. They was just lying there and I pick them up.’

We whistled. The shoes were practically new.

‘The things people does throw away,’ Eddoes said.

And he added, ‘This is a helluva sort of job, you know. You could get anything if you really look. I know a man who get a whole bed the other day. And when I was picking up some rubbish from St Clair the other day this stupid woman rush out, begging me to come inside. She say she was going to give me a radio.’

Boyee said, ‘You mean these rich people does just throw away things like that?’

Eddoes laughed and looked away, pitying our simplicity.

The news about Eddoes and the shoes travelled round the street pretty quickly. My mother was annoyed. She said, ‘You see what sort of thing life is. Here I is, working my finger to the bone. Nobody flinging me a pair of shoes just like that, you know. And there you got that thin-arse little man, doing next to nothing, and look at all the things he does get.’

Eddoes presently began getting more things. He brought home a bedstead, he brought home dozens of cups and saucers only slightly cracked, lengths and lengths of wood, all sorts of bolts and screws, and sometimes even money.

Eddoes said, ‘I was talking to one of the old boys today. He tell me the thing is to never throw away shoes. Always look in shoes that people throw away, and you go find all sort of thing.’

The time came when we couldn’t say if Eddoes was prouder of his job or of his collection of junk.

He spent half an hour a day unloading the junk from his cart.

And if anybody wanted a few nails, or a little piece of corrugated iron, the first person they asked was Eddoes.

He made a tremendous fuss when people asked him, though I feel he was pleased.

He would say, ‘I working hard all day, getting all these materials and them, and people think they could just come running over and say, “Give me this, give me that.” ’

In time, the street referred to Eddoes’s collection of junk as Eddoes’s ‘materials.’

One day, after he opened his school, Titus Hoyt was telling us that he had to spend a lot of money to buy books.

He said, ‘It go cost me at least sixty dollars.’

Eddoes asked, ‘How much book you getting for that?’

Titus Hoyt said, ‘Oh, about seven or eight.’

Eddoes laughed in a scornful way.

Eddoes said, ‘I could get a whole handful for you for about twelve cents. Why you want to go and spend so much money on eight books for?’

Eddoes sold a lot of books.

Hat bought twenty cents’ worth of book.

It just shows how Titus Hoyt was making everybody educated.

And there was this business about pictures.

Eddoes said one day, ‘Today I pick up two nice pictures, two nice nice sceneries, done frame and everything.’

I went home and I said, ‘Ma, Eddoes say he go sell us some sceneries for twelve cents.’

My mother behaved in an unexpected way.

She wiped her hand on her dress and came outside.

Eddoes brought the sceneries over. He said, ‘The glass a little dirty, but you could always clean that. But they is nice sceneries.’

They were engravings of ships in stormy seas. I could see my mother almost ready to cry from joy. She repeated, ‘I always always want to have some nice sceneries.’ Then, pointing at me, she said to Eddoes, ‘This boy father was always painting sceneries, you know.’

Eddoes looked properly impressed.

He asked, ‘Sceneries nice as this?’

My mother didn’t reply.

After a little talk my mother paid Eddoes ten cents.

And if Eddoes had something that nobody wanted to buy, he always went to my uncle Bhakcu, who was ready to buy anything.

He used to say, ‘You never know when these things could come in handy.’

Hat began saying, ‘I think all this materials getting on Eddoes mind, you know. It have some men like that.’

I wasn’t worried until Eddoes came to me one day and said, ‘You ever think of collecting old bus ticket?’

The idea had never crossed my mind.

Eddoes said, ‘Look, there’s something for a little boy like you to start with. For every thousand you collect I go give you a penny.’

I said, ‘Why you want bus ticket?’ He laughed as though I were a fool.

I didn’t collect any bus tickets, but I noticed a lot of other boys doing so. Eddoes had told them that for every hundred they collected they got a free ride.

Hat said, ‘Is to start getting worried when he begin collecting pins.’

But something happened that made Eddoes sober as a judge again.

He said one day, ‘I in trouble!’

Hat said, ‘Don’t tell us that is thief you been thiefing all this materials and them?’

Eddoes shook his head.

He said, ‘A girl making baby for me.’

Hat said, ‘You sure is for you?’

Eddoes said, ‘She say so.’

It was hard to see why this should get Eddoes so worried.

Hat said, ‘But don’t be stupid, man. Is the sort of thing that does happen to anybody.’

But Eddoes refused to be consoled.

He collected junk in a listless way.

Then he stopped altogether.

Hat said, ‘Eddoes behaving as though he invent the idea of making baby.’

Hat asked again, ‘You sure this baby is for you, and not for nobody else? It have some woman making a living this way, you know.’

Eddoes said, ‘Is true she have other baby, but I in trouble.’

Hat said, ‘She is like Laura? ’

Eddoes said, ‘Nah, Laura does only have one baby for one man. This girl does have two three.’

Hat said, ‘Look, you mustn’t worry. You don’t know is your baby. Wait and see. Wait and see.’

Eddoes said sadly, ‘She say if I don’t take the baby she go make me lose my job.’

We gasped.

Eddoes said, ‘She know lots of people. She say she go make them take me away from St Clair and put me in Dry River, where the people so damn poor they don’t throw away nothing.’

I said, ‘You mean you not going to find any materials there?’

Eddoes nodded, and we understood.

Hat said, ‘The calypsonian was right, you hear.

Man centipede bad.

Woman centipede more than bad.

I know the sort of woman. She have a lot of baby, take the baby by the fathers, and get the fathers to pay money. By the time she thirty thirty-five, she getting so much money from so much man, and she ain’t got no baby to look after and no responsibility. I know the thing.’

Boyee said, ‘Don’t worry, Eddoes. Wait and see if it is your baby. Wait and see.’

Hat said, ‘Boyee, ain’t you too damn small to be meddling with talk like this?’

The months dragged by.

One day Eddoes announced, ‘She drop the baby yesterday.’

Hat said, ‘Boy or girl?’

‘Girl.’

We felt very sorry for Eddoes.

Hat asked, ‘You think is yours? ’

‘Yes.’

‘You bringing it home?’

‘In about a year or so.’

‘Then you ain’t got nothing now to worry about. If is your child, bring she home, man. And you still going round St Clair, getting your materials.’