Oonya Kempadoo - All Decent Animals

“Um humn!” Fraser breathes out and pulls himself up suddenly. “I missed the ending? Sorry—” A disappointing miracle.

“Well, that aside, the slaughter of Indians that went on and torture, plagues … My point is…”

He’s lost it by now, surely. Fraser’s eyes close but he can see Father McBarnette feeling around in the warm room.

“They even t’ief slaves from other islands and sold them here. My point is that, yes, we have a unique history of corruption. But out of that history also comes a ground that was and still is creative, among other things, and genius. Even in the architecture of the church.”

Fraser’s eyes open.

“Yes, I have taken over the research on architecture of the church in Trinidad that you started. I know now that Amerindian ajoupa building design remains in some of the churches of Trinidad. Philip Reinagle — the two cathedrals here that blend Romanesque and Gothic forms. We shall live up to them. You know I used to question the links and facets you dug up — black history, influences. But I will continue them. You have inspired me.”

“Me?” Fraser suddenly feels humble, small as a child in a huge bed, with a feared parent standing over him. A parent whose kind words he always waited for, now given but still without a hug. He wants to hug Father now but holds back. Just as his own father held back from hugging his little boy.

“Father, thank you…”

“No, thank you , Fraser. I will ensure that your church is built in Maloney. In the way you designed it. And I will give a sermon one day in its pulpit, or many, passing on its messages to the next generation. Thank you .”

Fraser folds silently into tears, ashamed of his overwhelming gratitude. Father McBarnette excuses himself, offering “a chance to rest,” squeezes his hand, and steps away.

* * *

“In Maloney, t’ings don’ happen so. Is murder still. But not so.” Sam’s bestest friend thinks he consoling him. Sam had come to see him but wouldn’t sit still. His friend thinks that when a person grieving, they should stay quiet and in one place.

Sammy look down from the small balcony of Mano’ mom’s apartment. A Nido milk tin, full of Mano’s cigarette butts, resting on a pile of old newspapers in the corner. That’s a lot’a nasty cigarettes. He look at the facing row of project buildings — no less depressing than the tin of butts. Sammy shifts against the rail and peer down to the shaded yard. “What you keeping dem stinking t’ings there for? It ain’ making no difference if you throw them down there.” He slide back closer to the ashtray, he flick through the corner of the newspaper pile, just enough to see the types— Guardian, Express, Newsday , one’r two Bomb. “Tha’s good yuh Queen like to read them, mines don’t. She say them headlines does make she sick and aggravated.” He sit back down in the one plastic chair and lean forward, inspecting the legs.

“Is I does read them, breds.”

“Eh heh?” Sam get up again. “But dat is a fire trap right there.”

“Why you don’ take some ress? Settle. You only moving up and down, driving all over de place — that ain’ go help.”

“These t’ings does attrac’ rats too — old newspaper. You shouldn’ keep them pack up so.” He stare down, over the rail. The yard might be cooler, even though it uglier and full’a litter. No gang fellas liming by the old car, just right now. “Leh we go down there, nuh?”

Mano steups and start heading inside. Sammy follow him out the front door and down the tenement steps. “A fella had get kill right at the bottom here. Rememba dat? That is what I was telling you — is a different kind’a murder here. Black people don’ kill-up theyself just so. Not they family. Hardly, compare to Indians. But is same difference, they kill one another. Children does get kill too, sometimes. It don’ make sense. But is all about.”

“I feel to drive,” Sammy say, as they step past the bottom stairs.

“Rich or poor, everybody feeling it.”

Outside the breezeblock stairwell, the yard depressing in true. “Leh we take a drive.” Sam fish out his keys and start heading out.

Mano hesitate a second, then follow. He not sure ’bout this restless business. Supposing Sammy start to speed in a rage, and kill them both? He skip faster to catch up with his friend. “Awright. We could go by the river up in Saint Ann’s, and chill out. It go be nice and quiet there.”

“I just need to drive. I feel I go start back work, instead’a wasting gas. Eh heh. It better so. I go see yuh.”

* * *

“Donkey WHAT?”

“Rally.”

“Rally who ? I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Is this some sort of crude joke? Are youall conspiring to push me to the point of NO RETURN?” Slinger’s whole head is red, and when he shouts the “no return” his voice drops down in his stomach to sound like he’s dying, with his mouth horribly open. “All these years. All these painful, heartbreaking, wrenching, yes wrenching, ’cause youall drain every little, last drop of energy and creativity out of me. And sanity! That, that is sucked like an oyster out of its shell, leaving me, ME, empty! Completely and utterly empty. And devastated. Every year. Every goddamned year…”

The group of performers, King, and Queen, are not surprised. They wait.

“Then allyou want to call me CRAZY? Mad ? I know what is said behind my back—‘Slinger this, Slinger that’—but this is insanity! Who could’ve thought — no, I don’t want to know whose brilliant idea this is because all’a youall are damn jackasses — who could’ve entertained the idea that I would, for a split second, be open to such ludicrousy?”

From anger to the point of tears and now they watch the corners of his mouth twitching intently.

Slinger stares back at them.

Will he laugh, will he cry? Does he want them to say something? They all hate when he does this, it out-tricks and makes them feel like the dumb pretending to be bright, when they know they are bright and normal.

The sounds coming from him are laughter. They aren’t taking any chances, though, that could make it worse. They wait. The sounds carry on inside him but his face remains the same. Maybe it even looks like pain … getting worse. Maybe he’s having a heart attack? Anything is possible.

He coughs. And chokes. Bends his head, holding his chest.

But before anybody can rush to him, Queen recognizes the shuddering of his shoulders and starts to laugh. She laughs her big ha-ha I-know-de-joke laugh, so all can get the message clear. By the time Slinger straightens up and raises his head howling at the ceiling, everyone is laughing, even King.

They laugh insincerely at first, guarded, because you can never be sure with Slinger. Then, like the good actors he has taught them to be, they get into it, feeling it belly-deep bubbling up, cracking open throat-holes, flaring nose-holes. They collapse on each other, on the floor, doing a good laugh — the biggest joke. They sweat and cry and dribble that joke while Slinger braces himself, doubled over on the manager’s arm.

“This is the joke of my lifetime! Really. Allyou too funny, too … ach!” He starts again like a sneeze. And they can’t stop, not until he’s well finished and sobered up. They must outdo him at it, show him.

The old wire-bender, sitting on his crates in the corner all this time, watches the jackasses. When the lovely cleared silence returns, uninterrupted by a snort or a “O Goood,” he sighs “Amen.”

God of Design echoes it without missing a beat. Says it again. “Amen. Ah-men. That’s it! Yes, Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Good God, that’s it — Amen!”