Rough Cut

By Felix F. Bethel

The Bahama Journal

Nassau, Bahamas:

On occasion, you come across people who know a lot about some of the people you know and who – were they to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – could also tell you some truths that are intrinsic to that specific human person you just so happen to be in this place and in this dread time.

Some of them know you from that moment that would have come in the almost-immediate aftermath of your genesis-instant; and so it seemed to me just last Saturday as I visited with some friends; men and women and their brood; some of whom  grew up Out East– as I did-  in the long ago years.

And so, we chatted and we talked and we remembered; and as memory’s river broke its banks, together we remembered some of the folks who lived in Free Town in the long years.

And as we remembered this or that neighborhood character, we remembered a couple that must have thought they were some kind of cruel caricature of Romeo and Juliet.

That couple was the brutalized coupling that was made – for better and worse – by Rowena and Orman; with each giving as good or better than the other when it came to squabbling, fighting, cussing each other out, hurting and thereafter loving each other as if each was –to all appearances- devilishly made for the other.

At the end of it all; these two fighters and lovers found themselves masked for life with this or that emblem of struggle and wound etched precisely where fist or blade could reach.

Things became terrifyingly bad for Orman when someone or the other armed with new knowledge about men who batter women tried to persuade Rowena that she should press charges.

That fine social worker almost succeeded.

But I can tell you that – since love is truly strange- Rowena did not press charges against him and neither did Orman return the pleasure.

Each in their way decided to leave the matter where it belonged; that is to say, at the foot of the cross.

And since, all is still well that ends well, I can tell you – again according to my last week’s informant, both Orman and Rowena lived long enough and hard enough and sincerely enough with each other for each to find a way to the foot of that old rugged cross.

Clearly, then, love is as strange today as it was in those days when Orman and Rowena tortured and loved each other as if they were the Devil’s own agents.

Today cruelty is now writ far larger.

Here I can tell you that, just the other day, I lived in a world that was sometimes raw; often offensively stupid; and for sure, I can – with the help of some good friends of mine- remind you that world that housed me and would have [had I let it] imprisoned my soul] is progenitor to these hard times when no day passes when this or that fellow Bahamian comes across a fate that would have him or her left eviscerated.

On occasion, guts are also spilled when a dispute between a woman and a man reaches that point – where for lack of the right words – one or the other reaches for and finds just the right tool that would do the job of bringing an end to this or that mind-numbing palaver.

What I’m trying to say is that, with all the talk in the air about the White Man and Cable and Wireless and as to how Tommy Turnquest is deeply offended by any talk that dares reference the White Man and his money and what he proposes to do with his money; what I am trying to think about this and the General Strike and all that other stuff has to do with the escalating price of sardines and evaporated milk and coffee and a piece of goat-meat or a mess of marinated sheep tongues.

This is the kind of stuff that worries me in times like these.

I am also worried silly about this or that child of mine who has gone into this or that far country; and here please believe me when I tell you that I now live and breathe in that space where I am obliged to believe that no news from them is tantamount to good news from them.

And so, the beat goes on for me in this now dread place – a place where dread was quite real when I grew up young and green in the long ago years; that is to say, when I grew up –as it were- at the cross roads – that space where Lyon Road kissed Shirley Street just there where the kissing was sweetest; that is to say, Lyon Road and Shirley Street met at that point where Garden Well Corner could and also did look on to all that was happening right there in the spot where three roads and a whole pile of life in its squalor and in its beauty routinely collided.

But most of all, I remember those days for what seemed the uttermost expression of both cruelty and love as interpreted by this or that coupling of humanity as in “…male and female, created He them…”

And so, He created Rowena and Orman; and here I also remember that wonderful strangeness in that little community in Free Town where this or that human coupling was made up of either two men or two women; and as to what that was all about almost always came with whispers and sighs from adults who seemed to whisper and sigh whenever this or that precocious one just so happened to be listening in as they whispered and sighed about something they called abominations.

But once the whispers and sighs had ended, those fine folks got back to their own business; that being all those chores associated with breeding their brood, feeding their children and doing as they described it –as their endeavour-best- to keep Red Stripe from their door.

Here –obviously- the viciousness to which I refer as coming from that long ago time in the long ago years had to do with how your face would feel in the immediate aftermath of a slow-motion open-palmed bitch blow from this or that man who knew precisely what it meant when he was called the Law.

Now when the slap did not do the trick, there was always available a stout club – the so-called billy- that could and did put many an angry man to instant sleep once it was aimed properly and used as it was intended.

Indeed, that was then when bad men could be subdued by other bad men; but then and there, I tell you that – even from a child’s perspective – this seemed fair enough – this due to the fact that many a brute who would slap and cuff and kick this or that British colonial subject could and did – from time to time- find himself on the receiving end of a well-aimed conch shell.

But fast forward to the present; now, the man in the dark or on the park in the morning can find himself quite dead after having been mistaken for a real man with a shiny object in his hand; and who in the immediate aftermath of that encounter finds himself stretched out in the morgue – stone- cold and quite dead.

That he was waving a spatula amounts to quite frankly a big nothing; precisely because in the split second available to an itchy finger on a greasy trigger – the police officer apprehended that his life was on the line.

Blam!

And thereafter left to mourn and some stuff about meeting you in the morning just inside the eastern gate.

That is how it goes today.

Blam! gadjammit.

December 16, 2010

The Bahama Journal

Caribbean Blog International