Stories for Chip (44 page)

“So you see, brother? That's why you must learn the knife. All of us in the hills should carry one. Too many don't. It's such a good thing for you to know,
ermano mio
, so very good. I wish you would consider.”

For love of her, he did consider, and thought again: No.

But they
forced
him to learn to hold the knife,
made
him know where to stick it should pirates come again to Sea-john, should he get snatched up in the rape-and-loot. Papa took his hand and pulled him along to many tedious practices, where you must draw and stab and slash in the same way, over and over. They could
make
him do these things, but they
couldn't
make him remember to carry the knife. Where is your knife? Redamas would shout. Listen to me, boy,
listen
. When the pirates come, they come
all of a sudden.
There will
never
be time to…Savary would shout: Go
right back
to the house and get it now! Every time I see you without your knife, Jahs would shout, I will
always always always
send you back again until you…

With mamans-and-papas, things must always end in tears, there could only be sobbing
.
Batalha would look down at his belt where the sheath was meant to hang, and raise her eyebrow. It made him smile in a guilty way, sick in his belly. But then his sister would only cluck her tongue, shake her head, and let the matter drop. Somehow the fiercest Johnny of Sea-john was the only one who understood him, the softest.

Such a night in the house, sometimes, because of the boatyard, mad hours finishing a yacht for some
fils-de-roi
, or because of the orphanage, ten
abandonini
all come down with stomachache, fifteen boys and girls with grippe, or because of a fire in the hills, or for some bad ruckus on the waterfront, and Papa mustering the militia out. These moments,
quick
, ask whether you could go out nightwalking with Batalha, and more than likely some harried adult hand would wave you off: yes yes yes, boy, but you listen to your sister. On other nights Ma and Ma always said, Papa would say, your sister is thirteen and big and wears her knife, you are small and seven and won't wear yours. No, you
cannot
go roaming in those rough nights on the waterfront, down under the Mother. Stay round here on Dolorosa.

Take my hand. The way down is dark here.

A slender moon, hardly giving them a candle's light: it was the last moon, waning crescent before the new. Stars and planets, and the white parallels of waves breaking over the reefs, distinguished the blackness of sky from sea.
So much
going on over at the bottom of the Mother. Such lights, such crowds and music on the waterfront!

“I
know
the way here, Batalha! They let me go round on Dolorosa!”

“How many brothers do I have? Just one, only
you!
So if you won't mind me, I'm taking you right back to the house. I must keep you safe.”

He took her hand.

On the waterfront were people too poor for soap, who washed only with water, stinky of armpit, ass. Caramel spirits and pineapple juice. The day's catch grilled over the driftwood yield of shipwrecks. “Got that sweet fish, right here! Salt with sailors' tears!”

Everybody not foreign was sugar or beau. Battle scars, sailors in breeches, and those black robes they wore in the Kingdom were mainstays. Johnny men glory-burned, Johnny women with art scars, some just boys and girls, metal hoops piercing their bodies and glinting, not so much older than himself on second look. Men and women of Sea-john dressed the same, in shirts and wraparounds, but here the shirts gaped from neck to navel, showing the soft swells of bosom and belly, smooth panes of chest and youthful abdomen. No need to guess, it showed plain: her waist so small and hips so wide, whose ass was big, some handsome man's excitement. All these wraparounds were just that short and tight. Up and down the cobbles of the Board, out on the beach, down the docks, and all around the many fires, drummers and guitarristas and the world's loveliest people dancing.

“When I'm big, I'm going to come down here
every single night
and dance. I'll be a beau boy and strangers will give me money!”

“No, brother—not that! The best dancers, don't you know they go into one of the top jukes and dance there? Sugarcane, Blue Moon, or the Tropica? Up front of everybody, and the crowd loves them so much that guards must keep them safe? And for the
very
best dancers? Some herald will come over from the Kingdom, all in silk and dripping jewels, to beg the virtuosi out of Sea-john, beg them to come over and dance in the Kingdom. Those dancers make shows for the Court, all the
fils-de-roi
and great ambassadors, the tycoons and courtesans. Johnnys stay up there at Court, sometimes, and take a lover, settling down rich. It's true some boys and girls in the jukes sling booty; but others just dance. So a juke's much better, you see. Ma Jahs knows everybody. Talk to her. She will know somebody to get you into the troupe at a juke.”

“Oh. Why didn't I know these things? About jukes? About the Court?”

“You are young. Why should you know? I didn't know myself at seven. Ask Ma Jahs to take you around the top jukes so you can see them all dance, then pick a troupe you like. The dancers in the jukes are very very good,
ermano mio
. Oh, they can dance! But many of the bailarines are not as good as you.”

“I will do it, Batalha. Just like you said! That sounds
twice as good
as beaux boying here on the waterfront. All I want is to be in a juke and go to Court!”

“Better that way, yes. Then you can dance all you like, they pay you for it, and you don't have to fuck some strange dude every night.

“I'm hungry, do you want one of these too?”

“Yes.”

“Put two on for us,” Batalha said to the man squatting by his grill. She got coins of her own nowadays from Ma Savary, and so had one to give the Johnny fisherman. He ducked out shrimp from his bucket, stabbed them onto a sharp stick, and lay the skewers over golden coals. Turning them once, plucking them up: he dipped them through the bowl of lemony pepper, and passed the skewers to Batalha.

Angry thunder broke over the surf of merry noise. Harshly shouting, some Kingdom man, not far away, wanted to know how all this
nasty Johnny sugar
thought it could just
wave up under
a man's nose and then get
snatched away
. He wasn't having it—
No
!—so just bring that
fat tricky
ass here. Against the hard threats, there rose sweet screams of a pretty boy hindered from flight.

Batalha, already as tall as Papa, had a clear view over the heads of the crowd, to some sight that lit her up with rage. Her hair electrified, blue-white, in a momentary flash. “Fucking
roadboys
!” she said, handing the skewers to him. “Hold mine, brother, and stay right here. Stay
put.
I'll be back in no time.”

Batalha thrust through the crowd and vanished. Someone thin, all musk and funk and black as Papa almost, passed by with a guitarra; and someone else too, more naked, with long, locked hair and skin no darker than palms and soles, like browning butter. Both young bodies tattooed, somehow, in phosphorescence.

Reggaezzi. He'd never seen any before, hardly heard of them. But he knew at once. A boy and a girl. The boy one sat in the sand and tuned his guitarra. The girl one touched her toes, no, she was laying her hands flat to the packed sand and going up in handstand, falling over in bridge, and coming up to stand again. One leg she lifted obtuse the standing, grasped that ankle, and brought up the shin to kiss. In the murk of night, the glowing curlicues on their skin pulsed marine green—
not
tattoos after all, but something—alive? Bright mites, infinitesimal, crept over their skin, either down in it, shining through, or glittering on top in some vexed way impossible to figure out.

“Oh, they're young!” he said. “They don't look much older than my sister.”

Some Johnny in the crowd forming up answered back, “How you don't know, boy? Reggaezzi all die soon. Hardly none make twenty.”

Dressed badly for the brisk waterfront, they wore only shirts and loincloths. The reggaezza had torn off the sleeves of her shirt, and he knew why in the same way no one had ever taught him to breathe: so the line of her beautiful arms showed better.

The boy one began to play.

Strumming in rasjeo so fast and rich that a second player seemed to harmonize with him, even at times a third; and though there was none, a drummer seemed to keep the beat: the reggaezzo struck and tapped the guitarra's inlay of clapwood while he played. He sang too.

The hoarse falsetto lacked the glories of his
guitarrismo
, but that voice was still a marvel of feeling. The song, in the language of the gods, was hard to follow. A mother, no, a great grandmother, had a new baby at her breast. This baby so precious so beautiful but sick and fragile with—time and space? The baby somehow growing older than the mother herself, a great grandmother to her own mother, the world upside down, reversed.
What on earth?
The lyrics fit together so strangely he couldn't make sense of them. But the song was loving as a lullaby and yet
triste
, a lament. The reggaezza danced.

Oh
, she danced.

Oh!

He'd never thought to dance in such a way that a story was told, the lyrics incarnated in a sorrowful play-act that nevertheless rendered respect to every beat and evolution of the music. He could grasp the mothersong better, in heart if not mind, seeing the reggaezza's dance. A small gathering hereabouts was silent, while further off the night disported in revelry and strife. He stood dumb, mouth hanging open, and watched with his whole self. Nothing lasts, and the best must be briefest: so too with this. When the performance ended, the gathering of Johnnys murmured the same word of appreciation. Never more in agreement, he softly chimed in too. For a moment more palm fronds rustled overhead, and breakers rolled, the gulls calling. Then the quiet smaller crowd spoke, laughed, and began dispersing into the greater. The reggaezza, thirsty, plucked a jar of
Sea-john free
right out of the hands of some passerby. Rude!—but the passing Johnny made neither mention nor moan.

The boy one walked up and pointed, saying, “Gimme dat.”

He passed over one of the skewers. The reggaezzo put half the length, three shrimp, into his mouth and drew the stick forth clean, crunching and chewing hungrily. The reggaezzo stank of old sweat and something herbal. He was as crushingly beautiful as Kéké, almost. Green constellations crept across the black sky of him. The reggaezzo spat some shelly wreckage and gobbled the other three shrimp.

“Dat one too!”

“I'm very sorry; I can't. It's my sister's, not mine. Batalha asked me to hold it for her.”

“Aw, ain't you just too posh?” The reggaezzo turned and called the girl. “Hey! Quick, come listen at dis idjit here. Sound
straight off
Dolorosa, dis one!”

The reggaezza came over, thin as a finger and yet strong. Hunger had melted all fat from her, the daily hours of dance showing in the ripple of her thighs and veiny strength of arm.

“Now just tell
huh
what you come dare said to me!”

“Only that I must hold these shrimp for my sister—”

The reggaezza threw back her head, whooping laughter. She said to him, “Little prince-boy, don't you know we could lay duh
worse cuss
on any Johnny won't give food, won't give clothes, or turn away help from us reggaezzi? So you not Johnny den,
ti prince
?”

“I
am
Johnny.” His lips trembled, eyes close to tears, for there was great hot power in her, like the burning sureties of Batalha, like the bright god in Papa.

“Zas!”
said the reggaezza, snapping her fingers. “I could go like
dat
and yo Mamans fall out duh fishing boat tomorrow and shark eat dem up screaming. Zas! and yo Papas slip from high cutting coconut, crack dere heads wide-open so dey drooling stupid forever! Or maybe you hate yo Mamans and yo Papas, and you love yo ownself much better? Den zas!,
ti prince
, and
you—
”

“Here! I didn't know. They never want to tell me anything about reggaezzi. Please, won't you take it now? I love them and Batalha best, but don't curse them. Curse me.”

“See? You just too mean sometime. Duh little boy didn't even know. Now you got him crying and I feel all bad. Johnny boy, you could keep dat fuh y'sistah. Salright, salright—don't cry. Nobody ain't cussing nobody tonight.”

“I thought duh boy was talking back smart. You know I can't stand dat. Some posh asshole. Anyway it's two whole days and no Ladder-to-Heaven. I need some smoke
bad
. I hate dis hunger. I hate how cold duh night feel.
Gimme dat—
I'll eat it!”

He handed over the skewer and the reggaezza crouched down on her haunches, making the same short work of six big shrimp as the boy had. He lifted off his poncho and tucked it warmly round the girl's shoulders, just as though the reggaezza were in creaky old age, not the veriest youth. The boy one squatted down beside and stroked her long matted hair; he said, “Couple more days, duh leaves be all brown and good, and we climb right back up duh Ladder to Heaven. I hate deese days too, but gotta eat
some
time, don't we?”

She looked at the reggaezzo. “You don't hear dat? You don't hear
Song
?”

“No. Where?—Yeah! But where it come from, so soft? I never heard Song dat soft!”

“Him! Duh boy here, dis boy. It's you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, yeah! Because you still too young. But some day you gon' come along with
us
!”