The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (52 page)

I thought Pappy was the most wonderful being on Earth, and maybe in Heaven too.

When I was ten years old, Pappy stop making dolls for me. I don' think was he decide, I think Mammy stop him because she find I was too big for dolls. I didn find so, because I still played with the dolls Pappy had made for me since I was small. They was all pack like slaves on a shelf in mi bedroom. And the Sunday morning
metti limie
did get less frequent, partly because I started going to church with Mammy. It wasn that I get religious, it was that I wanted to wear shoes and a pretty dress. People had already started to comment about how pretty Beneba Cudjoe daughter was. They did especially like mi green eyes. The first Carnival I remember is from when I was ten years old. I must a seen Carnivals from before, though, so I not sure why I remember that particular Carnival, or even if was one or all I running together in mi mind. Maybe before I must a just watch it from the side. Maybe was only from when I was ten that Mammy let me jump in the band. I remember everything. Groups a ten to twenty devils daub with black varnish with red horns on dey heads. Screaming in tune with the beating tin cans as they dance round me. All carrying staffs. In their middle was one man with a chain on he leg. He was daub with light-brown mud and he had on a whiteman mask. He hide he kinky hair with a handkerchief.

It had pirates in full scarlet trowsers and red wool caps, blowing whistles and shouting strange curses, carrying pistols make a wood and real machetes posing as fake swords. It had Red Indians, daubed with red ochre, played by real Amerindians carrying real bows and quivers a arrows. And it had whitemen, always playing
neg jardins
in black masks and black varnish and curly-hair wigs.

Me and Mammy was like tropical birds, dress up in pink silk stockings and bright-red rags with long coloured feathers stick in we head. Mammy wore yellow kid shoes and I was wearing blue.

Drums beat and spoon hit bottle and shak-shaks shook.

The Governor and he wife pass by in a carriage decorated with red ribbons. The horses was wearing paper caps and satin breastcloths. Everyone cheer and clap and whistle. I see the Governor pink sweaty face as he wave and smile.

I saw Punchinello with he chalk-white face and red lips and bells on he hat and shoes. There was Death in his black hood, scythe in hand, face a white-painted skull. For some reason, he make me laugh. I saw the Pierrot Grenade, fool's cap on head, he gown make a blue paper hung with triangles a red and mauve rags, the glenglen hung on each ringing merrily as he danced and cracked he whip. He was a mockery a the Pierrot, whose costume was made a satin and velvet. I listened to he peroration and cover mi ears when he blow he whistle loud loud. I listen to the jingle a the glenglen and I remember the other small bells that the Taino had exchanged for gold, but I didn know how I remember that.

I remember the last character I see that day. Was coming on to dusk and me and Mammy was dragging we dusty selves back home when a man step in front we. I look up at him, puzzled at first, because I couldn tell what he was dress as. He had on a sleeveless brown tunic and copper bands around he forearms. He wore leather sandals with straps up to his knees and a silver spike was hanging from he belt. I thought he was Death or a African god, but I don' know why I should a thought so. The sun was behind him and I squint trying to see his face. I couldn see he eyes.

‘I know you,' I say.

He nod.

‘But I doh know that costume.'

He nod again and put his hand on my shoulder and squeeze it, as though to reassure me that I would one day remember who he was. Then he bow to Mammy and continue walking down the road. Mammy stare after him, then shake sheself, like a dog shaking off rain. She steups and say, ‘More mad people does come out for the Carnival,
oui
...' But I knew she was really steupsing at herself, because Mammy would a normally cuss up anybody who behave like that, let alone touch me. But something about the stranger still she tongue. Later, she ask me where from I know him. But, although I thought and thought, I couldn remember.

I did become a woman when I was fourteen years old. Was in a canefield with a boy name Jonas. He was eighteen years, long and lanky, with eyes like dark pools and soft full lips. His moustache was coming out in tiny curls and he had a dark fuzz beneath he lower lip. His cock was very big. He had been after me for months, and I had enjoyed resisting him. But from the first time I let him kiss me, I know I was going to let him fuck me too. He didn kiss like other boys. Wasn all pressing lip and jamming tongue. He took he time, and he mouth was like butterfly wings on mi face. He didn ever try to feel mi breasts at first. I did respect him for he control, because in all that spooning I could feel how hard he was when I rest mi arm like by accident on he lap.

I didn plan to let him fuck me that day in the canefield. Was around noon, and the sun was high and hot in the sky. The cane arrows was swaying in the breeze like jhouba dancers, and I felt very free. Was just before harvest and the cane stalks were full and tall, like upstanding pricks. I take off mi dress before I lay in the ground, and Jonas take off he shirt and trowsers. His cock fascinated me. I'd never seen one up close. I was surprise how smooth it feel in mi hand, and how big the vein underneath was, and how soft he balls was. When he put it in me was plenty pain, but I grit mi teeth and he push little by little, and he was gritting he teeth too cause I was so tight, and then I feel something tear in mi and he grunt ‘Eh!' and I feel all a he inside me. Stroke in, stroke out. Still some pain, but lessening. Stroke in, stroke out. I just lie there, feeling the rough dirt against mi back. Jonas was deep inside me, filling a space I didn even know I had. And I start to feel something inside me, like glenglen bells jingling. It was like some bells, then more and more. Is like they was all building up to a harmony, but before it could happen Jonas give one deep thrust and a groan and I feel he thing throb and throb and start to lessen inside me. I raise mi hips, groaning miself now but for a different reason, but he pull out a me, dribbling sticky strings on mi thigh.

I lay back on the ground and watch the pale blue sky over me. It just had a few wisp a cloud. Beside me, Jonas breathed deep, satisfy breaths. ‘Tha was real good,' he say.

I didn say anything.

Men could a mock Pappy for being a
mamapoule
man. He didn talk plenty. He use to spend most a he time with he families. He use to sing, make pretty carving, cook. Not that them thing was so womanish, because plenty man had to cook for themself, and woodwork was man work, and everybody like good singers (though only
mait kaisos
was respected ). But, in addition to all that, Pappy didn really drink rum and he didn beat any a he women. He never even beat me – Mammy use to do that. Pappy also didn use to drink rum much. He didn too care for men as liming company, though he get along with them when he working. But some men didn like him for that, they say Joseph Asafo feel he high. But most a them say it behind he back. (I know because some a them chirrun tell me what dey father say about my father.) Pappy was a quiet fella and other men was cautious round him. One time one man, brave with rum, ask Pappy how come he so black and he woman so black but he daughter have eyes so green? Pappy cuff him down one time. That was Pappy. Most times men who looking for a fight use to talk plenty big talk first. Pappy never talk. If he see a man want to play bad, he fling fist one time. After a few such incidents, men learn to leave Pappy alone. It wasn that Pappy win the fight every time. But he get a reputation as a man you doh mess with, though me who know him best know he was the most gentle man in the whole West Indies.

Jonas and me fuck a few times again. But I still couldn see what the fuss was about. Was nice, but so was eating a julie mango and people didn use to get all ecstatic about that. So it occur to me that maybe Jonas wasn doing it right. So, just to find out, I went with a fella name Caesar who had been tracking me for a long time. He was different from Jonas: short and stocky and sixteen years old. His cock wasn as long but was thick. It feel different inside me, and he move different. But the glenglen bells still didn ring before he break. I do it with him twice more, but was the same thing. So I went with a man name Simon. Simon was old, about twenty-five. I figure he might be better because a he experience. And he was. He could a kiss as good as Jonas. He suck mi nipples, and that feel real good. He put two fingers inside mi pussy, and rub mi lil button with he thumb, and that feel really good. When he put he cock in me, he fuck me for a long time and the bells nearly ring. But he stop short and roll off a me breathing hard and sweating like he run a race.

‘
Doux-doux
, you not easy,' he say, like if he paying me a compliment. This time I starting to wonder if something wrong was with me.

Simon for some reason fall in love with me. He didn come by the house because I tell him mi Mammy go cuss him left, right and centre if she see him. But he waylay mi everywhere I go. One day, he and Jonas bounce up. Jonas ask me why I walking with he, and Simon want to know who is that little boy, and Jonas say I is he woman and Simon say he beg to differ, because he use to talk like that sometimes. Jonas watch me and ask if I was horning him and me ent say nothing, which say plenty, and big fight start right there in the middle a the road. Me, I just stand up there with mi mouth hanging open, because I couldn believe big men was fighting over who could fuck me.

Jonas lose the fight, but Simon get some good lash and had to go by the doctor. By the time I reach back home, Mammy already hear all what happen. As soon as I step on the porch, she hold me by mi ear and start to waylay me all over mi body with Pappy leather belt.

‘You have man fighting over you?' Whap, whap. ‘A little pissintail girl like you?' Whap whap. ‘But look at mi crosses!' Whap, whap. ‘Spreading yuh leg for all kind a man when you suppose to be doing yuh work on weekdays and praying to the Lord on Sundays!' Whap, whap.

The neighbours gather and start to laugh. Wasn't the beating I did mind so much as the embarrassment. I didn step out a the house for a week after that. Both Jonas and Simon show up at the house at different times and Mammy chase them off with a cutlass. Mammy wasn easy, nah.

When Pappy come that Friday, she spend whole night telling him

what he daughter was doing. Pappy just listen and didn say anything, and that Sunday he talk to me as normal. He even carve a doll for me, for the first time since I was ten. I start to cry when he start carving and he say, ‘Do not let man take vantage a you, Legba.' And I dry mi eyes and tell him I wouldn't, and I meant it. I keep mi promise. It wasn hard to do, because was only if I had met a man who match up to Pappy that he could a take vantage a me. And that never happen.

Maybe Pappy didn like to fight because he was more Muslim than Creole. Maybe was because he hadn work on the plantation too long before Emancipation come. But fighting was part a life on the island. August 1st every year had Canboulay to mark Emancipation –
Cannes brules
– before freedom come. When fire break out on the estate, horns blow and slaves come out with buckets a water and sand. Mammy say it always turn into a eat-and-drink-and-talk, and that most times if it didn have a fire for the dry season the slaves would a set one.
Metti limie! 
she use to say, laughing. But I didn go out for Canboulay till I was about sixteen, by which time I was liming with mi own friends. From midnight on Sunday the conch shells and cattle horns start to blow, declaring warning and war. Every Canboulay it had stickfight, not like stickfight for Carnival, which use to be between two persons. Nah, this was gang stickfight, because even in slave days the estates use to be rivals. Police use to have to come out most Canboulays to break up the fights, though plenty times police get their share a licks too. Specially if it had plenty Barbadians in the patrol – we didn like Bajans at all at all.

First time I went out for Canboulay I see the Bakers and the Maribones clash. Bakers did wear white and they did rule east Port a Spain. Maribones use to wear burlap. They control from L'Hospice Bridge to Belmont. So naturally I was for them. The dividing line was Henry Street. The two pierrots come out in front and exchange robber talk and crack dey whips. They look gorgeous in dey satin gowns. And the talk! Talk about robber talk!

‘Tremble before me for I am King of all these dominions, Lord of all I survey, the very sky bows down before me and becomes the ground, the ground rises before my thundering step and becomes the sky, all Heaven and Earth turns upside-down before my glorious magnificence!'

‘Be silent, you mocking pretender, for I am Master of masters, Lord of lords, Ruler of rulers! The greatest kings dare not speak my name for my name is so great that their jaws would crack did they dare to speak even its first wonderful syllable. The very universe trembles at my step, the stars themselves wink out in my unmatchable luminescence.'

Then one of them cast aside he whip and pull out a stick and the fighting start. But the pierrots could a afford to talk. Under dey beret, they had on iron pot to prevent busshead, and they sweating like pig because under dey gown they wearing goatskin for padding. That is why when they fall down they could a sing out, ‘
Coule, sang moen ka coule!
' (Flowing, my blood is flowing.) Is only the band members who use to get real damage when the fighting start.

Maribones get beat that time, and I get mi head buss when a bottle come flying through the air. I didn go home for two days. But in less than that mi busshead had heal. You couldn even see a scar. That was when I start to think about becoming a stickfighter.

Mammy use to worry that I was getting wild. ‘I dunno how I raise a Warahoon chile so,' she use to say. Warahoon was Indian from South America who use to come to Trinidad once a year to do some ceremony. We use to see them sometimes when we visit Mammy family in Chaguanas. When I see them in dey loincloth with dey straight, dark hair and shut-in faces, I really did feel like I was more related to them than mi own cousins. But I couldn explain that to Mammy. After all, I didn understand it miself.