who was a year older than me. Her two oldest children lived there as well, Eatan the oldest and his sister Stacia. Across a little stream in their backyard was my Aunty Misie’s house where she lived with her two daughters and two granddaughters that she cared for after their mother, her daughter, had died. Sandra, her older daughter and her sister Marline both had their houses next door. Marline lived with her two sons Davian and his little brother Bobby.
As kids in Jamaica, we learned to live off the land, survive and make do with what we had. From chasing chickens until they got tired, to climbing trees higher than 8-20 story buildings just for food so we could quiet the stomach from grumbling. In those days, most people did not have jobs; they gathered and grew what they could which was then sold at market. Therefore, the growing of marijuana or “herb or weed” as it is known in Jamaica was a profitable market. Every Saturday morning after watching cartoons, on the six channels and the only color TV on the property I might add, Anthony and I would make our way down to his father’s house where my other two cousins Eatan and Derval would meet us. We would then go to Uncle Lasie’s house where we would bend down and pick the buds off the herb plant for many hours. Our fingers would become tar black from picking at the THC all day, for free I might add, boy, if I only knew. On some Saturdays, we would climb the mountain up the road to meet Tommy at his ganja field, where we would bring back down, in crocus bags, the herb that was harvested. Damn I did a lot for free. When dinner time would come around I was always well fed because I would always eat at Mervin’s, Dervals’, Lasie’s, and at my grandmother’s house. Anthony was always with me, he was like my older brother, but he didn’t eat much, he was always fussy with his food and I would end up eating his too.
Come Monday mornings it was time for school. All the older kids went to Sheffield school by themselves, but I was too young so grandpa took me to and from school on his bicycle until the day I decided I was too old and I wanted to go with my cousins. We would all walk together until we come to the intersection; my school was on the left and my cousins went to the right. After I cried and acted up, Grandpa said he would never take me to school again. Surely enough, he never did take me again and we never spoke about it again. My older cousins would have to walk me to school until I graduated pre-school and started first grade now. Once I got to first grade, my school was a lot closer to my cousins. It was not long after I got to the same school as my cousins, when I realized that maybe I did not want to be here.
See we lived a good 15-20 miles from the school and in Jamaica tardiness is not handled with a pink slip, detention or a grade point deduction. No, at Sheffield when you are late or you broke any rules you are brought out into the courtyard, where you are visible to all the classrooms. Mister Spragga, the principal, would then humiliate you and beat you like a slave at times. One whip, from his thick long and black worn out leather strap, for every minute you are late. Unfortunately for us since we lived so far, we were always late. However, being the youngest my cousins would do their best to push me into the crowd or a classroom whenever they could. I guess they felt they had to look out for me and protect me. However, for those hurtful times that they could not save me, I would be held up in the air by my arms and legs by two of the older boys through instructions of Mister Spragga. I would then be whipped across my back for as long as that punishment took, depending on the extent of what I have done. Yeah, painful! Nevertheless, it was legal in Jamaica. When we weren’t stretch out by our arms and legs, we had to hold our hands out and take the needed amount of strikes for the punishment. I remember dropping my hands with each strike to make the pain easier to bear.
It was in this same painful place where I got my first memory of beauty, one that made me smile and shy up at the same time. Lara; eyes like a pair of fresh sparkling untouched black pearls, a smile that gave life, brown sugar milky complexion, and hair of an Egyptian queen. As far as I could remember Lara was the first girl I ever liked and my first girlfriend, if that is what you want to call it that.
Classes were separated by green chalkboards. Looking from the front, in the middle is the principal’s office, on the right was the 12th, 11th and 10th grade classrooms that were separated by chalkboards with my class, the 2nd and 3rd grade. On the left across from my class is the 4th grade up to the 9th. For lunch, if you don’t have any money you get government cheese and bun with a little box drink. If you have money, you would buy from the stands. We had big family so we only got but so much money for lunch, but I always wanted the better things in life, the things my family didn’t have and couldn’t afford. My family always told me, “Andre your chest too high! You too big chested, you need to learn how to be satisfied with what you have.”
I use to steal shrimp and plums from the vendors. But when I couldn’t steal it a few times I would be so hungry, I picked up people’s leftovers off the ground and washed it off. I was young, hungry and I just want to eat good like the other kids who did. Whenever Anthony, Stacia or any of my older cousins caught me they slapped the life out my hand and mouth and told me, “Andre a wah you a do? That’s nasty don’t ever let me catch you doing that, go wash out your mouth, if you still hungry after your lunch come to me.” I didn’t want to pick food up off the ground but at my young age faced with hunger, I didn’t see a better way. It was hard to be in school all day long and only eat what I had. At lunch, I would chill with my best friend Richie he lived in Springfield, the next town from mine going towards school. We would run through the bushes down the hill by where the older kids had built huts and would be messing with girls. We never really cared if they caught us because my cousin Stacia did not play any shit and would always beat up anyone, boy or girl, who messed with her little cousin.
After school, the journey home was always filled with surprises. Whether it was falling off the bike with Anthony, or falling down a hill after trying to jump onto the moving pickup truck, with my cousins and best friend, only to get bruised up and left behind. Then there were those days we would have to run through bushes and cane fields, because we were being chased for trespassing on someone’s land, trying to take a short cut home, or running from the crazy guy that lived in the cane field by the bridge. There were even days when Eatan would pay Neeka, a very sexually advanced girl from our town, a dollar for Anthony, Derval, Ethan and me to fuck. I was seven years old in the woods, and after Ethan, it was my turn. I remember tipping up on my tippy toes to just rub my dick back and forth on her clit. I was just trying to do what I saw my other cousins do before me.
I will never forget the day I ran from the person whose last name my mother had given me. At the time I was not aware of who he was and never really paid any attention to or thought about my last name and where it came from. See I did not have a father growing up, I just had grandpa and other than him, I would look to Mervin for guidance. So when Mister Moore drove up to me that day, on my way home from school, I ran. Really because I thought he wanted to kidnap me, I never met or saw him before. My older cousins have but I hadn’t so I ran all the way home. Nevertheless, the journey home always had something waiting for you around each corner.
Holidays in Jamaica as long as I could remember came with family fights and arguments. For Christmas, we would put foil paper on a little tree from the backyard at my grandparent’s house for a Christmas tree. I also remember the moments of feeling warmth and comforting love in my heart when my mother would send me stuff. I vividly remember thinking, at those moments, that my mother was the greatest mother in the world and no other kid was luckier. She was so wonderful in my young eyes.
Early 1993 my Grandfather had a stroke. Anthony and I were sitting in the room with him, when out of nowhere after he stood up to walk he just fell. After he came back from the hospital, I remember seeing the fight for life in my grandfather’s eyes. The strongest man I have ever known now depends on other people to survive and take care of himself. It was as if seeing life starting all over. When you’re a baby, you crawl, wear diapers, and depend on others for help. I would sit by his bed and cry at times and he would say, “Andy…,” that’s what he called me, “…a wah you a cry fa? Me going to be all right.” His hearing started to gradually leave him and we would now have to scream for him to hear. Even with all the pain, he was going through, my Grandfather always smiled and laughed as if he had no regrets.
Chapter
