Massy Sucks December 1
After several years living abroad in alien environments, I have come to seem odd to myself, as if solitude has bred abnormal personality ticks. Or, my many quirks have always been there, and only in isolation are they brought to light. As one example of my weirdness, I do not know how to operate a cellular phone. As another, I have not taken a photograph in over twenty years. As yet another, I have been writing 1.5 pages about my life every damned day for three years. Today I return to the subject of beggars and grocery stores. Weird.
I have not yet been approached for money by the East Indian half of Trinidad. Only the African half answers the call, and it happens on a daily basis. I am the white American in plain view and therefore a potential bonanza. Although I’m not sure this counts as racism, it is most certainly visual profiling. Of course, I feel dehumanized by the experience, but I do try to acknowledge the beggar, and to listen to enough of his sad story to quake. Then I say no.
Armand leans against the Massy rail, as usual. He doesn’t ask me for money anymore, just a banana when I can spare one. Judging from his snaggletooth gingivitic smile, soft foods are probably a good idea. He calls me Papa, though he doesn’t know a thing about my parenthood. All I know about Armand is that he is alone, and he apparently lives outside the Massy grocery store.
Today there are bananas but no cucumbers, coffee but no Cheerios, Doritos but no pretzels. Lettuce has been missing since the October floods destroyed the crop. Peppers and apples and corn are sold shrink-wrapped, from California and other far flung locales. The papaya and bode beans and melons and broccoli are old and desiccated—and this is the local produce! No grapefruits or mandarins today. The closest thing to fresh juice or milk is found at room temperature in cartons labeled Nestle, as if we were living on UN relief. Where is the orange juice? The staff of the Massy collectively shrugs, as the Soca theme worms its way into my agitated brain: “Whoa-ah-oh, Come into Dee Massy for a mun,“ is what it sounds like—however, I am told the Massy chorus is not “for a man“ but “forever,“ which sounds more ominous. Stay here forever? Only if the next tectonic shift is worse.
I may bemoan the relative deprivation of my grocery store, but locals pay no mind. There is plenty enough to eat for those with native skills, while I reach in vain for a used wedding-gift copy of the classic Naparima Girl’s School Cookbook (1912), which features: Limers Corn Soup; Tostones (twice-fried green plantains); Calypso Root Vegetable Casserole, with dasheen, cassava, sweet potato, yam in cheese sauce; Channa, Black Bean, and Pumpkin; Stewed Red Beans; Corn Pie. Everything is here for those recipes.
As for the missing Cheerios, Papa, only a child eats cereal, don’t ya know! What a man needs to eat is in the meat aisle. Chicken feet and black pudding are on sale; the rabbits are scrawny. Frozen coolers contain a hodgepodge mix of heavily packaged imports and bony local cuts of beef and pork. I cannot imagine finding what I’m looking for in this supermarket, but everyone here manages to fill a trolley with goods, if that is the right word for them.
The checkout line is barely moving. The staff is barely moving. Nothing is registering. I have no cereal. Massy sucks. These fig bananas are small and overripe. Yet somehow Armand is not going to be disappointed, and this may be the biggest difference between the beggar and me.