Drive My Car December 16
A stiff westerly blows, stirring aloft the B-52’s of sea birds—Frigates and Corbeaux, the black-headed vultures—spiraling upward in the afternoon thermals. Parrots in pairs congregate among succulent salt grapes, looking greener than green, and squealing like playground children. The curious macaw has been absent for weeks, as has the curious hawksbill turtle, and perhaps even curiosity itself. Maybe this is what the dry season feels like.
There is live Parang music tonight in Port of Spain—at Kaiso Blues Cafe, near the Hyatt, or at Adam Smith Square on Ariapita Ave—but Patsy and Hazel warn against it. The urban folks don’t know real Parang, they say. For the root sound and sentiment, I am told to go into the bush, to interior places like Paramin and Arima and Tunapuna, closer to Spanish, further from Soca.
At least out in the bush I can safely park a vehicle, whereas here, in the congested parishes of Saint James and Woodbrook, parking is a nightmare of threaded needles and choked hourglasses. After dark on a Friday, open space disappears entirely—the parks and sidewalks fill with partiers and things, streets are barricaded without warning, and towing services earn some big bucks. If I ever cannot find my car, I assume that it has been impounded. Without a viable public transportation system, cars are musts, yet driving is nuts, even after mastering the mirror-reality of left-handedness. The city grid was certainly drawn by a rum-soaked, syphilis-addled urban planner, who is about to celebrate his 250th birthday. He may have imagined orderly walking-roads to the water, but his plans have since gone to seed—the capillaries run in all directions—only the Savannah remains as a sturdy point of reference. Tonight overwhelming foot traffic returns to Adam Smith Square, not far from Queen’s Park. If I am fortunate enough to find a spot for my car, I will likely not be able to move it again until morning.
To get a picture of this city, just look at the cars. Many people walk and ride bicycles, per force, and many others drive jalopies, because most people are poor. Then there is another class of riders, those in SUV’s and expensive sedans. The rich are conspicuously over-represented, at least on the road. Most of them may knowingly be tied to money-laundering and, ultimately, to Colombian and Syrian cartels that have been here for decades. With the loss of petroleum dollars, cocaine has become the prime mover of the economy. Those in power benefit from it—parliament, police, judiciary, corporate executives, the prime minister (whose best friends are Syrian millionaires)—while the rest of us suffer the decline of social order.
The uber-rich and the super-poor pay the same regressive flat tax, the Lord’s tithe of around 10%, and, as long as the oil was flowing, no one complained. Potholes were filled, schools were built, social programs flourished. But now, as pensions fail in a faltering economy, and the fruits of unbridled capitalism ripen and bruise, the future is bleak, and the middle class continues to dwindle away. The upwardly mobile have up and moved out. So have the intellectuals and artists and scientists. The middle is gone, and the vacuum is filling with encroaching extremes. Just look at the cars—there are no Subarus or Honda Civics. Only Land Rovers and recycled lemons.
I am informed that a package is waiting for me on the Eastern Main Road, and I am supposed to drive someplace called the Fernandes Compound, in Laventille. All this means is that I have no intention of retrieving my package anytime soon, as Laventille is pitted in gang warfare—Rastafarians against Muslims. Some think of these slums as a festering battlefield, one fit for rubbernecking as you drive past. Please do not stop. The conflict never flares so greatly as to close major arteries or otherwise spread its metastasis. If it ever does, then we become another Caracas, or Managua, post-banana republic—but with the strangest of actors, whereby Shia no be jammin’, and hijab bumps against dreadlocks. Yellow-vested cops are on indefinite standby in Laventille and grateful they are not soldiers.