Place of Silk Cotton Trees May 18
There’s a port on a western bay,
And it serves a hundred ships a day.
Lonely sailors pass the time way
And talk about their home.
There’s a girl in this harbor town,
And she works throwing whiskeys down.
“Missy, Brandy, fetch another round.“
She brings them whiskey and rum.
The sailors say, “Brandy, you’re a fine girl.
What a good wife you would be.
Your eyes could steal a sailor from the sea.
For most of its history, the western shore along the Gulf of Paria was called Cu-Mucurapo, or Place of Silk Cotton Trees. This was back before the plantations, when those gangly shallow-rooted trees grew everywhere. Then the Europeans started coming, and the neighborhood went to hell.
Before it was officially named Puerto España, Port of Spain, it was known among sailors as Port of the Spaniards, less of an imperial prize and more of a mooring for those heading somewhere else, not so dissimilar from the Tobago tourist stop-over it is today. These protected waters, buffered from the Atlantic by the Northern Range, tucked away from the continental upheavals and maritime surges, have always been seen as a far-off outpost, a transit hub, a spot where travelers are occasionally marooned, on purpose or, more often, by ill-fate. Like the song says, it is full of lonely sailors passing the time away. At least those were the people who could hope to sail away. For most, the city represents a life sentence, which is how Naipaul and Lovelace capture it in literature.
One expat adroitly observes that everyone she meets at limes come by themselves. “I don’t know anyone’s friends outside school. I think this is why liming is so important. It’s the only time to get together.“
I have worried for a while that my isolation here is my own fault, or maybe it is my stubborn sobriety, but it would seem that isolation is the resting position in Port of Spain. Everyone, it seems, would rather be someplace else. And while this may be a dystopian truism for urban life in general, the social disconnect of Trinidad is especially intractable: Too many rich people, too many poor people, and not enough people in between. Security is a persistent concern, which the wealthy pay for extravagantly, while the poor just pay. There is an astonishing lack of municipal parks. Public works are a joke. Transportation is choked on crumbling roadways. Cafe culture is concealed. Taverns are dark. There is an overabundance of cutlasses. No one likes their jobs, or their customers, or their neighbors, or their leaders, or their society. Celebration of community is restricted to liming and national holidays, separating life’s precious happy moments from the rest of it.
The queue to pay my power bill is daunting, but I take note of the posted sign at the Massy: “Why would you pay any other way?“ I already know “why“, but “how“ avails no answer. This is the only place to do it in this Place of Silk Trees, so we give up our lunch to stand in line. One old woman with a wounded ear comes with a huge envelope of small bills and a plastic tub of coins. This is going to take a while, and accounting is further complicated by repeated spillage. The next guy is here with his aging dad and matching braids. He tries to explain that his “poppy“ is owed a disability payment, but communication with the clerk is hindered, both by the thin slit between armored plates and bureaucratic indifference. My turn finally arrives, and the process is outrageously simple—a visa card and a signature. Behind me is a guy who just had an arm removed. The stump below his shoulder hangs limp with a fresh bandage and insufficient tape, while his remaining hand plays with a cellular device. Despite his recent setback, the fellow cannot stop smiling. I withdraw my card from the slit and count my blessings, receiving no change whatsoever.
Late at night, when the bars close down,
Brandy walks through a quiet town,
And loves a man who is not around,
She still can hear him say—
“Brandy, you’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be,
But life, my love, and my lady is the sea.