1B Arawak Tower June 30
My upstairs neighbor Douglas Clark is a third-generation Trinidadian, originally from colonial South Africa, and a devoted tarpon fisherman. “White as bread but Trini t’rough and t’rough,“ he says—of himself, not the fish. That makes him a native, I remark, and he chides me sharply, “No, it don’t.“ He refers, of course, to the true natives of Trinidad, the Carib and the Arawak, as if he reads our American and South African tendencies to erase aboriginal history.
He fiddles with several drop lines on the sea wall, fishing the rocky bottom with sardines for snapper and, if he is lucky, a big scaly tarpon. He knows all about how to fish around the Gulf, just like he knows about the turtles at Toco, the Scarlet Ibis at Caroni, Pitch Lake at La Brea, the Oil Birds of Asa Wright, and everything else about nature in Trinidad. He could care less about Carnival and such cultural things. Indeed, Douglas barely tolerates it. He and his grandchildren can live on this island their whole lives and still not be considered genuinely Trini, and this may embitter him.
“He’s black skin, but he’s a good mun,“ Douglas says of a charter-boat captain in Chaguaramas. He feels entitled to his unvarnished opinions in old age, which, I suppose, gives me something to look forward to.
A magnificent cutlass fish is landed on the seawall. The Japanese fisherman crouches to examine the thing attached to his hook. The thin head has crochet-needle fangs. The polished-steel body and tapered tail is longer than a machete blade and handle. “Cutlass fish very popular in Japan,“ he says admiringly, before placing it in his wife’s plastic bag. I assume they will eat it together, although, if properly frozen, it could be used to chop.
Meanwhile my lovely cleaning lady Sumintra is leaving today.
Sumintra’s boy has sickle-cell. Somedays the joint pain is so bad that she gives him morphine. She has never left the country but is wondering now if she should stay or go, with her fourth-grade boy in tow, home-schooled. The job market is bleak, so she makes ends meet with a mop, here at Arawak Tower. She has not even told her mother what she does for a living. She doesn’t want to clean this building anymore. She wants to be an accountant, like her mom, who lives in Florida. So she is moving on to better opportunities, whatever they may be, but first she has to pick up her son and buy some morphine for his flare-up, then home to her cottage on the cluttered shanty hillside below Fort George. At least she made it out of Laventille. That place is a kettle of hopelessness.
It is her last day here at Arawak Tower, so we decide to lime on my patio before sunset and sample her extensive Soca song-list. The new stuff sounds like the old stuff to me, but Sumintra thinks it sounds fresher than ever. She is done with work here for good, she says again, and she is happy simply to bust a lime, to practice that righteous art of doing nothing—and to put the fun in dysfunctional. Geckos are throwing kisses—Besas—from behind every hanging frame in my apartment. Perhaps this is why I have not had an insect problem this year. As I try to mimic the rapid chord changes of Baila Mami on guitar, Sumintra averts her eyes, she says, “not so much in shyness but because it is rude to stare.“ Then she starts to stare.
An hour later, she announces that she is ready to move in. She takes to calling me “Corcot,“ which is Patois for “sweetheart.“ She spells it out matter-of-factly: It is not right to be alone, it is not natural, the place needs cleaning, and she is going to cook the best seasoned barbecue chicken and mashed potatoes, and, oh my god, what is happening? It must be the whiskey, a Christmas gift from some parents, because I do believe this lady is drunk. Her speech patterns are reverting to bossy creole patter, and I am not sure what she is saying anymore—maybe something about “playin’ dead to catch a corbeaux live.“ I nod reflexively. I do not dare mention that my intent is to find a case study for this struggling island, and this Trini single-mom fits the bill. To say my interests are anthropological would only offend her, and I would drown in her hybrid English riposte. Fortunately, my low blood sugar disguises high anxiety. I shrink away with a carton of Nestle orange juice.
I feel bad about my abrupt farewell, so I later invite unemployed Sumintra and her sickly son over for lunch at the pool. She cannot make it this weekend, she says. She needs to braid her hair and color it purple, and the procedure takes three days. My God.
I think I may need a drink.