Figures of Speech August 17
My new neighbors say that he calls himself Ray. If that is his real name, I cannot be sure because he is a creature of very few words, but he is a reliable visitor at the waterfront during the ever-brief equatorial dusk. By 6:30, almost like clockwork, he will be off to home, somewhere down the shoreline, where rumors persist that he spends the night behind bars.
“Hello, Ray,“ I say in neighborly spirit.
“Hello,“ he replies, with a girlish sort of voice. He is vamped to the hilt for the occasion, wearing an impeccably groomed coat of red, trimmed with yellow, green, and blue spectral fringe. His face is pale and drawn, his receding jaw blackened like spent tobacco, his huge proboscis sloped parabolically. Beady eyes droop with indifference, yet they are fixed on me. Perhaps there is more to come in this primitive conversation. Perhaps there is something he wants from me.
“Hi. Hi. Hi.“ Ray just will not stop with the greetings. Does this Macaw take me for a fool?
At the nearby Massy checkout queue, I receive no such salutation when my turn is up. The young woman in uniform-black reaches for my TT cash without the slightest of eye contact—or correct change. She has apparently had a long day at the counter and is in sore need of a good “lime“, which is a figure of speech for a get-together with friends. Limin’ is a favorite activity around here, particularly if it is “DDI“, or “Down Da Islands.“
As for Ray, I suspect that a non-colloquial “lime“ would suit him just fine. And while I am a bit uneasy with the knowledge that there is a talking bird in my neighborhood, I am at least relieved that he addresses me respectfully—and does not seem to know my name.
I thank the exhausted clerk for the missing coins and take my “trolley“ (shopping cart) to the designated “muster point“ (gathering spot), where the amiable beggar awaits his banana handout beneath a heavy darkening sky.
“Evenin’, Suh.“
“Hi.“
The next approaching squall obliterates the terraced horizon—the city lights are out for the night, and street flooding is in the forecast for morning. It is time to return to our cages.