Miguel Street Page 6

  The roars grew louder and more frequent.

  I could hear Hat shouting, ‘Come on, Big Foot. Beat him up. Beat him up, man.’ Then, with panic in his voice, ‘Remember your father.’

  But Hat’s shouts died away.

  Big Foot had lost the fight, on points.

  Hat paid out about a hundred dollars in five minutes.

  He said, ‘I go have to sell the brown and white cow, the one I buy from George.’

  Edward said, ‘Is God work.’

  Boyee said to me, ‘I go give you your six cents tomorrow.’

  I said, ‘Six cents tomorrow} But what you think I is? A millionaire? Look, man, give me money now now, you hear.’

  He paid up.

  But the crowd was laughing, laughing.

  I looked at the ring.

  Big Foot was in tears. He was like a boy, and the more he cried, the louder he cried, and the more painful it sounded.

  The secret I had held for Big Foot was now shown to everybody.

  Hat said, ‘What, he crying?’ And Hat laughed.

  He seemed to forget all about the cow. He said, ‘Well, well, look at man, eh!’

  And all of us from Miguel Street laughed at Big Foot.

  All except me. For I knew how he felt, although he was a big man and I was a boy. wished I had never betted that six cents with Boyee.

  The papers next morning said, ‘PUGILIST SOBS IN RING.’

  Trinidad thought it was Big Foot, the comedian, doing something funny again.

  But we knew otherwise.

  Big Foot left Miguel Street, and the last I heard of him was that he was a labourer in a quarry in Laventille.

  About six months later a little scandal was rippling through Trinidad, making everybody feel silly.

  The R.A.F. champion, it turned out, had never been in the R.A.F., and as a boxer he was completely unknown.

  Hat said, ‘Well, what you expect in a place like this?’

  VIII

  THE PYROTECHNICIST

  A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say ‘Slum!’ because he could see no more. But we who lived there saw our street as a world, where everybody was quite different from everybody else. Man-man was mad; George was stupid; Big Foot was a bully; Hat was an adventurer; Popo was a philosopher; and Morgan was our comedian.

  Or that was how we looked upon him. But, looking back now after so many years, I think he deserved a lot more respect than we gave him. It was his own fault, of course. He was one of those men who deliberately set out to clown and wasn’t happy unless people were laughing at him, and he was always thinking of new crazinesses which he hoped would amuse us. He was the sort of man who, having once created a laugh by sticking the match in his mouth and trying to light it with his cigarette, having once done that, does it over and over again.

  Hat used to say, ‘Is a damn nuisance, having that man trying to be funny all the time, when all of we well know that he not so happy at all.’

  I felt that sometimes Morgan knew his jokes were not coming off, and that made him so miserable that we all felt unkind and nasty.

  Morgan was the first artist I ever met in my life. He spent nearly all his time, even when he was playing the fool, thinking about beauty. Morgan made fireworks. He loved fireworks, and he was full of theories about fireworks. Something about the Cosmic Dance or the Dance of Life. But this was the sort of talk that went clean over our heads in Miguel Street. And when Morgan saw this, he would begin using even bigger words. Just for the joke. One of the big words I learnt from Morgan is the title of this sketch.

  But very few people in Trinidad used Morgan’s fireworks. All the big fêtes in the island passed-Races, Carnival, Discovery Day, the Indian Centenary—and while the rest of the island was going crazy with rum and music and pretty women by the sea, Morgan was just going crazy with rage.

  Morgan used to go to the Savannah and watch the fireworks of his rivals, and hear the cheers of the crowd as the fireworks spattered and spangled the sky. He would come in a great temper and beat all his children. He had ten of them. His wife was too big for him to beat.

  Hat would say, ‘We better send for the fire brigade.’

  And for the next two or three hours Morgan would prowl in a stupid sort of way around his back yard, letting off fireworks so crazily that we used to hear his wife shouting, ‘Morgan, stop playing the ass. You make ten children and you have a wife, and you can’t afford to go and dead now.’

  Morgan would roar like a bull and beat on the galvanized-iron fence.

  He would shout, ‘Everybody want to beat me. Everybody.’

  Hat said, ‘You know we hearing the real Morgan now.’

  These fits of craziness made Morgan a real terror. When the fits were on him, he had the idea that Bhakcu, the mechanical genius who was my uncle, was always ready to beat him, and at about eleven o’clock in the evenings the idea just seemed to explode in his head.

  He would beat on the fence and shout, ‘Bhakcu, you fat-belly good-for-nothing son-of-a-bitch, come out and fight like a man.’

  Bhakcu would keep on reading the Ramayana in his doleful singing voice, lying flat on his belly on his bed.

  Bhakcu was a big man, and Morgan was a very small man, with the smallest hands and the thinnest wrists in Miguel Street.

  Mrs Bhakcu would say, ‘Morgan, why you don’t shut up and go to sleep?’

  Mrs Morgan would reply, ‘Hey, you thin-foot woman! You better leave my husband alone, you hear. Why you don’t look after your own?’

  Mrs Bhakcu would say, ‘You better mind your mouth. Otherwise I come up and turn your face with one slap, you hear.’

  Mrs Bhakcu was four feet high, three feet wide, and three feet deep. Mrs Morgan was a little over six foot tall and built like a weight-lifter.

  Mrs Morgan said, ‘Why you don’t get your big-belly husband to go and fix some more motor-car, and stop reading that damn stupid sing-song he always sing-songing?’

  By this time Morgan would be on the pavement with us, laughing in a funny sort of way, saying, ‘Hear them women and them!’ He would drink some rum from a hip-flask and say, ‘Just watch and see. You know the calypso?’

  “The more they try to do me bad

  Is the better I live in Trinidad”

  time so next year, I go have the King of England and the King of America paying me millions to make fireworks for them. The most beautiful fireworks anybody ever see.

  And Hat or somebody else would ask, ‘You go make the fireworks for them?’

  Morgan would say, ‘Make what} Make nothing. By this time so next year, I go have the King of England the King of America paying me millions to make fireworks for them. The most beautiful fireworks anybody ever see.’

  And, in the meantime, in the back of the yard, Mrs Bhakcu was saying, ‘He have big belly. But what yours have? I don’t know what yours going to sit on next year this time, you hear.’

  And next morning Morgan was as straight and sober as ever, talking about his experiments.

  This Morgan was more like a bird than a man. It was not only that he was as thin as a match-stick. He had a long neck that could swivel like a bird’s. His eyes were bright and restless. And when he spoke it was in a pecking sort of way, as though he was not throwing out words, but picking up corn. He walked with a quick, tripping step, looking back over his shoulder at somebody following who wasn’t there.

  Hat said, ‘You know how he get so? Is his wife, you know. He fraid she too bad. Spanish woman, you know. Full of blood and fire.’

  Boyee said, ‘You suppose that is why he want to make fireworks so?’

  Hat said, ‘People funny like hell. You never know with them.’

  But Morgan used to make a joke of even his appearance, flinging out his arms and feet when he knew people were looking at him.

  Morgan also made fun of his wife and his ten children. ‘Is a miracle to me,’ he said, ‘that a man like me have ten children. I don’t know how I manage it.’
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  Edward said, ‘How you sure is your children?’

  Morgan laughed and said, ‘I have my doubts.’

  Hat didn’t like Morgan. He said, ‘Is hard to say. But it have something about him I can’t really take. I always feel he overdoing everything. I always feel the man lying about everything. I feel that he even lying to hisself.’

  I don’t think any of us understood what Hat meant. Morgan was becoming a little too troublesome, and it was hard for all of us to begin smiling as soon as we saw him, which was what he wanted.

  Still his firework experiments continued; and every now and then we heard an explosion from Morgan’s house, and we saw the puffs of coloured smoke. This was one of the standing amusements of the street.

  But as time went by and Morgan found that no one was willing to buy his fireworks, he began to make fun even of his fireworks. He was not content with the laughter of the street when there was an explosion in his house.

  Hat said, ‘When a man start laughing at something he fight for all the time, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’ And Hat decided that Morgan was just a fool.

  I suppose it was because of Hat that we decided not to laugh at Morgan any more.

  Hat said, ‘It go make him stop playing the fool.’

  But it didn’t.

  Morgan grew wilder than ever, and began challenging Bhakcu to fight about two or three times a week. He began beating his children more than ever.

  And he made one last attempt to make us laugh.

  I heard about it from Chris, Morgan’s fourth son. We were in the café at the corner of Miguel Street.

  Chris said, ‘Is a crime to talk to you now, you know.’

  I said, ‘Don’t tell me. Is the old man again?’

  Chris nodded and he showed me a sheet of paper, headed CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

  Chris said with pride, ‘Look at it.’

  It was a long list, with entries like this:

  For fighting i) at home Five strokes

  ii) in the street Seven strokes

  iii) at school Eight strokes

  Chris looked at me and said in a very worried way, ‘It funny like hell, eh? This sort of thing make blows a joke.’

  I said yes, and asked, ‘But you say is a crime to talk to me. Where it is?’

  Chris showed me:

  For talking to street rabs Four strokes

  For playing with street rabs Eight strokes

  I said, ‘But your father don’t mind talking to us. What wrong if you talk to us? ’

  Chris said, ‘But this ain’t nothing at all. You must come on Sunday and see what happen.’

  I could see that Chris was pleased as anything.

  About six of us went that Sunday. Morgan was there to meet us and he took us into his drawing room. Then he disappeared. There were many chairs and benches, as though there was going to be a concert. Morgan’s eldest son was standing at a little table in the corner.

  Suddenly this boy said, ‘Stand!’

  We all stood up, and Morgan appeared, smiling all round.

  I asked Hat, ‘Why he smiling so?’

  Hat said, ‘That is how the magistrates and them does smile when they come in court.’

  Morgan’s eldest son shouted, ‘Andrew Morgan!’

  Andrew Morgan came and stood before his father.

  The eldest boy read very loudly, ‘Andrew Morgan, you are charged with stoning the tamarind tree in Miss Dorothy’s yard; you are charged with ripping off three buttons for the purpose of purchasing some marbles; you are charged with fighting Dorothy Morgan; you are charged with stealing two tolums and three sugar-cakes. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?’

  Andrew said, ‘Guilty.’

  Morgan, scribbling on a sheet of paper, looked up.

  ‘Have you anything to say?’ Andrew said, ‘I sorry, sir.’

  Morgan said, ‘We will let the sentences run concurrently. Twelve strokes.’

  One by one, the Morgan children were judged and sentenced. Even the eldest boy had to receive some punishment.

  Morgan then rose and said, ‘These sentences will be carried out this afternoon.’

  He smiled all round and left the room.

  The joke misfired completely.

  Hat said, ‘Nah, nah, man, you can’t make fun of your own self and your own children that way, and invite all the street to see. Nah, it ain’t right.’

  I felt the joke was somehow terrible and frightening.

  And when Morgan came out on the pavement that evening, his face fixed in a smile, he got none of the laughter he had expected. Nobody ran up to him and clapped him on the back, saying, ‘But this man Morgan really mad, you hear. You hear how he beating his children these days …?’ No one said anything like that. No one said anything to him.

  It was easy to see he was shattered.

  Morgan got really drunk that night and challenged everybody to fight. He even challenged me.

  Mrs Morgan had padlocked the front gate, so Morgan could only run about in his yard. He was as mad as a mad bull, bellowing and butting at the fence. He kept saying over and over again, ‘You people think I not a man, eh? My father had eight children. I is his son. I have ten. I better than all of you put together.’

  Hat said, ‘He soon go start crying and then he go sleep.’

  But I spent a lot of time that night before going to sleep thinking about Morgan, feeling sorry for him because of that little devil he had inside him. For that was what I thought was wrong with him. I fancied that inside him was a red, grinning devil pricking Morgan with his fork.

  Mrs Morgan and the children went to the country.

  Morgan no longer came out to the pavement, seeking our company. He was busy with his experiments. There were a series of minor explosions and lots of smoke.

  Apart from that, peace reigned in our end of Miguel Street.

  I wondered what Morgan was doing and thinking in all that solitude.

  The following Sunday it rained heavily, and everyone was forced to go to bed early. The street was wet and glistening, and by eleven there was no noise save for the patter of the rain on the corrugated-iron roofs.

  A short, sharp shout cracked through the street and got us up.

  I could hear windows being flung open, and I heard people saying, ‘What happen? What happen?’

  ‘Is Morgan. Is Morgan. Something happening by Morgan.’

  I was already out in the street and in front of Morgan’s house. I never slept in pyjamas. I wasn’t in that class.

  The first thing I saw in the darkness of Morgan’s yard was the figure of a woman hurrying away from the house to the back gate that opened on to the sewage trace between Miguel Street and Alfonso Street.

  It was drizzling now, not very hard, and in no time at all quite a crowd had joined me.

  It was all a bit mysterious-the shout, the woman disappearing, the dark house.

  Then we heard Mrs Morgan shouting, ‘Teresa Blake, Teresa Blake, what you doing with my man?’ It was a cry of great pain.

  Mrs Bhakcu was at my side. ‘I always know about this Teresa, but I keep my mouth shut.’

  Bhakcu said, ‘Yes, you know everything, like your mother.’

  A light came on in the house.

  Then it went off again.

  We heard Mrs Morgan saying, ‘Why you fraid the light so for? Ain’t you is man? Put the light on, let we see the great big man you is.’

  The light went on; then off again.

  We heard Morgan’s voice, but it was so low we couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  Mrs Morgan said, ‘Yes, hero.’ And the light came on again.

  We heard Morgan mumbling again.

  Mrs Morgan said, ‘No, hero.’

  The light went off; then it went on.

  Mrs Morgan was saying, ‘Leave the light on. Come, let we show the big big hero to the people in the street. Come, let we show them what man really make like. You is not a anti-man, you is real man. You ain’t only make ten ch
ildren with me, you going to make more with somebody else.’

  We heard Morgan’s voice, a fluting unhappy thing.

  Mrs Morgan said, ‘But what you fraid now for? Ain’t you is the funny man? The clown? Come, let them see see the clown and the big man you is. Let them see what man really make like.’

  Morgan was wailing by this time, and trying to talk.

  Mrs Morgan was saying, ‘If you try to put that light off, I break up your little thin tail like a match-stick here, you hear.’

  Then the front door was flung open, and we saw.

  Mrs Morgan was holding up Morgan by his waist. He was practically naked, and he looked so thin, he was like a boy with an old man’s face. He wasn’t looking at us, but at Mrs Morgan’s face, and he was squirming in her grasp, trying to get away. But Mrs Morgan was a strong woman.

  Mrs Morgan was looking not at us, but at the man in her arm.

  She was saying, ‘But this is the big man I have, eh? So this is the man I married and slaving all my life for?’ And then she began laughing in a croaking, nasty way.

  She looked at us for a moment and said, ‘Well, laugh now. He don’t mind. He always want people to laugh at him.’

  And the sight was so comic, the thin man held up so easily by the fat woman, that we did laugh. It was the sort of laugh that begins gently and then builds up into a bellowing belly laugh.

  For the first time since he came to Miguel Street, Morgan was really being laughed at by the people.

  And it broke him completely.

  All the next day we waited for him to come out to the pavement, to congratulate him with our laughter. But we didn’t see him.

  Hat said, ‘When I was little, my mother used to tell me, “Boy, you laughing all day. I bet you you go cry tonight.” ’

  That night my sleep was again disturbed. By shouts and sirens.

  I looked through the window and saw a red sky and red smoke.

  Morgan’s house was on fire.

  And what a fire! Photographers from the papers were climbing up into other people’s houses to get their pictures, and people were looking at them and not at the fire. Next morning there was a first-class picture with me part of the crowd in the top right-hand corner.