Facing The Music
The following weekend Sabrina woke me up teasing me that my boyfriend is at the door for me. I rushed to the restroom to get tidy. I put on my house clothes and rushed to the door.
It was only my best friend Dewayne that greeted me at the door. My big expectation was dimed just like that and I yelled at my sister who was in the kitchen. She only laughs me off.
He asked me if I wanted to come outside and play netball while he and his friends played a little basketball. 1. Then after that we would run a boat. TL (Run a boat) This phrase means cooking outdoors amongst friends on a short notice. I told him netball was my sister's game and her ears perked up saying she would love to play. Already jumping up and down saying she’s ready to go. She heard her two favorite things, netball and food.
She left Selena to finish washing up the plates and grabbed my hand and we ran to the field. While we were there girls that we knew in the community came out to play with us.
Sabrina was so loud every time I missed a shot she made it a big deal. “Yo can’t you just shut up?” I yelled at her, “And who plays netball with earrings anyways.” When I said that she took them out and handed them to me. “Yeah, but what about your nails?” I said.
One by one she took them all off. They were pressed on
nails then she put them in my hands, “Yeah but what about-” I continued.
‘“Look here, stop try make sense out of non-sense you can’t make ‘em know
everything.” Sabrina stopped me.
The game ended up turning into the girls telling us that lately they have heard that two of girls from the community have gone missing.
Some people think they ran off with a man or they just got tired of getting mistreated by their families.
While we were talking we saw two police jeeps coming around the corner driving slowly and suddenly stopped. The vehicle behind them only had a flashing light on it. When they all exited out I noticed the man that didn’t have on uniform but it was clear that he was with them. He looks in his mid-thirties and had on a durag and wore a chain with a crucifix. I leaned over and asked his name, Tameka said, “Who’s that man, girl you don’t know that good looking man, named Mr. Jones, Derek Jones. He work with the narcotics division. Look like they started sell drugs again to the little youths here. They caught Miss Pam son the other day too.”
Apparently they were selling snow white in our community, so far I only knew one person who did that but that was brown man Joe, who is also called Brownie who sells me weed. He only sells it in a small quantity though. His cover up is a little shop and he sells mostly browning, hence the name Brownie.
Soon it was lunch time and we were getting hungry. So we went to the store and we went over to Dewayne house and cooked. We had fried chicken, white rice, vegetables and boiled crabs. I cooked the rice and you wouldn’t believe that I almost burned the whole pot. I was busy on my phone and hardly paid attention to it.
I was researching about the girls that went missing recently.
Sabrina then who wanted to make me pay for burning the bottom of the rice, scraped out all the 2. bun bun into my plate. TL (Bun Bun) Burnt food or in this case burnt rice at the bottom of the pot.
So I made sure to sprinkle a lot of salt and peppers onto her plate when she wasn’t looking. I laughed when she started choking and had to run to the pipe to wash it out.
I got up early the next morning to go sell downtown. While
my sisters were still snoring in their beds. Early birds get the worm they say.
I walked alongside the hand cart man while he carried my stuff in the box. When we reached, before he even unload the cart he stretched out his hand to me. I asked, “What is it?”
“My money.” I rolled my eyes at him. And turn to take up my box.
“Watch here, hey 3. gyal you don’t hear me talking to you.” I am annoyed now. I turned and asked who he was talking to. TL (Gyal) Girl
“No you I am talking. You suppose to gimme $350.” I laughed.
“Wait, didn’t I pay you yesterday and gave you a whole $100 and ginger beer?” I asked.
“Yeah that was yesterday, today is today fork up the money slavery done long time.” He said with his hand out.
I reached in my bag and took out a hundred dollars and he hit it out my hand. “Hey girl you know who you joking with. You see all you, mine I take something and box off your ugly face. I bet you will have to run away from town with your liver spot white face.”
I walked over to him angry now my heart racing wondering if he would really try to attack me, “Hey 4. bowy, It’s really me you stop with, you want me call my gun man up here and shoot you?!” I exclaim. No one was really around so if he tried anything I would have to use my ice pick. (Bowy) boy.
“5. Bill, bill can’t you take a joke.” He said, trying to fake a smile. TL (Bill Bill) Used to say need to take it easy and relax.
“Excuse you and you will never see me talking to you again. I rather carry my things on my neck bone.” I said.
I then heard the sound of a police car and grabbed my box and some of the snacks and stuffed it in my bag and ran and hid. Before I knew it I was on top of a store until 6. ‘Mr Chin’ called out to me to get down as they opened the store. TL (Mr Chin/Missa Chin) slang term used to refer to any person who appears to be of Chinese decent.
That night, my sisters and I also my best friend Diamond and their friends, we went to a costume dance. We dressed up like the players in among us. I was in pink of course. I was having fun dancing and having fun. Until I saw David came in with another girl. I instantly got jealous. I just couldn't handle seeing him with someone else. My heart was racing and my chest got tight. I decided that I wasn't going to ruin the night so I started to smoke and drink to try to distract myself. I probably was over doing it. I started coughing and I jumped on top of this old parked van and danced to the music.
I was dancing and singing then looked up to the moon and swore I could hear Buju Banton singing brown skin girl to me. Then suddenly I saw a Goku nimbus cloud float towards me and I lay down on my stomach on it and float away. My heart started to slow down, everyone around me started to move in slow motion and my breathing got deep.
It's like suddenly the music is drowned out by the loud thumping of my heart beating out of my chest. Suddenly the night got bright as day and a smile crossed my face. I was so scared that I was about to scream but I felt so heavy on the light cloud. Not even a single word could escape the empty void of my mouth. I started to cry, then suddenly instead of tears flowing down my cheeks two black snakes flowed and slithered out my eyes. The dark and starry sky turned into sunny day, the rough concrete ground turned into a soft grassy meadow like I was suddenly in the Garden of Eden. Then I saw Diamond and she fed me an apple, she was smiling so much. She looked like Eve. She hopped on my cloud and we floated away over to where the forbidden fruit tree stood. Around it were beautiful trees and bushes with pretty flowers. After she finished feeding me the apple she pushed her finger down my throat and a rainbow fountain flowed out of my mouth.
To be fair I was just puking in the bushes but I like to think that I was puking out a pretty rainbow.
I probably should lay off of doing that for a while. I don’t want to tell you what I was actually doing.
During the following week my mom left to go and take care of grandma. She had a running fever and it was the only time I ever heard that she was sick. We used to always say how strong she is for her age and she definitely doesn't look like it. She still wears high heels. She is very vibrant and has a lot of energy. She credits it all to her garden saying it's her fountain of youth. She doesn't eat any animal products; her food is unprocessed and uncooked. I love when she would come over she would have a lot of fruits from the country like mangoes, bananas, star apple you name it and then we all help her to mix it and blend to make juice.
Mom said that we shouldn't worry about it but over the weekend we will go look for her. At school it wasn't fun either. My teachers were telling me that I have been failing and were putting me in other classes and dropping me. The Caribbean examination council (CXC) was around the corner and it didn't seem like I was going to pass even one exam. If I wasn't so busy playing house with David and studying maybe I would have been well off. I just know my mom is going to kill me.
A Lot of things were just on my mind when I went to talk to my physical education teacher about why I am choosing to do his class. He noticed the long face and asked about my problems and why I am choosing his class. After I explained to him, he kept persuading me to pursue a career job in teaching or dressmaker or cosmetology. I told him that I was focusing now on doing business and in the future I would do more subjects.
When I got home I didn't want to ask my sisters but I was having a hard time choosing the subjects that I wanted to do. I kept looking at the paper my teacher gave me to tick off. When my sisters came in they grabbed the paper and kept making fun of me that I couldn't choose a subject.
They kept telling me which subjects to pick and in the end they ticked off around nine subjects, subjects that I was already failing. They kept bombarding me with suggestions and career paths that I should do. Saying making a business is too much of a risk these days.
I got so mad that I yelled at them and had an outburst. I pushed them down out my way and ran outside. I could hear them behind me cursing me out but I didn’t look back.
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