Chapter 5
Kamili
August 26, 2017
2pm
Jesus be a swift, strong breeze. Amen.
The dead weight of the sweat on my body was making it harder and harder to walk and Raine and Zoe were walking entirely too fast. Going through life as a short person and walking with tall people was a journey of perpetual disrespect. Why dem doe slow dung? On top of all of that, the stares of men leaning against the colourful and peeling paint of wholesales planted themselves on my ass like handprints. All of this madness before midday.
Nowhere in Jamaica makes me feel more non-native than Downtown Kingston. As much as I love here, I really think I’d love it more sans the people. The people create a tight ball of anxiety, anger and fear to settle right on my chest. Strange, since I was born, raised and almost destined to die a few minutes from Coronation Market.
Sometimes when I’m walking through I just watch. I watch how they interact with the streets of one of my most favourite parts of the island. I watch how taxi men just piss against the peeling paint of walls, how men with handcarts peel their cane and leave the trash just sitting on the street, how women in tank tops and chipped nail polish just drop their bag juice bags on the ground right next to them and I think, “Wow. Look how much we love our city.”
It was probably different for Raine and Zoe. For them, the zig-zag streets of Downtown Kingston were charming and authentic. Growing up they probably took field trips in air conditioned buses with tinted windows and waved at my neighbours on the street then grew up to do photo shoots with a certain aesthetic in our backyards. Strange, because we didn’t do photo shoots on Montery Road in Cherry Gardens or have Uptown days at school.
Stranger even that we just had to waste gas money and shave several inches off my dwindling patience to come to Downtown for market day when Papine Market was just roun di road.
Peaceful and happy life, Kamili. Just wul it.
Sitting in the car with Zoe at the wheel was another pre failed test of my patience. Zoe, despite her cool hills of Mandeville upbringing, drove like a minibus driver. But not just any minibus driver. A minibus driver on the Dung-a-town to Spain route. Even the shortest trip to Sovereign Shopping Centre felt like I was cramped on a cushion right on top of the handbrake and underneath the driver’s smelly pits as the bus, full beyond capacity, hurtled along on the tiniest patch of asphalt on Spanish Town Road. Raine says a Mobay yute taught Zoe to drive. As far as I see it, Zoe’s daddy probably got tired of her failing the test and bought her the license.
Usually in the midst of these sorry fi miself moments, the not so distant memories of the Pap-Liguanea-Savrin 7-seater taxis humble me, reminding me that as bad as my life was in any moment, it had been worse. It had always been worse.