Do Crabs Like Human Meat? - Excerpt 15

The rainy season was still batting in its innings. This season offered the perfect opportunity for the truanting boys from our school to get away and go swimming in the overflowing trenches on the Back Dam Road. This morning Terrance and Charlie got caned on their bottoms in front of the whole class. Mr. Williams is not like the other teachers, he said that his “policy was to beat it out, only if he can’t speak it out.”

“Let this be a lesson to everyone in this class,” he said after the caning, wiping the sweat from his top lip with the back of his hand.
“If you take part in dangerous sports like swimming in the Back Dam trenches, that (and here he pointed at the two boys who were still making hissing sounds with their teeth and rubbing their bottoms with the palms of their hands) is what you’re asking for.”
The boys had a very organised way of getting out of school to go swimming. They planned it all the day before, when one of the gang was told to bring a blob of Vaseline wrapped up in a bit of old newspaper.
Sometimes in the midst of classes Mr. Williams would say, “Alright! Everyone down tools. Time for spot-checking and convicts-caking.”
I know that the last two words meant that he was going to seize their stuff and bin them, but I don’t know why he called it ‘convicts-caking.’ It made me think of our land lady and her convict son.
When Mr. Williams found bits of stowed-away Vaseline in the boys’ bags he made a big deal out of holding them as high above the bin as he could, then dropping them with a dull ‘thud’ into the black galvanised rubbish bucket.

I know you’re probably wondering what the Vaseline was for in the first place. Well it is like this; the trenches are totally muddy, you see, and going for a swim in them, meant that when you finally surfaced, you’d be as grey as . . . as a . . . what’s the greyest thing you can think of? Well, as grey as that thing. As you dry off in the heat, you become greyer and greyer and soon everyone and their neighbour knows you went swimming (including your parents when you get home in the afternoon).

So to find a way round this grey, dead giveaway, the boys took off all their clothes, for the trench-bath. Once the swim was over, they got dressed again, and rubbed the Vaseline on the bits of exposed skin like their legs under their shorts, arms, faces, and so on. Since Mr. Williams began to convicts-cake their Vaseline, they had to change tactics, and found that spit worked just as well, if not better than the Vaseline.

After that magical discovery, they spat on their skin, in nice little splotches then rubbed it all in. ‘Pah,’ rub in; ‘pah,’ rub in.
A grey spot there, not to worry -
‘Pah,’ rub in; ‘pah,’ rub in.
Now you would hardly see the grey at all. The reason I am telling you all this is because something really shocking, happened at my school . . .

“. . . For the power and the glory
Forever and ever,
Amen,” we all said for the second time.
“Hands up, in, out, down. Sit down,” Mr. Williams said as we went through the motions.
“Yes sir,” we all replied as we sat down. The girls, as always, neatly tucking our skirts under our bottoms and over our knees – just like we were taught.

There was a sort of rumble in the classroom as we took our seats on the scrubbed wooden benches. The kisskadees were singing outside in the hot, damp air, “Kiss, kiss, kiss-ka-dee” went their song. One of them landed on the window-less window sill for a moment, saw forty eyes staring at its wet, brown and yellow feathers and quickly flew away.

“Them kiss-ka-dees is good bird meat,” my uncle Christopher had said to me once, when I was very little.
“But they so small,” I’d said. “How d’you get any meat under them feathers?”
“Ahh . . .” he had said, but never answered my question until some time later when he had managed to catch a blue-sakie (another tiny bird) and roasted it on a spit. He didn’t have to use his sling-shot that time, all he did was put some old chewing gum out in the sun, on the fence, with a bit of bird seed next to it. Soon enough the bird came by to eat the seeds, and bingo!
“See?” he asked, when he’d given me a taste of the tiny, charred leg. “They got meat, mon. Ah tell you they got meat.”
Usually, Mr. Williams would take the afternoon register straight away but he didn’t today. He told us that Errol, who was absent from school yesterday, didn’t get home at all last night. Mr. Williams said that he was going to call each of us, one by one, and that we should not be afraid to tell him if we knew anything about Errol, and why he disappeared.

Mr. Williams was the only grown up I wasn’t afraid of.
He was really nice, and is a photographer as well. He’s the person who took my photograph for the Common Entrance Exam form we all had to fill in. I had to go to his house after school one day, he made Jan bring me to their front room, she helped set up the stuff, and then he took my picture - just like that.
He lives in Stanleytown as well, and has a powerful motorbike. He brings Jan and Geff to school on it every day. Jan sits in the middle and Geff on the end, so they both have to hold on for dear life.
The only thing I knew about Errol was that he lived in Stanleytown and liked to run away from school to swim. I really couldn’t help at all.


* * *

“That’s the way, uh huh, uh huh
I like it, uh huh, uh huh”
KC and the Sunshine Band were rocking away on the radio when I walked in today,

“…That’s the way uh huh, uh huh
I like it uh huh, uh huh.”

Mammy was whistling as she was packing to move. She’s the best whistler and singer I have ever heard – not that I’ve heard many, mind. I had to go and get some Bristols from Grimmond’s bar, then some ice from the Persauds from down the street. Gruff! Grrruff!

Theresa was cooking Mammy’s vegetables.
“They not really vegetables,” Theresa had said to me some time back.
“Is things like bora, ochra, and pumpkin that are vegetables. Cassavas, eddoes, sweet potatoes and plantains are actually called ground provisions.”
Whatever they were, they gave Mammy a lot of satisfaction because she ate them all the time. Theresa had to boil them in a large pot, every two days, Mammy would then dip into this store, all week long. As long as she had money, she had her store of ‘vegetables.’

I was really curious to find out what pleasure Mammy obviously got from these provisions, so one day I slurped up a large serving spoon of the water they were boiled in, when she was out of the kitchen. I was surprised to find - and this was only when it was half way down – that all it tasted of was salt. I gulped and retched a bit, but by then it was too late to bring anything up.
Mammy always says that she wishes that Shop Lady would sell ‘vegetables’ and not just groceries, so that she can get them on credit when we run out of money.

“Ah bought a cane today,” Mammy announced to the room, while we were having dinner.
“Why?” Theresa asked, but I knew that she already knew why.
Mammy put another spoonful of the boulanger and eddoes into her mouth, the tip of her nose pointed downwards into the spoon, as if it was set to sniff the world around her with a permanent dislike. The wide sides flared out dangerously and I wondered for a moment if she’d ever inhaled food instead of swallowing it.
“For that one, na,” Mammy answered. “From now on, when she tempt me, she gon be in for a good caning.”
Theresa did one of her sighs, and I felt my stomach turn over, then knot. That was the end of my dinner. My stomach had made up its mind that it was going to take no more food.

“The cane better for beating she than the wood anyway, because it stings for a long time. Woods only hurt, and then they cool off. Not canes,” Mammy shook her head, smiled and wagged her forefinger.
“Ah been watching them at the market for a long time, and hoping for enough money to afford one for ages. They say that if you know how to hit with it, it can really make a person dance.”
Mammy got up, took the cane out from behind the front door, and proudly showed it to us. She whacked the air with it and it made a horrible swishing sound. This is the same type of thing they use in school. The boys get whacked two lashes on their bottoms and the girls, one in each hand. I don’t know what it feels like, but I know it hurts like hell. That’s why Mr. Williams doesn’t give more than two licks.

Inside my belly, I knew that Mammy was going to give me more than two licks. For the first time since I was about seven, my stomach felt just like it did when I used to vomit every day after breakfast. Whenever I brought up any food, more was brought out and put on my plate. The more I tried to keep down the vomit, the more the nervousment overtook me.
My chest drummed, my throat locked and my stomach used to turn itself upside down. Nothing I did, would allow any more of the food inside my mouth, to go pass my neck.
Mammy used to take up her place standing behind my chair at breakfast time.
Wood in hand.
“Chew faster. I got things to do!”

I used to try passing the heavy, flowery bakes from one side of my mouth to the other, but this only made it worse, because it got all splattery and yucky.
My throat made this sound, then the food splashed out of me and unto the floor.
Then we started all over again . . .
Sometimes I ‘ate’ and vomited twice before I went to school; every morning of every day.
Every morning of every day, yes, every morning of every day.
Mammy said that I was stubborn, but that’s one thing I know she’s not right about.
What’s strange, is that as I get bigger, I find more and more things she’s not right about. She thinks I am really ugly, but my friends think I am nice. They think my long neck and stupid cheeks aren’t so bad. Could it be that I am not stupid either?
Please God, please make it so that I’m not stupid.
* * *

Three days later, Errol was found. Not good news though, he was found floating in the Back Dam trench naked, with lots of his soft bits like his ears and stuff, eaten off by crabs. What was worse was that two boys from the other fourth year went swimming with him.
The three of them were trying to see who could make the biggest splash, it was Errol’s turn to plunge in, he made a giant splash, only, he didn’t come up again. When the two other boys realised that he wasn’t going to, they jumped out of the water, got dressed and went back to school. They kept quiet when their teacher asked if anyone knew anything, because they were scared.

We were told that Errol dived in right on top of a big boulder, hidden by the muddy water in the trench. They told us that he was knocked unconscious when his head hit the boulder, which is why he couldn’t swim back up. At his funeral, held at his parents’ bottom house, his Mummy passed his baby sister over his coffin. Marla said this was so his spirit could always take care of her.

Errol’s two friends, the boys who went swimming with him, held on to each other and wept loudly. There were other friends from his class, looking on and wiping their eyes. Old people with black head ties wailed, hanging on to the side of the dark brown, wooden coffin. People were stamping loudly upstairs in the house, dust fell unto us downstairs and unto the lapel of Errol’s brand new suit.

His face looked like old concrete – grey, dead and crumpling. His nose and ears and parts of his cheeks looked almost plastic. I wondered for a moment if they were plastic. Did they fix them to cover up where the crabs had eaten him?

The Case of the Tiny Vampires

So, my girls unfortunately caught lice towards the end of the school term last month. The next day found me at the chemist purchasing the best treatment I could find, to rid them of the nasty pests insanely feeding on their blood within the warmth of their scalps.

Now, I’ve always been very careful with this kind of thing. I spray their hair every morning with a mixture of essential tea tree oil, a blob of hair conditioner and water. I then painstakingly comb out the hair in sections every day before sending them out to school. This preventative method has worked magnificently for years, and just when I thought I could relax with this routine… it happened!

I treated them that very afternoon, washed and combed and washed and combed. Seven days later I treated again, just like the chemist said. I even did my son’s hair, just in case. A few days later I pronounced them clean and warned them not to place their heads too near to certain children who I suspected may have been the source of the infestation. I mean, what kind of parent allows their kids run around with creepy crawlies in their heads, infecting innocent children whose parents are so diligent with their health.

Alas, this was not to be the end.

I caught sight of my little one scratching a few days later and dared to check her head. I was just about to brush her hair into a pony tail and tell her to stop scratching when, Lo and behold! She had some honey-coloured suckers rummaging around in her scalp, drinking her blood. They were exactly the colour of her hair and, if not for the fact that she’d recently been treated for lice, I probably would not have continued searching, therefore, would not have found them.

When I called my son over and combed through his hair, four brown ones got caught up inside the comb. I was horrified! What was happening to my children? I reasoned that one of them must be catching it from a certain friend and infecting the other two. Surely, they can’t all have friends with exactly the same problem.

So I got another bottle of very expensive lice treatment and went through the motions again. This time I was fuming as I paid up – again, for something I had fought so hard to prevent. At least by now it was the second to last day of school and I could breath a sigh of relief.
But could I?

Two weeks of the holidays went by and it came time for the kids to prepare to go to Bible camp. The day before camp, once we had packed, I got ready to braid the girls’ hair (to give them a couple of days off without having to worry about their hair while they were away). As I nonchalantly (for old time sake) combed through my little one’s hair with the nit comb, I came across – you guessed it!

Needless to say, I fretted through yet another intense treatment (all three kids) while I re-played the last two weeks in my mind for some kind of common factor (outside school) which could be responsible for the new onslaught of the tiny vampires in their heads.

I worked out that there were only 4 people who could’ve been responsible for the new infection, my husband, my sister, the kids’ grandmother, or me. Out of these four people there was only one with a history of having had lice before.

Later that night, I braided the girls’ hair, gelled my son’s hair the way he liked it, and walked upstairs to my bedroom armed with the spray top bottle - which held the tea tree oil mixture, and a nit comb.

* * *

When I was little, I had the reddest hair in my village. It stood out in big, wild, red curls all over my head. When I caught lice, they were as red as fire ants, so by the time they were discovered, I’d had them for a long period of time. Being from a very poor family, the only way my aunt knew how to get rid of them was by soaking my entire head with Kerosene oil.

Kerosene oil was also what we used to cook with, it’s an extremely flammable fuel like petrol, and just as unpredictable. The day my aunt poured the kerosene in my scalp, the tiny suckers came running out from every direction. I even found them lying dead on my pillow weeks after this bizarre and extremely dangerous ‘treatment’ (one which I would never, ever recommend, as kerosene gets in your ears and even in your throat through the fumes).

I tried to figure out what the chances were of me having caught these nasty bugs from the kids in my adulthood, and concluded that they were very high indeed. My husband and I share reading bedtime stories to the kids. On my four nights, I sit on my bed, close to the two youngest ones (my 10 year old thinks she is too old to be read to, so she goes off and reads her own books) we hold our heads together, one on either side of me.
I read with one arm wrapped around one of them, and the other hand kept free for turning the pages. When we get to end of the book, we would say our prayers, then decide whether we would play ‘biteys’ or ‘tickles.’

‘Biteys’ is a game I made up for two reasons: One, so that I could keep abreast with the kids’ physical and mental strength; and two, for them to realise, develop and use these strengths. My psychology studies taught me that this is vital for their development.

As a little girl, I was confronted every day and unfortunately only realised my mental capacity through having to deal with being abused. I wanted to create a way for my kids to be able to gauge theirs, by doing something that was taxing in a pleasurable way. Now the way we play this game is: They have got to prevent me from placing my teeth (it goes without saying, of course, that I never bite them) on their left leg – hence the term ‘biteys.’ If I manage to place my teeth on that leg, using only my hands and head, then they have to consider themselves bitten. They’re allowed to use their entire body to prevent me from coming close. The only rules are that they never leave the bed, never scratch my face, or pull my hair.

At the end of this highly hilarious and exhausting game we usually end up in a pile of bodies in the middle of the bed, often with heads touching (and this is why I’ve told you all this). My two oldest have become so strong now that I almost have to cheat (which I sometimes do) to get them.

The second game is like the first, but it involves tickling. The only rule is that every one has a safe word - the only word to use if you want to stop, or become uncomfortable. Like the first game, heads make lasting contact.


Back to my predicament; the first few comb-through yielded nothing, but by the sixth one, I saw something, not red this time, but dark - just as dark as my hair had now become.
Oh!
My!
Goodness!
I’d caught the monsters!

I figured out later, as I sat in the bathroom after saturating my head with the overpriced lice treatment, that the kids had most likely given the nasty beasts to me straight after they’d caught them the first time. Therefore, there was a very large possibility that the person re-infecting them was not the child (whose careless and anti-social parent I would like to strangle), but me, the person who was trying so hard to prevent them from getting the lice in the first place.

The moral of this story is, if your child is unfortunate enough to be friends with the children of uncaring parents who let their offspring run amok infecting people with lice, treat not only your kids, but yourself too.

I’ve had to learn that the hard and embarrassing way.