* * *
“What you can do wit’ these kind’a t’ings happening, eh? This is not no ordinary crime, yuh know. Crime’a passion? Is not dat neither.”
“Is frustration.”
The ole boys done seen the headlines and the rumshop talk come back around to that one — the most outstanding in weeks.
“What frustration? He frustrated with he daughter so he kill her, then why he kill heself and he wife?”
“You don’ hear what I say? Frustration wit’ life — dat is the only thing that would make a man get in a rage so.”
“I hear the daughter had like a black man, and he didn’ agree to that.”
Big steups all round the rumshop. “Don’ come with dat ole race talk.”
“But what you saying, life more hard in Trinidad than other places, that’s why we have so much’a these crimes so?”
“What stupidness you aksing, boy?”
* * *
The dingy rum belly of Port of Spain growls and grumbles, echoing the dark guts of the hills. Digesting the murders. Crude oil deep in the bones of the land.
* * *
The priest, the same tall, dark, handsome priest that Fraser had had fantasies about, and cursed, is at his bedside. Father McBarnette, the obstacle to his church project, the blocker. Fraser looks up through sleep-soft eyes now and sees a blesser. He makes up his mind to listen to the priest and not argue. Maybe he has come to use his priestly healing powers.
“Let me tell you a story, Fraser,” he begins, and Fraser thinks he’s right, it must be a miracle story coming. “I know you are a well-educated man and most probably know much of what I’m about to tell you, but bear with me …
“This land of the Holy Trinity has a particular history that runs through our veins. It is inescapable and … tainted, built on lies and deceit. The Amerindians first told tall tales of a city of gold to the Spanish, and Trinidad was set up to look for the third El Dorado, after Mexico and Peru.* But it never materialized. Piracy, murder, and mayhem founded the first capital here in Saint Joseph — you know that’s where I’m from, right? That’s why I have a special interest in this story. Requests were made for ships and men from Spain, for expeditions that never happened. Antonio de Berrio did try before that but then after the initial glimmer of gold Trinidad remained a backwater post, ‘breeding disease, mixed-blood, and sin’ for a few hundred years.”
Fraser thinks this is a good setup for a miracle tale, but he is trying to figure out how much this black-power “man of the cloth” and slave descendant really accepts his colonial religion. He watches Father’s sensuous mouth, set perfectly in thick black stubble, continue.
“It became ‘the Ghost Province’† of El Dorado. Saint Joseph, or San José de Oruña, remained a ‘ten-hut place.’ French and English buccaneers, ‘gangsters of the sea,’ continued trading and raiding, taking Negroes, torturing Spaniards … The friendliness of the Arawacas Indians here, though, attracted missionaries. These missionaries worked hard despite the heat, for they were serving a greater King. They ruled that no Indian was to be called a ‘piece,’ they built settlements for some of the freed Indians, baptizing and instilling the practice of work for wages.”
“Unh hunh, proper businessmen,” Fraser muttered, but the priest droned on.
“The Indians became restless, and we’re talking late seventeenth century here — Trinidad got its ‘first Christian martyrs and its first miracle.’”
At last. Fraser wishes he could see the point, though. His toxic blood is putting him to sleep again. “Thanks for that, Father,” he mumbles.
“But wait, I ain’ tell you the story yet.” Father McBarnette pulls up his chair closer to Fraser’s bed. “They were building a new church one morning, and a monk told off two Indian laborers — the Indians killed all four monks and buried them in the foundations of the new church, burned down the mission. But you from Arima so you should know all about this. When the governor and his men came to investigate later, the Indians ambushed and killed them too. All of them died slow slow with the poisoned arrows.” Father McBarnette pauses, excited like a boy in the middle of his comic book. It looks like Fraser has dozed off.
“Um humn!” Fraser breathes out and pulls himself up suddenly. “I missed the ending? Sorry—” A disappointing miracle.
“Well, that aside, the slaughter of Indians that went on and torture, plagues … My point is…”
He’s lost it by now, surely. Fraser’s eyes close but he can see Father McBarnette feeling around in the warm room.
“They even t’ief slaves from other islands and sold them here. My point is that, yes, we have a unique history of corruption. But out of that history also comes a ground that was and still is creative, among other things, and genius. Even in the architecture of the church.”
Fraser’s eyes open.
“Yes, I have taken over the research on architecture of the church in Trinidad that you started. I know now that Amerindian ajoupa building design remains in some of the churches of Trinidad. Philip Reinagle — the two cathedrals here that blend Romanesque and Gothic forms. We shall live up to them. You know I used to question the links and facets you dug up — black history, influences. But I will continue them. You have inspired me.”
“Me?” Fraser suddenly feels humble, small as a child in a huge bed, with a feared parent standing over him. A parent whose kind words he always waited for, now given but still without a hug. He wants to hug Father now but holds back. Just as his own father held back from hugging his little boy.
“Father, thank you…”
“No, thank you, Fraser. I will ensure that your church is built in Maloney. In the way you designed it. And I will give a sermon one day in its pulpit, or many, passing on its messages to the next generation. Thank you.”
Fraser folds silently into tears, ashamed of his overwhelming gratitude. Father McBarnette excuses himself, offering “a chance to rest,” squeezes his hand, and steps away.
* * *
“In Maloney, t’ings don’ happen so. Is murder still. But not so.” Sam’s bestest friend thinks he consoling him. Sam had come to see him but wouldn’t sit still. His friend thinks that when a person grieving, they should stay quiet and in one place.
Sammy look down from the small balcony of Mano’ mom’s apartment. A Nido milk tin, full of Mano’s cigarette butts, resting on a pile of old newspapers in the corner. That’s a lot’a nasty cigarettes. He look at the facing row of project buildings — no less depressing than the tin of butts. Sammy shifts against the rail and peer down to the shaded yard. “What you keeping dem stinking t’ings there for? It ain’ making no difference if you throw them down there.” He slide back closer to the ashtray, he flick through the corner of the newspaper pile, just enough to see the types—Guardian, Express, Newsday, one’r two Bomb. “Tha’s good yuh Queen like to read them, mines don’t. She say them headlines does make she sick and aggravated.” He sit back down in the one plastic chair and lean forward, inspecting the legs.
“Is I does read them, breds.”
“Eh heh?” Sam get up again. “But dat is a fire trap right there.”
“Why you don’ take some ress? Settle. You only moving up and down, driving all over de place — that ain’ go help.”
“These t’ings does attrac’ rats too — old newspaper. You shouldn’ keep them pack up so.” He stare down, over the rail. The yard might be cooler, even though it uglier and full’a litter. No gang fellas liming by the old car, just right now. “Leh we go down there, nuh?”
Mano steups and start heading inside. Sammy follow him out the front door and down the tenement steps. “A fella had get kill right at the bottom here. Rememba dat? That is what I was telling you — is a different kind’a murder here. Black people don’ kill-up theyself just so. Not they family. Hardly, compare to Indians. But is same difference, they kill one another. Children does get kill too, sometimes. It don’ make sense. But is all about.”