She walks past Ma Pau casino, crosses Ariapita Avenue, to the quieter side streets. Near the police station, she stops at a neglected square. Woodbrook’s vagrants live there. She passes the sleeping forms huddled against the public toilet and sits on a swing. No tears spill because she doesn’t know what she would be weeping for. Anger and then a surge of extreme exhaustion and futility fold her into a hungry, homeless, vagrant figure. Suspended there.
Where do the vagrants go for Carnival? The places they rest in are taken over. This square becomes the assembly point for Slinger’s revelers to adjust their costumes; help each other fit and pin, comparing how much pounds they had to lose; and stamp new gold boots to break them in. Where are the vagrants then? They blend into the dirty “ole mas” dawn of Carnival but are pushed aside, ridiculed, and pitied for the rest of it. While rich folks prance in their home square, the few brave homeless who dare to dance in their everyday costume are given a wide berth, out of fear or scorn—“respect”—in the once-a-year show of equality. What is it all for, now? And why do people put themselves through slavery to make mas, or slave for the money to buy the costume — to “free up” for a few days? Two days of bought identity? Why the last-minute scramble and the stampede over dignity and dying skills?
And what is she doing here? She knows the answers are back in the chaos of Camp Swampy. In the experience, the music and rhythms of Trinidad. “Is we t’ing,” people tell her. But who is “we” when so many Trinis pick up their families and run from it? When the Indian population hardly embrace it? When Carnival bands are associated with class? Vagrant questions move her again. Vaguely. In the direction of the Slingerite artists’ house, a tiny white fretwork asylum, tucked into a small yard packed with banana trees.
Three beautiful dancers, male dancers and local actors no less, one red, one black, one white, welcome her warmly with their usual tone of alarm. “Oh Gawd! What happen to you? You need RESS. Laus! Take a break, child. You can’t keep up with dat madness right through, yuh know. Or else it go kill you. Is true. Come.” And they share. Generously.
She showers and eats and sleeps on a bed in the tiny bedroom, in their clothes, their protection, their little house full of throaty banter, incense, gentle music, and rumbling laughter. Grateful, she breathes deeply in her sleep. And outside, the wide banana leaves cluster, pressing close, filtering the Port of Spain night air before it enters the jalousie windows, before it enters her.
* * *
The hills breathe and settle round the ex — swamp nest of a town. Spore-thick moist warm nights. Silk cotton trees with “shining eyes” line a street called Mucurapo. One of these old trees rots in the botanical gardens and a young straight one stands guard on the hill above. Breeze tugs off their white cotton-hair tufts and spreads their magic far. Soucouyant and Lagahoo. Old spirits and superstitions lived in them. But not now, the hills sigh. Look how things change and rearrange.
BRIGHT, SPARKY, DUSTY AIR and the sound of steelpan tinkles through fretwork into Ata’s home on Marli Street, four years later. Francisco spins around: “Look at this woman now — you born with a golden spoon in yuh ass! A real job, in a real office with nice people. No shit-hound stink work no more. A good girlfriend. And look at this place…” He looks about for the last time, at the little cocoon he helped her weave.
Magic. A wooden antique dream of a house. From the time she saw it, to agreement and key — it came true. Right around the corner from her work, Francisco, and the Savannah. Tall narrow doors graced the dusty front steps, ginger lilies colored the yard. As fragile as it looked from the outside, it was elegance inside, to her. A delicate palace. High ceilings lengthened her spine, white everywhere dressed her regal. Fretwork lace partitions, layers of gloss paint, the care taken to cut each detail so long ago. It didn’t need much more than the few things Francisco had helped her furnish it with. They had boarded up the rotten bathroom window and put a new bolt on the front door. He draped gauzy white muslin around the sunroom and she spread old cotton curtains on the floor there, to cover the holes. They cozied it up into a heavenly nest, weighted with smooth river stones and scented with vetiver. Her haven. His shelter, sometimes.
Ata looks at his lopsided face, his bottom lip, busted and trembling slightly. “You have to go?”
He can’t stop the tears gathering in his puffy, hurt eyes. “Stay here and wait for what? To … to get stabbed next time?” Spreads his arms wide in mock sacrifice. “I look like I ready to die for being gay?” He tries to grin but his smile cracks as she hugs him.
She squeezes him tight tight and lets herself cry quietly with him. His neck smells slightly of paint and a sweet oil — and fear. She hugs tighter.
A bunch of fellas had stoned him as he walked home from his sister’s place the other night. He was dressed in normal clothes but his tight gait must have given him away. They chased him down. He stumbled and fell but escaped. This time. Now he’s migrating to an aunt in England.
“But it will be better there for you,” Ata says gently as Francisco stops shaking and wipes his face with his T-shirt. “You could pursue your acting and you’ll fit in just fine with all that’s going on there — you know, the streaking parades and all.”
He tries to chuckle and snorts hard. “I know, I know, I know.” The trembling is gone but his lip is more swollen, the bruise on his chin red.
“I’ll miss you bad though.”
“And I will miss flicking you, girl.” He squeezes her hard again and stamps his feet, notices a soft corner of the floor. It crackles when he prods it with his toe. “Wood ants feasting like — eh!” His eyes run up, to the attic. “You could imagine what going on up there? The other day, right in that office over so, thieves came in through the roof and t’ief out all the computers. T’ank God dese windows have burglarproofing.” He goes on, urging her to take care of herself. She should socialize more, get to know people, the ones always inviting her out — go out. But be careful, especially as a woman living on her own, especially when coming home at night. Watch out for the strangers roaming around here like rats.
She watches him crossing the street, shouting back to her with his mashed-up smile, “Remember Camp Swampy days? Remember your survival skills, girl!”
She waves and sends kisses from the steps. Standing on the thin skin of the peacock, tucked close under the feathery shifting beauty, she feels fine bones moving beneath her bare feet.
* * *
The next day at work, Ata sits at her tall drawing table and pushes the slide rule up to the top, slowly, then brings it back down over the draft paper taped down in the center. Her friend SC, at the next table in the art room, looks at her taking her time to select the right-sized Staedtler pen. It’s only the three of them in the art room at the back of the small advertising agency. Ata, SC, and a tiny mouse of a girl, Claris. Claris has to climb and hop up onto her stool, she’s so tiny. But she is good. Cheerful, with straight short brown hair and pale skin that never sees the sun, quiet, efficient, and just good. SC is the moody one, always stomping hard and making the tables shake, slamming things on her desk and roughing up the felt-tipped markers. She’s the sultry darkie of the bunch of women that make up the office staff. But she is good, too. Quick with pre-press, she churns out and delivers. SC had warmed to Ata, not sure what to make of her quietness at first but liking the fact that she was not from this place. When she realized that Ata also worked with real artists and that she gets crude humor — they hit it off. SC cackles and crows at her own jokes on a good day, louder than anyone else, shaking up her tits with a particular gobbly laugh.