88, 87, 86, 85, 84, 83, 82, 81, 80
79, 78, 7—
“Lucinda! What in Heaven’s name you doing in here chile? What kind of idle skylarking you up to?”
The teacher was upon her before Lucinda could speak. She was so tall that she seemed to scrape the ceiling with her hair. She had no eyes. The thick glasses reflected light in Lucinda’s face. But her hands were strong. When she gave you a beating, you stayed beat. The teacher clutched Lucinda’s cheeks and squeezed.
“You ill?”
Lucinda shook her head.
“Toothache? All them godforsaken sweeties rotting your mouth?”
Lucinda shook her head.
“What about your house? You mother lose her head again?”
Lucinda shook her head.
“Then what is the reason for this dillydallying? Look how long school dismiss?”
There were five voices with which an adult spoke. Lucinda recognized them, because her mother had only one. Mary Palmer’s mother had three. There was the “dinner ready” voice, the “get off the veranda that a just clean” voice and the “never mind, baby, it soon get better” voice. No matter what was said, everything that came from the teacher’s mouth sounded like an inquisition. The “you’re idle and you’re evil” voice.
“Girl chile, do it look like is breeze me talking to? Speak up, little girl, why you not going home?”
Lucinda would not speak.
“I losing my patience with you. Why pickney ears must always hard? Why unu always begging for a beating?”
Lucinda looked down in her lap.
“You want problem? Is problem you round here looking for? Answer when big people speak to you! I will give you nuff problem. Get up this blinking instant. Me say, git up!”
The teacher grabbed Lucinda by the collar and yanked her up. She screamed as the bench rose with her for a second then fell back, tearing off her uniform at the waist. Now you have you throne, Lucinda Queenie, Elsamire had said, chuckling as she waved the bottle of glue at Mary and the others. Lucinda was confused until she tried, one hour later, to go to the bathroom.
“Oh for Heaven’s sake, what is wrong with these pickneys! Is the Devil in them, Jesus, must be the Devil. Them know how much money me pay for that glue? Them think say glue cheap? Straight a Kingston me, meself go buy the glue and look how them waste it. Idle hands, Jesus. Devil’s workshop for sure. Devil’s workshop. Gal, go to you bloodclaat yard before me give you reason to stay. And if you tell anybody what me just say, is me and you tomorrow.”
Outside the wind whispered laughter as Lucinda’s legs felt the warm stream of piss.
She went home on secret roads. She crossed the river instead of the bridge and waited until evening. Her mother’s house was not part of the Gibbeah Plan. It hung like the other shacks on the outskirt but still within the boundary of the river. There were two rooms, a bedroom for her mother and the kitchen-dining-sitting room that was the bedroom for Lucinda. The house was overrun with old furniture stolen from an abandoned plantation. Luxurious red chairs blackened by coal and black magic. Four of these chairs were scattered around the room as if they had placed themselves. A bamboo coffee table with a vase of plastic flowers sat in the center of the room. There was a gray Formica dining table to the right but no chairs, and the tabletop was littered with dried plants, glass jars filled with vinegar and water, spoiled mangos, and shriveled apples. Lucinda opened one of the cupboards and pushed past the jar filled with lizard skins and dog paws to find the last bag of police-button cookies.
Now to figure out how to slip outside without stirring her mother, whose room she had to pass. Her mother sounded busy. Maybe she would not see. Lucinda tiptoed past the room but looked when she heard the comb fall and bounce on his shoe. She followed his legs, moving up from one dot of curled body hair to the next. She moved up to his sweaty buttocks that clenched tight when he plunged in and spread wide when he pulled out. She moved up to his shirt, so orange that the glow tinted her mother’s feet, both of which where on the man’s shoulders. Her mother was on the dresser, her sweaty back greasing the mirror as the man rammed inside her. Lucinda imagined his cock as stubby as he was plunging in and out of her mother’s vagina that was as loose as she was. Then he shifted and she saw it for a second, his penis disappearing into her mother and his jerky balls bouncing like elastic. Her mother had two gentlemen a week, sometimes three. By the time Lucinda looked in the dresser mirror, he had long seen her. The man raised one of his bushy eyebrows and smiled, rounding his fat face. He gyrated, swirling his hips and thrusting harder, as her mother held on.
“Woi! Woi, you donkey sweet, Daddy. Woi, me womb a shif. Take it easy with you donkey-la-la. Easy with you donkey-la-la.”
The man grunted and stepped away.
“Come, black bull, give me the milk.”
The man grunted again. Lucinda heard little drops fall to the floor.
“God no like when man spill him seed, bitch.”
“God no like when you fuck for free either, donkey la-la.”
“If me hafi pay money,” he said, throwing the bills at her crotch, “then the pussy better more tight. How bout fi her own next time?”
“Fi who? What you talking bout?”
The man motioned to the mirror but the woman turned to the doorway, to the blur of Lucinda running away.
“What the—”
Lucinda sat outside on the steps eating police-button cookies. The force came so sudden that she felt nothing. The bag of cookies flew high in the air and landed in the dirt after she did, hands first, then face, as she skidded in the dust. Her mother nearly lost balance after kicking her.
“Nasty nayga bitch.”
Lucinda knew the underbelly of the country. She knew the secret springs, winding roads, and invisible spirits more than anyone twice her age. Most she had learned from her mother. Two weeks later, on a moon-tinted night, Lucinda helped her mother brew the callaloo tea, then watched her drink. They were behind the house, close to the river to hear the flow, but hidden between trees so thick that no light could be seen. Her mother grabbed a bottle filled with river water, took some into her mouth, and spat into the bonfire. As the vapor vanished, so did she.
Lucinda had stopped speaking to her classmates after the pit toilet incident, but spoke the day before Christmas Eve. There was nothing remarkable to the day. Some passed it with lethargy, some with industry. But Elsamire, who sat beside her in class, was dead.
They found her on the rocks, by the spit of the sea. She had landed with violence, her body exploding like a smashed tomato. Above, back on the cliff, looking down, were her fellow students of the school outing, including Lucinda, who whispered to Mary, “Ah bet she wish she could a fly.”
She had seen the body, but it was at Elsamire’s funeral, where the casket was closed, that Lucinda saw the devastation of death. She vomited on one of Mr. Garvey’s nephews, infuriating those around her for trying to steal attention at the poor little girl’s funeral. They wouldn’t have known, but her mother knew. She raised her chin and looked down at her daughter from the ridge of her nose.
Lucinda went home to her cot and fell asleep. When she awoke, night had fallen and a candle burnt in the room, throwing jagged shapes on the wall. One of the shapes broke away from the others and sat down beside her.
“Me know what you did,” her mother whispered. Lucinda said nothing. “You hearin me? I say, I know what you did.”
“Mummy?”