Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [12]

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12. Bayo led Ras to a shack so far up the mountain

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Bayo led Ras to a shack so far up the mountain there were no roads, and cars could not go. Ras was glad he’d spent some time his first days here to tramp the hills for exercise. Still, he was a bit winded when they arrived. They couldn’t have been more than fifteen hundred feet above sea level, but he felt his lungs laboring. He lived in Florida, at about fifteen feet above sea level. He’d survived the highlands of Vietnam, but he’d been eighteen, nineteen, and hard as stone. He knew very well the seats on that Boeing turbo-prop he’d flown on from San Juan had been designed for the military in the 1940’s, with hard-assed recruits in mind, who averaged five feet nine inches. He’d flown to Hell on them a couple times. At fifty-two, he was still as tough as any man in the States, and tougher than most. The thing was, the folks in this island walked up and down these hills all the time. He’d known guys from the mountains, and they were iron-sided troopers, just naturally harder than any flatlander.
    He had seen a woman he’d been told was in her eighties walk down the mountain every single day, past Kirk’s place, to where she cut bananas all day. Then she walked back up that mountain with a bunch of bananas Ras knew had to weigh fifty pounds, balanced on her head. She held it steady with one hand and plucked a banana now and then with the other, peeling it with her teeth and stuffing it into her mouth. In Florida, she would have been in a wheelchair with an oxygen bottle.

    The house sat high on a sunlit slope, surrounded by the old, towering coconut palms. Most folks these days grew dwarf Malay Gold coconuts for production; it just made sense. Instead of being thirty feet from the ground like these, they were within reach of a tall man. They were met at the door by a woman who was a scarecrow made of licorice sticks. Her colorful island dress hung like it might on a collection of wire coat hangers, while her hair pointed straight up, grey and white, impossibly thin to rise so high. Inside, the neat little shack was painted white and blue, with bold palm trees and flowers, just like you could see out the door and windows. It was a bright, clean, and friendly place – Ras could feel that as he set his first foot inside. To the left was a counter and sink, with a tiny round table and a single, battered wooden chair. To his right, on the end wall, three brown crosses were painted on a green hill. A testament to the righteous ways of this house.
    If Bayo had worn a hat, he would have taken it off and twisted it in his hands. He all but bowed to the old woman, and his eyes never left the ground. “Mama Marfa, dis man be Mr. Ras from America. He friends wit’ de white people in de bamboo house, down to Bells. Mr. Ras, dis Miss Marfa. I am hoping she may recall some’ting of what you wish to hear.” Marfa looked Ras up and down as if he were a questionable piece of fish in the waterfront market. He thought of Geraldine’s floaters and smiled to himself. Marfa saw this grin and didn’t like it much at all, he could tell.
    Marfa had a daughter named Georgia. Georgia was so twisted and fractured, she made Sofia look normal. Georgia lay on a dirty blanket on the floor, in front of the three crosses. She was a pathetic creature, yet she seemed to be enjoying life. She smiled at him with a face that might have been pretty were it not so tortured. A string of spittle dripped from the corner of her mouth, into a puddle he could see was always there. He wondered if he could trade his life for hers. He really considered it. If it took, what, brain damage to be happy, who was he to complain? He’d had a great life and he’d fucked it up. Hers was a living Hell in Paradise, yet somehow, in some way he could not quite grasp, she seemed at peace. Bayo was speaking to Marfa in Kwéyòl, and the tiny smile she had displayed as Ras looked kindly towards Georgia disappeared, as though she had just become a frightened little animal. She and Bayo both stared at him now as if he were a six-foot viper. Only Georgia continued to smile.

    Marfa looked at Bayo as if she might cut his balls off for bringing this white devil-man here. Ras turned all his charm on the old island gal, smiling and speaking slowly in his best Southern drawl. “I’m just here tryin’ to find out what happened to my Uncle Charlie, so’s my mamma can go to her grave knowing how he passed. I sure am sorry to bother you folks so.” He didn’t think it was going to work and was pretty sure it didn’t. But he could see the old woman hesitate. Bayo frowned. This wasn’t the reptile whose fangs he had seen at the bar. Without looking away from Ras, he spoke in Kwéyòl to Marfa in a low voice. “Don’t trust him Mama, he have murder in his eyes. ” It was as if Ras knew the language; Bayo might have been speaking plain English. Georgia laughed, a bright little tinkle that sounded like she was the smartest person in the room and having a fine time of it. Marfa’s own eyes narrowed at him once again, hardening into little black stones. He resolved to have a serious discussion with Bayo when they left. Offer him Erasmus Taft’s Patented Motivational Seminar on the values of trauma-induced paralysis, guaranteed to change the little fucker’s snot-picking life forever. He was about to suggest they go shop for Bayo’s new wheelchair when Georgia began screeching.
    “Nahh! Nahhh! Eee goo mah! Eee goo mah!” Marfa sat down in her one chair – Ras realized Georgia would never sit in a chair – and her eyes were now wide and white, rolling in fear and confusion, first at this enormous American, and then back at Bayo. The barman seemed confused. He could make nothing of the disabled girl’s raving. As if he’d asked out loud, Marfa spoke. “Georgia says no, he’s a good man.” She went to the girl, crooning softly in a Kwéyòl voice she had obviously cultivated over many long years of taking care of this tortured bit of humanity. Knowing perfectly well he was most certainly not a good man, Ras still felt a tiny particle of his glacial heart break off, calving frigid fragments of a compassion he didn’t know he still owned into the icy, inhospitable waters of the world. He had not realized until now that his determination not to fail in this one thing had brought out some of the worst and the best in him, things he thought he had buried some rough years back, along with two tiny coffins.
    Georgia was having none of her mother’s calming talk, thrashing swollen joints against the wooden floor, shouting masticated words from her twisted mouth. Marfa swiveled her shrunken shanks onto the floor, trying to prevent Georgia’s head from banging the boards while never taking her terrified gaze from Erasmus Taft. Then Georgia whipped around, her head now in Marfa’s lap. She stared at him too, but not quite; it was as if she saw into another place, far away.
    “Anhh dahh whee ey ha nee ah, boh bullah anh ranh, anh lanh,” she intoned, and Marfa, startled, translated. “And…and dat which dey have need of, bot’ bullocks, and rams, and lambs.” The hairs on Ras’ arms stood on end. It was part of Darius’ Decree, from the book of Ezra. Chapter six, verse nine. He had been raised in the Episcopal church, but his father had been born bog-Irish Catholic. He knew the Bible as well as anybody. The Jesuits had even offered him a scholarship in college. Their thing was debate and discussion, and he’d excelled in debate club, but he’d had no urge to convert, nor to engage with the brothers, who were mostly gay. Georgia continued, while Marfa, eyes wide, spoke the words he knew so well.

    “…for de burnt offerings of de God in Heaven, wheat, salt, wine an’ oil, according to de appointment of de priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be give dem day by day wit’out fail.” Almost before thinking, Ras took up the tenth verse right on cue. “That they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of Heaven, and pray for the life of the King, and his sons.” Georgia didn’t miss a beat. The eleventh verse, now that he understood what she was saying, came out almost comprehensible even without Marfa repeating the words.
    “Also I have made a Decree, that whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up, let him be hanged thereon; and let his house be made a dunghill for this.” The dunghill in which he currently found himself was silent for a time, and Ras was instantly positive that Georgia was perfectly intelligent; despite her disability, her clear dark eyes bored into his own with the intensity of a Socialist college student. It was as if she had fired some powerful mental weapon directly into his brain, and as he rocked back Marfa startled him when she spoke again.
    “Bayo, you go now. You have de River Place to run, so go run it. I will be fine.” The island man, his finger once again rooting in his capacious nose, made as if to protest, but she cut him off with a glare. “You be de one to bring him here! If he be bad, I know who to blame. Now go!” Ras was holding a hand to his mouth as Bayo stalked reluctantly down the hill, in a huff conjured of equal parts anger, fear and relief. Marfa turned back to him, calm now and very much in control. “So, you know of de story in Ezra, Mr. Ras from America?” He nodded, overcome with a schoolboy’s nostalgia. Marfa might have been one of his Sunday School teachers.
    “Of course. The Jews, led by Zerubabel, son of Sheltiel, and Yeshua, son of Jazadak, began to build the house of God, the Temple, at Jerusalem. Tatnai, the Persian governor of ‘this side of the river,’ and Shetharboznai, Persian governor of the ‘other side of the river,’ questioned their right to do so, probably because another temple in their precincts would siphon off donations from their own.” They hadn’t taught him that in Sunday School, but he’d pretty much figured out how things worked with religion on his own over the years. He couldn’t believe he was discussing Old Testament politics with a withered crone and her devastated daughter, on a deserted jungle hillside in a tiny Caribbean island. Marfa, however, in her schoolmarm role, was nodding in confirmation. He was surprised that his lifelong need for approval and validation from his elders still followed him even now. “So, you know de word of God; dat be good. And you understand dat de evil ones try to stop de men of God for selfish reasons; den and now, it always be so. What happen next?” Georgia stared at him, her empty smile and the bit of drool in the corner of her mouth incongruous with the sharp comprehension in her eyes.

    “Well, the Jews told the governors that the old King, Cyrus, had directed them to build it, so instead of just killing them and pulling down their new Temple, they went to the new King, Darius, and asked him what to do.” Marfa was rocking now, and Georgia gave a sudden loud snore from between her bowed knees.
    “And Darius say to give dem whatever de priests want. Now why he say dat?” Ras frowned. This was beginning to feel like a test. Not that he minded; he had always been good at tests. He could never resist the chance to show off his intellect. He was on top of this.
    “So the priests of the Temple would pray for the life of the King and his sons, like it says in verse eleven. With all the necessary burned sacrifices, all the required pomp and circumstance. It means Darius believed in the power of the Hebrew God.”
    “And you, my son? Do you believe in de power of God?” He could have been ten years old again, answering father Radebaugh in Bible class about his favorite verses of the Old Testament. “Yes, Mama,” he said softly, his wandering eyes testifying to his truthfulness. Marfa clapped her hands, her face went up to heaven, and she broke out in an ecstasy of Kwéyòl prayer. She spread her arms above her head, swaying, calling out in a language at once foreign and domestic, completely alien to him yet totally comprehensible.
    For the first time Ras began to be frightened. He tensed up. His training said fear was the killer. Frightened men made mistakes, and mistakes got you killed. “What is happening here, Mama?” Marfa, who had subsided into murmurs of joy like folks he’d seen at some Pentecostal churches in America, swung her head up to look at him. “Georgia last name,” she stated pointedly, “be Cyrus.” His head seemed to rotate oddly, or maybe it was the room going around him, or the world turning? What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Georgia is t’irty-eight years old. When she was t’irteen, she said she would put de new king on de t’rone, just like Cyrus. Only his name would not be Darius. What is your real name, Mr. Ras from America?” He stared at her, drawing back as if from some unknown threat.
    “My…name, is Erasmus Taft…” Marfa shrieked. The old woman was shaking and shouting in religious fervor. “It be him! It be him, girl! You said eet, all dem years ago, and now he finally come!” The girl, who he could not believe was actually thirty-eight, was grinning madly, her head snapping back and forth, and groans of delight were torn from her throat. What kind of bullshit was this? She saw his hesitation and shook her head even more. Marfa said, “You cannot escape eet, Mr. Ras Tafari from America. You will be de new king! De young savior will tell you, on de mountainside, in de rain, in de storm, just like Georgia say so long ago. She say de new king would be named for de saint, Ras Tafari. But we sho’ don’t be t’inking you was gon’ be white!” The young savior? What the fuck storm? He could only think of a young man on Kirk’s property who called him Papa Ras Tafari, his “American father,” who was always talking about how the spirits spoke to him when he was stoned. His own head was shaking now, he was automatically tightening up, his body readying itself for action, when the old lady put her tiny, bony hand over her puckered mouth and gave out a mousy little laugh.
    “You tryin’ to frighten me, Mr. Ras Tafari from America? ’Cause let me tell you, baby, we already be so frightened we cannot be no more.” Ras was so shaken he actually blushed, something he didn’t think had happened since his junior year in high school, when Bonnie Durling had kissed him in front of everybody in the lunchroom. He had indeed unconsciously been using his skills to try to scare his “subject.” He felt like a child caught doing something nasty. Marfa, clearly taking pity, rescued him.

    “Mr. Ras Tafari from America, you come searching for your family, and I see your heart is good.” His brain was screaming that there was danger here, his feet were telling him to run, but he was rooted to the floor. Georgia smiled madly from before the painted crosses on the painted hill. “I will tell you ’bout Charlie,” Marfa continued, “but you must know dis. Your way is dark, and you will never go back de way you have come. All dis has been foretold.” Her words seemed to burrow like worms into the bones of his arms, and they itched and burned, like when he was trying to quit the cocaine and still his hands laid out that next line.
    Marfa painfully pushed herself up from the floor, lovingly placing Georgia’s waving head on a fold of the stained blanket. On the counter by the end window, next to the tiny sink, sat a bottle of dark bush rum, a shot glass, a plastic picnic tumbler, and what had to be a shaving mug. She poured the shot glass full and tossed it back, bending over it and nodding with pleasure, then rising with a sigh to shake her head. She seemed to understand her guest’s agitation. She poured the tumbler to the top, brought it to him, then returned for a curtain call with her shot glass. She waved him to the rickety chair, then settled herself beside Georgia on the floor and began to speak. Her words imitated the clipped accent of the Scottish slave drivers who had taught her ancestors this bastardized form of English at the end of a whip.

Copyright © 2020 by Roger Owens