<Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket # 37:
Out of the blue I got word from my mother, Mr. Polo wasn’t doing too well.
He had asked for me. Wanted me to know he was “ready”. That weekend I
headed home.
Mr. Polo ran a taxi service taking children to school. His boat didn’t have
power motor and speed. My mother traveled with him to Charity 'cause it gave
her a chance to look for people, wave as she passed houses and clearings.
In the morning he picked us up one by one, in the afternoon he brought us
back. We had to be at Charity on time; he didn’t like waiting around too long.
One day I was late. I went off with my friends after school up the river and we
lost track of time. When we got back to Charity he had come and gone. It was
getting dark. It was too far for my friends to paddle me home. They thought
the whole situation very funny.
I waited at the pick up spot, praying Mr. Polo would come back. And he came
back.
“Your mother worried sick, wondering what happened to you.” I was with
friends up the river. “Up the river? with friends?” He seemed eager
nevertheless to forgive me.
When we got home he tried to calm my mother. “The boy now learning to be
independent.” That made her more angry. He knows right from wrong. He
shouldn’t be doing something like this. Mr. Polo gave her a bag of crabs; he
stayed until her temper cooled.
But it was what he said on the way home that day that stuck with me.
“You know how to swim?” A little. “What you mean a little? You either know
or you don’t know.” I could float. “You ever swim ’cross this river? Right
across? “There’s no right or left. If I throw you overboard right now, you know
what to do?” I think so. “All this time you in school, and you know only a
little about water around you. I don’t understand.”
After secondary school, I decided to go to Georgetown, hoping to find work.
He tried warning me about moving there. My mother told me not to listen to
him. I might find better paying jobs there.
He said he’d been to Georgetown several times. Each time, bad luck for him,
it rained, heavy rain. The streets turned into rivers. People looked on helpless.
“Complain, blame the Government, wait for the water to drain away. Helpless.
Plus they have no respect for the rules of road ways, the quiet of rest and night,
no respect. Big seawall, so they think they have nothing to worry about.”
I have to say what he said about Georgetown, about the flooding and no
respect, is true. Heat and hard hearts everywhere.
Eventually I learned to swim. Mr. Polo offered to help me. I told him I didn’t
need any help. “That’s good. You feeling confidence now. Good.”
He told me about what happened to him one day, how someone – relative,
family friend, he brushed past exactly who – took him out in a canoe took him
out in a canoe across the river, but when he stepped out on the other side,
the man backed out the canoe and told him make his way home.
He shouted after the man. “Stop shouting. Shouting ent going help."
He started swimming, but half way across he turned on his back to rest. Next
thing he knew he was sinking, slowly at first, with his body’s consent.
It seemed to go on forever, a peaceful descending in the water. At no point
did his lungs swell, or threaten to burst. He worried if he didn’t snap out of
it, he might never see the sky again. Then is when he panic.
He scrambled, arms and legs fighting up. He broke the surface faster than
expected. Fear wrapped round him and he swam like a rattled shark to the
river bank, grabbing hold of mangrove roots like they were life preservers.
My mouth was half open, I didn’t know what to say. He pointed, “You should
see how your face look,” laughing and coughing, one hell of chest raking
cough.
Alright, I thought, this was just a joke. Just Mr. Polo spinning a story, playing
with me – all for the look on my face.
He circled back, serious again, adding one more thing. He knew now, he said,
what it takes to manage a river life. He understood how one minute people
act like they responsible and close to you, next minute they unbuckling, and
you on your own in the world.
Whenever I went back to the Pomeroon I looked him up. By then I was old
enough to drink his rum and share a little marijuana. Ready to listen and
follow.
He’d ask me how I was doing in Georgetown. Same nonsense every day, I told
him, as if regretting I gave up the river. I was glad he didn’t ask what work
I was doing.
“Listen, I have a favour to ask.” A favour? “You must promise to do it, no
questions, alright?”
Hard to believe, this from a man who never asked us for anything, who gave
the impression he knew how to manage every river situation. “I know you
from since you was a boy. Remember the day you didn’t come home and
your mother was worried sick. I remember that day.” I couldn’t refuse him
his favour.
I went by him late in the afternoon. His face was narrower, his teeth broken
and browning; it was the first time I saw his skull without a cap. Like you
losing weight, I said. I hear you was in hospital. He didn’t answer.
He looked shrunken, the pants belt pulled tight, keeping his pants all
scrunched up at the waist. “Things does flare up all of a sudden, like church
bell reminding you,” he spoke up. “As long as you could move your legs, use
your hands to clean myself, you can count your lucky stars.” Then he said,
“Come with me. I have to show you something.” We went outside.
He stepped from habit but with slowness into the canoe, while my
Georgetown walking legs tried to keep balance.
We set off keeping close to the bank, the sunlight falling fast behind the
trees, stillness and silence except the gurgling sound when our paddles
dipped into the water. Then he began steering as if to cross.
In the middle of the river he stopped paddling. I looked over my shoulder “This
is it,” he said. This was what. “Where we part. I leaving you here, you can go
back.” He playing with me again, I thought.
He lifted his legs over the side, rocking the canoe a little, a look of worry on
his face. He slipped into the water, and he was gone.
I sat in the boat, one, two ,three minutes, gripping the paddle, expecting his
head to break the surface – and there he was! spitting water, wiping his face,
getting ready to explain what was going on. Nothing, not a bubble.
Maybe he swam away under water, leaving me alone and baffled. And with
some explaining to do if anybody asked later. Nothing, not a sound.
When I got home my mother asked about him. “He okay,” I told her,”I don’t
think you’ll see him for awhile. He said he was leaving.” Where he going?”
He didn’t say. But he’ll be alright. And with that I came back to Georgetown.
Joseph Midasie
Georgetown, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 