<Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket # 39:
Nobody here know about the 9/11 lady. That is my name for her.
I’m about to break a little pledge. I swore not to talk about her but some
things you can’t keep to yourself forever.
She’s a survivor from the 9/11 Wall Street plane attack. Remember that?
She was right in the middle of it, she said. On the pavement on her way to
a hot dog stand. The plane hit. She turn. She see this big cloud of ash going
up to the heavens. She feel dust coming down on her face. She freeze
and stared and said a prayer and kept walking in the opposite direction.
Well, by now she should be dead or dying. Plenty people who were down
there who inhale the dust, they dying now one by one. Firefighters, police,
workers in the area, even people miles away who breathe in the dust, they
coming down now.
Since that day, she said, she scrubbed herself but she couldn’t get all the
dust off her skin, out her hair. She turn on the bed sheet, she feeling the
dust. Months pass, nothing change. She still couldn’t get rid of this feeling.
Then she came home and went up the Pomeroon river.
I heard this a year ago when I picked her up at the airport. She looked
middle aged, maybe mid-forties, middle of something. I want to go to
Parika stelling, she said. And she offered to pay in US dollars.
Her bags were already in the trunk. It was out of my usual taxi runs. I had
to calculate fast. Take the fare, take her to the stelling, take the US
currency; you probably wouldn’t see her again.
It turn out to be a sweet piece of change. Everybody here waiting for
robberies to end, for the days of ‘good salary’ to start. Let me tell you, now
whenever this lady call to pick her up at Parika, I am there. I believe in
this lady.
So what belief got to do with it? At some point in this place you start
wondering what you have to show for yourself, how far north or south your
life gone, or if you’re the same person after all the years. This lady set
me thinking about my long years.
I still not sure if in fact she slowly dying from the 9/11 dust, but something
she doing ‒ and I don’t know what the hell she doing ‒ in the Pomeroon
giving her life bright new days.
I told her once, “You know, you could package your survival story and sell it.
They have people like you in India, spiritual people, with thousands of
followers dying to listen to somebody like you.”
She cut me off. People here don’t listen and learn. They prefer to dream
and follow.
“I was in New York, I used to live in the basement of my daughter’s home,”
I told her. “But I came back. I trying my best here.”
She cut in again, You looking good for your age. Careful though. Family and
relatives probably watching and waiting for something to happen. You have
to be alert. I heard pure confidence in her voice.
And just like that after one pickup at the airport and a little conversation,
me and this lady getting along tight, tighter than blood.
From Parika she takes a speedboat then a bus to Charity in the Pomeroon
where she lives. These are different times. She don’t trust Georgetown,
don’t trust any town or city for that matter. She calls for car service, I am
there.
Laugh all you want. You have your spiritual people you believe in, I have
this 9/11 lady.
*
The other day she called. I drove the miles to the Parika to meet her. No
squeezing up in a minivan for this lady. My transport is like her limousine,
her shield and security in Georgetown. As my father used to say, avoid as
much as possible the vulgarity of the vulgus. And take your time.
Only US dollars. I know you wondering. I was wondering too. Did she
declare this foreign currency at the airport?
And if you wondering what big plans I have for my dollars, you can stop
right there.
Actually, Kembi, my Nigerian friend, is the one with big plans. He drives
a van, but he hoping to move on from here soon. He has some business
connection with a Chinese man here in the supermarket business.
This place, I tell you. So many people here, with every trick and reason,
from every crab hole in the world, running their own “No speak English”
business, you don’t know who to trust.
Kembi offered me a gun at a cut price. Just in case. I had to warn him to
keep his damn mouth shut about the dollars. Once people start asking
where he get his dollars, it could lead back to me, then back to the 9/11
lady, and that could be problems for everybody.
We have motorbike pirates, boys and broken men who know only simple
mathematics, like how to grab or add and subtract using trigger fingers.
I took the gun. I have to protect my goose and my golden eggs. I ready
for all o’them.
*
Once every week or so I drive the Pomeroon lady around Georgetown. I wait
outside. She does her business, gets back in my transport. I take off turning
this way, that way. A few more stops. Same procedure. Then we head to
the bridge, back to the Parika stelling.
One time we picked up a white lady at the airport. Not too many bags.
Judging from the laughter and the name sharing, they might have been
co-workers in New York. Whose husband, it turned out, was one of what
they call first responders, emergency people who rushed to Wall Street
dust storm that day. Which meant her husband inhale a lot of dust.
He couldn’t make the trip with her. Never heard of Guyana. So you here
to check it out for him? my lady said.
I was introduced as Mr 5th Avenue. I have a little decal on the dashboard.
“You’re in the hands of my trusted chauffeur, a good man, my first
lieutenant.” I am also the Confidence Keeper man when it come to
conversation.
Let me tell you, passengers talk their heads off in the back seat, on their
self phone, thinking the driver’s mind blank as the car headlights. I hear
people speaking a foreign language who I wouldn’t trust even though I
couldn’t understand a word they saying.
I took the white lady straight back to the airport. The 9/11 lady didn’t
come along. Safe journey. “And thanks for the package. I hope they
don’t go through my bags at the airport.” It’s not in your carry-on, you
shouldn’t have any problems.
My first thought was marijuana. But why would this white lady come all
this way for marijuana? “She was giving me a jar. I told her they would
inspect that for sure. So I have this stuff in like a plastic ziploc bag. I’m
supposed to mix it in yogurt or something. If it worked here, it should
work there.” Couldn’t be marijuana. “Then I’ll stop wasting money on
multivitamins.”
So you had a good time, I asked. “It was okay. My body likes so many things
here. Bernice got something good going.” So what were you two up to?
“Not much, the usual.”
She probably thought I knew what the usual was. “There’s money to be
made, but Bernice isn't thinking business.” I nodded as if I understood.
“Lots of people I know would give anything for a few more good years.”
I interrupted, She’s a good person. Not to be taken advantage of. She went
silent for awhile.
“Well, I can’t wait to get back to my mattress.” Her mattress? where did
they sleep? in a hammock? on the ground? “And I’ll miss milk from the cow.”
So what they use for drinking water?
A week in the Pomeroon bush is not like a week on a California beach. Her
body was caked with mud, she was bathing in the river, walking around the
bush with nothing on except. “But you know what? I feel terrific. I haven’t
felt this good in a long while.”
“I wasn’t thrilled with the bathroom facilities. Those noises at night if you
had to go. Reminded me of camping outdoors when I was a kid. But the sun
on my skin felt good. Can you imagine? I was like a guinea pig for a week
in the jungle. You might see me back here next year.”
You getting the big picture?
I tell you, every river find its own direction to the sea. I don’t pretend I
know everything, and that this will go on and on. I know what matters in
this world and I staying alert.
R. Misir
Georgetown, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 