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     Later Amarelle would attempt to shatter the picture of marital bliss.
         Veronique, who worked at her sister's hospital, was in fact the mother of two
     children whose father – an islander and a hopeless womanizer – she'd left back there.
     She met her Jewish husband in the hospital's EKG room where he'd been sent for a 
     routine examination; and where as she tried to affix the suction cups on his surprisingly
     hairy chest, he made funny conversation; so funny, she could barely contain her profess-
     ional demeanour.
         He told her he'd never felt so relaxed, so safe, as at that moment in that room, in her
     hands.
         They fell in love. Just like that? Just like that, Amarelle said, opening her eyes wide,
     and going on to reveal her suspicion that Veronique was a little schemer: up from the
     islands with two growing children, and looking for permanent residence.
          In any event the Jewish fellow, single, about forty, balding, broad at the hips, with
     connections to a moneyed Jewish family in Manhattan, this fellow proposed to her one
     week later; and to everyone's astonishment they got married. Now she was pregnant,
     the little schemer.
         They appeared to have not too many friends, which explained their appreciation of
     Aschelle's gesture, inviting them to drive out to Poughkeepsie on Labour Day; and now
     this man also from the islands, also kind, patient, not in any way discomfited by their
     racial coupling.
         Veronique offered to refill anyone's plate. She chastised the laziness of her husband
     who, she was prepared to wager, had been spoiled by his Jewish mother.
         Left along for awhile Aaron asked, "So what do you do…? where do you teach?" Then
   he talked about a friend of his who'd gotten into trouble with the NYC Board of Education.
   Radix crossed his leg and listened.
        Veronique returned, her face and fleshy shoulders glowing with the healthy promise
    of her pregnancy; she offered to fetch drinks and went off again. Aaron continued his
    story about his friend and the Board of Education.
        A gentle, generous fellow, this Aaron; eager for friendship; talking up a tide to keep
    their tiny group afloat and perky. And when Veronique came back and sat down they went
    at each other again for a bit, husband and wife so sure of each other, staging these little
    pillow fights without the slightest embarassment.
       At some point, sensing saturation, and unsure of Radix' disinclination to talk, Veronique
   switched the topic to the subway system; how relieved she felt not to be using the trains
   so often, now that they lived in Riverdale. No, not so much the jostling crowds; not the
   terrible draft in the tunnels. It was that horrible screech of metal when the trains came
   into the station and jolted to a stop. That was what she couldn't stand.
       "Doesn't take much to make her happy," Aaron said.
       "That…and bruised fruit. I can't stand bruised bananas. You know when sometimes you
    peel them…? and they're all dark and mushy and…bruised?" 
       "Otherwise, she's one happy lady," Aaron said.
                                   (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)

            At some point Radix decided he was sufficiently attached to one couple to hang on
            to their company, not wander back outside to eat alone.
                They shuffled away, linked to each other by the woman's happy talk; she turned
            to Radix, she turned back to her husband, her words rattling like chains. They found
            folding chairs outside and settled down, leaning forward, shaking hands: Radix,
            Aaron Friedman from New York city, and Veronique from the islands.
                They had arrived late, Veronique said, and had got lost on the way. "All this man's
            fault." They had to turn back at one point. "He took the wrong exit." They hadn't
            met everyone yet. Radix nodded and smiled.
                Aaron like a good sport seemed determined not to let the conversation falter.
                They lived, he said, pulling his chair closer, their knees almost touching, in
            Riverdale in the Bronx. Where was Radix from? He'd visited the island of Dominica
            once on vacation…had Radix ever been there…? The approach to the island's airstrip,
            that was the most heart-stopping experience he'd ever had flying.
                "Just listen to this man," Veronique interrupted. "Like he's a frequent flyer."
                "I am a frequent flyer."
                "Let me tell you, the only heart-stopping experience he has… is when he's in his
            Lazyboy…in front of the television."
                "I'd have you know," Aaron rejoined, pointing his fork at Veronique, but making his
            point to Radix, "I've travelled the length and breadth of these United States…and
            frequently too." 
                "Just listen to this man."
                "And speaking of frequency, I have never met anyone with…shall we say, voracious
            bedroom appetites…who makes frequent demands on her spouse…at all hours of  
            the day and night…Are all the girls from Dominica like that?"
                "Aaaaaron!" Veronique, mouth open, fork frozen in mid-air, taken completely by
            surprise at the baring of moments of their intimacy. "That's not fair, Aaron. That's just
            not fair."
                 Yet despite her show of chagrin she was evidently enjoying herself, and lost no
            time returning to the fray with more revelations about her husband's ways.
                 Radix was content to sit back and smile impartially. He could only marvel at what
            seemed a display of verbal pillow fighting. For as long as he sat there they would need
            him as witness to the very real probability that a New York Jew and a black woman
            from the islands could marry and experience love and happiness.

           She called one morning just as he'd stepped into the bathroom. He was fiddling
           with the shower knobs; his feet were wet; he tied a towel around his waist and,
           leaving a trail of wet footprints on the floor, rushed to the phone.
               "It's been ringing a long time," she said irritably. "Where were you?"
               "In the shower."
               "It kept ringing and ringing. We're not supposed to make personal outside calls.
           I was just about to hang up."
               He didn't feel like saying more in defence. He tied the knot of the towel which
           kept coming loose.
               "Anyway, I just called to tell you to take the meat out the refrigerator."
               "What meat?"
               "Hold on a second.." she said, speaking to someone in the office.
               Radix sat shivering a little on the bed. He scratched his arms idly and noticed
           a bit of excess fat around his waist.
              Amarelle was taking her time getting back to the phone. He heard background
           noises and he pictured a tiny room with women, all technicians in white coats,
           chatting or joking as they labelled samples or called the next patient in for a blood
           sample.
              The skinny one from the Philippines who didn't speak much; and two Hispanic
          women who were fond of Avon products; and a Jamaican who bragged about her son,
          the honors student, and her house in Westchester; who still received welfare checks
          she was no longer entitled to ("I mean, what am I supposed to do? They keep sending
          me these cheques?" Amarelle liked to mimic.)
              These were her co-workers; all immigrants, they were one happy family of 
          dreamers and chatterers. In their company Amarelle felt grounded and secure.
              She'd come home physically tired but bursting with news about these women,
          talking from the moment she'd dropped her bag and kicked off her travel sneakers,
          as if talking was one sure way to relieve the working day's stress.
              The telephone line went quiet; then someone came on, impatient, asking Radix
          with authority what he wanted. Not sure if he should reveal his identity Radix put the
          phone down.
              (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams)    

     Peepal Tree Press of England, longtime publisher-protector       _______________________
    of Caribbean writing, has launched a series of publications            
    to renew interest in a generation of writers. The series is              BLACK MIDAS 
    titled "Caribbean Modern Classics". The hope is that readers          by Jan Carew
    will revisit the fiction that emerged during absorbing times                      
    in the 50s and 60s; though the success of the project will               Peepal Tree Press
    depend on whether young readers (& writers), wired to                 England, 2009
    live in the moment with digital toys, are willing to bend                 266 pgs. 
    for the whip of nostalgia; and be impressed.     
                                                                                                         ________________________
                                                                                                    
     The proposed list of best-known titles might also raise questions among literary
     reverends over what books should be considered "modern" or classic"; and whether
     the project isn't in fact an editor's halved admission there's little significant new 
     talent worthy of publishing investment. Until then it appears there's gold in the hills
     of retro.

     Jan Carew's Black Midas (first published, 1958) would seem an accomplished choice 
     for reissue. It examines the lives of pork knockers in colonial Guiana, the men who 
     worked the diamond fields in the country's hinterland.

     Public opinion back in those days was often not generous. Pork knockers were viewed
     as men adrift in vagrant activity; they lacked the skills and discipline to excel in the
     colony's school system, and took their chances in the gold fields. If they succeeded in 
     making a fortune they were mocked for lacking a different set of skills, how to manage
     or invest that fortune.

     With the coming of Independence and the burgeoning Arts of self-mirroring, pork
     knockers were embraced as money-foolish but our own folk; "legend makers whom
     the coast people sang ballads about"; strivers in the bush who'd turned their backs
     on the conventional path to self development, through overseas exams, overseas
     study and validation.

     Recent reports suggest they have now won official respect. Pork knockers have been
     granted a day (as in "Pork knockers Day"). In 2008 the Guyana Geology and Mines
     Commission organized a lecture and exhibition honouring their contribution to the
     nation's development. Guyana's Prime Minister, who is also responsible for mines and
     minerals, issued a statement (with an eye to the approaching Copenhagen conference)
     cautioning pork knockers to be "cognizant of the environment"  

     A 2009 Memorandum of Understanding between Guyana and Norway (with tiny devils
     in the details, some claim), which places limits & monitoring controls on mining and 
     forest development in exchange for preservation funds, is certain to disrupt the old
     habits of pork knockers (and fortune hunters crossing over from Brazil). Those free-
     spirited days of river bed adventure might now be permanently a thing of the past.

     Like their bearded bredren in Jamaica, the Rastafari – men languishing on the fringe
     of society, panning for (spiritual) fortune and redemption – Guiana's pork knockers
     have been a source of inspiration for poets, painters, folklorists and writers.  

     In Black Midas Carew's surprisingly articulate narrator offers this portrait of their lives:
     "They saw themselves as giants subduing a wide world…heroes of big spaces…cut
     loose from everything that tied men down to life on the coast." Such lyrical moments
     from the author might strike some Guianese readers (with their own pork knocker 
     stories) as a patch of ecstatic writing; and not "typical".

     The narrator's name is Aron Smart. Carew traces his growth from boyhood to adolescence,
     his escape from village to city. He is raised by his mother, uncle and (until they die) his
     grandparents. He is a book reader (the Bible, Dickens, Stevenson, Dumas, Hugo, the
     Bronte sisters) but his education takes him only so far, as an apprentice to an Indian
     pharmacist in the city. 

     His experiences with women reveal sharp learning curves. With Indra, the daughter of
     the Indian pharmacist and an Ursuline Convent school hottie, he learns that his sexuality
     can be exploited, his race disdained. With Belle, a prostitute ten years older, who follows 
     him into the jungle, he discovers the gap between unattached women in constant need
     of company & amusement, and men who like to be alone sometimes.

     Aron Smart negotiates his colonial world like many troubled black youth today contending 
     with hasty judgment and stern expectations. Manhood, or what it means to be a man,
     becomes his main preoccupation. After 90 pages the existential arc from village to city
     expands to include the notion there's a future for him in Guiana's hinterland, in the
     dredges of the gold fields; he will follow the path of the father he never knew, the
     legendary Shark Smart.

     The novel takes off in that direction though by mid section it settles into an affectionately
     detailed mapping of terrain. Carew fills pages with descriptions of pork knocker lifestyle,
     the beautiful, dangerous landscape; boat trips, gold finds and acts of betrayal and
     retribution.

     In time, and because he is not fully pledged to the pioneer prospector role (he takes 
     his books with him in the jungle), Aron Smart is challenged by his prefixed anxieties
     and a romantic soft centre.

     Carew eventually returns him to G/town's class-forming society. The return at first
     seems bulging with promise. Aron Smart has made his first fortune; there's bridal
     possibility hanging on to his arm (the tenacious prostitute, Belle); and sound financial       
     advice rattling around his head ("Buy solid things, pardner…things that you can sell
     when things bad – house, land, them is not thing people can take 'way from you easy.")

     At this point the novel starts prodding the author for character evolution, more
     theme development, scheming new women. This Carew does in scenes of melodrama
     with paradoxical twists and sad turns of event.

     Handsomely produced, this Peepal Tree Press reissue has a scholarly introduction
     designed, it seems, to steer the publication toward campus bookshelves. Professor
     Kwame Dawes situates the novel's achievement firmly within a tradition of rousing
     old-style storytelling.

     Here and there he inserts a few diagnostic tools to guide book buyers toward poten-         
     tial nuggets in subtext (they should note, for instance, the "Eldoradean quest for gold
     …pathological existence in the jungle…the haphazard maddening search for identity"); 
     but Carew's template is filled with so much river-churning good stuff, readers will feel
     relieved from any serious task of text deciphering.

     Above all, there's the fervour and imagination of Carew, Guianese author at work, 
     transforming into fiction material barely before touched; his 50 yr old prose still "kicksin".
     The novel's triumph you could say, is in the benevolent way it records the now outmoded
     behaviours of men who erred on the precarious side of colonial restraint and prudence.

     Readers who've spent most, if not all, of their lives in and around Georgetown can ride
     along on its energy alone; share the author's delight in vivid character invention; and
     mark the pork knockers' grit and resolve back then to grab destiny by the balls; not
     waiting for darkness to lift, seizing the day.   W.W.

                   Radix opened the kitchen door and stared down the passage way to the front 
             door. No doubt about it, there was someone out there. He could see a bulky
             shadow behind the blinds. His heart rhythm picked up. Never before had he been
             compelled to confront intruders. Should he advance to the shadow, or wait for
             it to make the next move?
                 The shadow obliged by making scuffling sounds and now Radix could make out
             two bodies, wrestling with each other, in some sort of violent embrace. It was the
             force of bodies thrown against the door that Amarelle had heard.
                 He stepped out of his slippers and tiptoed to the door, a little apprehensive. 
            Two people were inside his building. He had to determine exactly what they were
            up to. His hands raised one sleeve of the blinds and he peered out.
                  Not two fellows. A young man and young woman. Locked in embrace and fooling
            around. The young woman's arms were around the man's neck, her hands caressing
            his bald head.
                 Just neighborhood kids kissing inside his doorway. Harmless enough. Though why
            couldn't they take their business elsewhere? If they kept shifting and shoving around
            they might crack one of the glass panels. His hand searched the wall for the switch to
            the outside light; he would surprise and embarrass them, make them go away.
                At that moment the couple changed positions; the young man was struggling to 
            lift the thighs of the woman who stopped kissing him and now braced herself, her 
            head thrown back, as he rammed her against the door. Something else was going on 
            here.
                Radix looked down. The young man's pants were hanging loosely onto his hips.
            Drooping pants were becoming some sort of youth fashion. There was nothing
            innocent now about the way the man's hips moved and the lifted skirt and the 
            woman's bared thighs; he'd been inside her all along; the banging was caused by
            exactly his effort to brace her hips against some firm surface, like the glass-
            panelled door!
                She was a thin-faced young woman, still in high school. In fact they looked like
            young people he'd seen hanging around outside, in sneakers and sweatshirts and
            fancy hairdos; often idle, often high on marijuana joints, the odor of which
            wafted into his living room from the stoop.
                 What should he do? They made no sound, not a yelp, not a groan of pleasure;
            the two bodies concentrated on what was happening below their waists. Then the 
            young woman lowered her legs and they resumed kissing.
                 He'd never before watched two people doing this. He'd never before watched
           anyone having sex in public. Sex standing-up! Whatever happened to bedrooms and  
           privacy? Already at age twenty seven he was beginning to feel alienated from the
           young; mesmerized, too, by the way they sometimes hurt each other; chasing and
           damaging their bodies and calling it play; the quick resort to shoving and profanity
           to resolve conflicts. 
               He released the blinds, his heart racing at a new rate of consternation. He thought
           of retreating but the floor boards creaked and that might betray his presence. If the 
           two out there discovered he'd b
een watching, he could imagine the boy pulling up
           his pants, telling him to mind his own freaking business; and probably in a fit of
           anger kicking in one of the glass panels on the door.
               He'd have to speak to Blackwelder about fixing the door. Also he'd have to leave
           the outside light on to discourage this couple, any couple, from using his doorway
           space like this.    
                    (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
                       
   
              

            He left the house one night telling Amarelle the rooms were stuffy with heated air; 
       he was going for a walk. She looked at him as if he were deranged. She reminded him
       where they lived, what the news had said just that evening about gunfire blocks
       away, with warring gangs, an innocent bystander cut down. To think of walking the
       streets with no real purpose at that late hour!
            She followed him with her eyes as he got ready to leave, hoping he'd have a change
       of mind.
            It wasn't all that late when he walked. The darkness that swiftly came over the city
       as early as four in the afternoon gave Amarelle the irrational fear of unsafe streets. 
       There was nevertheless a strange excitement about neighborhood streets at night, never 
       mind the broken glass, the graffiti, the vandalized phone booths. Always the sense of  
       people refusing to be cowed behind closed doors and drawn blinds; people coming off 
       the bus, charging head down into the wind and personal troubles; teenagers hanging 
       out on stoops; kids chasing each other between parked cars.
           Always the sense of people not satisfied with simply turning in for the night; making
       what they will of their lives.
           He found a street with a neat row of houses, a kind of aberration of respectable
       dwellings in the neighborhood, with a concrete stoop and iron rails and doorways like the
       entrance to Simone's place in Ottawa. At the end of the street he'd turn back and walk
       down the other side of the road, looking up at the doorways.
           He'd pass fellows lounging outside the Deli, their eyes darting with the edginess of
       birds; they'd catch his nod and ask "Howyadoin'?" He imagined he was no longer strange-
       looking to any of them. What sadness. Here were able-bodied men whose lives, still in
       their prime, had gone off the tracks.
           Sometimes they'd ask him for a quarter. He was always amazed at the request. What
       could a quarter do to transform anyone's life?
           At a street corner someone, tall and thin, wearing ridiculous dark glasses, would be
       coughing and hacking in a frightening near-death way. Radix felt sure the man, if asked,
       would insist he didn't need a doctor; a beer or a cigarette would do. And that round-
       faced fellow with the woolen cap, bracing a wall or lamp post as if it gave off heat – he
       had this fierce-looking dog on a leash, an overfed pitbull it looked like, ungainly on its
       legs. 
          The sodium street lights gave the streets a desolate look. Never once did he feel
       threatened, or fear he'd be mugged. He didn't have much in his pockets worth stopping
       and mugging for.
          When a lone hooded figure crossed the street behind him and a whiff of danger
       reached his nostrils, he'd take a deep breath, strengthen his stride, walk on.
           (from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
    

                                                                              Time takes one hand and helps us up the stair,
                                                                              Time draws the shades down on our clouding eyes;
                                                                                         …now, as always, light is all we have."
                                                                                                    - "Tiepolo's Hound", Derek Walcott

                   [First you find what look like body feathers spry & sprouting.
                    You wonder, should I clip or shave or show? (Tattoos might work
                as mask.) What if loved ones ask Please, take off your clothes,
                grow old with me?  Shrug. Look away.      

                What's that light flash pointing like auld Morse
                on the horizon? The code of Earth O2: breathe change > transform.
                The sky's the unknown new, now all
                you see? What else but give it a go.

                Lift from hard blows soft spreads, dry showerheads in office 
                youth eaters all; from history agents with shovels & ledgers
                and guns of hunger in the night; the kite strings of comrades
                shady from the sun, you'll fall! closer to us you belong!

                Watch out for envy flying glass, the call back of fears
                & jeers in tribe bluster; crows of bald pate ordure
                freshening. In the colon doubt might spore but rupture will
                self heal in Time's defragmenting blue bar.

                Don't, don't look down: the sea oblivious salting! not whales,
                groupers bilge pouting!       

                Hitchhiker once from bush through blood and oath,
                just one clear day snips cords. Catch the first light 
                out and away you go, when you fly you'll know:
                breath eyes wings, yes, I; new lang syne]-W.W.

                    HOME

                           nails your hands
                    to polished wood, points
                    a finger in your eyes red
                    with dreams of bridges which also
                    prevent your hands and eyes but, so far
                    unachieved, stengthen their pivot and stretch.
                         (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan) 

                  LIGHT

                  doesn't spite all day long
                  those who disdain it at dawn but
                  your appointment with the sun is
                  one faith you must keep or else
                  the golden chance you won't know
                  you miss in every sorry cell
                  of a soul riddled with dark.
                     (from "Thief With Leaf" by Brian Chan) 

                  A ROAD IN WINTER

                 The sky, however grey, is still the light
                 that mothered us and to which we must all
                 return to fill with other dreams like this
                 that, grey, moves nevertheless uphill and beyond.
                     (from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan) 

                            "So many things we have not done 
                      together, we have not been abroad
                      together we have not seen snow

                      be good
                      don't make me worry
                      don't make me sad

                      care more about me" 

                      [from "The Most Distant Course", a film by Jing-Jie Lin, 2007]