Sticky Business... (an excerpt from O'Connor Street)

We got to school most days with Mrs. Young, but we got home everyday walking.

Rain or shine, whatever, put your bag on your back and step off, because we only had one choice – walk.

I got off the chair outside the Dean’s office as soon as the final bell rang and headed out the Pembroke Street gate.

Normally after school I’d meet up with a bunch of school friends (who were different to home friends) and we’d talk a bit and laugh a bit or do some silliness and wildness but only for a bit as the walk home wasn’t fun in the dark; today, because of the licks episode, I really did not feel like seeing them and I wasn’t in the best of moods and I had a headache from all the crying. 

I walked down Pembroke Street, turned right onto Park Street, past the vendors, the hustlers and the vagrants, the madmen, the not so mad men  (the soon to be mad men practicing their madness) and walked the six remaining blocks midtown to Tragerete Road where the real walk began in earnest.

Tragerete Road ‘began’ off Park Street at a place called ‘Green Corner’, although don’t ask me why as there was nothing green anywhere on the corner.

It was, however, a major transport hub, and it was always busy with the com-ers and the go-ers of the afternoon head home rush.

I continued my walk two blocks down Tragerete Road to the Strand cinema, on to the gas station, then empty building, empty building, completely dilapidated building (we in a recession, and these things happen in a recession, people does just ups and leave), car park, corner, and the longest unbroken expanse of my walk - the Lapyreuse Cemetery.

On and on and on and on it went.

I’d walk for what seemed like forever dragging my finger lightly along the stone wall, my fingers skipping over imperfections only to land and continue. I’d do this until one finger got too hot and then I’d switch fingers, sometimes I’d use a stick, other times I ignored the wall completely.

Yet it went on and on oblivious of me and my feelings towards it.

If my walk was half an hour, the cemetery wall was a good  fifteen minutes, and it (finally) ended on Colville Street.

I’d turn left on Colville and right onto Roberts Street, which is where Woodbrook officially began (O'Connor Street was located in Woodbrook, a perfectly laid out grid of streets and parks that formed the community in which I lived); there were about fifteen blocks left to walk at this point, but they were only two house lots wide at the top so the distance wasn’t that bad.

The walk home was generally safe; rarely would you encounter ‘undesirables’ and you could usually time your walk to avoid them.

Usually.

One day I wasn’t so lucky.

I was well into the ‘Woodbrook’ end of my walk when I spied these bigger boys, three of them (one Indian, two African) from the ‘Junior Sec’ walking towards me, laughing, whooping, and eating mangoes.

The ‘Junior Sec’ (Mucurapo Junior Secondary School) was (to me) the worst school in the whole country and had the reputation of having the baddest of the bad boys.

I would cross the street to avoid one ‘Junior Sec’ boy, but three? I knew there was going to be some crap to deal with.

I only hoped they didn’t take my school bag or my shoes, as then I’d have to deal with my father when I got home on top of everything else, and when you lost something important like a school bag full of books or your school shoes, well, he would go from angry to murderous in three seconds, and when he gets to murderous he would ask questions and not wait for you to answer them but slap you as an answer, so the more questions the more licks, so I’m thinking I am going to have to fight all three of these boys to defend my bag and shoes, as that would be a lot easier than dealing with my father.

Three blocks between us now, I was fully concentrating on them but they didn’t notice me (as yet).

I walk on, purposefully, thinking if I looked like I wasn’t scared they might think I was real bad too, because I would have to be, approaching one Indian and two Africans from the ‘Junior Sec’ on my own.

I would have to be either bad or mad, and people tended to leave both bad and mad people alone.

Two blocks apart, they were laughing and whooping with each other and I was walking like I knew something other people didn’t know and the whole street was quiet; No cars, no other people walking, just me heading west to O’Connor Street with one possible stop along the way, a collision heading east.

One block between us and the laughing and the whooping drops in volume as the louder of the two Africans notices me and gives me a big part of his attention.

If I stop now it will only get worse, because it was too late to try to run away.

The second African looks at me quizzically and I’m thinking maybe my mad/bad act is going to work. Start thinking maybe I should jump around with my hands in the air and scream like a crazy man as they pass just to keep everyone to himself.

But that could be a bad idea, because if I didn’t sell it right they might beat me up just for fooling with them.

My heart was beating so hard in my chest I was sure that if you looked you could see it through my shirt.

We were on the same block now, me heading west, the three of them heading east, and nobody talking yet and they walking and I walking and they reach right up to me and I see my space between the Indian and African number one and i turn my body to pass between them when the Indian put his whole hand on my chest and stop me in my tracks and say...”but you ent seeing we or wha?"

Everyone seemed to look at me, waiting for an answer, and I couldn't come up with one.

"You is a very bad man or wha?” and it dawns on me right there that even if I said yes I wouldn't be fooling anybody today because truth be told I was really small for my age, and though I was not what you would call a coward and would stand up to any fight, this one was not going to go my way and we all pretty much knew it.

African number one chimed in “Unless he’s a madman, mad people doh watch where they going and he have to be not watching cause he woulda see we...” which I guess made sense, and I thought if we debated long enough I could escape in the confusion.

I was about to offer my opinion on the two choices when African number two said...”allyuh ent see he just want some mango?” and with that he took the mango he was eating and rubbed it all over my face and in my hair and on my clothes.

Just like that.

And just like that it was over.

Indian removed his hand from my chest and let me go and the three of them walk off laughing at their accomplishment and whooping in earnest.

I was angry.

And I realized I was trembling down both legs.

I made myself walk on, going to put it behind me and find a stand pipe to wash this mango juice off of me when damned if something didn’t hit me smack in the back of my head and I turned around in my astonishment to see a mango seed skating across the pavement and African number two jumping up and down laughing hard.

I guess it was he who threw the mango seed and was enjoying the end result of his prowess.

I turned around and walked off; two blocks from home, tears streaming down my face in anger; sticky mango juice all over me, and I just wanted to get home away from this whole horrible day.

At least I still had my schoolbag and shoes (which was a really good thing), but I left all my dignity three blocks away, somewhere between school and home.