by M.G. Warenycia

He had left the house on Kellett Road for what he hoped was the last time. The suitcase – blackish-maroon, not overly large but oppressively heavy – was the proof of his commitment; a frail assurance of success. The wheels – never used in six years – creaked and clattered over the paving stones darkened and slick with damp. It was a gloomy day with a looming threat of rain which would surely be fulfilled: weather one could encounter at any season in this country, barring at the very heights of summer and depths of winter. Ashman had arranged with him to meet at the Market.

It was good; he would get to savour a last taste of the iconic borough before the voyage that would bear him away for a long time…Long enough, at least, so that his life here would be forgotten. The awkward modernization of many government systems that he sometimes saw stories about on the news gave him hope. Specifically, the movement of records from a Byzantine labyrinth of typed reports, hand-filled forms, Rolodexes, manila folders, and black-and-white photographs stained by rusty paper clips over into centralized, computerized databases run by people who had never (and could never) have more than a passing fantasy-level understanding of the life which pulsed and flowed among the sluggish lanes and dense-packed ranks of Victorian terraced houses inhabited by people who were bonded to their uniformed overseers by history yet as alien to them as Martians…some things were bound to be forgotten, overlooked, fall through the cracks.

That pulse of life; that vibe, though, was ebbing. Maybe it couldn’t be said to have happened yet, but he had a sense that it would. He saw portents in the Village Market, where one or two cafes, selling beverages with Italian names at prices beyond what felt right for an afternoon pick-me-up had replaced unpretentious joints dishing out West Indian fare in styrofoam boxes. What had been the odd BMW or Jaguar parked at the kerb on weekends became a more frequent sight for more of the week, displacing a portion of the rust-tainted Austins, stolid Cortinas, humble Beetles and the Ladas which had been bought for economy rather than communist kitsch. The elders who had stepped off the Empire Windrush in three-piece suits, inadvertently claiming this slice of the Mother Country for its abandoned colonies, were moving away to enjoy the fruits of lives spent in patient toil. Many of them were already back home, their concrete castles – each designed to the quirks of its owner – marking yet not transforming the towns and rural districts they’d left back when banana and cane were still the lifeblood of the Island’s economy. The first of them were already saying “good riddance!” when he arrived, bitter at a lifetime of rejection by the dregs of a fallen empire, surprised and uneasy to discover themselves now “English” upon their return.

He ordered a coffee from a hot, fumy kitchen stall. The numerous shops selling patties, coco bread, jerk chicken, roti, pepperpot and kindred dishes were a comforting feast for the senses, despite the whole place being nothing like any shopping area he’d known back home. Their sheer density in the Market was reassuring, like how a herd of muskoxen surrounded by wolves on the frozen tundra close ranks together. The aromas were tempting but he was too nervous to eat. Moreover, he didn’t ant to jinx his trip by indulging in the foods of his destination. Nostalgia for home, which had weighed on his heart for years, lost its power now that there was no foreseeable future except back there. It was replaced by a new nostalgia for the curious phenomenon that was this neighbourhood in the heart of London where he’d lived these past years, leaving it only for the briefest forays. It was interesting to him now and he regretted that he’d never studied and appreciated it for its own sake. It was all the more inexcusable because, unlike almost all of his associates and relatives here, he was a university man, on top of which he’d known something of the history of the place before he’d come. After all, it was an iconic neighbourhood.

Many individuals whose wealth and complexion meant they had no need to go anywhere near it would find themselves a cheap but convivial lodging in one of the old terraced houses (never in a new building: “no character!”), then spend the next couple years developing their musical talent (perhaps putting together a band), exploring the culinary world through the National Geographic-worthy mazes of fruits and roots in the Market and the dazzling fabrics hung and heaped without rhyme or rule in Reliance Arcade (the place always made him think of walking inside the belly of a mechanical whale, with its vaults of painted steel ribs over which stretched glassy skin). They would stroll Electric Avenue, taking roll after roll of photographs of themselves posed up in the historical sites: here, a pub, there, a pensive shopkeeper surveying the world from behind a psychedelic barricade of handbags, scarves and tams, or pairs of ebony hands reaching and judging amid piles of yams, dasheen, bananas, chayote. Pints at Effra Hall tavern. International Reggae and rock stars performing life in the pounding, primal cavern of Brixton Academy, which he’d naively imagined must have been the elite local school when he’d first arrived. The renovations had really altered the ‘ether’ of that venue – he’d spent many rainy hours pouring over books on metaphysics left in the house by his cousin. He’d experienced the old version, though he remembered it only as a fever dream which one bought tickets to. Yes, there were a lot of those blokes, coming and going like the harvest on a fruit tree…all friends beneath flags they’d just come to know. Nothing was expensive. Everything was real. He kept returning in his mind to that concept of the ether…the Germans must have a compound word for it. Ortgeist would fit. Funny. The air, the light, the feel of the scenes you saw as you moved and lived there: they weren’t like back home. Did the fellows who grew up here know? Yet, somehow, regardless, it all felt like ‘theirs,’ clearly and unarguably distinct and apart from the world beyond the district’s borders, where different denizens had collectively imbued otherwise identical architecture with a different vibe; a different soul. Yes, they’d taste the food, purchase some records at Desmond’s Hip City, even learn some Patois…but that was enough for them; a lived souvenir to last a lifetime. He would never heard from any of them again. They might remember his face and some exaggerated events as they relived them in their imagination some night, decades from now. His face, but probably not his name – definitely not his real name, for nobody he spoke to knew it. He was a background character for the chaotic mural of their lives.

The coffee was strong. Lots of cream, lots of sugar, lots of black. He couldn’t move on like those temporary voyeurs. Nor would he ever boast of his memories to show off how cool he used to be. Not here, anyway, and not among family who’d expected him to finish a graduate degree and send back some of his salary from the job he’d mention in passing when he called them off phonecards (the ones where you scratch a rubbery strip on the back to reveal a code). Hindsight was too late when he realized that, normally, when you talk about your job, your bosses and coworkers have names. Alas, Peetah-Pow (from Peter Powell), Smith (from “ – and Wesson”), Ashman (as a mononym), Bunny and Mistah Mikey hardly sounded like colleagues and pals fit for his mother’s son.

Somewhere in the distance, the shrill “whew-whew-whew” of the police siren. Waves shuddered across the coffee cup and his grip on the suitcases involuntarily tightened. There was nothing in the suitcase, or, if there was, it would have faded away by now so the dogs wouldn’t pick it up. Clothes, rammed in tight. Basic utensils and a couple souvenirs. A leather-bound journal. Books: Arthur Koestler, Ivan van Sertima, Molefi Kete Asante, a volume of the collected stories of Sherlock Holmes (with original illustrations) which felt like a cozy place to retreat to in idle, lonely moments – something he’d never admit to using a book for. A worn and yellowed King James Bible with an inscription from his grandmother in the inside front cover which he often avoided looking at. Books…

The thought occurred to him that he might have left something wedged between the pages of a book. A hint of panic started to gnaw at him. He couldn’t crack open the suitcase here and rummage through it: it was so overstuffed that it would burst its guts all over the pavement and he would look real suss as he frantically clawed through its disgorged contents among restaurants and shoppers.

The sirens…Memories of a night rolling in Peetah-Pow’s burgundy Ford Sierra, dropping in on house parties like knights errant, intoxicating themselves further and further upon the mingling liquors, perfumes, beats and bodies. Bunny wanted to go check a next place where there was an angel-eyed goodaz he claimed was his. There would be, he promised, plenty of equivalents for everyone else, if they had the tongues and the moves to handle tings. Then their laughter was drowned by the incessant “whew-whew-whew,” and they were racing through mess of traffic. Peetah-Pow put teenage experience racing beat-up juiced-up ex-taxi cabs along muddy Mandeville switchbacks to good use. Eventually, never quite comprehending, he found himself running on foot with Bunny, then slinking through alleys and around parked vehicles and iron-fenced clumps of trees as he slipped between section after section of terraced homes, wondering if Peetah-Pow was being cuffed over where the distant siren still blared, and if there was any lawman fanatical enough to have trailed him in silence all this way. Meeting the flowing crowds on Coldharbour Lane, he composed himself, trusting clothes and complexion to camouflage him as he made his way, exhausted and embarrassed, to the house of his big sister. It was loud and teeming with her numerous brood alongside an ever-changing, never-ending stream of loud-talking, domino-playing neighbours, acquaintances and distant kin. The chaos brought relief: if the police had seen his face, he was sure they’d forget it as they mentally plodded through the Where’s Wally? tableau of the neighbourhood.

Happy memories, now.

Her house was nearby but there was no going back now, not even just to check his suitcase. He’d given her the minimum cash necessary to keep quiet, plus a modest insurance, but that expression on her face and those folded arms the last time he saw her…He knew his credit there was done. If it wasn’t done then, it was certainly so when a pair of unnamed gentlemen came knocking on her door looking for him and were slow to take no for an answer.

The years had been such a jumble that they’d lost all sense of linear progression besides a rough sense of more confusion and wonderment early on, more cynicism recently.

“Come on, where you at now, man?” he groaned in his head, checking and rechecking the Casio on his wrist. “Nah, nah, this ain’t it, bruv…” It was his own damn fault for trusting Ashman. Nobody ever called the man punctual. But who the bloody hell was he supposed to trust? He contemplated dragging his suitcase to a phone booth, but a wave of exhaustion swept over him as his nervous system tried to resist collapsing into panic mode. It didn’t matter, he told himself: if Ashman was coming, he couldn’t be reached by phone at this point. If Ashman could be reached by phone, it meant he would be too late. He exhaled, stretched his legs and back, slurped down the last of his coffee and trundled across the hall to a green grocer which advertised phone cards at the cash register. He purchased two of different brands for good measure.

He walked out under the sunless sky, keeping his back to the wall. Where was Ashman? Had he parked at the other side of the Market? No, they’d talked it over, more than once. And was he going to run back and forth, back and forth like a bubbler? No, he would wait. Traffic, weather, could be a lot of things. Rover 400, dark green….Rover 400, dark green…where?!?

To plan a revised journey himself would be utterly impossible now. Worse, there were enough hours remaining to make him feel like he ought to try. He’d need to first call the contact who had the boat and tell him he’d come himself, then get approval to show up with a driver who wasn’t Ashman. Otherwise, there was no way he was getting on that boat. He had to calculate the time to drive to Bristol, of course. He could rent a car, but that would mean his ID being attached to a vehicle which was going to be abandoned over in Bristol, unless he could somehow manage to find someone to head over there to bring it back for him. Who?!? His sister didn’t drive, even if he could beg the favour.

There was a window of maybe an hour and twenty, an hour forty-five before it was time to abandon all hope.

It was such a great plan. He’d insisted on a boat. For one, he’d earned it, given what he’d been through, practically non-stop these past six years. Too, he wanted a boat because they were checking for more things at the airport now. It was all those damn journalist exposés, TV documentaries about “Yardies” shooting up nightclubs; all the rosy-cheeked English youths dem who of course couldn’t possibly have wanted to try a little something-something for they selves! No, their prosperous, complacent parents had to believe that they’d been ruined, debauched, devoured by some invasive dark entities (figuratively and literally) which the police must do something about!

The thought of all that stress, all that tension…to be stopped in the baggage scanning…to be taken by the arm and led to another room – “Scuse me, sir, would you mind stepping over here for a moment please?” Then two, three, or several years in a British prison before being deported in poverty and disgrace. No…Not him!

So what if ‘tons of people’ don’t get caught? Even if the chance was small – and he was not sure it was so small – the price if things did go wrong…it was too much. A boat. A ship. There was the answer. They’d set out from a private marina in a pleasure boat. Ashman was close with a lot of big people; people so big they got their share of the paper without any of the lead. The ship would already be out at sea when the little boat came to it. He would transfer aboard and either pretend to be a crew member or just sit tight for the remainder of the voyage. Once they got off the coast of Jamaica, probably off towards the Parish of Hanover, where the ocean-going traffic was less and the bush thicker than the lights of the towns, he’d do it in reverse: from the ship to somebody’s fishing boat, landing in the dead of night where he’d be picked up by his cousin Keon and driven inland. From then his life would start anew. Few would be any the wiser and nobody would be bothered. For him it was enough to escape with his social ties intact and some money socked away. Some in the bank for himself, some with his brother and cousin. This already put him well ahead of many of his ilk, most of whom had by now disappeared into Her Majesty’s prisons or else bled out on the floor of some bar or club, a spliff and a cocktail as much of their hard-won riches as they’d ever get to taste.

“Ashman!” he muttered aloud. The dark green Rover 400 was nowhere to be seen. He raised his wrist. 2:08 p.m. He had to wipe away droplets of water pooling on the surface to read it. Chill beads rolled down his collar, while dust and litter whipped into mini tornadoes in neglected corners. The sky darkened like sleep-deprived eyelids closing. A wall of water lashed down, exploding off windshields and newspaper boxes. He recoiled from the assault of cold and wet, retreating into the mouth of the Market.

He needed to call Ashman. He tried scratching a phone card, but his wet fingers hardly gouged into the backing strip. He fished in his pocket for a coin and scoured the card with it, then moved deeper into the Market seeking a payphone. He needed a pen and paper to write stuff down, in case he was given directions. There was an Indian shop that had cheap pens, notepads and other random items. The time…the boat would be leaving…if he still couldn’t contact Ashman…He’d already paid Ashman…if Ashman wasn’t bothering at this point, then, would he ever be able to reach him? His knees grew weak, his shoulder wanted to give up at every jolt of the suitcase wheels on the ground. His heart was pounding although he was barely moving. A payphone…where to set the paper to write? He had to hold onto the suitcase. He dialed the number. Misdialed, it turned out. The code on the card was not cleanly revealed. He took the coin and scratched some more. Dialed…Ringing. Ringing…the voicemail beep. That was it. He was over. Over! Just like that! Where to go?…who?…how?!? His head swam; his legs were jelly…he…

…writhed against the sheets bundled taught around his body. He was soaked in the hot sweat of a long, deep-dreaming sleep such as one is rewarded with when fatigued to the point of mild illness. High above him a wide-bladed ceiling fan whirred sluggishly. The walls around him were painted purple and soft mint, hung with a couple generic unframed canvases, everything bathed in blue moonlight. Framed by burglar bars, a stalwart coconut palm stroked the sky with its feathered fronds bent by the wind that blew from the northeast, across the Atlantic. He could see it in the corner of the half-furnished room, peeking out from under a stack of freshly-folded laundry. Its colours were washed out in the lunar glow but its features were plainly visible: the softly rectangular suitcase, not yet fully emptied, whose tiny plastic wheels had creaked and clattered over the damp pavement and now were silent. He reached out and felt the vast bed, the table lamp, the rattan nightstand and looked again upon the moon and the palms. Reassured, he drifted pleasantly back to sleep.

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