moved toward it to be sure of what was going on. Marissa coolly completed her entry into the vehicle, the driver moving off slowly, to give occupants of the car the opportunity to see if it was indeed a fire and Marissa the occasion to wave cheekily at what was now becoming a blaze, then, speeding away in the direction of Cunaripo.
After Marissa left, many of the women of Cascadu saw Rooplal as a man to avoid and forbade their female relatives to look him in the eye. For protection against the force of his magical charms, they bathed in water perfumed with sweet broom and red lavender and doused themselves in prevention powders they got from another more reliable obeah-man, kept their heads straight so as not to meet his eyes and fingered their rosaries when they saw him passing. But to another set of women, Marissa’s revelations had added to Rooplal’s mystery and appeal and his homelessness now offered an occasion for their solicitude. After she left, there was a steady stream of women of all levels of maturity who came by with rosaries or ohrinis or religious tracts, about them the soft grace of angels of mercy, shyly asking directions to where he might be found. Many of them offered him temporary accommodation, others offered him food, and some brought clothes. He accepted the full package of accommodation, food and clothes from Miss Zeena, a widow, a soft-spoken big-eye Christian woman with long hair and a body not so much weighed down as propelled by the sincere and muscular roll of a formidable bottom. After six days in which no one in the town saw him, he moved out of her place and settled into a two-roomed house behind the gas station.
With Marissa no longer there to harass him, and without the sewing machine to distract him, Rooplal gave up tailoring, but exposed the town to his other skills. He spoke on the political platform of any candidate who came to Cascadu and who would pay him. He made or pretended to make counterfeit money, and endeavored to find every means of making money without the inconvenience of orthodox labor. He linked up with Alligator Teeth, a loudmouthed big-eyed fella, a mouther whose claim to notoriety was his fearsome-looking teeth, loud voice and his boast that he was not too squeamish to scratch out the eyes or bite off the parts of any man who was so foolish as to get into a fight with him. With him, Rooplal roamed the countryside presenting himself as a maker of counterfeit money and trying to sell people the idea that there was treasure buried in their yards. In support of his claim, Rooplal produced two gold coins, which he said had come from a certain piece of land nearby, from treasure buried in the seventeenth century by Blackbeard the pirate. For a small fee, he was prepared to unearth the treasure. Some people chased him out of their yards, but there were the few who believed they were getting a bargain and paid him to dig, which he did, until they turned their back and he and Alligator Teeth disappeared with whatever money they had been given.
By the time Sonnyboy fell in with them, they had pretty much given up those moneymaking schemes and were focused on the more legitimate activities of gambling. Rooplal’s disregard of the consequences of his actions on himself or on others was what principally fascinated Sonnyboy, and as he listened to Rooplal’s stories of his escapades, the cards he marked, the women he fooled,
the people he fleeced, Sonnyboy glimpsed in that approach to life something liberating, and Rooplal, sensing a willing apprentice to his methods, drew Sonnyboy to him.
Soon Sonnyboy became one of the party, going with them to whatever festivity was taking place in the town and its surroundings: to wakes, with two decks of marked cards and two packs of candles to provide light, at village fairs and sports meetings and harvests, with a folding table on which to play Over Under and Lucky Seven, or the Three Card game, with he, Sonnyboy or Alligator Teeth taking the role of the lucky punter, the decoy, pretending to be the one who could spot the Queen. They took their crooked games also to the various venues for horseracing, the savannah in Port of Spain, Santa Rosa in Arima, Skinner Park in the south of the island and at the open-air venues for Kiddies’ Carnival. They went to Tobago only once and were chased away from setting up a game of their own by the Tobago hustlers and they ended up bathing in the sea and eating crab and dumplings from vendors on the beach at Store Bay. And so he had gone on, guided by the philosophy of how to get his own way and what it is he had to do to end up with a dollar in his pocket.
For Carnival, Rooplal and Alligator Teeth continued their hustle in more artistic vein, taking the role of Midnight Robbers, Rooplal adopting the persona of “The Mighty Cangancero” and Alligator Teeth that of “Ottie the Terrible.” They left Cascadu and headed for Port of Spain, stopping at towns along the way, engaging each other in mock confrontation, drawing audiences at every street corner and coming away with purses full of money.
Hear Rooplal, The Mighty Cangancero:
Away from the dark lagoon of gloom came I the Mighty Cangancero, the most notorious criminal grand master.
With my every step, I cause the earth to tremble, my smile brings rain.
My laughter causes the heavens to rumble, trees to fall, rivers to overflow, animals to stampede and human beings to look for shelter.
I am known in Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the planet they call Uranus,
I am the intergalactic bandit whose face is on the Most Wanted list of bank robbers, kidnappers, plunderers, assassins and bounty hunters.
I traffic in precious metals, rubies, diamonds and pearls.
For I am the most notorious criminal that was placed upon the face of the universe. Everywhere I go the police and secret services of the planets are on the lookout for me.
I am Public Enemy numbers one two and three.
So bow, Mook-man, and deliver your treasures unto me.
And Alligator Teeth, Ottie the Terrible:
Are you not afraid to walk this long lonely road, where I this bloodthirsty terminator performs his daring crimes. For I live today when men who seek to destroy me are all dead. I can bite off a portion of the moon and shorten a season. A breath from my nostrils can melt the north pole, inspire raging torrents, overturn continents and cause islands to disappear. A wave of my hand can stop rain, and cause, in what was once luxurious green, the panic of deserts to appear. Women moan and children groan when meeting me, this criminal master, so for your own good, I ask you to seek my sympathy and bow, Mook-man, and deliver your treasures unto me.
Sonnyboy did not go with them. He headed directly to Port of Spain to link up with his brother Alvin and other relatives who from whichever part of the island they lived would find their way into Tokyo steelband, all of them, the whole Apparicio clan, the older ones holding aloft bits of shrubbery, the younger ones waving handkerchiefs, the streets of the city their own for this one time of the year, so they have no fear of nothing, nobody could touch them in this band, people had to clear the road for them; Sonnyboy himself lined up with the rhythm section, the assembly of hard-muscled men, there to keep up the tempo and maintain the rhythm, as the guardians and force of the band, armed with an instrument that had the heft of a weapon they could employ if the need arose to fight. But fighting was out now; their mission was to give life to music, to make the rhythm sing, to draw people into the Festival of Spirit, into the Orisha of dance, into the defiant consolation of song, so they could know that poverty was not strong enough to overwhelm them, nothing could subdue the freshness of their enduring, nothing overwhelm the monument of their spirit, or overturn the cathedral of their dreams; Uncle George, the smooth one, the saga-boy, older now, with what remained of his hair still black, still slicked back, still neat, with two gaudily dressed and made-up women holding on to him, but not with the desperation of those of an earlier time, more as if supporting him; Sonnyboy’s uncle Egbert, the one who tried to be a calypsonian, his shirt open showing his chest, portraying a wounded soldier, dressed in an army jacket, his head bandaged, embodying the response to the unutterable poignancy of the occasion by drinking to excess and wanting to fight, less to inflict hurt, it turned out, than to engage another human being, to let out this thing he couldn’t express, this love that he was trying to find a way to give, in the end quieting down like a child, collapsing with that rubbery yielding, embracing the very ones a moment before he wanted to fight. Sonnyboy watching the pantomime of grief and nostalgia as Egbert staggered along, his arms thrown over the shoulders of the two men carrying him, not knowing what to do with himself, wanting to challenge the world, to fight with it, wanting it to know that he hurt, that something was missing. Sonnyboy held the