and looking across at another uncle, beating iron beside him, Bruce, a big strong man who Sonnyboy see one time bathing at the standpipe, having soaped his skin, lift a tub of water and pour it over his body to rinse off, Bruce now with the iron up under his chin like is a violin he playing, except that instead of sawing across the instrument, beating down on it, his arms curled and glistening, his shirt front wet with sweat, the music in his head, in his ears, in his belly, in his stones, and Bruce looking across at him too, striking the iron with a fresh resolve to challenge and encourage a new intensity from him to match and counterpoint his beating, Sonnyboy calling upon his muscles for the effort, feeling them respond, the iron ringing afresh, clatack, clatack, clatacanging with a new triumphant benediction. And behind them, in the band, people flowing with their soothing rousing dance, every triumph and disappointment and pain understood, a fella with the mincing, zany elegance of the king sailor, moon-walking across the street, the sweet obscenity punctuating the sober poetry of his uncle Egbert’s challenge to the world: “Beat that! Beat that!” opening his arms and pointing to the pans, to the music, to the dancing: “Beat that!” Beat that! Wanting an enemy to fight, finding a brother to embrace. Because this morning he could fly. No army could defeat him, no force could keep him down: Beat that! And his friends would come and hold him and embrace him and understand his tears and rage and pride: Beat that! And, bearing him up, they would flow forward, linked together with arms on shoulders and hands around waists, and he, Sonnyboy, beating the iron, clakatang clakatang, still beating when somebody put the mouth of a bottle of rum to his lips and he throw back his head and drink two-three gulps, still keeping up the rhythm for the band, and next to him his uncle Bruce, with the iron up under his chin, balang balang balang balang bang, everything else forgotten. And that would be Carnival for Sonnyboy.
And he would go back to Cascadu refreshed, renewed, to the sawmill and to the outings with Rooplal and Alligator Teeth, the dance of his king sailor walk giving him a certain unbalance that brought mystery and authority to his bearing, so that Rooplal, ever on the lookout for new moneymaking schemes, seeing him walking said, “Wait. I have the exact job for you. We could start a church. We could make bags of money with you as a pastor.”
“And you collecting the tithes?” he said, turning it into a joke. But it was true. Rooplal was his friend, but Rooplal had not seen him either. Fearful that if he was not careful he would fade into the nothingness of the town, roused from slumber by his one day of Carnival, Sonnyboy grew quiet. He began to cultivate a way of speaking that muffled his words so you not sure exactly of what he saying. He developed a gruffness of manner as the best face with which to face this world, his arms folded across his chest like a genie, his voice clear and decisive when he had to speak, in his eyes a look of inquiry, to keep people on edge, deliberately stepping into their space to unsettle them, to have them shifting and uncomfortable. There were young fellars who were ready to fight him just for that challenge, but his own readiness to oblige them gave them pause. Fellars had to take their time with him. Conscious of his power, he stepped off even slower now, his elbows turned outward away from his body, one foot rising and falling in sync with the other in the rolling motion as if he was pedaling a bicycle, so that even his grandmother find that for a big man he was walking too pretty. And he only begin to think of his future when, participating in one of Rooplal’s audacious schemes that had to do with counterfeiting money, he found himself with Rooplal and Teeth in a room of a house somewhere in the countryside, in the middle of nowhere, while Khalid, the man who had brought them there, lay sleeping. Earlier that evening Sonnyboy had watched him sharpen his cutlass, then release his five pit bulls to patrol his yard. He had then invited them to dine with his family of a wife and five daughters. It was a delicious dinner of curry duck and steamed breadfruit. Khalid had paid Rooplal to produce 1,000 dollars of counterfeit money. Rooplal take the man money and had not delivered. He had danced the man until the man catch up with him. Now he had to produce the money by morning. There was no way that could be done since the whole thing was a con job gone bad. At the dinner Rooplal reminding him again that while he was overwhelmed by his courtesy he did not believe it was really necessary for them to remain. Khalid had in his possession the device to produce the money. All he would have to do would be to open it after the 12 hours. Yes, the man tell Rooplal. But I don’t want to make no mistake. I would rather you remain. And he showed them to the room in which they were to sleep. As soon they enter the room the man give them to sleep in, Teeth start to tremble and then he came up with the idea that they should join hands and pray.
Sonnyboy had actually begun to pray when Rooplal let go of his hand, put a finger over his lips and stepped lightly out the room. He was following the trail of the aroma of desire left by one of the daughters who as they were having dinner had made the fatal error of looking into his eyes and had fallen under his magical spell. He found her in her room quite awake, fully dressed and with a suitcase packed, waiting to be rescued from the boredom of her village and taken to the places of excitement she had seen in his eyes. She was prepared to lead him past the dogs on condition he take her with him. He agreed, and while the rest of the house was asleep, she led Rooplal and his party out of the yard, into the road and to freedom. Rooplal tried to explain to her that life with him would most likely be hard and that he couldn’t immediately provide anything comparable to what she was leaving. She didn’t want to hear anything. She put one arm around his neck and clung to him. She would go wherever he was going. As soon as they walked out of the yard, Alligator Teeth started to run. Sonnyboy followed him. At some distance from Khalid’s house they stopped until Rooplal came with the girl clinging to him and joined them and they set out walking in the direction of Cascadu, until a truck taking produce to the Port of Spain market stopped for them. Rooplal, the girl and Teeth proceeded to ride the truck all the way to Port of Spain, but Sonnyboy got off at Cascadu. He had decided to leave the association with Rooplal and Teeth for good. It was only after the truck had gone that he pushed his hand in his pocket and realized that Rooplal had not given him his portion of the money. Next day, knowing that Khalid and his men would be looking for him, he headed for Port of Spain to cool out by his brother at Rouff Street.
A few weeks later he would hear that Teeth playing badjohn at an excursion in Mayaro had his left hand chopped off just below the elbow by a young fella from Tunupuna whose name he didn’t know was Blade. Rooplal, he would hear, had migrated with the girl to Canada. Sonnyboy would begin a new life as well.
In Port of Spain, Sonnyboy met Big Ancil, who
was originally from Cascadu but now was a supervisor
on a project in Port of Spain. From Big Ancil he got a job as a laborer on the project and he went about his work with few words and his trademark diligence. Struck by his strict mumbling tone and his diligent, if sullen, performance as a worker, Ancil had made him a foreman. He had managed the men under his control with a stern and intimidatory appearance and a minimum of words, spoken in the same mumbling indecipherable language, a display that so impressed Big Ancil (who was also a moneylender) that he employed him to extract money owed him
from delinquent debtors. Later, delighted by his success in this very important matter, Big Ancil, who at that time was supporting the National Party, engaged him to provide protection for their supporters at their meetings
in opposition territory. There he ran in once more to
Big Head and Marvel, who were doing the same pro-
tective work for the Democratic Party. They had allowed their diligence to get out of hand and at their meetings actually began to jostle people who too vocally opposed the party they supported. Sonnyboy was clear. He
didn’t want any war with them. “Live and let live,” he tell them. “All of us getting a bread from the politics. We not here to kill nobody.” And he exacted a truce from them.
One day Sonnyboy was riding in the car with Big Ancil when Big Ancil, who was announcing the details of a political meeting, seized by a fit of coughing, handed the microphone to him. After the shock of discovering how odd his voice sounded, Sonnyboy went on, with the approval and encouragement of Big Ancil, announcing
for the rest of the evening. After that, whenever Big Ancil was tired he handed the microphone to him. At first Sonnyboy gave the information of the meeting, the time, the speakers, the venue; but, bored with repeating the same things again and again, he began to talk about things that interested him, about