My interruption made everyone look back in shock; they had forgotten I was sitting there. My mother, without thinking or saying a word, just turned around and, with the back of her hand, smacked me so hard and loud across the face that silence filled the room.
Everyone quietly returned to her tasks in an uncomfortable hush. Marcella, a Sunday school teacher from our church, hesitantly broke the stillness with, “Sister Joseph, you’re really hard on that child that really wasn’t necessary.” That was only time I remember anyone standing up for me. Everything about me unnerved my mother. Perhaps, she wanted to protect me from the dangers she perceived my openness and outspokenness would bring “Why do you have to be different, why can’t you just be like your sisters?” was always her defense.
I was one more mouth to feed, and there were times when my mother actually forgot to feed me. At dinnertime, my father came first. After that, she served plate after plate, in order of importance. By plate number ten—mine—there usually wasn’t enough left. When she realized she had not fed me, she would splash water into the empty pot to loosen the scrapings from its bottom. When there was nothing left to scrape, she would pick bits of food from my siblings’ plates to concoct my dinner, annoying my hungry siblings in the process.
My mother was always telling me that bad girls like me went to hell when they died. She said that hell was a place where everyone was screaming and howling from constant pain and I did not want to go there. I kept thinking, “What’s the big deal about this hell place, anyway?” It sounded just like where I was already living.
All I wanted was for them to show me a little compassion. It would have been great if, by example, someone in the family would show me what being a good person was like. I was continuously being told to be good, but I didn’t have a clue what that meant. They were all acting evil. All I wanted was for them to love me for who I was. After all, I was part of the family, even though I was different and difficult.
Bloody Fridays
My father came from a family of alcoholics. I learned from my siblings that our paternal grandmother did her drinking at home, while our grandfather, his three sons, and two daughters were open, falling-in-the-gutter drunks. Alcohol was in my father’s blood.
I never met my grandfather; he died long before I was born. I did not really know my grandmother either, but she did come around occasionally to reprimand her son after someone was seriously hurt during one of the melees at my house. This mission took great effort on her part. She was frail and could not travel alone, so she was usually accompanied by one of her other grandchildren.
Her visits were a big deal for us on many levels. First, she cared enough to make the trip. We knew she was the only person who could talk to our father and he would sit and listen quietly. Her appearances were rare, and my oldest siblings were especially happy to see her. Perhaps they hoped that maybe, this time, she would say something to our father that would really touch him, possibly sink in and make a difference.
Ma Francis, as we called her, looked like a raisin with arms and legs. Her skin just hung off her as if she didn’t have bones to hold her together. She was toothless, so it was funny watching her eat. She was not sloppy though. She had mastered the art of chewing with her toughened gums and when she spoke, it was almost impossible to understand. But she’d rattle earnestly, “Sonny, what you doing to yourself? What’s the matter with you?” pointing to her head. “Stop this, my boy. You keep dragging your family through shame and misery. Son, people talk. You’re embarrassing yourself, me, the whole family!”
My father barely said a word. He would only respond with, “Yes, Ma.” or “No, Ma.” He would turn into a respectful subdued infant.
“Your children, look at them, they not kids anymore. They growing up fast and will turn their backs on you. Mark my words, you will be sorry!”
She left as quickly as she came and her appearances only made things worse. My father never appreciated that she had made a trip just to scold him. He never expressed his displeasure with words in her presence though, but the tightening of his jaw and the lowering of his eyes said it all - because even bullies respect their mothers. Maybe if she’d stuck around a little longer, he would have been tamer for longer periods, simply out of respect for his mommy.
My father usually started drinking on Friday evenings, but not exclusively. He went on drinking binges that lasted days. He made a living from whatever crops we harvested on our mother’s family properties. Most of the money came from large quantities of bananas he sold to the government for export, and other crops my mother sold in Castries outside market all day on Saturdays.
To cultivate the bananas and cut down the huge trees needed to make charcoal, we would leave the house before sunrise, and walk miles to another portion of my mother’s family property—snake-infested forestland to be exact. We’d try to do as much work as possible, before the punishing sun came up. We would walk the miles, barefoot, on unpaved roads through muddy trenches and toiled all day in 95-degree weather. The sweat flowed from every pore, our muddy, sticky clothes stuck to our bodies like a cheap second skin. Sunny days were bad, rainy days were worse.
Education was not a priority. We missed about two days per week of school, often accumulating to months of absences, to plow and plant the fields. Even when we tried to explain that we had tests, our father would respond sarcastically with, “Tests? What tests? Test this!” The consequence of missing so many days of school was placement in a lower level class. Fortunately, I didn’t suffer that consequence and managed to scrape by.
It was also our responsibility to walk the long distances to the cash distribution center to collect the weekly payment for the banana crops. Before leaving, we had to make sure that the payment amount registered on the disbursement envelope matched the amount on the inside. Upon our return home, we handed the cash over to our father. We knew exactly how much money there was, and yet we often went hungry, lacking bare necessities.
I didn’t mind being poor. What bothered me, especially as I grew older, was that we did not have to be. We certainly had a great deal more land than most people and made money from it year- round. There was no reason for us to be living in such poverty.
Every Saturday, before heading to the market to sell the crops our mother knew exactly what was expected. The night before, on Friday evenings while sober, our father would examine and value the harvest. Calculating under his breath he’d coolly murmur, “Seventy-five dollars, yes seventy-five dollars. You should make and bring me seventy-five dollars.” He’d overestimate to make sure my mother could not pocket any of the cash to give to her church.
After hours of drinking late that night, he would come home and go berserk. Slamming things, demanding, repeating the same old tired tirade, all night long, “yes…yes…yes…aha, Pa viva sans tout lajan mwen Malpwòp fanm!. (Don’t come without all my money, nasty woman). I’m putting you on notice! Stay there all night. I don’t care. Just get me my money! You think I’m stupid, but I have my eye on you. I know you steal my money and give it to that fat, lazy pastor. “Sneaky, visiousfanm!” (Vicious woman!)
We all knew what would happen if she did not return with the right amount.
Where ever the money was coming from, our father would be waiting impatiently. He’d grab the cash, tuck it into his pants pocket and head to the three local rum shops. In one evening, he would spend every penny on vile, gagging moonshine; getting drunk and buying drinks for everyone in the shop. He was obviously capable of being generous with everyone but his family. He would roam from shop to shop until the money was all gone. Drunk out of his skull, someone would have to drag or carry him home in the wee hours of the morning. Often, his buddies would