My father died in 2007 from complications caused by diabetes. It was not a good thing. He was 85 years old with a mind that could last another 15 years, easily. So whenever I meet folks and they say, sometimes so casually, that they are diabetic, I ask questions. Everywhere in the Diaspora, Africa, the Caribbean and particularly North America, our people are under siege from this epidemic. So when recently in Clarendon Hills, close to the beginning of the Rio Minho, Auntie Nuncie mentioned here condition, I listened.
Frankfield, Clarendon, Jamaica is deep country in terrain and lifestyle. Yam is King and the pig queen…., no Jack. Stories are told over a meal of roast yam and roast salt fish washed down with boiled rainwater and Auntie Nuncie is a skilled proponent of all but not since the diabetes, the arthritis, and the ‘pain in the flesh’. But a story, well, she can still tell and she has plenty like them pills she takes one for the ‘pain in the flesh’, one for the blood pressure, and insulin injections thrice a day. My mother on the other hand, unlike my dad, but like her mother before her, even more extreme, ate no animal except fish, and shows no trace of ‘de sugah’ but has a touch of the high blood pressure.
The day I arrived in Frankfield Auntie Nuncie’s husband had butchered a pig. Jack was no ordinary pig. He had had attitude: like the stereotypical Jamaican. Unlike the other pigs, he would not return quietly to his pen after afternoon exercise. He would rebel, make a whole heap of noise, refuse to enter his pen, and was known to attack humans. One such attack would shorten his sorry life. Auntie Nuncie never got too close to Jack because as she said, due to the diabetes, the arthritis, and ‘pain in the flesh’, “me nah hav’ foot fee run”. She had seen Jack run and the way he attacked Ras Henry. Its true Jack never liked Ras Henry and Ras Henry never liked Jack. Henry would help Nuncie’s husband, Joe, to corner Jack whenever Jack escaped. But Henry doesn’t eat ‘the pig’. So one day Henry sat on his usual spot to role a smoke when he see Jack approach. Jack showed no interest in Henry at first. Henry thought it was Jack out for some exercise. Then as Jack came closer, Henry noticed the rope around Jack’s neck had snapped. Jack was known to leap right out of his pen. So he had to be penned and tied. Seeing the broken rope Ras Henry stopped in mid-draw for a closer look. It was then he noticed the look in Jack’s eyes. He immediately sprang to his feet. Jack simultaneously lunged forward sinking his sharp incisors into Henry’s pants leg, just missing his Achilles tendon. Henry never looked back. Jack had ripped most of Henry’s pants off. Henry never stopped until he reached the safety of a neighbor’s kitchen.
Perhaps Jack knew he too would end up in that kitchen and he would not make it to Christmas as was the plan. He went on a rampage which included the rape of several neighborhood sows. It was days before Jack calmed down. He even jumped into the pen of his own mother. This disturbed Auntie Nuncie and her husband and they advised Jack to say his prayers, if he knew any, because his time had come. He had crossed the line. “Imagin a son wanteen a face to face wide e own mudda ee?”, Auntie Nuncie queried, not expecting an answer. He, Jack, had crossed the line. They had loudly advised him to “drop pan yuh nee”. Joe had calmly put the water on the fire. He sharpened his blade.
When we, the visitors from Kingston, saw Jack, he was wrapped in tight parcels of brown paper with the names of various villagers written on them. I spoke with a few and all complained of their diabetic condition, or arthritis, or pain in the flesh, and high blood pressure too, or all of the above. Jack was not an issue
As a boy my father raised hogs too and ate his share. And now I understand why he never wanted to amputate. As his own death approached the ‘specialist’ offered to try a procedure to increase the flow of blood to the leg. This involved the use of a good vein and grafting it into the lower leg. The alternative was to amputate. Dad opted for the graft. The result was a wound that ran from his groin to his instep. It looked like the Rio Minho, the longest river in Jamaica, in the dry season as it limps from Clarendon Hills, through May Pen, into the Caribbean Sea at Carlisle Bay and just as polluted. It refused to heal because of the condition. “Sugah” another villager says, “is de sugah, sweetie”. I say, “a Jack revenge dat”. Like that noted Caribbean historian, Eric Williams, had said about sugar production, ‘....How could something so sweet cause so much bitterness’.
Comments