Moving to own music in Spanish Town

The previous 10 minutes were spent in heated discourse with a man sitting on a bicycle. He had claimed that I was standing in a bad spot. It seemed his contention was that the sidewalk was meant solely for indiscriminate use by bicyclists.

"When you stand up deh so, sometime mi caan see unnu and dat's why bicycle man always ah lick up," he said.

It was a heated debate between he and I and had it not been for the timely interruption, he would surely have been dispensed with in short order.

Boom di di boom boom!

There was the sound again.

We both looked down the road, mid-squabble.

It appeared there was a parade of sorts heading our way. A marching band, the members of which were wearing red and white, was heading our way. The band was attracting lots of attention.

The man on the bicycle cleared his throat.

"Ah who dem deh?" he asked, seemingly forgetting our fiery spat.

I took a deep breath, then told him I didn't know.

"Yah hear mi? Ah gone lef' yuh," he said, grabbing on to the handle bars of the bicycle.

"Ah feel like seh ah dem Jehovah dem, yuh nuh. I can't deal wid dem yah now," he said and with that pedalled away with alarming gusto.

Boom di di boom boom!

The band got closer. The sound of the trumpets and drums drew people out of buildings that lined the roadway. Two women, one whose eyebrows were two perfect triangles, walked out of a shop behind me. Her eyebrows gave her a constant look of surprise.

"Ah wah dis fah?" she asked. I turned around. She was looking at me, so I told her I wasn't sure.

"Ah who dead?" she said.

The woman beside her, a tall, strapping figure with a chiselled chin spoke up.

"Den ah ongle when time people dead yuh can march?" she said.

"Suppose di people dem just waan march?"

The other woman grunted.

Boom di di boom boom!

Three giant speaker boxes were set up outside what looked like a car wash. There was a shed covering turntables next to it and a man holding a microphone stood looking at the approaching band. There was loud music of the dancehall variety being blared from the speakers and the combination of sounds was deafening.

I could see from where I was that on the back of the uniforms being worn by the drummers was the word 'Troopers'.

A man with lazy eyes stumbled out of a bar across the road. He was clutching a cup as he looked to see what all the commotion was about.

"Ah wah dis?" he said. Nobody around him responded. The man squinted, apparently to get a better look. After a few seconds, he shrugged, took a sip from the cup and went back inside the bar.

Sound clash

The woman with the triangular eyebrows scratched her head.

"Den how dem ah go manage wid di sound string up? Ah clash dem ah go clash?" she said before bursting into laughter. She was utterly amused.

Boom di di boom boom!

A young woman walked out to the road from behind a zinc fence. She was holding the hand of a shirtless baby boy who kept rubbing his nose.

"Ah who dem yah? Dem nuh hear music ah play? Cho!" she said before storming back behind the fence, pulling the boy behind her.

A bespectacled woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a long, blue skirt and white stockings walked up to the woman with triangular eyebrows and her tall companion.

"Greetings in the name of our soon coming king," she said.

The pair regarded her with blank looks on their faces.

"Yuh is part of dem?" the tall woman finally asked.

"No, yuh know," the hat wearer responded.

"But I was standing here and I hear yuh passing yuh commentations. And I have to intervene," she said. The woman with the triangular eyebrows looked surprised. Even more than she did before.

"Excuse you," she said.

The hat wearer continued.

"Yuh can stay deh run from salvation! One day you will be running to find salvation and that day shall be too late! Amen!" she shouted, flashing her left hand in the air.

The two women seemed stunned by the outburst.

"Stay deh look pon me!" the hat wearer exclaimed.

"Before yuh go join di march and get di likkle blessing. Save yuh self while yuh have di chance. Oh yes! Save yuh self!" she shouted.

Where should Robert go next? Let him know at robert.lalah@gleanerjm.com.