Life is a beach in Rocky Point

He had droopy eyes and was experiencing noticeable difficulty keeping his balance on the moving scooter. He was a rather large fellow with a head that seemed too small for his body. The wheels on the scooter were clearly under pressure.

"Den watch dah one yah again," said an older man standing at the side of the road. "Yuh gwaan ride pan dat ting and see if one day it nuh pop!" he yelled to the big man on the scooter.

Beep! Beep! The man rode on without saying anything.

I walked over to the wisecracking chap who, like I was, appeared to be spending that weekday morning on a long, open road just outside Rocky Point in Clarendon. He wore a faded cap and a shirt with a torn sleeve. His shoes were muddy.

I asked him if he knew the man on the scooter, who, by now, had disappeared in the distance.

"If mi know him?" he said. It sounded more like a statement than a question. "From when mi ah tell him seh one day him gwine siddung pan dah ting deh and it ah go drop flat ah grung wid him. Heh hey!" the man laughed. I chuckled too at the visual.

It was a cool, cloudless day. Only a few persons were around. I told the man, who said that everyone calls him 'Wrong Move', that I thought I smelled fish.

Wrong Move chuckled.

"Heh hey! Den yuh nuh must smell fish if yuh deh ah Rocky? Is fishing town dis yuh know. Heh hey!"

The man's ribbing wasn't so funny when sent in my direction. I changed the subject by asking him about Rocky Point, which, he said, had been his hometown for more than 15 years.

"Is a big fishing beach," he said.

"Is pure fisherman and dem people really live around there. Dem have dem beach and ting so people from around Clarendon come here come buy dem fish when dem ready."

I asked him if he was also a fisherman. "No sah!" he said. "When into mi young bwoy days mi go sea few time, but mi never bother wid it. Too much man go sea go get lost. Mi caan manage dat. Mi deal wid farming instead," said Wrong Move.

"So it go. Some man haffi work pan land, some man go sea."

I told him I wanted to meet some of the fisherfolk. He told me to just go around the corner and I'd find lots of them sitting around. I thanked him and headed off.

Now what Wrong Move described as 'around the corner' was really more like a mile-long trek, though his moniker should have hinted at his directional shortcomings.

When I got to what appeared to be the heart of Rocky Point, the smell of fish got stronger. A few fishing boats were tied to a concrete post near an unfinished building and a woman was busy cleaning fish. She was sitting on a metal chair, the kind normally found in classrooms, scraping fish with a small knife. A bucket of fish was on the ground in front of her. I walked up to her and complimented her on her impressive dexterity. She smiled broadly. She had no noticeable teeth.

"Mi ah clean fish from before yuh born," she said. I told her I had heard that Rocky Point was famous for the quality of its fish.

"Well, into Clarendon here, yuh really have the best fish in Rocky. Is because the fisherman dem live right here, so the fish always fresh. Yuh don't have to pack it wid ice and travel wid it," she said.

I told her that her experience and skill preparing fish no doubt contributed to the community's enviable reputation.

"Hee hee!" she laughed. "Well, if yuh seh so. Ah no me seh so, so nobody caan seh mi boasty. You seh it. You telling the truth. But is not me seh it, is you."

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