Friendly people, lively chatter in Lloyds

He wasn't particularly angry. I knew that, because every now and again he'd break into a hearty laugh. But Fernando the retiree from Lloyds in St Thomas certainly had a lot on his mind. And he appeared intent on sharing it all with me.

"So when yuh plant yuh crop dem now, yuh haffi sleep wid yuh yai dem open else man come reap weh him never sow!" he said. Fernando was emphatic. He is a short man who was wearing short pants and a cap. I had met him just outside his home in Lloyds as he helped a lanky fellow called Lenky pack freshly picked ackees into bags. Lenky was getting ready to take the ackees to Yallahs to sell them. Somehow, Fernando got to talking about Cuba and what he said were the advantages of dictatorship.

"Yeah man! Is a better way dat! Man have too much chat sometime. Yuh haffi put dem under manners!" he said.

I nodded, for fear of being labelled an infidel, then looked at Lenky who seemed deep in thought.

Lenky rubbed his temple, then nodded. "Is true yuh know. Ef dem did more stricter den tings would be better," he said.

Potty-mouth

It was my first time in Lloyds. In fact, I had not heard of the place before that day. I asked Fernando how long he lived there. He appeared to be having some difficulty remembering, but Lenky interjected that it must have been close to, if not more than 50 years. Fernando didn't object. He did, however, start arguing about how much more polite young people were back in the day. Now Fernando is a bit of a potty-mouth and much of his diatribe was clearly not fit for the ears of the uninitiated. Lenky, though, appeared to find it comical. While cutting into a coconut with a machete he had wrapped in a cloth near his feet, he giggled whenever Fernando took a break. "Tee hee."

After a while, Fernando appeared more at ease. It seemed a burden had been lifted from his shoulders now that he was able to bemoan the ills of society in the presence of a fresh pair of ears. He told me that Lloyds was actually quite a nice place. But that, I could already tell. You see, while we stood there - Fernando arguing, Lenky chuckling and me listening in something of a daze - quite a few persons walked by. All of them offered a cheerful hello, not only to the two men to whom they referred by name, but to me as well, a complete stranger who must have appeared weather-beaten from Fernando's tirade. A few of them came over to introduce themselves and offer me a drink of something or the other or my pick of mangoes from their trees.

After a while, it occurred to me that Fernando didn't seem all that pleased about the crowd converging at his gate, so to avoid being blacklisted, I bid the group farewell and walked further up the road.

Starry and the mighty beast

I came across a friendly fellow who has taken the name 'Starry', no doubt a moniker that has roots in his lifelong occupation as a newspaper vendor.

Quietly, Starry rides his beat-up bicycle around Lloyds and nearby communities stopping at the homes of his regular customers. When I met up with him, he was standing outside the gates of a yard that he said housed a vicious guard dog. Well, that's what he told me, anyway. Tentatively, Starry walked up to the gate warning me to stand back, lest I fall victim to the animal who, according to Starry, would show no mercy on a first-time visitor to Lloyds. When a pug-nosed puppy with pointy ears ran out to the gate, I thought it only to be the precursor to the vicious dog of which Starry so fearfully spoke. It was the man's reaction though, that tipped me off that this was in fact the mighty beast that Starry so feared. As the tiny dog ran to the gate, barking squeakily, Starry nearly jumped out of his skin. Someone inside shouted that 'Aunty' was not at home and so no newspaper would be purchased. Starry needed little encouragement and was soon back on his bicycle pedalling away. When he was some ways up the hill, he looked back, apparently suddenly remembering he had left me behind.

"Nuh tan up deh!" he hollered. "Him can jump fence!" After that, Starry pedalled out of sight.

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