Ode to a 'great guy'

By George Davis

He was a great guy. That's what everyone told him and that's what he had come to believe. So the pressure to maintain his great-guy status was immense, germinating as it did from people's expectation and opinion of him, in addition to his own sense of himself.

He was young, handsome, fit as a flea and could charm the filament out of an incandescent light bulb. He was rising fast through the ranks at work and received a salary that allowed him to purchase a $9-million vehicle without batting an eyelid at the huge monthly payment.

He had no thoughts yet of buying a house but resided in a gated apartment complex where his rent was quoted and had to be paid in US dollars. The corporate world was his ladder and, on at least two occasions since the start of the year, his picture had appeared in the pages of The Gleaner. He was complimented for his manner of speaking, the range of his interests and the sophisticated way he used the current trajectory of his career to lay out his future. Because of the kind of people who told him he was among the best and brightest they had ever come across, the young man, not 'unarrogant', felt like he was both the '$%@#-and-the-urine', as sung by Kanye West in the 2008 hit, Swagger Like Us.

Yet, despite having enough adulation within which to immerse himself neck deep, the young man felt as if he was under pressure.

In recent times he had become increasingly agitated by what he characterised as the 'noises' coming from back home. His old mother had been bombarding him with messages. He was left nauseated by her constant complaints about a lack of food in the house, the imminent disconnection of the electricity supply, the cataract which was slowly taking control of her left eye and the increasing damage arthritis was doing to her left wrist, which made it difficult for her to continue taking in people's washing. He was tired of his mother's constant nagging and hated calling her because she would lament, till thy kingdom come, about how he had grown into an ungrateful brute, despite all she had sacrificed to give him the education to succeed.

leaving the past behind

She would go on for what seemed like hours about the hustling she did, the 'pardners' she threw and the hours of 'bleaching' to ensure he had all the tools for school.

And yet, she would say, he never had the decency to inform her of the date of his graduation from the university. She would use him as the example in her cries to the Lord that wickedness had consumed the land and was eating away at the core of the people.

The young man sometimes felt pity for Mama. How could she expect to be invited, with her coarse hair, and broad nose, to rub shoulders with him and his fellow graduands? It's a good thing he got his absentee father's fine features, down to the skin tone and perfectly chiseled face. She would downright embarrass him with her patois talk and stories about the deep country, and would only serve to discredit him in the eyes of each person she introduced herself to. She didn't understand that she, like his community, his friends, his way of thinking and his early values, belonged in his past. She didn't understand that she had to accept the few thousand dollars he obliged her with every few months. How could she complain about what she gave him when he was the only one of her five children who gave her any hard currency? His mother was talking about school, as if she did the learning for him. Yes, she paid for his classes by washing people's dirty clothes and cleaning their houses. But he was the one who took the tests.

The young man snapped back to reality. He concluded that it was his mother and not him who was ungrateful. He committed to changing his phone number if she ever assailed him again with the argument that while she had built him up, he, through his words and deeds, was now breaking her down. Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.