Not like me, son: How a 'don' steered his child away from crime

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

THE FIRST words Everette Chisholm exchanged with his father, man to son, edging up to puberty, was the day the elder Everette was shot. It was also the day, Chisholm remembers, that he first saw his father cry. He was driving with his children back to Southside, Kingston, after going to see their aunt, who was visiting from England.

The crying came before the shooting, the two indirectly related, as the elder Chisholm encouraged his 10-year-old son to never stop drumming. He had just heard his son play during the visit to his aunt and, Chisholm says, "To me he was not listening". But his father had been listening.

"On the way home, he said it was good. Don't stop," Chisholm said. His father said, "I know you hear a lot of bad things about me. I hope you don't take that road." Chisholm had started hearing about his father's 'donship', although his dad was a head chef at a prominent hotel and had been an altar boy. His sisters and brother were there, Chisholm says, but as the oldest one there, "I was the only one hearing what he was saying. He said he wanted to come out, it was not a nice thing, begging me not to trod that road, begging me like crazy."

'talk to me'

When he came out of the car, Chisholm was walking happily down the road to his home, where he lived a street away from his father, "saying like, 'Dad talk to me'!" clenching a fist for emphasis to The Sunday Gleaner. He had left the drum in the car and his father called out to him, telling him to come back for the instrument. "He hugged me and kissed me," Chisholm said.

It was the last time he would see his father alive.

When Chisholm got home, "as I put my head on the pillow, I heard a lot of gunshots firing. My mother came in the room about five minutes later, saying my father got shot". He was in grade four and his father had promised him a big prize when he left grade six. "I started to cry, but I didn't take it as nothing, because he did not die."

His father needed a lot of blood and the family came together, trying to supply it. One morning, a few days after his father had been shot, Chisholm woke up with his feet feeling weak and having sudden swelling. He did not want to go to school, but he was duly sent off to Holy Family Primary at 2 Laws Street. Later that day, his aunt came for him and took him home without saying why the school day had been interrupted.

this is it

She did not have to. He knew. It was confirmed when he saw his mother crying. "I said 'This looks like it'," Chisholm recalled saying to himself. And it was.

Since that Friday in June 2001 (a month in which The Gleaner reported a spate of murders in the aftermath of William 'Willie Haggart' Moore being killed) that his father died, Everette does not celebrate Father's Day. "That day is like a weeping and mourning day. My father is not alive," he said. Still, that final - and only first real - talk with his father has had a lasting effect on the now 19-year-old. "He is one of the reasons why I don't put down the drumming," Chisholm mused.

And take up the gun to wreak vengeance? "A lot of people ask me if I'm not going to take revenge for my Dad's killing. I say that is not my thing," he said. "Why not make a life than take one?" he asked, in his accustomed calm manner. And Chisholm added, "Actually, all of them (the persons alleged to have killed his father) were killed shortly after."

There are other families which have not broken the father-to-son transfer of donship. Prime among them are the Cokes from Tivoli Gardens. Father, Lester 'Jim Brown' Coke, a reputed strongman, his son, Mark 'Jah T' Coke, was killed, and Christopher 'Dudus' Coke now has a $5 million bounty on his head. Michaelous 'Zeekie' Phipps, son of incarcerated former Matthews Lane don Matthew 'Zekes' Phipps, was one of the persons the police expressed an interest in recently, after the quelling of Tivoli Gardens.

Chisholm has not yet been part of making a life, although he does think about fatherhood. "I think it comes with a lot of responsibilities. My relationship with my children should be a very thick one. And my wife, too. I'm even planning to get married at a very young age." He smiles as he says he thinks he has already found the lady.

discovered drumming

Chisholm currently teaches drumming at the Institute of Jamaica's Junior Centre on East Street, Kingston, where he found the beat that touched his father's heart at 10 years old. He had been sent out by his mother and, passing the Junior Centre with some friends, heard a drumming session. He stayed a while, got a form and went home to Foster Lane - where he got a sound beating for being late. "After the beating, we discussed it and said all right, you're not doing anything after school, so you can go there," Chisholm said.

A number of his friends also got involved in the Junior Centre's programme at the same time, and Chisholm started doing African dancing, eventually focusing on drumming.

Now he is helping others pick up, teaching seven- to 18-year-olds to drum. His efforts bore fruit at the 2010 Festival competition, where a group of seven- to 15-year-olds and a solo piece in the 16- to 18-year-old category won gold. A solo 16-18 poetry entrant also struck gold with the piece Mr Don Man.

Chisholm says they used a chair with wrist straps and aluminium foil across the person's forehead to simulate electrocution. And, in a rhythmic voice, he recites a part of the poem:

"Why don't you do your own works

Works that people die from pleasing you … "

He is also a part of the drumming ensemble Rekaka, formed by his childhood friends who also started drumming at the Junior Centre. The name comes from their first initials - Ramone, Everette, Kymani, Aldon, Kemar and André. They also do poetry, and added dancing to their repertoire a few days ago.

There was a time when he did think of revenge - "a lot, especially when I was in a bad mood. Sometime it come to mind and I get angry, and say, 'The guys who kill my Dad, I must buck their family'. The last time I said that was a year ago. It don't make no sense. I start going to church more often."

The Sunday Gleaner asked Chisholm if anyone had ever called him soft because he had not sought an eye for an eye. "If they were saying it, I would not know. Is to how my Mom grow us. When I reach 17, 18, I can stay out till 10 p.m. Before, I could not pass 8:30 p.m.," Chisholm said, smiling.

'That day is like a weeping and mourning day. My father is not alive.'