SUNDAY SAUCE - The little, little finger
Published:Sunday | October 10, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Oxy Moron, Contributor
In a small seaside bar, Maas Jabez sat on a high stool sipping white rum. Cindy, the new barmaid, reclined in a green plastic armchair near the entrance facing the main road. It was Sunday evening, and oldies music played in the background.
A few people passed by in their Sunday best to watch a community football match. Bertie, a middle-aged fisherman rode by, towing a youth with yellowish skin and hair. Cindy sat up and stared at them until they were out of sight. "Him white, eh, him white bad," she declared.
"An yuh know say is him son?"
"Him son, but him so white?"
"Him own him though, even though dem say him was jacket."
"But nuh must jacket, yuh no see how him white?"
"Him nuh white!"
"How yuh mean?"
"Dem sey him is albino and that's why him madda get crazy."
"Really?"
"Yes, mad as hell," the elderly Jabez answered as he slowly got off the stool, and then pulled up a white plastic chair beside Cindy's. He took his rum glass, sat and sighed, and said in a laboured tone, "Ah girl, it's a long story."
15-year history
One that went back 15 years ago when Miss Joyce's prized teenage daughter, Rosie, got pregnant and declared Phillip Johnson, a tall, strapping mechanic, the father. But there were hushed talks in the village that Bertie Grey, a fisherman, was the actual father, since Rosie frequented Bertie's yard, especially after he would return from fishing.
Rosie gave birth to a milk-white baby boy, who shocked Nurse Smith, the midwife, and Rosie's mother, who witnessed the delivery. The boy was pale, but his features were those of black people. When Nurse Smith handed the baby to Rosie she screamed and pushed it back.
A trembling Miss Joyce rocked the crying baby in her arms as Nurse Smith explained to her the condition of albinism, caused by a lack of pigment that normally gives colour to the skin, hair and eyes. Miss Joyce nodded while listening to Nurse Smith, but no amount of explanation could console a very distraught Rosie. A few hours later, news of Rosie's 'white' baby started to spread. "Sailor pickney," the villagers claimed.
Already a single mother, Miss Joyce decided to care for the boy, named Bobby, since Rosie refused to touch the child. She became quiet and withdrawn, and eventually lost her mind. One night she was killed when she ran into a car during one of her rages.
One day when he was 10 years old, Bobby confronted Bertie in front of a shop. "Mi grandmother say you is mi fadda," the boy said. The stunned Bertie jumped on to his bicycle, took one long look at the boy, and rode away without saying a word.
That night, he could not sleep. The image of Bobby using his right hand to shield his pale eyes from the sun as he squinted haunted him. From Bobby's little finger dangled another small one. As he lay in bed beside his wife thinking about the rumours that would ensue from what he had decided to do, he played with a much smaller finger that was attached to the little finger on his right hand.
"Him accept the boy from that, though people still say a jacket," Maas Jabez said to Cindy.
"So how him wife deal wid it?"
"What she must do? Is the man only pickney."
"That nice though, but him white, sah."
"Oh, come off dat, man. Let him be, man, let mi grandson be!"
"Grandson!?"
"Yes, Bertie is my son, but him madda give him to anadda man," an annoyed Maas Jabez scowled as he attempted to rise from the chair.
Cindy looked down on Jabez's right hand pressing against the chair's arm, and there it was. A very little finger, attached to Jabez's right little finger, stared right back at her.