The Girl With the Golden Shoes (8 page)

When he was beside her, she saw that he was stocky, and wore glasses on a peanut-colored face. His silver hair receded sharply, and he’d shaved his mustache in a pencil line.

“Let me take the basket. Come.”

She climbed into the cab. When they were coasting down the road she asked him, “Who’s Mr. Rawle?”

The windshield had a set of hinges where it met the roof. He’d opened it so that it formed an awning, and the wind was blowing straight against her face.

“On this island,” he began, “it have three families that count. It have Rawle. It have Campbell. It have Salan. Rawle and Campbell is like one because o’ marriage. And soon it going be Rawle alone since Salan young daughter married Rawle big boy. Rawle own sugar on this island. Rawle own cattle on this island. Rawle own coconuts. And although he get a blow with the coconut blight, and although he had to sell off most o’ the estates so that he only have this Speyside now, and although nobody buying beef now because o’ the war, Rawle is still the sheriff in this town. You see Salan?” He glanced at her to see if she was listening. “He’s coming up fast. And I like him more, because he is a man that start out poor, and he deal with people with manners. But you have to watch him, ’cause them Jews and Lebanese is tricky like
rass
.” He tapped her shoulder. “I watching this scene long time, you know. I know what’s going on. I bet you a thousand pounds that before I dead Salan going richer than Rawle. I don’t know exactly how. But I know it going happen. Lemme show you how the man full o’ tricks. Just when the war break out and Rawle get lick with the coconut blight, Salan go to Rawle and said, ‘Lemme take some swampland off you hands.’ Well, Rawle like a fool go and sell him. Well, guess what? Before you know it, the Americans leasing this land from Salan to make a airbase. Now why would anybody build a airbase on a swamp? Because they need plenty land that is flat near the sea, and this place is only mountains. So the Americans use their big machine and dig down a hill and use that dirt to fill up a swamp. But guess whose hill? Salan. And guess what again? Salan want to flatten that hill long, long time, but he couldn’t find a way to do it cheap. And guess whose land they dump?”

“Salan,” she said distractedly, while thinking, I hear he also sell the nicest shoes.

“You’re a brains. You hear what I telling you?” He beat his hands against the steering wheel. “You
get
what I saying. You
understand
my point. So, the Americans spend their money to fill up this land with soil, and then the next thing you know they not building no base again. And the next thing after that you hear is that Salan take that swampland and planting acres and acres o’ cane. Miles and miles o’ cane. You see how the man smart?”

“He should open a school.”

“But it ain’t book smart that man have,” the driver emphasized. “It ain’t book smart at all. That man have common sense because he’s a common man. And that is why I like him. He’s a common man. Rawle act too high and mighty, like his shit come from Nova Scotia in a tin like sardine. And the only thing that is making him ride high right now is that Royal Standard Rum. That is the best rum it have in the world. I hear people talking ’bout Bacardi and Appleton and Havana Club like them rum is anything to talk ’bout. Listen to what I saying tonight. I take them rum and wash my glass before I tip the best. And is one place grow the cane for that rum and that is Speyside. That’s where grow the finest cane. And that’s why they build that factory there in that bowl that so hard to get to. You lose the quality if you make that rum from them fields it have near the sea. And that is why it burn me when them lice-head coolie never stand by me when we make that strike in ’35. Because if it had union in this country, we could boil down Rawle and all them
rasses
till they reach the bottom o’ the pot. A lot o’ people vex that the Americans taking over…talking all kind o’
rass
’bout how they ain’t trust United Fruit. But in a sense I glad. One man beating my ass all my life. I say let another man come and lick me and see how it sweet.”

“You would be vex if I tell you I ain’t feel like to talk?” Estrella asked him dryly.

“If I would
mind?”
he asked, offended. “If I would
mind?
Of course I would blasted mind. I giving you a blasted ride…you better talk to me. Them people I work with ain’t talk to me. They think I talk too much. And some say I must be a spy because how I could cuss Mr. Rawle so much and he ain’t fire me yet. But I ain’t stupid. I ain’t cuss the man to him face. I cuss him to his back. I old now. I do my time. This job to drive this truck here is the only thing I have name pension. When I was cutting and leaf was slicing up my flesh was a long, long time ago. When I born it still had slaves in Cuba. Brazil too. A lot o’ people ain’t know those things. But they ain’t read books, you see. They ain’t read books. So they ain’t know what’s going on.”

“I like to read,” she said, interested now.

“For true?”

“Yes. I like it more than anything it have in the world.”

“So how you can read but you talk like you ain’t go to school?” he asked, amazed.

“I can speak English,” she said, switching from
Sancoche
. “But I have never been to school. I taught myself and I received a little help from a Chinese girl whose father owns a shop.”

“You are a prize,” he said, pulling over. “A real, fantastic prize. What is you name?”

“Why you want to know?” she asked defensively.

“So I could present you with a proper compliment.”

She leaned over her basket, which she carried in her lap.

“I ain’t want nobody to tie up my head right now,” she said, reverting to
Sancoche
. “I ain’t want nobody compliment me or anything like that ’cause that is only talks. I going ’bout my business, you see me here. And that is all I want to do.”

When they’d begun to coast again, he asked, “Why you going to town so late?”

“I have business down there.”

“When I leave you off,” he asked with genuine concern, “how you going to reach?”

“I ain’t know for sure.”

“Girl, it going be real hard to get a vehicle driving that way, you know. Unless is a emergency, you shouldn’t try to go.”

“Is a emergency in truth for me. I sick. I real sick. I real sick o’ this place.”

She turned so that her back was pressing on the door and placed a thigh against his seat. “Mister, you would never imagine what happen to me.”

“Tell me.”

But how I could trust a man who only cuss his boss behind his back? she thought. A man like that is a two-face man. You suppose to say what you feel. ’Cause talk is what make a man greater than a beast. And when you say behind a man what you want to say to his face you showing him something. You showing him that he’s a man and you is some kind o’ mule for him to ride, or some kind o’ dog for him to kick around. And people who take so much kick and ride, they mind weak. And they will talk you business when the pressure start to come. That’s exactly what happen to me. My own friends who was there when that man come out the waves tell lie and spread rumor ’pon me. They ’fraid o’ what come out their parents’ mouth.

“Let it rest,” she told the driver. “Let it rest. But something happen to me that make me sick down to my soul.”

In his head he said,
This subject needs a change
.

“I hear that fire burning down in Black Well,” he said.

“Which part is that?” she asked.

“On the way to town.”

“I never hear ’bout no place name so. Which part is that? And when you say burning, what kind o’ burning you mean?”

“I ain’t really know. A man tell me today that they was burning down there again. You ain’t know which part Black Well is?”

She shook her head and made a grunt.

“That is where Salan get the Yankee them to fill up the swamp so he could plant the cane. The same place we old people call New Lagos is the same place name Black Well now. When I was a young man a Yankee priest name Father Eddie…Eddie Blackwell was his name…use to do some things out there. Have woman and all, I hear. Maybe that’s why they call it so. But still, it have some o’ the blackest nigger man you ever see out there. So maybe that’s why they call it so.”

“You mean where it have some houses in the water on the poles?” she asked. “And sometimes out there you could catch manatee?”

“Same one.”

“Yes. I know out there.”

After they’d driven for a mile in silence, which Estrella utilized to prep her mind to walk, the driver took a hand from off the wheel.

Looking at the girl, her tousled hair, her diamond face, her upper lip, which was encroaching on her nose, he began to rub the leather knob that crowned the long gear stick that slanted from the floor.

I ain’t able for this
rass
, Estrella thought. I ain’t able for this
rass
right now. But you almost there. It can’t turn into nothing big. If he try to force you then it have to be a fight.

“You have a boyfriend?” he began.

“I might,” she said flatly.

“You do or you don’t?”

“Why you want to know?”

“I have a son,” he said nobly. “A nice boy. The youngest one. Nineteen years old with a good trade. He’s a mechanic down at Royal Standard. He’s a man can fix anything that break. But is only Indian girls he like. That woman in the red bandanna who just cuss me off, she carrying bad feelings for me. Why? It have a rumor that my son fooling with her girl. But that ain’t true. My son have taste. My son know better than that. My son is a educated boy. Can read and write. And her daughter would see her name on a envelope with money and use it to wipe her ass. By the way, how old you be?”

“Old enough,” she said, smiling.

“I ain’t want none o’ them town girls for my son. Them girls have too much guile. He need a nice country girl with ambition. A girl who could read and write.” He raised his hand to make the point. “And she must be pretty too. What man want a bright, ambitious monkey in the bed?”

Estrella laughed.

“I ain’t making joke,” he said. “Is a serious thing. Just like no woman ain’t have no use for no fat man. No man ain’t have no use for no ugly woman. And that is fat or slim! When you wake up in the morning and you head ain’t settle yet, you ain’t want to turn and see a face that could stop you heart from beat.”

“So you think I pretty or you making talks?”

“Baby, if I make talks to you, you’d ask me to marry you right now. My talks is like a sweet rum punch. It nice you when it going down, but when you done you feel regret, ’cause it will drunk you and make you give away you life.”

“So I pretty then?”

“Like the moon right there.”

She leaned forward and craned her head and saw it. It was bright and almost full, and as she felt it pulling at romantic feelings in her liquid depths, the driver asked her faintly, “I could touch you leg?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, then fired: “Touch my leg for what?”

Respectfully, he answered, “So I could give a good accounting to my son.”

The moon illuminated certain passions. She was grateful for the ride, and flattered that he’d choose her for his son. Plus the cab felt oddly safe, safe in the way of a studio, a place in which to probe around. Try new things. Test limits. Rehearse.

“But don’t go too far,” she said, and dropped her forearm in the crevice where her pelvis met her thigh. The driver’s touch was quick and light, more a test of ripeness than a fondle or caress. She took his hand and held it and they rode in swollen silence for a while.

When they reached the intersection with the coastal road he came around to help her from the cab.

“You’re a beautiful girl,” he told her. “My son deserves a girl like you. Some men ain’t like a girl with lip. But I like a little lip. Is the ones who ain’t like to talk I can’t take. See…if they ain’t like to talk, they like to brood. I can’t take a woman who just stare at you over breakfast when she vex. When they look at you that brooding way, you lose the taste for food. When a woman gimme lip I take it, smile, then eat my blasted food. But when they stare at me like that, oh God.” He felt he’d said too much and tapped her on the chin. “But look. I running. God bless you. I glad you make me change my mind.”

“A man never tell me I beautiful, you know, so I don’t know what to say.”

Across the street she saw the orange light of bottle torches glowing in the stalls where old
negritas
dressed in skirts and turbans sold small fritters made from black-eyed peas and served with pepper sauce, along with cuts of fried shark. She could also see the silhouettes of dogs and milling people, and smell the garlic marinade in which the cuts of shark were left to soak all day before the old
negritas
dipped them in the cornmeal batter, turning them to make the grainy mixture cream the meat, which they’d slide into the iron pots that had been used by their grandmothers, and the batter-covered meat would settle in the oily depths where all the salty flavor lurked and gain a brittle shell.

Beneath the smell of fish there was the wheaty fragrance of the heavy bread the fat
negritas
baked in ovens built from lime and brick right there beside the road, round loaves that came out bronzed and dusty with the smoky taste of coals.

Estrella was warmed by all of this—the smell of food, her conversation, and the sound of happy voices crackling like a splash of water dripping in hot oil.

Her head began to sink toward her shoulder when the driver stepped up on the running board and sat alone inside the cab.

“If you ever pass again, come by the distillery gate and ask for me,” he said. “Xavier Joseph. Everybody know me down there. Just call my name.”

She wanted to say something romantic, but all the words she thought about just felt so damn untrue.

“If you ever get a message that a girl name Cinderella by the gate,” she said, believing that the meaning would be lost on him, “you’ll bound to know is me.”

They looked at each other the way people do when time begins to curl and stretch as if it were a lazy cat.

“Come,” he said, and slapped the door. “Lemme take you further down.”