No Woman No Cry (2 page)

And gradually, when I visited my mother's house and had to sleep with about fifteen other cousins and had to carry this and that and sweep up, and didn't get much attention, I began to understand and be grateful that this was not my home. Aunty's, where my room was, where I was cared for, was
home
and where I belonged.

When I was nine my mother got married and didn't invite me to the wedding. That hurts, when you're a little girl. I didn't want Aunty to know how hurt I felt, I felt I couldn't let her know, especially since she'd always said, “Your mother don't know you're a girl child, she won't even send you a panty.” Which, of course, had led me to think that my mother just didn't care and could have left me feeling lost.

But Aunty was way ahead of me. “You don't even have to hurt,” she said in her no-nonsense way. “Your mother don't want to invite you? No problem! I will make you a beautiful dress, and I'll dress you up, and we'll pass by the wedding, and just let everyone see how pretty you are and see what your mother did—wu'thless bitch!”

That's how Aunty was, she could be very mean when she felt it was necessary. But she had standards—yes, quality—so much class! And she was so righteous! And for this I came to appreciate her, to understand why I
should
love her and not let anything be too good for her. Wesley and I, when we got old enough, we'd say to our father, there were times we didn't even know where you were, but Aunty was always there for us. You look up, you think there's no one, and here comes Aunty.

The Andersons were a musical family. Besides my father and Aunty (who sang in her church choir), I was close to my Uncle Cleveland, a big baritone very much in demand for weddings and other celebrations. So I was always musically oriented, musically inclined. And because it was recognized so early that I had a voice, Aunty would teach me songs and then tell her customers, “Oh Rita could sing the wedding song.” I loved singing in church, too—I'm a true Christian from when I was a child. I know there is a God; I love Him and have always felt very close to Him. (And then there was the pastor's son, Winston, who would walk me home after church and kiss me at the gate.)

Saturday afternoons on RJR, one of the two Jamaica radio stations, there was a program called
Opportunity Knocks
. If you got on it, you would be exposed to people who could take you from nowhere (like Trench Town) and put you into helpful organizations like the Girl Guides. Or they'd give you a bit of cash and a trip somewhere. I was ten when Aunty said, “You want to try for the radio, Rita?” Aunty, she was oh so confident in me! So I said, “Okay, what am I gonna sing?” And she said, “The Lord's Prayer, because that's a
big
tune, and you can
do
it!”

She sat me down on my little stool, beside her sewing machine, and day after day she'd be there sewing and singing “Our father” and I'd repeat “Our father.” “Who art in heaven …” “Thy kingdom come …” And when we reached the last of it, she'd say, “And now we put our hands together like this: ‘And the glllooooorrry … '”

The night of the program she dressed me up in a crinoline and a fabulous blue skirt and blouse with lace trim. I was way too short for the microphone and they had to put me on a box, but
oh
, I tore that place down! All I can remember is, “And tonight's talented winner is … Rita Anderson!” And everyone yelling, “You won! Rita, you won!”

I went up on the stage and for the first time experienced the applause of an audience. I was so little, but I think of her, that little girl—myself—as so courageous! And from that day on, I said, hey, I'm gonna be a singer.

Often the only way to keep a Jamaican family surviving was—and still is—for one of its members to emigrate and send money home. The way people go to New York now, in that time our refuge was England. You went by boat, and the fare was very cheap, seventy-five pounds. Though it might take people years to save that up, eventually the recommendation was, “If you're gonna tu'n wu'thless, g'wan to England and find a job.” When I was thirteen, Aunty said to my father, “You're getting nowhere. Where's your ambition? You can't stay in Jamaica sawing wood and playing saxophone twice a week. Rita's turning teenager—I'll soon have to buy her brassieres!” She bought Papa a ticket to England and said, “Go find a life.” So, like others, he went to London. He used his carpentry skills and drove taxis but managed still to work as a musician, playing his tenor sax and living in various European cities.

Wesley and I had thought that when Papa went to England we were going to be following him in a year or two. That was always a promise: If you behave yourself, you will go to your father. If you behave yourself … And so I was always looking forward to that and hoping to one day tell my friends, “I'm going to England 'cause that's where my father is, my Papa's sending for me.” But that dream never materialized because he was never financially able. Although he kept in touch, I didn't see him for more than ten years; in fact, Bob saw him before I did! This is why Aunty meant so much, because she gave me the reason to be a tower of strength. She gave me that ambitious feeling. She'd say, “Just because your mother left you and your father's gone doesn't mean you'll be nobody. I'm Aunty. You're going to be someone.”

Across the street from our house, on the opposite side of Greenwich Park Road, the Calvary Cemetery held most of Trench Town's Catholic dead. Though it wasn't something we had any fear of, living in front of a cemetery was an experience. We were always being faced with life and death, because every day there were three or four bodies and at least one elaborate funeral with beautiful flowers and ribbons. Our neighbor Tata was the caretaker there, and his wife, Mother Rose, was Aunty's best friend. So we had access to the cemetery anytime, and were able to squeeze ourselves through the barbed wire or even go through the gate if we wanted. And since Tata knew I needed ribbons for school and that Aunty and I loved flowers, if there was a special funeral that came in, he would send someone to tell us, and after the mourners left, I climbed in. Other kids said, “You don't afraid?” At school they would tease me that my hair ribbon was from a funeral. Or they'd say, “Oh no, you have to come through the cemetery to get to school! I'm afraid of you, girl!” But then there were my friends who would fight for me, who said, “Foolish! You stupid! So what? She's intelligent, she can
sing
!!”

It was our family's custom to gather every evening and sing, under the plum tree in the yard—the “government yard” that Bob would later so famously sing about. From the time I was small, the yard had been my special place, not only where I cried after Aunty's spankings, but where I went just to be by myself and think. It was smooth dirt, swept clean (often by me), and the plum tree had beautiful yellow blossoms. I used to pick the plums when they were green and gummy inside and break them in half and stick them on my ears, to make
fabulous
plum earrings.

When I was fourteen, Fat Aunty died, and her son, my eleven-year-old cousin Constantine “Dream” Walker, came to live with us. Since they'd lived only one street away, he and I had always been close, and because of the “Two Sisters” business we'd grown up more like brother and sister than cousins. Aunty had taught us harmony, and so Dream became my harmonizer, pretending to be the band. Evenings, in the yard, he and I performed together. Every song that played on the radio, we had it down pat. We listened to Miami stations that played rhythm and blues, singers like Otis Redding and Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett and Tina Turner, and groups like the Impressions, the Drifters, the Supremes, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells, the Temptations—we caught all the Motown hits. But if you lived in Trench Town then, you'd also hear “ska,” and even earlier kinds of music like Nyahbingi drumming and “mento,” with roots in African traditions—the way in the States you might hear soul and pop on the radio but also folk and blues from way back.

Sometimes Dream and I would put on a show and draw a crowd, charging people half a penny apiece. The people in the community, neighbors, other kids, the good, the bad—everyone looked forward to our “special entertainment” evenings. Even some of Papa's musician friends came to hear us, people like Roland Alphonso and Jah Jerry. With Papa's help, we'd made “pan guitars” from sardine cans. First, he nailed a flat piece of wood to the can for the fret board, and then we fixed strings onto it. Our “guitars” were small, but they worked!

At my school, the Central Branch government school on Slipe Pen Road, my name had been shortened from Alfarita to Rita because the teacher said it was too long for the register. At Central Branch nothing was something; we wore white blouses, blue pleated skirts, and blue ties, and considered ourselves fortunate. I don't know how Aunty had even gotten me in there, because you were supposed to live in the area in the first place, as well as having a good family background and somebody or some school to recommend you. I was kind of far from all that, living in Trench Town with no mother and Papa being a carpenter and a musician with no established earnings. I think Aunty surely must have pulled some strings; probably she got a letter from some member of her political party, as she was the area representative. But I showed myself deserving of the chance. I always loved school, was always “a bright girl,” as my teachers said, not always by the book but by my common sense and quick pickup of the lessons. Except math. I tried my best and was very good at everything else.

Lunchtime, in elementary schools, different vocal groups gathered in classrooms to compete. At Central Branch I was one of the organizers, and if there was to be a concert—often just before a holiday—Mrs. Jones, my favorite teacher, would say, “Rita, we need some songs,” and she'd make sure I had time and space for rehearsals. I'd tell everyone in my group what to do, what parts to sing and when. And all the while I'm telling myself that one day I'll be like Diana Ross.

In Jamaica, public education is free only through elementary school, and then you need money. After Central Branch I got a half scholarship to Dunrobin High School (Merle Grove Extension)—meaning that the government would pay half and the rest was up to the family—and I had just Aunty and my brother Wesley to support me. We had problems after a while keeping up with lunch money, books, and all the fees for this and that, until Wesley, who at the time was going to Walgrove College, decided to get a day job and pick up his own lessons in the evening. What a brother. He and Aunty were always behind me, convinced that I was to be someone, that there was something in me that promised this (even though Aunty doubted it more than once when my math grades were not what she wanted).

Wesley was the kind of guy who was always in school, but by the time I was seventeen I wanted to be able to get a job as fast as I could, so that I could take care of myself and stop depending on his income. And I felt I couldn't continue to just live off Aunty. I didn't have anything in mind about being a singer—in Jamaica you have to be realistic if you want to have any kind of a life. So when I left high school I went straight to the Bethesda School of Practical Nursing. And because the best recommendation for striving young girls was to get a secretarial job, I enrolled in night school at Papine to learn shorthand and typing. I had a boyfriend by this time, one of a pair of twins, who also liked to sing and with his brother was trying to create a Jamaican version of Sam and Dave. Evenings, after he left his job, he'd come for me at school and we would slowly, lovingly, make our way home.

And so, like many other girls of that age, I got sidetracked. I was waiting to start work in one of the big hospitals in Kingston, where you had to be at least eighteen, when I got pregnant. Teenage sex was such a shame when I was growing up, at least in Aunty's opinion. I didn't dare tell her, but morning sickness exposed me. “Why you spittin'?” she demanded. And eventually I had to confess.

This was one of the greatest sins I could have committed while under Aunty's watchful eye. Everyone was disappointed in me. “Let's take her to the doctor and get rid of it,” was the general recommendation. “Oh no, you can't have it,” said the boy's mother. “He's too young, and you're too young. You would never make it, you both need to go back to school.” She sent him to England, although he went unwillingly, because we were in love and he had been looking forward to being a father. After he left I decided to have the baby anyway, even though Aunty insisted that if anyone came to the house I was to get under the bed or stay behind the door.

I was frightened but brave when I gave birth at Jubilee Hospital to my first child, a girl I named Sharon. And it didn't surprise me that after she was born she became Aunty's child, the belle of the ball. As for me, my nineteenth birthday found me out of school and still waiting for that nursing job in the hospital.

Sharon's birth didn't change our home life much. Dream and I continued to get together to practice songs we'd heard on the radio; evenings we sang under the plum tree in the yard. Often he and I were joined by Marlene “Precious” Gifford, a girlfriend of mine who was still in high school, who would come by to play with the baby and fill me in on the latest gossip and keep me up to date on what was happening. She had a good voice, and with Dream we made a fine trio. One day, while we were rehearsing for one of our yard shows, I said to them, “You know, we could form a group.” It seemed as if everybody in Trench Town tried to sing or play an instrument or get a vocal group together.

At that time, the mid-sixties, everybody I knew was excited about a new Jamaican music known as “rock steady.” Our favorite stars were Toots and the Maytals, Delroy Wilson, the Paragons, Ken Booth, Marcia Griffiths, and particularly a group who called themselves the Wailing Wailers. The Wailers had recorded some rock steady singles in a studio in the Trench Town area near where Dream and I lived. Kingston had a number of small recording studios then, some of them just one of several businesses run by one person—Beverley's Record and Ice Cream Parlor was one (its owner also sold stationery); another was a combination studio and liquor store. Studio One, on Brentford Road, belonged to “Sir Coxsone,” a man named Clement Dodd, who was an early supporter of Jamaican music and very important to its progress.