The Last Warner Woman (23 page)

Shhhhhhhhh

If I was to tell you my story crossways, I could tell it like this: Once upon a time Anansi Spider was a traveling man. Anansi travel so much that he almost got no space left in his passport for other stamps. But though he travel to Curaçao, Panama, Merica, Canada and one whole heap of other places, Anansi never yet go to England. So Anansi Spider determine in him mind that he have to reach England, and sail pon the River Thames, and play cricket at Old Trafford, and say how-di-do to Mrs. Queen.

Now remember Anansi was a boasy man from morning who take special care in how he dress, but he take especial care whenever him was traveling. He wouldn’t show up in no nother country wearing screbbeh-screbbeh clothes. And as him was going to England, Anansi decide to really pop fashion. He get new trousers, tophat, waistcoat, and even one pocket watch fi fling inside his jacket. When Anansi walk off the plane, you want to see him strutting! Eh! Anansi a lift him hat to everybody he see saying, “Yesh mi lady, good afternoon. Yesh shir, pleasant day.” (Remember, Anansi was a man with a lisp tongue.) But all the politeness what Anansi was going on with didn’t stop people from looking on him funny, like they never see nothing like Anansi from the day they born. Poor Anansi was getting confuse for Anansi Spider was a famous person. Anansi name was large back home, and in Curaçao and Panama and Merica and Canada—everybody did hear bout Anansi and would run up and ask him to sign autograph whenever they sight him. Well my dears, when Anansi finally reach the Immigration desk, the gentleman behind the counter did barely have time to ask “Business or pleasure, sir?” when a English woman start to holler out, “Spider! Ooooh a spider! Kill it!” And vooops! Anansi barely dodge the broom that was coming down hard on him. Voooops! Him dodge it again. Everybody now chasing after Anansi and swiping at him. Poor Anansi run and run, his eight legs moving faster than even racehorse, so fast him all tear up the new trouser pants that did specially make for him. Anansi run straight up into the ceiling and from that time till now whenever you want to find Anansi Spider you just have to look up to the ceiling because him still hiding there.

Shhhhhhhhh

If I was to tell my story crossways, I could tell it like this: Once upon a time when madness was a thing as catching as the common cold, and plenty plenty people in the world was going off their heads, a wise man decide to draw a map on his forehead. When he start walking bout with the map on his head, people at first did think that he catch the madness too. But by and by, when they realize he was still sane after all, they question him. Wise Man, they ask, why you put that foolishness on your head? He gather them round and tell them.
Stop and consider something with me tonight—a man’s spirit have more sense than his mind. For when we catch into a sweet worship, our spirits leave our bodies and go all bout on their own business.
Everybody nod at this for all of them had the experience of their spirits traveling.
Sometimes your spirit even travel all the way back to Africaland, or else it just roam bout for hours and sometimes for days.
Everybody nod and say yes, all of this was true.
But when it is time, those same spirits will know how to make their own way back home.
Yes, Wise Man, they tell him. You speak the truth.
But aye,
him finally say,
God help you if it is your mind that decide to travel! The mind have a way of getting lost. You see, it don’t got no compass. It don’t know left from right. It cannot give an address of where and to whom it belong. When your mind travel, plenty times it just pack up and gone for good. That is why madness is the worst affliction known unto man.
Everybody in the village see the reasoning and they all start to draw maps on their own heads and from that day on, and none of them went mad again—for whenever their minds did travel, they would travel with a map and could their way home.

Shhhhhhhhh

If I was to tell my story crossways, I could tell it like this: Once upon a time Eve was in the garden dreaming bout the snake. She dream that the snake was crawling up her leg. Eve get into such a terrible fright that she jump straight out of her sleep. She look down on her leg but she never see no snake, so she say, Oh, is just dream I was dreaming, and her heart stop racing bup-di-bup-di-bup. What Eve never know is that the snake did crawl right up her leg and into her woman-parts and did find him way up inside Eve’s belly. By and by she start get morning sickness, and her belly did start grow, and poor Eve frighten for she and Adam did malice each other so much over that apple business that they never did sex each other for months. So poor-mi-gal Eve don’t know how she have belly. Well, nine months pass and Eve have the baby. The baby was a beautiful thing and Eve did love him so much, for she don’t know that snake was the baby-daddy. And from that day on many man may seem like an archangel on the outside, but in their heart of hearts, them really is a snake.

Shhhhhhhhh

If I was to tell my story crossways, I could tell it like this: Once upon a time, long long ago, before this present God did become God, there was another God. One day this first God was bored, and did feel too coop up in Heaven where he used to stay every livelong day. He decide that he want to go out for a stroll. So God let himself out of Heaven, but he go through the back door. And him walk and him walk. And him walk and him walk some more. All over the earth him walk that day, just feeling the breeze, eating guineps and dipping his two big feet into the cool river water. When evening start to come on God decide it was time to go back up to Heaven, but because the back door did lock, God had to go in the front way. Well, God come face to face with Jack Mandora. Jack Mandora was the fellow God hire to keep charge of Heaven’s gate, and Jack Mandora did take his job very serious. Whole heap of people who maybe God would have did let in wasn’t going to get by Jack Mandora. If your name not on the list for that day, Jack not taking out his long key and opening the gate for you. God say,
Good afternoon Jack Mandora,
and Jack Mandora say,
Good afternoon Massa God.
God say,
Jack Mandora, beg you open this gate for me so I can go back inside.
Well, what you think happen but Jack Mandora look on his list and never did see God name on it. Jack Mandora say,
bwoy, God, I woulda like to let you through you know, but I don’t see your name on today’s list.
God start to sputter.
But Jack, don’t you see and know that Me is God?
Jack say,
Yes, Massa God, I can see that. But that don’t change the fact that your name not on the
list, and unless your name write down, you can’t go inside.
God start get vex and say,
But this is foolishness! Why you behaving like this?
Jack Mandora stand up firm.
It is not foolishness, God, for it is you yourself who make the rules. I just following them.
Well, when God see that for true him would never get back into Heaven, he feel so sad that right there he just vanish away. That is how Jack Mandora became God in the end, and the first God turned himself into a song. Even today you will still hear people singing it.

If I was to tell my story crossways, I could tell it like this: Once upon a time there was a certain chicken who could never satisfy. Him did live in a yard and in the ground there was plenty worms, and there was a kind farmer who did throw plenty corn and this farmer was a man that did ongly eat vegetables so the chicken’s life was safe. But still, this fool-fool chicken did nothing more all day than look up in the sky and pout his lips. All his friends did warn him and say,
you must enjoy life, Mr. Chicken! You must enjoy what you have. Plenty good things right before you and you can’t even see them, for all you do whole day is look up in the sky. All that looking up going to give you crick-neck!
But this chicken never pay no mind. He continue looking up to the sky, day in and day out. You could say, his head was in the clouds. When Brother Johncrow fly by, the chicken would moan and sigh.

When Brother Patoo fly by, the chicken moan and sigh and sing the same sad song.

And when Brother Pea Dove fly by the chicken moan and sigh and sing him song one more time.

And is so him continue to sing whenever him see pigeon or hummingbird or blackbird and all the different birds that fly in the sky, until all the birds just get fed up of hearing that song. So they all get together and say, all right, chicken don’t got flying feathers for true, so maybe if we each give him one of our feathers, then him can fly and he will stop moan and sigh. So all the birds give the chicken a feather. He was so glad. One by one he pluck out all of his own pretty white feathers and stick in dove feather, eagle feather, johncrow feather, hawk feather, and every different kind of feather from the other birds. When him done, he did look like one big poppyshow. He don’t look like no bird at all. But the chicken was proud, and he spread his wings, set to take off. But guess what happen? Chicken still couldn’t fly, for it is not in the nature of chickens to reach up to the sky. And because the feathers never truly belong to him, all of them just drop right back out. So the chicken end up like that, grounded, and without a feather to call his own.

Shhhhhhhhh

And if I was to tell my story crossways, I would probably tell it like this: Once upon a time there was a leper colony in Jamaica. It was a colony for lepers but it was a beautiful place, full of every color you can find in the rainbow. The people there did live good with each other and love was their portion, and it should have been their portion forever and ever, amen.

an installment of a testimony spoken to the wind

Shhhhhhhhh

If I was to tell my story straight, the whole thing from start to finish, I would tell it like this. Hear me now and bear witness to all I say: My name is Pearline Portious, but it should have been another name. It should have been Adamine Bustamante, and that is what I call myself even today. I was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, at 35 Queen Margaret Drive. It was a house of lepers. My mama, god bless her soul, catch her dead right there on the birthing bed and I never did know her. It was an old woman who name Agatha Lazarus who grow me instead. Mother Lazarus never did believe or mix up in the things of God, but she believe in warning. It was she who used to tell me, if fish come from river-bottom and say alligator down deh, you must believe him. Mother Lazarus dead at the grand age of 105, and it was when she gone that I finally hear the Savior’s voice. I leave everything behind me and go to live with a Warner Woman who did name Bishopess Herbert. I fall completely into Revival.

Once upon a time I was in love with a man named Lucas Gilles. I used to think that maybe this man would have did married me. Maybe we would have made children together. Maybe in the end we would have been buried side by side in a little plot in Spanish Town. But I was a fool. I did say a terrible thing to him one night. I tell him,
Lucas, I want to leave this island because nothing is here for me.
And maybe that was what break him heart. But O, I wish I wish I wish him did have the strength to say to me,
don’t go, Ada. You have me. Stay with me even though I cannot promise you riches. Even though people like we will always be poor. Nothing wrong with poorness, for the Savior say it is we who shall inherit the earth. My sweet Ada, we will live till we is old in this balmyard, and peace and love and healing will be our portion.
But he never said none of that. Instead he help me to get to England. He help me to come to this place where I have been made to till a hard ground. It was him who write all the letters to Milton Dehaney, a man who used to be with the band once upon a time, until he migrate.

Me and this man Milton get married in England and I live with him for three years. They was three terrible years. I feel the back of Milton’s hand more time than I can even count. But he never sex me in all that time. It was like his hand was firmer and stronger than his man-parts, and I get to understand that his man-parts never did work proper from morning. Maybe that is why he beat me. But I tell you what—I never hate him sake of the beating. I hate him because he was a man who did forgot all bout where he come from. He did forgot that he was a man who was revived. And him wanted me to forgot it as well. Milton find himself in a strange land and he think he could no longer sing the Lord’s song here. And in the end maybe he was right, but to me life with him was like living in the Gobi desert. Most Sundays we don’t even go to church. The few times that we do go he don’t want to go to any jump-up church. He take me instead to a place where the service dead like dry grass that the sun burn up in June. It take me years, but finally I say enough! And on that day a powerful warning did come upon me. I wrap red and white unto my head and I put the voice of God into my mouth. I leave that yard, and I never know I was leaving it forever. When the policeman hold me that day and lock me up, Milton come with him bright self and tell the judge that I did mad from morning and he don’t know what to do with me at all at all. So they fling me in the madhouse. Simple, simple like that.