Joe and Marie lived on Bethel Road in Sandy Grandy with their son, Christopher. The couple had arrived in Trinidad 20 years earlier aboard the Admiral II from St Vincent. Six years later, Christopher was born in the wooden shack they called home, on a mattress in the space that doubled as dining and living rooms.
By the time he was 14, Christopher, skinny and tall, had
already surpassed his short, chubby father in height.
Life was difficult for the family. Joe often found casual
work, clearing grass verges and painting rocks white at the base of struggling
palms. But such assignments were sporadic.
Adding to their struggles was the fact that Joe and Marie
had entered Trinidad without their “papers” having hidden alongside crates of
yams and sweet potatoes. They faced years of trouble securing proper
immigration papers.
Fortunately, help often came from their neighbours, Judd and
Trudy. Judd ran a successful used-car sales business, and Trudy, was a
homemaker. They were childless.
On weekends, Judd would help Joe with yard work and, because
he was tall, took on tasks like pruning the Chinese bamboo hedge that separated
their properties. The chore became exclusively his after Joe fell off a ladder
while cutting the bamboo, fell on the burning pile he had lit, broke his wrist
and sustained second degree burns to his arms.
That time of year was particularly eventful on Bethel Road.
When Christopher was about 10, he stepped on a rusty nail while laying linoleum
on the uneven floorboards at home. The ensuing injury left him unable to wear
shoes for years. At home, he wore rubber slippers, and for school or outings,
his parents bought him leather sandals.
Judd was particularly present at Christmas time, helping to
paint the house, boiling hams on outdoor fires in a Crix tin, and setting up
decorations in areas Joe could not reach.
Though Judd avoided pork due to his belief that it was
“nasty meat,” he made exceptions for Christmas ham and beef/pork pastelles,
claiming they were “not exactly the same thing.”
Marie made new curtains every year. She spent hours at the
old Singer sewing machine Joe had found discarded and repaired.
Arguments over curtains were frequent. The house was
festooned with curtains - on windows, doorways, and one covering an untidy
living/dining room wall. One curtain also hovered midway along the length of
the bed Joe and Marie shared, serving as a barrier at times of unresolved
disputes.
During one shopping trip for curtain cloth, Joe slipped away
to watch an entire football match at a nearby bar. He drank too much, fell off
a stool, was robbed by newfound “friends,” and ended up in the hospital with a
concussion.
Marie visited him on the ward, shopping bags in hand, while
Trudy, suffering from a back strain caused by heavy Yuletide groceries,
occupied a bed in the women’s ward across the corridor.
After Christmas, the old curtains became rags for
Christopher’s car wash job, where he earned weekend cash. Joe later bought him
an Ego ST1511T Power+ 15″ Powerload weed whacker with a telescoping shaft and
adjustable handle to expand his work.
Joe later got Christopher a PowRyte Electric Pressure Washer
with a foam cannon, multiple pressure tips, and pushing a healthy 5000 PSI. The
machine was so powerful it could strip paint off a car and the sound of the
motor was capable of stimulating emotions up to one kilometre away.
Christopher’s early-morning work attracted complaints of
“noise pollution” from Bethel Road residents, leading to frequent visits from
the police and the EMA.
Seeking business elsewhere, he managed to do well every
December, eventually employing up to a dozen casual workers. However, disputes
over late and unpaid wages and responsibility for noise violation fines led to
the eventual dismantling of the team – each member later acquiring their own
washers and whackers.
Tensions on Bethel Road also increased over time. A major
fallout occurred after Judd, while cleaning paint brushes with pitch oil after
Christmas painting, threw the bucket’s contents over the hedge, drenching
Christopher. Joe defended his neighbour, asking Christopher “what you doing
there in the first place?”
Matters worsened that very Boxing Day when one of Judd’s
“Roman Candle” fireworks landed on Christopher’s whacker and destroyed it.
Furious, Christopher, already estranged from his parents
over financial disagreements and the pitch-oil incident, grabbed the burnt-out
whacker and his pressure washer and stormed out of the neighborhood. “I coming
back just now,” he told his mother.
Years have passed, but Christopher has not returned. Joe,
Marie, Judd, and Trudy remain united in their hope for his return. Such
expectation is disappearing.
