The Amazing Absorbing Boy (20 page)

When I saw him at Union, his face was thinner and he now wore a wild,
ownway
goatee but he still had the habit of holding his head upwards as if he was better than anyone around him. From this angle, his nostrils seemed to fill out his entire face. His legs were folded just like when he used to sit on the steps of his teak house with his face sunk into his
Kid Colt
or
Rawhide Kid
comic book. I was about eleven or so, the age at which my mother had given me the responsibility to buy from Mrs. Bango’s parlour, tins of condensed milk or bars of blue carbolic soap or other small items she needed in a hurry.

I believe he lived alone because I never saw anyone else in the house, and he was always by himself, reading his westerns. He must have been about thirty then, and in Mayaro, where all the other men were either in fishing boats or in their gardens, Sporty’s idleness made everybody suspicious. I remember my mother, after she had heard from the village grapevine that I had been chatting with him, warning me over and over about “idle, good-for-nothing scamps with big useless heads.” But it was just about the time I had started to read the Mandrake and Phantom comics from
The Guardian
, and Sporty always had a big pile of comics on the steps. I think he must have noticed me staring because whenever I was around, he would dig into his pile and sort and rearrange, which made me even more curious. The first words he ever spoke to me were, “Pardnah, these things cost mm-money, you know.” It sounded like a threat so I ran off, but the next day, he added, “Two for a doll-a dollar.”

“So cheap?” I had asked.

“That is why it will cost you just a sh-shilling for a read.”

In my hands were a bar of squishy salted butter and seventy cents change. I hesitated for a while; I always placed the loose change in the cracked teapot next to my mother’s Singer and I had never seen her counting the money I brought back from the parlour. “What you have?”

“
Tex-tex-as Rangers. Two Gun Kid. Cherokee Kid. Jonah Hex
.”

“Only westerns? No Mandrake and Phantom?”

“Real men only wear costumes ‘round car-carnival time, pardnah. Just one sh-shilling. But nobody forcing you.”

It took a week before I walked over and held out my twenty-five cents. “Put it on the st-step.” He didn’t look at me but delved into his pile and brought up a comic. “Bill-Billy the Kid,” he told me. “And be careful with it, please. Wipe your hands, and don’t bend back the pa-pages.”

I remember the comic being senseless. No one wore costumes like Phantom or had magical powers like Mandrake but Sporty was nodding and making little laughs and saying “
Qui pappa!
That is man,” and somehow not stammering at all. When I was finished, he asked what I thought.

“It real boring. Just gun-talk and
badjohn
business.”

“You still not getting back your sh-shilling.”

I decided to leave him alone but a couple weeks later he called out to me, “Pardnah, I think you might like this one. I get it a few days ago in a sp-special deal.”

“How much?”

“The price didn’t change.”

“I only have fifteen cents.”

“I will let you read ha-half.”

“What good that will do?”

“You could choose your own ha-half. The beginning or the ending. Is no different from the comics in
The Guardian
where you have to wait mm-months on end to reach the conclusion of the st-story.”

That was true; still, I didn’t want to waste any money on half of a boring comic. I told him that.

“Okay, I will make you a deal. I will tell you the rest of the st-story myself. The other ha-half.”

“Same fifteen cents?”

“Anything mm-more, I will consider a donation.”

I knew he was not going to squeeze any more money from me so I walked over reluctantly. As I expected it was boring just like the others. A dusty-looking man sitting by himself in a saloon, challenged he could draw his gun faster than the regular crowd, walked outside with his legs far apart and scattered several gunslingers hidden behind water troughs. When I reached the stapled halfway point, I gave him the money and the comic. He closed it and pretended he was studying the advertisement for X-ray glasses on the back cover. Because he didn’t say anything and I felt he would not fulfil his side of the bargain, I asked him, “What happen after the fight?”

“Exactly what you would ex-expect.”

“I didn’t expect anything. What happened?”

“He became an owlhoot, Pardnah. Moving from one fra-fracas to the other. An inn-innocent and misunderstood hombre on the run. Until a band of Indians ta-take him in.” His voice seemed so sad that I didn’t pay much attention to his new accent. “But it had this posse of bounty hunters tracking him all the time. There was a big sh-shootout in the end.”

“And?”

“He sent all those miserable varmints straight to Boot Hill. Pow! Pow! Badow! They fall like pe-pe-peas. But he had to mm-move on.”

“That is all? It sound exactly like all the others.”

“You think so?” He seemed to be speaking to himself so I said nothing. “That is the way life is. Innocent and misunderstood men always have to be on the mm-move. They always have to keep one step ahead of the mob-ob who will string them up at the slightest opportunity.”

I told him, “I have to get going now.”

“You interested in a sp-special deal, pardnah? I could get a pile of comics as big as mine. This wholesaler in Rio Claro closing down. He selling out all his comics for next to nn-nothing.”

“I fed up of westerns already.”

“That is the thing. If was westerns, I wouldn’t be sp-spilling the beans. Is superhero comics.”

“Phantom and Mandrake?”

“The latest. And Batman and Justice League and Grgreen Lantern and Captain America. It even have a bl-black superhero too. “

“I don’t believe you. How much?”

“Ten dollars for the whole
grop
.”

“Where you expect me to get all that money from?”

“If you really want something, you will find a way. This world don’t wait for coward fr-frightened people.” He made stealing from my mother sound like a good thing

How could Sporty have forgotten all of this? How could he take his briefcase and hold it tightly against his chest as if I might grab it? And just walk up the step in Union like I was a perfect stranger? It was only when I was entering Regent Park that I considered he might be a refugee.

As soon as I got home, I told my father, “I see somebody from Mayaro in Union today.”

“Who?” He was by the kitchen table and I could hear the snap of his cereals as he chewed slowly.

“Sporty from behind Mrs. Bango parlour. He use to stammer a lot. And he had a nickname.” After a while, I told him, “Homo.”

He continued chewing his corn flakes and I was sure he cracked a small grin. “What he doing here?”

“I really don’t know. He didn’t talk to me.”

“You really don’t know?” Usually this tone was the signal for some mocking comment but now he tapped his cigarette against his palm and went to the balcony. It had never occurred to me before but now I wondered if he too missed Mayaro. After he had smoked a couple cigarettes on the balcony, he went into his room.

Later that night while I was washing up the wares, stupid as it was, I imagined my father walking out from his room and
talking about some of the other villagers he had known; and me listening carefully until he was finished before I described how Sporty had outsmarted me. I would mention Sporty’s surprise at the ten dollars I had scraped up and promising me the best comics from his pile. Telling me, “S-so long, pardnah,” as I was leaving, and making all sorts of excuses every time I approached him until the evening I saw the front step of his halfway teak house, empty.

I could have told my father that in the weeks that followed, it looked like Sporty had outsmarted half of the village. He had promised the fishermen new boats from the Venezuelan coast guard and the farmers better prices for their coconuts from some new cooperative. Everyone had paid upfront, and my mother, as if she had known all along about my own arrangement with Sporty, telling me over and over that I should never trust sweet-talkers who promised the moon and stars. After that sort of talk, she always mentioned conscience and pointed to her heart as if it was lodged inside there. The other villagers were not as charitable as they put up crude homemade posters on the telephone poles asking, “Have you seen this Homo?” And “Smartman wanted. Dead or Alive.”

A week passed before I saw Sporty at Union again. He was sitting on the selfsame bench next to the cinnamon shop store and dressed in the same old tweed jacket. He was wearing a scarf even in this warm weather. Because he was staring at the electronic schedule on the ceiling monitor—and also because he had been so cold to me during our previous
meeting—I decided to leave him alone, but as I was buying a cinnamon bun, I heard someone saying softly, “Pardnah.”

When I looked back, I saw Sporty stroking his goatee and staring at the bun in my hand. I walked across and sat next to him. “Your face looks very familiar,” he told me.

But he was still staring at my bun and I wondered if I should offer him half. “I met you right here about a—”

“Let me guess. Was it at one of my classes at Ryerson?”

“No, it was—”

“Then could it have been at my seminar at the library?” He shook his head. “No, no. I don’t think so. It must have been during my lecture at the annex.”

I now saw that it was a towel not a scarf wrapped around his neck. “It was right behind Mrs. Bango parlour in Mayaro. You charged me a shilling to read your westerns.” I almost added that he had run off with my ten dollars.

He crossed his legs and shifted closer to me (and to my bun). “Mayaro. Maya-roo.” He seemed to be experimenting with the name, and it struck me that he was not stammering one bit. “Do you know there were Indians living there? Not Indians like yourself, mark you, but the real variety. When Columbus landed with his men, these Indians were peeping out from behind every coconut tree. Did you know that?”

“From my primary school
West Indian Reader
.”

He seemed disappointed. “That was a long time ago. Much would have changed since. Tell me about Mayaro.”

“What you want to know?” I thought of the posters.

“Remind me of the place. The wind breathing through the trees and the sound of coconuts dropping on the mud.
Tadup, tadup
. The hairy mangrove crabs and the turtles. The evening sky looking like a big
mash-up
rainbow with all these colours leaking down on the sea. The fresh smell of fish and sand in the mornings.
Cascadura
jumping up from the ponds like living clumps of mud. Dew skating down from the big
dasheen
leaves as if they playing with the sunlight. A horsewhip snake slipping down a guava branch as smooth as flowing water. Cassava
pone
cakes and seamoss drinks.” To tell the truth, apart from my descriptions to Dilara, I had never thought of Mayaro this way: my strongest recollections were always of my mother getting sick and the couple months at Uncle Boysie’s place. Off and on, I would also think of the fishermen in the rumshop and of my short friendship with Loykie, the Amazing Absorbing Boy. But Sporty made me recall these other slices to the village and caused me to miss it even more. I even smelled the fresh fish odour that clung to the sea moss washed ashore in the mornings and the strong woody aroma of the peeled husks from the coconut factory. For a moment, I lost my fear of returning.

“It must have changed a lot,” he told me. “That is the way life is. Right now I am changing before your very eyes.”

I blurted out, “So you are no longer a refugee?”

He pretended he had not heard me, then he patted his briefcase and I heard a sound like the tinkling of spoons. “All my documents are here. My life’s work.”

I felt ashamed for trying to trap him. “Everything?”

“My total inventory. If I die tomorrow my entire life can be deciphered from this.” He patted it again and now there was a squishy sound.

“It must be very important.”

I was glad I didn’t mention that his stammering had disappeared because he seemed happy with my remark. He laughed and I noticed his big, yellow front teeth. “Cinnamon cakes always remind me of cassava
pones
, you know. Could be the spices. Can I smell it?”

I held up the bun and he leaned towards it, his nose grazing the crust. I couldn’t eat it after this, so I offered it to him. He examined it a bit, bared his teeth like a
manicou
then took a little bite, chewing slowly and smacking. Maybe the bun really reminded him of Mayaro and his Indians because between his toothy nibbles, he told me a story. The story was about these old time Spanish who had recently landed on Guayaguayare, a village next to Mayaro. There was some sort of problem with the local chiefs who were becoming impatient with these foreigners getting in their way and digging up everywhere for gold and silver and making all kind of rosy promises. The grumbling became nastier when these Spanish fellas began to force some of the Indians to build their new homes. It appeared they were here to stay, the Indians realized. One of these building was a big round structure with one door and no windows. When it was finished, the Spanish invited all the chiefs and their wives and children for a big
fête
.

Sporty dusted some crumbs from his goatee and said, “A massacre, you know. Every last one of them.”

“The Spanish fellas?”

“The Indians. One door and no windows. Nowhere to escape from. A perfect trap. Some properties are like that.” He grew silent after his story and I wondered if he had got it from one of his comics. But in his westerns, it was always the Indians doing the massacring.

After about five minutes of no talking, I told him, “Well, is time for me to go now.”

“I suppose so.”

His statement confused me because it seemed as if I should now say something else. “To my home in Regent Park.”

“Two bedroom?”

“Just one. Small place.”

“You live alone?”