The Amazing Absorbing Boy (35 page)

Soon after my arrival in Canada, I had been filled with wonder and confusion at this new place. At the end of my first week, my father had told me that I had to learn the rules real fast to survive. Now after all this time, I still didn’t have a clue
what he was talking about. I had come to Canada, expecting I would get to know this person who had left his
Wonder Book of Wonders
and his crazy half-finished inventions behind, but after twenty months, I still didn’t know any more of him. I didn’t know the type of job he had before his breakdown, what led to his crack-up, if he had a girlfriend, why he was so angry in the beginning, if he felt any little piece of regret about leaving my mother, and things like that. Maybe, if he had remained here, he would have landed up in a coffee shop like the one on Parliament Street, where he would complain about everything and blame everybody but himself. He was like the Spectre or the Shadow or one of these comic-book characters who had no friends or family and slipped in and out of dimensions to change into either hero or villain according to the crisis they faced.

Summer slipped away and the place grew colder but I continued travelling. Sometimes I took several buses to extend the distance; and I discovered that past all the crowded cities with crisscrossing streets, past the shabby smaller towns where my father might be cornered, even past the long stretches of trees and rocks and cultivated fields, there were these old farmhouses with sloping red roofs and wobbly wooden fences and cattle grazing in the surrounding fields. I felt there were ravines in the back of the fields with salmon and cod—and even
cascadura
!—jumping about. And while I was gazing at these peaceful places I would remember my first weeks at Regent Park when I was so comforted by the familiar there, I was afraid to step outside to the strange Bizarro world.

I tried to imagine what lay beyond, all the places Danton had mentioned. North Bay and Timmins and Longlac. Maybe I was too accustomed to small villages and towns because the only way I could wrap my head around places that stretched for hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles was by viewing them as comic-book scenes. With big flapping banners of mist swirling across icy lakes and tiny nibbling animals making freaky
coot
-
coot
sounds as they scrambled from hole to hole. And snowfall so thick it erased everything else so I could make anything I wanted of the scene. Sometimes there were strange people hiding behind trees, not showing their faces but tracking every move I made. At other times, I pictured crazy old men by their windows aiming their guns at snapping turtles in a pond, or religious scamps with bundles of wives holding pitchforks and babies, or trappers and lumberjacks feasting on moose. Whatever lay out there I wanted to see it all, panel by panel. And when I was finished, I wanted to push on. I couldn’t wait for Regent Park to disappear. I even mentioned this in a letter to Uncle Boysie and in his reply—where he stated that my father had not yet showed up in Mayaro—he warned me I should get my foot back on the ground and finish my studies.

He said that I should be careful I didn’t fall into a make-believe world like my father and mother, and even though I knew where he was coming from, sometimes, when I am travelling and my mind is slipping all over the place, I would feel that he didn’t understand that my world wasn’t make-believe but was a patch of every amazing thing I had touched and absorbed, a dust here and a dust there.

Word definitions are quite fluid in a Trinidadian context as they depend upon other variables, such as the tone in which a word is expressed. Below are some definitions of Trinidadian words used in this novel.

B

bacchanal.
Confusion and scandal.

badjohn.
A criminal or violent person.

balata.
Hardwood tree found in the forest, used to make furniture and floors.

barra.
A kind of flatbread made from chickpeas, used to make
doubles
, a type of sandwich.

C

caimite.
Round, dark purple fruit, also called
star apple
.

carite.
A popular and tasty fish. Used in fish broth.

cascadura.
An edible fresh water fish with bony placoid scales.

channa.
Chick peas.

chilli bibi.
A dusty snack made with parch (roasted) corn, sugar and cinnamon.

chupidness.
Like stupidness but less of a rebuke.

chataigne.
A large prickly fruit with edible seeds. Similar to the chestnut.

cocopanyols.
Descendants of settlers from Venezuela who intermarried with other ethnic groups in Trinidad. Also
cocoa-panyols
.

commess.
Confusion. Frequently refers to scandalous behaviour. Also
commesse
.

crapo.
From the French crapaud, meaning ‘toad.’ Also
crappo
.

crapo-foot handwriting.
Poor penmanship.

D

dasheen.
Tuberous root of the taro plant.

doubles.
Popular street food in Trinidad, made with chickpeas and
barra
.

douennes.
The ghosts of children not christened before their deaths. Also
douens
.

downcourage.
Frustrate.

duncy.
Stupid. Illiterate.

F

fête.
Like
bacchanal
, commonly found in English-language dictionaries.

flambeau.
A torch with a bottle base.

G

gilpin.
A large cutlass. Also
guilpin
.

grop.
Bunch, group, or gathering. Also
grap
.

grugru.
A palm tree with small edible nuts.

gundee.
Crab’s claws. Also
gundy
.

H

horning.
Committing adultery, being unfaithful.

J

jumbies.
Ghosts, often evoked to frighten children.

K

kitecutting.
Trying to cut the string of an opponent’s kite with a piece of broken bottle.

L

lackarbeech.
To duck school or work. Also
l’ecole biche
.

lagahoo.
A shapeshifting creature. Often an old man who lives alone and who transforms in the night into an animal.

laglee.
Sticky sap from the breadfruit tree. Dried and used to trap birds.

lime/liming.
A casual gathering to pass the time.

locho.
A lazy drifter. Also
loacho
.

luchette.
A digging tool. Once used by road workers.

M

macco.
A busy body. Also used to describe a showy object. Also
maco

maljeau(x).
Evil eye. Also
mal yeux
.

mamaguy.
Flatter.

manicou.
An opossum

mash up.
Wreck, ruin; or a combination of different elements.

mauby.
A bitter drink made from bark and several spices that is reputed to have medicinal qualities.

mauvais-langue / languing.
Spreading gossip or rumours.

mingpiling.
Small and skinny. Also
ming piling
.

mooma.
Mother.

N

neemakaram.
Ungrateful or a betrayal.

nowhereian.
A wanderer.

O

obeah.
A type of folk magic.

ownway/ownwayness.
Stubborn and headstrong.

P

parang.
Spanish influenced music, mostly with guitars and maracas, popular during Christmas.

picong.
A kind of friendly heckling.

picoplat.
Seed-eating bird with a distinctive warble.

planass.
A blow with the flat side of a cutlass. Also
planasse
.

pommecythere.
An edible fruit, acidic when green but extremely sweet when it ripens. Also called
golden apple
.

pone.
Sticky golden cake made from cassava and coconut.

pothound.
A stray dog. Often a term of insult.

R

rackling.
Jangling metallic sound, as of broken machinery.

roti.
A type of flatbread.

roucou.
A red dye from the similarly named tree. Also
roukou
.

S

scooch.
A game that involves trying to hit an opponent’s body with a softball.

saga boy.
A ladies’ man. Also
sharpman
.

shadow beni.
A leafy herb similar in taste to cilantro, but with a stronger flavour. Also
shado beni
.

skeffy.
Scheming.

souyoucant.
A vampire-like creature. Typically an old woman.

squingy.
Wrinkled.

sweetmouth.
Flattery.

T

tattou.
Armadillo.

W

windball cricket.
Softball cricket with few rules.

Z

zwill.
A toy made from flattened metal bottle caps.

Thanks to The Canada Council and The Ontario Arts Council. Also to Diane Martin, Michelle MacAleese, Jennifer Lum, Michael Cho, Doris Cowan, Scott Sellers and Hilary McMahon.

RABINDRANATH MAHARAJ is the author of three previous novels:
A Perfect Pledge
, which was a finalist for the Regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize;
The Lagahoo’s Apprentice
, which was a
Globe and Mail
and
Toronto Star
notable book of the year; and
Homer in Flight
, which was nominated for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award; and two collections of short stories,
The Book of Ifs and Buts
and
The Interloper
, which was nominated for a Regional Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book. Rabindranath Maharaj was born in Trinidad and now lives in Ajax, Ontario.

AUTHOR PHOTO © VICKY MAHARAJ