On The Mad Men of Montserrat

It was another day in Paradise. I woke with love and not hate. Went to the Brades Basketball court to stretch and welcome the day. As I was working out, I remembered that I had promised to perform for the opening of St. Patrick’s at Salem in the evening. Now I have to confess—for those who don’t know me, that I really don’t like leaving my house for too long. Everything I need is there and the sea is outside. “Why am I leaving?” is the only thought in my mind.

Not that I’m a hermit, but close to recluse would about cover me. And whenever I leave for a performance, my only thought is that soon I’ll be back home. My favourite time for performance is between five and six, with the sunset in the background. Stage lighting by God. If this can be arranged you will find me nice.

So here we are then, Night in Salem: tired tourists, waiting. They make up the majority. Then you have the Montserrat audience which consists mainly of family of children-performers and a category of what I call the “the minders,” Blacks who feel it is their mission to introduce tourists to the culture spots and explain “we” to them, assure them that if they enter this particular club they will be neither raped or murdered or worse, have their credit cards stolen by desperate machete wielding locals. There’s good money to be made being a minder.

Try to keep an open mind is my philosophy, well, on a good day, anyway. Someone with glasses approached me and asked me if I was “the writer.” It was more a statement than a question.

“Guilty!” I said as I always say when asked and lifted my hands to receive the handcuffs. He laughed. He then shared with me what he liked and didn’t like about my piece, “On Why Montserrat is So Unique.”

“Mostly it was good and revealing but I think it was too….”

“Truthful?”

“You didn’t have to hit people so hard, man!”

I agreed with him. Keep an open mind; remember, Edgar. Besides he had a good smile and in the end he probably loves Montserrat too, like me. He admitted that he shared the piece with ten friends.

“Thank God for friends,” I said. Live and let live, right. Then I listened to the Emerald Community Singers do what they do. Here’s where it gets interesting: I see the Access Coordinator for the show. He’s dressed in a green suit. (Confession: I hate green. I especially hate green on St. Patrick’s Day.) Can’t help it; it’s just me, although, to his credit, he didn’t have on a green beard. Live and let live, right?

He noticed I had on a red shirt. I hardly wear red although it is my African sign (red for Shango). He told me when I would be going on and not to get lost.

Right before you go on is a crucial time. It’s for that reason I always try to avoid negative people (that includes wives and girlfriends). As a matter of fact, solitude is best. While you put yourself in that zone called performance. Then he said, “Go on and do something you’re good at.”

I resisted the impulse to unzip my trousers. It was then I realized he knew nothing whatsoever about me. “The Hero” tried to explain me to him. It was then that everything went south. I entered the stage and watched the faces in the crowd. Question: Why do tourists never drink Guinness? They drink Amstel or Heineken instead. They feel safe with the familiar.

I was hired to do something African and because I was cheaper than spending $14,000 (fourteen thousand) U.S. to get someone from Senegal. So I did a poem translated by Langston Hughes from the Haitian Creole: “Guinea”.

It’s the long slow road to Guinea

Death itself will bring you there

Here are branches, trees, the forest

Listen to the sounds of the wind

Moving

Through the long hair of eternal night.

Beautiful, right? Not for this crowd. Not this night. The Green Suit Man was looking agitated. Then something came over me. It’s what old Montserrat people used to call: “Dem Rest” meaning jumbie, Spirits. They grabbed me and I did the poem for my mother:

My father saw my mother by kerosene and moonlight

Moving on long graceful legs moving

All grace and glory

Moving

Like a ship on God’s sea.

This was what I meant to say but it came out “Pum–Pum” instead. The Jumbies laughed. Green suit didn’t. All idle chatter stopped. Footsteps rushed the stage. A triumvirate: Green Suit, The Hero and The Pretender. Who is The Pretender? Pretender is what I call a Government–Calypsonian. In other words, he works for government by day and sings Calypso by night, which is, by the way, an impossible thing to do for a true Calypsonian.

How can you in good conscience criticize The System by night and perpetuate that very system by day?

How can you serve two masters? But in truth he has one job only: Sitting by the door and making certain that no true or innovative talent gets pass. In other words, his job is to block all possible competition. It’s called being self-serving while under the guise of wanting to promote culture.

This is the twentieth anniversary of the eruption. A good time to clean house, yes? If not now, when? This year has nothing to do with tourist and outsiders. This year is to look at “weself.” It doesn’t matter which party is in power if we don’t heal ourselves and stop the hypocrisy things will never change.

Next came the Green Suit who rejoices in the fact that he’s never read a book in his life that he didn’t have to. This by itself qualifies him for Chairman. The only literature he knows is his bank statements. He owns a beach bar down at Little Bay with faux (fake) plastic thatched roof. Every thing I ran away from in the U.S.

“Let’s recreate a little Miami Beach right here in Montserrat, folks! That’s the answer.” To what, Death?

Enough wasted space on him. Let’s get to the saddest of the three, The Hero. I say the saddest because he’s the most gifted of the three. God graced him with an incredible singing voice, the sweetest in Montserrat. What I hear is all the pain and joy of Montserrat, when I hear him sing; an incredible sense of timing as well. When you hear him sing on the radio you can’t mistake him for anyone else. He’s also a gifted agriculturist. I think you could throw the man in the middle of the desert and he would find a way to make it bloom. So what is the problem?

The problem is that God never got around to giving him a conscience. Talent, real talent without conscience is dangerous. Of those to whom much is given, much is expected. It’s interesting that he came from a generation of outstanding teachers. The Hero was an amazing teacher. Along with Peter White (formerly head of MUL) and J.D. Fenton, together they formed a triumvirate of exceptional skill and everyone who studied under them agree and remember. So what happened? The Hero too became a Government–Calypsonian and adept at marketing anything. Anything! Men like The Pretender and The Hero worry that someone might want to take their job, but what if you want no job other than to keep yourself available for God and access His grace? I still like him though (can’t help it).

Now I want to talk about the Madmen of Montserrat (which day by day I’m getting more and more qualified to speak on). We have men in Montserrat who walk the road like spirits. We attach stories to them. “Oh, e a go England and come back with e head full of snow.”

And how about the one they call “White Boots” because he only wears white boots because otherwise “e foot no feel right.”

It’s interesting to see tourist watching him as he does his morning ritual of washing his money.

“Honey, why is that man washing his money in the water?”

“I don’t know, must be one of their customs. Try not to stare so hard. He might talk to us.”

Never stopping to think that money is the single filthiest object you could ever handle. Especially the small denominations like the Montserrat five dollar. The fifty dollar and up are cleaner in Montserrat because they are so scarce. People wash their hands after everything else, but never money. Maybe White Boots knows a little something?

And how about the fact that he doesn’t like sleeping in houses. (He’ll work in them but not sleep). This is a thing Human Resources could never comprehend. Maybe it’s the fact that houses remind him of tombs? Even if they are painted with nice lime-green Montserrat colours.

“Tomb ‘dem be!”

Then how about the Mountain Chicken Man who hears Spirits in the mountain and they tell him when he could enter and when not to and he is wise enough to listen.

 
And lastly, what of the greatest and most original Calypsonian living in Montserrat, the writer of “The Sword-Man,” a composition The Pretender and all the rest would gladly burn candles for a hundred years for the gift to compose and perform like that. His name is Rhadyo and he trods the road daily. There once was a Greek. Call him Diogenes. He walked the streets of Athens with a burning candle. They asked him why and he said he was searching for an “honest man”. What would Human Resources do with him? Give him the injection?

What I want to say is that when you internalise wrath and rage; rage at yourself mostly because you know what you are capable of and yet withhold your light from fear of consequences, you get ulcers because it all goes straight to your stomach. Then you have to go and beg sweet Saint Ingrid, of the sad eyes, for healing. My dream is to arrive at ninety (like Fred White of String Band and cassava fame) without ulcers and with a good laugh. I asked him his secret. “lock off you phone” he said

Great care must be taken this 20th year in Montserrat, especially with how we record our culture. Take care that we don’t sanitize it to death. The road to hell, as I always say, is paved with good intentions. We no longer need the approval of Britain to breathe or fart. Historians beware!

These Mad Men are what makes Montserrat, Montserrat. We are what makes it unique. We are ourselves and without apology. Please don’t explain us away because there simply is no explanation for the unexplainable. We love and grudge at the same time. And always will.

And if you ask the question: What can we give them? Try respect. That’s harder to give than a five dollar bill. And you don’t even have to wash your hands after.