Читать книгу Memories of Hell, Visions of Heaven - Esther Joseph - Страница 6

My father came from a family of alcoholics. I learned from my siblings that our paternal grandmother did her drinking at home, while our grandfather, his three sons, and two daughters were open, falling-in-the-gutter drunks. Alcohol was in my father’s blood.

I never met my grandfather; he died long before I was born. I did not really know my grandmother either, but she did come around occasionally to reprimand her son after someone was seriously hurt during one of the melees at my house. This mission took great effort on her part. She was frail and could not travel alone, so she was usually accompanied by one of her other grandchildren.

Her visits were a big deal for us on many levels. First, she cared enough to make the trip. We knew she was the only person who could talk to our father and he would sit and listen quietly. Her appearances were rare, and my oldest siblings were especially happy to see her. Perhaps they hoped that maybe, this time, she would say something to our father that would really touch him, possibly sink in and make a difference.

Ma Francis, as we called her, looked like a raisin with arms and legs. Her skin just hung off her as if she didn’t have bones to hold her together. She was toothless, so it was funny watching her eat. She was not sloppy though. She had mastered the art of chewing with her toughened gums and when she spoke, it was almost impossible to understand. But she’d rattle earnestly, “Sonny, what you doing to yourself? What’s the matter with you?” pointing to her head. “Stop this, my boy. You keep dragging your family through shame and misery. Son, people talk. You’re embarrassing yourself, me, the whole family!”

My father barely said a word. He would only respond with, “Yes, Ma.” or “No, Ma.” He would turn into a respectful subdued infant.

“Your children, look at them, they not kids anymore. They growing up fast and will turn their backs on you. Mark my words, you will be sorry!”

She left as quickly as she came and her appearances only made things worse. My father never appreciated that she had made a trip just to scold him. He never expressed his displeasure with words in her presence though, but the tightening of his jaw and the lowering of his eyes said it all - because even bullies respect their mothers. Maybe if she’d stuck around a little longer, he would have been tamer for longer periods, simply out of respect for his mommy.

My father usually started drinking on Friday evenings, but not exclusively. He went on drinking binges that lasted days. He made a living from whatever crops we harvested on our mother’s family properties. Most of the money came from large quantities of bananas he sold to the government for export, and other crops my mother sold in Castries outside market all day on Saturdays.

To cultivate the bananas and cut down the huge trees needed to make charcoal, we would leave the house before sunrise, and walk miles to another portion of my mother’s family property—snake-infested forestland to be exact. We’d try to do as much work as possible, before the punishing sun came up. We would walk the miles, barefoot, on unpaved roads through muddy trenches and toiled all day in 95-degree weather. The sweat flowed from every pore, our muddy, sticky clothes stuck to our bodies like a cheap second skin. Sunny days were bad, rainy days were worse.

Education was not a priority. We missed about two days per week of school, often accumulating to months of absences, to plow and plant the fields. Even when we tried to explain that we had tests, our father would respond sarcastically with, “Tests? What tests? Test this!” The consequence of missing so many days of school was placement in a lower level class. Fortunately, I didn’t suffer that consequence and managed to scrape by.

It was also our responsibility to walk the long distances to the cash distribution center to collect the weekly payment for the banana crops. Before leaving, we had to make sure that the payment amount registered on the disbursement envelope matched the amount on the inside. Upon our return home, we handed the cash over to our father. We knew exactly how much money there was, and yet we often went hungry, lacking bare necessities.

I didn’t mind being poor. What bothered me, especially as I grew older, was that we did not have to be. We certainly had a great deal more land than most people and made money from it year- round. There was no reason for us to be living in such poverty.

Every Saturday, before heading to the market to sell the crops our mother knew exactly what was expected. The night before, on Friday evenings while sober, our father would examine and value the harvest. Calculating under his breath he’d coolly murmur, “Seventy-five dollars, yes seventy-five dollars. You should make and bring me seventy-five dollars.” He’d overestimate to make sure my mother could not pocket any of the cash to give to her church.

After hours of drinking late that night, he would come home and go berserk. Slamming things, demanding, repeating the same old tired tirade, all night long, “yes…yes…yes…aha, Pa viva sans tout lajan mwen Malpwòp fanm!. (Don’t come without all my money, nasty woman). I’m putting you on notice! Stay there all night. I don’t care. Just get me my money! You think I’m stupid, but I have my eye on you. I know you steal my money and give it to that fat, lazy pastor. “Sneaky, visiousfanm!” (Vicious woman!)

We all knew what would happen if she did not return with the right amount.

Where ever the money was coming from, our father would be waiting impatiently. He’d grab the cash, tuck it into his pants pocket and head to the three local rum shops. In one evening, he would spend every penny on vile, gagging moonshine; getting drunk and buying drinks for everyone in the shop. He was obviously capable of being generous with everyone but his family. He would roam from shop to shop until the money was all gone. Drunk out of his skull, someone would have to drag or carry him home in the wee hours of the morning. Often, his buddies would drop him off penniless on our veranda, with his pockets turned inside out.

While he was out, we were in our raggedy beds trying to fall asleep, yet tensely awaiting his arrival. Quietly, I pleaded, “If there is a God in heaven, the next knock on that door will be the police coming to inform us that he was dead.” But it seemed God had turned a deaf ear on my homicidal fantasies. Not only had he turned his ear, but his presence as well. In Sunday school, we learned that all we had to do was ask, and God would answer our prayers. And so I prayed twice a day, but God did nothing. Maybe he didn’t speak Creole. Whatever it was, he was just another bystander, just like everyone else.

Once home, on the days he was able to walk, our father would either stumble in the dark to the kitchen, knocking over everything in his way, or go straight to bed fully dressed in his soiled clothing. If he decided to go to the kitchen first, he would slobber through the dinner my mother had left for him hours earlier. He’d get food everywhere. Whether he was conscious enough to eat or not, my mother had to have his dinner waiting for him in his spot at the kitchen table. If the meal wasn’t to his liking, which it usually wasn’t, he grumbled his way through it, brewing one more reason to fight with her. “Cold. Hard. salty crap! Wouldn’t feed this slop to pigs. No-good woman. Awful wife!”

Too drank to know that food sitting around for hours would naturally be cold and hard by five in the morning.

I guess he didn’t realize that he was in fact, worse than a pig. With snot coming out of his nose, drool oozing out of his slobbering mouth; pants stained and reeking from peeing in his pants, filthy from being dragged through the streets. He smelled, sounded and acted like a pig. What’s more, he was giving pigs a bad name!

Regardless of what he did on his arrival home, we would not get any sleep. Once in bed, he engaged in deafening, incoherent conversations—mostly with himself. These exchanges involved death rants against everyone including my mother’s family, who my father despised. This detestation was mutual between him and his in-laws. He liked detailing the many ways he planned to slaughter them. “Premye, mwen kai tiuye” (first, I kill you) “Alo, mwen kai tiuye tout ou fanmi” (then, I will kill all your family).

Our father enjoyed his machete very much; he liked sharpening, cleaning, and keeping it in good working condition. A sharp machete was more than just an important farming tool to my father; he also wielded it as a symbol of his power over us, his preferred saying, “Mwen jire kai koupe tèt ou!” (I swear I will kill all of you).

Our mother’s participation in these pillow talks was crucial. If she dozed off or didn’t respond at the appropriate times with the right amount of enthusiasm at the thought of being hacked up, our father, deeming her lack of contribution a crime, would start brutally beating her.

Once the hammering began, my brothers and sisters would rush in to get him off her. At first, their intention was clearly to defend our mother. But, as this went on week after week, it became a means to vent, fight back for themselves and an opportunity to get rid of the problem. With time, this man was no longer their father, but rather an evil to eliminate.

The bloody fight would go on for hours. Even drunk, our father was a strong, formidable man, his physical strength impressive. On these nights, he was possessed even stronger than in daytime when he was sober. Like a bull in a ring, he gained momentum from the sound of the roaring crowd. One moment, he would be too unsteady and hardly able to get into bed, the next, he would be fighting off six or seven people and holding his own quite nicely.

I never understood how he did it. Our father would be standing in the middle of the angry Joseph mob, bloody, and still able to do damage to whomever he could seize. However, in the end, it was seven to one, and he was the one who would need medical attention.

One night, our father was putting up a good fight, one of my sisters, Jeanette I believe, decided that tossing him out the bedroom back door, which was about four feet above stony ground, would be the best way to get rid of him for the night. At the same time cause some serious injury. They managed to successfully dragged him to the edge of the door, but as they were about to push him out, our father grabbed on to the door frame and would not let go. They spent quite a bit of time trying to get him to release his grip by hitting, biting, pulling, and pushing him, but to no avail. They finally gave up. By that time, the cops had arrived.

Whenever a fight broke out, I had two responsibilities: remove all sharp metal objects from the kitchen, and go in search of Gilbert. Gilbert matched our father in strength and rage and I was always relieved to see him when the fighting began. My other siblings didn’t stand much of a chance against our father without Gilbert’s help. When my job was done, I retreated to the streets to scream my ass off—or to a corner somewhere—trying to escape to a safe place in my mind where I was peacefully asleep in a cozy, warm bed.

When I was out on the streets screaming, I know I sounded like a howling, trapped animal. My screams were a combination of high-pitched wails, which after time, when I had lost my voice, became wordless screeches. They were squeals from embarrassment, desperation, and fear that someone would die that night. An expectant crowd would have gathered in front of our house taking in the circus show. The scene never surprised them. In fact, they would have been shocked if it was a Friday night and there was no commotion at the old, crumpling Joseph residence, located at the crossroads of Twa Chemen, Three Roads.

The police would eventually show up but they always took their sweet time. After all, it was just another night, and the Joseph family was trying to kill its patriarch again. The police tried to keep the peace, but couldn’t do much more. Often, an emergency vehicle would also accompany the officers. They would set my father on a stretcher and take him to Saint Lucia’s only hospital, in Castries, to sober up, get stitches or a cast for a broken limb.

The mornings after were just as awful. The house was cloaked in a hushed, surreal cloud. We functioned like in a fog—slow, and almost robotic. The air was thick and heavy with sorrow and despair. I often hoped that this was a dream, and that I would soon awaken. But the sight and smell of human blood, combined with the potent scent of the antiseptic Dettol, served as a cold, jolting reminder that this was our reality.

It was usually up to us kids to erase the evidence left behind and try to get things back to normal. We would straighten the furniture that was tossed around, covered up or taped broken windows and other broken glass. The most heart-wrenching part was getting the blood off the walls. We may have succeeded in cleaning them, but nothing can ever wash away the indelible grief and anguish that these smells and images have evoked in my memory. I pondered the same thoughts and asked the same unanswered questions. “My family is truly messed up. Other families do not spend their weekends trying to kill each other. My God, what is wrong with us? What did we ever do to deserve this?”