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Soul Cry
(Missing Fathers: The misunderstanding of a fatherless child)
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As kids in Jamaica, we learned to live off the land, survive sand make do with what we had. From chasing chickens until they got tired, to climbing tress higher than 8-20 story buildings just for food so we could quiet the stomach from grumbling. In those days, most people did not have jobs; they gathered and grew what they could which was then sold at market. Therefore, the growing of marijuana or “herb or weed” as it is known in Jamaica was a profitable market. Every Saturday morning after watching cartoons, on the six channels and the only color TV on the property I might add, Anthony and I would make our way down to his father’s house where my other two cousins Eatan and Derval would meet us. After which, we would all go to uncle Lasie’s house where we would bend down and pick the buds off the herb plant for many hours. After which our fingers would become tar black from picking at the THC all day, for free I might add, boy, if I only knew. On some Saturdays, we would climb the mountain up the road to meet Tommy at his ganja field, where we would bring back down, in crocus bags, the herb that was harvested. Damn I did a lot for free. When dinner time would come around I was always well fed because I would always eat at Mervin’s, Dervals’, Lasie’s, and at my grandmother’s house. Anthony was always with me, he was like my older brother, but he didn’t eat much, he was always fussy with his food and I would end up eating his too.
Come Monday mornings it was time for school. All the older kids went to Sheffield school by themselves, but I was too young so grandpa took me to and from school on his bicycle. That was until the day I decided I was too old and I wanted to go with my cousins. We would all walk together until we come to the intersection where my school was on the left while my cousins went to the right. After I cried and acted up, grandpa said he would never take me to school again. Sure enough, he never did take me again and we never spoke about it again. Now my older cousins would have to walk me to school until I graduated pre-school and started first grade. When I got to first grade, my school was now a lot closer to my cousins. It was not long after I got to the same school as my cousins, when I realized that maybe I did not want to be here.
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