“Good point, college boy. Okay, no problem.”
“I can start the beans first thing in the morning,” he added, walking away before his father could ask any questions. No such luck.
“What you doing tonight, then?”
Dang. “Oh, there’s a party in town. I promised I’d go.”
His father paused. “Whose party?”
“It’s—an election party.”
“Whose election party?”
Damn. “Joe’s…”
Samson fumbled his hammer. “When you talk to him about it?” He’d go as hot as the day’s temperature, but Frankie wasn’t going to lie.
“The other day.”
“Why?” His father gripped the hammer again.
“I had to ask him about something,” Frankie said evasively—not quite a lie.
“What?” his father pushed.
Frankie’s teeth felt too big for his gums. “The kid I had a fight with the other day. Garnett.”
“Lawd God. What good you think could come of that?” He waved the hammer, orchestrating the sermon that was coming. “Your uncle is a criminal, you know?”
“He’s my uncle.”
“Me don’t want you going to any party him throwing.”
“It’s for all of Troy, though. And it’s just going to be at the end of the street. At the clearing,” Frankie implored. “Even people from Stony Hill are coming.”
His father’s face grew dead serious. “Frankie, it’s a rally for the PNP. Me tell you already the PNP and JLP, they are the ones who brought guns to Jamaica. You forget, mon? There’s no gun factory in Jamaica. It’s the politicians that imported them. You don’t see it? You think this is a party—it’s what they want you to think, but it’s really serious business.”
“It’s a party,” Frankie insisted, knowing his tone was harsh.
“No, mon, it’s politics. Joe’s only throwing a party to get everybody to follow him, vote for who he says. The JLP and PNP build tenements, give out jobs, Lord, they even give out cheese to anyone who help them get elected.”
“What’s wrong with that? People need places to live. Food.” Frankie balled his hands. He could already hear Winston telling him about how great the party was, how he missed this and that.
Samson took a step toward Frankie. “You think you’re smarter than me?”
“Yes.” It shot out of Frankie’s mouth, no taking it back. He took a step backward. But Samson, having gone ramrod straight, simply said, “Hmm. You still live under my roof. When you gone foreign, you can do as you please. Only then.”
There it was again, the because-I-said-so. “I promised I’d go.”
His father’s face stayed rigid as a mask. “Okayyyy.” He drew out the word, then turned back to his work, striking the hammer against the sill, again, and again.
Okay? What did okay mean? It probably meant his father was hurt, furious, but holding it in. And that stung. At the same time, Frankie deserved some fun. He sighed, watched Samson toil at his stupid mousetrap, a man from the country. He was backward. Frankie knew that when he moved forward with his life, got educated in America, there would be no making peace with his father, no way of really relating, again. Maybe that package would never get opened after all.
That was when he decided that okay meant he was going to the party.
Eight
having changed into his good shirt—the blue one with the collar—Frankie passed his father sitting at the table without a word and went out the door. He walked past Mr. Brown’s store, toward the party. A small hill, eroding for decades, had formed a natural amphitheater with a dirt-and-pebble floor. Homebuilt six-foot speakers on either side stood like two giant bookends, the reggae music so loud that it got distorted, ricocheting in Frankie’s ears. Both electric and kerosene lamps bobbed on ropes suspended from trees and telephone wires. Villagers from all over the mountain milled about, heading in the same direction.
As Frankie approached, he thought about what his dad had said, how the party was only to influence people. But the fact was—and it was a fact his father refused to admit—Joe already took care of many things that the government didn’t. A year back, gullies were littered with trash. Garbage trucks had stopped coming up the mountain because of the financial crisis. But now Joe paid someone downtown, and the trucks rolled up and down the narrow roads twice a week. Even the standpipe was being upgraded. Public works probably hadn’t even known where Troy was on the map until Joe got involved. Maybe one day Troy would even have running water.
“Frankie!” It was Blow Up. His hair—short dreads that stuck straight up in the air—suited his temper. Frankie had always thought enforcers should be cooler, calm like Aunt Jenny or Ice Box and Buck-Buck. But Blow Up’s name was his name for a reason. The handle of a Glock stuck out of his waistband—a clear Don’t Mess with Me. “Hear you get di scholarship! Up, up!” he hooted now.
Frankie gave a chin nod, cool, no big deal. Blow Up nodded in turn. “Got to get some ice, mon. Likkle later.”
As Blow Up left, Frankie eyed his gun. Several rubber bands encircled the handle, probably to keep it from falling down his pants leg. Probably all of his uncle’s men had brought weapons—they never took chances. Probably never relaxed, not really.
A mass of people were gathered just ahead, the party already spilling beyond the main area, people already dancing. He waved to an ex who was looking really good in her track shorts and tube top. She waved back, then dug into a line dance with her friends, winding low in a corkscrewing motion, nearly to the ground. She’d cut her hair, he noted, curls falling to her shoulders. So much like, well, another girl he’d dated last year. Leah. He hadn’t seen her around lately—just as well, as it ended really weird: she kind of ghosted him. Didn’t matter, he was leaving Jamaica anyway.
He made his way past several older women in fitted dresses working their more conservative gyrations. Behind them, three teenage boys from the bottom of the mountain, still in khaki school pants, were twisting their knees like windshield wipers; then they jumped up and slammed their feet on the ground, kicking up dust, shooting forward, pumping like pistons. Frankie chuckled: the Excuse Me Please was always gonna be a thing. Everyone was getting their own dance on, it seemed. Maybe he’d get out there—after he ate, because, man, the aromas were making him salivate. Someone was making bammy—deep-fried cassava cakes—the line was insane. An old bald guy, Gummer, was turning jerk chicken and jerk pork on a barbecue, the meat slathered in what looked like spicy pimento like the one Aunt Jenny used. Just the sound of the sizzle made Frankie’s stomach growl.
He had just gotten in line when a murmur spread through the crowd. Frankie turned. Joe, the provider, had arrived, making his grand entrance, striding through the crowd as several people stepped forward to offer their respects. Joe bowed his head to each, like a seasoned politician, then pressed on. Several children ran up to him. He chose one to pick up and toss high in the air, catching him on the way down. Joe knew the game, for sure.
Frankie scanned the rest of the grounds. Aunt Jenny, sitting at a table in an impossibly tight sequined denim shirt and pants, waved. She was playing her game again, the Aunt Jenny version of how businesspeople wore a suit and tie. Mr. Brown approached her carrying two plates overflowing with curry goat, plump dumplings, rice and peas, and fried okra. Jenny turned her head away, picked up a half-folded newspaper, and began to fan herself. Pretending, Frankie could tell, to be all casual, pretending not to see him. When Mr. Brown arrived, she turned to him and delivered an impressive display of surprise, stretching her eyes wide, throwing her hands up: for me?!?