COMMESS UNIVERSITY©
Big Carnival Monday Morning
(otherwise known as the Tail
of the Frozen Trini)
By
Queen Macoomeh
with major contribution by my son and biggest fan
It cole, cole’er than dog
nose.
On a day like this I does stop and akse myself. What in gawd’s name am I doing up here? Who send and call me?
Now I not belittling Canada
eh. Some of all yuh might be reading my articles and saying to yuhself, but
this woman have problems wid she adopted homeland eh? Well, yes and no. Nowhere
perfect and Canada do well for me. BUT IT COLE! Is like living in a
snowcone with too much condense milk.
Monday gone I wake up and
open my eye. I could make out frost on the window and hear the wind blow. I was
under two thick coverlets wearing my pyjamas and socks. I thought of fifty
different reasons to call in work sick. I cough to see if I could try a ting.
Naaah, I sounded too healthy. I riggle my toes to see if I could tell them I
was temporary paralyzed. But no, I could feel all ten toes. I blinked…yeah I
could still see. I let out one long dry steupse and got out of the bed looking for my
slappats. You should hear me cussin as I went in the bathroom. Home now I have
to confess, that bathroom was cold on mornings. It was up in the yard and no
hot water. I use to dash in and dash out and my grandmother used to ask if I
bade everyting.
While I
dressing for work I
thought I would put on the radio and hear some music so I wouldn’t feel so old
and cold. Britney wha-she-name come blasting thru the speakers. BIG
carnival Monday and that girl playing she singing pop in my head bawling how
oops she do it again. I flip through the channels. I find a Polish channel
talking Greek. I try one more channel, Destiny Chile was singing but I does get
vex everything I see these little children prancing all over the place with not
enough cloth to make one dress between all three of them. All these channels,
not one blessed calypso. But I forget. I live in Canada. These radios station
and dem don’t know the difference between reggae and calypso much less between
soca and kaiso. And the day they play a real calypso on the regular radio is
the day the CCC find money to pay the masmen. The onlyest tune they know is Hot
Hot Hot. Boy if you know how I cah stand that chune now. You would say I old but I
remember waking up to Dave Elcock in the Morning and then some nice kaiso and
reports of who win in Demarche Gras and where you could still pick up tickets
for Clash of the Giants on Saturday coming.
I turned off the radio. Apart
from my frequent steupses and the sounds of the water and the kettle boiling, there
was no sound around. Home now on a carnival Monday you could hear people by
Aming next door cussin because their costume still not ready. You could hear
men down in the Harp practicing some tunes for the road and two pot hound
barking to keep the beat. People would pass outside calling out if you not up
yet. J’ouvert done start already and you late. You would never make it to the
camp in time before the band pull out. Today you only wearing white because
Minshall say the costume is for tomorrow. So while you hauling on your clothes
you eying the well made costume in the corner and the standard leaning up
against the wall by the bureau. The air thick with excitement and music, even
the trees round the Savannah wearing on their best leaves and the birds have on
their brightest feather in time for the festival. The place vibrating with
sound and as one, the people moving to the beat.
But I in Canada. I come up
here to live because everybody say things better here. I
could work, save a little money and live good. My roof wouldn’t have leak, I
don’t have to worry about current or water going. I buy a nice little motorcar
the other day but gas and parking downtown so dear, I have to take the bus. And
since is a lease car I try not to travel too far so as to save the mileage.
I finish getting ready and
walk out to wait for the bus. I was wearing every glove and scarf I own and I
had on a thick beryette mashing down my perm but I was still cold. The other
people standing up waiting was dress the same way. I smiled at one lady and
said morning. But like she didn’t hear because she didn’t answer. Home now
people would stop and talk to you. We don’t have strangers home. Even if self I
don’t know you, we still talking. Because is one air we breathing, one street
we standing on. You would become one more person I could send a right to if I
bounce you up again. But not here. It cold here.
We reach the subway and the
cold was inside my poor bones like I had ague. And you can’t say you stopping
on the bus to ole talk with the driver. He on a schedule and the last man foot
ent even self leave the bus good before the door close and he gone. Not like
home when you do catch a bus, even though bus home does run one every 2 weeks.
One time I get my half-slip stick in the door. I just had chance to haul it out
before Mr. Driver drive off. He didn’t even see me pulling pulling. I get off
the people bus and walk into the subway, down into the earth like them chip
chip what does burrow down when you looking for them in the sand. So see me
standing up on the train wondering if my band pull out yet. Station after
station flying by and all I could see is me and my posse in a congaline down
Independence Square, enough VAT in we head to drive the car I leave home park
up.
By the time I walk in work my
face was set up like rain. Blinking, so-help-me-gawd Carnival Monday and I have to sit
down in a little two by four cubicle in between two dry up people who act as
if if they smile, the world might end. I have to spend the day talking to
people who refuse to try to understand my accent so I have to put on and sound
like them. Mind you, when I pass in Chinatown to make market, none of them
there does change the way they talk to help people understand. You ever notice
that? Home now if you don’t understand we, we just talk louder. If you can’t
understand a Trini, you must be deaf.
But I not home. I live in
Canada. Nobody send and call me.
cric
crac monkey break he back