Cane Fire When I called from Kingston and told Dad what had happened, he warned me that forcing a Jamaican to do something is like asking a shark to lend you a row of teeth.1 I had gone to see my grandmother, his mother in law. She moved back to the bush2 five years ago, after my mother died, much to the chagrin of the more doting family members, who now had to trek even further to secure their inheritance. I hadn’t seen her since my mother’s burial, and the main occasion upon which ex-pats and their pickney3 head back to the motherland is for funerals. No one had died, and so I stayed away. That is, until my Queer History professor assigned us an oral history paper and my dumbass told my TA that my folks were Jamaican. His greedy eyes lit up as he listed the litany of angles I could take on my family’s sure-to-be violent homophobia, citing English buggery laws and controversial dancehall lyrics. I rolled my eyes, thereby tapping into his white guilt reserves and rebuking his assumptions about my family.4 Then I turned around and pitched an interview with my Grandmother to my professor, citing English buggery laws and controversial dancehall lyrics. Research money in hand, I booked my flight. When that beguiling Caribbean teal winked up at me as the plane dipped beneath the cloudlayer, I wondered how this paradise made my mother such a hard bitch. I don’t think she actually believed the leukemia could kill her She never retired from her job at Wells Fargo, just taking a leave of absence. Her iron grip over our household only slipped when she stopped being 1 My Dad, like me, is first generation Jamaican American, so it serves one well to view his hot takes through the arrogant eyes of one perched on the backs of ancestors. 2 The countryside 3 Progeny 4 He wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t let him know that yet. Whenever my mom told me about queer folk from the motherland they were either 1) Pedophiles 2) HIV positive, and willfully infecting their poor wives or 3) a charming combination of the two. I could have chosen Dad, but his bumbling liberal shit about allyhood lacks enough substance to fill a page.
able to hold in her own shit. Dad and I took turns cleaning her. I cannot forget the hatred in her eyes when it was my turn to wipe her down. Grandma sent her “boy,” Larry, to fetch me from the airport in Kingston and drive me across the country to Saint Elizabeth. I did my best to glare at the white girls departing with cornrows choking their weak scalps while I waited for him to pull up. “Any boyfrien?” His opening gambit. “No.”5 “Yah sure?” “Yes.”6 “Gyalfrien?” “No.”7 “Me thought ya were a batigyal,8 wit ya hair like dat,” “Common misconception.” I succumbed to petulance and stared out the window of Larry’s Nissan Altima, taking in the fog as it escaped from the Blue Mountains into the gentle daybreak. I imagined the Maroons, my ancestors, deftly picking their way across the ridges.9 The British carved paths after them, inflaming the landscape while seeking the Royal Caribbean.™ The fantasy guerillas’ path was cut short, as my eyes caught smoke drifting up from the fields. I could imagine that it was them setting the fields aflame, but I knew that the farmers set these fires seasonally. The flames easily 5 I’m gay 6 Like super duper gay. Like I keep my keys on a carabiner and my cash in a money clip. I wear more plaid than anyone outside of Scotland. I have three succulents in my bedroom alone. It’s either Birkenstock season or Doc Martin season. I have a pinterest board dedicated entirely to Hayley Kiyoko. I listen to Bikini Kill. (Okay, okay I listen to Paramore, but I’m gay enough to feel at home in a mosh pit). 7 I’m ugly 8 D*ke 9More than just runaway slaves, Maroons waged vicious guerrilla war on the British. They fucked up plantations and spilt colonizer blood for 77 years, until a neat treaty made it practical to become the slave catchers themselves.
destroy the excess plant, and make the harvest easier. The ashes make good fertilizer. The way Jamaicans make small talk is by telling you who died. “Ya member [insert person]?” “Him stay roun [insert neighborhood]?” “He died, me jus hear.” “Lord have mercy.” After that they’ll discuss the probably gruesome details with a solemnity that Americans reserve for sports losses and parking tickets. Whose10 heart exploded, who11 jumped off what bridge, who12 got shot by whose13 boyfriend.14 They’ll go back and forth for a while until they exhaust the week’s obit page. This parry and thrust works because all Jamaicans know each other, usually because they’re related. I let Larry talk until I could feign sleep, which proved difficult as his car and oncoming traffic would often swap places on streets composed of mostly potholes.15 My skull bounced against the plastic interior, causing my eyelids to flutter, flashing Kingston’s best before me. Every sign in Jamaica seems to be from a strikingly similar parallel universe:
I came when Grandma’s wrought iron gate slammed shut behind us, as we pulled into her 10 Lloyd Parnell 11 Dougie Johnson 12 Lennox Smith 13 Kimona Taylor 14 Ziggy Brown 15 The infrastructure built as a result of China’s neo-imperialism had yet to penetrate the interior of Jamaica’s capital city.
long driveway. The house jutted out from between palm trees. State of the art, made of brick and poured concrete, its starch-white walls ensconced large windows that were fitted with tastefully patterned metal bars. Grandma stood in the doorway. The sleeves of her white frock hugged her athletic shoulders, which matched her broad jaw. The ridges that lived upon her skin could not be labeled imperfections, as every line seemed underneath her face’s command. Even at 98, she radiated beauty. I wrapped myself around her large frame, trying to tap into some maternal magic, but just came away with sweaty arms. The hazards of Jamaica in August, even up in the bush where the breeze slips easily between the trees. I felt a bony shoulder edge past me into the house, and I looked down into my Grandmother’s deep set eyes, to see if she sensed her too, but her eyes betrayed little. “Morgan, yuh get inside now.” “Yes ma'am.” I sat myself at the dining room table while Larry carted in my case. I tried to help, but Grandma insisted that he take it up.16 Grandma sat on the opposite end of the long wood table, managing to choose the exact spot where my mother rested. I tried to warn her, but Mom effortlessly shifted to my right side. She was thin as the day she died, long after the temporary fat from her steroid treatment had been burned off by the chemo. “Say something,” Mother taunted me. She was wearing the wig. I can’t remember what her old hair looked like, but it wasn’t that 50-somethin’ white woman bob. I stared ahead, mute, which of course enraged her. Before that day, her visits had been sequestered to sleep alone, but I suppose our proximity to her bones 16 I’m not sure when Grandma’s aristocratic pretensions so seamlessly transferred to me. I can’t say I didn’t like it. I want to pretend I was a good leftist in that moment, that I felt revulsion at being served. I guess it was exciting to no longer be Black.
had something to do with her intrusion into my waking hours. I liked her better as a nightmare. “Yuh mus be famish,” Grandma said, as Larry fixed me a plate. We ate in silence.17 After lunch, I went for the photo albums. Prof said that’s the best way to jar memories. I flipped until I landed on Grandma, lounging in a black dress, cigarette in hand. “I neva smoked them, I just liked to strike a likkle pose.” I quickly pulled out the tape recorder, and I told her it was for school.18 Soon I landed on a square photo of a man on a sandy horse. He wore a white hat, and looked at some point beyond the camera. Straight from a 40¢ pulp novel. “Jay Double-Blackwood, a rum man.” “Bastard!” my mom shouted near my ear, and I tried to cover up my wince.19 “When my mother left for Cuba, I got pregnant,” Grandma laughed, “But he had another family.” She flipped to a photo of Grandma and the man on the horse, older, sadder, posing in front of the house. His ten children surrounded the couple. “They didn’t like me much then, but they mother died, and then we all share this house. We got close.” I kept flipping. Wedding. Funeral. Wedding. Graduation. Mom’s first birthday. Grandma’s florida home. Funeral. Graduation. “So, did anyone in the family never marry?” I tried to keep my tone casual. “Hmm?” “Any uh, funny folks in the bunch?”
17 Evidently, Grandma either thought ghosts were not worthy topics for lunchtime conversation. 18 I don’t want to think that the pull I felt toward her was purely intellectual, but I can’t say I was motivated by love. We missed our window to love each other, through no fault of our own. 19 When I checked back, her voice didn’t show up on any of the recordings, thank God.
“Whatcha mean?” “Did you ever think any of them could be gay?” Grandma’s face stoned over. “Me no know nothin bout dat.” I kept flipping. I reached a backyard photo, and saw Mom, and a woman who shared our eyes, lounged by a grill where my grandfather flipped burgers. The photo had water damage, obscuring the face of another man, whose arms were wrapped around the mystery woman’s neck. My mom leaned over my shoulder, and pointed to the woman. “That’s Auntie Elsa, ask about her,” Mom whispered. “Who’s this?” “Ya no mind Elsa.” “Is this Mom’s little sister?”20 “They’re all dead, I don’t want to look.” Grandma looked past me, plucked the photo from the book with a deftness I thought long gone, and ripped it in half. “Stop!” “We need milk. Let the boy carry you to town, now.”
20 Mom had kept secrets deep in her rotten gut, deployed only for maximum devastation. She only told me about Elsa when I begged for her family records, looking for a bone marrow donor.
“If yuh no ave han, yu no business a bullfight,”21 Larry warned me. “What?”22 “No bother ask miss ‘bout her daughter.” “Why?” “Chicken dinner cyaan mek up fi bruk egg,”23 “Sure. Fine. Whatever.” We drove in silence for a little longer in the touch and go traffic of Santa Cruz. A man with no fingers thrust his stubs at my window. But of course Larry couldn’t resist a good murder story. “Me ‘eard dat some boys, dem Mud Town24 boys, follow ‘er down the hill. I think she stop for one of dem, offer dem a ride, which she should neva a done.Ya auntie was nice, not mean like me heard ya mummy was, and the boy preten ‘e ‘urt and she stop and dey just took ‘er en dey chop ‘er up.” “Oh god.” “Yeah. Broad daylight dey took her. She neva shoulda stop, because dem boys knew dat husband a hers, Devon, was a rich man.” “They robbed her?” “Dem threaten to bury her alive n dem, after they no get the ransom. But they just chop ‘er up, and threw her body in tha ocean.” Jesus FUCKING Christ.
21 Mind your business 22 When I’m stateside, I love to flaunt my exotic cred. I’m offended when someone calls me African American- that’s Caribbean American to you sir, I know where I come from. But I can’t name all the parishes. I barely understand patois. I dance like an American. 23 You can’t turn back time 24 A neighborhood in Kingston, the recently euphemized “Highlight View.”
“Yeah, but the cops found the gang, chase em tru da hills, shot them boys right where they stood. None of dem talk though. They got that man a hers though, first, slit his throat in bed.” Shit. “Now ya leave it alone.” “Yes. Of course.”
As soon as we got back, I pulled out my phone to record her again. “Where were you born?” “Ginger Hill, St. Elizabeth.” “You’re going to have to try harder than that.” Mom jibed. “And your children?” “Elsa and Katherine. Coulda been twins.” “Were you all close?” “We were. Now they gone.” “When did she die?” “Elsa’s dead, my babies dead, Jay’s dead, gone gone gone.” “How did she die?” “I’ll just hold on until you leave, then I can go.” “Don’t say that.” “Ask why she made Elsa marry Devon!” Mom screamed.
“What did Devon do?” But when I looked up she was crying- big fat drops racing down her face. “I’m sorry,” I tried to backtrack. The water lapped at the base of my shoes. I’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry. It was to my ankles. Grandma, the epicenter, clutched her marbled face. The water flooded from every pore. It was at my shins. Larry waded through, throwing me an angry glance. Katherine was nowhere to be seen. It was to my knees. I threw my arms around her, my grandmother, grandma, gramma, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Thighs. “I make her marry him and now she’s gone, gone.” Chest. “My fault, my fault, oh, oh, my baby.” “It’s ok, gramma, gramma, you’re here, I’m here, I’m here.” The water began to recede, and I found my clothes dry. “There’s a storm a come up. Get to bed ‘fore it come.” Yes ma’am.
I woke up when I felt the rain on my face. Mommy was sitting on the corner of my bed, that used to be her bed. The wig was gone, and her bald head glinted above her proud brow. The tears struggled to escape her face, in turn tumbling into her sunken eye sockets, and climbing up across her now swollen and steroidal cheeks. They made it, falling onto my skin. Her hands were gentle on my forehead, soft when she wiped my face clean, though my own tears sprang to
replace hers. This was an apology, for what she had done and for what she would make me do. Thunder cracked outside, and when I jumped she held me tight to her breast. I struggled, but she dug in, clawing at my back. I could not let her hold me. No, no, no she could not love me because that love would some day cease whether by my failings or God’s. That love would rip itself away from me, and some day that love would die so so quickly right before my weak eyes and that love would decompose and claw its desperate way back into the earth. She breathed my air, stole it from my lungs, and our chests heaved in unison. This was devotion. We will recognize each other on the other side. I descended the stairs and asked Grandma to take me to Mom’s grave.
Larry did his best, steering us in between the rivulets pouring down the hillside.25 We pressed onward, winding up the hill, through the path stomped into existence by the runaway slaves and the colonizers that pursued them. Often the brush would gap, and I could glimpse the splendor of the unmarketable and the tourist-proof expanse. I will never penetrate it. Mom sat in the front seat, shouting at Larry every time his acceleration faltered. He took a hairpin turn that slammed me into Grandma, sat next to me in the backseat, and I could feel her skin, hard as stone. The thinned trees revealed the cane field below, engulfed in flames that lapped greedily at 25 On the way back the path would become mud, impassable for hours, trapping us in the tragedy of my possessed design.
the rain. The wind sliced through the trees, such that as soon as we entered the clearing that served as our family plot, a buttonwood tree crashed down behind us. Our clan spread before us, their resting places of dull concrete sticking up from the ground. Larry deftly avoided desecrating any graves, bringing us to the center of the clearing. I ventured out of the car, and the wind scattered the rain. It hit my face like stray gunfire. My throat clogged with the saccharine stench of burnt sugar. Mommy guided Grandma from the car, and the light from the fire glanced off the storm clouds, encasing them in its glow. Mom looked fresh again, an island gyal powered by sinewy muscle. Grandma rested almost entirely against her, host to her fantasmal menace. Through the smoke, she looked pale, cracked. “Tell her, tell her mom, then we can go,” Mom whispered, though her voice emanated from every grave and it danced on the wind and cut through my bones. “Morgan, Morgan, Devon did it.” Grandma’s voice, pinned to Momma’s spirit, carried over the wind. “Did what?” I shouted back. “He hire dem boys to hurt her, and when dey wanted more money, he let em kill her.” “Why?” “He found her with, with, a woman.” Oh shit. “How could you make her marry him? How could you?” Mom cried, and “I thought he could fix her, my baby, my baby.” The feral wind reared up and howled and stalked in a circle around the clearing.
“She’s dead and I kill her, forgive me baby, forgive me.” She shrieked and the wind died. In its absence the downpour, now uninhibited, blinded me. I reached my hands out, feeling my way across the wet side of the car, until I could feel Grandma’s skin, slippery marble. From my right I heard Larry yell at me to get in the car, before he dragged me into the front seat. We sat and watched behind glass as the storm exhausted the fire in the valley. The flames pressed their faces into the earth for a final rest.