Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 14, 2014 Countryman, Features / Columnists
COUNTRYMAN – Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective
By Dennis A. Nichols
This week I am sharing a revised version of a short story I wrote many years ago, (based loosely on a high school
experience) which won a Commonwealth competition in 2000. One reason for doing so is to encourage children/students with a literary inclination who may feel shy, or afraid of expressing themselves, especially in local dialect and idiom, or who are restrained from doing so by the ignorant or the arrogant in our society. Guyanese vernacular is an integral part of who we are and what we do. Period!
THE RELEASE!
The year was 1967 or 1968; the other element of the setting was the British Guiana colonial ‘old boys’ school, Q.C. The hero was Philip, a 12 year-old lad, groomed as a protégé of an English master at that institution and primed to perform the poet Shelly’s ‘To A Skylark’ at its annual Speech Day exercise. There was no question in the English master’s mind that any accolades the child received, would be credited to him, as would be the other elocution pieces on the programme. That’s how it always was.
But Philip had an idea of his own; well, not so much an idea as a feeling, that his recital could turn out to be a disaster, since he’d never done anything like it before. He could hardly bear the thought. The boy was timid. He was nervous. And he was just too self-conscious of his skinny frame. But he also had a maverick streak. It was a secret he shared with few people, and it could manifest itself in startling and unpredictable ways. He knew this, and sometimes feared the consequences.
He was shrewd too, in his own seemingly impractical way, and could extricate himself from most unpleasant situations. However, this assignment to recite a long poem about a bird he knew little about, with its ‘thou’ and ‘thy’ and ‘dost’ had bewildered him, and he couldn’t figure a way out.
B.G. had just taken its independence from Great Britain, and talk of it was still in the air. Philip had a fair idea what that meant, and he liked it. Why not? On the inside, his was a free spirit, constrained only by what other people expected of him, and respect for adults like parents, teachers and ‘church people’. In his heart though, Philip was intrigued by the idea of freedom; his own, and his country’s. In his mind the two were inseparably linked; not so the ‘blithe spirit’ of Shelly’s Skylark. He just didn’t feel it.
At his school, speaking good English was considered a sign of good upbringing, and children were drilled with the maxim ‘quiet speech is a mark of refinement’. What was referred to as creolese or broken English was contemptuously belittled as a brutalizing of the Queen’s English. Dropping your aitch or switching a nominative pronoun with its objective counterpart was sacrilege. The English master was known to seek the services of the senior master to deter such utterances by employing the wild-cane on the backside of an erring student. Brain and mouth learned quickly after that.
Anyway, Philip memorized Shelly’s winging ode from beginning to end. And he had to affect the necessary tone and accent, which he hated. An argument was starting to develop in his mind. It wasn’t that he hated the poem. What he disliked was the imposition on his sensibility. As a poet himself, he was in the process of sorting out, and appreciating, the various strands of Guyana’s interwoven culture, and he sensed the part that creolese played in it.
He liked to be outdoors in his Charlestown neighbourhood, listening to the coarse and grammatically-unsound talk of the street, especially the jabs and retorts of the young men and women. Terms like ‘soor’, ‘saga-boy’, ‘binny’, ‘wrang-an-straang’ and ‘fat-fowl’ were music to his itchy ears. In the market places it was the cries of the mostly East Indian sellers, “Come nah, ow beta; all dis strimps fuh waan dalla!’ And at night, tales of jumbie, baccoo and ol’ Higue excited more than unsettled him.
Speech Day at Philip’s school! The Joneses and the ‘Upper Tens’, society’s cream, are there. It’s now more about class than colour. As usual, the boy’s parents are not in the audience. He’s not sure if it would’ve been a good thing or a distraction, or for them, an embarrassment. Things are going smoothly, and the evening’s activities proceed to the elocution presentations.
Suddenly it is Philip’s turn. He’s been standing in an alcove at the side of the performing stage, which was a good thing, since no one saw him blanch when the deputy head prefect called his name. He stepped forward and walked woodenly to the microphone. He coughed. “To a Skylark, by Percy Bysshe Shelley,” He paused. And no further sound came from his mouth. He began to panic, and was about to stumble from the stage when the thought sprung into his maverick mind. ‘Ole Higue!’ He knew every word, every vernacular and onomatopoeic syllable, and he loved it. But would he dare? The English master was looking at him intently.
The image of the old, female, blood-sucking terror, goaded him to launch into the piece. He spoke firmly and confidently onto the mike. “Old Higue, by Wordsworth McAndrew.” An audible and collective intake of breath swept the gathering. Philip swept into the poem with almost aggressive abandon. “Ol’ woman wid de wrinkle skin; leh de ol’ Higue wuk begin…” The words came out like a catharsis. “…Fin’ de baby, lif’ de sheet; mek de puncture wid yuh teet’; Suck de baby dry …” The audience, at first aghast, were now getting into the spirit and rhythm of the piece.
The climax and the release stung like the whiplash it conjured. “…Whaxen! Whaxen! Pladai! Plai! – Die, you witch you. Die! Whaxen! Whaxen! Plai!” The boy stood there, heaving and spent, almost angry, as a thunderclap of applause erupted from the auditorium. Only the English master didn’t cheer. His hands were exed across his chest. His face was a mask of disbelief.
But there was another face, almost directly behind the English master, a black, bearded, smiling face, that the boy didn’t immediately recognize. He was staring straight at Philip, and his arms were outstretched, like a mother’s. As the applause subsided, recognition came to him, and he almost jumped at the incredible coincidence. It was Wordsworth McAndrew, the author of Ol’ Higue. The arms remained outstretched. The smile never wavered. (The end)
***
Our country has an incredibly rich tradition of expression, from the works of Edgar Mittelholzer, through the revolutionary verse of Martin Carter and the creole folklore of Wordsworth McAndrew, to Ruel Johnson’s contemporary commentaries. Young and/or potential writers should not feel daunted or discouraged from expressing themselves in whatever genre they choose, particularly as they come to realize that they are part of this great continuum of literary voices. As for Creolese, ‘dem seh dis time na laang time, but me she wen it come to awee expreshan, dis time an laang time ah de waan time!’
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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