Dr. Curtis L.E. BarnettSpecial Feature
House of Blazes
Dr. Curtis L.E Barnett
This is the first in a three-part serialisationof 'House of Blazes', reproduced with kind permission, from Dr.Barnett's book, 'Toes in the Sand: Caymanian Tales and Thoughts'.
After two-and-a-half years of sailing the seas, I'm finally backhome on these shores. It almost seems as if it were just yesterdaythat I got a call and then left for Amsterdam, Holland to jointhe National Bulk Carriers' tanker that was carrying petroleumfrom the Persian Gulf. The time seems fairly short, but much hashappened during my absence.
Progress has taken this place by storm, you might say, exceptthat there is as much or more going up as coming down. Many plotsof land have been cleared of the bushes and woods, as you cansee, and many of the trees that formed my picture of the landscapehave been chopped down. And from what I've heard since I returnedhome yesterday, all this bulldozing of the land is not preparationfor making grounds or plantations, either, but for erecting newhouses and apartments and office buildings.
Everything is fast becoming modern. Four or five years ago, forexample, I wouldn't have rented this Japanese car to drive around;the normal thing would have been to ride a bicycle or walk aroundtown. Even this road on which we're driving was still marl a fewshort years ago. The only road paved with asphalt was the mainroad between here and George Town.
You see that property over there to the right? I wasn't awarethat the house that once stood there was taken down, but as youcan see, all that's left are a few ironwood posts that servedas the foundation on which the floor of the house was placed,and some broken slabs of limekiln wall lying scattered in pileson the ground.
There weren't many trees in the yard, but you can see a breadfruittree near where the house was standing. The family used to eata lot of breadfruits on it. That large tamarind tree close tothe fence always had a good crop of tamarinds from which theysometimes made drink. The tree on the opposite side with the orange-redfruit is an ackee tree. I remember that it grew up from the seedsthat dropped from the ackee tree in the neighbour's yard.
The family here never had a fence in front of their yard likemost people, but everybody knew where their property's front boundarywas, just a little inside of where the grass touched the road.They always had a lot of grass and weeds, not much less than thethick grass and bushes that are overgrowing the remains and debrisof the old house now.
The place was rocky, too, but the rocks and grass didn't preventa tree like that big guinep tree near the road from growing largeand tall and from having big bunches of guineps. I remember howI used to climb up into that tree with other boys and girls toget those sweet guineps.
In fact, as I caught sight of this property, many memories flashedinto my mind, especially an incident that took place when I wasabout nine or ten. I remember it well, and I used to hear my motherrecollect it with a chuckle from time to time.
It seems that the old man who had built the house on this landhad three children, a son and two daughters. After they grew up,one daughter remained with the old man, who by now had becomea widower, and the son got married and set up his own little houseelsewhere in the same town.
Time ticked on and they all went about their business of living.The old man succumbed to time and dimishing health and eventuallylay in bed permanently. One day, before he passed away, he summonedhis three children to his bedside and had a short talk with them.He couldn't talk much anymoe, so he got right to the point. Hewould soon depart from this life, and he wanted to tell them goodbyeand let them know he would share up his possessions among them.
To the married daughter, he gave a parcel of land which he hadused as a provisions ground. The unmarried daughter who had remainedat home with him, he donated the old house and the property onwhich it was built. To his son he gave a boat. Time soon cameto an end for the old man and he left this world satisified thathe had done what he could for his family.
The old man had lived into his seventies and his children werenow in their forties and fifties. By now, Cholita, the daughterwho had remained at home, although she hadn't married, had severalchildren and grandchildren of her own. She had two daughters andthen a son, and then another daughter.
Cholita often hired herself out to other people. She washed andironed clothes, cleaned pots and pans, swept the sand yards anddid different kinds of jobs to earn bread for her family.
Her son and youngest daughter were only slightly older than Iand I knew them well. We used to play and go swimming togethersometimes. We usually went swimming in the sea, but I rememberthat once we went to the Watering Ground where there was a largemarl hole from which the Public Works Department had dug lotsof marl for building the roads.
To us it was public property. The hole was our swimming pool,you might say. (There probably wasn't a real, proper swimmingpool on the whole island in those days.) That time when we wentto the marl hole, several of us were swimming, including Cholita'syoungest daughter. After a while, she somehow suddenly lost herbalance at the edge of the hole, slipped into the murky waterand began to flounder and suffocate and drown. She struggled andwent down.
Fortunately, my oldest brother was there and brought her backto safety. Afterwards, this girl gave a good account for herselfin school and the last I heard she was training to become a teacher.
Cholita's son was drifting along, with no apparent plans for hislife. The two oldest daughters were already making their lives- or rather, other lives. They were following in the footstepsof their mother. The oldest daughter already had two little childrenby the time the incident that I'm relating took place, and thesecond daughter had a young baby, also her second child.
One day I was invited to go and see it. It was lying in an oldbed. The mother lifted the brown sheet and revealed the littlecreature, as naked as it came into the world. There were no diapersaround, and the odours were strong and abundant. The second childof the oldest daughter was there also, in his birthday suit andmessed up around his bunkey.
I'd often seen the little children of that house walking aroundwithout anything on at all, and some of their dark dumpings dottingthe yard. The room was rather dark, but enough light came throughthe one open window to reveal the dirt on the flaking walls andthe chips in the creaking wooden floor. The house knew nothingof renovations or repairs.
The daughters didn't know anything about marriage, but they knewquite a few men. It is probably fair to say that birth statisticsdidn't favour womenkind more than it did menkind, but many ofthe men of the town were often out to sea, turtling in CentralAmerican waters for months at a time, and so most of the yearthe women considerably out-numbered the men who were at home.
Some of these men were men of high morals, but there were otherswho had no compunction about having several women and some womenlikewise had several men, as if it were a thing to share aroundlike a ram-goat which the occasional goat owner would lend outto those people who needed a male for their she-goats. Some mensimply made themselves available and sought out a woman - andother women.
They knew what "cupboard love" was, and practised it,even if they didn't really know the first word in the expressionor actively use it in their vocabulary, and even though they didnot seek to honour and experience love in the deepest, truestand most genuine sense of the word. Cholita's daughters were quitefamiliar with some of those men.
I remember one of those men that came along. He came from Bobacca,Honduras and began a liaison with the oldest daughter. He wasold enouh to be her father, but they got together and he stayedin the house for a while. Omar (his name was) got the big ideaof automating the cart and winch that women used for making rope,which was the main manufactured item and export product at thattime. The man had a good idea, but during most of his waking hourshe was probably too drunk with Cayman's big drug to bring hisinvention to completion. That man could drink some alchohol!
Continued next week
Dr. Curtis L.E. Barnett
About the Author
Curtis Barnett was born in West Bay. Heattended private and public schools in Grand Cayman before heemigrated to New York with his family shortly before he becamesixteen. He pursued university studies in the United States, Mexicoand Spain and eventually earned his Doctor of Philosophy degreein Hispanic language and literature at Columbia University inNew York.
After teaching high school and college Spanish for several yearsin New York and Minnesota, Dr. Barnett returned to the CaymanIslands, where he is active in the educational, cultural and spirituallife of the community. He enjoys writing, especially poetry andnarrative prose. Dr. Barnett has published a little book of poems,'Something About Us', and a book of short stories and essays,entitled 'Toes in the Sand'.