by Jack MADIN

The af­ter­noon came down as
im­per­cep­ti­bly as age comes to a hap­py man

∴

Ben­son sat in the back of his old Ford truck, with his short legs dan­gling in the air. He shout­ed and laughed at all those who hap­pened to pass by, but he shout­ed joy­ful­ly. He was not a lech­er­ous man, he shout­ed out for friend­ship and ca­ma­raderie, and not on­ly to the pret­ty girls. This pro­pri­ety earned him great re­spect; it was sim­ply the way that he met new friends.

Ben­son was a car­go man. He would take any sort of load or freight from wher­ev­er he was to wher­ev­er he could get to. He had trav­eled over the is­land of Trinidad a hun­dred times. When Ben­son was sit­ting in the back of his truck, how­ev­er, it meant that he had no car­go to de­liv­er. His method was un­com­pli­cat­ed: he would de­liv­er his car­go; then he would re­ceive his pay­ment; then he would dri­ve his truck to the near­est dance­hall and once he had parked he would call out to passers­by un­til he found some­one to talk to. It was usu­al­ly not long be­fore there were four or five men all sit­ting and laugh­ing and telling sto­ries along­side Ben­son in the back of his truck.

It was on this af­ter­noon that Ben­son met Fed­eri­co. Oh that Fed­eri­co, he saw in Benson’s ge­nial face all man­ner of po­ten­tial. While Ben­son was shout­ing out, ‘Is there no man on this is­land that can of­fer me com­pan­ion­ship? I am a new­ly mon­eyed man and yet here I sit alone! What poor tid­ings be­fall rich men?’ Fed­eri­co was al­ready rush­ing to his side.

…

Ah, the prayers of the millions,
how they must fight and de­stroy each other
on their way to the throne of God

∴

Gi­a­co­mo, that silent man, walked aim­less­ly along the port of San Fer­nan­do. From the edge of the docks he saw large ships re­turn­ing from Pun­ta Piedra with ex­pen­sive Venezue­lan ob­jects, and he saw large ships set­ting off for Amer­i­ca. He smelt the strange ocean mist, which he did not par­tic­u­lar­ly like, and he be­gan to feel religious.

He was so of­ten mis­un­der­stood, poor Gi­a­co­mo, for he spoke a lan­guage which was fa­mil­iar to no oth­er man on that lone­ly Trinida­di­an is­land. He had many friends, but the on­ly true com­pan­ion to Gi­a­co­mo was God. He turned and walked away from the vast ocean and went to find a near­by church.

The church steeples of San Fer­nan­do are al­ways in sight. They stand proud­ly, con­stant­ly re­mind­ing those sin­ful men to re­turn to their spir­i­tu­al home. Gi­a­co­mo soon found an in­ti­mate catholic church, with large win­dows and a dark, musty feel­ing. In­side there were no men or women, no sound and no smell, on­ly piety. A faint breeze came in to dis­tract Gi­a­co­mo, as he knelt and prayed, but his mind was undisturbed.

He closed his eyes. He rest­ed and thought calm­ly. He opened his eyes and looked cour­te­ous­ly at the bril­liant win­dows of the church, and he watched the late af­ter­noon sun shine soft­ly in. He lift­ed a bible and felt its weight. Grad­u­al­ly thoughts of thirst and rest­less­ness drift­ed back in­to his mind and he took leave of the reverence.

Then, from the oth­er end of the church, he heard a faint cry. ‘Un­for­tu­nate­ly,’ whis­pered Gi­a­co­mo, in his se­cret lan­guage, up to­wards the heav­ens, ‘I have heard a noise. I feel that there may be trou­ble with­in this place, and it is my du­ty to in­ves­ti­gate.’ And God smiled down lov­ing­ly on Gi­a­co­mo, for He had set Gi­a­co­mo to this task. In a small room at the rear of the church an el­der­ly priest had tum­bled down a flight of stairs and was injured.

Gi­a­co­mo ap­peared in the room, and gen­tly lift­ed the priest in­to his bed. The priest sighed and thanked Gi­a­co­mo, and he humbly bowed. To­geth­er they sat for a time in si­lence. Gi­a­co­mo thought on­ly of his parched throat while the priest thought on­ly of his lord’s cu­ri­ous grace.

Gi­a­co­mo left the church and walked back to­wards the cen­tre of the town. He saw Fed­eri­co, his old friend, and an­oth­er man sit­ting com­fort­ably on the tray of an old truck. Gi­a­co­mo waved and the two men shout­ed back.

…

What good is punishment
un­less some­thing is learned?

∴

Fed­eri­co, Ben­son and Gi­a­co­mo awoke on a beach. They had slept well on the hard sand be­cause all Trinida­di­an men can sleep well on the beach. It was not un­com­mon to find more Trinida­di­an men sleep­ing on the beach at mid­night than one could find tourists swim­ming and strolling about at noon. The sun had risen and the three men slow­ly roused.

‘I am hun­gry,’ said Benson.

Fed­eri­co thought about this. How he could help his friends find some­thing to eat? His thoughts turned to the prob­lem. There was an out­door café that he had seen on that beach the night be­fore; a café which would sure­ly be full with all types of break­fast, yet they had spent all their mon­ey the pre­vi­ous evening. Fed­eri­co thought qui­et­ly for a mo­ment more and then said to the oth­ers ‘Take on­ly what we need for break­fast, I am not so hun­gry. Be quick but not greedy.’

Ben­son did not ful­ly un­der­stand what Fed­eri­co had meant, Gi­a­co­mo un­der­stood even less, but they du­ti­ful­ly wait­ed at a dis­tance while Fed­eri­co walked to­wards the beach­front café. It was not long be­fore a wait­er was yelling and a loud, vi­o­lent clash be­tween Fed­eri­co and the café staff had drawn the at­ten­tion of the tourists from their break­fast. Ben­son and Gi­a­co­mo quick­ly gath­ered up eggs and pan­cakes and fruit while they watched Fed­eri­co smash glass­es and wres­tle with the wait­ers. Fed­eri­co was a cun­ning fight­er, and he taunt­ed the staff with crude re­marks as he over­turned ta­bles. A cook soon came out from the kitchen and near­ly re­moved Federico’s fin­ger, and an un­for­tu­nate pa­tron was ac­ci­den­tal­ly struck in the scuf­fle and start­ed to spit blood.

The two on­look­ers did not rush to help, they saw that it was Federico’s ini­tia­tive, so in­stead they slipped away to wait in the old truck for their friend.

Filed under Fiction on July 30th, 2009

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