Home: A Short Tale

﷽

Photo by Sherard Campbell on Unsplash

Looking at the remnants of my great grandmother’s home (or, as we called her, Mama or ‘Grand Dame’ to you)—it was here I learnt Prophet Elijah came to visit, ghosts and evil spirits get revenge and grief turns into song between Nova’s knees singing of burials while braiding hair.

Here was my first experience of death and that buildings could sway to negro spirituals that grip the soul. Of where insanity and family charity intertwined. The place where generations grew under poverty’s roof. One cent candies and possessed snakes came from the neighbour's house.

Imprinted forever upon little Nikkie’s soul: Mama’s lap and watchful gaze rocking on the porch, a hard black woman turned soft with babies placed in her care.

The legacy then passed to Mummy, the grandmother, depending on how she ruled and a new home. Jujus, soursop, goat pepper trees, bush medicine cured the body and the soul. Old cars rusting on the side and rats like cats forever at war; sometimes they won but we never stopped fighting. Her flowers and hedges were her pride, hibiscuses that I competed with the bees for its nectar. A walkway lined with fragile flowers as if they were an audience watching a fashion show. A massive evergreen that blocked out the unrelenting Caribbean sun, shading and darkening our bedroom.

I say ‘our’ because that is where I would sleep, to hear her prayers that seemed to last all night. The fireman, the policeman, the government, I believe owe their safety to her. She loved her island nation, forever a revolutionary for her people, even when the revolution died long ago. It is where I discovered Malcolm X,  Bob Marley, good reggae and rude boys. Dancing in the kitchen, belly laughs while grits and johnny cake burnt on the stove. The pastors shouted from the t.v, the radio, and competed with Dallas and Dynasty for attention. Her house was loud, chaotic, terrifying, silent and lonely. The Devil, she swore, hung around under Jesus and John F. Kennedy’s watchful gaze. I learned prayer and a mother’s love combined to keep her little kingdom from exploding.

Beautiful beaches were my playground and prayer ground, trees my refuge and books my world. School work, my prison and writing my escape. Home with Char and Dave, or Mom and Step Dad to you. This was a complete opposite of Mummy’s house. Schedule, order, apples and granola. Quiet and education was the norm, yet it is where I developed belief in God and life passions. Because silence brings reflection. The groundwork was laid in Mama’s house, through those negro spirituals in the jumper church and silent wisdoms on her lap, to African stories of ’bir rabbie’ and ‘bir fox’ in Mummy’s house, when thankfully the power went off. No electricity meant story time. Char/Mom too is a great storyteller. In our tales we stay alive, connected to an African soul, long lost but never dead.

Home then moves around the world from the West to the East and back again, but the heart never travelled with the body. I think it stayed in Kemp Road, happy in the innocence of poverty, the last place any one in the world would think to look for it. The last place the Bethels, Millers, Gibsons Smiths, Thomas’s and a Martinez called home.

My Family - Na'eemah Martinez