“Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.” Rev 3:2
So I promised in Flood of the Spirit to say something more about that drink.
I might have been congenial with the tire repairman, laughing at his opprobrium of Black people, Jamaicans specifically – much too typical for my liking. The self-righteous, self loathing and self-cursing of Black people is viscerally offensive to me, but I recognized this man’s venting was equally authentic, born from the pain of bitter experience.
I hadn’t much choice. Marcus Garvey’s pithy exhortations of ‘race first’ and ‘self love’ were lost upon him, as well as the irony of the pot calling ‘another pot’ ‘black’. His Black-Man-no-easy-yu-nuh stories were both compelling and amusing. The most supportive thing I could do was laugh.
I channel my anger in more productive ways. And that’s why, when a stranger later on was kind enough to lend me his gallon container with the stern warning, seasoned with the bitter cynicism of the tire repairman earlier on;
“Yow! A mi one container dis yu nuh an mi naa luk fi yu! Awoh!” Translation: Make sure to bring it back!
when I, to his unnecessary relief, did return the container having finally gotten my gas and tire and cash issues sorted out (I enjoy mini ordeals like the one I had just endured exactly because of the rich personal exchanges it facilitates) I looked him dead in the eye and said “It no jus go so wid Yekengale, that you do me a favor and all you get is one dry “Tanx!” I needed him to feel my gratitude, to positively reward his generosity.
No matter how small the favor: I did the same with the shop man who allowed me to short him $20 when I still couldn’t access funds from the cash machine. Someone showed YeKengale favor. What favor could I now return that would register my pleasure (not obligation) with respect to that choice?
Both opted for a shot of rum and one the price of a spliff, which opened up the door for deeper fellowship and the sharing of values.
“Yu come from farin?”
Typical question and I am always interested in what gives people that impression. The answer was
“Jus how yu move man. Yuu iz nat di tipical Jamiekan.”
I explained myself with a true story: Several years ago, I accidentally hit a bicyclist while navigating a blind corner. He was thrown clean off his bike and it was unclear if he had been injured or his bike damaged. I rushed out my car to his aid with all the shock of that uncertainty in my head.
It turned out he and bike were alright, but I was not. This fellow was ready not only to do significant damage to my car but to me also – which flabbergasted me. True he was shaken, but not in pain, and had suffered (thankfully) no real loss. I had immediately stopped to help. Why was I the enemy? Couldn’t he see my genuine concern, my remorse? Why could he not respond to human kindness nor forgive genuine human error?
When I finally subdued him (with very forceful, intensely calm, deliberate, non-reactive words) I learned the answer. I was the second driver to knock him off his bike. The first one, who did cause him injury, never bothered to stop. I was reaping what someone else had sown.
That, I explained is what cemented my conviction to be a Jamaican committed to strengthening that which remains in our society of human kindness, civility, hospitality and goodness; instead of joining the jaded crowd singing the nigger curses upon the masses of our people, themselves simply reacting to the acts of violence, negligence, meanness of spirit or spite they have experienced, multiplying those moments of trauma to infinity.
Someone has to interrupt the narrative. When an act of kindness, a smile, joke, courteous word, from a stranger seems like water in a desert or a nugget of gold in a mountain of rubble, then I’m prepared to reward such scarce pearls handsomely, paying premium rates, if only to see supply increase.
It turns out that not only is violence infectious; but also, open, unguarded kindness and affection; if value is placed upon it, and neither taken for granted.
YeKengalé 
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