On the day after New Year’s Day I telephoned one of my friends and inquired about his “health”. I knew that with the little he had, he had overdone his enjoyment at a modest gathering he had attended two days before. We had forged the relationship in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

At that time, he had owned an old, broken-down Escort car and I had recruited him to take one of my sons, 12-year-old Maurice, to Calabar and pick him up in the evening. My son was not in the least amused and would always make the request of Contractor, as we called him: “Please, no need to drive through the gate. Just drop me outside.” We laugh at that, now that Maurice is headed for 35 years old.

Anyway, I drove to Contractor’s little board house, only to discover that he had visitors. A young girl and her aunt and a friend of Contractor’s. As it was my intention to take him out for a drink, I ended up in a party of four people in a little ghetto near to where they lived.

As we warmed to each other, I noticed that the girl had on extensions to her eyelashes which, along with the abbreviated shorts and tight blouse (top, as some call it), made her look as if she was advertising more than the freshness and the energised viability of youth.

“How old are you?” I asked. Her aunt answered.

“She just turn 16.” The youngster, whom I shall call Suzy, felt that her aunt was stealing her thunder and added. “Mi birthday was Friday. Yu nah gie mi someting.”

I smiled in feigned embarrassment and asked, “Why do you wear those ugly things? I know you believe they look good but, dem nuh look right. Yuh look like yuh a hit di streets.”

“Mi like dem,” she said, then, “So yuh nah gie me something fi mi birthday.” I opened my wallet and took out $300. “Happy Birthday,” I said. Well, at least her beautiful black skin was not being bleached out.

I noticed that one of her forearms was bandaged. “What’s the story with that?” I asked, pointing to the arm.

“Mi an mi man inna fight an mi get cut,” she said.

Understanding the realities behind the societal ideals I asked, “How old is yuh man?”

“‘Im a 23 but me an ‘im nuh deh nuh more. Mi nuh wah haffi kill’im,” she said.

” A shoulda mi ‘im a deal wid,” said the aunt. “Mi woulda bun ‘im up a night.”

The girl winced for a while and moved her hand to her mid-section. She raised the base of her top and said, “‘Im tump ‘im pan it.” Then she showed me an elaborate piercing through her navel with an array of “precious” stones like a brooch.

“When did you do that?” I was forced to ask. She smiled, somewhat proudly, then answered, “Likkle before Christmas, an’ it nuh even ‘eal an di bwoy ‘urt it up.”

The aunt seemed not to be the least interested in the fact that her 16-year-old niece had a “man”, had a piercing through her navel and worst, a wound on her arm. “Yuh can buy mi a soup,” said the girl. The aunt chimed in, “Mi wi drink one to.”

As we all had the excellent soup at the little roadside shack and as an old Dennis Brown song played on the music set, two men began fighting. Some people and I rushed over to where they were but were careful to avoid the knives – one a ratchet blade and the other a “sawn-off” kitchen knife. After about 15 minutes we were able to convince one man to walk away as they continued to trade insults and threats of, “Mi wi kill yuh #&%@#, yuh know bwoy!”

As I came back over and returned to “normality” street-level style, I asked the girl, “So yuh live wid yu man or what?”

“No,” she answered. “Mi live wid mi maddah.”

Naively I expressed shock. “Help me here. I am missing something. You live wid yuh mother an yuh man cut yuh up?”

She stared me in the face then sipped on whatever drink she had ordered from the bar, compliments of my bill. “Mi maddah seh she nuh fass inna man an’ woman business.”

Questions were begging to be asked even as I sensed where the aunt wanted the interaction to go. “How long yuh an’ yuh man deh?” I asked.

“T’ree year now,” she said. She also admitted that she started having sex at 13, but in answer to my other questions, said that she always used a condom. The obvious jumped out at me as she lit up a cigarette and puffed at it like a “professional”. She admitted that she smoked ganja, also from age 13 but said it made her feel calm and “horny”.

“Which school yuh going to now?” She gave me the name of the school, which was in a very rough inner city, garrison community in the city’s west end. She then added.

“Mi get kick last term.” When I asked her why, she admitted that it was due to her fighting another girl. It also involved a knife. She had no viable father figure but as she told me that she said, “In January mi a go a … (the name of another school in the same community).”

I pointed out to her that it was her last chance and it was important that she made the best of it. It seemed to float over her head as she said, “Gimme yuh phone number, nuh.”

Her ultimate ambition was to be an athlete; nothing beyond that, because her proximate world centred on what the body could do and not what the mind could achieve. Her aunt and her surroundings were designed to push her into the ground, to mentally oppress her because violence, drugs, sex, DJ music and the exploits of our athletes were the totality of her universe.

“This is a new year,” I said. “If you had a chance to really build yourself so that you can have a better future, what would you choose for yourself?”

She smiled, batted her eyelashes at me and said, “Mi want a better man.” I smiled back then got up and eased myself over to where Contractor was standing and as I rocked to the music he said, under his breath, “Wiggy, yuh a waste yuh time. She done.”

This crippling reality, in huge numbers, exists alongside the awesome achievements of those outlined in Dr Lloyd Eubank-Green’s recent book Jamaica’s Gifts to the World. More on it in my next column.

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