Keeping up the spirits
“Glenda, how you expect we to keep the wake when the coffee you give us just like a fortnight?”
DURING A protracted period of unemployment between my ‘A’ Level results and getting a job, I lived from wake to wake. The death of anyone in the village and the consequential wake afterwards were an oasis in the Sahara of the existence of many of us who were jobless.
It provided an opportunity to ‘lime’, or hang out with friends, drink free booze, check out some of the neighbourhood girls, and generally fill in the time that lay more heavily on our hands than a $10 Timex watch. We kept a close watch on the health of the older inhabitants and always enquired, sometimes several times a day, about their well-being.
Only the neighbourhood undertaker, who had gained a reputation for reliability because he was the last man to let anybody down, was more solicitous. He would visit the very ill on their close-to-last gasp and, with his eight-inch handspan, touch them from head to foot, asking quietly, “Neighb (short for ‘neighbour’), where hurting? Is here? Or here?” As soon as the screaming, caterwauling, and crying announcing a death in the village started, he would arrive and inform the bereaved that he had everything ready, including a perfectly fitting casket.
In those days, every wake was extremely well-attended, and there were times when, because of a dispute over a card game or a woman, there was a stabbing or chopping that led to another wake.
Inside the house were the female members of the family and close friends talking quietly, singing the odd hymn, and managing the religious and hospitality components of a multi-faceted function.
Outside the house of death, the bongo drummers, singers, and dancers set up their area and kept a chant going. Generally, around midnight, the dancing, fuelled by alcohol and the drumming, reached a peak of athleticism that left some of my friends almost totally immobile the next day.
There were always a tent, chairs and tables set up for cards. The non-gamblers played the still-popular game All Fours for matchsticks; the rest of us played ‘Whappie’, Rummy, Poker, or Brag for money. Inevitably, a crowd surrounded the village comedian or wisecracker, who as we said, “could keep up a wake”.
Although rum, especially strong, or Puncheon rum, was the spirit that helped to satisfy and counterbalance the spirit of the deceased and any other visiting spectres, the refreshment of choice, distributed liberally through the long night, was coffee, normally served black, sweet, thick, and strong. In fact, I never went to a wake at which one of the guys did not make the comparison between how he liked his coffee and the women in his life.
By that time, coffee was already my drink of choice. I had started really early. My grandmother, with two sons at home, five daughters, and their children, as well as my grandfather, and sometimes his workmen, started every morning by making huge enamel or earthen-ware jugs of green tea, coffee tea, ‘cocoa tea’ and ‘Milo tea’.
As soon as I came off Lactogen and arrowroot, I had my choice of breakfast beverage. With huge amounts of sugar added to the condensed milk, they tasted almost the same. There was no ‘instant’ coffee then; no Folger’s, Nescafe Gold, or anything but thick, black, local coffee, generally from Hong Wing or some other milling company.
The coffee was boiled in a large pot of water and then strained, but, at the time, no strainer ever made was able to separate the liquids completely from the solids. While my cousins spat out the coffee, and rightfully so, since they had serious grounds for complaint, I loved it. I drank two cups sometimes. It is why, even now, the strongest coffee does not keep me from sleeping soundly. In those days, with some Crix crackers as ballast, the coffee helped to keep me going, especially around three in the morning, when the cold winds blew and my ‘jersey’ or T-shirt was not thick enough to keep the cold from seeping in.
This is when Gerard King, one of my neighbours, known for his wit and wisecracks, decided to complain. Even though he had a heart condition and eventually died young because of it, King could sometimes be the worst of troublemakers, like the time when the boys decided to go to a big dance in San Fernando, and they all agreed to make new suits for the occasion.
When the night came, and King did not have his suit, he blamed Mr Baig, the tailor. Already having started on a couple bottles as a pre-party warm-up, the boys, woke up Baig by throwing some big stones and bottles at his door, only to hear, several times from him, that King had never given him anything to sew, not even a button. So, we zipped up our mouths temporarily until we passed the police station and let fly at King.
A few months later, Ma Pippin died, and we were all at the wake when her young granddaughter, Glenda, brought out the coffee. Surrounded by his acolytes, King remarked loudly, “Glenda, how you expect we to keep the wake when the coffee you give us just like a fortnight?” “How you mean, King? What the so-and-so you talking about? Fortnight?” Glenda, always hotmouthed, replied angrily.
King then gazed at us, paused for the punchline, and said dryly, “Is a fortnight yes. The coffee too weak, and two week is a fortnight.” The cussing that King got that night, and months after, from Glenda lasted long beyond a fortnight. In fact, he could have changed his name to ‘Almanac’ since it went on for years.