Jamesy, the plural Trini
Jamesy and the boys were in the usual watering hole in St James discussing the alarming events that occurred, earlier this week, in Lahore, Pakistan.
“Imagine”, exclaimed Rufus taking a stiff drink from a rapidly disappearing flask of White Oak, “Test batsmen now have to duck from bullet. Long time, Holding and Marshall use to have them bobbing and weaving. What the world coming to now? Like you have to take a martial arts course to play cricket now or what? You understand.”
“Ting to cry, man laughing”, observed Jamesy, downing a drink from the bottle.
He and the boys from the tailor shop were relaxing in the crowded bar. That is, if you would describe raucous soca music which filled the room and which really consisted of some wannabe singer shouting instructions like a demented aerobic instructor was truly the proper way to have a drink and relax.
But, nowadays, it is difficult to escape “hands in the air, hands in the air” and similar nonsensical music which earns singers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Jamesy, a Trinidadian of mixed heritage, who preferred to refer to himself as “the plural man” because he considered himself a prime example of a plural society.
Apparently, his ethnicity has no bounds: according to him, he is mixed with every race on Planet Earth and those from the other planets, too.
He would explain this by saying that “I am a child of the universe, an expression of the cosmos, therefore, I represent the sum total of all creation.”
None of his mates could quite comprehend such philosophy but they agreed with him anyway because he was a man who could expound on religion, metaphysics, science and complex issues like the causes of the international economic crisis and the machinations of high finance.
He once attended a forum on such issues and commanded centre stage with all the big time economists, bankers and university professors.
Jamesy didn’t have much formal education (he left school in Seventh Standard) but he was a great reader and an experienced man who fought in the Korean War in 1952 and was in the Cuban mountains with Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries in 1956.
In fact, he fought in the bush all over Latin America and only returned home when he realised such violent activity didn’t make much sense.
Jamesy was a little taken with the acronym “ICC”: it could mean the International Cricket Conference or the International Criminal Court.
He told the gathering, lightheartedly, that nowadays cricketers would have to be careful because they could be sanctioned by the ICC, arrested and taken to the Hague where people such as Serbian leader Radavan Karavic and former Liberian leader Charles Taylor are facing serious charges.
“Look at the President of Sudan. The ICC in he tail, too. I see Imran Khan, the former Pakistani captain on TV talking about what happen in Lahore. But poor fella Imran was thrown in jail, a couple of years ago by Musharaff and then went on a hunger strike.
“That same Imran Khan use to knock down man, frankcomment, when he was in his prime as a bowler-genocide on the cricket field. The ICC waiting on you, boy”.
The fellas start to laugh at all of this foolishness.
Jamesy took another tall drink and laid the empty flask on the table, simultaneously, gesturing to the bartender for a refill.
Adopting the air of a headmaster , he told the gathering:
“Allyuh laughing. The English cricketers damn serious, yes, because is the dry season and rain falling heavy, heavy everyday in the Oval and the Fifth Test coming up.
“You know, they say the English cricketers prefer to lose a battle ship than a Test Match and people would say they blight if a team like West Indies beat them.
“Nowadays, when the West Indies picking a team, they selecting two fellas before they select the captain and Chanderpaul and Sarwan. Dem fellas is H.E. Rain and E.B. Light. Hard Endless Rain and Extremely Bad Light. “You can’t go wrong with both of them on the team. You won’t win but you won’t lose either. Ha! Ha! Ha!”