Tony DeyalALTHOUGH THE reasons he gives are not consistent with mine, Chris Rock, the comedian, summed up the general tenor of my concerns about the state of humanity when he wisely observed, "The world's coming to an end. The world's best golfer is black, and the world's best rapper is white." My mood is blue and things are looking brown indeed.
Golf was far from my mind when, one damp evening, I took my family for a walk around the block on which we live. It had rained earlier and the place was nice and cool. I am not into golf. Where others make 18 holes in one day, I would probably take 18 days to make one hole. However, what we ran into while not golf could be similarly defined. Someone had said, "Golf is a good walk spoiled" and that is exactly what happened to us except with two major points of departure. While in golf you walk on the course, we walked into intercourse or a situation that was coarse rather than course.
In the middle of the road, parallel to the seashore and facing the direction in which we were heading, was a little red car rocking up and down, and from side to side. Through the windshield mist could be discerned a lady with her back to us. One hears and understands the phrase 'sex drive' but this is ridiculous. In fact, it had to do more with computer terminology than anything else, hard drives and zip drives, and even possibly RAM. Even some ROM might have passed in the brew given the nature of the day.
It is something to do with West Indians and rainy days, some kind of symbiotic or primeval relationship. Some people feel the need for alcohol, some for sex and some for both. Perhaps it was one of us who described sex as "one damp thing after another." Even when I was a boy I was familiar with the phrase 'weather for leather' but my experience stopped at shoes, thinking that the canvas 'gym' boots and tennis shoes ('washy-kongs' or 'yachtings') were not adequate for heavy downpours and what was required were sturdier stuff made of rawhide. To me, it was a case for Clark's rather than Bata. However, for some people, just the merest threat of rain or even a slight drop in temperature will do. In the true spirit of the Caribbean, all this couple needed to copulate and put their sex life into overdrive, was a misty evening.
Certainly, behind our sexual behaviour must be more than a mere instinct to procreate, some driving force other than rainy weather. For men, our behaviour can be summed up in five words, 'Never argue with an erection.' Women are different. They need to feel loved to have sex. Men need to have sex to feel loved. Yet, in spite of such a huge emotional gap, we still get together and get it on. Men reach their sexual peak at 18, women reach theirs at 35. Years, not minutes. Yet we still manage.
I thought of this couple and their sheer lust for life, their unconcern about being caught in the act, when I read about the cloning of a human being and the birth, if that is the right word, of baby Eve. While the children of the original Eve, Cain and Abel, might have been spoiled, it had nothing to do with the sparing of the rod. Reading between the lines of Genesis, the rod and staff seemed to have provided comfort while causing the ultimate discomfort of having to fabricate baked wheaten products from perspiration collected from the forehead, the original cause of yeast infections.
For once I agree with the Catholic Church. The people who genetically engineered the cloned sheep 'Dolly' admitted to over 200 failed attempts. What they don't say is what happened to their failures. What do you do with a baby if there are birth defects? Can you treat it the same way that you would a sheep?
At the same time, because the sex-drive of some of its priests was worse than the couple in the car, the Catholic Church has lost whatever moral authority it once possessed. These priests have driven the Church into disrepute, a wilderness from which it can only emerge when it sets its own house in order. For instance, a Catholic priest is in the vanguard of a group in Trinidad trying to ban a calypso called Catholic Woman. Many callers to the talk-radio stations agree with the message but not the messengers. They don't believe that Catholic priests should cast stones at anyone. For a long time, when priests tried to tell people about how to conduct their sex lives or manage their sex drives, they were jokingly told, "You can't make the rules if you don't play the game." What has emerged is that while everyone thought that priests were driving on the straight-and-narrow path, they were playing demolition derby with the lives of their parishioners and their children.
In my mind the situation is even worse than the sex-drive problem. There was another drive, one we took around Christmas last year. Whatever the reason, there were more people lighting up their homes last year than any previous Christmas. I wanted my children to see the lights so we drove to the small town of Fyzabad, which is close to the village in which we live. Almost every house we passed, regardless of how small or dilapidated, how poor the owners seemed, had lights strung on trees, in the verandahs, along the steps, and even on the roofs. Then, in the midst of all the light and beauty, we came to an area of total darkness where a big building loomed, sunk deeply into its own Stygian gloom. It was the only one out of synch, the only one out of harmony with its surroundings and the season. While all of us, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, black, white, brown, yellow and all the variations thereof were celebrating with lights the birth of the Messiah and the joy of his coming, this building was unlit. It was the Catholic Church.
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that scientists have discovered a food that almost completely obliterates a woman's sex drive. It is called 'wedding cake.'
