Dawn RitchI MISS my friend, the late Morris Cargill, tremendously. Over a long and happy friendship, I crashed the same Jeep twice while under the influence. Morris didn't even mind. He still looked forward to my collecting him. He said the Cherokee was no damn good, but loved the urge of the engine. It was constantly breaking down on us. Religiously, the clutch went every year.
The only time I saw Morris get heated was once in the country when the power died on us completely. Thank God the vehicle was a standard shift so I could roll it to the nearest bush mechanic, who fixed it with a piece of copper wire. Morris wanted to know why I didn't just get rid of the damn thing, but I couldn't afford to replace it. Another friend, who remarkably is still a good friend, sold me the thing brand new for the then phenomenal price of $430,000. But it was just a pretty face and no good in bed. A 4-wheel drive became necessary, however, when I bought a boat on a trailer, and needed to be able to launch it into the sea. Morris sat beside me then as well.
I'd been rude to my father who was a great seaman, so I refused to have him teach me. Then my mother, who was almost equally good with a boat, refused to teach me as well. Having landed myself in such a pickle, it was a good thing that Morris just brought his vodka, and kept my company on board. Drunk Phillip from Port Royal came along too. He knew what the engines should sound like if they were being used properly and what the boat should do. He was the one-eyed man in our kingdom of the blind.
After a few months of forgetting our anchor here, there and everywhere, we all graduated to champagne and smoked marlin. Morris didn't even mind when we ran out of gas as we were coming in to the dock. Amazed he said "My God Dawn! You've brought us in on fumes!" Morris' back was giving him such trouble, however, that by the time I got a proper SUV (a Trooper) some 10 years later, he now needed help to be manoeuvred into the much higher vehicle. Dining out in either sheds or posh restaurants was beginning to lose its appeal for him. This was a great pity. His hearing and his sight were going as well, and his comments louder than ever. What he thought he saw was a constant source of entertainment to us both.
The owners of one restaurant, however, became overwrought. They made a bull's eye of our portraits and invited patrons to throw darts at us. A sense of humour was fast fading all around us, irritated by our certitude. Morris would not have enjoyed the political correctness with which we are increasingly burdened today, even at a time when so little of life seems to make much sense at all. Always the font of wisdom, towards the end of his life, however, he began to answer my questions by saying "It's a mystery. It's all a mystery." I began to wonder whether or not all the other stuff he'd told me over all those years was also a mystery as well.
Eventually we didn't go out much, because the pain in his back was making him too ill-tempered. The music and people in restaurants had become so loud that he now couldn't hear a word because of the background noise. This made him grumpy. He accused friends his own age of being too vain to wear a hearing aid. But he wouldn't wear one either. Nor would he use a wheelchair. This he did only to visit his brother, John Pringle, in the Cayman Islands, because Butch Stewart kindly offered the use of his private jet. The other occasion on which he got into a wheelchair was to launch the now-defunct "Citizens for Civil Society", which he, Daryl Vaz, Gloria Palomino, Joan Williams and I created in 1999.
Here was a man who didn't give a fig about social convention, but cared enough about his country to launch a series of public marches to protest against Dr. Omar Davies, Minister of Finance; K. D. Knight then Minister of National Security and Justice; and Edward Seaga, Leader of the Opposition. We were calling for their resignations from office, because they just weren't working out. In recent weeks I've been getting a number of calls from people who can only be called old revolutionaries. Grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers and mothers. Routinely they say that if I thought it would do any good, they'd take out their wheelchairs, and fetch their walking sticks.
FINANCIAL COLLAPSE
Financial collapse and murder are still upon their heads, and there's no hope in sight. What was true in 1999 they said, is still true in 2003, and they have nothing left to lose. To which I reply "It's all a mystery", and suggest they have a Bloody Mary instead.
When one hasn't eaten all day, there's nothing like a Bloody Mary. Tomato Juice liberally laced with coarse black pepper and celery tastes like a soup and is very invigorating. The vodka helps too. For the first time in my life I can understand what Morris saw in his poodle, Peanuts. A week after Morris' funeral, for no good reason I can think of, never having had a dog before, I acquired two Shih Tzu puppies. All this despite having privately thought Morris was a complete dolt for writing newspaper columns about, and apparently in association with Peanuts. Now that "Navigator" and "Chubba" are a part of my life, I just hope they don't start demanding salaries, because I'd have to pay them. I told them this morning that Dr. Davies was going to remove their doggie treats with import cess and GCT, and that they were not going to go on sugar buns, no matter how much they liked them.
Occasionally I wonder whether or not "Navigator" is Morris Cargill reincarnated. She is a wonderful conversationalist, and the gentlest soul on earth. "Chubba" is the male, and Morris would have loved him too because his growl sounds like an alligator, and he has no memory for people he's just met. These days nobody smokes, nobody drinks, nobody is cleverly rude any more. Earnest conversations which Morris could never bear, and with every good reason, have become the order of the day. As a matter of fact, the whole thing is a pain in the neck and I can think only of my chum.
