By Nashira Brown, Fiction Writer
Nashira Brown
As he drove off, he glanced at her in his mirror. She was still staring blankly out the window, as if her eyes were turned inward, looking at her mind instead of what was in
front of her.
He spoke slowly, and drove even slower - carefully, he said, when his irate passengers insisted they were late. The identification card said his name was SMITH, Donovan, a taxi operator. The very few who actually read the road code for driving in Jamaica would know that he followed it meticulously, down to the quarter-to-three positioning of both hands on the steering wheel, from the very first day he started driving.
'Gimme a stop deh, driver.'
He checked his rear view mirror and put on his indicator.
'Driver, mi seh right here so!' the woman shouted.
'Sorry, ma'am' - his voice showed no trace of his frustration - 'I can't stop so sudden; you have to tell me a little before so I can have time to stop proper.'
He pulled over and she got out mumbling expletives. She slammed the door, threw her bus fare through his window and stalked up the road. For a moment he saw himself quickly put the car into reverse and slam it into her retreating back ...
'Don't worry, Mr. Smith, some people just don't know better.'
She was looking out of the window as she said it, and he turned around to look at her. He picked her up at exactly 6:15 every morning at her gate to go to school. He never saw her in the evenings. She was small, dark and not very pretty, but something about her drew him. Maybe it was her wide black eyes, the most dominant feature of her face, or the fact that she was always immaculately attired and possessed of a military-level of punctuality. Or maybe it was the uniform. He loved uniforms. They were predictable, constant, uniform ...
His admiration
His secret admiration kept him from talking to her. It was the first time she had ever spoken to him, apart from a polite 'good morning' whenever she got into his car.
'Is alright. I deal with this kind a' thing all the while.' As he drove off, he glanced at her in his mirror. She was still staring blankly out the window, as if her eyes were turned inward, looking at her mind instead of what was in front of her. He returned his gaze to the road and savoured the feeling in his stomach - not butterflies, but something heavier, and warm, like batteries in a flashlight, sending a surge of current through his veins.
The day progressed painfully. When he stopped for lunch at 1:30, the restaurant had no Juiciful orange juice, only Fresh and TruJuice, so he drank water. And the gravy tasted different - not the normal variation of salt or pepper he'd forced himself to get used to, but extremely different, as though they had added or subtracted some ingredient. Later that afternoon the police stopped him, and, after finding absolutely no grounds to write him a ticket, insisted he buy them a drink. It brought back the painful memory of having to take his driving test 17 times before the tester realised he wasn't going to 'mek him eat a food.'
At 11 p.m., with no one in his taxi, he headed home. He smiled inwardly as he passed her school, remembering the only good thing about his day. He thought about her, this girl whom he knew yet didn't know, this ... child, who was so much more than a child. His attraction to her was not sexual; his imagination conjured nothing illicit where she was concerned. He just liked her - almost like a daughter, or a favourite niece.
He was rolling these thoughts around in his mind when he saw her, barely visible outside her gate, still in her uniform, sitting on the ground.
He stopped (no checking his rear-view mirror, no indicator, this time). 'Everything alright, Miss?'
She was lost in the inward stare from that morning. Eventually she looked at him, then got up and got into the car.
'Where yuh going, Miss?'
'Up the road,' she replied. 'And please stop calling me Miss.'
She didn't look her usual neat self. Her clothes were crumpled and dirty and one button of her blouse was either missing or undone.
'You sure yuh alright?' he asked her.
'I never said I was alright. I just didn't answer.'
Her voice was perfect. Not that annoying singsong English typically spoken by people who think they're better than everyone else, but crisp and cool, almost like a teacher, or someone who read the news.
'So what happen to you?' He looked at her in the mirror. She was staring inward again.
'I want to go up the road. And I want to be quiet.'
'Alright then.'
Something was wrong. He had no idea what it was, but he knew it wasn't something sudden. She was not the kind of person who would react like that to an isolated event; somehow, he knew that. This was gradual, cumulative, maybe even chronic.
The square approached where the taxis turned. He noticed she still had not asked him to stop.
'Where yuh coming off?' he asked, wishing she would talk to him, tell him what was wrong, even though he knew he couldn't help.
'Where are you going?' she asked him.
'Well, I was going home now, I stop running. But I can carry you -'
'Fine, I will come with you.'
He stopped the car and turned around to look at her.
'Come with me where?'
'Home.'
She started to cry then, silently. His confusion grew to a choking intensity. He knew he had to do something, and the most rational thing would be to turn around and take her home, back to her house, back to - whatever.
His own house was secluded; the kind of place you wouldn't stumble across; you definitely had to know where it was to know where it was. He opened the door for her. They went inside.
'You want something fi eat?' He fought to keep his hands from shaking. Two opposing voices were reasoning within him. It was almost as though the devil and the archangel were sitting on his shoulders, one telling him to let her stay, that he was doing the right thing, the other telling him to keep himself out of trouble and take her back. The problem was, he couldn't be sure which voice belonged to whom: at this point, either could be right or wrong, good or evil.
'No.'
She was standing in the middle of the tiny living room, dining room and kitchen. He wondered why she was standing, then remembered how well-bred she was.
'You can sit down, anywhere you want.'
She perched on the arm of the sofa and looked around the room. Then, abruptly, she started talking.
'My mother's boyfriend rapes me. Almost every night, since I was seven. I told my mother and she didn't believe me. Later she said even if it was true I shouldn't tell anyone and I was not to upset him - that if I made him leave her she would take me to a girls' home and leave me there. I found out today I am two months pregnant. When I went home today he was there alone and when he tried to do it again I fought him.'
She stopped and swallowed hard, wiping away her tears angrily, as if they were an unwelcome reminder of her weakness.
'We fought - well, he fought to rape me and I fought to stop him. I got away and sat where he would never think to find me, at the gate. And here I am now.'
He didn't know what to say, or if he should say anything. He felt anger, sorrow, sympathy; but he didn't show them.
'You a' how much now?'
'Thirteen.'
'Him still deh a' your house?'
'I think so.'
'Him know bout the baby?'
'No, I didn't tell him.'
He went over to the sink and turned on the tap and listened to the water running. It always had a calming effect on him, helped him to clear his head, figure out what to do. He was a taxi driver, a member of a breed usually seen as a moral blemish on Jamaican society - even without his association with a 13-year-old school girl. If anyone found out she was here, he could never explain. They would arrest him for abducting her. If it got really ugly, the community might just forget about the law and chop him to pieces.
He turned and looked at her for the third time that day, and made up his mindÉ
'Thirteen-year-old Kenisha Thomas of Mount Carey, St. James has been missing since last week Thursday. Reports are that after the teenager left for school, she never returned. Her teachers at the Anchovy High School said she never turned up at the institution, a strange occurrence, they said, since she was never absent or late. Kenisha was last seen by neighbours getting into a taxi she appeared to take regularly. The taxi driver has not been seen since, either ...'
'You're going to get into trouble.' She looked to see if he was watching the television too.
'Mi know. Don't worry bout me, mi alright.' He handed her a piece of the jackfruit he'd picked from the backyard.
'Thank you.' She plucked the sugary pulp from the fruit and dipped it in the salt.
