Maybelle's

Maybelle’s

When I first arrived in the San Sebastian Islands I came on a winning prize for an all inclusive three days at the Schooner Resort and Spa on Greater San Sebastian Island. The resort was a few miles outside of the capital town of Victoria on the south side where an extremely long white sand beach offered blending with a chalk coloured turquoise sea. It was beautiful to say the least. The waters were still and protected by a long finger of coral reef whose heads poked up when the water was drawn toward the deep during the changes of tide. Several cuts in the reef were used by the resort’s dive and excursion glass-bottom boats to allow us to get sea-sick and really feel we were in the tropics.

The Island of Greater San Sebastian was actually not tropical but a shrubby savanna of swamp and mangrove, except where tourism development planted palms less than fifteen years before my arrival. The Island had become home to the wealthy and evidently many of the trees were planted to beautify the ride in. The image of the place changed and as a result of that the next step was coming in: tourism. The wealthy, for the most part, remained on the Island, since most of the tourism was kept as all-inclusive and most of those tourists stayed where they thought their privilege lay protected within the fences of the three resorts and spas away from the populations of the four townships.

Schooner Resort and Spa was what it was. A plantation-style central building with four rows of apartment dwellings going up five stories each and angled from the Main House, as it was called. A long swimming pool with a short waterfall at its beginning and an ocean-facing, in-water bar at its end divided the two sections of apartment blocks, with borders of Bird of Paradise palms and short ferns. Little paths led through the plantings giving an air of tropical something. I did not like it there but drank as much as I could to ward off both the mosquitoes who were freeloading the inclusiveness, and my feelings of superiority that were constantly leading to feelings of guilt at having those feelings, which led to attempts at conversations with the people who were at the in-water bar which led to more feelings of superiority and on around and around.

My second day there, and due to a very late rising and missing of breakfast and a swirling hangover, I decided to go into town to see about getting something to eat. A taxi stand was just outside the main entrance and a purple wrist band identified me to the dome-hatted British police wool-uniformed security guard, who waved a beat-up brown taxi to me. I got in and smelled tobacco and must and strangely enough it gave me a feeling of being real again and I relaxed as much as the hangover would allow.

‘Can you take me to any restaurant I can get breakfast at’, I asked the driver, who did not turn but just nodded. He was looking at me in his interior rear view mirror though. He was searching for something in my face and I must have frowned, which led him to looking at the road. The road had no traffic and several times we ran off into a drainage rut. We ran into ruts on both sides of the road, which led me to believe that maybe he was stoned or drunk though I could not smell any proof of either. His eyes were bloodshot with squinted lids. His skin was dark brown and he wore a dirty dark blue captain’s cap with a once shiny bill. He was running off the road because he kept studying me.

‘You okay?’, I said to him as we came up from another rut.

He jerked in surprise at my question. ‘Me? Oh yeah, sor. Who you for? You be Sebastian?’

I looked at him, wondering what he meant and remembered I was in San Sebastian. ‘Was I a Sebastian?’ was the question. ‘Sorry, could you repeat that? I have a bit of a hangover and don’t think I heard you right.’ I smiled a hope for pity smile.

He looked a bit cross and we ran into a rut again and out before he answered. ‘You not from here?’

‘No. I am from San Francisco, here on vacation.’

He nodded. ‘You don’t have family here or nothin’?’

‘No… not that I know. My father was a sailor though, so who knows?’ I joked but he considered it seriously.

‘Daht must be it den.’ He was smiling now and driving on the road with only the occasional look back and rut entry and exit.

As we came into scattered shacks which was the outskirts of the village, he said, ‘You looks like dem Piketorn family.’

I got a head clearing with that statement since my surname was Pickthorne. ‘Did you say, Piketorn or Pickthorne?’

‘Dem Piketorn is the name. Twas a sailor who come and had the first baby, name Nathan by my cousin Emily. Good man he be too. Nathan had Little Man, Clarissa and Damien. Clarissa up in da States studyin’.’

I was listening to him in the manner one would listen to an accounting of one’s own family. It occurred to me what I was doing and I had to breathe in and exhale to slow down my cheerful listening.

‘… but I tinks the most known about dem was when my brutha Myron wast the only one to return from that tortlin’ trip alone of all dem.’

‘What?’, I said, catching up to his tale, ‘What about turtling?’

‘Hunh?’, he physically glanced around to look at me while the car moved toward a shack. He turned back and corrected the steering then looked up in the mirror again. ‘Yeah, daht was donkey’s ears back in time when we was men. Yessuh, time longa den rope.’

‘I’m sorry, I missed what you were saying. I was thinking about the coincidence of the names, the surnames. What was that about turtling? And, what was the name of the sailor who started the Piketorns?’

‘You don’t knows your daddy’s name, boy? Gots ta have been yo’ daddy, you looks too much like him. He was a good man. I shipped with him two maybe tree time. Not with the tortle schooners but on big freighters out of Jamaica. You gots family dere too, ya knows them, don’t cha?’

‘No.’

‘Oh yeah. Just like yo’ daddy. He was a real sailing man, he was.’ We stopped at a replica of a funky eating place done in pastels of pinks and some sort of blue-greens. ‘This is it. Maybelle owns this one. She got it by fuckin’ dat contractor, what’s his name…?’

‘Wait, uh, what’s your name?’

‘My name is Henry Banks.’ He reached over to offer an extremely thick hand for a shake.

‘Glad to meet you, Henry Banks.’ I shook his hand while saying, ‘I’m Rod. Rod Pickthorne.’

Henry nodded smiling. ‘Yeah, little hands just like yo’ daddy. But, don’t get me wrong, he was a big man for true.’

‘I never got to meet my da- father, actually. I thought he was dead. My mother told me he passed away about ten years ago when a tanker blew up in the Pacific.’

‘No. He died in Jamaica, Ocho Rios. I went to the funeral, so did a lot of us here in San Sebastian. He was a good man. A real Christian man. Always helping any sailor in need, was he.’

He was nodding with memories now. ‘Go on get somethin’ ta eat and I be back and gets ya in a hour or so.’ Henry Banks leaned over and opened my door from the inside and pushed it with two thick fingers. It squeaked open and I stepped out in more of a daze than the forgotten hangover could ever have come up with. I was amongst relatives on an Island I had never even heard of before. I was learning about my father who I had not ever known. I was leaving in a day and a half.

I must have walked into Maybelle’s because I was in there looking at people looking at me. A big woman rushed to me and pulled me into a hug that threw me into her bosom.

‘When you get here, boiyo? You looks just like yo’ pappa, damn, forgive me Jesus, but what a wonder we have here… Sit down, boiyo, you looks like you need food…’ She was feeling my rib cage and shoulders and hips and buttocks, ‘Nobody feeding you? You ain’t hitched and ain’t got no gal I can see that. Well, we gots some fine ones here and you know what they say about Sebastian girls and watah… it only takes a drop ta get them looking fo some cum, ha ha ha ha.’ She was enjoying my visit and I was still trying to get a grip.

‘Sorry, you know my… I mean what is the name of the man you think is my father?’

‘Hunh? Sit down, boiyo.’ She was guiding me by my arm and placing me in an armed white rattan chair at a small table. ‘Now, what you want to eat, we gots rice and peas of course, an today at this time we gots a new pot of oxtail with plenty of heat and okra, surrounded with greens and green bean. We gots fish, fried Red Snapper, Grouper, sprat an’ that with fishcake start with greens, rice and white bean. We gots cornbread an stone crab with rice and peas and salads. We gots fresh Green Tortle steak or thick callipee soup with rice and peas.’

‘Turtle?’

‘Green. We ain’t got no Hawksbill but that for them Saint Vincent people anyways. Nobody eats Hawksbill who is civilised anyhow.’

‘I would like to try the turtle, never had it before.’

‘You never had no tortle? Damn, forgive me Lord, bout time for you to regain yo’ blood, boiyo. How long you been away?’

‘I have never been here before.’, words came out of my open mouth.

‘Yo mama didn’t want you to be here?’

‘My mama, mother never mentioned the San Sebastians before…’ I wondered if he was my father and if my mother knew more than she had said before she died.

The smells of the place were sensual to the point that demanded one to bite the air. I was slightly fogged in a mixture of mixtures in this enclosed space where those few who were seated had had enough of my intrusion and resumed munching, crunching and slurping. A platform turning fan circulated its addition of strong and weak bouquets. It made me sad not to be immediately eating.

Maybelle appreciated my confusion and with another Damn, forgive me Lord she gently pulled me up again and guided me to the kitchen… and Jesus Christ.

Black pots bubbled on a blackened six burner commercial stove watched over by the moving eyes from a picture of the Christ. He was pale, sad and had long brown clean hippy hair. A typical radiating aura softly blessed us from behind his head. A radio preacher was telling forcefully, to a congregation who gave amens about the sins of something, in a deep baritone with alto piercing emotions.

She lifted a lid and sweetly fragrant steam rose up to Christ bringing a cringe of excitement to my jaw muscles and appetite. Maybelle was smiling brightly exacting love toward my appreciation of her work. She put down the lid before I looked in and moved a side step to lift another black heavy lid. Steam rose and I was at sea. I nodded and put my hand on her shoulder looking into this pot to see a beige clouded broth with smooth chunks of a dark white rubbery meat floating in vibrations of secret tastes.

‘I know dis is the one fer ya, boiyo.’ She was looking into her magic potion and called it, ‘Stewed Green Sea Tortle.’

I didn’t care about being politically correct, I just wanted it dished up. ‘Yes, please’, is all I could manage to come up with.

She smiled an even brighter smile and softly pushed me out of the kitchen, and Christ followed me with approval.

When the turtle stew appeared it was on a bed of white rice with a stiff macaroni ball to the side of an immense platter. She left, as I looked at all that food, to return quickly with utensils wrapped in a paper towel and a heaping bowl of kidney beans. Everything was steaming and the only bouquet in the restaurant was now on my table. A pitcher of water, five slices of white bread on a small plate and a clean glass completed her service, so she moved to lean against the kitchen doorpost and watch me. I started eating with a fork and spoon in each hand and ate and ate and ate…

Time went by and I was sweating. There were flies in the restaurant that seemed to be watching me eat from the table and whichever plate or bowl I was not attacking. They were not irritating flies and were very patient. I hadn’t noticed any flies when I came in but could not think about it now. I could only see that I was coming to the end of the meal and did not want that to happen but did not want to slow down tasting delicious oddities and feeling textures unknown and smelling wonder and health. I had been full about half way through the meal but as the last of the rice with brown turtle juices were sopped up with the last corner of crust from the white bread, I looked around greedily to see if anything was left on anybody else’s plates. I caught myself before leaning over to snatch a torn piece of bread with sauce on it from the next table. I was the only person in the restaurant so I could have gotten it but I felt that was going a bit far.

I felt Maybelle’s bosoms on my back before I knew she was there though her powder, tangy perfume and body smells could cut through the delicious bouquets of this place. I thought as I put my hands on her arms that were around my neck, god, would I like to work here all day long.

‘You can eat, boiyo.’

‘It was the best meal I ever had, Miss Maybelle.’ I was looking up at her and my head rested comfortably between her breasts.

‘Boiyo, I been married four times and outbedded all dem, so I sho ain’t no Miss. You just call me Maybelle.’ She squeezed me strongly, almost strangling me, then let go. I secretly liked the feel of her round, firm breasts but was embarrassed thinking such lewd thoughts about a wonderful, much older woman. Then I started thinking, why am I thinking an older woman doesn’t look at a younger man that way and why am I looking at an older woman like I shouldn’t see her as a woman? Especially one who can give such love through cooking to me.

‘Now, you be good, like yo’ pappa… God, he was a good lay, dat man. He know’d what a woman likes. But, dem days passed on now and I got tha memories to keep me happy.’

I was a bit confused, thinking that maybe I had said what I was thinking out loud while listening to the exploits of a man who could very well have been my father. I frowned and smiled at the same time.

‘Now dis foist meal I am a-treating you on your coming home. It so sad you ain’t been here ta grow up though. That’s a shame, boiyo. A young man should always have the whole community around him to show him da ways of the world and the ways of God, the most merciful. It da way it should be.’

She took a clean, white and very small handkerchief out from between her bosoms and dabbed at actual tears coming down her cheeks and up to the inner corners of her elliptical eyes.

‘You should have been raised with your brother and sisters here in San Sebastian, boiyo. It make me so so damn, forgive me Lord, sad, it do.’ She was shaking her head now and the tears were flowing with strong sobs of her shoulders.

I stood up, trying to re-taste the food I had just eaten, and comfort her by embracing her large body with my arms and patting her on the back, ever mindful of the hard breasts against my chest and the sobbing of her stomach moulding to my organ. I moved a bit back and moved around as the crying started to stop, lightly picking up the piece of bread on the forgotten plate. I leaned forward passed her shoulder and stuffed it in my mouth. It tasted wonderful.