Anxiety

 With the thunder and lightning the rains came pouring down we rushed for cover; but there was nowhere to hide. We tried to find our Book bags, with our food.  They were lost in the mad dash of humanity to nowhere. 

We then decided to head home soaking wet from head to toe from the rain. Half way home we remembered Kite Man dashed back to find him he was nowhere to be seen. The Back Dam was clear of all humans only broken kites and mud puddles and stray dogs going through left over food.

We finally got home and knocked on his door. It swung open with a creaking sound. We then crept into the room, it was bare.  Kite Man had vanished. Worried, struck now we ran upstairs shouting for my aunt and mother Gertis. To be met only by silence we now began a frantic search of the house fearing the worst.  Maybe Kite Man had used his infamous knife ‘Baby Gal’ and sliced Aunt Sybil and mother to pieces?

Then we spotted a note which apparently had been blown off the kitchen table. It read ‘Gone with your mother to the hospital where she is having a baby’.

Once upon an Easter.

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Finality

 

Then with a running start we raised Baby Gal, straight up with her, “pulling the loop” Kite Man made on her Baby Gal. 

Now there were only two kites left in the air and we battled a bad man kite named Pitt Street Bull. Twice our tail with razor blades crossed over his rope but he still was flying and dipping and crossing and coming for our kite. 

Pitt Street Bull’s tail crossed our rope three times. It looked like he was winning the battle. ‘So we pretended we were hurt and started to fall flapping in the wind like a bird whose wing is broken’. 

Pitt Street Bull, saw that and was coming in for the kill.  The Kite Man shouted “Pull! Pull! Pull!” I pulled and  balled the rope furiously, the rope burning my hands. I already had blisters. Our kite rose and just as Pit was coming for the kill our tail cut his rope. We won the battle.

At the same moment a big thunder and lightning flashed through the sky, Kite Man shouted “Lego! Lego!  Lego the rope!”  Away flew Baby Gal, into the thunder and lightning razor blades sparking! Baby Gal was on fire! 

Once upon an Easter 

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Visit my website for more art.

Kaleidoscope

When we got to the back Dam there were thousands of kites already in the air, kites of every sort, shape and size; box kites, bird kites, boy and girl kites. A buzz of excitement engulfed us.  

On one end of the dam a jukebox was playing loud calypso music and on the other a steel band was warming up.  Kite Man, as our instructor said “Raise the kite with the cloth tail fus, let’s see how bad?”  

Ten minutes after the kite was raised bad boys, bad men, and girl’s kites started to make an attack on our kite. Our kite was the best looking kite on the dam and therefore the envy of many a kite flier. 

When Kite Man saw the attack he said “let her pitch and come do like she got cut”.

That we did. Then he said “Replace the tail with the rope tail which we bring wid we”. That tail had razor blades placed strategically on its length and also broken sharp glass. We waited for a good breeze and like a plane taking off we flew straight up in the air. The bandits quickly saw us and so much coveted our kite they wasted no time and attacked immediately. 

In minutes we cut down two girl kites. Then came the boy kites which we fought off and eventually won over. 

A big kite war had broken out! Four times we got tangled up and had to bring down Baby Gal, and another two times we had to cut and join the rope and bring her down because she got into some dangerous tangles.

Once upon an Easter.

More art can be viewed on attached website.

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Kite Man

 The test kite now more damaged from the journey, we had no time to waste.  The next morning we started rummaging through our aunt’s yard looking for old box boards to cut and make parts for our broken kite. We found a few pieces and with a cutlass started chopping down on the wood. 

Suddenly we heard someone shouting at us. “Hey there! Hey you there!” 

We looked round and there was this tall skinny man pointing at us. “Stop that racket, what do you all think you are doing?” 

We replied, “We’re trying to repair our kite”. 

“Oh! I see” he said, “Come here, let me help you I have a knife the sharpest gal I ever had, when she cut, she does cut real clean and smooth”. Me use am to chop up nuff of them”. “Bring them boards, leh me help you all build a big man kite”.

 I am the Kite Man. Wait here, Ah gon bring out my favorite knife Baby Gal! 

His fingers were long, and his hands were steady as he chopped and planed the boards to be used for our kite. 

“Go get me some pace.  Pacie is a gummy sticky fruit that grew on a large tree in Aunt Sybil’s yard.  So we climbed the pacie tree and picked as many bunches of pacie as we could, as fast as possible, because red ants were biting us on all parts.  Red ants always bite you in parts unmentionable.   Red ants live in pacie trees, they love the fruit because it is so sweet. 

Next we had to cut some bamboo to make the ‘bull’ of the kite.  We then asked our mother for a few dollars and ran down to Main Street to buy some kite paper to pace on the kite frame.  Because the kite was so big we could not use our crochet # 0 twine, we had to buy a thicker twine more like a fine rope. Then for the tail we cut some old clothes and joined the pieces together. But the Kite Man said we had to get some rope so we found a big old rope in the yard and split it in two to make the tail. The Kite man said “I am a fight man and we are going to battle any bad man kite that challenges us on the Back Dam tomorrow”. 

Then we made some cut out of and wrote out the name of the kite “Baby Gal”. It was the biggest kite my brother and I had ever seen and the most beautiful. Only one thing disturbed us, was the name “Baby Gal”. Next the Kite Man said “find some razor blades and broken old glass and bottles with sharp edges' '. With all these items procured and the kite completed; he declared “I am done now. How you all gon pay me?”  Big problem for us was we had no money.  While “Kite Man '' was building our kite he kept on rambling about the different people he used “Baby Gal” to slash. By then we had figured that Aunt Sybil’s boarder was the infamous murder who sliced up his victims.  However the police could never pin any definite murder on him. Hence he would spend a short time in prison and then be released. He was also known as the New Amsterdam Butcher Man.   While scratching our head he blurted out “I want Rum”!  

Well Aunt Sybil had a bottle of Rum which she used for black cake and to preserve fruits. So we raided her cupboard, poured out all her rum and replaced it with some lime swank – (lemonade made with brown sugar).

 

 We now had the best looking kites in New Amsterdam, but feared Aunt Sybil’s border was the notorious “Kite Man '' known criminal for cutting up his victims. This knowledge lingered in our minds. That night we hardly slept a wink. Both my brother and I had constant nightmares of Kite Man creeping up and cutting us into pieces while we slept. 

Once upon an Easter.

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The British Soldiers

With our spirits uplifted Clarence, our Aunt Yvonne and I began preparing for the big Easter Monday kite flying day.  Only to receive a letter from my mother Gertis stating that she wanted us to spend Easter with her in New Amsterdam. 

The next couple days were now spent preparing for the long journey to New Amsterdam. We boarded the train in Georgetown, Lamaha Street in Cummingsburg to begin the trip.  

To our amazement and joy as boys we were in the same compartment with two British soldiers. 

Guyana, then “British Guiana” was a sovereign colony of England.  The British army sent soldiers to help squash the unrest and riots and return the country to a state of peace.                            

Between strained snips of conversation we got to know the English soldiers. They proved to be saviors to us after the train made one of its major stops at Mahaica. At this stop we are allowed to leave the train to stretch our feet and buy food and stuff. 

What we did not know was Mahaica was also World HeadQuarters for Sand Flies and Mosquitoes. The moment the train pulled out of the Mahaica station, colonies of sand flies and mosquitoes descended on us with the most vicious insect attack on man ever. Sand flies will attack you in swarms on every exposed part of your body. They will find their way through your hair down to your skull and bite every exposed part unprotected by hair and leave your head full of bumps; they are bad. The mosquitoes there will bite and drink every drop of blood you own by the time you reach to Rossignol, you will have no blood and become pale. 

So there we were facing imminent death when the two English soldiers produced the most complete defense in the form of a bottle of Citronella oil. They offered to share some with us.  We graciously accepted their offer. We rubbed that oil on our body from head to toe. We literally took off our yachting boots and rubbed the oil between our toes and of course on our heads, under our shirt and pants. It just takes one sand fly to get under your shirt and pants to have you scratching and itching.  

My brother and I will always be grateful to those two English soldiers.

Once upon an Easter.

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Test Flight

 With Easter approaching fast and not having acquired a wooden kite to fly my brother, Clarence and I were worried.  We explained our dilemma to the gardener. He convinced us that our fears were unfounded and we could build our own wooden kite. 

Up to that time we could only build ‘pointer broom’ kites -using the spines of the coconut tree leaves.  These were not very efficient kites. They were prone to breaking easily and had disastrous flying records.  

The gardener then proceeded to lead us through the steps of making our own wood kite with old pieces of board laying around our yard.  And assisted by my aunt Yvonne who provided us with some of her greaseproof paper and some colored Barbados Kite Paper, we built two ‘singing engine’ kites with big bulls  so that they could hum in the air.  The kites, having been completed, were put to the test flight. It flew so high it hummed so loudly it could be heard for miles, my heart could not stop pounding with happiness.  Then out of nowhere a strong gust of wind blew and pop went the twine (Crochet #0) and away flew my kite.  

There was no time to waste. Straight away we plunged into action running in the direction of the falling kite.  The kite fell fast and it disappeared  speedily. We now had to go from yard to yard over fences fearing bad dogs and angry shouts. 

Finally we got to the yard of an old lady and  asked her if she had seen a fallen kite.  “Yes” she said, and asked us to describe the kite. 

I slept well that night with my kite by my bedside.

Once upon an Easter

Attached two paintings from Once Upon An Easter. Also art (Lovely People).

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The Gardner

 It was getting close to Easter and my brother Clarence and I were facing the daunting prospect of going without a kite. (In Guyana it is traditional to fly kites on Easter Monday symbolizing the resurrection of Christ from the grave.)  We were moping around the house feeling sorry for ourselves and being lazy. Because Guyana experiences bursts of heavy rain at any time and extreme heat and sunshine, the grass grows at an aggressive pace. It therefore happened on one of those hot spells that a gardener came by and offered to cut the grass on our Aunt Yvonne’s lawn for a small fee.  My Aunt Yvonne quickly agreed.  

We as boys stood and watched in amazement as he used his scythe to swipe through the tall grass. Due to the extreme heat and humidity the gardener had to take a break - which he did. 

We sat around him in my aunt’s backyard and chatted with him and watched in amazement as he sharpened his scythe.

Once Upon an Easter

Attached for sale Damballah, Legba,Moko, $500.00 

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