I Remember Christmas. chapter 1

 

 I remember Christmas, when as a little boy I sat Under the Christmas tree and gazed at all the toys that Santa had brought for my brother and I. Me saying aloud “Santa must be a very good man”. Those words brought tears of joy to my grandfather’s eyes. At that age I had no idea that he was one of Santa’s great helpers, who brought all those wonderful gifts that were, adorned the bottom of our Christmas tree. The essence of Christmas, giving gifts of love. 

I Remember Christmas.

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I Remember Christmas part 2 prologue

    

The truth became apparent to me when I had my new, lovely, then nine years old daughter, Deanna, read this script.  She totally enjoyed the script, she even laughed.  She then encouraged her teenage brother Marlon to read the script. His response was a wide smile. He also enjoyed the script.  I have since had this children story adapted and “performed” as a play by my local church in Brooklyn.  The play was well received by a multicultural congregation with much acclaim.

I Remember Christmas.Prologue

 

PROLOGUE

December 1992

The background of this children’s book has a distinctive Caribbean flare. Remembrance of Christmas opens windows on different cultures and their similarities.  The comparable backgrounds I feel children the world over can relate to and also adults.  Remembrance of Christmas narrative was drawn from memorable episodes of the Christmas season in my life “as a child growing up” in Guyana, South America and Ghana, West Africa.

          My desire to write about the joys of Christmas was ironically triggered by a feeling of sadness.

It was close to Christmas day I was far from home in New York, and I had not received a Christmas card from my son who then lived in Guyana.  It was a cold day the snow had fallen all night and into the morning.  I was on my way to work and had just missed the bus; all I could do was stand and lament. Then it slowly dawned on me I had to snap out of this feeling of sadness before it affected my new loving family. Hence the idea for Remembrance of Christmas was born.

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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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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.

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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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