The Lunatic Read online

  “Lawd, Miss Williams,” the principal pleaded, lapsing into a little sociable patois, “ease up a little, nuh? He’s just a harmless fellow. He likes to hear the lessons.”

  “Mr. Raffety,” she hissed, “vocabulary is not for lunatics.”

  So Aloysius was forced from the school. At first he resisted. He argued with the principal and he even flew into a rage and screamed out two hundred of his names for all the schoolchildren to hear. But then the constable came and chased him into the bush and when Aloysius returned the next day, hoping to sneak back under the window, he found that the principal had tied a bad dog to that side of the school building. Being afraid of dogs, Aloysius was forced to stand far away from the window while the animal looked him in the eye and bared its teeth and the children taunted him with the new words the teacher had taught them: “Dementia—loss or impairment of mental powers due to insanity;” “Berserk—in or into a state of violent or destructive rage or frenzy;” “Run amok—to rush about in a frenzy.”

  Later in the week, Aloysius spotted the teacher in the village and crossed the street intending to beg her to let him return and listen to her lessons, but she saw him coming and took the big book from out of the crook of her arm and held it grimly between her fingers and stared stonily at him, which caused him to quail on the far side of the street.

  Yet by then he had learned a thousand names, and when the madness struck him, he recited them to the awed villagers in a voice heavy and hoarse and gravelly—a voice he got from being homeless and sleeping out too often in the cold bush.2

  Chapter Three

  Aloysius lived in St. Ann, a big-boned parish of mountains and foothills rolling down to the sea. It is a parish of heavy rains and wild vegetation. Tree grapples tree for room in the sun. Perched high on limbs like carrion birds, parasite plants suck life and sap from everything that grows. Wild vines and lianas ooze menacingly out of the dark earth to seize and entwine the trunks of towering hardwoods.

  In this wilderness near the village of Moneague Aloysius now tramped, looking for something to eat. He beat his way through the bush, emerged into a clearing planted with guinea grass, and searched for the calaban he had set this morning.

  The calaban was a bird trap made of mesh-wire molded into a rectangular shape and baited with wild berries. When the bird tried to eat the berries, its feet tripped a string causing the cage to fall and trap it.

  Once in a while he would find a bird in the calaban. Usually it would be a small bird such as the grass tit or yellow breast—a bird so scrawny that picked and cooked down it resembled a parboiled lizard. But even a scrawny bird could be juicy and flavorful when boiled with wild pepper. He could sit beside a fire and suck on the bones of the bird and daydream that he was eating chicken.

  Aloysius suddenly remembered that he had hidden the calaban under a naseberry tree, and he walked across the clearing until he was close to it, then he got down on all fours and cautiously stalked through the grass to see if there was a bird in the trap. He was nosing his way past a tussock of guinea grass when he glimpsed the trap. It was empty.

  He stood up, dusted off his rags, and peered around him. He saw nothing but the bare and empty land stripped like a bone in the breeze. His belly began to growl.

  Before the night could catch him in the open land, he hurried to the place in the bush where he kept his pot and where he had left behind a small piece of cooked yam.

  Because Aloysius had no house or hut but wandered fretfully from place to place, often sleeping in the open, the pot that he used should have been anywhere in the bush. But one lonesome night when he had been wandering through the dark bushland, picking his way by starlight, he had come upon a towering flame heart tree, and he had rested against its trunk and the wind had soughed through its limbs and the tree had spoken respectfully to him like an old friend. So from that night on he settled under this tree, and made a ring of small stones on which he kept the kerosene can that served as his pot. Here he built his fire every night, cooked his supper, and slept on a litter of crocus bags.

  He found the stale piece of yam and sat down among the charred stones where he usually lit his nightly fire and ate it.

  When he was done his belly still groaned its ugly song of hunger and a restless worm gnawed his insides with the hard gums of a toothless infant.

  He stared up at the darkening sky and wished that tonight the sky would rain a loaf of bread or a fish as God had once made it do.

  “Rain a fish, beg you,” he said to the sky.

  “Rain fish?” an unseen bush sneered. “You think God Almighty going put fisherman out of work just to fill you greedy belly?”

  Aloysius glared around to see which bush was mocking him. But they all stood like grim and darkened dwarfs in the twilight.

  “Me hungry!” he bawled out to the empty bushland.

  His voice echoed across the silent shrubs and the conspiratorial copses of trees watching him in the falling darkness.

  “Sorry, Aloysius,” the flame heart tree said with sympathy. “Me wish me had a fish to give you.”

  “Get a job,” a bush hissed spitefully. “Madman must work for a living like everybody else.”

  If it were not so late he could have found fruit to eat. Naseberries and mangoes and sweetsops grew wild nearby. But he did not like to walk alone at night in the bush for he was terrified of meeting strangers in the darkness.

  Chapter Four

  It was a long night, a hard night. Sometime before midnight a patou appeared in the trees and began to hoot, and this sound so frightened Aloysius that he sat up and stoked the fire and peered timidly into the black night held at bay by the flickering flames.

  When he slept out in the bush he did his best to avoid cattle, for he had found them sneaky, insomniac, and given to windy digressions. He would not sleep near a herd of goats, for they were lecherous tellers of nasty jokes in the pitch black of the night—a time when Aloysius always tried to think pure thoughts to ward off nightmares about death. He also preferred to sleep in a spot where there were no bushes but only large trees. If you overlooked the ghoulish appearance that darkness gave them, trees were by far the best company. Some were sympathetic; some would murmur and rustle and whisper; others might speak a word or two every now and again, but if he said something polite such as, “Listen, Mr. Tamarind tree, me want sleep now,” the tree would invariably murmur an apologetic “Pardon,” and be still.

  It was just the reverse with a bush. Bushes were born babblers; bushes talked about cricket matches and old spin bowlers, about old movies such as Scaramouche, and old movie stars such as Stewart Granger or Richard Widmark; bushes never knew when to shut up and could not take a hint that the time had come for sleep. You could bark at a talkative bush, “Hush you damn mouth!” and the bush would reply with a sour proverb and keep on babbling as much as ever. Aloysius had no use whatsoever for a bush.

  After midnight, after the patou and the muttering of a few distant bushes, after the immense night settled over the fields with the fire gnawing raggedly at its edges, the dew began to fall. It fell like a rain, because of the elevation of this country, and it fell so heavily that even though Aloysius was sleeping against the trunk of the leafy flame heart tree he still felt damp and uncomfortable.

  He moved nearer the fire but was afraid that a spark would ignite the crocus bags, so he moved back under the tree where the dew beaded over his bare face, causing dollops to roll off the end of his nose.

  Nevertheless, he fell asleep. The ground was hard and the bushes of the fields were babbling in a distant murmur, but eventually he fell asleep.

  And he had a terrible, wicked dream. There was fire in it, and water, and an unseen beast that lurked in the belly of a deep, sniggering shadow. And there was another force, too, something he could feel but not see, that pushed him inexorably toward the laughing shadow. The lunatic struggled against the force, which locked him in a wrestling grip like a pugnacious constable, then he awoke suddenly, s
creaming at the top of his lungs.

  The fire flickered weakly; the stars were fading. Across the eastern sky a paleness seeped slowly from the rim of the mountain, settling over the earth and sky like a mist.

  In the distance a bush was lamenting over some dreadful news. The lunatic craned to listen.

  “God Almighty,” the bush was bawling, “Collie Smith dead and bury him in him prime!”

  Old news. That was the way bushes were: They grieved over old news, stale, worthless news. Collie Smith—a young man, a cricketer of great promise cut down in the flower of his youth in a terrible car accident—dead and buried over twenty years now, and here a foolish bush in the wild was just bawling over it.

  Aloysius was in no mood for stupid keening this early in the morning.

  “Hush you mouth, you rass bush!” he screamed. “Or I goin’ come and chop you down wid me machete.”

  A dead silence fell over the countryside.

  Suddenly Aloysius was aware of two men staring somberly at him in the dim light. He shrieked with terror and clawed for his machete.

  “Good morning, Aloysius,” one of the men cried hastily.

  His heart pounding, the lunatic peered through the dusty morning light and recognized the two villagers on their way to work on the land.

  “Blood!” Aloysius screeched at them, his heart still thumping with fear. “What de rass you sneak up on me for?”

  “Sorry, sah,” said the other, the older one, gently. “We just taking de footpath down to Busha’s pasture.”

  “Damn rass people!” Aloysius fumed. “Is not enough dat de damn bush bawling ’bout Collie Smith, now de two of you sneak up on me like duppy, and me just wake up! What de rass wrong wid you?”

  “Say what? Who bawling ’bout what?” the younger man asked cautiously.

  “De rass bush! Him just hear ’bout Collie Smith so him must deafen me ears wid him bawling! Bush always hear bad news last. Me just tell him to hush his rass mouth or I going chop him down.”

  “Oh,” the older man said glumly. “Jamaica bush always chat too much.”

  “Is true, you know,” the younger one echoed. “Nobody is a bigger chatterbox dan a bush.”

  “Good morning, Aloysius,” the men murmured respectfully, moving off slowly down the footpath, vanishing in the waterish glow of dawn that was settling like an enormous tangled cobweb over the slumbering fields and valleys.

  So now that the dawn was here his belly was bawling out again, but he had nothing to feed it. The yam was cold in his belly; the day stretched before him long and hot and empty.

  He washed his face in a small spring that bubbled out of the ground. He found a chewstick tree and snapped off a twig and chewed it to remove the taste of night from his mouth.

  For the next hour he foraged through the bushland, picking wild naseberries and sweetsops and eating them. When he was full he sat against the bole of a tree and tried to remember what he was to do today.

  But today, as was usually the case, he couldn’t remember. His brain liked to play tricks on him. Sometimes it was clear and sharp and he could remember even the smallest details of his childhood. But other times everything was foggy and unclear, and he could hardly remember from one moment to the next. When his brain got that way, Aloysius found that the best thing for him to do was to act as though it didn’t matter to him whether or not he remembered. Usually if he pretended that he didn’t care, his brain would work properly and he would remember what he was supposed to do.

  He took his machete and started off across the bushland, heading for the road. But as he was passing a scruffy bush, one that stood off in a corner by itself like a thief, he paused and eyed it savagely.

  “You!” he addressed the bush, slapping it with the side of his machete. “Learn dis now. Collie Smith dead dese twenty years. I don’t want to hear no bawling ’bout it tonight, you hear me, Mr. Rass? Or I going chop you down right now!”

  “Sorry,” the bush mumbled.

  “Sorry, Mr. Aloysius! Sah!”

  “Sorry, Mr. Aloysius. Sah,” repeated the bush.

  “A-hoa,” Aloysius grunted triumphantly, giving the bush his grimmest look.

  “What me name?” he asked the bush again.

  “Mr. Aloysius, sah,” the bush replied timidly.

  Every man liked a little respect; every man liked to hear “Mister” before his name, and “sah” after it. Aloysius stood there for a moment, savoring the respect, looking for a little more.

  “Lord Aloysius,” he finally declared, with a sniff.

  The bush balked.

  “Dere is only one Almighty Lord,” it said huffily.

  The lunatic raised the machete as though he would cut the bush into two pieces with one stroke, but then he paused and reflected that the bush was right, that it was going too far to ask anyone to call anyone else Lord anything. So in spite of himself, he had to admire the bush for standing up for the right principle.

  “Dat’s right, Bush,” Aloysius said grudgingly. “Me was just testing you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Aloysius,” the bush replied.

  “A-hoa,” Aloysius said with satisfaction, heading across the clearing for the road that led to the village.

  Bushes, like unruly schoolboys, needed to be occasionally reminded of their place in the world.

  Chapter Five

  The path Aloysius took to the village was roundabout and crooked. He wandered from one side of the road to another, swapping taunts with schoolboys, pausing to chat with old men airing themselves before the gates of tiny houses, screeching loud good mornings to housewives who glowered at him over their brooms from dark doorways. And because he was Aloysius Hobson he exchanged words not only with people filing into the village through the footpaths that criss-cross the bushland, but also with cows, dogs, donkeys, and even the odd bush or two— all clamoring to press their opinions upon him. In his wake he left a chorus of gloomy villagers, a sea of gravely shaking heads, a sprinkling of oaths against the government for allowing such an obvious madman to roam the streets as freely as a stray goat.

  If Aloysius was aware of the consternation he left in his trail he gave no sign of it. One moment he would be bawling out a word or two from his thousand names, and the next he would be frantically attempting to speechify a little pum-pum out of women he met on the road. Most of them brushed him off with a contemptuous stare; a few laughed scornfully; one or two picked up stones and threatened to crown him if he came too near.

  Yet he did meet one woman, and she encouraged him so in his speechifying that his heart began to beat faster with hope that at last he might get a little pum-pum. She was an ugly old crone—her body stringy and bony, her head nearly bald, her neck as shrivelled as a chicken’s. In her mouth a single snaggle-tooth rose like a crooked mangrove in a sea of black gums. Aloysius helped her with her basket of fruit, which she was carrying to market, and walked alongside her telling her jokes.

  When he was able to shut out the cries of nearby bushes he was very good at telling jokes. This morning he was in such good form that the old woman had been cackling steadily over his monologue as they walked. He told her jokes and watched her slyly out of the corner of his eye, and all was progressing well between them when suddenly he heard a growl, “You not goin’ ride me!”

  Where had it come from? Aloysius looked around nervously.

  “Who say dat?” he asked out loud.

  “Me! Me, de pum-pum say dat! Me say dat you not goin’ ride dis pum-pum, no matter how much joke you tell.”

  “But kiss me neck!” Aloysius exclaimed, with surprise.

  The old woman, aware that the jokes had stopped and lunatic talking begun, shot him a worried glance.

  “Wha’ happen?” she asked.

  “You pum-pum talking rudeness to me!”

  A look of alarm appeared on her face.

  “What you talking about?”

  “You pum-pum! You don’t hear what it just say?”

  “Me is a Chri
stian pum-pum. No madman goin’ ride me behind no bush,” the pum-pum snapped.

  “Pum-pum must be seen and not heard!” Aloysius said angrily.

  “Lord God Almighty!” the old woman shrieked. “A fit o’ madness catch him. Him goin’ chop off me head!”

  “Help! Police! Madman want ride me!” the pum-pum bawled.

  “Hush you mouth!” Aloysius hissed, pointing a chastising finger at the impertinent pum-pum.

  The old woman wrestled her basket away from him and flew down the road, scattering fruit after her.

  “Madman chasing me! Help!” she bleated as she ran.

  “Murder! Hood!” her pum-pum cried.

  “Stop, you rass you!” Aloysius shouted. “Come back! Me not going trouble you!”

  But the old woman was already over the hill and running pell-mell toward the village square.

  Aloysius sat down on an embankment of the roadway and shook his head.

  “Why every rass thing on dis island, even pum-pum, must try and chat wid me, eh?” he wondered aloud.

  “Why, indeed?” echoed a nearby bush.

  “Is because you is de only sensible man in dese parts, who have ears dat listen,” said a green lizard sunning itself on a rock.

  “Backfoot and crosses,” Aloysius moaned, holding his head.

  “De times hard on every man,” said the bush sorrowfully.

  His brain confused, Aloysius sighed.

  The searing sun beat down on his head like a blast of hot air out of a parson’s mouth.

  He was sitting so against the embankment when he suddenly remembered what he was to do today, and he remembered too why he had forgotten it: because it was a thing he did not much like to do, but a thing he had promised another man he would do. It was a thing to do with the sea, and Aloysius was one man who was not fond of the sea.

  If it could be said that there are two classes of men, the ones who love the land and those who love the sea, then Aloysius emphatically belonged to the first class. All his life he had been a lover of land, a hater of the sea. The land put food in his belly and it gave him a place to sleep and in the morning when he woke up and stared around him, the land was always there, waiting for him like a faithful nurse. The land sat under your feet like an old bone and did not quiver or shake except during an earthquake. And though the trees would rustle and the grass might whisper in a breeze, the land itself was a tongueless, voiceless thing. It was a thing of great beauty, and even a hungry man like Aloysius occasionally had an eye for the kingly sweep of a mountain or the lilting curve of a grassland. He could reach out and touch the land, and feel its warmth during the night, and imagine that under his touch lay the flesh of a beautiful woman.