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John Watson

Jackie Bayless

    John Watson was in a hurry. He had awakened later than usual feeling disoriented, aware that something was out of order. And then he heard soft whispers and remembered the two little girls. He got out of bed, carefully pulling up cotton sheets and smoothing the worn coverlet.
    “Shirley, Jane. Time to put on your school dresses.”
    Stretching hugely, he went into the bathroom, turned on the tap and filled the basin with steamy water. He scraped a sharp razor too quickly against his broad cheek, wincing when the razor tugged at a stubborn curly hair. He patted his big face dry and stroked on tangy aftershave. His face glistened, blue-black, as the alcohol evaporated on his face.
    “Uncle John?” Jane shyly peered around the bathroom door. “Could you zipper me up?”
    He knelt awkwardly and fumbled with the zipper of the green school uniform. Briefly the teeth bit into the fabric of her dress. He cursed under his breath until the zipper released. Jane breathed a shy thank you up at him. Her face looked so serious. Opening his bottle of aftershave, he poured some into the palm of his hand.
    “Here Jane,” he said, patting it onto her soft brown cheeks, “this is the smell of my island.” Obediently she breathed in the fragrance of flowers and fruit. Sudden loud static filled the room, startling them both, as the radio alarm belatedly clicked on.
    “Go hurry your sister,” he said. He pulled open the draperies to let the sun and sea rush into his room, enlivening the worn coverlet and the serviceable wooden furniture.
    He dropped to the floor and began counting out pushups, half-listening to news from the U.S. And suddenly the radio filled the room again, the announcer’s voice distinct and he no longer half-listened, but with his whole body. Detroit, three dead and countless injured and arrested after rioting. The National Guard had been sent. It would never end. He strode across the room and firmly clicked off the radio.
    He had fed the little girls breakfast. Toast, smeared with honey, and papaya winning a shy smile from Jane when she bit into the succulent, unfamiliar fruit. They had gone out on the patio to play, quietly stacking sea shells while John tidied the kitchen. He watched them through the patio door. Their dark hair was close-cut, American style but in their green school dresses and Panama hats they seemed to fit well to Barbados. The sea gently undulated behind them. The little girls seemed to be afraid of the ocean. They had never seen water like this, turquoise and bottomless, filled with wonder like the ghostly ray that had startled them a few days ago.
    They had just arrived and he had taken them for a walk on the beach. Shirley and Jane wondered at the touch of the pink and white sand—sand made from coral he told them—sand as soft as talcum powder. They tentatively walked to the edge of the sea and allowed the warm water to bathe their brown toes. As the water lapped at their feet the bottom seemed to take sudden flight on impossibly wide wings.
    “It’s an eagle ray,” he said, “Isn’t he beautiful?” They watched, brown eyes wide and solemn, as they ray soared to the darker water beyond where they could see.
***
    “No Jane.” Shirley frowned at the way her younger sister had arranged her shells. “Do it like this. In a straight line.” Jane looked worriedly at her older sister, but dreamily continued arranging her shells in a gentle curve. John smiled. Shirley was as bossy with Jane as his brother Anthony had been with him. How Anthony resented it when John wouldn’t play according to Anthony’s rules. His smile faded at the thought of his brother. Heaving a gusty sigh, John lifted the keys from the hook by the patio door and prayed his car would start quickly. The car, decent by island standards, was an old silver-blue Chevrolet. Although he waxed it and kept it parked away from the salty breezes, he was losing his battle with the incipient rust that crept from the fender’s edges and threatened to engulf the entire car. The continuous salt-scented breezes made it a battle worth losing, he thought, as he pumped the gas pedal, held his breath, and turned the key. The engine rumbled back satisfactorily.
    “Girls,” he called, getting out of the car, opening the back door, and shoving aside his tennis gear. “Time for school now.” How strange it felt to be calling his brother’s little girls for school.
    Shirley and Jane marched shyly toward him from the patio. A sudden puff of wind lifted Jane’s Panama hat from her head. Shirley climbed into the backseat while Jane stooped to retrieve her hat from the soft dirt. John stared abstractedly at the sea, at the jewel-like fields of green sugarcane and at the limitless blue sky above. So much physical beauty seemed to promise many things, prosperity, freedom, even peace of mind.
    Jane climbed in with her sister and John shut the door. It didn’t seem to close properly. The metal joints of the car were most likely swollen with sea moisture the way his were first thing in the morning at the club.
    John was the tennis pro at the Beach Club. He would never be a millionaire but he played tennis every day and lived the way he had chosen. How can you choose this, his brother Anthony had sneered, your fine mind and training wasted hitting little yellow balls? This is what you want?! Did you ever stop to think maybe you don’t have the right to do what you want, his brother had shouted.
    They slowed as they approached the outskirts of Bridgetown. “We’re almost there,” he said. The girls were too quiet. They were probably afraid; they must miss their parents. Yes, Anthony, he thought, you did what you wanted. And who is paying for your commitments?
    They crunched to a halt in the gravel that curved in front of the island school. No one was outside—so they were late anyway, John thought. He got out of the car and opened the back door. When the door released Jane emitted a soft, involuntary sigh. Two tiny pink and brown fingers lay crumpled against her palm.
    “I told her to make you stop,” Shirley shrilled.
    John stared at Jane. “Your fingers have been in that door since we left?”
    She nodded, brown eyes wide.
    John stood so still he shook. His shoulders trembled. His rage felt like the tsunami that surges across the deep ocean, scarcely felt until when reaching a barrier it piles tons of destructive water on the shore. He couldn’t bear what his brother’s commitment had done to this fearful child. He sank to his knees in the sharp gravel. He heard his brother—You cannot be black and not be political, he told John. He heard himself, escaping the crushing burden of Detroit, escaping to the island jewel of Barbados. And he remembered Anthony who now sat in a jail cell, the little girls’ mother long dead. His brother had said those same words to him once. He remembered crying and mopping blood off Anthony’s bruised after a violent demonstration, and Anthony was saying, “It’s all right John. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
    A soft hand tentatively touched his heavy shoulder. “I’m all right Uncle John; it doesn’t hurt anymore.” And John gathered himself, rose from the gravel and solemnly took their hands, leading Jane and Shirley to the school.

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