The Last Warner Woman by Kei Miller Read Free Book Online

listen; learn me how to make God’s voice my own; learn me how to be full up of the ’61 spirit and give warning. Is she who make me to know that my calling was to be a Warner Woman. And maybe when I come to England and they lock me up for madness, maybe I get other mothers then—for the matron and all the nurses treat me like I was a little pickney, but I not studying that right now.
    Shhhhhhhhh
    As for fathers, I have none but the Lord. I never find out who my earthly father was. I more sure of who it was not. 1) It was not Monsignor Dennis. I get his story piece piece from Mother Lazarus and Miss Lily and Maas Paul. It is true that you would always find him in the garden, but you would never catch him doing work himself. According to them he was not the type to stoop over no bush and put eggshells in the dirt. Instead he was always standing up over the yardboy. The yardboy change like how some people change underwear. It was always these tall, mawga boys and Monsignor Dennis would stand up over them and instruct them to sweep up here, or to plant this or plant that. Mother Lazarus say the Monsignor did hate her because she always come to him when he was out there giving his instructions and labrishing, talking away like his tongue did catch fire. Mother Lazarus put the question to me, what else I could do, child? I couldn’t go up to him at no other time because that was all him do the livelong day. Mother Lazarus tell me when him see her coming he would say, Miss Lazarus, don’t you see I’m out here talking to so-and-so. Sometimes she hold her tongue but other times she answer him brave and say, yes, I can see. And I can hear too. Even in the wee hours of the morning, I hear things you think I can’t hear. Mother Lazarus tell me that whenever she say something like that the yardboy would start doing pure stupidness, like he was nervous, and Monsignor Dennis would turn twenty shades of red that not even the sun could turn him. 2) My father was not the Jamaican hero, Alexander Bustamante. Everybody did wish they was the child of that tall brown man, especially after he march with the workers downtown, and when the police come to shoot black people it was Bustamante who climb up on the statue of Queen Victoria and tear off his shirt and show them his chest, and say you will have to shoot me first. After he say that, everybody wish their chest was as big and as broad as his, and they call him Father Busta. They said he was father of the nation. And maybe that’s why I get his name, because I never have a real father, so they just name me after the man who was father to everybody. 3) My father was not Mr. Mac, the driver who come on Saturday evenings with supplies, and leave with my mother. Mother Lazarus tell me Mr. Mac was a good-looking fellow in those days, before he drink a river’s worth of beer and rum and put on plenty weight. Mr. Mac tell me himself that that all my mother wanted from him was a drive into town and so he would drop her there on Saturday nights, but all the try that he did try to take it further, the most he ever get from her was a kiss on the cheek. 4) My father was not a leper, not Maas Paul, 5) nor Maas Johnson, 6) nor Maas Johnny. When she was pregnant these three men was suddenly cool toward my mother, like they never business bout her again. Her belly was a reproof unto them, for all of them was a little bit in love with my mother, but her belly make them know they wasn’t quite man enough for she.
    Shhhhhhhhh
    More than likely my father was a simple, forgettable man. I imagine my mother did meet him on a Saturday night when she had gone into town. I try to imagine her in that big city, Pearline Portious, as beautiful as the Rose of Sharon, mesmerized by all them lights. I see she walking into a dance and every man’s eye is suddenly set upon her, watching with man-hunger while she dance up a storm and sweat trickle down into her bosom. She would always find her own way home, but it