The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks Read Free Book Online Page B

names without feeling the flesh of my heart turn into iron. This is not bitterness; it’s what happens when you have eaten your bitterness.
    We had rented a car for the entire two weeks, a beat up yellow Ford Escort, and every day we left the house on a family outing of some kind the beach at Doctor’s Cave, Rose Hall, the straw market, river rafting, whatever took our fancy and usually on our way home in the afternoon we stopped at a pathetic shabby little shopping center in Montego Bay called Westgate, to pick up a few household supplies, like toilet paper or paper towels, and snacks for the kids, who were always tired and fussy by then. They loved those things called coco pops, clear plastic tubes of flavored ice hawked by kids in the parking lot, sticky disgusting things that melted as soon as you bought them, and while Lydia and I scurried up and down the aisles of the store, the twins sucked their coco pops and waited outside in the car.
    One afternoon late in our stay, we drove back from what I think was the beach at Doctor’s Cave-I don’t recall exactly where we were coming from, but I do remember feeling sunburned and sandy, which certainly suggests the beach and stopped at Westgate. The last time we had come here, Jessica and Mason had been hassled in the parking lot by a bunch of local kids attracted to them by their whiteness and the fact that they were twins, which seemed to have an unusual fascination for people down there, even though they were not identical twins. It was harmless enough, but because there hadn’t been any adults to control the Jamaican kids, the episode had scared Jessica Russell Banks and Mason.
    They were only four years old and did not have much interest in other cultures.
    Anyhow, this time, instead of waiting out in the lot in the car, they followed us into the store, a cavernous supermarket with no air conditioning and smelling of sour milk, bad meat, and pickles. It was like every food store on the island that we happened to enter during those two weeks: half empty shelves stocked more with paper goods and bottles of rum for tourists than with food for the natives a generally depressing place, which I wanted to avoid, and but for the kids, who seemed to need a few familiar things to eat and drink, potato chips, cereal, packaged cookies, that sort of thing, I would have. Those items comforted the children somehow. They were lonely in Jamaica, and being the only white children in the village, or so it must have seemed to them, they were always a little nervous and frightened. All their routines were broken, and they were not used to being without TV, and they were not accustomed to receiving so much daytime attention from us. The twins were at a very cautious age that spring, and, too, they may have sensed, even before I or she herself did, that their mother was sick. Also, they weren’t able, as Lydia and I were, to get stoned every day and night.
    Looking back, I feel very sorry for them. Then, I thought that we were all having the time of our lives, which made it easier for me to accept the high level of anxiety that the time of our life extracted as payment. We were surrounded by black people, people who carried machetes and sold drugs openly and talked a foreign sounding English in loud voices, who pointed at us because of our skin color and 48 made ugly noises with their lips at my wife or smiled and lied and tried to take our money. But here we are, on vacation in Jamaica, I thought.
    Isn’t that just the greatest thing an American dad can do for his family? I think I’ll celebrate and reward myself by getting blasted on this terrific ganja I bought today for only ten bucks while getting the car filled with gas.
    You think that way down there.
    While we paid for our groceries at the register always a slow and sullen process interrupted by several arguments and exchanges between the Jamaican clerks and customers Mason went on ahead of us to the car, so that when we arrived