Latrine

Once upon a time in a village to the east, a boy fell down a latrine and lived. The news traveled fast, like a bushfire during the dry season. But with each retelling, from village to village, —bits of the original story were added to and subtracted from –all of which transformed it into mostly fairy tales told to children on the island. The version of the story I am about to tell was collected from various sources including – my older brothers, the fellas as well as the village elders that spined tales during the Christmas drinking season.

The boy’s name was Benjamin, the youngest of four. He was puny with large ears like his mother and a head too big for his body. Because of his abnormal size, he spent most of his time indoors reading comic books and paperback westerns, which heightened his young imagination.

One time Benjamin dug a hole in the family compound and jumped in, thinking he could reach China on the other side of the world. His brothers, having found him in the hole and wondering what he was up to, questioned him.

“Boy, what the ass wrong with you ?” his eldest brother exclaimed. Benjamin looked up at his brothers. The mask of fear lined his face as he tried to explain. It all began one day when the primary school teacher Mrs. Cumberbatch, in a lesson on Christopher Columbus, told the class that the earth was a sphere. ‘But, teacher, If the world is round then we don’t fall off it yet?” Asked Benjamin’s classmate confused. The teacher responded, ‘It’s because of gravity.’ Benjamin, with his young imagination, sparked, couldn’t let go of this newfound knowledge. This revelation was the catalyst for his desire to dig the hole, to see how far he could get before nightfall.

When Benjamin had finished the telling of his story, his brothers collectively nodded in disbelief before condemning him from above the hole.“ Boy, you don’t play you stupid nah, said the eldest brother. “How so?” asked Benjamin with tears in his eyes’ you think you could reach China with that little piece of shovel,” cried the second brother. “ You need a heavy tractor.” “I figure so,” said Benjamin, “but I want to try and see how far I could reach before night comes. “Don’t make a joke,” cried the third brother. “Boy, get yah ass from that pit before we bury you down inside there today,” cried the eldest once more, before walking away with his siblings.

Part 2

The cocks crowded throughout the sleeping village, signaling the start of a new day. Benjamin’s mother stood in the semi-darkness of the kitchen preparing a hearty breakfast of —roast baked, salt fish, and hot coco tea. As the tea boiled, she looked out the kitchen window towards the steep bank, on top of which sat the latrine, and further west the silent mountains, spotted with the lights of other villages.

Suddenly, the dream she had dreamt the night before returned, causing a slight uneasiness. Then the thought entered her mind to visit her son’s room beyond the kitchen but was diverted by the voice of her husband calling to her. “Elizabeth,” called Benjamin’s father softly. “Morning dear,” she said, standing at the threshold. “Breakfast ready?” he asked. “Yes, dear” she replied, walking towards the bed where her husband sat putting on his work shirt over his muscular frame shaped by hard labor. She was sixteen when they met.

Much younger than his thirty-something. He wasted no time taking her in, which was just as good as a marriage proposal back then. In quick succession, every two years, she delivered four sons unto her husband: Jared, Kenneth, Paul, and finally Benjamin, the baby. A quite difficult that it almost took her life. “I had a dream,” said Elizabeth, as she sat on the edge of the bed collecting the fragments of the memory to share with her husband. “Good or bad?” he asked. “I don’t know how to call it l,” she replied,” but listen how it go”: “I was sitting in the yard with one ah them white bucket full of ripe mangoes. And so the mangoes were sweet for days. And I don’t even chew just swallow mango one after the next: cutlass, starch, Julie, paw paw, donkey stone, long, La Brea gyal, rose, doux-doux, calabash, apple mango, turpentine, and sugar gyal mango.” Eh heh,” said Benjamin’s father “I know how you love yah mango.”

“But listen nah, she cried, I ate three mangoes and meh belly started to wok meh for so. And I can’t hold it, so want to toto nah. Boy and just so I take off and run to the latrine just before meh belly bust. “Eh heh,” said the father once more. “And I sit down on the latrine and I tattoo. And the more ah go, more come. Next thing I know the whole latrine is almost full of shit.” “Oh Godoh,” cried the Benjamin’s father with laughter. “Yah must need a purge.”

“Cacaca,” cried Elizabeth, “You taking meh for a joke.” Under the cover of blue black morning sky, the couple shared an anxious kiss on the veranda, with thoughts of the mother’s dream still lingering in both their minds. Then Benjamin’s father disappeared down the serpentine hill as the barking dogs signaled his passing. She watched for the lone figure of her husband in the distance, his masonry tool bag on his right shoulder. And so he appeared at the foot of the hill, where sat the family’s money pit of a car, the British-made Hillman. The car was cold and yet he prayed:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.— Psalms 27:3

”He then cranked the sluggish motor three times, which groaned with displeasure before finally turning over. With his foot slightly on the pedal, he fed it a little gas which the beast guzzled greedily, roared, and then settled into a constant metallic rattle. Because in those days no one thought to cut the road wide enough for drivers to u-turn, cars could be seen driving in reverse in an awkward descent. And so did he, with one hand over the headrest of the front passenger seat, reach the main road.

Part 3

According to his brothers, whose stories all aligned, their little brother could well have been sleeping while walking when he fell down the latrine. Benjamin, after all, had gone missing many times before, only to be found the next morning asleep under the house with hounds or in the coop next to the hens and cock. But this alibi would come much later. Currently, Elizabeth recalling her dream, walked quickly to her son’s bedroom, where she counted one, two three bodies lying in their beds. But no Benjamin.

Calmly she opened the door that led to the yard and called to him. “Benjamin, my son, my son ” she cried, into the dawn. She returned to the bedroom, arousing her three remaining sons. “Where is your brother?” she asked with growing concern. The boys all sat up in their beds, shrugging their shoulders as if to say, are we our brother’s keeper? The risi un resurrected the fetid latrine odor which slapped Elizabeth hard in the face as she stood in the yard. And the creaking latrine door swinging noisily on its rusty hinges also seemed to signal her.

Together, these seemingly separate occurrences —the dream, the fetid odor, the creaking door–would snap together in her mind like pieces of a puzzle. “The latrine,” cried Elizabeth, sprinting up the narrow hill barefooted. Hardly believing what she saw next, she let out a shattering scream that cracked the air like thunder which aroused the whole village, including her three sons, who scampered up the hill to the rescue. The three then erupted in their opera of tears that lasted until the men from the village arrived. Meanwhile, Benjamin stood silent and exhausted.

He had been that way after many hours of struggle to free himself. But like a fly caught in honey, his efforts were futile. His cries for help that night also went unanswered because of the natural sound barrier created by the mass of excrement. At his weakest, something inside him demanded he look up and saw a sliver of moonlight through a small crack in the galvanized roof. Arriving at the latrine, the men of the village wasted no time sending a rope down the hole. “Grab it, boy,” shouted one of the men, that had crowed inside the latrine.

This plan made sense and had every reason to work except for the fact that the caca had by now hardened like cement around poor Daniel’s body. “I can’t reach it, cried Benjamin. At this news, the village women in the crowd held hands and burst out into loud prayer, led by Elizabeth. When Benjamin’s father arrived at the scene, he knew exactly what was to be done.

First, with a mighsledgehammer in hand, he unrooted the wooden toilet bowl with four well well-placed doests base. The hole now exposed spewed a violent eruption of stench that quickly suffocated the men in the latrine as well as the crowd outside. No one could believe what Benjamin’s father was preparing to do next as he coated himself from head to toe in axel grease. A lake of maggots, worms, parasites, and more, surely awaited him at the bottom.

The rope was fastened around his arms and legs making him look like a human crab and he descended slowly onto the surface of hell on earth. “Lights,” he cried to the men above. He had found Benjamin, who was swiftly hoisted by a second rope to safety, greeted by tears of jfromorm the crowd. As he waited to be lifted, something shifted in the darkness, giving him an odd feeling that he was not alone. That he was being watched. Finally, the rope became tight around his body as he began his ascent but was quickly stopped by counterforcerce pulling from the pit—a slight tug of war. ‘In the name of God, he cried, let me go. And that was that.

The end

For three days, Benjamin was made to soak in a tub of Detolle, followed by several bush baths. Later a Catholic priest and even an obeahman then a woman were called to pray for him, all for a fee. But in the end, he refused to talk. And as his parents came to accept their last so silence, there was no way to know what happened to him that day. Then one day he went swimming in a river of water and was clean. At last.