By Tony Deyal
I was reading “THE WORLD’S BEST BOOK” and found what they considered the most amazing people who were the Living Man, the Tallest Man as well as the Animal Lover, the Shortest Man, and even a Tallest Woman, an Oldest People, Hairiest ones, Fastest humans, and the First Strongest Women and Men! I looked at this group and laughed.
I had moved from where I lived in Carapichaima, Trinidad to Siparia in the south. We had to go, but it was very scary. Everyone kept telling me that I was deeply rooted in spooky tales of forest spirits like the “Douens” and shadowy roadside phantoms. Fortunately, it turned out to be “sand” as well as “courage”, “stamina”, and “perseverance.” But nothing is better than where I was going, and nothing from the “Best Book” will be even close. At the same time, the great Mark Twain humourist said, “She had more sand in her than any girl I ever saw; in my opinion she was just full of sand.”
Siparia was the administrative capital and downtown centre of the “Borough of Siparia”, and its nickname was “The Sand City.” In my case, the honour of being an “Old N…” was bestowed on me by my newly found friends in the community of “Cassava Alley,” which later was also “Peyton Place.” This was because of Grace Metalious, an American author known for her novel Peyton Place, which dealt, as WIKIPEDIA said, with “incest, abortion, adultery, lust and murder.” To that list we added “stealing, assault, battery, gambling and various other petty crimes and misdemeanours including harbouring people who were wanted by the police.” Our reputation in the village was therefore not unwarranted.
Some geological quirk had made Siparia a zone of sand surrounded by the sticky, black clay we called “sappatay” dirt with some areas of red clay interspersed. There is the story of Miss Popelee, a shrewd old Indian woman, who suggested to us that a piece of unused land that she had could make a good cricket ground if cleared. When the boys had got rid of the bush and went to fetch the red clay which was used throughout Trinidad for cricket pitches, Miss Popelee declared angrily, “Corn can’t grow on red dirt!” And so, we all ended our field of dreams.
Others in Siparia were real characters. There was “Nolan,” the cattle thief, who, when caught, told the police that he saw this piece of rope in the savannah and picked it up intending to use it to” tie” his goat. He did not realise there was a cow at the end of it. What was funny was that Nolan did not own even a second pair of pants at the time, much less a goat. There was Ivan “Rabbie” Marchan, the Captain of our Peyton Place Club, whose boast was that all his charges were for wounding. Then came “Vin,”, tall and quiet, who ran the Siparia women’s netball team. Next was “Moses Saney,” who ran the club which “Ghost” Rivas, the “bad-john” and “hit-man,” sent his thugs to “mash-up the place” after Moses refused to send money to the paralysed Ghost. As it was, Ghost sat in a rented car on Coora Road waiting for “his” money and not only got it but broke or “mash up” the place.
Next was Ellis Knights, who started Siparia Deltones, initially on Grell Street in front of our house, and then he was succeeded by Terry “Throat” Wallace, who travelled on the bus with me most mornings to Secondary School in San Fernando. I can’t forget “Dadoi” Lake, for whom the prison gates were a revolving door, and Big Red Campbell, who cuffed down a donkey and killed it.
But it was not only men who were the “Fame or Flame.” There was Vicky Boodram, also known as “The Great Espace.” She was the holder of the award for the most fraud charges against any one person in the history of Trinidad and Tobago- about 175 for crimes including the fraudulent acquisition of a Mercedes-Benz and a $2million house in posh Palmiste.
Wicky grew up on Gambal Street opposite the Fire Station and next to the pan yard, which Deltones originated from young men in Siparia. I lived on Grell Street, just a longish stone’s throw away when Rabbi, Bread Boy and the rest of the guys wanted to terrorise someone. Bread-Boy (also named Bren-Gun after the famous weapon) was so good as a “pelter”, even better than fast bowler Franklin “Peltorick” Julian, that during a fight inside the T&TEC club in Syne Village he was able to hit one of his attackers with a beer bottle just as the man lifted his head to peep out from behind a table trying to see where Bread-Boy was.
Together with my friends like Bread-Boy. Rabbo and others I had nothing to do but hang out of “lime” under the street lap where we gambled, told dirty jokes, and picked the team for the next time for the next watch. We constantly teased the girls passing by with endearments like, “Darling, of all my sugars you are my granulated,” or threatened their boyfriends if they were not from out neighbourhood; because we were at the Cassava Alley which had no streets or lights, and had many fugitives from the law, we always had a lot to talk about making how to hide from the police. Too late, though! I heard shouts of, “Police! Police!” Worse, they had bull penises (also called “bully stick” and even “beef pizzlies”), and I was running as if the Dogs of Hell were behind me. I was sweating, blowing and about to collapse when I ran up the steps of a house and begged for help. “Mah! Please! Please hide me. The police are coming for me!” The owner of the house made me sit on a chair next to her two grandchildren, put a cup of coffee and a plate in front of me and advised, “If the police ask you anything, tell them you are teaching the children English.”
By that time, I was one of the leaders in the group. However, because I was still seen by a few as “a Cooly man,” one person tried to get his place as a leader. The others and I laughed when I made a joke at the man. He grabbed a large weapon and was so angry that it was clear he would kill me if he caught me. I was heading for our yard, and the man didn’t care. He was so angry he would beat or kill me there. Unfortunately for the man, he didn’t know my mom. In her days in the forest where they lived, she had a gun that she used to get food every day. She had it with her in our house, and she came out with the gun and told the man, “If you come one step more, you dead!” The man ran away and we never ever saw him again in our area.
*Tony Deyal was last seen saying, “If you like cricket, football, fighting, reading and jokes, you’re right up his Cassava Alley.
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