Somebody’s Sleeping in Your Bed (The Jamaican Series)

Carnival Friday night in Boston. 

We have been standing on line to get into Prince Hall for upwards of 35 minutes. We are becoming impatient because it’s 11:00 PM and we only have a few hours to enjoy ourselves. Our friends are on the inside waiting to fete with us. Everyone has put lots of effort into their appearance – carnival weekends mandate this. 

My hair is freshly crimped for the festivities this weekend. This is the first weekend I don’t have visitors in town so I am free to go to basketball jersey fete at my leisure. I’ve drank a lot tonight (carnival always calls for additional excess). I’ve had about 7 rum and cokes inside Prince Hall. I double/triple up on rounds at the bar because the average bar wait time is 30 minutes (which is what happens when masons older than Methuselah are manning the bar) and I am not missing a tune due to than slower frozen shit rolling up hill bartenders. 

I cut my Lakers jersey so that my newly toned midriff is exposed. I coupled the yellow and purple top with a pair of denim shorts and heels. I love sporty chic. It allows me to be comfortable while simultaneously embracing my feminine side.  Sarah and I were pre-gaming in the car on the rum I just brought back from Barbados. 

I am having a great time. Soca is pumping, I think Sound Inc is playing. I am being jovial and playful, dancing and having a laugh with people I normally wouldn’t speak to on a regular night out. 

The rum is hitting me. I am teetering on happy and angry drunk. Sarah and I are laughing at some of the older women in the club well past their sell by date but trying to party with the youngsters. Look at that lady with tights on in the summer!!!! 

After the party is over, we flirt with the cuties in town from New York. We never leave the club as soon as the party is over. Boston is so lame, the club curfew is 2:00 AM which is when most of us are just getting hyped. We find out where the afterparty is and jump in the car drinking the rum we left there hours ago. Music turned up and windows down. Nothing beats a warm Soca-filled night in my green Mazda 626. 

I drop Sarah off – she may have a, ahem, late night appointment. 

I am calling the Jamaican on his Nextel. I am trying to contact him on the two-way radio and he is not answering. This alerts my spidey-senses. So I keep calling. 

Until, my friend Anne calls me to come to her house. Her mom has cooked and everyone is liming (hanging out) by her.  We spend the next few hours in her parent’s basement making jokes with her cousin from Trinidad, her brother and some friends. At about 5:00 AM, I realise my calls haven’t been returned so I get in my car and head to the Jamaican’s house. 

By now, any elation has left my spirit, I am plainly drunk. And agitated. Dawn begins to break as I pull up in front of his house. He’s still not answering. Possessively (drunk possessively) obnoxious Reds has come out to play. 

So I walk barefoot to his bedroom window which is just above ground level. I call his name gently (drunken yell). He still doesn’t respond. So I throw some rocks at the window. I am drunk and without my glasses but I think his dark figure appears in the window rubbing his eyes as if just rising from slumber. 

At the same time, there is a girl who has just walked past the house. That’s odd. Do many people go to work at 5:30 AM on a Saturday? Carnival Saturday? J’ouvert morning? I think nothing of it and round the corner up the stairs to his place. 

The Jamaican lets me know “Reds, you do realise the time? I have to go to work. But come in baby. Lay down. You look drunk as fuck”

I go into his bedroom and something just doesn’t seem right. I look in the trash and find a used condom………. 

If you can’t imagine the Tasmanian devil in human form, just paste my face on top it’s body. Essentially, I imagine I look something like this right now:

Or maybe this:

(note the similarities: short, stubby, massive head, ear piercing shriek – sounds a lot like me. but you’re not here for an animal kingdom chat. back to the story)

I destroyed everything not nailed down in that room. I slapped him. I slapped him with the used condom. I called him everything short of Jesus. He attempted to detain me but the strength of a scorned woman amplified by rum won’t, cannot be beaten or restrained. 

After trying to defend himself, he flipped the script and decided to cuss ME out for destroying his property. (for those of you familiar with the jungle inhabited by the species we call Fuck Boy, this is a classic FB move – deflect, blame the wronged, do not admit fault, do not apologise. Oh! Here is a FB getting ready to spread his venom, protecting himself so he is not hurt in the process)

We part ways acrimoniously.

To be fair, I can’t even remember the ride home.

A few hours later I’m on the road (Carnival route), drunk. On top of the truck with Sound Inc. I flirt and laugh over the undercurrent of bitterness at being slave to such a shit show of a relationship. 

I walk home from carnival, about 2.5 miles. On my travels home, I pass the Jamaican’s parent’s restaurant. The whole clan is there- his mum, cousins, so on, so forth. I stop in and share some laughs all the while side eyeing that everlasting bastard. He’s quiet. More quiet than usual. I study his face. It’s somewhat swollen and scratched up. I take pleasure in the mark I have left on his psyche. His brother asks if I’m good. I breathe deeply and smile. I am on my way home. 

My friend asked me to write a narrative piece. This was the result and is third in the short story series, The Jamaican.

I am not proud of what I did and the person I allowed myself to become in this relationship. I chalk it up to youth and a serious mislaid sense of identity and unacknowledged and untreated depression.  I am in no way advocating violence or drunk/drink driving. The events I am sharing took place over 15 years ago.

If you are in an abusive or unhealthy relationship, please get out and talk to your friends and family to  get out. If you or someone you know has a substance abuse problem, please seek help.

And please, if you are driving, don’t drink!