“Kiss me ass, gyal! An’ g’weh wid yuh mad self!” Delores throws down the old newspaper.
Just then John-John—the young dread whom Delores has known since he was a boy who helped his mother sell goods at the market—stops by with a box of the birds he carves out of wood. He was always creative—ever since Delores has known him—making keepsakes from scraps to occupy his time, since he didn’t go to school. Because he and Margot were playmates, Delores has treated him more like a son. Now a grown man supporting children of his own, he makes birds, which he gives Delores to sell for him and collects half of what she makes from the sales. He sees the women arguing, sees his opportunity, and seizes it by defending Delores. “Ah, wah Mavis do to you, Mama Delores? Here, let me handle it. G’weh, Mavis, an’ leave Mama Delores alone. Yuh nuh have bettah t’ings fi do? Like count out di ten cents yuh get fi yuh cheap t’ings dem? Yuh son sen’ yuh money from America, an’ yet yuh stuck inna dis place?”
Mavis whips around to face him like a player caught in the middle of a dandy-shandy game. “A an’ B having ah convahsation. Guh suck yuh mumma, yuh ole crusty, mop-head b’woy!”
But John-John puts down his boxes of birds, a grin on his face as though he’s enjoying this exchange. “Every Tom, Joe, an’ Mary know dat yuh don’t get no barrel from America. A lie yuh ah tell. When people get barrel from America dem come moggle in dem new clothes.” He struts in the little space between them to mimic models on a runway. “But yuh still dress like a mad’ooman, an’ yuh look like one too wid dat mask ’pon yuh face!”
The other vendors in the arcade erupt in boisterous laughter, their hands cupped over their mouths, shoulders shuddering, and eyes damp with tears. Mavis adjusts her hat, and touches her screwed-up face with the bleaching cream lathered all over it like the white masks obeah women wear. “A true yuh nuh know me,” she says, her mouth long and bottom lip trembling. “My son send me barrel from foreign all di time. Ah bad-mind oonuh bad-mind!”
“Nobody nah grudge yuh, Mavis,” Delores says. “John-John jus’ saying dat it nuh mek sense if di clothes dat yuh son sen’ from America look like di ugly, wash-out clothes yuh sell. American clothes not suppose to look suh cheap. There’s a discrepancy in what’s what!” The other vendors’ laughter soars above the stalls, flooding through the narrow aisles where the sun marches like a soldier during a curfew. Delores continues, “Is not like yuh t’ings sell either. Usually di tourist dem tek one look, see di cheap, wash-out, threadbare shirt dem then move on. Not even yuh bleach-out skin coulda hol’ dem!”