Confessions of a Dying Woman: 6:Country Edition

 

(written to be read in patois)

 Dear Mass  Leeford,

I don’t even know how I should  greet you because I honestly thought you would have been dead by now. I assumed that death came to knock at your door and when it see your face that look like it put on back and front, it get frighten and turn back. I can’t wrong Mr. Death for that because your sin them stand up strong in your face.

I know is write me write to confess but I have to get something off my chest, now that it seem like I might dead before you even though your left foot a rotten off. Mass Leeford, why you so likkle bit and mean? Imagine you have such a fruitful land with breadfruit, mango, sour soup, custard apple, jack fruit and a whole sugar cane field and you refuse to share with your neighbors. If anybody beg you anything from your land, you tell them it is for your children even though your two daughters them live in  foreign and the two thieving son them that is here that looks very much like Mass Jasper, even down to the ben (bend) up foot them, hardly pay you any mind.

You prefer to know that the fruits them stay there and drop off and rotten than to give away what you don’t sell. The only time you try to give away anything, well exchange, was when nature start to ride you and you decided to beg Miss Dorothy some of her cho cho (vagina). That late Friday evening you took the short cut behind Miss Bev's house to reach up to Miss Dorothy house. 

I don’t know if you didn’t think anybody would see you because it was late but Mass Jasper saw you because he too took that short cut as well and Bev, saw Mass Jasper, on his way back behind her house and know that he was coming from Dorothy yard. To take the suspicion and guilt off himself, he told Miss Bev, that he saw you going to Miss Dorothy with a bag full of yam, banana and breadfruit and a bucket of Julie mangoes.   

When Bev, pinch me and tell me, I made sure to go visit Sis Dorothy bright and early  the Saturday morning to ask her if she would be able to make it  to church on Sunday in case she had something to confess to the Lord or she wanted to give me her offering to take to church for her. It seems like Bev, had a similar idea, because shortly after she came along to see if Miss Dorothy had practiced the Sunday hymnal for church and also to beg Miss Dorothy two slices of bread to go with the two eggs she got from Miss Spinny.

Bev happened to mention to Dorothy while she was sipping a cup of dandelion tea and eat two fry dumpling that Miss Dorothy gave her, that she saw Mass Leeford walking to her house yesterday evening. Miss Dorothy told us that you wanted some of her salt ting (sexual intercourse) but she couldn’t give you any.  She said mouth, teeth and tongue (Bev) told her that you wash your face in your chimmy ( a pot for peeing) in the morning after you throw away the pee at the banana root.

 She said that Miss Mavis tell her say she give you  likkle of her salt ting (vagina) one time and before you could push it in, you started to bray like when donkey want water and then started to shake like when them a shake mango tree branch fi the ripe mango them drop off.  Miss Dorothy say she didn’t give you any because she was afraid that you would dead pon her and next thing them think she have death in a her baggy. Between me and you though, I think it’s because she did just share her salt ting with Mass Jasper and him did goodly eat off all of it.

Anyway, I just wanted to confess about the items that me and Bev, remove from your house the night that you were supposed to dead and no bother dead. That Wednesday night you almost died because your foot did swell big and did a rotten off and your breathing was very shallow. A few church sisters came to pray for you and keep a likkle prayer meeting. Well, Bev and I stayed back a bit to kinda straighten up the place. We figure say since you going to die and you can’t bring anything with you to that hot place we decided to help our self to a few things. Well, I was mostly helping Bev, because she couldn't carry everything by herself. 

We took all the blankets except the one that you were dying on, the sheets, some curtains, soaps and socks. They were very musty and triggered my sinus, but Bev said to take them nonetheless. To be honest Bev, did need the sheets them cause all a fi her them tear-up tear-up like she and dog fight often or mackka deh pon her body.  Bev, took the radio, a few of your figurines and a few mugs and plates. She took some of the tin foods that you had in the barrel even though she couldn’t find one of the key for the bully beef (corn beef). She took a bag with some bulla, rice and flour and some cornmeal. 

There was some yellow yam in the kitchen and a piece of salt fish. I didn’t trouble them because I figure that you could probably carry that with you and you could have roast yam and salt fish. I don’t know what they eat down there like how I know is milk and honey that I will be getting when I go up there.  It didn’t even make sense to look for any money because you are such a mean likkle man, we know that you bury your money and didn’t keep any in the house.

Source

Anyway, as  Bev took up the few red and white mint balls from the bed head, we said our goodbyes and whisper a word of prayer for you and ask the Lord that your passing from this world not be a painful one. I woke up early the Thursday morning expecting to hear ‘The crying Lady’ in the district to start make whole heap a noise in the early morning to announce your death, and all I heard was silence. I called Bev, to find out what had happened and she told me that a few of the church sisters and Pastor James went early to visit you and saw that you were still breathing and  decided to take you to the doctor on one of Mass Jasper donkeys. The doctor had to transfer you to the Sav-la-mar  hospital where they admitted you for two weeks. 

As it turned out, it wasn’t nobody that gave you 'big foot' because you mean, it was diabetes that you have that’s why the foot wouldn’t get better. You know you wouldn't drop and cut your foot on that sharp stone if you weren't running down the children in the district who picked a few of your mangoes?

Anyway, while you were in the hospital, you daughters came down from foreign and brought whole heap more things. I still can't believe that you didn't even have the decency to call me and Bev and give us if even one of the Irish spring soap them and even a pound of flour after we were there with you up until the near end. Everybody know say you only bathe 'once in a blue moon' (rarely) and you mostly eat turn cornmeal and banana porridge so I couldn't understand why you were storing the food like you are a squirrel. Then again you look like one so who knows?

 Anyway, I know that you blamed the church sisters and Pastor James that they thief your things and wanted you dead, and that’s why you don't go to church, that and because the children in the district call you ' Rotten foot Leeford'. Now that you know the truth, that nobody stole your things and it was merely Bev relieving you of some of the things that you weren't using when she think you did a go dead, you can at the very least forgive them. 

Now that I might dead before you, you can get back the blankets them when me dead. Fair is fair. Mass Leeford, please try and be kinder to the people in the district, maybe then you will have a few friends and Miss Dorothy will give you some of her salt ting. Walk good.

Your neighbor

Miss Madge