By Johnny Coomansingh
A couple months before our family left Adventist Street in Sangre Grande, Trinidad, my younger brother and my two little sisters acquired a nanny goat from a good friend of ours. They all ‘conspired’ to go collect this goat after school in their school uniforms one very rainy evening. My mother was not aware of this plan.
It seemed that getting this brown and white goat was the best thing for them. However, bringing the animal to its new home was a serious problem. Goats are not stupid as many people think. Apparently, the goat did not feel comfortable with leaving the precincts of its former owners.
Meggy as they named her, was stubborn. She ‘reasoned’ that she was not going anywhere with any stranger. Nonetheless, the three children decided to push and pull Meggy in the rain for about half of a mile until they reached home, and what a mess they were. They all emitted a goat-like smell, and worst of all, their school uniforms were terribly soiled.
This goat expedition did not go down too well with my mother. Seeing her three little children in such a sorry state, she went into a tailspin. She quarrelled and scolded them, but eventually, she piped down and listened to the ordeal about their goat acquisition odyssey. They convinced her that Meggy was worth it. Meggy became a family pet and on evenings when she was due to come home from grazing she would sound as though she was actually voicing my little brother’s name…“Steeeeeve!”
We took Meggy along when we moved from Adventist Street to our new home in ‘Boys Town,’ located in upper Sangre Grande. Not long after, Meggy provided us with two beautiful kids, but sadness came bearing down on us one night at about two o’clock in the morning. On evenings we would bring Meggy and her kids and tie them up in a particular spot under the house.
Because of the sloping topography, from the Eastern Main Road (aka Manzanilla Road) in front of our house, no one could have seen these animals where they were. It seemed that someone had cased the joint some days before to determine where these animals were located. At about 2:00 am, as though in a dream we all heard the kids bawling in front of our house on this fateful night. We woke up to find the kids tied up on the sidewalk rails, but their mother Meggy was missing.
The two kids were relentless in crying for their mother. Their mother was gone forever. There were goat thieves around and many people around said that there were particular people involved in the pillaging of people’s goats. Some said that the van that went around with the stolen goats was labelled The Last Wagon.
It was a dangerous moment that morning. We did not know if armed bandits were lurking in the bush over the road. Then appearing out of the blue at this ungodly hour was this East Indian man walking on the opposite side of the road holding his pair of shoes in his hand. We suspected that he could have been one of the thieves and yelled out to him why he was walking with his shoes in his hand. He made some filthy excuse and walked quickly up the hill where we suspected the van with Meggy was waiting.
Venturing to go after these criminals could spell death. It was a bad idea to go after these criminals. Our safety was paramount at that moment. No one knew what they would have done to anyone who questioned them. Some of them carry guns and it will not bode well for anyone to go after them except the police.
We took the kids under the house, tied them up and tried to fall back to sleep. Sad as it was, Meggy was gone and we had to live with the fact that she would have been sold off to a butcher. No one bothered us after that event. The kids were safe, but the neighbourhood became warier about the happenings around our area during the wee hours of the morning.
The safety of people and property in the area was at a premium. We kept on guard. Keeping on guard is one thing, but sometimes you hypnotize yourself. You keep thinking that all is well and an event like this will not happen again, but when you think it’s safe to go out into the water, there’s always another shark waiting for its quarry. I started with “Meggy” but it’s really about my demise.
It has been said that lightning does not strike the same place twice. Whether or not anyone wants to believe it, history repeats itself, at least for me. Although it’s a part of my history that I really don’t like to recall, sad to say, I experienced some beatings (floggings) in the self-same format from both my crazed father and my eldest brother. I am not at all ashamed to write this. As some say, confession is good for the soul. There are possibly others who might be helped with what I write. If I was a bad child then I would have understood that I got my just rewards.
In the first instance, I was just about four and a half years old when along with my brother who was two years older, we found ourselves at the hands of my merciless father in the front yard of our house squirming and screaming while he waylaid our little frail bodies with whips. It was my eldest brother who cut the whips. The whips he had cut perished on our backs. They broke up in pieces. Such was the ordeal I had to undergo. What could I have done to warrant such a beating?
Up to this day, I still think of the lacerations I received from those whips. Yes, they were painful, but I decided in my heart from that day to stay away from my father. He was crazy and arrogant, and as a child, I came to fear and dislike him. I guess fear is the absence of love. After that episode, I did not seek to be close to him. In him, I saw pain and hurt, but the pain and hurt did not stop there.
I was around fifteen years old, studying some hard stuff to make it to completing high school. In a matter of six months, I had to write the Cambridge University General Certificate of Education (GCE) ordinary-level exams. The pressures of high school studies and home life were mounting, and in haste, I must have said something crass to my mother because I was in a desperate moment to have some school assignments completed.
Although I was the only child in the family to have gone this far at high school at that time, it seemed to me that no one at home really cared that I was making an effort to be educated; to succeed in life. To them, my education was an afterthought. Several of my siblings were at home including my eldest brother and he should have known or empathised with me in my demise. Instead of supporting me he dragged me outside and started whipping me with ‘glory cedar’ (Gliricidia sepium) stems that grew on the boundary line of our house.
After the third lash I said to him: “Don’t hit me again if you want to sleep peacefully tonight. Don’t hit me again!” and I pulled away from his grasp and ran. He knew that I became angry and that I meant business. Who was he to flog me the way he did? I so remembered my father and what he did to me when I was a child.
He knew that if he went further that he would have had to sleep with one eye open. There and then, I became an angry lad. That evening, I licked my wounds, completed my assignments, and slept at the neighbor’s. After that scenario, he never messed with me again.
Nevertheless, with all the floggings, whippings and disparagements, it was my resolve to succeed at my examinations. I did just that! I couldn’t take the time to focus on my troubles and tribulations. I had bigger fish to fry. My apologies, but sorry to end this story on such an untidy note. Things could have been worse but always remember, there is always another shark waiting out there, somewhere. Stay safe!
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