JerriAnne Boggis - Chocolate Milk, Curried Goat, and Manish Water

 

 

When I left my island 30 odd years ago, I carried with me the most important things I had, the stories of my great aunts. They gave me strength and courage even today as I tell this story. I remember the day I got the call from my cousin that my great aunt, Mumzi, had died. I wasn't surprised by the call at all because two days ago, before the call, a whole flock of crows had landed on our front lawn. Those harbingers of death told me something was happening. And it was the passing of my great aunt. I believed in all those signs coming from an island where the veil between the living world and the dead world was so very thin.

 

And if you grew up with my grandfather, you would believe in it too, for he scared us half to death with stories of the rolling calf. Those mythical beasts that breathed fire and roamed the country sides, especially cemeteries like this, gathering souls for the underworld. That was one of the things I really wanted my own kids to have. This deep respect for the mythical, mysterious world.

 

I took them to the cemetery one night to see New Hampshire's famed ghost, The Blue Lady. And the Blue lady only comes out when the moon is full. And I did just what my grandfather did. I scared them half to death. [audience laughter] There was another reason that I really was happy to get the call because it meant that I could come to New York to see my family that I hadn't seen in years. But most of all, it was an opportunity for me to engage my sons in the Jamaican culture. Because if you know anything about a Jamaican culture, everything, I mean everything happens at the funeral.

 

Growing up in New Hampshire, I had always thought my sons that they were the best of the world, black and white. They were my little cups of chocolate milk. Until that six-year-old neighbor next door burst that little bubble that we lived in. See, I remember that day when my son came in. I'll remember it clearly for the rest of my life. “Mommy, Mommy, am I an N word? Am I dirty?” My whole world crashed that day because I had lived in this bubble of sweetness, this saccharine space. Now, I felt anger, resentment. And most of all, fear.

 

I had taught my kids that being the best of both worlds, they belonged. After all, they were Americans. And unlike me, who was from somewhere else, I always thought that they would never feel that otherness, that separation from being here. So, that excuse to go to New York was welcomed. My kids were in the back of the car really complaining because they were dressed in their brand-new funeral suits, itching, striped vests, shoes, shiny shoes. And we got to the Bronx just in time to sit in the back of the church in the pews. I had forgotten what a funeral was like, how wedding-like a funeral was. The flamboyant church hats, the Sunday go-to-church wingtip shoes, the fedora hats rimmed with red ribbon, said to chase ghosts away, the color red. And I was home, just looking around.

 

When the song from the organ blasted in the ear, signaling the start of the mass, my kids jumped and I looked around at them and there they were, looking at everything, taking everything in. They saw the altar boys in their red and white outfits walking down the aisle, almost enveloped in the smoke from the incense burner. They saw the priest come down in his vestment, almost floating away as he sprinkled the gold-embroidered casket with the holy water that was making a real clunky, clunky, clunky sound as it was carried down the aisle by the pallbearers in their stiff black suits. I felt great expectation for this church service because my Aunt Mumzi, she had ordered an elaborate Catholic mass and we had to dress our best for this. So, can you imagine my surprise when the parish priest started speaking in this real quiet, almost inaudible voice crept into the congregation? 

 

Almost instantly, you could hear the mumbling, the kissing of teeth rising up in the audience. “Man in Borini, Jesus. Moose, you're going to get vexed. What going on? Somebody telling put some life into it, na? And killing us to death.” [audience laughter] Laughter busted from my lips spontaneously, not just from the sheer irony of what was being said, but from the joy of hearing my Jamaican patois, that singsong cadence that I had missed from living in New Hampshire.

 

My sons turned to me, and they said, “Mom, didn't you tell us to be quiet? Why are you laughing? [audience laughter] I thought you were supposed to be respectful.” Almost instantly when the service started, my Aunt Ruby, the last of the line, Aunt Mumzi's sister, she got up and staggered to the front of the church. Her daughter, Denise, followed closely behind. The mumbling in the church rose to almost a crescendo. “Wait, wait. What's the matter? Jesus. She did, our Mumzi come far.”

 

The chaos started. Denise was now crouched under the little table in the vestibule, screaming, “Mama dead, mama dead,” as if scrounging under the table would protect her from the grim reaper himself. My cousin, Claudette, she had run to the front of the church because she’s a nurse to assess the situation. My other cousin, Carl, he was on the phone and you could hear the aggression in his voice. “I know you all going to take it every time. Come in here. You know, this is The Bronx. But if anything happened to my auntie today, y’all dead.” [audience laughter] And worse than that, my born-again evangelical cousin, she was circling Aunt Mumzi’s prone body, screaming, “The blood, the blood, the blood. [audience laughter] Satan, come out of here. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I cast him out in the name of Jesus.”

 

I had wanted to get up myself and join in the fray, thinking that I would go and comfort my cousin who was still under the table, or shake some sense into my screeching cousin. But my kids were grabbing onto my sleeves, and they said, “Mommy, mommy, what's going on? Is there a rolling calf here? Did they come for Aunt Ruby? Was she bad?” Be careful what you teach your kids. It might just come back to haunt you. So, the medic finally came, and they told us that Aunt Ruby was okay. She hadn't regained consciousness yet, but her heart was beating fine and she had a steady breath. And you could hear the whole church exhale in relief.

 

Now, in the Jamaican tradition, after the funeral, after the burial, there's usually a celebration, called the nine-night celebration. You see, we believe that after nine nights, after all the tears, there had to be laughter. Or else, the spirit of the dearly departed would stay around to comfort you or to cause havoc. So, there had to be a celebration.

 

So, the celebration was at Aunt Mumzi's house. You could hear the calypso music blaring across the neighborhood, even miles before you got there. And as my boys and I walked to the backyard with kids running everywhere, you could smell and almost taste the aromas of the Jamaican food. There was a pot of mannish water, a goat soup that is said to turn boys into men, boiling on the stove. And it mixed the aroma of the jerk chicken, the curry goat, the Bami, the rice and peas. I was immediately transformed to my childhood. Those flavors. 

 

And just like back home, the men were bringing out the dominoes and the white rum. Got to have white rum. And the older ladies were sharing the food, and the older men were gathering everybody around the barbecue where they were holding court, each trying to outdo the other with the telling of the day's event. Some of them even said that Aunt Mumzi must have been really jealous of her sister, because her younger sister got all the attention that day. And this was Mumzi's day, her last day on earth.

 

As I gathered my sons around me and we sat on the ground to listen to the stories, I was so comforted because this is exactly what I wanted for my kids. This engrossment, the story, the songs. And I felt comforted because I had given my boys something that I really wanted to have. A solid understanding of our roots. And as we listened to the stories of how my Aunt Mumzi, when she had first come to the country and she tried to be a nurse, how she had to pass for white because the hospitals wouldn't hire blacks, and how she colored her-- powdered her skin several shade lighter. And almost the pain that caused her just to make a living, the anxiety that she had with doing that. We heard the stories of how she saved every penny to bring her siblings here for a better life. And my boys, hearing these stories, seeing the courage and the strength that we had, they knew without a shadow of a doubt that they come from a strong line of people, a people who knew how to survive in any instance. And that's what I wanted them to have. 

 

And as we loaded up the car with foods I would never get in New Hampshire because there's no Jamaican stores, and as we drove off, I remember the words that Maya Angelou said. When asked if she ever got nervous when she stands on stage alone, she said, “I come as one, but I stand as 10,000. All my ancestors are here with me.”

 

And tonight, all my ancestors are standing right here with me in this cemetery. My aunties, giving me strength and courage. My sons, my grandchildren. We know from where we come. We know the stock that we belong to. And we know, without a shadow of a doubt, we belong. Thank you.