Veronica Carnegie, Contributor

'I,' said the fly, 'With my little eye, I saw him die.'

I had learnt those lines about Cock Robin when I was an infant. I recite the whole poem sometimes, as I walk the length and breadth of Washington Boulevard. Daily, I walk, and I see things.

Each day I wake, fully dressed in my worn-out jacket, step out of the old car in the open lot, go next door and use the Bantons' outside bathroom. I turn left, walk to the end of the Boulevard, cross over where it meets Spanish Town Road, and continue right down to the bridge at Dunrobin Avenue. I run across at this point, dodging speeding vehicles, and keep left, back to my scrapped car.

People know me. They call me Fly but my name is Raymond Welsh, third-generation teacher. The haversack on my back holds everything I own, and the old lignum vitae tree by the car is my shelter from the elements. I taught at a school in River Bottom and was chased from the place without ceremony. A student said I touched her inappropriately. It was a lie. But the folks believed her. I suffered.

Now I walk the street - I mean, the Boulevard - with my notebook and pen, and I hear some say I'm a mad fly. But I see many things and can do nothing about it because I'm rated mensana ingratae, whatever that means. A woman called me that one night when I wouldn't let her in my car. I have the licence numbers of a couple of hit-and-run drivers, including a lawman. I witness accidents, some fatal. I see robberies in action in one or two homes. I watch pickpockets harass children and the elderly, and the hold-up men attack the fit. I remain silent. It's too easy to blame me for everything, for I don't look good, and sometimes I don't smell too good, either. So I walk, a victim.

I see Mr. Sinclare cuffing his wife in front of their children. I hear the quarrels in the Hunters' house, the music from the Mullingses' where young fingers pound out 'Danube so blue, so blue, so blue', the laughter from the Lawtons' as they pile into their car for work and school. I could go on, for the road is long, but another time I tell you about the Williamses, who have their children sharing cocaine with razor blades. Their dogs know me. Many nights I stand at the window, watch and wish for some of the money I see them counting.

One Friday evening in November, about 5:00 or so, Mr. Banton passed me on his bicycle, his saw tied to the bar, his felt hat on his head. He called to me and rode on. He was Adventist and had to be home by six.

What I witnessed next changed my life.

The Bantons lived at the corner of Starlight Drive and they were the only ones who allowed me to use the outside bathroom, once a day. They gave me one meal, and if it rained I stayed in the out-room. My grandfather had been principal of their country school and they felt bad about me, at 40, with my apparently wasted life. Mr. Barry Banton was a carpenter in his 60s. He rode his bicycle to work, five days a week. On Saturdays he and his wife walked to the nearby Seventh-day church. Everybody around knew them and how their grown children begged him to give up the bicycle.

'The road is dangerous. Give it up.'

'I'm a independent man, I have to ride to work.'

I heard that dialogue time and again. Mrs. Banton knew that he had to go out each morning from sheer habit. She cooked his meals, sent him off early, took care of a neat and tidy house and waited for him to come home. They called each other Mama and Papa. He rode the bicycle from Pembroke Hall to Half-Way Tree,from Mon to Union Square, to Barbican, to Jack's Hill. Somebody once saw him rounding Red Gal Ring.

On this afternoon, I'm told, he had finished his work at Peacock Pines, replacing termite-ridden door jambs, and had to wait long hours for his pay. When he reached Washington Boulevard he noticed that his light was blinking, so he rode on the soft shoulder and kept away from the heavy traffic. He passed me near the swap shop. There he was stopped: I saw two teenaged boys, still in khaki school uniforms, step from Miss Ada Mitchell's gate and grab the bicycle handle. They flashed knives.

'Where you money?'

'I don't have any money to give you.'

'This is Friday. Where's you pay? A big tradesman like you an' no pay?'

'The people didn't pay me. I go back on Monday to collect it.'

The young thugs picked up the bicycle and flung it to the ground.

'We goin' to search yu, man.'

They went through his pockets and found $250.

'Is this what a big man like you get on a Friday?'

'Is this all you earn? This is a insult,' said the shorter one, and he boxed Mr. Banton.

Mr. Banton's glasses flew off his face and his dentures fell from his mouth. The other boy threw the old man to the ground and dragged off his shoes. They found nothing. They each pulled off a sock; $50,000 in notes with Michael Manley's face on them fell from the left foot. They stepped on Mr. Banton's glasses and crushed the dentures in the dirt at their feet.

'Thanks for the money, old man,' one said.

'Thou shalt not lie,' the other told him.

'We goin' give you a receipt.' And the short one sliced the bottom of Mr. Banton's right foot.

I watched in the shadows. A stray dog stood by me.

Mr. Banton screamed.

I smashed a window with a stone. A woman bawled out as she rushed to the sidewalk.

'O'Neil an' Kevin! O'Neil an' Kevin. What yu doin'?' She saw the bleeding foot. She saw her visiting grandsons with their knives still open.

O'Neil and Kevin saw her as she came up to then. They heard her cries for help and loudly wished toGod that she would shut up and stop calling out their names.

I heard them.

The news spread and the people came down on the boys. They ran.

I tripped them with a piece of wood.

'Is Mr. Banton dem stab.'

''im son an' daughter is doctor.'

Somebody waved down a passing police vehicle and the wounded man was taken away.

Mrs. Banton, assisted by a minister of her church, panted in.

'Dem gone to Public wid 'im, ma'am,' someone volunteered.

'May God rest his soul,' the minister said.

'Afta him don't dead. Is cut dem cut him foot bottom.'

Mr. and Mrs. Banton now live in the country. He does not ride anymore and, to this day, suffers from a sore sole.

Even if those two boys survived the mob attack - I don't know - they would be in no shape to hold up anybody else.

So there's that.

These days I live with the Bantons in the country. I am getting better.

END

- Veronica Carnegie