Veronica Carnegie, Contributor

The plaza clock points to 3:30. People move in and out of the shops. Children in uniform walk with big bags on their backs. They drag their feet. A postman rings the bell of his bicycle and rides away. Two policemen in shiny black shoes stand close to each other. Four young nurses giggle as they cross the street and cars stop for them. They go into Patti Place and hurry back with little brown bags. A man grabs a boy's cellphone and runs down the road. Taximen stand outside cars and signal people. Music blares.

'Missa Mac. Quick! Quick! Hol' dis foh me.'

'What the hell ...' Before I could ask the question a woman pushed a bundle through the car window into my hand. It was a tightly wrapped baby which was straining to free itself from its entanglement.

'She soon come. If de baby cry, push yu finger inna 'im mout'.'

Before she disappeared through the high zinc gate, I recognised Miss Imogene, mother of the lame-foot girl, Anna. When she walked, Anna's motion was up and down, for her left leg was shorter. They lived behind the first zinc fence on the Boulevard, beside the big tree, opposite the new plaza.

The baby began to puht, puht, puht and jerk, as an old motor car getting ready to shut down. I pushed my finger into its mouth and the baby sucked in innocent silence.

People were shouting. It was always noisy behind that fence.

'Where's the baby? I want it.' A slap. A woman screamed.

'Let mi go!'

'Let 'ar go!'

I heard furniture toppling over and scuffling and the zinc gate opened and shut threateningly.

After I retired from Public Works, I decided to use my Corolla to run a route from Four Square Corner to wherever in Kingston. I didn't take out-of-town jobs. After I dropped my wife at work in the mornings, my car became an unmarked taxi till it was time to pick her up and go back across the waters where we lived.

Four Square Corner was a good place for me; it was busy, with the hospital and clinic, the bank, the supermarket and Patti Place, among other small shops. My parking spot was by the fence where the Blackie mango tree shared its roots, trunk and branches between the grassless yard and the dirt-caked sidewalk. The tree stood like a stalwart surveyor, identifying the divide, with sheets of zinc piercing its sides. Dried gum clung to it.

I was about to leave to pick up my wife, when everything happened, it seemed, faster than time.

'Mr. Mac. Quick! Give me the baby and drive. Half-Way Tree Police Station! Faster, Mr. Mac, faster.'

'What's going on, Anna? I thought you were at UWI.'

'I drop out long time.'

'But what's this about? Whose baby? Who you going to?'

'Mr. Mac, yu have to drive faster. Half-Way Tree police!'

Anna Byfield, whom I'd known from the time she was a pre-teen, frequently visited an aunt who worked with me at Public Works. I could see Anna was in deep trouble. The traffic jammed.

She had met Arnoldo Hernandez on campus, married him and moved away to Old Harbour. He wasn't even a student, but he frequented the halls, jumped up at the fetes, attended the parties, and managed to get one of the rooms free. He was a popular resident. When the first child, a son, was born, Arnoldo brought some Spanish-speaking relatives to the house. They admired the baby, left and returned some months later. Arnoldo waited until Anna went out one day and he disappeared with the baby. He went to his house in Columbia or so he said in a note. He said somebody was trying to kill him and he ran to safety.

Anna said she cried for a long time, gave up the apartment they'd rented, and returned to the Boulevard.

'Why the devil he do a thing like that? Who want to kill him? Why yu running now?'

Arnoldo had come back. He came to take her to his country where they would live in comfort. She loved him and his promise, got pregnant, had morning sickness, and could not travel when his visa expired and he had to leave. She saw him again when the baby was born and this time he offered her US$10,000 for the child. It was to go to a couple of professionals who couldn't have children, he pleaded. She told her mother and brother, and the truth came out.

'Yu into drugs, son? I even call the son-of-a-b 'son' to mek him feel good,' the mother said.

'No, ma'am.'

'Den if yu nat into drugs, what yu into?'

No answer. Little did we know.

'Is a big racket goin' awn. De women dem selling de babies from US$10-15,000 and believe the children going abroad to a better life.'

'Anywhere better than here.'

'That's what you think.'

Her mother told her she heard from good sources that some big men were in it. They paid U.S. dollars for three-month-old babies and stuffed them.

'What? That's a lie.'

'Is true. Is a busy business and the gal dem poor. You know what $10,000 U.S can buy?'

'Him not getting this baby. He tried to take him from me. He said that some people going to kill him if he don't deliver. Mama gone in a taxi to the station and ah hope him didn't follow her. The police will protect me and the baby. Lord Jesus, ah hope Arnoldo didn't follow Mama. The traffic is tight, though. We not moving.'

'Tell me something, Anna, when they carry the baby on the plane, the hostesses don't see something is not right?'

'Those guys don't tek plane. I hear they go by sea. The wide ocean tells no tales.'

'I cyan see this is happening here.'

'Up to you. I know a girl going to pass over her baby tonight. She took the money a'ready.'

As Anna stepped out of the car, Arnoldo and another red-skinned man with jet-black hair were there at the car door. 'I have to get the baby. I am going to tell the police the baby is my son and you keeping him from me.'

'No. I told the police what you and your friends are into. I told them you're selling babies to foreigners. They're looking for you right now,' Anna said.

I shouted for help, pushed and shouldered the foreigners and allowed Anna to run inside the station. Miss Imogene hurried toward us. She wanted a ride back to her house, but I couldn't take her. Doris was waiting for me.

'Yu better run fo' yu life; my daughter and the baby going into protective custody. Not even me going to know where she is,' the woman yelled as the two men disappeared in the street.

'Ramara traicionera,' one of them shouted back.

'What? What 'im sey?'

I don't know how I managed to push that whole baby episode out of my mind until Doris reminded me about Angie, a friend's daughter. Angie got good dollars for her baby and everybody zipped their mouths. The taximen at the corner talked with their usual authority about sold, stolen and stuffed babies. One of them seemed to have had inside information. He knew almost everything about the 'runnings' in the hospital and even predicted the demonstration which soon followed.

I heard that a young mother saw her baby. She heard the infant cry. Yet when she woke from a long post-delivery sleep and asked for her child, the nurse dryly told her the newborn had died. The panic-stricken girl raced hollering out of the ward into the corridors and through the waiting room where long-suffering patients lingered. Her slippers fell off her feet. She collapsed outside by the flagpole. Nurses soon had her back in her bed.

'Give de girl har baby!'

'Sey de baby dead an' oonu sell it. Hell gway pop in 'ere if de girl don' get har baby.'

The crowd in front of the hospital had swollen and moved towards the entrance. Then there was a sudden silence. They automatically made way for a squat, heavy-footed man with a frightening face.

'Is de baby fadah?'

'No. Is where you come from? Is our Don dat. Is Junjo Jones. Is 'im 'elp all a we.' The porters didn't attempt to stop him and Junjo Jones heavy-weighted himself right up to Reception and rattled the place.

'Tell dem to show de girl de dead baby and settle the matter now.'

'Yes. Bring out de dead baby,' voices joined in. 'Where's the baby?' 'How come?'

The hospital knew what was good for them and before long a smiling young woman was pushed to my waiting taxi. It was a short run up the road. I stopped at her gate: bottom hinge gone, top hinge waiting to drop the pieces of board at the shortest notice given by a good gust of wind. I watched her walk to the end of the track. Neighbours called out to her as if she'd just won a scholarship; the children in the yard followed her. She carried no diaper bag for the baby; she apologised for a young father who was not working and I took no money from her.

'Buy something for the baby.'

'Thank you, sir.'

I returned soon after to give her a bag of baby things Doris contributed.

Then it rained in October, the wet month. I believe it rained for 15 days straight but some people said the water poured for a much longer time. And life was more difficult for dozens of us who work taxis. I had to park in the plaza halfway on the piazza to avoid being washed away by the torrent. The main roads were rivers of sand, mud and debris. The shortcuts and off roads were full of treacherous pits and potholes. It rained thick sheets of silvery-blue water, pelting the roofs and making menacing holes in them; the water piped its way down on furniture and appliances. In some instances, small streams oozed from doorways into the yard's knee-deep water. Rain scoured the hillside of Kintyre, brought down Mud Town and left a few houses precariously perched for the next downpour. The soothing sound of the non-stop rain contradicted the devastation it wreaked on us; the other sound was its unabated, persistent beating without rhythm. The sun shone afterwards on silt, slush and mud settled in a dark brown pond.

How they tracked Anna and found her in the hills after three weeks, I will never know, but she and the baby had to leave the shelter for the safety of the others. I picked them up again at the station and took them to their church on the Boulevard where they ran a Women's Crisis Centre. One day Miss Imogene asked me to go with her to meet them. Immigration had kicked Arnoldo out of the country, she said.

Anna saw us and came towards the car. Miss Imo reached for the baby. I took Anna's bag. Then Arnoldo, like a spirit, materialized out of thin air and pushed a wad of American money in Miss Imogene's hand. In a flash, he grabbed the baby and passed it like a relay baton to a woman in an SUV which pulled up beside us. I saw two men in the car.

Everything happened fast after that. They shot Arnoldo when he tried to get in the car with them. They drove away firing shots and he staggered towards Anna. I pushed Miss Imo to the ground. I lay beside her and covered my head with my hands and would not move.

Gun shots our father which art in heaven I love my wife I didn't tell her about the other children our father in heaven lord is my shepherd have to tell the children they have brothers want to meet them why she never learn to drive if ah make it jesus have to tell doris about the credit union money so sorry so sorry I will go to church and drive her anywhere she want to go for health and strength and daily food quarrel quarrel she wouldn't learn to drive and more shots jesus my turn now everybody dead thy will be done I forgot my will where is my will to leave money for them Numbers Deuteronomy Daniel and Ephesians and Luke our father have mercy ah sorry kill everybody bullet have to go to toilet blood I'm wet where the water to bathe the dog screams find Mama she say to put up money for a rainy day rain rain go away have to tell Doris the truth quarrel with the best woman in the world I love her our father too much water under the bridge have to do much better for the family hello my name I go to green pastures green red black who said my dad was black shots kill kill our father the lord is my light.

Military boots poked me to get up. I couldn't move. Miss Imo screamed and threw herself on to her daughter's body. Arnoldo's lifeless form was nearby. Tears flowed freely and I saw images of dead, drug-stuffed babies floating on blue clouds. The police and her son helped up Miss Imogene and she saw the man about to cover my face with the white sheet.

'No. Him don't dead. Him jus move him han'. Tek 'im to hospital.'

I'll never forget how Miss Imo climbed into the ambulance and stayed with me till my family came. Her dress was stained and I knew her bosom bulged with bloody money.

Two women looking distraught and two young men with stiff faces walk towards the bed. A woman in a blood-stained dress sees them and slips away. The woman with white hair sits on the chair and holds the man's hand. There is a needle in it, and a tube stretches up to a bag on a plastic pole. The two men move to the other side of the bed and look down at the man. The younger woman stands beside the chair; tears run down her face. The man in the bed looks from one to the other and blinks.

END

- Veronica Carnegie