Paul H. Williams, Contributor

The rain mercilessly beats the rusting zinc roof on the hut. Bagga, hungry and weak, and angry, lies on a bed of rough wood, waiting for the rain to stop so that he can go hunting for food. For that's what Bagga, the mechanic, has been doing ever since he disappeared from Sweet Divine.

The night when he hit Norma Beaverbridge on her forehead, when she surprised him and Millicent James in the shed, annexed to his garage, he ran into the hills and has been there ever since.

He thought Norma had died, and so, he decided to kill himself. He went to the back of the shed for a piece of rope, weathered by the sun and rain for months. In the hills, when he jumped from a mango tree, the rope broke and he landed on his feet, fracturing his left hip. A passerby, who saw him writhing in pain, took him to hospital, but days after, when hospital staff went to attend to him, they found an empty bed.

Bagga found his way back into the hills.

He lived in a cave at first, surviving on rain and an abundance of sweet fruits. There was also pain, a painful broken hip and painful memories. Eventually, he built a hut, his refuge, in which he replays in his mind the ordeals of his life.

The spankings that he got from his bitter mother, who hated his father, to whom he escaped. Then, it was the stepmother's turn to torture him, to manifest her anger with him for intruding in her life. The maternal grandmother who treated him as a slave. His grade-four teacher, Beatrice Belles, who slapped him daily with a thick, board ruler, for being too restless.

Bagga wanted to fight back, but he was a youth. He resented all these women, and by age 15, he was on his own. George's garage became his hang-out. After several attempts to get the wayward lad away from his premises, George took him on as an apprentice.

Bagga established him as a skilful mechanic, but anger was deeply embedded in his heart. Every woman he had, he beat, imagining she was one of the women who had beaten him in his youth, and so, they left him. He wasn't the type to live alone, but the bitterness inside him was so strong that every time an issue came up, he resorted to violence, doing what he has always wanted to do, fight back, fight the domineering women of his childhood.

The night when Norma sat on him in the shed, raining blow after blow upon him, Bagga saw all these women, and he wanted to return all the pain they had caused him.

As Norma sat on Bagga, she saw all the men who had abused her, used her, jilted her and discarded her. When she met Bagga, she thought he would be different. His sweet talking gripped her and dragged her into his arms. She was in love again, and though this man was the shortest, she wanted him so much. He had that sweet, sweet something that thrilled her night and day.

The first time he attempted to hit her, she was at once very boisterous, sick and tired of being a punching bag. She grabbed a mop stick, her eyes red and glowing like a rolling calf's. "If yuh tink yuh bad, lick mi, lick mi, yuh lickle duwarf, and I would beat yuh until yuf saaf like pap!" she shouted.

Bagga stood with his arm frozen in mid-air. It was the first time he realised that Norma was a very big woman with powerful arms. But it was Norma's contorted face with that I-will-kill-you-and-don't-give-a-damn look that made him understand the proverb, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." And Bagga was no fool. He grabbed his bag of tools and off he went to his garage, befuddled.

Norma watched him through the kitchen window, looking at the man who she thought would be different from the rest. She decided to give him a chance, hoping that that attempt to hit her was just the first and the last. It was, but.

Bagga's temper was legendary; he cussed night and day. Yet, it was his sweet something that made her stay. Bagga was staying himself, staying out late, too late at times. The night when she found him with Millicent James in the shed was unbearably lonely, so she went to get him. Now, she was sitting on top of him, beating him.

Bagga's heart raced, and as he reached out for the big spanner, Norma delivered her lost blow, for as she was about to deal another, the spanner struck her. Her hands dropped, and she collapsed on to the floor. Believing she was dead, he left her on her back and fled.

Now, he's old and grey, and walks with a limp, the result of a broken hip, not properly healed. And the beating is going on again, over his head, raindrops beating heavily upon the zinc. He waits and waits for it to stop, just as he had waited for the women to stop beating him. Still, Norma is in his big trunk bed, waiting for him to come home.

- Paul H. Williams