Empowerment. Engagement. Authenticity.
Music to my Ears - Pan Man
Beulah flipped roti onto the hot tawah and
watched kiskadees through the wide kitchen window. Silly birds would
beat Malcolm to the mangoes before he could pick them. From the shed in
the yard, steel pan music floated to her - not the bong-bong-bong of the
children's church band but the buttery roll of rubber-tipped bamboo on
tempered metal.
Lawd, she had wanted to laugh when Malcolm rolled
the rusty oil drum home a year ago. "You really goin' to make music wit
dat ole ting?"
Sweaty from his shift in the cane fields, he'd
flashed her a gap-toothed grin. "Doh worry, darlin'. I eh go leave yuh
to join de Desperadoes."
"Them Despers makin' nice music but they causin'
trouble left, right and centre all over Trinidad. You, husband, not
getting' mix up in all dat."
Malcolm had set aside his love of music to build
a life for them. Working in the cane fields from dawn til noon and
harvesting mangoes and pommecytheres to sell at Sunday market, he'd
qualified for a government subsidy to finance their small house and plot
of land. This year for their anniversary, he'd surprised her with a trip
to Tobago.
How could she begrudge him the hours he'd spent
in the shed, hunkered over the steel drum? Many evenings as she cooked
dinner, she listened to him sledgehammering just the right concave
surface. Then came the careful marking of notes he simply tuned by ear.
And, one evening last month, she'd looked into the shed on her way to
collect laundry from the clothesline and seen him, sleek bamboo hammers
in his gnarled hands, bony hips and shoulders swinging, pounding out the
tribute to recently deceased Desperadoes captain, Rudolph Charles.
"Bet ole Rudy never waste time playin' for free,"
Beulah mused, setting out plates. Wouldn't people be amazed when her man
played for them on Sunday!
She started to call out to Malcolm to come inside
when she realized the music had stopped. "Mal!" she hollered. "You
getting' hungry or what?" There was no answer. Beulah shook her head and
headed outside.
She found him slumped over the pan, arms curved
like a hug around it. Beulah sank to her knees, her own arms wrapping
around her husband's still form.
"You say you wouldn't leave me for the Despers,"
she wept. "But you follow their boss man to heaven."
(c) Kristy Kassie, 2016
Music to My Ears
Sometimes, a musical instrument is at the centre of a story.
