WHEN CECIL COMES

Author's note: :The attitudes towards sexuality in this narrative are aimed to reflect the documented and often challenging environment for the LGBTQ+ community in Jamaica. This narrative aims to present a real cultural backdrop and does not encourage or promote the views and actions of the characters.

Cecil, the flamboyant “sodomite,” with his mischievous grin and feverish energy, had sent a telegram to his boyhood friend and enemy, Cudjoe, to meet him by the star apple tree. The time of Cecil’s arrival would be Friday, September 15th, 1940—the vaccination day for tuberculosis, and Cudjoe worried that his friend’s presence might cause mayhem. If Cecil were present, the people in the town of Chatam might believe that he was to blame for their pus-filled lungs and chronic coughing spells—even if he was not the cause. Pondering the possibilities, Cudjoe telegrammed his friend Cecil, informing him that October would be better.

For the past twenty years Cudjoe has been the discreet engineer of Cecil’s recurring entrance into Chatamite society. He has been the maker and breaker of all Cecil’s plans to return intermittently to the town of his birth after being accused of committing the gruesome rape of an amicable mute some twenty years before. It has always been Cudjoe’s duty to calm the Chatamites fear of the infamous “batty bway” when he returns again, bringing his gifts of trinkets, chickens, pots and pans, to do away with the memory of the disturbance he had caused decades before. Cudjoe was the one who always calmed their nerves with insisting that Cecil was not the blasted “iniquity” he was made out to be when they had beaten him nearly to death, sliced him on his buddy, thrown him into a gully and had left him to die. Indeed, it had always been Cudjoe, who would calm their very hearts, and Cecil would come back into their lives, soften them with his whimsical gifts, and then discreetly steal from them at his dramatic departure. Yes indeed, Cudjoe would cushion their quivering hands and rub them, noticing the grimace on their faces melting into assurance.

When they were boys, Cudjoe would always tolerate Cecil’s ludicrous antics. He would also protect Cecil from the Chatamite's constant wrath. Cudjoe remembered a day of idle play when they had skipped school and wandered onto Mr. Aloysius Pennicook’s property. As they gathered the discarded naseberries and tucked them into their opened shirts, Mr. Pennicook approached them with a cowhide bullwhip. Unleashing the whip with a Coachman’s Crack, Mr. Penniccok drove it into Cecil’s back. Witnessing the clench of Cecil’s teeth, the quick writhing of his body and the nervous shake of his two closed fists, Cudjoe grabbed the bullwhip from Mr. Pennicook’s hand and thrusted it aside. He was bringing the humiliation of his childhood friend to a full-stop!

Cecil had always been a wretched opportunist; he would return to Chatam at that time in the evening when the horizon was at its most dramatic, setting the mountain ablaze. As the sun started to make its slow descent behind the mountain, the Chatamites would become most amicable. Usually, at this particular moment, they were in a frantic spirit of forgiveness.

Cecil had learned this secret when he was a herd’s boy at Bob Walk Pasture. Herding the obstinate goats was a task of its own. In the morning he would walk the distance to tie them in the luscious pastures, and would arrive at the height of the orange horizon to untie them and have them graze freely. At that point, when the sun began its descent behind the mountain, the wildness of the animals disappeared, and they became tame as a tempestuous horse who has been bridled by a trainer’s touch.

It was at that banquet in honor of a neighbor whose wife had given birth — one of the goats Cecil herded had been slaughtered for meat, along with a pig and several fowls. Anne, Mr. Johnson’s daughter had run off playfully with the pig’s legs, and the harrowing sight of the little girl, in a frilly dress with thick braids and red ribbons, carrying the dead pig’s legs had put fear into him. The guests themselves stood apart from each other, without intermingling because they were not on good terms with one another. Cecil had been amongst them as boy-like as could be, but with an acute sagacity beyond his years. He was a waiter and had been observing their aloofness and he knew of the tension between them as they went about their busy roles, dutifully planning the party so that it would be a success.

Cecil, even though a mere boy, had witnessed this first hand. He had joined in, contributing his part to make the event a success but not daring to ask any questions. In his world, a child was born knowing its place and was not allowed to usurp authority in any way. Cecil understood this trait of the Chatamites very well for the special station of an adult was different from that of a child; they never crossed paths. He would work with them, amid the barriers known to him, yet his gathering of knowledge about them was a weapon he would use to control them.

It was at this banquet that he met Cudjoe, a shirtless, bare-backsided country boy so poor that his grandmother, Dorcas, had sent him to serve and to pick up a couple of tuppence in exchange for his labor. Cudjoe also had known the singular language of the Chatamites, and as he served alongside Cecil, he became even more skilled at obeying their silent language. He was there only to serve and not to mingle and he knew that they tolerated no divergent behaviors. Inch by inch, Cudjoe trickled behind Cecil, this mysterious charmer, copying the slight balance of his head as he served the guests their Planter’s Punch on bamboo coasters and folded the delicate linen napkins into laughable caricatures. Cecil began to feel a sense of competition. How dare a mere bare-backsided, big-footed, vagabond compete against a clever one such as himself!

But Cudjoe was not there to compete against Cecil or even to charm the Chatamites. A few pounds and shillings in his pocket would have made his widowed grandmother happy. And gradually as the boys worked side by side each other, they became aware of the real purpose for being there. Cecil was there to bewitch the Chatamites, using every cunning trick he had up his sleeve and Cudjoe was only there at his grandmother’s behest to make a few shillings to ease her ailing soul.

The boys became kindred spirits that day. And it happened at that moment when Cecil expected it the most; at the time when the horizon was at its most strident orange. The sun crept into the sky so silently that within a flash the scenery at the banquet became a blazing orange, causing the people to be at their most contemplative. The Chatamites stood aloof amid the commingling. When the sun’s ascendance from behind the mountain sent a burst of orange glare onto the scenery, the men shuffled their shirt collars and the women rustled their hemlines flavoring the atmosphere with love. Cudjoe had witnessed this firsthand. Looking up at the sun, trailing behind the mountains, he himself had gone into a state of confusion. The strong sensations he felt had hypnotized him, calming him down. It was he who had named this sensation “Cecil,” after his friend, the charmer. Long after his friend had gone, Cudjoe thought that he had held onto Cecil’s very essence for it was intertwined somehow with the strident shadows that bathed the mountains when evening came.

Cecil, the flamboyant “sodomite,” with his mischievous grin and feverish energy showed up in Chatam on October 15th, 1940, carrying a pet mongoose in a cage. Terrified that the Chatamites might go into a rage after seeing the nuisance to all ‘chicken eaters,’ Cudjoe gently took the cage from his childhood friend and cursed blasphemously while he chucked it into the back of his jeep. He did not utter a word but sat in the jeep with the sly look of Bra' Anansi on his face. Cecil, however, was his normal, jovial self; and the rainbow stripes of his trousers suggested so. He spoke with Cudjoe in an excitable manner and could not be persuaded to tone down his frenzied energy. When Cudjoe arrived at his destination, Cecil jumped out of his jeep and ran towards the open land. Cudjoe could see Cecil running about with the fired energy of a Rolling Calf gathering the Spanish needles he had used as a boy to make a garland for his head. He had returned to the lifeblood of his youth!

Cecil had always been ahead of his time, and as they drove him home, passing rows and rows of coffee trees, Cudjoe wondered about the antics Cecil might get up to this time. The last time he came, some two years ago he left the Chatamites in a state of disarray. At first, they thought that Cecil had come bringing the newest styles from Kingston Town--from the fine pairs of galoshes he had brought for the Winston Boys, to the pink lacey petticoat he had presented to his sister. And there were many other gifts as well: East Indian jewelry with brightly colored stones, nylons to smooth the texture of the ladies’ legs, and a fierce fighting cock, who mysteriously died, one moonlit night, after kinnin pupalik in a competition with Chatam’s reigning prized champion, “Big Comb.” The fantastic gifts Cecil brought had seemed like ethereal offerings from the gods suiting each one’s desire, but after he left some would disappear while others would remain and the urge to see him again would pine away in their hearts—amid the anger and chaos he had caused.

Cudjoe, the maker and breaker of Cecil’s schemes, lent a keen ear to the villagers' complaints about their missing gifts. But then his countenance changed and as he thought about his devilish friend, he stiffened his jaws and squinted his eyes. Even though he could not pin-point the reason for his friend’s action, he astutely surmised that Cecil might still harbor some resentment from his near death experience at the hands of the Chatamites. He had not forgotten the macabre suggestion on seeing the police’s searchlights at the scene of Cecil’s final blow, long ago. The Chatamites had been absent when his friend’s body was pulled up from the ravine. He was covered in blood and had several wounds. It was not until the following day that he learned that someone had stabbed Cecil on his buddy, in the hope that he would not use it for his illicit pleasures. Cudjoe had wept for his friend, as he stood in the corridor of the tiny village hospital. He had never seen the Chatamites exhibit such violence.

As a boy, Cecil would saunter into the village classroom wearing a garland made of wildflowers on his head. Once he dropped his trousers for a pair of twin boys just to display his new burlap drawers. Roaring with laughter, the boys, Leroy and Renford, held their bellies while they caught their breath. They would jeer at Cecil--chasing him into the open fields. Cecil used this gift of comedy to keep afloat in the tiny village classrooms.

But Cecil’s friendship with his childhood friends, Leroy and Renford, slowly dissolved into acrimony during his intermittent returns to his childhood village. Clasping a bottle of John Crow Batty overproof rum, Leroy had widened his eyes to an evil glare and turned up his nostrils at Cecil when he tried to enter his yard just to say hello. His twin brother, Renford, had invited Cecil to his home to meet his family. When Cecil arrived, his gaiety revived fond childhood memories and he sat down with Renford’s family to enjoy an evening meal. Putting a chunk of savory curried goat meat in his mouth, Cecil chewed for a minute, then asked Renford’s wife for a pinch of salt. When the meal was over and Cecil made an exit through the wooden gate, he could see Renford fuming and cursing as he placed the crockery and drinking glass Cecil had used on the floor. Holding a sledgehammer in his right hand, Renford brought it down with such might-- crushing the tablewares into tiny fragments. He was splintering into pieces a friendship that could not be mended!

By the time Cecil was sixteen, his sexual preference had surfaced, and the Chatamites attitude toward him became ambivalent. They despised his love for men because it was against the norm. By the time he was seventeen, Cecil met his fate in a mute named Selvin Masters, whom the villagers called “Bobcoot” because of his habit of taking short cuts under Mr. Ewart Bobcoot’s dangerous barbed wire fence. Cecil had been out pasturing cattle in the Bobcoot area around the same time Selvin was crossing the fence. As the boys accidentally crossed each other, they felt the strange hint of the electricity between them. They surveyed each other like dogs in heat. Cecil reached out to touch the muscles in “Bobcoot’s” chest, where his shirt had been torn away by the fence’s barbed wire. A fresh wound was carved into his skin and blood had begun to drip. Cecil gently touched the wound and tasted his fingers with the warm blood. “Bobcoot” closed his eyes as he felt the pleasure and pain Cecil’s touch had caused. They desired each other in their moment of ecstasy. Bobcoot gave himself to Cecil, but when the experience was over he felt ashamed. He clawed Cecil in his face and ran away.

At around seven o’clock that very day, several men armed with machetes, bricks, tree branches and other weapons, went searching for Cecil. He had a habit of talking to a group of boys at the village’s port before heading on home. He had broken his pattern that evening and had gone wandering by himself near a ravine gathering sweetcups. A swarm of men engulfed and dragged him along the pasture’s trail. They beat him, cut him then rolled him down the ravine.

He had not stayed there long, for a mini-van had broken down and had dumped its passengers along the trail. Two women passengers, who had wandered off, spotted what they thought to be “human blood” and walked a good distance to the police station to report their discovery. The police came in numbers with their searchlights and their guns, only to stumble upon Cecil’s unconscious body.

He had always been a lucky bastard—that Cecil, with his air of flamboyance, thought Cudjoe. The Chatamites will accept him again for he will soothe the way. Cudjoe would plan a party in his friend’s honor on his land, where Cecil would reign as the “King.” Everyone would be invited but only those who cared to see him would show up. Cecil would be accepted for everyone would be enticed into his world of surreal things.

Cecil, the flamboyant “sodomite”, with his mischievous grin and feverish energy displayed himself in a Joncouno suit, standing on stilts at Cudjoe’s party on November 8th 1940. His costume conjured up the image of a big and colorful rooster, and he rocked back and forth on his stilts, doing a delirious dance. The guests gathered around him at an ample distance, entranced by his frenzied rhythm. Some of the Chatamites puckered their brows and gave Cecil dirty looks while others gnarled up their faces into knots of disdain. But as they all came to a bursting point, the magic of the orange horizon set the sky ablaze bathing them with the meekness of a flock of sheep who has been herded by a shepherd’s staff. As the Chatamites set their gazes to the sky, the sparkle of the horizon blanketed them, crushing out the contentions in their hearts. They all became confused and squinted their eyes from the near-blind glare that carpeted the sky.

When the dance came to its sudden full stop, Cecil descended from the stilts and greeted his guests with a polite grin. Cudjoe, his loyal friend, was at ease as he watched the Chatamites hug and kiss his friend. It was always a new beginning when Cecil came, for the mayhem he caused at his departures took some time to heal. Cudjoe knew this and became worried as to what he had up his sleeve at that particular appearance.

Cecil, the flamboyant “sodomite,” with his mischievous grin and feverish energy boarded a mini-bus at noon the following day carrying nothing but a simple paper bag. He had given away all his clothes and other possessions. He gave Cudjoe a big caress then shook his hand firmly. Cudjoe had wondered what his friend had done this time and knew that only time would tell. And time did tell, for the complaints of the missing pieces of gold jewelry started to reach Cudjoe’s ears within hours after his friend’s departure. The simple ease in Cudjoe’s smile had suggested that he knew it was Cecil, the delightful little culprit who had taken them. It was his way of holding onto the memories he had of Chatam until the insistent wind blew him toward its direction again. But until that time came, Cudjoe would go onto work magic, paving the way for his charming friend, who for one brief moment, transformed a backward town into madness.

Vocabulary Notes:

* Star Apple- a purple-skinned fruit that grows in the West Indies.

* Batty bway- A gay male.

* Tuppence- Coin used in Jamaica under British rule.

* Kinnin’ pupalik- Sommersault.

* Sweetcup- A passion fruit.

* Joncouno- Bands of elaborately masked dancers appearing around Christmas time.

*Bra Anansi-Akan folklore trickster character.

*Buddy- Penis

S. D. Brown is a postcolonial writer born in Kingston, Jamaica. She holds a B.A. from The New School for Social Research and an M.S. from Adelphi University. Her work has appeared in Anthurium, Sargasso, Two Thirds North, The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Lemonwood Quarterly, and The Caribbean Writer. She is the author of The Roar of the River: Slave Stories Inspired by Thomas Thistlewood Diaries, 1750-1786 and Let me Hold Your Hand, both published on Amazon. She is a member of The International Women’s Writing Guild. Her story, "Planter's Punch," was recently shortlisted for the 9th Adelaide Literary Prize. More information can be found at: postcolonialauthorsdbrown.com.