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Featured Story

The Fisherman’s Son

Vjange Hazle

            “Di water feel nice, yuh see, papa.”

            The boy sat down next to his father on the fallen tree trunk, allowing the cool air to dry his body. The dog swam to shore, shaking as it trotted to where the two people sat.

            “Yuh go school today?” The man’s voice was husky as he concentrated on his task, the lantern playing tricks with his features.

            “We a get holiday nex week, papa.”

            “Me say if yuh go school?”

            “Me wake up late, papa.”

            “Listen me, bway, an listen me good. I is a fisherman, yuh hear? An I have fi work hard fi put shirt on yuh back so yuh can go a school. I work hard so yuh no have fi be a fisherman like me. I want better things fi yuh. So how yuh mean yuh wake up late?”

            The man had stopped working and in the darkness his eyes seemed to glow red. There was an underlying note of danger in his voice. The boy shivered.

            “Dem not doing nuttin a school, papa.”

            “Look here, bway, jus mek sure seh yuh go school tomorrow or a pop two lick eena yuh skin. I say I want a doctor or engineer outa yuh an das what I gwine get. A skull school. Bway, yuh lucky I so tired, yuh stan up all day a school tomorrow.”

            “Papa.”

            “Ah doan want hear nutting from yuh, bway. Go study yuh book. Mek sure when I come in dere ah see yuh ova yuh book.”

            The boy shuffled across the sand, the moonlight and the glow from his father’s lantern lighting the tears streaming down his face, his curls tumbling across his forehead. He looked back at the bulky frame of the man on the tree trunk before climbing the wooden steps into the house. The lamp was burning on the table. He did not bother to turn it up as his hand went limply to his reading book on the floor. He flopped down on the only chair in the room. He had cleaned the room with all his energy today.

            ‘Red-head’. ‘Speckle banana’, the voices called. Go to school, yuh hear, bway. Engineer? He didn’t even know how to spell it. Nouns. Verbs. There were no nouns and verbs about the sea. It was just there, rolling forever.

            The wind was picking up when the man entered the hut later that night. The boy was over his book but his eyes were closed. A deep sigh rippled through the ten year old’s body as his father lifted him and carried him to the bed. He did not stir as his father covered him with the blue blanket. The man placed the reading book on the table and blew out the lamp.

            The sea roared as the moon slipped behind a cloud and the man began to see his dream. His father must have felt the same that night when he had fallen asleep over his book and had awakened to find himself a fisherman.

Copyright 1987 Vjange Hazle

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