Back On the Rock

Wars on the Home Front

2006-03-07T23:26:00.000-05:00

The murder rate has hit its all time high in Jamaica, but yet sometimes I feel very removed from it. Nobody in my family seems to be perturbed. While I fret and frown over security concerns, my family carries on with their lives with a calm I find confusing.

Take our neighbourhood crackhead. “We have a little crackhead,” my stepmother tells me casually when I first arrive. “He’s harmless.” The crackhead rolls himself around Hope Pastures in a wheelchair, except for on the steepest inclines when he hops out and pushes the chair up the hill. He slides in and out of locked houses with impunity, stealing money and small items. I don’t find it harmless when he breaks in and steals a purse that was resting a mere two feet from my head. But nobody else seems to be really upset.

The crackhead’s face is smooth and clean-shaven. But for the blank eyes, he could have been handsome. I see him in the street one day, on our way to the supermarket with my step-mother. “That’s the crackhead,” she says, pulling over, then calmly, almost gently, she asks him, “Why are you here? You need to leave this neighbourhood, okay?”

He robbed my father’s house again that night. He stole money, cell phones, a single sock and a bottle of antibacterial hand wash. And he relieved himself on the lawn (hence the sock and the hand wash, I guess). He threw the bottle of hand wash back through the window in a gesture of thoughtfulness that is, apparently, his MO. When he stole the neighbour’s pants off the clothes line a few months ago, he hung his pair neatly in its place.

The crackhead fascinates me, but not as much as the way my family and the neighbours view him. They are mildly irritated, but not much more.

“Somebody broke into a house in Barbican,” my stepmother tells me one night. “Fished out the key with a pole and a hook and just let himself in.

“I think it was our crackhead.”

Our crackhead. I can’t tell from her tone if she’s sad or proud that our crackhead has expanded his turf.

The policemen who come to investigate the latest robbery are equally casual, if slightly less benign. “The said crackhead breaking all the house up here?” the lead investigator asks, sounding genuinely confused.

“So why unnu don’t shoot him? Nobody up this side have a piece?” Struck dumb by my just-come-back-from-foreign political correctness, I barely manage to mouth a ‘no’.

The terrorist in my mother’s neighbourhood is not a crackhead. She is a seamstress. An old seamstress, whom I remember from childhood as sane, if slightly caustic. I still have a laundry bag - in perfectly good condition - that she made for me in the early eighties. It appears that in the years since then her sanity has not held up as well. She planted a pumpkin patch, nearly 10' x 20', on the left side of the parking lot. The parking lot pumpkin patch, it appears, bothers no one but me. “It makes a great ground cover,” my mother says in defense of the seamstress. I suppose it may have at some point, but I am certain that, even in Jamaica, ground cover is not supposed to be 4’ tall.

At first I thought the pumpkin patch was the work of our neighbour, the Dread. (Colour me guilty of stereotyping – the Dread and the pumpkin patch seemed like a logical fit.) But when I went to discuss the patch with the Dread, I learned the true story.

“A she. She with her almond dem and her jungle.” The jungle in question is the miniature Fern Gully the seamstress has planted right in the parking lot of my mother’s apartment building. An almond tree on the far side of the lot arcs across and descends into a 12' x 20’ patch of trees, potted plants and assorted shrubbery, that she has planted and placed right in front of her door.

“This is my car,” she says in response to my protest. “I am entitled to a parking space and I am using it.”

Life in Jamaica is full of these moments – the absurd, the inexplicable, the scenes and statements to which there is no appropriate response.

Or so I thought, until I pulled into a gas station in Liguanea with my step-mother and encountered an old man standing in front of the station’s convenience store. Arms skyward, screaming at the heavens, soaked in perspiration and frustration.

“WEH FI DO? WEH FI DO?”

The cause of his angst? One ancient, rickety bike. One large ‘carton box’. And one extra-large, higgler-size suitcase. Every attempt to balance the box and grip failed, sending the bike crashing to the ground.

On goes the grip. Then the box. The bike falls.

“WEH FI DO?!”

And so it went on. My step-mother and I laughed and laughed. Then, in an attempt to be helpful, I crossed the gas-station and approached the old man.

“Let me help,” I said. “It’s better for you to put them on the bike when you’re ready to ride out. Just leave them on the ground. I’ll watch them while you go into the store.”

The old man seemed startled, and not in a good way. He looked at me gravely and declared:

“Lady, this is between me, God, and this bike.”

As I walked back to my car, the bike fell again and the old man screamed:

“WEH FI DO? WEH FI DO?”

I drove to my mother’s and, to my utter shock, found the crackhead wheeling his chair up her street. Before I could process this latest turf expansion, I was distracted by the sound of almonds raining down on the roof of my car. I pondered the crackhead, the jungle, the pumpkin patch, trying to find an appropriate response.

I went inside, slammed the door, and screamed.

“WEH FI DO?”

Small Frey

2006-02-08T17:21:00.000-05:00

The controversy surrounding James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces, hardly needs more ink, but who can resist jumping into the fray. Curiously subordinated in the debate over Frey’s liberties with the truth is a discussion of the literary merit of the book itself. How did such a contrived, heavy-handed work earn the accolades of which it is now being stripped? Has the literary world given into the sensationalism that plagues the rest of the entertainment industry where the gawker element of “reality” supercedes the quality of the work itself?

Frey struggled for years to get A Million Little Pieces published as a novel. There is a reason for that: it is badly written. Bloated with cardboard characters, excessive detail and what the back jacket proudly proclaims as “stylistic tics” – an overwhelmingly monotonous tone, deconstructed grammar, piecy phrasing and endless, endless, painfully endless repetition - Pieces is an interesting read, but not necessarily a good one. Frey uses his curious writing convention to add spice to his story, like throwing in a hip hop backbeat to remix an otherwise lame song. What is sad is that passing the book off as a memoir, changed not only readers’ reactions to the content of the story, but reviewers’ reactions to the quality of the writing. Frey, the unpublishable author, became Frey, the “voice of his generation.” A shocking switch, since Frey’s writing style is the one thing that has stayed consistent in his flip flops about the veracity of the book. Who cares if it’s true? The writing ain’t that great.

Addiction literature, in its plumbing of our worst weaknesses and our basest behaviours is, well, addictive. Frey is not the inventor of this genre, nor is he the master. That he has now called the genre into question is perhaps his greatest sin. For a treatment of the same subject by far better writers, pick up Caroline Knapp’s Drinking or Augusten Burrough’s Dry. The latest memoir by Burroughs is, by the way, now being questioned for its accuracy. It may not be entirely truthful, but if Burrough’s past work is precedence, his next book will, unlike Frey’s, be artful.

Miami Miles: Race Day

2006-02-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

Here I am. I’ve trained too little, drank too much, slept too little and scratched a lovely little pattern all over my body. But none of this matters now. It’s 6 am and I’m at the start of the ING Miami Half Marathon. My very first. Getting to the starting line feels like a huge accomplishment. Looking at the nearly 14,000 runners assembled for the half and the full marathon reminds me why I love to run. There are old people, young people, fat people, skinny people, able bodied and physically challenged, every ethnicity imaginable. Each of us is different, but the current, the palpable chemistry that runs through the crowd connects us all. I forget about the training. I forget about my goal. I forget about the cow itch and my sore hamstrings. I just want to run.

Later, my team members will talk about the sights – the beautiful homes, the picturesque streets, the views of the ocean. The details are a blur to me. I remember it like a movie. I’m there, but not really. I’m wherever it is I go on a really great run. Somewhere in my head. Somewhere deep inside myself.

At mile 5, my reverie breaks. The dreaded blister returns. I could kick myself for not preventing it. I run the next three miles testing out positions for my left foot. I run on my toes, my heel, the outside of my foot – anything to avoid putting my left foot down squarely. By mile 8, I’m miserable. My left ankle is throbbing from all the contortions. Hang in there, I tell myself. Worse case scenario, you have 50 minutes left. At mile 10, a young volunteer with a warped sense of humour proclaims to the crowd “It’s mile 8. 5 more to go.” I resist the urge to take off my left sneaker and beat the kid to a pulp.

Images pop out at me like postcards. An eight year old girl with a sign that says simply, “Go runners.” A wheelchair athlete pushing himself up one of the challenging inclines to the tumultuous applause of the able bodied runners who pause, sacrificing their goal times, to watch him meet a much greater goal. Running through the narrow streets downtown in between hundreds of screaming spectators. A little black boy whose face lights up so brightly when he sees me, I momentarily think that I must know him.

At the twelve mile mark, I figure the only way to end the pain is to run faster. So I put my foot down and try to run as fast as I can. Instead of trying to avoid the pain, I just acknowledge it and run with it. It works for about three quarters of a mile. Just when I think I’ve had enough, the finish line comes into view. We round a deceptively long corner and I make one final big sprint home. The clock says 1:56. Later my chip time rounds out at 1:53:42. Not bad for a first timer.

But the clock doesn't tell the whole story. 1:53:42 can’t capture the memories of the last eight weeks: the different routes I’ve run, seeing a new side of Jamaica; the friendships I’ve forged with RM and my little group of banking buddies; our conversations; the goals we’ve set and shared. So I didn’t make 1:45, but I achieved something more than a goal time. I set myself a challenge and I met it. I committed to something for eight weeks and I stuck with it. I reconnected with the stronger side of myself – the side I like, the side that tries hard and pushes hard and doesn’t give up. The side that revels in being 35 and knows that that number, like my time, is only part of the story.

Miami Miles: Week 1

2006-01-28T11:28:00.000-05:00

My priorities are off. Tuesday and Wednesday I can’t make it out of bed. Thursday morning I go for my last pre-race run with the bankers. We trade in our usual Thursday hill run for an easy five mile course around UWI, out the Hospital Gate, down Hope Road, back along Garden and up Mona Road. Easy stuff, right? On the first loop around UWI I feel haphazard and uncertain. I’m running with Jen-Laden, the trainer and though our pace is slower than usual things just don’t feel right. Up the slight incline at the hospital, my stride improves and I put a little distance between us. As we take the turn back unto the main campus, my legs wake up and the run finally starts to feel good. We pause for water at Assembly Hall, before heading back up to the hospital. Once we’re running out on the street, the adrenaline kicks in. The morning traffic is picking up. There’s something curiously exciting about running down Hope Road wile people are heading for work. It’s tempting to go all out and only the re-ermegence of Saturday’s blister reminds me to rest my legs.

As we make the left turn unto Garden, I start to kick. I’ve driven down Garden Boulevard what, 1,000 times? Who knew it was this long? How long can one road possibly be? I slow down and Jen Laden nearly catches me. I cruise unto Mona Road and make one final run for home. I have very little left for the final sprint to Assembly Hall, but pride forces me to find another gear. Hmm. I don’t bother to look at my watch. It’s race week and I still haven’t clawed my way back to my 8:00 pace. Who knows what Miami will bring?

***

Drinking and dancing all night at the Jazz Festival is probably not the best pre-race warm up, but that’s how I spend Thursday night. (Thank you, John Legend…It was well worth the trip). On Friday, I’m at Sangster International, tired and groggy, when I realize I’ve brought the wrong passport with me. So I hop a flight to Kingston and change my ticket to fly out from Norman Manley Saturday morning. So do I spend Friday night resting quietly at home? Of course not. RM and I down a cue each at Port Royal and then head off to a birthday party. It’s unusually cold and wind whips us mercilessly as we enter his friend’s house. Five minutes later, I start to itch. This isn’t exactly proper dinner party behaviour. As I struggle to scratch my neck, my arms, my legs discreetly, I realize I’m not the only one doing it.

“Cow itch,” our host proclaims, handing me a bottle of rubbing alcohol. What the hell is cow itch? “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “They’re little seeds with barbs on them that get carried my wind. It’ll wear off in a few days.” A few days? I glare balefully at RM, seized with visions of running 13.1 miles scratching myself silly.

Rubbing alcohol into my skin does nothing for the itching. Drinking alcohol is much more effective. Several vodka tonics (and one very long hot shower later) I’m calm enough to go to sleep. But not for long. A few hours later it’s time to get up and before I know it I’m at Norman Manley, heading for Miami.

Miami Miles: Week 2

2006-01-24T09:34:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday when the alarm goes off my body refuses to budge. So I swap a gym day for a run. Wednesday: I’m at UWI at 5 am with RM and his group. Unintentionally, I take the pace out fast. But it feels good so I stay there. RM calls me on it on the first of three hospital loops, but his friend M encourages me to keep going. “Do your thing,” she says. “Push us.” This is the best kind of challenge. Not competition, just a mutual agreement to test our limits.

RM and I fall into a hospital loop strategy. On the campus side of the loop, there is an incline where I am tempted to be slow. He pushes me. On the street side of the loop, he tends to wane. I push him. With M, we leave the rest of the group behind, and forge ahead. I feel strong and happy. Nothing hurts.

Back on Ring Road after the third hospital loop, M puts on a surge. I answer. I try to remind myself that this isn’t the end of the run, but still the urge to go all out is there. I push ahead of her, but it doesn’t feel like a kill. Some saner, more rational part of myself processes it more healthily: I have more today; I give more today.

We regroup at the Assembly Hall water break. On the incline past the Students Union, RM and I open up a gap on M. We slow sporadically to wait for her, but once we cut across the field and turn on to Ring Road, it’s every man for himself. I go all out for a final kick too early. Where the backside is Assembly Hall? I have to slow down and RM catches me. But 200 metres out I start to kick again, stronger than I have felt in months, faster than last week’s sprint. RM doesn’t answer. By now, I don’t need him to.

Thursday: I’m infecting RM with my bad behavior. Wednesday night we split a bottle of wine. When we check in with each other at 4:45 neither one of us feels like running. But I have an 8:00 class so I have to get up early anyway. Might as well get a run in.

Besides, I have a date with Long Mountain.

By 5:30 we’re on campus. RM hangs back to talk politics with the CEO. The Flame and I head off down Mona Road. Soon C joins us. But before long, I’m out front by myself. We make the turn unto Karachi and I think about holding back. I need Jen-Laden or RM to drag me up this hill. I can’t punk out again. But something tells me this is my fight. My run. My hill. I have to motivate myself.

Up the first incline, the urge to stop is strong and I beg myself not to give up. C trots past me and lights a spark. Before I know it I’m chasing him, albeit slowly, up the hill. I’m huffing and puffing; rattling like a 35 year old Chevy. C offers me water. I decline. When the incline softens I make my move. Pack leader again. Uphill. This is a new one for me. I push as far as I can. About 2/3 of the way up the hill, I walk. I’m running so slowly it makes no sense. So I walk the last two inclines as fast as I can and keep climbing a couple hundred metres past the Long Mountain gate to cool down. C. runs up behind me. “You’re as fit as a fiddle.” No sign of Jen Laden and the Flame.

RM catches up with me as I make my return to the gate. We run the downhill as fast as we can. I pull away from him on Karachi and manage to hang on to a slim lead down Mona Road. On campus, the will to sprint is there, but the legs are not. I manage a moderate acceleration to the finish. I didn’t exactly conquer the hill, but I did the best I could. There’s always next week.

Saturday: RM insists I run with “real runners”, so at 4:30 am I saddle up to run 10 miles with his group. “I’m not going all out,” I tell him. “I’m supposed to be tapering.” “Right,” he laughs. “That’ll last until the first person passes you.”

We set off down Gloucester Avenue. We are among the last to leave, and the few who start after us thunder past us. This is not good. RM chuckles at my frustration. He lags behind to keep a slow female company and M and I run ahead. Up Charlemont and down Gibson, pride pulls me to the pack. I convince myself that for safety’s sake alone, I need to pull closer. By the first water stop at JTURDC, the gap is less painful. I wait, and wait, and wait for RM. “I can’t leave her,” he says. “It wouldn’t be right.” M and I take off.

Up the incline to Papine, things start to go badly. A blister is forming on my left arch, and my right knee starts to pinch. We pick up the pace slightly coming back down Hope Road and by the turn unto the slip road to Mona, M and I are in full stride. By the four mile water stop we’re in striking distance of a four pack of women. They don’t acknowledge us. There’s a definite divide in this group. It damn sure isn't my happy go lucky company group, nor is it the democratic free-lovin’ spirit of my old New York club. What it is though, is inspiration. The slow plan evaporates.

I run a respectful distance behind them down Mona Road, then pass them on Wellington. But I wait for M at the six mile water stop at Seaview and they catch me. “Ladies,” says their leader. “I’m only doing eight today, so when you don’t see me I’m chipping.” Sounds like a gauntlet to me. M and I take off, and leave them behind. But as we cross Hope Road again on mile 7, things fall apart. The blister is torturous and the pain in my knee suggests that I should cut the run short at 8. But I can’t. Worse yet, I don’t know the route. So I have to tuck in behind a slow runner until I can figure it out. That gives one of the four pack a chance to catch me. And when she blows past me at the 8 mile water stop, my knee refuses to answer.

I leave the water stop a short distance behind another pack of runners and follow them for the remaining two miles. When I finally make it back to Wilshire, I don’t even bother to look at what I’m sure is an abysmal time. Not exactly what I needed before Miami. But oh well, maybe a week of rest will make it better.

Miami Miles: Week 3

2006-01-15T12:21:00.000-05:00

RM and I are on again. The break lasted less than a day. So Tuesday, 5:45 am, we’re at UWI. I’ve spent yet another sleepless night coughing and I have a long work day ahead. My legs are fried from two days of lifting at Gymkhana. And I have a 5 mile hill run and a 14 miler ahead of me this week. As we leave Assembly Hall, I decide this is not the day to be competitive. But RM takes the pace out hard. A half mile in I wave the white flag and ask him to slow down. I find my favourite spot just off his left elbow, and settle in for a little mobile napping.

But RM isn’t letting me off that easily. He is in surprising form this morning, pushing me relentlessly. Maybe I’ve been shooting my mouth off too much about running him into the ground. Up the incline past the Students Union, my quads and hamstrings shoot darts into the back of his legs. He slows as we make the brief left back unto Ring Road and I recover slightly, but we’re off again across a field on a short cut to the Hospital Gate. Pride gets me round the first loop of the Hospital, past the greasy cab driver who slows down to get a better look. Sheer competitiveness drives me through the second loop. I move up beside him and each of us takes brief surges ahead. Back down Ring Road to our 3.5 mile water break at Assembly Hall, we stay side by side, in sync again.

I secretly hope that he’ll call it a day but as I fiddle with my shoelaces he looks at me impatiently. “How much more?” I ask, trying to sound casual. “Just 1.5,” he says. It occurs to me that if I’m going to run 14 miles on Saturday, I shouldn’t bristle at the word “just” when it precedes such a small number. So I fall in behind him. Round the corner to the Union, RM and I spot a target. Simultaneously, instinctively, we both speed up to take him down. We run the incline much harder than our first time at it, and pass our grey sweat-shirted prey with ease.

The surge takes a little out of me and as we turn unto Ring Road, RM slows to a gentlemanly pace to let me rest. This is the difference between us. I, the bully, would have left him behind and mocked him for days. But he instead stays with me all the way around Ring Road. About 200 metres from Assembly Hall, the pace quickens. Later we will argue whose call it was. But somehow, we end up in a flat out sprint to the finish. All my pain, fatigue, disclaimers and random bullshit vanish. I’m running as hard as I can, faster than I have in months and it feels fantastic. The bully in me is mad I can’t shake RM. The rest of me likes him just where he is - right beside me.

Thursday: RM decides to join me on a hill run with my new running group. It’s 12:30 before I get to bed. When my wake up call comes at 4:45, I’m exhausted. I slept fitfully, waking every half an hour or so. Last night’s bruschetta is still in my stomach and the two large glasses of wine are still in my bloodstream.

Somehow, we make it to UWI by 5:30. I’m half asleep on the drive over, and the last thing I want to do is run. We start, again, with a prayer. “Bless this group, bless this day, bless this run.” Amen! As we set off down Mona Road, I feel great. This is the first run in ages where nothing hurts. Knees, hips, quads, hamstrings – everything’s fine. As soon as we make the right out of the Post Office Gate unto Mona Road, Jen Laden and the Flame head to the front of the pack. My instinct is to join them, but RM is off to an unusually slow start. He is my guest on this run, and I feel it would be poor form to leave him. Besides, I feel some kind of primal urge to stay close to him; to put my scent on him I guess, like a dog peeing on a tree. So I swallow my pride and let them open up a 50 metre gap. But just before we make the turn unto Karachi, I can’t bear being so far behind. I put some distance between RM and me and shorten the gap between me and the pack leaders. I have them in striking distance half way down Karachi, but I slow down. RM is great at hills and I know he will push me harder than they will and I want to run the hill with him. So I wait for him. Plus my legs are well rested from the slow start so I’m looking forward to a little blood sport on the hill.

RM and I take the turn unto Long Mountain together, head for the first incline and then…nothing. Zero, zip, nada. Suddenly I’ve become a fucking floating torso. My legs are back in bed. What the backside? I am not in pain. I do not feel tired. My legs just simply will not go. “Come on,” I yell at myself. “Wake up.” But nothing happens. So I do the unthinkable: I walk.

This is a first. In seven years of running, I have never ever walked, unless instructed by a trainer. I’m a lazy-ass and a whiner, but not a quitter. I am baffled. Mortified. Furious. RM surges ahead. Even worse, the Flame is up ahead, sprightly skipping up the hill like a toffee coloured mountain goat.

It’s just the first incline. Did we walk this one last week? I’ll get the next one. My brain churns out words of encouragement, but nothing works. RM spells his surges with gentlemanly trots to give me a chance to catch up, but eventually he gives up and runs ahead. I walk the whole way up the hill, sweating shame with every step. When I get to the top, RM is on his way back down to look for me. Fuck the search party. Fuck the group. Fuck the view. I’m so mad at myself I can barely make eye contact. To add insult to injury, the Flame notes my late arrival with a concerned, “You ok?”

“Nope,” I say flatly. “I have nothing today.”

“You’re just having an off day,” RM says, unhelpfully. “It happens.”

The group assembles at the top, slowly. Impatient with the dillydallying, RM decides we’re running the descent. This is my chance at redemption. I’ll chalk this one up as a 2.5 miler. Forget hillwork. I’ll make today a speedwork day. All I have to do is get off the hill reasonably fast, go all out back down Mona Road, rest between the Aqueduct and the Main Gate and sprint through the Main Gate to Assembly Hall. The plan starts well. RM and I share the lead down the hill and I open up some distance on Karachi. But down Mona Road my legs disappear again and he catches me. We make the turn unto campus together and he says, “Come on. Let’s run it in.” Oh the shame, the shame. “I can’t,” I reply. “I have nothing.” So he leaves me and his gentlemanly ways behind and sprints ahead to the finish. Spanked, twice in one day.

I spend the rest of the day in a protracted brain fart. What the fuck happened? I must be overtraining. I have to get more rest. No more drinking. At 5:00 I’m tempted to go back to Long Mountain for a do-over. I’m dissuaded only by the prospect of donning sweaty clothes that have spent eight hours in the trunk of my car. Oh yeah, and the small matter of having to run 14 miles on Saturday. I can pick a fight with the hill some other day. Right now I need to focus on my rematch: me vs Jen Laden and the Flame. Round 3. Maybe I need to be nicer to my legs. [5.10.30.30]

Saturday: In a rare show of discipline I stay home Friday night. I pick up a bottle of wine on the way home, but instead I pour myself into the new Joan Didion book and make it to bed by eleven. RM wakes me at 12:30 for a long phone chat, so when my wake up call comes at 4:30 I barely know my name. Before I can even swing my legs off the bed, I feel the pain: a pair of darts on each side of each knee. Not today, please not today. I take 3 Advil Liquigels on the way to the airport and hope for the best. In the car, the Flame and I trade disclaimers.

“My knees are killing me.”

“My stomach is doing somersaults.”

After the prayer, the group heads off, but I decide for once to listen to my body. My lower back is in knots from yesterday’s lifting and my hamstrings are sore. It kills me to let Jen-Laden and the Flame get ahead, but I stay behind and stretch and stretch and stretch.

A half mile in I’ve had enough of the group’s walking start and I begin to trot, all the while giving myself a stern lecture: Do not take it out hard. No heroics today. Take it easy till Morgan’s Harbour. Down the airport road, around the roundabout and back up to the Air Jamaica wing, it irritates me that I’m so far behind I can’t even see the pack leaders. Through the second airport loop, I spy the back of the running pack. I want to stay slow, I really do, but suddenly I have a Prep School flashback:

A dozen children standing around my grandmother’s desk. She, the teacher, calling out words for us to spell in turn. We start from the child closest to her on the left, all the way around the desk. When one child spells a word wrong, the word goes ‘round the desk until someone spells it correctly. The child who gets it right, moves up in place, closer to my grandmother’s left side, passing those who faltered. I can hear my grandmother’s voice telling the victor:

“Take them down.”

Only my grandmother could make spelling bloodsport.

Do not take it out hard, I tell myself. Just pick up the pace slightly. Be patient You will pass them. “Be patient. Take a breath,” my grandmother would say. Think it through one letter at a time.” The word of the day: A.S.S.A.S.S.I.N.A.T.E. I take them down in 30 metres. Patiently. One step at a time.

By mile 3, down the Port Royal road, I start gaining on the leaders. By the lighthouse they’re in striking distance. Jen-Laden, the Flame, and two people I hadn’t noticed before: Blue Bandana and 2nd Bandana. No heroics. Just stay close. But somehow the gap narrows and I find myself passing the Bandanas, then the Flame. This is a pretty great spot. I have the pull of Jen Laden from the front and the threat of footsteps from behind. I don’t plan to make any big surges, but Blue Bandana comes flying down on my right, passes me and then slows to sit in front of me. This irritates me profoundly, but I let it slide. At the next water stop, I get in and out efficiently and leave them behind.

And then I notice her. Wait a minute, there was another leader all along? A woman with runner’s legs that seem to grow out of her armpits, wearing an oversize white t-shirt. She gains my respect by skipping the water spot, chugging from a water bottle in her right hand. No heroics. Wait till Morgan’s Harbour. But courtesy requires that I introduce myself. I lengthen my stride. Death to Big Shirt. Grandma would be proud.

At mile 6 I have my view just the way I like it – unobstructed. The pinching in my right knee causes me to slow down and Jen Laden and the pack gain on me. By Morgan’s Harbour, one of the guy runners has caught me. “I’m going in to the bathroom,” he tells me. Nope, not falling for that twice. “I’m good,” I shout, making the fastest U-turn possible.

As I pass Jen Laden and the Flame I report that the guy runner has gone to the bathroom. “We are too,” says Jen Laden. I’m tempted to wait, to run back in with them and beat them fair and square. But the pinching in my knee says keep your lead. Let them chase you.

At the 10 mile mark I feel great. The wretchedness and the haphazard stride of last week’s miles 9 and 10 are nowhere to be seen. I try to accelerate, but the pain in my knees holds me back, so I settle for maintaining a moderate stride and concentrate on quick turnovers. There’s no one near to me so it’s a little lonely. I’m digging for motivation to run faster, so I’m grateful for an old man sitting by the side of the road, filling a bucket from a hose that, incongruously, snakes back into the bushes. “Come on, Baby G. Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up.” I oblige.

I spend the next two miles silently screaming. “Where the backside is the lighthouse?” All I want to do is make it to the little white lighthouse, my marker that I’m almost home. Then suddenly, blessedly, it appears. I put the hammer down as much as my aching knees will bear, and run it in. Jen-Laden comes in a good six minutes later. The Flame walks it in, having given up at mile 10. The rematch goes to me.

My victory is soured only by Big Shirt who commits a flagrant foul. As the runners who finished the full 13.5 miles compare times, she announces, “I did it in under two hours.” Really, Big Shirt? I forgot to clock my start time, but one of the guys who started before I did pegged his at 5:56 am. My 8:00 am return puts me under 2:04. Big Shirt started ahead of me and returned after me so, ah, come again? Come to think of it, where the hell was Big Shirt on the way back? I can’t remember seeing her after the mile 6 water stop. Did she turn back early? Is she claiming under 2 hours for a shorter distance? I realize that my level of irritation is unquestionably irrational. But mentally, I draw a big red bullseye on the back of her shirt. I hear my grandmother’s voice whispering in my ear.

“Take her down.”

Next time, Grandma. Next time. (13.5 miles. 2:04).

Scenes From a Rum Bar I

2006-01-14T22:03:00.000-05:00

Bill's Bar. Papine, Kingston

The Sign:

Imagine yu, Mr. White Rum
Yu mek me an me wife part
You get I drunk everyday
And we are enemies
But...the Bible sey
Love yu enemy
So a going to drink yu

Why (On Loan from Joan)

2006-01-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

...long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs, a technique for withholding whatever it was I thought I believed behind an increasingly impenetrable polish. The way I write is who I am, or have become...

Joan Didion
The Year of Magical Thinking

Falling Giant

2006-01-10T18:49:00.000-05:00

Strength fades
Grace, wit, wisdom remain
I see you better with my eyes closed

Miami Miles: Week 4

2006-01-09T12:23:00.000-05:00

Tuesday: I’m at the Dam at 5:45 pm with the RM. We’ve been flirting with the idea of being more than running mates - the NYE run highlighted a week of off-road time together. In the middle of a tiff later that night, I mock him that I ran slowly to save his ego. Granted, this was only true of the first two laps, but I figured anger entitled me to a little exaggeration. He took my dig in stride, but now that we’re meeting to run again, I’m nervous. Turns out RM isn’t a 10-minute miler after all. His last half marathon was 1:42:00. And his usual easy-going demeanor hides a seriously competitive streak. Considering I haven’t run under 8 minutes in five months, I’m concerned I’m about to get spanked.

Thankfully, RM shows up with a slow-running friend. The earth at the Dam is soaked from afternoon showers. The friend, the puddle-jumping and the darkness slow us down. About 400 metres in we leave the friend behind and RM and I slip and slide along, occasionally testing each other. I try to shake him but he stays on my tail. When he pushes ahead I hang on as best I can. With 400 metres left in the first lap I find a kick. RM eats my mud to the finish. The second lap is darker, and I’m afraid of falling. So I stay with him for the company (and to rest my aching legs). But with 200 to go I find a kick again and leave him in the mud. We still end up with relatively slow 15 minute laps, but at least I hold on to my footing – and my pride. 3.23 – 30 minutes.

Thursday: RM and I have called it quits. Time to get serious. A hacking cough kept me up all night, but at 5:30 am I’m at UWI to run hills with a local company’s running group. The run starts with a prayer. “God, show me the way You see me. Show me who I am in Your eyes.” The words stay with me.

As we head out walking, we cross paths with RM. Running with a girl. That’s all the inspiration I need to pick up the pace down Mona Road. We’re going slower than my usual pace, but it’s my first time with the group and, like a dumb high-schooler, I feel the need to fit in. Thankfully, the trainer, whose nickname is Jen-Laden, runs by. I decide to tuck in behind her. Down Mona Road and along Karachi I’m enjoying the rare pleasure of being able to run in the streets. Kingston is peaceful at this time of day. It’s almost worth it to be up this early.

My reverie ends as we start the mile and a half climb up Long Mountain. My calves and hamstrings yell at me for too many days and nights in four inch heels. But I stay with Jen who prompts me to walk up the steepest inclines to save my knees. I suddenly remember why I used to love running hills. Every incline is delicious. Your body asks and your spirit answers. We run and walk our way to the top, to a view that merits the climb. City lights twinkle under a periwinkle sky. God, showing me Kingston the way He sees it.

We walk back down the hill pass a man doing sprints. I make a mental note. I’ll be back to do the same. Back on Karachi, I pick up the pace and put a little distance between me and the group. We run hard back to the Undercroft. I’ve had many great days at UWI, but never as much fun as sprinting down the main artery. 5 miles. 60 minutes. I’ll be back to do better.

Saturday: Two more sleepless nights. A coughing fit rouses me before my alarm has a chance. It’s 4 a.m. Cancel, my brain whispers. You’re sick. You haven’t slept in days. But something tells me I need this run, so I pop an Advil Cold & Sinus and head out the door to the Palisadoes Strip. We park at the Willow Tree. A run down to the Air Jamaica wing, left to the roundabout in the airport, out again and straight down to Morgan’s Harbour and back to the Willow Tree. I’ve missed two weeks worth of long runs and it occurs to me I’m jumping from 8 miles to 12. This might not be pretty.

In mile 1, motivation comes from a surprising source. In a tribute to the one degree of separation that obtains in Jamaica, the current flame of an old ex is part of this morning’s running group. As we set off, The Flame trots her way to the front of the pack. Now I’m sure she’s a perfectly wonderful person. And I have no drama with the ex. But this is Blood in the Water: Bonus Round. I’m not going out like that.

Common sense tells me to leave it alone. Her turnovers are pretty quick. I am still coughing up a lung. And I’m exhausted. She’s only running 8 miles today and I have to finish 12. But as she heads off down the airport road, I find myself tucking in behind her. I stay in position around the airport roundabout, back up the airport road and until we make the wide right turn unto the Port Royal road. She takes the turn more narrowly and we end up neck and neck.

I don’t do side by side. (Well, except with the RM, of course.) So at the start of mile 2 I take the lead. The Flame stays 10 metres behind me. We run past the little white lighthouse and the absurdity of the situation sinks in. It’s a favourite haunt of the ex’s. Years ago, we used to come out here for walks. I find myself wondering if he has taken her here, what memories come to her as we run by. I open up another 10 metres. At mile 4, the thrill of running freely down the middle of the street wakes up my tired brain and legs. We’re running around a long, blind corner and I pick up the pace eager to get around the bend and back to a clear view. The acceleration feels good so I hold the pace. The Flame doesn’t answer. One more scalp.

At mile 6, when I know she’s already turned back for home, I slow down. The sun comes out. Cyclists pass by. Groups of men, women, teenagers. I make a mental note to bring my bike out here. Suddenly, I feel utterly and completely at home.

At the 7 mile turnaround at Morgan’s Harbour, I stop for water, an apple and a stretch. Jen-Laden catches up with me. I realize with a little guilt that I’ve taken over her role as Pack Leader. As we chit-chat, I debate going inside to use the bathroom. “You should go,” says Jen. “No, I think I’ll be fine.” “No, really, you should go.” She’s insistent. I wander into Morgan’s Harbour and when I’m nearly out of earshot, she yells to me, “I’m going ahead. Slowly.”

Yeah, right. It was bait and I took it. As I scramble to find the bathroom, get in and get out quickly, I realize I’ve just been punked. There’s no way for me to make up a 5 minute gap with someone who runs my pace. I try to make the best of mile 8, but it’s no use. Mile 9 and 10 my sore hip flexors force me to give up the hunt. Score one for Jen-Laden. I make it through miles 11 and 12 realizing that I have a lot of work to do. I don’t want to survive Miami. I want to run it. 12 miles. 12 miles. 1:58.

Running Haiku

2006-01-03T07:56:00.000-05:00

A minute holds more footsteps
An hour holds more miles
Time bends to my will

Miami Miles: Week 5

2006-01-01T13:25:00.000-05:00

Wednesday: I haven’t run in 5 days and I’m determined to break the streak. I’ve registered for the race. I’ve bought the plane ticket. Bailing is not an option. Plus even with stomach flu I’ve managed to strap on another 5 lbs. Or at least that’s what I estimate this big belly weighs. So at 3:30 sharp I’m at Mona Dam, trying to fit in a run before a hair appointment and a get together. The first lap is awful. Everything south of my hips hurts. My ankles have been replaced by two nubs of pain. Odd, since I haven’t been running. But I have a vague memory of walking up and down flights of stairs in four inch heels. Ah, Blue Mountain Inn. Utopia. Six hours of dancing and hiking up steep steps to the bathroom – no wonder my hamstrings and calves are shot. (And yes, stomach flu has stopped my running but not my partying; though I am mad at myself for paying $4500 and only eating pita bread).

Luckily, the 14:40 isn’t as bad as I feared. But lap 2 gets worse. Both IT bands pipe up and a side stitch kicks in. My watch glares back at me with a dismal 16:38 (in my defense that time included a very long stop to retie both shoe laces.) By the third lap I’m starting to feel there’s nothing wrong with being a 10 minute miler. But the sight of a slow-moving red shirt on the other side of the Dam rekindles my pride, and suddenly I’m chasing around the eastern curve channeling DQ in Montreal. I catch Red Shirt halfway down the straight on the north side and hold on to the pace for the rest of the lap. The 15:02 brings me to 4.8 miles in 46:20. The last ditch effort doesn’t help my time much, but it gets approval from an old man and a Dread who ride up the hill on the western end astride a rickety bike.

“Backside,” the old man drawls slowly as they pull up behind me.

The Dread replies: “And thunder.”

Saturday. It’s New Year’s Eve. In a last ditch effort to salvage the week, I’m at the Dam at 5 am. I’m with the Running Mate. It meant giving up a night out, but as we set off in the darkness I decide it’s worth it. With him, the darkness of the Dam is peaceful, not scary. The first lap is a slow and conversational 19 minutes, but I don’t care. I’m tired and sluggish from a week of too much work, too much wine, too little food and too little sleep. Besides, there’s a comfort in letting him pace me. I’m surprised that I don’t feel my usual competitive urge to test him or to prove myself. Instead, I tuck myself into a little pocket behind his left elbow and follow his lead. Slower than my usual pace on the straights, faster than usual up the little hill on the south side. We’re running with each other, not against each other. And it surprises me that staying in sync is so effortless. The sun rises. Birds dive for breakfast. Our times improve gradually: 16, 15, 14. Not the best times I’ve run all year, but a great way to close a year of running.

Miami Miles: Week 6

2005-12-25T13:52:00.000-05:00

The search for P.M. running buddies is futile. Morning runs mean no nights out. Not an option, especially not at Christmas. I’m considering starting my own club – The Rum Runners – people who like to drink and run, though preferably not in that order.

***

Monday: Emancipation Park’s Christmas Concert series is on. Dean Fraser and the EPark Big Band are just what I need for my planned 55 minute 10k. Unfortunately, I am nauseous. My sister-in-law has been retching all day and last night’s curried lobster and stuffed crabs are the primary suspects. I’ve been relatively fine, but as I pull into the Park, today’s lunch – veggie balls and broad bean stew – lurches south, then north, then south again. Nausea and the Christmas crowd in the Park aren’t exactly ideal conditions, but my running-induced OCD has returned and after a quick trip to the facilities, I forge ahead.

At the 5k mark my one sensible brain cell begs me to stop. I am practically gargling broad bean stew and my stomach contents are fidgeting like irate stand-by passengers for a southbound flight. A 25 metre swath of the track is clogged with waiting performers, so there’s little hope of getting in a good time. But there’s no space on my schedule this week to fit in the missing 5k so I’m determined to keep going. Inspiration comes at lap 11 when I innocuously pass a heavy-set fellow with a lopsided stride. I christen him ‘Fitzroy’. Fitzroy, predictably, doesn’t take kindly to being passed and 150 metres later, ratatat footsteps announce his revenge. Here comes Fitzroy, plowing down on my right in a blaze of glory.

Oh no, Fitzroy.

Broad bean stew be damned, there’s no way I’m being punked. I pick up my turnovers and take him down in 50 metres. But Fitzroy’s heart is as big as his belly and he answers the challenge. 100 metres go by with Fitz yapping at my heels. This is not good. Now I have to teach him a lesson. So I put a little polish on the next 200 and leave Fitzroy to enjoy the melodic strains of Dean Fraser’s saxophone.

A teenager takes the stage to perform a poem in dialect. One lap later, I hear ragged breathing. Ratatat footsteps. A who dat? Nuh Fitzroy.

Fitz doesn’t know this but he’s in direct contravention of my running rules. So now lesson time is over, and I have to punish him. I slow down to let him find a spot just off my right shoulder. Turn around to smile at him. And then I make him pay.

What happen to you Fitzroy?
You can’t keep up the pace?
If you want fe catch me next time
Take likkle off you’ waist

Ayayay.

As Fitzroy’s breathing and footsteps fade into the night, I notice that my nausea has gone, cured by the magic elixir called competition. I spend the next few laps looking for Fitzie, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Carolers take the stage. Just as I start thinking about calling it quits, I spy fresh bait. A runner ahead, moving at my pace. Yellow football jersey. Number 12 on the back. That one sane cell pipes up again: Just enjoy the night. Enjoy the Christmas lights and the music. But I smell blood in the water and I can’t help myself.

I speed up to take on Number 12, but he isn’t going down without a fight. Number 12 does justice to the memory of his baller days and answers with a kick I can’t match. Humble pie joins the bean stew in the back of my throat and suddenly I fell very weak and nauseous. Sanity returns and I slow down. I nurse my wounded pride and tell myself to finish the 10k, go home and rest. But half a lap later, here’s a gift as glorious as partridge in a pear tree - Number 12 hobbling along slowly, favouring his left knee. Ah, Number 12, you’re the worst kind of runner: a one lap faker. I feel sorry for you buddy, but I have to take you out on principle.

On the 12th day of Christmas
Santa gave to me
A slow runner with a bad knee.

I put Number 12 to bed and finish up the next two laps gleefully.

The 56:50 doesn’t disappoint me. Starry night. Beautiful music. Two new scalps.

Sometimes having a good time is more important than running one.

***

An emergency trip to the facilities follows Monday’s run. Broad beans, veggie balls, curried lobster, stuffed crabs and every meal I have ever eaten exit my body in an instant. Somehow it’s not as cool as Jarrod Shoemaker recycling Gatorade at the finish line of the New York Tri. And it only gets worse. I spend the night propped up on my throne like Pope John Paul in his last days. This is more than runners trots. This is good old fashioned Jamaican running belly.

Tuesday I am slow and miserable but I rouse myself enough to pull through a workout at Gymkhana. Wednesday: not stomach flu, not cramps, not a long work day, rain, nor a fresh pedicure will keep me from running. The plan: 9 miles. Unfortunately, it’s 10 pm before I can even think about running, so that leaves the Park. Laps and laps and laps in the Park. 29 in fact. It’s nearly empty so there’s no one for me to play with. Only the checkered commentary from the security guards keep me going:

“Take time, man. Done now.”

“This lap too slow. Don’t give up.”

“Da gyal yah mad, star. She a run inna de rain? Fe wah? She a t’ief?”

At 11:20 I’m only at lap 25 and the guards decide they’ve had enough. They close the park and I have to call it a night. 7.75 miles: 78 minutes.

The rest of the night is torture. Nausea. Night sweats. Hallucinations. I finally have to conced that I really am sick. I take a day off on Thursday. Friday, I’m still throwing up on the way to the gym so I decide on a short run. Just to make it intersting I alternate (very weak) sprints and recoveries. I inch the treadmill up to 7.5 miles an hour, my old 8 minute mile pace. Surely I’m mistaken. I don’t remember ever running at this speed and certainly not for an hour. Again, 35 sucks. 2.26 miles: 20 minutes.

Saturday: who goes running on Christmas Eve? Not the running friend who calls to bail on Miami, blaming too much holiday cheer for interfering with his training. Not me – officially laid out by stomach flu, I take another day off.

Blood In the Water

2005-12-21T00:43:00.000-05:00

There’s a little game I play when I run. I’m the only player, the only one who knows the rules. It’s a ridiculous game and when I’m not running it makes no sense to me. It’s called Blood in the Water.

I always go with a planned run, but secretly I’m looking out for competition, for targets. And as soon as I spy one, I make my move:

Blood in the water
Ready to attack
Take down that runner
Show him my back

I am by nature a relatively calm, non-violent person. But there is something about the sight of a runner my pace – a minute or so faster or slower per mile – that brings out an aggressive streak in me. An urge to chase him, pass him, and leave him choking on my dust. A fire that makes me want to yell “Move, swine” as I go by, though usually I opt for the more polite “Excuse me.”

It’s a true case of duppy knowing who to frighten. I know better than to test the really fast runners. Like the typical schoolyard bully, I don’t pick on people who can beat me up. And the really slow runners don’t count. The game is just about finding my peers, running them down and killing them. Metaphorically, of course.

It’s my game, but I suspect some of you play too. You know who you are. You’re the ones who block me or speed up when I try to pass. The ones whose footsteps I hear creeping up on me. So just so we’re all on the same page, I think it’s time to share the rules:

The game is only on when I am strong. (It is my game, after all!) When I am sick or slow or tired or injured, your passing me doesn’t count. I’ll pout and roll my eyes at you like my niece used to when she would declare, as only four year olds can, “I’m not playing with you.”

But when I am up and running. Well, then it’s on.

When I pass you, I will mock you. Add you to the list of scalps on my belt. Like the Tourist, the Sprinter, the One Lap Hot Girl.

If I pass you – stay passed. Do not run after me. I will take this as a challenge. I will push the pace till your legs or your lungs give out. Or till mine do. I really don’t care which.

If I can’t outrun you, I will outlast you. Run until your quick pace makes you quit. Smirk at you as I run by when you slow down to walk – just to prove to you that the race isn’t always for the swift. If I can’t match your speed or your distance, I will hate you. Dream about you. Think about you while I do lunges and squats. Train harder till I see you again, then try to make you pay. (Listen up, Old Man, I’m talking about you. And 7-Minute Hottie, get ready. I’m back down to 9’s and I’m gunning for you.)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am fully aware of the extent of my delusion. I am a relatively slow runner who logs relatively few miles. My preys are the weak and the slow. Not good. But it’s my game. The parameters are set by the limitations of my biology.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know running is supposed to be an individual sport. I’m supposed to focus on my own race. Beating my PR is supposed to be my only motivation. Mm hmm. Whatever.

I know I don’t know who you are. Whether you’re a veteran or a newbie. Whether, when I see you, you’ve been running for a minute or an hour. Whether you’re doing sprints or a recovery run. I don’t care. I like the thrill of the chase and I like the taste of the kill. I like listening out for your ragged breathing, your erratic footfalls as you lose form. I am not proud of this, but it’s the truth.

Who cares if the real runners (and the rest of the world) look at us and see some middle aged people trotting along? Doesn’t affect the game. I don’t even care that you don’t know you’re playing. You might just be out having a fun run. How could you possibly know that for the seconds that pass while we’re neck and neck, you’re Hendrik Ramaala and we’re in the last 800 metres of the New York Marathon. I am, of course, Paul Tergat and secretly I hope that, like Tergat, I will sprint you into submission.

Delusional, I know. But hey, it’s just a game. It makes the miles more fun.

Miami Miles: Week 7

2005-12-18T18:47:00.000-05:00

Running friend calls with a challenge: Miami Half Marathon. January 29. I’m in! The delusional part of my brain conjures up a goal: 1:45:00. Monday night that dream fades with another laborious 60 minute 10k. 2:00:00 seems like a more reasonable goal. (Note to the yellow-clad runner who stomped on my pride: give me 7 weeks and I will kick your ass, buddy.) Tuesday I join Gymkhana. 2 miles on a treadmill in an overheated room would only be appropriate if I were training for a race in Equatorial New Guinea. My ears ring and I cough and sputter through 2 sad little 9:30’s. Wednesday: I get in 2 laps of the Mona Dam upper loop just as night falls. 3.23 miles in 35 minutes. Abysmal, but slipping on limestone in the dark will kill anybody’s time, right? It is pitch black and the three ‘security guards’ are huddled together at one end of the dam. “Shouldn’t you be spread out?” I ask. “Yea man, we spread out when we goin’ home.” Thank you, Water Commission. I see my $2,500 Dam fee is money well spent.

I’m too scared to finish my run at the Dam but, undeterred, I head down to EPark. 5 more miles in 47 minutes. Better. Overheard: “Why me woulda want go so fast? After me nuh cyar?” An Indian man with a ponytail shouts out “Wait for me, man. I comin’," but then resumes puffing away on his cigarette.

Thursday night I sign up with a trainer at Gymkhana. Friday night: It’s happy hour so the Dam is empty. As soon as I start I feel faster. The first loop takes 15 minutes. The second one takes 14 and change. Not bad. “You movin’ well,” says a brown-skinned man in his fifties as he trots by me. I finish up my 4 miles in 36 minutes. I’ll take that. Now I just have to do that three times in a row to make my 2:00:00 goal. I’m tempted to run more but I’m late for my hair appointment. The only thing worse than a bad run -- a bad hair day.

Miami Miles (Eight Weeks to a Comeback): Week 8

2005-12-11T16:20:00.000-05:00

I turn 35 this week and my body seems to have recognized this overnight. Suddenly (or so it seems to me), I am soft and pudgy. Since moving to Jamaica this summer I’ve added 2 minutes to my mile pace, gained 10 lbs and turned into that cruel irony - the Round Runner. Not good. Apparently I’ve been running my mouth more than my legs and the casual, short runs I’ve been putting in aren’t enough to offset the ackee and saltfish, boiled and fried dumplings, jerk chicken, banana chips, tamarind balls and Vodka Tings that have become my staples. I commit to getting back on track. I’ll run 15 miles this week.

Tuesday night: a slow 4 miles at Emancipation Park. Blown away by a 7-minute Hottie. Even slower 5k the following night. Thursday: a 10k that feels like 10 miles and takes 60 minutes. Friday: bliss comes in the form of a 2 mile twilight run at the Mona Dam. Lost in the view of the Blue Mountains, I forget to clock my time. I pledge to up my weekly mileage to 20.

The serene scene at the Dam is offset only by the attitude of the Security Guard, who greets me on arrival with a reassuring “Is this time of night you come fe run?” “Is it safe?” I counter. “Boy, me fret for you. Try your best run fast.”

Saturday night I party all night to celebrate my birthday. I dance so much I wake up with a sore hip. 35 sucks.

Crappy Haiku

2005-12-07T06:58:00.000-05:00

Ironic like the song
Morant Point at sunset
The timing is wrong

Target Practice

2005-11-22T20:50:00.000-05:00

To the old man who lapped me in Emancipation Park this morning: Thank you.

I haven't been running much lately. I've been searching for motivation. You are just what I needed.

But let me explain: I ran last night, man. Hard. This morning was just a psych run. I had some stuff on my mind that I needed to sweat out. So when I ran up behind you, it wasn't a challenge. I was just trying to get by. You picked up the pace to prevent me from passing, and that was cool. For that first 50 metres, I thought about staying with you. My ego was at war with my tired legs. My ego lost. I had to hang back and let you go.

But when you pulled away and opened up a 200 metre gap - that hurt more than my knees. And lapping me? That was downright malicious.

But, as I said, I was there to work out my brain not my legs. So when you slowed down to walk and I buzzed by you - I swear that wasn't a challenge, my friend. That was the last lap of my 5K. I was just trying to make it count. So spanking me with that brutal sprint over the last 200 metres, that was just uncalled for. But I respect it.

I haven't been running much lately. But now, I will be. And I'll be looking out for you. And I will take you down.

Little Girl Lost

2005-11-05T19:56:00.000-05:00

She knocks at the front door gingerly.

“Excuse me,” she says. Her face is round and soft. Eyes bright; skin smooth, flawless; blessed by youth and good genes.

“I’m lost.”

Our helper moves to the front door, but she shakes her head and looks right at me. “Can you help me?”

We are the same size, same height, same colouring. She looks like me, but younger. Barely seventeen. Up close, she smells like soap and rose water.

“I didn’t know it was apartments,” she says, looking at a worn piece of paper in her hand. “I’m looking for a place…” Her voice trails off and she lets go of my gaze, “…where there are girls like me.”

“What kind of place?” I ask her. I want her to put it into words, to have it be the sound of her own voice that turns her on her heels. There is a place nearby where there are girls who might have looked like her once; but now their faces are hard, their eyes are dull.

“What kind of place?” I ask her again.

She stares at her shoes. “A place with girls like me,” she sighs. “I supposed to get a job there.”

We stand there for a minute, her eyes flickering nervously from my face to her shoes, my brain stupidly scrolling through a catalog of useless questions.

“You know where it is?” she asks impatiently.

I think of a thousand things to tell her, but in my haste to get back to my work, my world, I am as complicit as the slack-jawed men who park their cars nearby. Our exchange is quick and cold.

“No, there’s no place like that here,” I tell her.

“Go home.”

Running Mates

2005-10-23T14:38:00.000-05:00

Running is a lot like dating. It’s all about the pacing, the practice, the partner. My track record in running and romance are surprisingly similar: a few, unimpressive sprints; lots of solid middle distance efforts and the best of intentions to go the distance. A marathon, like a marriage, is high on my wish list, but somehow I don’t seem to have the knees for either.

I am not a sprinter. I warm up slowly. My heart races. My legs make their own plans. And just when my brain seizes control of my body, it’s all over and I’m left breathless and panting. My sweet spot is the 10k – a breezy 6 ¼ mile run that’s long enough for me to find my stride, but not so long that it feels like work. I love the idea of endurance, the commitment and discipline it requires. But there always comes a point when the pain exceeds the pleasure and I haven’t quite learned how to tough it out to the finish. My instinct is always to save myself for another run, another day.

My only endurance event to date has been a triathlon, but that’s three events, not one. (The potential parallel for my personal life disturbs me.)

Over the years I’ve tried to find a running mate to help me go the distance. Usually, I find myself with sprinters who try to force the pace and bail out early when they run out of steam. But there also have been a few who couldn’t keep up with me. There was the man who was too thin. He had no sweat to spare. There was the one who was too fat. His heart was willing, but his flesh – and there was a lot of it – was weak. When I first started running, I ran 10-minute miles to my partner’s 8’s. We ran at the same time, but never together, and eventually we followed our own paths. Today, we are great friends. But now I run the 8’s and he runs the 10’s so we still can’t run together. Timing is everything.

It’s not surprising then that I’ve learned to love running solo. There is a freedom in setting my own pace and charting my own course. But every once in a while the urge to match my stride with someone else’s sends me in search of a running mate.

Recently, the itch has reared its head. After a long layoff to rest a weary knee, I’m craving a good run and I’m thinking this just might be the year I learn to go long. Right in time, a new friend has come along to pace me. There are pros and cons. He likes to run first thing in the morning. I like to run at night. He runs 10 minute miles, 2 minutes slower than mine. But he runs a lot of them. He’s not afraid to go long and horror of horrors, he’s convinced I’m capable of the same.

He invites me along to a 10 mile run at an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning. I’m not sure how fast or how far my newly recovered knee will go. I haven’t run in nearly two months, and it’s been more than two years since I’ve run longer than a 10k. But I am curious.

I warn him that I will bonk at mile 6, but he ignores my protests.

“I’ll stay with you,” he says. “We’ll take it slowly. We’ll go at your pace and stop whenever you need to.”

The first mile we trade pleasantries. The pace feels frustratingly slow, but I notice that with it and the easy conversation, my usual early awkwardness has disappeared. By the two mile mark I have borrowed his stride and made it mine. We are easy, unhurried, comfortable.

The third mile takes us uphill and my legs remember why I love to run. I pick up the pace a little, slowing at intervals to check in with him. Sometimes I hang back behind him. He points out potholes and passing cars, prompts me when to cross the street. I am not used to being led and I like it. But my legs like the open road more. By the 4 mile mark I am torn between the man and the run.

“You’re doing great,” he says when he catches me at the mile 6 water station. I stop worrying about bonking.

I keep a few metres ahead of him. I am used to running alone and when it feels good, the urge to run ahead is too strong. But I find a strange comfort in knowing that he is somewhere close behind me. So I push it as far as I can and rest with him when I am tired. He doesn’t seem to mind.

At the 8 mile mark I know I have the run in the bag. I am much slower than my usual pace, but further than my usual distance. My brain starts to worry I won’t make it, but my heart and legs reassure me. I check in with him one last time at mile 9 and run ahead to the finish.

We share mimosas and the newspaper over breakfast. Easy, unhurried, comfortable. Maybe there is something to this endurance thing after all.

Maybe I’m ready to go the distance.

Share And Share Alike

2005-10-12T01:16:00.000-05:00

(Note: To "share" someone's food means to transfer it from the pot or serving dish to the plate.)

I came home recently to find my father eating a pack of Cheese Krunchies. It was dinnertime. “I was hungry,” he said, as though an explanation were required, “and there was no one here to share my dinner.”

My father is, by all accounts, a fully functioning adult. He has two arms and two legs and, evidently, the fine motor skills required to open a vacuum-sealed plastic package. Sharing his dinner is, however, not in his repertoire.

I knew better than to broach the subject, but I am as willful as he and besides, plate-sharing is a subject of endless fascination for me. There’s no sharing about it. It’s service. One way: female to male. I am as allergic to plate sharing as my father is addicted to it. I once broke up with a man, whom my mother later christened Hot Meal, over my refusal to share his plate. We had a stare-off at a dinner party over a platter of fried chicken and as I grudgingly slammed the bird unto his plate the fate of our relationship was sealed.

I had to get my father’s reasoning.

“I have a good wife,” he began. “Why should I be sharing my dinner?” He says it with a sense of conclusion that baffles me. Never mind that his dinner was next to the Cheese Krunchies. Never mind that he works four hours a day to my stepmother’s eight.

“And besides,” he went on. “She loves to share my dinner. Why would I take that away from her?”

I’d like to dismiss it as a generational thing, but my sister is a born plate sharer. There is a joy in her eyes as she patters around the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, serving her husband's dinner. But then again, she grew up with the mother of all plate sharers and a father who would go days without eating rather than serve himself. If my father had stayed married to my mother, he would have starved to death. Thankfully, they parted and he went on his shared plate future.

I understand my sister’s plate sharing, but my best friend baffles me. She is not in the least a submissive wife, but she, too, is an inveterate plate sharer. “Of course I share my husband’s dinner. I’ve always done it. He loves it.

“It’s a very personal thing, serving somebody’s food. He wouldn’t let just anybody do it.”

This idea of plate sharing as a gift to the woman - I don’t get it.

It’s possible that I developed an aversion to plate sharing as a child, some kind of viral disease, like chicken pox, that scars you for life. I have a blurry memory of Christmas dinners: The men seated, backsides glued by rum to their chairs. The women - my grandmother, stepmother and aunts - milling around the table, sharing the men’s dinners, then the children’s, then their own. I know my mother must have helped my brother and me, but my memory is of her sitting, eating, giggling. Forget the plate sharers. I was going to be a giggler.

I once experimented with plate sharing with a man my friends nicknamed Cupcake. Cupcake was a fan of take-out and never asked me to cook a meal. One day, he brought home dinner only to find that I had already cooked. A look of pure joy washed over his face as he ate my grilled salmon. The next night he ate my curried shrimp with rapturous eyes. I made jerk chicken and pan seared scallops and turkey lasagna. Cupcake greeted each meal as though he’d won the lottery. I moved my laptop into the kitchen.

One Sunday I made cupcakes – chocolate with cinnamon and vanilla. Cupcake practically moved in. The next Sunday he asked for cupcakes again. “It’s our tradition,” he said. And so it became, to the consternation of my friends.

Unfortunately, Cupcake liked to have his cake and eat it too. He took to sharing meals and more with the Japanese girl down the hall. I threw out the cupcakes - the man and the muffins - and I stopped sharing plates. It made little difference in New York where my social and dating lives revolved around eating out, but back home in Jamaica, I sense I’ll have to come to terms with my plate sharing fears.

At brunch recently I felt a wave of nausea as my date and I approached the buffet. We are just getting to know each other and I don’t know what the rules are here for when I’m expected to put out with the serving spoon. My instinct was to avoid the issue altogether. Dart ahead and serve myself? Lag behind and let him start before me? We reached the table at the same time. Each of us picked up a plate and served ourselves.

He scanned mine, unimpressed. “You missed something,” he said, heaping bananas and dumplings unto my plate.

Later, we went back for dessert. Before I could decide between the chocolate cake and the carrot cake, he handed me a plate with a healthy slice of each.

I giggled.

Is my aversion to plate sharing curable? Possibly. This may be just the pill.

Running For My Life

2005-10-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

They say when you fall in love late in life it lasts longer. I fell in love with running late and it’s the one love that I know for sure will last. At 28, just out of Business School, I was looking for a way to get rid of the effects of too much Happy Hour beer. My new trainer looked me up and down and announced, “You’re a runner.”

I laughed.

I was most assuredly not a runner. My only athletic credentials at that point were four consecutive Addition Race victories at Prep School. A race that must have been invented to give the parents of nerds a chance to cheer, it involved a short run across the field to a piece of paper bearing math calculations. I was the slowest runner, but always the fastest adder and racked up victories until one fateful day when my brain was, inexplicably, as slow as my legs. I wrote 5 + 1 = 10 and trotted back to the judge whose usual congratulatory smile turned to shock as she declared me wrong. My brain begged my legs to go faster as I ran back down the field to correct my mistake. But my legs were not used to the race depending on them and my winning streak was over. My only other running memory is of my high school P.E. coach yelling “You can’t run!” as I clocked the slowest 100 metres in the history of the school.

My trainer was insistent. “Try it. You will love it.”

A mile here and there. Then two, then three. Six months later I was running every day and madly in love with the 10K. Six years later, I’m still at it. Through ten-minute miles, then nines, then eights, occasional sevens, and one glorious 6:40, running gives me a high that has me hooked. I know that running is great exercise, but I don’t care. Exercise to me means lifting weights or flailing through aerobics class. That I like the way my body looks when I run regularly is merely icing. Running is not exercise. Running is love.

Our relationship is, appropriately, imperfect. Sometimes love hurts. Like all great loves, running makes me weak in the knees. Too fast, too far, too often and I end up in pain, unable to run at all. Sometimes I stop running, without reason, for weeks on end and I have to start over from the beginning, cursedly slow and tentative. Though I love running more than anything, I have yet to commit to it enough to put up a distance longer than a half marathon. I am a fickle lover, straying off from time to time to tennis, yoga, triathlon, pilates. But somehow I always find my way back.

Most days I run because I want to. On bad days I run because I have to. Cheaper than therapy, better than booze, running has proven to be my personal panacea. When things go awry the only way I know to restore my equilibrium is to rinse the offending stimulus right out of me. Pain leaves my body as tears or sweat. I prefer sweat.

I run away – literally – from disappointment, failure, heartbreak, anger. My heart doesn’t have time to feed those demons when it’s busy pumping blood to my legs. I run towards progress and possibility. Exhale hurt. Inhale hope. A good run is all the reminder I need that I can get wherever I want to go one step at a time.

In six years of running, I’ve learned to solve problems my Addition Race judges could never have dreamed of. There’s no challenge, great or small, that a mile or two or ten won’t fix. A children’s book in rhyme, written on a six mile run. Business strategies revealed. Troublesome story ideas untangled. Running puts me in sync with my own rhythm. I leave the rest of the world behind and let my feet beat out an answer to whatever question, personal or professional, plagues me. My feet don’t lie even when I am tempted to. Waffling about my relationship with my then insignificant other, I took the question, as always, on a run. By the end of the first mile the answer came: Left/Right. Left/Right. Leave him. Leave him.

I run because I can. I have learned to value that – the gift of mobility, the privilege of being able to move myself through time and space at will, at my own pace. Training for a triathlon this year, I hit a wayward jogger in mile 24 of a 25 mile ride. I sailed over the handlebars of my road bike and heard a sickening thud as my helmet slammed into the asphalt. For a split second I couldn’t move and I was terrified. I looked down my jersey in horror as a large bloody mass the size of a mango took the place of my right elbow. But my legs were fine. So I walked the banged up bike home, wrapped my elbow, and dizzily headed out to finish the required 30 minute run. I was slow and achy, my stride was haphazard; but I was running. On a brutal incline out of Central Park up 110th Street, I passed an elderly man sitting in a wheelchair in the doorway of a hospice. As I ran by, cradling my mango elbow, wondering if training was worth the pain, he looked up.

“I wish I could run like that,” he sighed. “Run for me.”

And so I did. And I still do. I run for him and the physically challenged athletes I pass in the park, running with prosthetic legs. And the blind runners who do their outdoor runs tethered to their guides. I run for the cancer survivors I trained with last winter, who scheduled their runs around their chemo sessions.

But, above all, I run for me. For a little girl who now can leaves ‘can’t’ in the dust. For the sheer joy that it brings. And for the gift of life that I feel most keenly when I’m on the run. Fast. Forward. Free.

Caroline Knapp

2005-10-02T19:46:00.000-05:00

Caroline Knapp is dead.

She has been for a year.

This shakes me in a way I can’t explain. I never met the woman, but I knew her. She was a writer. One so gifted, so vivid in her exploration of her life and women’s lives in general, that I not only felt I knew her, I felt that she knew me. Her textured relationships with her parents, her dogs, her men, herself - all came to life in delicate detail in her books and the columns she wrote for the Boston Phoenix, the New York Times and Salon.com. She wrote about her life, the best and the worst of herself, with an honesty that I found not just brave but necessary.

I fell in love with her writing when I read ‘Drinking: A Love Story’, her book about her battle with alcoholism. I learned about her death from the back jacket of her new book, ‘Appetites: Why Women Want’, which chronicled her earlier fight with anorexia. She beat both those demons but succumbed to lung cancer at 42. It seems unfair that a life so thoughtfully examined and so generously shared should have been cut so short.

So, Caroline, this blog is dedicated to you, as a way to thank you for your words and your work. As a way to say that, in your early passing, I’ve finally learned the lesson.

I’ll write what I want without fear, without worrying what people will think or say or do.

I have the rest of eternity to be chicken.

Confessions of A Dilettante

2005-10-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

A few years ago, I went for an informational interview at a cable channel in New York City. I’d had enough of consulting and was casting around for something new to do. I loved this channel. I was a regular, dedicated viewer. I had no idea what kind of job I’d be suited for there, but I figured my love of their programming was enough. Besides, wasn’t the point of an informational to gather information?

My interviewer looked at my resume, groaned, and sighed.

“Your resume is…” he paused. “Choppy.

“Fund raising. Consulting. Writing. Education School. Business School. You seem to be somewhat of a dilettante.”

His tone suggested that I should be insulted, but the word delighted me. Dilettante. It sounded as yummy as dessert, as fun as flirting. I’d spent my life dodging labels, but here was one that, oddly enough, seemed to fit. I left his office certain that I didn’t want a job there; feeling as relieved as an addict ready to own up to my demons.

“Hello. My name is Kellie. I am a dilettante.”

Before I adopted my new label, I often was called fickle. I prefer the buffet to ordering à la carte, the triathlon to the marathon, multiple projects to the single job. My brain requires a constant diet of change and challenge that often thwarts expectations for grown-up behaviour. Conventional wisdom depicts growing up as a narrowing; all your life’s interests and possibilities slowly swirling down a drain called maturity. I disagree. Growing up should be about expanding, carving your own path through an increasing number of ideas and activities that excite your imagination.

This puts me at odds with the experts who say focus is the key to success. Pick one thing and do it well. That works for the lucky among us who have a single over-arching passion, but the rest of us can do better than the soul-sucking intellectual prostitution for which society rewards us. We look down on people who lend others their bodies for money not love. But we expect people, in fact, we train people, to rent the truest parts of themselves – their brains, their hearts, their souls – to enterprises that bring a paycheck but no passion.

For most of us the monthly paycheck is as dirty as crumpled bills on the nightstand. We take a slice of ourselves – if we’re lucky, a slice we like, but more often a slice we’ve been told we’re good at, or a slice that matches the first opportunity that comes along – and make a career of it, auctioning it off to the highest bidder. We let the rest of ourselves, the best of ourselves die, or stuff it into a narrow box labeled “hobby”.

Not for me.

My over-arching goal is to experience as much joy as possible. To do as many of the things I love as possible. That means that my career path hasn’t followed a straight line. I have been, among other things, a fund raiser, strategy consultant, children’s book author, publisher, producer, media critic, feature writer and editor – a fairly random assortment of jobs connected by a love of words and ideas. Three years ago I gave up the notion of a job altogether, and now I work exclusively on projects; sometimes long, sometimes short, but always something that truly excites me. It’s not the easiest way to make a living, but it’s the only way to make a life that’s truly mine.

I’ve got the best opportunities just by following an interest as far as I can. I wrote my first feature, on spec, just for the heck of it, driven more by the love of writing than by any certainty that it would get published. That first story led to more assignments, which led to more newspapers, more magazines. A frustrated shopping expedition to find Jamaican children’s books for my niece led me to write my own – a story meant for her that ended up being incorporated into the New York City school system. A phone call from a friend with a son newly diagnosed with autism led to my interest in the subject and a year-long project working on a multimedia package for children with the disorder. If an idea or a comment excites me, chances are there’s a project that will flow from it.

It disturbs me that our educational system doesn’t value this brand of vocational guidance. We pooh-pooh ideas like personal fulfillment and then wonder why our bars are filled with workers desperate to drown the bilious after-taste of the week. We teach our children to prepare themselves for a job, a “good job”, but we don’t challenge them to create it themselves. We don’t teach them to believe that they can draw a straight line from their hearts to their bank accounts.

When I was thirteen, attending my local results factory called Campion College, I had to make a list of the subjects I planned to sit at CXC, in addition to the required English Language, Literature and Mathematics. The label I wore at the time was “Brains” and Campion expected great things of me. The Dean of Students looked at my list of subjects – French and Spanish; Advanced Mathematics and Physics; and History – and declared it ridiculous.

“These subjects make no sense together. What are you going to do with this?” If I’d had a window to my future I would have said, “I am preparing myself for a hybrid career that requires equal dexterity with language and numbers.” I didn’t know that then, but I stood firm: “These are the subjects I like.” My mother was summoned. The Principal weighed in: “She is too smart for this. She will get all ones. She should do the sciences.” Thankfully, I had a mother who trusted my judgment and a father who believed the only reason to do anything is because you truly love it. I got my way. Campion still got their ones.

I was a model student, just not the “doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief” model for which Campion tried to prepare me. For me, the purpose of education was then and still is to learn things that I might like to know, to gain skills that I might like to use someday, any day, or just to pursue an idea because I damn well feel like it. I have amused myself all the way through my academic career, adding random skills to my toolkit, not knowing when I might need them, but always surprised by how surely they are eventually put to use.

I checked the website of that cable channel recently. My interviewer is still there. Four more years in the same post; pushing paper, judging young, wide-eyed dreamers.

I think of the things I’ve worked on since I met him. The ideas I’ve been able to cross off my wish list and I say two prayers.

One of thanks for the dreams I’ve been able to fulfill. One for the dreams that I’m certain he’s let die.

CHICKEN DONE!

2005-10-01T17:26:00.000-05:00

“CHICKEN DONE!”

I’ve barely stepped into Ranny Williams Entertainment Center when I hear the cry. This can’t be happening. It’s 4 pm, so, yes, I’m late. But this is the Pan Chicken Championships for crying out loud. How chicken can done?

“Chicken done. If you did order five, you can only get t’ree. If you did order t’ree, you can only get one.

“Don’t bother with the screwface. The chicken done.”

The speaker is wearing a little white chef’s hat and waving a spatula, defensively, at the crowd before him. Faces are glowering like the coals lining the converted steel drums – pans – that serve as the grills for the chicken. While our Trini friends inventively put the pan to use to make music, we yardies use it to feed our greatest passion: our bellies. Pan chicken, the granddaddy of Jamaican road food, is a singular dish; perfectly spiced chicken, pan-grilled on the side of the road; served in tinfoil with slices of hardo bread and best eaten in the wee hours of the morning after a long night of partying.

Based on sheer volume of consumption, I am a pan chicken connoisseur. Red Hills Road. Hope Road. Pantucky in New Kingston. Moist, dry. Mild, spicy. I’ll eat pan in all its incarnations. I’ve scared friends by yelping for them to make a sudden stop so I can satisfy a pan chicken craving; have pulled hair-raising U-turns and broken all kinds of traffic laws in the name of pan. I’m convinced there’s a secret to street seasoning and I’m hoping that it’s not car exhaust. My mission today is to unlock the tricks of the pan, but, unfortunately, half of Kingston has the same idea. The open field at the Ranny Williams Center is packed to capacity with hundreds of Kingstonians looking for their Sunday dinner and the chef, woefully under-armed with his spatula, is under pressure.

“People. Me serious. Back ‘way from the booth.”

The sign on the valiant chef’s booth reads “Kingston”. He’s one of the participating pan men and women from St. Thomas, St. Mary, St. Catherine, Portland and Kingston & St. Andrew who have assembled for the second of three regional championships to judge the kings and queens of the pan. It’s a scorching hot day and the heat and the mocking smell of chicken that fills the air is getting the best of the assembly of hungry pan fans. Tempers are flaring.

“How she get four chicken? She nuh fe get four chicken! Look here nuh man. You know how long me a wait fe chicken.”

“Yow, star. Me nah leave without even one piece of chicken. Me tell you that.”

I feel an unexpected surge of hostility towards the team of judges at their nearby booth. The competition is apparently over, but the judges are still working on plate after plate, glibly, seemingly oblivious to the jealous and baleful stares of onlookers. Their table is laden with plates of pan chicken, so gussied up for the big day I scarcely recognize it. Diced tomatoes, shredded cabbage, little vegetable rosettes and other Johnny Come Lately garnishes share the shelter of Saran wrap alongside the coveted chicken.

My desperation deepens as the reports trickle in: St. Andrew – Done. St. Catherine – Done. St. Thomas – Done. Portland – Done. I offer to pay double, triple, the asking price. I consider passing myself off as a judge, or introducing myself as a reporter in the hopes of scoring a quarter chicken or even a drumstick. But then a whisper rustles through the crowd:

“St. Mary. St. Mary have chicken.”

Maybe it’s the pan fumes. Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t eaten all day and have given up chicken for a week. Maybe it’s that I’ve been looking forward to the Pan Championships for nearly a month; swore off pan to cleanse my palate, comforted by visions of spending a Sunday afternoon stuffing myself silly. Or maybe it’s the pain of pan lust denied. But before I know it, I’m at the head of the pack in a flat out sprint across Ranny Williams, eyes desperately scanning the booth markers looking for St. Mary. Too late. Before I can even ask the question, the St. Mary chef greets me with a snort and a clipped “Chicken done.”

I figure the only way to salvage the day is to leave with a recipe, but the pan men are too busy fending off patrons and grilling the few remaining birds to talk. I spy one chef hightailing it out of the park and grab hold of his smock.

“Do you have any more chicken?” I ask him through clenched teeth, trying not to sound as desperate as I feel.

“Lady, you don’t hear? De. Chicken. Done.”

“Well tell me how to make it. How do you make pan chicken?”

“To tell you the truth, lady, me nuh really know. A fill in me a fill in for me bredrin. Me just do a little thing with the chicken.”

Desperate for a recipe, I press on. “But how is it different from jerk?”

“Oh, well with jerk, you have to jerk the chicken. With pan, you just do what you feel.

“Little this. Little that. Onion. Pepper. Jus’ make the pan do the work.”

I leave Ranny Williams dejected. Starving. Mission not accomplished. But as I drive out of the parking lot I hear another cry, a faint voice struggling to be heard over the din of the sound system and the Hope Road traffic.

“Boiled corn over here. Boiled corn.” An old lady is sitting on the sidewalk in front of Ranny Williams, two large pots in front of her. In the pantheon of roadside food, the only thing that can trump pan chicken is a perfect boiled corn.

So I pull a U-turn. Dinner is served.