Clive
Friday 6th February, 1998 Clive has been dead for two weeks. He had no front teeth,
and always carried a machette. He wasn’t a proper Rastafarian, Evadney calls
him a Raggamuffin. But he was killed. Nobody really mourns his death. I feel a
little funny about it, having known him. Today as I was picking up Evadney and
her friend to take them up the hill to our house, we saw a man I had always
disliked. A man with an oily, obsequious, insinuating smile. He works as a
guard at the McDonalds. He wore an orange training top with a hood. The girls
laughed in recognition. I had not seen him for a few weeks. He is the man that
killed Clive, said Evadney. Clive was always slapping him up and cutting him
with the machette, said Evadney. The brown man is out on bail and was talking
to the ladies walking up the hill. We passed him and he looked horrible. Raw.
Further up the hill Evadney pointed out a man with a white beard. He was
walking down the hill. That is Clive’s uncle, she said. I had never known Clive
had an Uncle. I had always thought of him as created ex nihilo: uncle-less.
Clive was always hitting his uncle and taking his money, Evadney said. Few
people mourn his death. I mourned him. Somehow. He was someone I knew. He was
kind, if a little frightening. I remember I once gave Clive’s girlfriend a
lift. She was all sex and smell. And every time I saw him, he would raise his
fist in a black man’s salute. I wonder what went on up there.