A day in the life of John Taitt

Aug 18, 2019 Countryman

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By Dennis Nichols

Guyana lies less than five degrees from the equator. It’s hot! So, we know what to expect of our weather. It’s also unpredictable, like our people and our politics. On any given day, things can heat up rapidly, and abate just as quickly. We get used to it, and take these ups and downs in stride; blazing sun or pouring rain, with sunshades, caps and umbrellas, or long boots for the occasional flood. Those two weather terrors can drive some of us up the wall, literally, like the poor man in the following story.
It’s hot! Boy, it’s really hot; and at about two-thirty on a July afternoon in downtown Georgetown, it feels like hell. A man in his early sixties is heading for Bounty Supermarket on Water Street. He has $300 in his pocket so you know he’s not going to buy anything there; maybe a soft drink or something of similar cost. Anyway, he’d just bought a large mauby with ice from a cake-shop stand in Big Market to cool down, and it didn’t help. The heat simply blasted away the coolness.
Now he is trudging past the pavement vendors on his way to Bounty to get out of the scorching, skin-peeling heat. He wishes he could poke his head for a couple of seconds under one of those big, colourful umbrellas that shelter some of them on the stretch between the two market places, but sensibly he doesn’t.
He had thought earlier about walking with the Banks DIH umbrella he had at home but it was too big; too old and dirty … and anyway, men didn’t hide under umbrellas from the heat. John Taitt was nothing if not a man – a widower who lived with his daughter and grandson in relative comfort in the East Coast village of Plaisance. He’d been living there since his wife died a few years earlier, having relocated from Mahaicony where he had operated a small grocery.
Bounty Supermarket was air-conditioned. “Thank God,” he exhaled as he walked in and began a slow, ambling tour of the facility, aisle by aisle. The supermarket was bustling with shoppers, so he knew he could take his time and shuffle along with the crowd, soaking up the chill. He even struck up a conversation with a shopper, pretending to find out where the toothpaste section was – another time-passing ploy. Eventually though, he had to leave. Bracing himself mentally, he stepped through the sliding door and hit the heat. The heat hit back.
The walk to the Plaisance minibus park is a ten-minute stroll from Bounty. But for John Taitt, meandering amidst a maze of vehicles, vendors, and pedestrians on Water, America, and Hinck Streets, it felt like an hour – an agonizing, energy-sapping hour. He wished he could at least buy a cap, but he had spent the $1000 his daughter gave him to buy ‘something’ for himself; spent it on a horse at the betting shop nearby. It was a habit he could not rid himself of, although he knew he’d never really tried. Heavy dark-grey clouds were building up in the western sky, but it was still stifling hot.
At the park, he found a minibus that was almost filled with passengers. Wearily, he shuffled in, was directed to the back of the vehicle, and plunked himself down. The heat turned to clammy humidity. He felt like ripping his clothes off. Just then a short, thick-set woman entered the bus with two bulging plastic bags. He watched in disbelief as she proceeded to wedge herself in the small space next to him. A chubby arm, warm and moist, rested against his. He prayed silently.
His prayers appeared to be answered with a few puffs of breeze as the bus pulled away from the park. Soon, it was tearing along Main Street. John Taitt hoped that a few passengers would get off before it hit Carifesta Avenue, but he had no such luck. The afternoon sun’s rays penetrated the bus’s rear windscreen as it zoomed eastward. But not for long. Although it was only about four ‘o’ clock, the sky had darkened considerably. Suddenly, a flash of lightning whipped across the grey sky, instantly followed by a thunderclap that he swore shook the bus. Then the clouds burst, releasing a torrent of hammering rain. The vehicle sped along.
One woman got off the bus at the Conversation Tree junction. Umbrella-less, she was instantly drenched. She had been sitting directly in front of John Taitt, and he immediately got up from his seat to fill the vacancy, begging pardon of the woman next to him as he tried to squish past her. He failed, and sat back down sluggishly. The bus stopped once more just before the Sparendaam Police Station. Then it happened.
The left rear wheel of the vehicle was deflating rapidly. With the windows all closed, it felt unbearably congested inside the bus. Passengers were told they had a choice, because there was no way the driver and conductor were getting out the vehicle in the deluge. Wait, or walk the rest of the way into the village, about a quarter-mile for most persons. John Taitt had had enough. Muttering an unprintable phrase, he managed this time to squeeze past the protesting woman, and stumble into the pouring rain.
By the time he reached home, he felt exhausted and soaked to the bone. The house, perched on stilts, was locked up, as he knew it would be, since his daughter had told him she would be taking her son to visit his aunt in Mahaica (some 20 miles away) and wouldn’t be back until about six ‘o’ clock. He felt for the front door key in a space over a beam under the building. Nothing! It was only then he remembered that a week ago, he had lost his key, which he usually left there, and why his daughter had reminded him not to return at his ‘usual time’.
Like I said, John Taitt was a man, but when the tears came, he didn’t try to stop them.
By the time he composed himself, the rain had eased up. There was only one way to get inside the house. He braced a rickety ladder that lay on the ground against the back wall of the house, climbed up gingerly, squeezed himself through a narrow space just below the zinced roof, and entered the house. He guessed no one had seen him, but really didn’t care. Still soaked; now trembling, he headed for his room, past the locked one where his daughter and grandson slept.
Forgetting you had lost your house key is one thing. Forgetting to close your bedroom window through which the Atlantic trade winds refresh you while lounging on your new ‘comfort sleep’ mattress (and keep out tropical downpours) is entirely another. And when his daughter called on the land line phone to say she’d be sleeping over in Mahaica because of the weather, John Taitt, in complete misery, cried for the second time that evening.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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