Brother by David Chariandy

Author:David Chariandy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2017-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

AFTER ANTON WAS KILLED, you could feel it more than ever. You caught in the eyes of strangers the suspicion or outright fear. You sensed the halo of menace above your head, glimpsed the turbulence swirling behind as you walked. On TV and in the papers, politicians promised to crack down on criminals, with echoed agreements from suited community spokesmen. But criminals weren’t the only target. Every day, neighbourhood kids were stopped by the cops, the questions about their actions and whereabouts more probing. We were being watched by everyone, shopkeepers, neighbours, passersby. Maybe because he knew I was suffocating on my own, Francis, despite his disappointment with me after we tried to visit our father, made space for me to hang out with him at Desirea’s.

The shop was Dru’s, but it wasn’t your typical business. Prospective clients were almost never welcomed. On my first afternoon, I watched a neighbourhood kid named Trance shyly enter the shop, produce nothing but pocket change and lint for a service that I observed was less of a haircut than a punishing rite of passage. Trance sat obediently in a barber’s chair as Dru mercilessly went to work, pushing his head forward to buzz a neckline, yanking it to the side to reach that difficult spot behind the ears. Dru’s thumb now digging into the poor boy’s eye socket for steadiness. (“Of course you got nicked, fool! I told you not to move!”) Most of the anger was show, and when it was over the kid was offered a beef patty and a Coke with the luxury of ice, and he was allowed to stay for the rest of the day.

When hanging out at Desirea’s, I saw cash change hands, a modest income generated. But whether Dru willed it or not, the shop seemed to run on a different economy. In the thin light filtered and refracted through those untidy storefront windows, in the spell of Jelly’s music, lives and names emerged. I watched a young man get a shave. He leaned way back in the chair, his eyes draped with a cloth, his cheeks and neck piled with lather. Jelly worked at his mixing board and turntables, and in that space of sound Dru used a straight razor, cutting a face out from underneath the white. And here, now, was Kev, who after his shave spent at least five minutes admiring the work in a mirror, then carefully adjusting his mesh-backed cap, the brim set perfectly flat and cocked to the right. Here too was big-boned Abdi, who every day requested “just a little touch-up.” Here was Gene, a girl B-boy who sported the tightest fade. And here was the Professa, in his late twenties, his academic credentials uncertain, but always able to name the track Jelly was messing with.

“Otis Clay, ‘A Lasting Love,’ ” he would announce, not even looking up from his copy of The Source.

Here was Raj, the Talker, and the only one among us lucky enough to live in a home his parents actually owned (or so he said).

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