MADGYAL

Chapter 16: Family

Vanessa
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On sunday I woke up earlier than the raising sun the radio that sat in the living room since the i was nine years old on the highest volume as I sung twirling out the living.

"She couldn't even cook PEPPER POT!"

"Like how the hell you cya cook pepper pot?!" I danced around the kitchen like a maniac dancing and laughing as I strurred the pit of collaloo on the stove I was preparing to serve with white rice. Normally my family ate it with slatfish but we stopped since my grandma had blood pressure. It's a lot of things she couldn't eat because of blood pressure. It just made me sad. She taught me most of what I knew I wanted her to be able to taste what she taught me.

Grandma was sitting in the veranda sipping her tea and listening to me annoying my sibling with the radio. They always slept in late especially odaine. Being on the street till night come and a digg out him hand middle and look gyal then come in come nyam and belch and shit and sleep. That's all him good for. I never hid that he was a bumb... even when he says I'm always bringing him down I don't care. I'm not like everyone else who tried to be silent about it he was way too comfortable being jobless. So we're the others.

"Grandma this song was popular? I asked curiously heading out to the veranda to sit with her waiting on the rice to steam a little bit more. She laughed.

"Yes mi dear child this song was extremely popular. This was the style of music back in my parents days, mento" she told me. I smiled. I've Lways liked these older jamaican songs. They're so much more lively and fun. I always felt so infatuated with Jamaicans musical history. Kumina, mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dancehall. I love it all"

"Me jealous of you... me wish me did get your music" I laughed teasingly.

"You get your dancehall, you nuh love dancehall? She asked me curiously I laughed.

"Of course but... rocksteady makes my heart throbb" I told her. She giggled. I stared out at the sunrise at how beautiful Jamaica was and I couldn't imagine being from anywhere else. Apart from the violence and other things that every country had Jamaica was such a overwhelmingly beautiful place and our culture and our food was beyond anything I could explain. I took up my cup of tea drinking a sip for my self.

I didn't like drinking tea ever since I was a child. My grandma always blamed it on my mother saying she had to beg her to drink tea when she was a child, so it wasn't a surprise that I didn't drink tea. I drink the cup of tea so she wouldn't get upset in the early morning but lord knows I hate tea. A lasco though so It taste good. But I would've preferred it cold.

"The food done yet? She glanced over at me.

"Almost, me a wait pan the rice fi finish steam, you hungry? I asked her.

"Very" she mumbled.

"I can wait still" she told me. I nodded sipping more of my tea. It felt so good being around her. I laid my head onto her shoulder softly which caused her to laugh as she leaned down kissing my forehead softly.

"My grandbaby... I love you so much" she told me. I laughed.

"I love you too grandma" I muttered playing with her pretty hair that was plat up neatly.

"You remember when you were little you used to run round me and wah guh everywhere with me? Look how big you be now? And you so beautiful. You don't find no handsome young man up at that place that you like? She asked me. I laughed. She was always like this. Always talking about me finding a "handsome young man" to marry. Honestly I would marry a guy, if I was In love with him. I just couldn't find someone I loved, every guy I come across just didn't make me feel compelled to like them and want to be married to them. Maybe I have an issue.

"No, nobody up there that I like grandma" I mumbled laughing.

"Really now? Nobody? Not even that boy you tell me about? She asked about millie. When I'm shocked I'm the type to tell all my close family. I told her and my sisters about millie when I didn't know him and though he was a random guy. And I cried and bawled and complained to them when I found out that he was the grandson of the Emerson's.

"OH NO! grandma. Me don't like him at all. Him is a terrible person me can't stand him" I mumbled. She laughed.

"But you say him rich. You might want to start stand him or one a him cousins" she told me making me burst out laughing. My grandma was really a pimp when she was younger, it wasn't surprising that she still had that mentality.

"How him look? Him handsome? She asked me. Butterflies took up my stomach.

"M-maybe... him okay" I mumbled knowing that man was knee weak gorgeous it was just his dirty attitude.

"That smile pan yuh face and the blushing seem to me like him is very handsome" she told me pushing my shoulder I laughed.

"You know when I was young like you... I meet your grandfather we never did like each other? Him a did mi friend man friend if that makes sense. My best friend had a boyfriend and he was her boyfriends best friend. I never liked him because fi him friend always a cuss my best friend and a slap har and him would condone it"

"So one day me and him pop fight and we fight suh till I gih him some lick. Blood him up. And me fight mi friend man too. I shoulda never fight fi that girl because the big idiot guh back to him from dat me stay inna mi place.

"Then Yuh grandfather hated me bad. Some day he saw me and spoke to me and we finally talk a decent conversation and from that him been in love with me and mi good body" she added in making me laugh.

"Grandma what?! I yelled.

"Den nuh true. See him inna grave down there suh but him dream to me the other night tell me seh him still love me straight and plane" she shrugged. My eyes widened.

"Sometimes him still walk come in ya all when unu did likkle him take a piece a set pan me why Yuh think me nuh married again? She asked. I was shocked where was all this coming from.

"Stop you deh scare me!" I laughed.

"I say that to say. Maybe that man is the love of your life and you don't know. We meet our soulmates in crazy ways. That's why when I heard what happened I laughed and I know you woulda meet him again" she told me. I made a face that made her laugh.

"Him could never be my soulmate... him have too many gyal and him ano my type and him have a girlfriend and I have Justin" I told her. I didn't even want to think about him.

"Him every disrespectful him say me act like man" I mumbled.

"Hehhhayyyyyy!!! A the exact ting your grandpa did say bout me that man like you!" She told me laughing.

My brother stepped out onto the veranda with a plate of rice and callaloo in his hands looking at us in confusion.

"It dat funny? And why the music suh loud?