“Gawd hates de sin, not de sinnah,” Genie reminded. She could almost see the angst in her husband’s eyes, she knew him thoroughly. He was a good man. Had married her in a community where women had to make miserable choices, often deciding whom to cohabit with based on gang colors or who could offer them protection.
Mention of the war caused Jimani to involuntarily bite the chew stick he was cleaning his teeth with. That was the day he lost both his sight and his mother. The irony! To be physically wounded by the enemy’s weapon long after they’d assailed him mentally.
Dandy dance till him salt-and-pepper mohawk dripping sweat. When him see me, him flash him gold teeth. The Devil’s red mask is back on his face. The day get as hot as hell. Me hands get so sweaty me bible slip. And though I standing in the sanctified body of Jaheim Murray, born-again christian, I am Warwick again, back on the battlefield.
Daddy used to be a dinki mini chairman himself before the heart attack. (People sey is bad duppy kill him.) He praised the ancestors when Courtney bawn. He never complained when she chose gerreh over dinki. “She’s a leader, Peadove,” he prophesied, “not a follower…”
Then we became fulla the spirit. Something awoke inside us. I never see a girl with such fire like Dreenie! We became temples rocking with Kodesh fire. Singing, clapping, dipping the hems of our abayas in blood. It felt like Yom Teruah, it felt like a day of shouting and blowing! She kept coming at me, doing a wild dance, and I doing me own outta control dancing, the two of us giddy, and we realized instinctively that we just set ourselves free and nobody could take it away from us.
