sam the rickshaw man

        Sitting in a green bedside chair, Johnny Luck smiled. Bright as Fat Tuesday.
        Pirate Jenny gushed, "Oh, God! You're all right!"
        "I'm all right."
        "Not hurt?"
        "Not hurt."
        Her chest could barely contain her heart. "I was so worried."
        "It was pretty hairy for a while."
        "What happened?"
        He pointed to the black boy unconscious in the bed. "Jimmy-Scamp. Or Jaime, as McEwan used to call him. He was crabbing down at the Dutchman's. Just as I got there myself, he slipped and fell into the
water. The waves pushed him against the rocks."
        "The poor dear."
        "Good thing I arrived when I did. He'd 'ave been a gonner."
        "How did you get him here?"
        " I fetched him out of the sea and carried him up to the Big House. I was surprised that it was open, with phone and lights. Someone must have just bought the place. Jimmy-Scamp's head was bleeding. He was out, but still breathing. Fighting off shock. I wrapped him in some new blankets. Amazing luck!"
         "Looks like he's doing poorly."
         "Yeah. But like most of m'lads, he's tough."
         "One of your scavengers."
         "Yeah. Brings me the damnedest stuff from all over the island. Hangs with Mango."
         Doctor Lee poked in owlishly. "Excuse please. Must examine patient."
         Hoisting himself stiffly, Johnny Luck replied, "Certainly. Come along, Jen. Let's go home."


                                                                                              *


        On the way out she asked, "Are you up to a walk? I'd rather not ride with Daddy Doc anymore tonight."
        "Why? I thought you two were tight."
        "He's with this totally strange Frenchman from Haiti."
        "Henri Bertrand?"
        "How did you guess?"
        "Mango used to describe him, even though they had never seen each other."
        "No wonder. The guy is a telepath. And you told me that Mango is an empath. Writes poetry."
        "I see the connection."
        "And I see a storm on the horizon."
        As they passed by the Reception desk Pirate Jenny noted that the nurse was curled up with a book on Lady Di. Lilac perfume.


                                                                                   *


        The lovers ambled romantically toward the bohemian green lattice district. A cigarette boat boomed toward the channel. A night run. Something untaxed. Nobody cared.
        "You never told me how you managed to get Jimmy-Scamp to the hospital."
        "Sam the Rickshaw Man."


        The mahagony box contained the treasures of family and ancestors. There were crumbling pages of a handwritten Chinese Freemason weekly newspaper. The Minzhi Zhoukan. His grandfather was a Hakka from Huiyang. He landed in Jamaica and was required to speak and write at least fifty words in three languages to gain employment. The extent of his erudition astounded them all. British civil servants, planters and pirates. Sammo delicately held a page with trembling fingers. Amazed by its stylish caligraphy. Wit and wisdom.
        Typhoid fever killed most of Li Fang's family in Jamaica. Sammo survived, and so did his Chi-Gro mother. They bought passage to the island of Saint James. His face was Chinese, perfectly formed Hakka. His uncle had been in dry-goods and had taught Sammo the business. He was the perfect storekeep. Thus he landed a humble position at The Old Jew's Hardware Store. He and Sol Guzman got a long all right, but Sol died, and his son Ruben acquired the store. Soon all assets had been liquidated and Sammo was let go. Thirty years old, with no job. No prospects. He would not retreat into opium.
        The Goddess Guanyin appeared in a dream.
        On the morrow he found leaning against his garden wall an abandoned rickshaw.
        Soon all the white-faces were calling him Sam the Rickshaw Man.