Palm wine and cane liquor. The empty bottles seemed to collect by magic. His excuse for drinking was that it helped him to write poetry. Images flashed like strobe lights. He typed fast, capturing their brilliances before they faded away.
Peaks of euphoria. King of the world!
Then his brilliance began to fade.
Mango wept.
*
"Beatnik typing." Mister Radcliff sniffed, reading a manuscript on canary paper.
Mango grinned. He liked the word beatnik.
Onto the game, he replied, "I'll do better."
Mister Radcliff expected competence from any author. When disappointed, he sniffed. Always applying Aristotle.
Then at last he found a poem Mango had written while sober. Tenderly he smiled. "Ah, here is one I can follow."
Mango had seen this awesome black man at the market down on the wharf. Selling conch fritters. Hefting a live conch from a tank of seawater and splitting its beautiful shell with a ballpeen hammer. Beheading the creature with a huge kukri knife, and then chopping the meat into slivers. They went into a deep-fry vat and were seasoned with pinches of spice and wrapped in newspaper.
The man sang out like one of The Tarriers. "Hey-yo! Get yo fresh fritters an' chips!"
Women probing avocado, banana, guava, yucca and lime, eyed the man while ribboned daughters winked.
Mango drank in this scene as if it were papaya nectar and wrote the poem on the spot.
Mister Radcliff rolled up his white sleeves, about to work.
"Look here," he said. "Your women are not merely searching for the best produce. They are fondling this magnificant man. Actually judging him with an erotic eye. This is a marvelously phallic poem."
Mango knew what the word meant.
"Phallic?"
"Of course. Down here. See? You say you are aroused. And you are ready to ride the big yellow bus into Spanish Town."
"But I am not the man in the poem."
"Of course you are."
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