Free The Girl With the Golden Shoes by Colin Channer

Salan take that swampland and planting acres and acres o’ cane. Miles and miles o’ cane. You see how the man smart?”
    “He should open a school.”
    “But it ain’t book smart that man have,” the driver emphasized. “It ain’t book smart at all. That man have common sense because he’s a common man. And that is why I like him. He’s a common man. Rawle act too high and mighty, like his shit come from Nova Scotia in a tin like sardine. And the only thing that is making him ride high right now is that Royal Standard Rum. That is the best rum it have in the world. I hear people talking ’bout Bacardi and Appleton and Havana Club like them rum is anything to talk ’bout. Listen to what I saying tonight. I take them rum and wash my glass before I tip the best. And is one place grow the cane for that rum and that is Speyside. That’s where grow the finest cane. And that’s why they build that factory there in that bowl that so hard to get to. You lose the quality if you make that rum from them fields it have near the sea. And that is why it burn me when them lice-head coolie never stand by me when we make that strike in ’35. Because if it had union in this country, we could boil down Rawle and all them rasses till they reach the bottom o’ the pot. A lot o’ people vex that the Americans taking over…talking all kind o’ rass ’bout how they ain’t trust United Fruit. But in a sense I glad. One man beating my ass all my life. I say let another man come and lick me and see how it sweet.”
    “You would be vex if I tell you I ain’t feel like to talk?” Estrella asked him dryly.
    “If I would mind?” he asked, offended. “If I would mind? Of course I would blasted mind. I giving you a blasted ride…you better talk to me. Them people I work with ain’t talk to me. They think I talk too much. And some say I must be a spy because how I could cuss Mr. Rawle so much and he ain’t fire me yet. But I ain’t stupid. I ain’t cuss the man to him face. I cuss him to his back. I old now. I do my time. This job to drive this truck here is the only thing I have name pension. When I was cutting and leaf was slicing up my flesh was a long, long time ago. When I born it still had slaves in Cuba. Brazil too. A lot o’ people ain’t know those things. But they ain’t read books, you see. They ain’t read books. So they ain’t know what’s going on.”
    “I like to read,” she said, interested now.
    “For true?”
    “Yes. I like it more than anything it have in the world.”
    “So how you can read but you talk like you ain’t go to school?” he asked, amazed.
    “I can speak English,” she said, switching from Sancoche . “But I have never been to school. I taught myself and I received a little help from a Chinese girl whose father owns a shop.”
    “You are a prize,” he said, pulling over. “A real, fantastic prize. What is you name?”
    “Why you want to know?” she asked defensively.
    “So I could present you with a proper compliment.”
    She leaned over her basket, which she carried in her lap.
    “I ain’t want nobody to tie up my head right now,” she said, reverting to Sancoche . “I ain’t want nobody compliment me or anything like that ’cause that is only talks. I going ’bout my business, you see me here. And that is all I want to do.”
    When they’d begun to coast again, he asked, “Why you going to town so late?”
    “I have business down there.”
    “When I leave you off,” he asked with genuine concern, “how you going to reach?”
    “I ain’t know for sure.”
    “Girl, it going be real hard to get a vehicle driving that way, you know. Unless is a emergency, you shouldn’t try to go.”
    “Is a emergency in truth for me. I sick. I real sick. I real sick o’ this place.”
    She turned so that her back was pressing on the door and placed a thigh against his seat. “Mister, you would never imagine what happen to me.”
    “Tell me.”
    But how I could trust a man