Free No Pain Like This Body by Harold Sonny Ladoo Page A

He left the crabs alone, took a faggot and went toward Sunaree. Panday was not a good planter; he didn’t know how to ram the rice roots under the water and then cover them with mud, but he was trying to plant faster than Sunaree. He wasn’t holding the plants carefully; sometimes he squeezed so hard that they broke in the middle just about the water line. There was about eight inches of water in the riceland. The rice plants were about six­teen inches long; when the roots were buried in the mud, the plants were supposed to stand straight above the water. Panday finished his faggot quickly and took another one. But he was afraid; afraid because some of the rice plants he had planted were leaning in the water; others were buried so deep into the mud that the tops were hidden under the muddy water; some of the plants just floated above the water.
    â€œLook wot you doin Panday!” Sunaree said.
    â€œI not doin notten. Dis rice coud kiss me ass! I is a chile.” “If Pa hear you he go beat you Panday!”
    â€œBut I is a little chile!”
    Pa stood on the riceland bank by the doodoose mango tree. He heard Panday. He jumped as a bull on the riceland bank. “Panday shut you kiss me ass mout boy! Shut it boy! Me Jesus Christ! If you make me come in dat wadder I go kick you till you liver bust!”
    And Ma: “You leff dem chirens alone! Just leff dem alone! Befo you send dese chirens to school, you makin dem plant rice in Tola. But I tell you dat God watchin from dat sky. Dese chirens goin to come man and woman in Tola. Just leff dem alone!”
    There was no more race between Sunaree and Panday now. Speed was getting Panday into trouble. He stooped down and moved as an old man in the water, but he still couldn’t make a straight line.
    Then Pa left. He walked slow because he didn’t want to fall on the slippery bank. He went home.
    The time passed slow, but it passed. The evening walked out of the forest and hunched over Tola. Ma had the last fag­got. Birds moved hurriedly from one corner of the sky to the other. Thousands and thousands of birds: doves, semps, silverbeaks, wild pigeons and hawks just floated across the sky; they passed over the riceland, hurrying to their homes inside the forest. The clouds were tired in the sky; they floated about lifelessly.
    â€œSunaree and Panday go home,” Ma said.
    Sunaree and Panday were tired and hungry; their bellies were full of wind; they were getting sharp pains in their stom­achs, but they waited for Ma. Ma was in a great hurry to finish the last faggot; she too was hungry and tired. When the last faggot was planted Ma came out of the water.
    Pa was asleep on a ricebag near the rainwater barrel. He was snoring hort snort hort snort like an animal. His mouth was open. Flies went inside his mouth, but they came back out because his mouth was smelling bad. His hands were folded across his chest as if he was already dead; dead and rottening.
    Ma took the enamel dipper. She fished out some water from the rainwater barrel and poured it over Sunaree and Panday. They rubbed their skins, trying to get the mud off their bodies.
    Pa woke up. “All you makin too much kiss me ass noise!” “Now is evenin,” Ma said. “You not sleep enuff?”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œYou come home a long time now. You not plant no rice. You know full well dat dese chirens hungry. Befo you cook some food, you studyin to sleep.”
    â€œYou shut you kiss me ass mout and cook!”
    â€œI cant cook! I have to go and see Balraj and Rama in dat haspital.”
    â€œYou shut you ass and cook!”
    Pa went on talking; he talked vat vat flap flap flap as when a jandi pole shakes in the wind. There were razor grass and broken bottles in his voice. Pa talked; he didn’t talk a little and stop, and talk a little and stop; he just went on talking and talking and talking. Ma was quiet; she just shook her head from side to side as a