Free The Origin of Waves by Austin Clarke Page A

with me, ’cause they was back in Europe, I tried to piece-together my fucked-up life, what was leff of it. So, I opened a little clinic, just an office, a hole in the wall, and I took a big risk, practising as a therapist. You can take big risks inthe States. My therapist business took off. And then, I had the nerve to set myself up as a psychiatriss. You’re goddamn right! A psychiatriss. Well, really, as a therapist. Shit, what do I really know about being a therapist? But you gotta take risks. Big risks, big success. And bigger bucks. Or land in jail. But me? You’d be goddamn surprised what a little jazz-up furniture, in a’ office, fancy telephones, those old-fashioned ones from England in the nineteenth century, like the ones you see in books, or in murder movies with Sherlock Holmes and Dickens, things you come across in library books. You would burst your ass laughing. But this ain’t no goddamn laughing matter, this is taking risks. Big risks in a country with a big vision. My ass could be in jail, in a federal penitentiary any morning, even tomorrow, if I slip-up, if they catch me practising without a licence. But Amurca is Amurca; and only in Amurca, they say, anything can happen. After that, I had my hand in a little real estate, a venture or two, and after a few years, with one thing and the other, and not having a real-estate licence, I made a little money, a few Amurcan
smackeroons
, and today I can’t complain. Meanwhile, I take care of all my thrildren, every last one o’ those bastards,
lovely
thrildren really. And the wives, too. Not that they make me pay alimony, ’cause I am here, and they are there. But I send the three o’ them a little something, regular. By U.S. Postal Money Order. Have the bread to do it. Not that I goddamn like the idea of all this bread leaving the States for Europe. Goddamn!
    I am an Amurcan. A Yankee. You seen my gold credit cards, when I showed you my family, didn’t you? A man can live there. Amurca is Amurca. And the South is the best goddamn place for a man from the Wessindies, for a man like me to live. Not that my life was always like that, a bed o’ roses. No sirree! Shit, I remember bathing with only cold water in the house, in the goddamn tap! For four goddamn months. And that wasn’t in the summer neither! Motherfuckers disconneck the fucking heat. Motherfuckers disconneck the hot water. Every goddamn convenience a man needs to live conveniently by, the motherfuckers
offed
. Heat and hotness, and lights. Don’t talk about the telephone! But I grit my goddamn teeth, swallowed my pride, and I stood under-neat’ that goddamn cold shower every morning at six, during the week. I stood like Hercules under that goddamn cold shower every morning at six as I say, “Fuck it!” and
dared
the motherfuckers to beat me, or have me buckle-under to them. Beat
me?
A man that grow up in Barbados, in the Wessindies, near Paynes Bay, by the beach where we had as role-models all those fishermen and men so strong and brave and goddamn poor that they would look a goddamn shark in the eye and say, ‘Motherfucker, I am the man! You is mine!’ Never. Never-once in my whole lifetime near the beach with that rubber tube we used to lay on in the sea,
never once
did I see any of those men, my father, your uncle, your father, my uncle, and a million cousins, second-cousins, third-cousins, cousins ten-times remove,never-goddamn-once did I hear that any o’ those men beg for mercy! Did you?
Beg for mercy?
I stood under that goddamn frozen shower, grit my teeth, and call the motherfuckers ‘motherfuckers’! But I did not beg for mercy.”
    “Strong men.”
    “Goddamn! What the Southerners like to call cowboys tough-as-hide, or role-models. They was goddamn role-models!”
    “Strong men. Like my uncle.”
    “Like your uncle. God rest his soul.”
    “Poor men, too.”
    “That, too. But strong men. Like my father.”
    “And strong women to back-them-up!”
    “Strong goddamn