Dappled sunlight streamed through the canopy of overhanging trees. Mossy dells shaded by tree ferns glistened with dew. Flowers of every shade gave dashes of vibrant colour amongst the green foliage. Tody birds chirped and sang and flitted in and out of view between the branches. And above our heads festoons of Old Man’s Beard hung from the boughs. Everything was bright and colourful and full of life.
We had been walking in the mountains when the mist rolled in.
Within seconds everything disappeared and we were shrouded in clouds unable to see more than a metre around us. The sun was gone and the sounds too seemed to have been turned down low now muffled by a thick blanket of white.
My cousin and I stretched our arms out in front of us to protect from potential obstacles that seemed to loom up on us and then pass away as we stumbled down the unseen path. My uncle joked that we would now be lost wandering the mountains forever.
~I would like to make a note here about jokes adults make around children, especially learned and respected adults like my uncle. Maybe they do not realise that what they consider funny might be taken quite literally by the inexperienced in the probability of such matters. Or maybe that’s the point?
After all, we had learned of The White Witch of Rose Hall who murdered all her husbands and a lot of slaves before she herself was burnt at the stake and now haunts the Great House forever. And of the earthquake that sank the entire city of Port Royal, weighted down by its wickedness, into the depths where all evil souls were drowned save one man; who was sucked into a crack in the earth, spat up days later on the other side of the island and lived to tell the tale! And then of course all the terrible things that duppies could do to us in the night. Therefore to my cousin and I “lost wandering the mountains forever” seemed like a very real possibility.
The mist closed in even tighter so that now when we stretched out our arms the tips of our fingers would start to disappear. My Uncle decided it was probably best if we stayed still and waited for it to pass so as not to fall into a precipice or something.
We stood clinging to each other shivering in our t-shirts, which not ten minutes before had seemed like totally appropriate clothing for a morning hike in the blue mountains.
We watched the clouds roll across each other layer upon layer wrapping around us and cutting us off from the world. I wondered if this wasn’t some magic trick the mountains performed so that when the clouds cleared we would find ourselves in an entirely different place and time never to return to our own again. I thought about my mother and then I thought about food.
As if reading my mind Nick complained that he was hungry. My Uncle laughed and made some such comment about how we may also never eat again. At this we uttered a collective sigh assigning ourselves to this fact and slipping into a gloomful silence.
Nick sniffed. And then sniffed again.
“I smell chicken.” he commented almost nonchalantly. We stood. And then I smelt it too. It was faint but unmistakable. Our feet started to shuffle forward as we sniffed our way through the nothingness drifting. And as we moved it became stronger until all at once the most glorious cloud of aroma engulfed us. Spices, garlic, onion, black pepper, scotch bonnet.
“I smell Jerk!” Nick shouted into the mist. Carried by our noses like the cartoon Pepé Le Pew, scrambling on hands and feet now over rocks and out of potholes in a kind of mad drooling frenzy we fought our way over dirt and then grass to a wooden step made from decking boards. We stepped up and stood up straight right as the mist was swept away like a heavy velvet curtain to reveal a large wooden stage-like platform in the middle of a clearing on the edge of the mountain with views to the sea way down below. And on the stage was nothing but one man and a drum barbeque.
This would be the best Jerk Chicken I have ever had the exquisite pleasure of eating. Marinated overnight and then cooked to almost black at a high altitude over pimento wood as the good lord intended.
The drum man laughed at these poor starving pickney, that had not eaten in at least an hour, who appeared out of the depths of nowhere to arrive at his oasis.
“Nyam til ya belly buss!” My uncle exclaimed.
“Betta belly buss dan good food waste.” chuckled the drum man as we tore at the flesh with our teeth and wiped the juices from our chins with the backs of our hands.
As we walked away that day in the sunshine a giant bus pulled up alongside the stage and the drum man gave us a wave before a crowd of American tourists blocked him from view.
Written February 2 2023, about a day in 1992
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