Jamdown

Chapter 3

The house was a lovely mixture of the cutesy delicacy of a woman’s touch with a few random things left by a lethargic man. A shirt laid on the top of a sofa, while the plates organized in size like a pyramid scheme laid on the coffee table. 

That coffee table separated all three of us in this living room.

I looked at the two siblings. Irwin and Nodewin, or was it Nodelyn? He was agile too, for he was able to avoid an earthenware rabbit that was flung at his head.

Irwin watched me with hatred from the adjacent room. Nodelyn paced around the coffee table that rested between the two sofas. She slowed and stared at Irwin. He frowned. The fireworks were about to go off.

“Did you steal it?” she asked.

“I did not steal anything, Nodelyn.” He looked away from us.

Okay, it was Nodelyn.

She turned and headed to the doorway. “Soon come back.” she turned.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“Your room,” she said, not looking back.

“Oy leave my room alone.”

She twirled around, “Oy is whofa house this?”

“It ain’t yours. Aunt said I can stay here,” he retorted.

“She also said you supposed to pay rent.”

“I do not have a job yet.”

“Go get one!” 

He shrunk back from that. 

“What is in your room?” she asked, measurably. 

He averted his eyes as we all stared at him.

“You dutty bloodcloth disgusting piece of shit! You a thief again!”

Again?!

He snorted in response and kept looking away from her glare. She continued, “You, you a still thief?! Rahtid thief, you…”

Those words drowned out as I swore my hearing must have gotten fuzzy. Her voice got hoarse, distorted almost. She turned round back after a moment and that was when I saw the tears. I sighed. Hated to see it, especially with Irwin acting oblivious. 

She sniffled and came back again. “We put you up and then you have the audacity to bring the same foolishness a Kingston over here suh? I had to move, because of you! I had to leave Kingston, because of you!”

Nodelyn paced, shooting the occasional death glare at her brother.

She moved? Hold up, what happened in Kingston?     

His face softened, losing all that hard edge. “Do whatever you wa' do,” he replied.

I remembered seeing him in that shoes often enough. This was a small community in a small country. It was not hard to not know the person who lived next to you, much less their habits, it was rather easy. 

I tried to recruit him once, never got his name, but I knew those shoes. There was no way I forget those. Once I described them to her she asked me questions. She probed me as if she was searching for something deeper than what my words conveyed. 

She was a rather beautiful woman now that I think of it. Compared to him, I wondered if they had different fathers.

“Sis, me no have nothin’ like that. A lie him a tell,” he said.

“You! You expect me to believe that, how him know your shoes dutty john crow!?” she threw back at him.

She came next to me and her size around the waist made me feel I should eat more. I looked away as she asked. “You would do all this…why though?”