Victor of Circumstances

They were living in a one-bedroom board house in Granville, one of the rural areas around Montego Bay. In the bedroom there were two old double beds, an old cabinet with not much in it. They also had an old, kerosene oil-stove in one corner, an old dinning table and an old refrigerator. All the provisions that got stored in the refrigerator were those that they would take to the shop for business each day. Donovan, Butty and Calvin usually slept on one bed, while Natalie slept with Mummy and Daddy on the other bed. They would mostly cook a decent meal at the house on Sundays, but nonetheless they were all happy under the circumstances. In due course, Donavon and Calvin were inseparable, and they had a lot in common. Donavon was a hard gambler like Calvin, although they wouldn’t participate in the same game, but they always lose their money nonetheless. Also, they both liked to party, play the field, smoke weed with crack cocaine and drink alcohol, even though none of them could hold their liquor. Overall, he and Donavon were both living a double life, which they concealed from Mummy, Daddy, Natalie and Butty. Donavon seemed to be more advanced than Calvin in many ways, and it was apparent that he’d taken a lot more risk than him too. It’s written in Proverbs (in the holy bible) that, “a man is known by the type of friends that he associated with.” Calvin knew some of Donavon’s friends, but he wasn’t linked with them. He was also aware of some of the things that they would regularly do, but they knew little about him. Nonetheless, as a Street Soldier, each man showed respect to the other and whatever one did to survive was one’s choice, because on the streets, each man does his own thing in his own way to survive. Unless, of course, one tries to move in on someone else’s turf, or try to stop someone from finding food to eat. Ultimately, one day, Donavon introduced Calvin to some of his dodgy friends. From the outset he wasn’t too keen on hanging out with those guys, knowing that they made a lot of enemies through their ruthless lifestyle. Nonetheless, gradually he’d become a part of the crew, even though he’d tried to deny his involvement with them. On the contrary, he wanted some action in his gloomy life, because he was already on the verge of plummeting in a terrible destruction. At length he thought to himself, “Why not take it to a higher level,” but in the back of his mind, there was also a voice that kept telling him not to get too close to those men. In relation to the latter, if people would practice thinking twice before they act, and listened to that voice in the back of their minds, many of them would elude a lot of mishaps that took place in their lives. Conversely, many of the elder folks in Jamaica would phrase it like this, “When a horse is galloping it doesn’t hear the sound of its back foot.” Many people are likening to a horse. They move too fast and they never stopped to think twice or listened. As for Calvin, even though he wanted more in his nothingness life at the time, he wasn’t really prepared for what was coming his way. At the time he knew a few guys who had guns, but it wasn’t his thing to use a gun. From a child he would always carries a knife, but once he started to move around with his newfound acquaintances, he became the sole owner of an old .38 Smith and Wesson revolver. Gone were the days when he would only carry a knife. He was now carrying both gun and a knife occasionally. He wasn’t a novice in handling a gun, because he used to clean them whilst working at the Anchovy Police Station. Although the first time he’d behold a real gun he was in the company of Mass Percy. He was about eight years old at the time. He was amazed to see the guns, as he’d only seen them in the possession of police officers, when he usually went to Anchovy with Marika and Devon some nights, to wait on Mass Percy, while he gambled his money away. Mass Percy had taken him to visit Rasta John one day, and on their arrival at John’s house they found him cleaning the guns in his backyard. Inquisitively Calvin asked, “Ha wah dem deh fa John?” but before John could answer he continued, “Mek mi see dem,” while reaching out to pick up the handgun. Translate: What are these for John? Let me see them. “No youth,” John shouted, as he secured both guns out of the boy’s reach. It was the first time Calvin had noticed how menacing John looked, with the thick, long dread-locks cascading down his back. He’d almost resembled an angry lion. For a terse moment Calvin quivered with intimidation, but briskly John dispersed the troubled look that was evident in his big eyes, which were fire-red from the amount of ganja that he usually smoked. “Yuut,” he’d said to Calvin, “yuh mustn’t play wid dem sinting yah yuh nuh. Dem dangerous. Yuh hear?” Translate: Youth, you mustn’t play with these things. Them dangerous. You hear. Mass Percy only laughed at the time, because he’d managed to see the funny side of it all. Eventually, Calvin was asked to embark on a mission with Donovan and his crew, and instantly, without second thought, he’d wanted to say no, he wasn’t down on it, but for him to back out at that crucial stage, it would simply meant losing face and all the respect that has been bestowed upon him. Now this is what they called ‘peer pressure’. A lot of youths find themselves in a similar situation and the next thing you know they ended up in jail, peeping through the rails and repeating “I wish I had known,” while the not so lucky ones found a permanent place six feet six under the ground. On the contrary, Calvin didn’t want to stepped back, because he’d felt like he owed it to Donovan, to be ‘down with him for whatever reasons’ and more so for the fact that money was involved. The latter was the order of the day, because poverty used to play the major role in his daily struggles. But greed has a way of creeping in the middle, whenever money was involved, and when one mixed the two of them together, the formula have a tendency to blind you from reality and corroded your judgment. Calvin didn’t tell Donovan that he wasn’t in on the scheme, neither did he say no, but he’d gave him the impression, as was expected, that he would go along nonetheless. When the day of reckoning arrived, Calvin went on the free beach in Montego Bay to meditate. This time he brought with him a seasoned spliff (a mixture of crack cocaine and ganja) and his pocket bible. The latter was an object that most bad boys used to carry on their person in Jamaica. After he was seated comfortably, with his back rested on a rock, he read a psalm, lit up the spliff, inhaled then exhaled the strong concoction of crack cocaine and high grade weed, while gazing at the beautiful magnificence of the blue Caribbean Sea. He sat in the same position inhaling and exhaling the spliff; only moving occasionally, to re-light it while mulling over the situation in his head. He was very confused, because he didn’t know what the outcome was going to be, if he should go on the robbery spree. He’d also thought about the price that he would have to pay, if the worst scenario should unfold in the process, and losing his life wasn’t exempt from the list either. The thought of getting killed on a robbery sent shivers down his spine and he suddenly felt cold. Eventually he got up, flicked the tail of his spliff into the sea and walked away with an unwavering determination. When the hour arrived for him to meet up with Donovan, Peter and Paul, he didn’t turn up. He knew they would call him the worse names when they next saw him, but he was prepared to take whatever they through at him.