A caramel pork, please.

Behind food truck 7, a deafening swarm of cars leaving the city center.

The road. On the other side, a merry-go-round, all lit up. Moving, flickering, spinning in silence. Two children on a helicopter. Waving to a woman standing with her back to me. Her body provocatively dressed, her hand gripping a ribbon, at the end of the ribbon a red balloon, ready to burst. She seems to be watching the marina.

I’ll have to step back for a better look.

That meat smells good.

To the left. The American monument, swamped by leaves. Ferns, phoenix palms, windmill palms. Behind me, the overbright lights of the museum. Everything in its proper place. I watch, while I wait for my order.

I can see her body again. I hope he won’t forget the spring onions on the pork, a touch of green. Just a few rags on her body. I think I recognize the long dress patterned with flowers she was wearing that day. White lace cuffs, if I’ve got the right one. Skin raw, crusted with blood. Only her pupils. Fixed. I never knew where she’d been. Never asked the question aloud.

Where had you been? Lisé. One day I’ll ask you.

I crossed the messy garden. Marks on the soil. They spoke of rage. A clear trail. Then her. Lying on the patio. I stop there, I look up. The door. Open. And I look back at her. Didn’t quite make it to the door. Lying on the patio. Flowers. Like they’d been thrown there. I’d never understood her absences, that’s just how she was, and I’d imagined her walking in the mountains, walking on the sea floor, until she found a good reason to come back. It wasn’t the first time she’d disappeared, but after several mornings I’d stopped counting the days without her.

You were there. Without warning. Where had you been, Lisé? I briefly touched your right knee and then I remember I lifted you up. Your head in my hand. My hand. Sand in your hair, where from? Should I forget about the time without you? And now, your body in my arms, your hand opening, some pebbles fall and the neighbor agrees to drive us to the hospital in his car. He says Petite Maman and her sisters were doing the housework and gardening when you appeared between the two frangipani trees.

He says you tried to chase them off straightaway, shouting they were in your house, your house.
He says you jumped on all the new flowers in the garden, and that you ripped, ripped, ripped them out.
He says your yells were blood-curdling.

The whole neighborhood is talking about us.

And then they hit you, battered, bashed you up.
So you’d stop.
Because you’d been gone too long.

The house had been well looked-after since you left, and the children had stopped skipping school. It was hot and humid that day. The sun had vanished behind purple clouds still holding back their death-rattle thunder. That’s why I was dazzled. Only the dull red nickel dust hovered in the air just behind the nearby trees. That’s how it was, our home. And always the heady scent of the mock orange even though it was growing at the bottom of the garden.
I was dishonored.
Where had you been?
Who smashed your face? Who scratched your flesh? Who spat in your hair? Who bruised your skin? Who reshaped your eyes? Who shouted in your ears? Who punched you in the belly? My husband smashed my face, scratched my flesh, spat in my hair, bruised my skin, reshaped my eyes, shouted in my ears, punched me in the belly.
Lisé, your voice inside me overwrites my memories.
It wasn’t me, Lisé, you know that. You know I can take a lot. I would never have raised my hand against you. If I’d asked you where you’d been, would you have told me the truth?

“Tough cookie, your wife, anyone else would’ve died after a beating like that.”

I’d have preferred that.

I’m a security guard for a theater. I watch and then I know and things keep getting better. Except for Lisé. I don’t know why she waited a year. Lisé waited a year. One year to the day later she beat herself up and went to the police station by herself and said it was him. He’s the one who beat me to a pulp. To the cops all she said was it was him. He’s the one who beat me to a pulp. “He” meaning me. So then it was me. My wife, beaten up by my adoptive mother and aunts. I’m the one who paid for that. Did time for that.

I say: I’m lying for you, Lisé. You say: You’re lying for your mother, Nesta.

Never saw my three daughters the whole time I was inside. My three daughters. Six, seven, and eight years old.

Two days ago I got out of prison.

It was a year ago today. March 18, 2009, to March 18, 2010. A year today. I’m hungry.

Thank you have a good evening.

The smell of meat calms me. That smell. My mother’s body. My mother. Died in 1985. My lonely queen. There are three of us, boys. She has no husband; we have no father. She has no husband, three sons and too much land for a woman.
They say: She has three sons and no husband.
They say: She has land all over the place. She has too much land.
They say: She already has three sons.
My mother was killed. My mother died in 1985. There were three of us, boys. My birth set off the fighting.
                                      
I’m separated from my brothers and introduced.
To my adoptive parents.
My adoptive father back from hunting. Lying on the grass, stroking his rifle, and listening to the animal’s moans. He smirks like a winner after hunting. The only times. I’m a child and I watch him move about, getting the animals ready to be eaten. Knife bleeding out gutting.
My adoptive mother or Petite Maman, I call her Petite Maman too, she wanted me with all her heart. My adoptive father accepts me as a favor to the Family. I see my two brothers sometimes. Kimani lives on Tiga. Rohan went to France. I’m leaving, he said, and left. Been saving up for a long time. That’s for sure.
Who do I look like?
Even today I’m still Petite Maman’s favorite. Even my mother didn’t love me like this. That’s for sure.

I’m thirty years old. My three daughters are Agathe, Eugénie, Apolline. Names straight from the calendar of saints. Futures assured.
The day I get out of prison I walk into my house and it smells of rice. Lisé in front of the TV on mute and my three daughters in the garden playing with trochus shells. A man is pushing a wheelbarrow in the background. I step forward. He’s wearing one of my T-shirts.
In the barrow, the mock orange, its roots in the air. Agathe jumps on me, smiling, Eugenie calls like a petrel, and Apolline blows me a kiss with her plump little hand. Lisé tells me to piss off. Which I do.
Early this morning she comes to see me at the hostel: she wants me to come home tonight.
Which I’ll do.
The date. Today is March 18, 2010. Two years ago Petite Maman and her sisters beat Lisé to a pulp, a year ago she accused me. She waited a year, then beat herself up and said it was him.
So it was me.

This morning after Lisé comes to the hostel, I go for a walk. I arrive in front of my old bosses’ security firm. They say yes. I can rejoin the team. I’ll get my reputation back. Tonight I start again. Same old system. Outside the theater. Keeping watch before. So the audience can go in with no problems, shut themselves away inside. Keeping watch during. So the audience can see the show in peace. What I like is looking at their faces as they leave. You observe them going in and you think they’ll come out different. But they’re still just as well-dressed. And their bodies moving through the night are still in one piece.

Robert Nesta Marley, known as Bob Marley. My mother is singing “Natural Mystic” when she realizes something is thrashing about in her belly so she shows up in front of the clan and tells them: “In June you’ll hear a kid howling, the father is Bob Marley.”  That’s why I’m called Nesta.

You have to be done with your women, said the lady shrink at the prison.
With your greedy mothers, your unstable wife. And be careful with your daughters.

Tonight after work I’m going back to live at home. Lisé is taking me back. The meat was tender.

(One year later)

6:09 PM. Black combat boots already. Laced up. A quick glance at Lisé. On my way to the theater. For the past year now, family life has made the days tick by. A year with Lisé, Agathe, Eugénie, and Apolline.

No one’s talking to me today. No way of approaching Lisé since last night. Hasn’t looked at me since this morning.

Silence in the house.

Until my phone vibrates.
I wasn’t supposed to work tonight. Night off. But the boss has texted. Fred is sick.
I stick my phone in my pocket. I look directly at Lisé. “I’m going” I say.

Electricity crackles.

Root them out. I’d like to root out, gently, gently, the crazy ideas exploding in her skull. Sort them out. This yes that no, yes no yes no, understand don’t understand understand don’t understand don’t understand don’t understand don’t understand don’t.

When I get to the two frangipanis I turn around. Agathe, Eugénie, and Apolline are behind me, they stick out their tongues and run into the house. The door slams.

Do they know that today’s the anniversary?
Do they know their mother celebrated the first anniversary of her beating by locking me up and the second by letting me come home?
Do they know that today I’m ready for anything to happen?
Today it’s been three years. Is Lisé going to celebrate that? Is she still wanting to play that game? Have I done the right thing leaving the house tonight? How can I predict your third trap Lisé?

You’re just like your mother you stupid son-of-a-bitch. You’ll end up like her. Crushed by your clan.
You too, chérie, have a good evening.
Always better than silence.
The street. Stirred-up red dust. The neighborhood.
I’m a security guard. Not a cop. A security guard. With a diploma in electrical engineering in my pocket I became a security guard outside a theater. Because Lisé. Then three kids.
One thing leading to another; the spark dying.
You can’t do anything on the minimum wage, so, after the show, when the public heads off, I stand at the door of a night club. I won’t say which one. It’s a whole new game there; I can punch who I choose.

When the bell rings, I open the purple velvet curtain in the middle and the big red star splits in two so I can see properly. Looks, style, size, fitness. I let them in. Or not. I can be wrong. Then I’m called inside to grab a few specimens and chuck them out. There’s a rhythm to it. Male, female, grab, out, grab, out. Any females who muck about, I’ve had practice. Still some bitches trying it on, calling me “chéri.” Saturday nights, I could do with an excavator. Dance floor, bar, entrance, toilet corridor, toilets, entrance, bar, toilet corridor, bar, toilet, dance floor, bar, toilet corridor, dance floor, toilet, dance floor, my record: three collars in one hand and another one I encourage with my size 45 foot. Direction, the exit.

All done my way. No fuss.

Come on. Leaving the neighborhood. Got to be on time at the theater. Theater security guard, that’s a big deal. People rely on us. Come on. At the end of the block, the bus shelter. Angry sun. Shirt already dripping. I hate that, my shirt already dripping. No one shows up at the theater with their shirt dripping. They dress up to get in. They dress up to sit and listen to stories. Listening to lies for almost an hour, sometimes two. Me and my pals, we laugh at them dressing up and paying for it. For stories.

Tune stuck in my head. Weather’s bad for my mood.