Shunting from Dakar to Casamance

Abstract

Shunting from Dakar to Casamance Colin Channer (bio) i A father takes it as his job to order:rank the powers in the house so the man o’ yard could slicethe crotons with the cutlass how he gauged it, but couldn’t dark hiskhaki-wearing self onto the porch; there, the woman who did pressingeased a drink to sun from shelter through the grillwork’s diamond gaps,sumptuous cold water or bebridge but always in glass—for plasticit was certified held germs so all like fi-him outside mouthcan’t wet-wet people plastic things. So glass it was or Panther-tastingwater from the hose. So rank began with who was mostland-close even in a house like ours, [End Page 23] no great design to it: a box of slabsschemed out on old horse farm and a bygone orange grove where slaverykept imagination ligatured to bias more than law. My father’s skinwas pale-beige-watered Scotch. My mother’s blood was part Maroonshe used to boast. Should kids be embarrassed bythe grown-ups they become? To us mid in class and toneour mother’s brag said yes, I was inked wicked, had a storywith an opening in the bush. Phantom’s Skull Cave in comics.Drive-in newsreels’ sunk eyes, zinc ribs, bloat, tuft hair.Guerillas or gorillas at war. She top-ranked my father, whomshe called in public “dunce police,” and when he was demoted furtherthrough divorce she just straight-ruled. Her white tunic made her handsome,her laughter lit dispensaries and [End Page 24] brought mint coolness to damp wards,but home she ran it like a capo: charismatic, loving, then would punchyou if you fucked up like a thug. If she caught you in a lie she’dcall you to the night porch, you’d gauge the cutlass-ordered crotons’silhouette, the argyle pattern grill then out of air that slow bloom mentholmarking where she slumped. You trembled when she started:“Mr. Bitch . . .” ii How it goes with me—sea callsand I go to it, not obedient— with the taut awareness of the archerwho’s heard fusillade, bluster call of notes, or when the cellist looks up,sees conductor’s eyelids droop, and titivates the bow. It’s a string thing,this hurt, tendon-wound not muscles bound; and what draws it out of me a little isthe big resilience, ocean of whatever color cutting itself again and againsalt already rubbed into the wounds. [End Page 25] A posture comes with this witness.Spine believes it is its doing but my tendons know. Sometimes they lieto the ligaments so when I see a boat way out I feel if I had the pomegranateswitch I used to knot with sisal as a boy, something sonorous would drainfrom a body flung to deck shocked by whittle arrow on the far skylineshocked as I was when she’d summon and for fuck-ups forgottenlicks would fletch my ass. iii When I leave her after visits and wehug in Stamford’s near-sea cold I’m startled always that she’s small,by her skin’s flatness— versus memory, a confusing timbre,lost sheen tone. The lobby of her pricey condo is awash with all the fooleryrising tidal every time we meet. She always says I love you, a habitpicked up on the way to 85. I’m always struck by change and aging.On the long drive up the coast [End Page 26] through towns with hope hollowedlinked by some took-for-granted bridge, I regard with pleasure that endures:the tall blond grass of autumn; in winter, fields that float on fog and snow;summer and the Boston-bound Acelas on the metal Malecón between the highwayand the beach; spring’s floral glory, all New England variegated likethe crotons ordered by the man o’ yard to euphemize the fence. I consolemyself sometimes with “pictures,” her lingo carried over to my home:Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, Scorcese-odes to...