Pierre Freeman was an artist, raconteur and dancer, destitute and a drunk. He tatted his hair to thick dreadlocks that flattened into the shape of oak leaves. He smoked weed, but never paid for it. He spoke with a Jamaican accent even though he had never been out of Minnesota. In Pierre\u2019s opinion it was better to be broke because then he didn\u2019t spend money on drink. Skin as dark as black coffee, muscled as a field hand, Pierre at onetime danced Modern African Ballet with the Minnesota Dance Company. The art director fired Pierre when he showed up for a performance at the Walker Art Museum stage too drunk to do anything but pee on himself as he lay on the stage, his well-muscled ass in the air.<\/p>\n
He hung out in the Bohemian Flats Neighborhood in Minneapolis, the punk-beatnik mecca on the west side of the Mississippi River. The University of Minnesota studio arts building stood a few blocks away. Pierre modeled for the life drawing class where he met Ester, a progressive Jewish girl, and took her drinking at the River Rat tavern. She carried a 35-millimeter camera, took black and white photos, sometimes had a show, and printed art postcards of her work. Ester always shelled out for the drinks. Even drunk, Pierre sustained his Jamaican accent.<\/p>\n
One evening in October when the wind skipped brown, red, and yellow maple leaves up the sidewalks, he arrived inebriated to the studio arts building. Pierre managed to disrobe and then piss and projectile vomit on the nice students and their sketchpads. He then fell asleep on the small stage, his well-muscled ass in the air. The art professor fired him.<\/p>\n
Pierre\u2019s best friend was Arty O\u2019Brien. A white dude of Irish ancestry, Arty had known Pierre from before the Jamaican accent. Arty lived in a storefront studio next to the Veterans of Foreign Wars bingo hall by the Bandbox greasy spoon off Chicago Avenue.<\/p>\n
One morning just past midnight, Ester drove Pierre to Arty\u2019s storefront, dumped him on the sidewalk, pounded on the door and left Pierre forever. Arty, hoping to run into Ester, came out barefooted and bare-chested but wearing tight jeans. He kicked through the autumn leaves, and helped Pierre inside to sleep it off on the couch. Within the next two days, Pierre found new employment at Cash Paid Daily labor pool a few blocks away. He kept his accent.<\/p>\n
Pierre never rented an apartment. When he crashed at Arty\u2019s storefront studio, pallet wood burning in the woodstove with a wire mesh fence around it, he spoke plain Midwestern English with a Swedish accent and not a trace of southern Ebonics. Arty O\u2019Brien, born and raised on Stoney Island in Chicago, talked blacker than Pierre did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have my story down,\u201d said Pierre. \u201cThere\u2019s a village in Jamaica on the northeast coast called Orange Bay. That\u2019s where Cairo\u2019s family keeps a farm. It has a view of the Caribbean from the foothills of the Blue Mountains, and Swift River flows from those mountains. Caiman alligators inhabit the lower waters to the sea. I haven\u2019t been there yet but know from Cairo\u2019s stories every path, every river, and every stone and conch shell along the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cairo was a real Jamaican whose skin matched the color of unsweetened chocolate. Cairo dealt weed and drove tractor-trailer over the road. He was a natural aristocrat. Pierre would be if he quit drinking.<\/p>\n
Pierre rolled a cigarette from a package of Bugler and lit it on the stove. \u201cI grew up in the jungle, lived on breadfruit and mangoes and fish. My gran\u2019fatah escaped slavery and went to the mountains to join the rebellion. When I tell that story I always get pussy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arty knew the last woman to sleep with Pierre was Ester. Arty loved her even though he never slept with her. He\u2019d visit her tiny Bohemian Flats apartment and sip hot tea that smelled of<\/p>\n
orange peel. Three masonite panels stood floor to ceiling to cordon off an area for a dark room. Her living space walls displayed a series of framed black and white photographs of Pierre in various ballet and African dance poses, stark naked, muscled striations gleaming.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, Ariel from the room down the hall would visit. She looked Arty over, her eyes dilating like she had smoked Datura, and licked the blue line edging dark red lips like a ripened plum. Arty knew better than to get with Ariel. She seemed ageless. A Rip Van Winkle story circulated in the taverns and coffeehouses that when men emerge from Ariel\u2019s apartment, decades have passed.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you think,\u201d said Arty to Pierre, \u201cyou aren\u2019t being for real with this Jamaican accent?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoy acting,\u201d said Pierre. \u201cIt\u2019s part of storytelling in the tradition of the African trickster.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat if I started speaking in Irish brogue?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d respect you,\u201d said Pierre. \u201cYou\u2019d be honoring your heritage. You should go to Ireland and live among your people for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I suppose you should go to Jamaica?\u201d<\/p>\n
Pierre folded his arms across his chest and leaned back. \u201cWhy not? I\u2019m going even if I gotta swim through alligators and sharks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know there were more Irish penal slaves transported to the Caribbean and the colonies than Africans? Thus the Gaelic accent of Jamaican patois.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pierre nodded in agreement. \u201cExactly, perfessor. Living with you, I become Black Irish, like a real Jamaican.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cash Paid Daily moved Pierre from restaurant to restaurant. He washed dishes or cleaned ovens or mopped up after closing. Pierre never knew which restaurant he would work at, except it would be on University Avenue.<\/p>\n
Winter in Minneapolis began on Halloween with a blizzard resulting in three feet of snow. By Thanksgiving, the temperature dropped to zero degrees Fahrenheit. The Mississippi River froze solid. Two weeks before Christmas, the temperature dropped to twenty below zero. Pierre could risk a shortcut to his labor pool job by trotting across the Mississippi.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Arty O\u2019Brien let Pierre move in since he was working, could split the rent and help scrounge pallets to cut into firewood. Arty was an addict too, but went to meetings. His worst addiction was taking care of drunks because his dad had been a drunk and he had taken care of his dad.<\/p>\n
Pierre often showed up hammered, reciting to Arty from the street, \u201cYou are the best-goddamned Irishman who ever lived, and I love you more than any brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arty would get him inside and to bed.<\/p>\n
The real Jamaican, Cairo, would sometimes park his pickup in front of the storefront and come in for a cup of black coffee. He looked around at the books, piles of lumber and parts of musical instruments. Too cold for cockroaches. At least the dishes were done. Not a woman\u2019s crib.<\/p>\n
\u201cBunk you guys in tat same bed?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Pierre and Arty threw their shoulders back and looked at Cairo like he was crazy.<\/p>\n
Cairo shook his head. \u201cYou misunderstand. Slept I and my brother in te same bed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two lofts here,\u201d said Pierre, indicating the salvage scrap 2 by 4 and Plywood structures along the walls.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got te Yellow Pages?\u201d said Cairo. \u201cNeed I to look up a heater fan for my pickup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arty returned from the bathroom with the phonebook.<\/p>\n
Cairo opened to the section and found the pages gone. Torn edges remained at the glued binding.<\/p>\n
Arty gave a sheepish shrug. \u201cRan out of toilet paper.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMon, never buy toilet paypah. Steal I tem yella napkins from Subway.\u201d He handed the phone book back, and Arty returned it to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnuttah ting about Orange Bay, Jamaica,\u201d said Cairo. \u201cWhen my gran\u2019fatah murtaht his wife and ran to te Blue Mountains, police tracked him wit’ bloodhoun\u2019s. He hole up far a long time. Escaped he te hounds by wai\u2019ting in Priestman River. Hole up he in te caves of John Crow Mountain, runs nawt-ease to sout-west on te ease-side o\u2019 te mountain. Te police shot him, but not befah gran\u2019fatah killed two o\u2019 tem. Admire I, my gran\u2019fatah.\u201d<\/p>\n
They stood around the woodstove and drank coffee. Arty lifted the lid off the stove and stacked a bundle of pallet wood on the coals. The storefront smelled of wood smoke. The stovepipe entered the chimney where a gas heater used to vent.<\/p>\n
After Cairo left, Pierre practiced the accent. \u201cA NUTah TING\u00a0 te CAVES of JOHN Crow MOUNTtain\u00a0 nawt EASE to SOUT wes on te EASE side O’ te MOUNTain, follow UP PRIESTman RIVah, AHTy o\u2019BRIen.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Before Christmas, Cash Paid Daily sent Pierre and several Mexicans to a different dishwashing job. Arty, running out of firewood, needed Pierre to help scrounge pallets, But Pierre didn\u2019t make it home that week. By New Year some folks at River Rat tavern speculated he had walked drunk across the Mississippi and fell through the ice. The old weed dealer claimed he saw Pierre staggering up the street on Ariel\u2019s arm, and may have disappeared within her one-room at the Bohemian Flats Apartments.<\/p>\n
Arty stood by the woodstove, drank coffee and contemplated the fractals of frost layering storefront windows. He had checked in with Ester regarding Ariel. Ester said Pierre wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
When the phone rang, he picked it up. A woman\u2019s voice yelled over the phone. It was Pierre\u2019s mother. She was a Minneapolis public schoolteacher, so mean that Arty pitied the children she taught.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t show up for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s not at the morgue and not in jail. He hasn\u2019t stayed in touch since we quit speaking until he quits drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you call Cash Paid Daily labor pool?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey claim Pierre was deported. Why would they do that? He was born when I shit him out at the County Hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arty held the phone away from his ear. \u201cHe\u2019s been talking about going to Jamaica for a<\/p>\n
long time. He sounds like a real Jamaican.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son always lied. Did he pack anything?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the clothes on his back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPierre likely called Immigration and Customs and reported himself. He\u2019ll get drunk and the Jamaican police will see through his phony-assed baloney and deport him right back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWinter in Minnesota will be over by then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d think he\u2019d send a postcard. He didn\u2019t even send a Christmas card.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGoodbye Mrs. Freeman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arty hung up and poured another mug of coffee from the pot on the woodstove. The mail slot clacked, and a single postcard fell among the junk mail in the wastebasket screwed to the inside of the door.<\/p>\n
He retrieved the postcard. Blue and yellow painted skiffs pulled up on a white sand beach. On the back a stamp with a portrait of Bob Marley smoking a spliff, postmarked Orange<\/p>\n
Bay.<\/p>\n
Dear Arty,<\/p>\n
U.S. Immigration and Customs raided the Mandarin Wok where I was busting suds with no identity card. They arrested and deported me to Kingston. I\u2019m living on the beach, smoking ganja and worshipping Ras Teferi. Go to Ireland! Your friend, Pierre Africa.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Within a week, Arty O\u2019Brien practiced an Irish brogue and made love with Ester. From her mattress he reviewed the new line of postcards tacked to the sheetrock, including a black and white photo of Pierre\u2019s glistening and muscular buttocks suspended against the sky full of stars.<\/p>\n
He rolled out of bed, pulled on his jeans, tucked in his shirt, buckled his belt, put on socks and boots. \u201cMind me identity card, Ester. I\u2019m heading out to Cash Paid Daily FAR a dishwashin\u2019 job.\u201d<\/p>\n
She rolled onto her side, one arm bent to hold her head up. \u201cDon\u2019t roll your R\u2019s too much honey. You sound Scots. Send for me when you get to Dublin?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAye,\u201d said Arty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pierre Freeman was an artist, raconteur and dancer, destitute and a drunk. He tatted his hair to thick dreadlocks that flattened into the shape of oak leaves. He smoked weed, but never paid for it. He spoke with a Jamaican accent even though he had never been out of Minnesota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-thomas-kevin-orourke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20785,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20314\/revisions\/20785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}