Tri­cia St John

Just pull de cur­tain … dat dam fridge mak­ing sweet eye for the wash­ing ma­chine … de dog eh find noth­ing to do but bite de post­man and then gone run­ning through the streets bark­ing up a storm. Ah not go­ing be­hind him in­no. In fact, ah sit­ting down right here and pre­tend he is not mines. When­ev­er he comes back, ah go tie him. De pub­lic as­sis­tance cheque for dis month eh even last as long as de red house fire … No­body eh say is plen­ty mon­ey, but at least it could fix de fridge so it could at least hold out for the hol­i­day. It’s true that not every day is Christ­mas, but every time it comes around, de fridge and de wash­ing ma­chine mak­ing de same joke: “We tired.”

And then, as if on cue, de mer­chants re­stock­ing with the pret­ti­est cur­tains, dec­o­ra­tions ga­lore. Kitchen tow­els, match­ing py­ja­mas, new mats for the floor.

Like every­body does get ex­cit­ed for Christ­mas. Even when you con­vince your­self that you won’t be do­ing any­thing, some­thing catch­es your eye, or maybe the hol­i­day bug bites, and you start re­cal­cu­lat­ing your bud­get to cov­er the things you be­lieve would make the sea­son bet­ter or im­prove your mood.

 Some­times we end up stretched thin, be­cause in the ex­cite­ment we over­reach. And it is so easy to get caught up in the gift get­ting, the cur­tain buy­ing, even the gro­cery shop­ping ... Yuh see, all yuh who pre­fer a crowd­ed gro­cery, with trol­leys bumper to bumper like traf­fic … not dis year with all yuh non­sense, eh!

Buy all yuh two thing and go home in all yuh place! Stop push­ing de trol­ley down every aisle pick­ing up thing yuh doh need. Coz I want to run in and run out to reach home with enough en­er­gy left to clean dem lou­vres me eh touch since East­er.

Ah know peo­ple does en­joy the hus­tle and bus­tle of the crowd­ed streets. Ven­dors hawk­ing their goods, while they walk back and forth, and in cir­cles try­ing to de­cide on colour, size, style, and what it will match with. While all yuh up and dong Char­lotte Street re­mem­ber to pay at­ten­tion to yuh hand­bags, eh ladies. Hold them tight as if is yuh whole life de­pend­ing on it. Doh let no­body snatch it to spend yuh hard-earned mon­ey. Worse yet, if is hub­by’s hard-earned mon­ey. Coz yuh know, any time is dat, it won’t be so easy tuh talk yuh­self out of dat calami­ty.

Don’t buy any­thing to waste

De best thing to do might prob­a­bly be to start sav­ing for Christ­mas long be­fore the stove and fridge start plan­ning ear­ly re­tire­ment. Yuh cud put aside some­thing from de change every time yuh make gro­ceries. And if yuh doh get change, if de man does give yuh ex­act, or you for yuh­self does cut it close, then leave out one thing every month that not nec­es­sary. Yuh could even al­ter­nate what yuh leav­ing out every month, and stretch what yuh buy.

 If in de end what yuh save get yuh cur­tains or yuh mat set, even if it just to get some new spoons, coz by me dem spoon does get foot and walk out mih life, is still a win coz is one ex­pense less.

Yuh make mar­ket, doh buy noth­ing to waste, yuh could wash, cut up and freeze. I does freeze every­thing in­no … pi­men­tos and all. Dem chil­dren does laugh at meh, but is dem same chil­dren does glad to grab two frozen toma­to and bub­ble some cho­ka to eat with de roti bake. Yuh swear dey find a na­tion­al trea­sure when dey won­der­ing what to eat and one of dem re­mem­ber the frozen trea­sures in the deep freeze.

Well, look my cross­es, ah telling mih­self, if de hard­est thing ah do dis sea­son is tie back de dog and duck Al­fred and he chil­dren then ah get through, coz dem chil­dren Al­fred have dey al­ways want thing it eh have, and as for Al­fred, who could nev­er sat­is­fy with two bis­cuit and one Stag, like he eh know dem thing ex­pen­sive, on­ly to hear pay com­ing late again. Is what dey want me to do boy? Ah hold back as long as ah could.

 Three light bill bounce up now, and every time ah see a truck dat look­ing slight­ly yel­low ah div­ing head first in­to pan­ic mode, and leh we doh talk bout dem truck WASA say dey con­tract­ing. If it have any back­hoe fol­low­ing any of dem truck, I get­ting out­side and play mad on de road yes … they on­ly want to dig up in front yuh place to dis­con­nect wa­ter. Dey should be shame! But ah feel dey eh have none. Wa­ter does on­ly come twice for de month and it due Christ­mas eve, so dat is when ah had­da fin­ish do all mih do. Dey bet­ter pass in front by me straight, yes. Is how dem young peo­ple does say it … like a full bus?

Air­ing dirty laun­dry

It mustn’t be that yuh get so caught up that ten­sions rise and tem­pers flare. And ah say that not to mind no­body busi­ness but dis morn­ing was com­mo­tion by Mavis ear­ly ear­ly ... long be­fore 5 am if all yuh hear cuss. Eu­stace say she over­spend­ing he mon­ey wild and fool­ish, buy­ing non­sense! Ah know it eh nice but the noise did done wake meh so ah lis­ten. He say down to de dog she frus­trat­ing ... Ah laugh at dat one eh, but I was good fright­en for she.  Every­body know Eu­stace have a ter­ri­ble tem­per. Every­body ex­cept Mavis, it look like.

By de time he fi­nal­ly leave for work is all Mavis busi­ness ah know. He tell she fix de old wash­ing ma­chine, she gone by Courts. New wash­ing ma­chine in de place and he on­ly know when he come home and see it, so now he have to look for ex­tra hours to pay for thing he doh want. Every minute she mov­ing the dog ken­nel, from one side of the yard to the next. Poor Brown­ie don’t know if he com­ing or go­ing. And the chil­dren frus­trat­ed to tears be­cause as she fix some­thing she de­cid­ing it eh look­ing as good dey as she thought and is dem have to move it. Mount and un­mount. Push across de room. De show­er cur­tain done change about 99 times be­cause she paint the bath­room pur­ple so now noth­ing it have not match­ing. De man say if she on­ly buy a new set he go lick she down.

I won­der if he know how se­ri­ous that is. Look, I pray­ing all now Mavis take it down a notch and take two steps back yes. I know about that ‘lick down’ thing and it not nice. Yuh does come like Brown­ie, not sure if yuh com­ing or go­ing. Yuh ner­vous, fright­en, don’t know if yuh will get a next lash or when yuh will get it. Yuh skin bruise up and out­side not seem­ing too ap­peal­ing be­cause the en­tire neigh­bour­hood done privy to all yuh dirty laun­dry and then some.

 Ah want to tell Mavis that Eu­stace must have a say be­cause is his mon­ey she spend­ing. I want to say that is best if she doesn’t like some of his de­ci­sions to ask him nice­ly to sit with her so they can dis­cuss. I want to tell her it not mak­ing no kin­da sense, ten­sions high and in this hap­py sea­son both of them vex, mouth long, and is quar­rel every chance they get. That not good for the chil­dren at all … these things have a way they, does leave un­healthy im­pres­sions on the minds of chil­dren.

 In­stead teach them that hus­bands and wives must al­ways love and ho­n­our, re­spect and cher­ish each oth­er. Teach them healthy com­mu­ni­ca­tion. And the best way to show is with ac­tions, be­cause is not me they tak­ing cues from. I is on­ly de neigh­bour. So, they does lis­ten to me but is all yuh dey watch­ing and yuh see in these last few days of ac­tivism ah doh want to hear no bad news be­cause of anger and frus­tra­tion. Ah feel ah go­ing over there with my black cake recipe yes, she does al­ways com­plain hers too dry... Ah will open de con­ver­sa­tion with that be­fore this thing es­ca­late.

Who is Tri­cia St John?

Tri­cia St John is a moth­er, au­thor, event co­or­di­na­tor, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sur­vivor. St John lost her left fore­arm and two fin­gers on her right hand to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at­tack in 2004. In 2009, St John’s ex-hus­band was found guilty by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry of at­tempt­ing to mur­der her. He was sen­tenced to 25 years and ten strokes.

St John is mak­ing im­pres­sive strides as she moves on with her life. She was recog­nised by the Tra­di­tion­al Afrikan Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion with the Har­ri­et Tub­man/Clau­dia Jones Award on March 27, 2021. Here she con­tin­ues her sto­ry of abuse from No­vem­ber 12.