San­to Lyons brought the rub­ber-tipped sticks against his chest with a flash­ing ges­ture of pride. He quick­ly struck his tenor pan with na­tive skill and the mu­si­cal notes sailed out of the makeshift tent-like oiled gems of de­light. Ring­ing sounds, tin­gling the nerves, har­mo­nious melody cours­ing through the air.

For months, a gaunt broody Lyons stood be­fore his steel­pan and with spon­tane­ity, pound­ed out the mu­si­cal notes, the sounds emit­ting a mar­vel­lous rhythm. He had to co­or­di­nate, know­ing full well that the sub­tle tones must be kept low-keyed to sup­port his ac­cen­tu­at­ed high oc­taves, boom­ing with stac­ca­to em­pha­sis. A pa­pered win­dow opened at the side of the one-room rick­ety shack.

Wendy looked out a shad­ow in ink, a ghost­ly ap­pari­tion as if out of sleep, with fraz­zled hair, look­ing at her hus­band en­tan­gled in his own de­spair. His band­ed fore­arms, throb­bing chest and his quick hands cre­at­ing a blur in the fee­ble light from the flick­er­ing flam­beau cast­ing a shad­ow.

"San­to, Julie and Jen­ny ent have no pas­sage. You could spare a small change?" Wendy spoke at the win­dow.

"Ah buy tam­pee with meh last mon­ey," Lyons replied.

He stopped play­ing on his pan and dropped his hands in­to his pock­ets. Af­ter much time his hand sur­faced with coins.

"This is all ah have. Take it —thir­ty-two cents."

"Dat can’t even buy chan­na. Is pas­sage mon­ey ah want. And is stale bake them chirren tak­ing to school to­mor­row.

"Well, leh them stay home, where I could be near them. I nev­er went to school. I wash car and car parts and sell bot­tle in my day.

"Doh be chupid. Ex­ams com­ing and them chirren do­ing good.

"Well, sell them two com­mon fowl in the yard, what you want me to do?"

"You go sell your neigh­bour fowl to send yuh chirren to school?’ Wendy asked.

Lyons looked stern­ly at his wife and picked up his sticks. Once more he stroked his pan in­to puls­ing res­o­nance. For a mo­ment his mu­sic took him to a high lev­el of co­her­ence; a co­gency of mul­ti-toned pas­sages he had longed to pro­duce. A fleet­ing mo­ment of suc­cess. He had fought to get this tonal notes right, with con­stant prac­tice and had re­solved to strike his left stick with the right force, at the right mo­ment, in uni­son, to achieve the flu­id­i­ty, the com­pro­mis­ing vi­bra­tions, so elu­sive­ly com­plex and dex­ter­ous­ly dif­fi­cult.

With Wendy’s haunt­ing voice still on his mind, he stopped his pan play­ing and ap­proached the ta­ble for a drink of wa­ter. He looked up the road where the Star Brite Steel­band was re­hears­ing. He recog­nised the vi­brant en­er­gy the play­ers dis­played as the base drums dis­pensed a ri­otous rum­bling of dis­cor­dance.

He want­ed to com­pete in the so­lo tenor pan cat­e­go­ry. The first prize mon­ey was sur­pris­ing­ly gen­er­ous. The new Gov­ern­ment had re­vised the pol­i­cy for the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions. The steel­bands had var­i­ous prizes to com­pete for, as did the Pa­rade of Car­ni­val bands, the Ca­lyp­so King and Queen and the Chut­ney So­ca Champs—two-mil­lion-dol­lar first prizes and oth­er mon­e­tary prizes worth thou­sands of dol­lars.

Lyons knew he had to face the great Car­ni­val stal­warts of the city. Mas and pan play­ers from the many camps who had spent their whole lives fo­cused on the Na­tion­al Fes­ti­val. As a poor Mara­bel­la handy­man and pan beat­er, he knew the odds were great but he want­ed the name Mara­bel­la to ap­pear on the bill­boards.

To bring ho­n­our to Wendy and his daugh­ters.

He sat on the up­turned buck­et and looked at his des­o­late yard, hold­ing his two steel pan sticks in his hands, touch­ing his cheeks. His mind was far away, to the light­ed plat­form; imag­in­ing him­self stand­ing cen­tre stage be­fore the crowd­ed pavil­ion.

But the pain in his fore­arms and el­bows had re­turned. The arthrit­ic aches, the sud­den mus­cu­lar seizures that at times moved to his shoul­ders. A fee­ble Wendy ap­peared, carved in ebony, her home­made loose gown touch­ing her toes, in her hand a saucer, two bis­cuits and a su­crier fig. He looked up and was thank­ful. Al­ways at his side, this woman he met across the Dry Riv­er had been more than a life com­pan­ion. She bore him two daugh­ters and was much en­deared to both. She worked nights at a side­walk food stall as San­to’s ill­ness had pre­vent­ed him from work­ing.

As the day ar­rived for the Pan so­lo com­pe­ti­tion Lyons took his steel­pan with him.

Wendy walked at his side with the sup­port stands. He want­ed his daugh­ters to come. Wendy kissed him on the cheeks amongst hun­dreds of peo­ple seat­ed around the stage, ablaze with the hov­er­ing panoply of stage lights. The air was alive with colour from the over­head high wattage bulbs and the sheen from mul­ti-coloured ban­ners.

Mu­sic kept the crowd alive, the ris­ing crescen­do of steel drums re­ver­ber­at­ing across the stands, up in­to the night sky. Lyons kept his band­ed arms close to his chest. Fever heat­ed up his body but he was de­ter­mined. His inkwell eyes were deeply sad. This was a do or die mo­ment. He thought of Julie and Jen­ny left in the care of their neigh­bour. And his life flashed be­fore him; the leak­ing roof - the bro­ken wash­tub, the bare house­hold, de­void of fur­ni­ture and ba­sic ameni­ties, the open-top bath en­clo­sure in the yard, the bor­rowed one-burn­er stove, the kitchen, emp­ty of food­stuffs. Then he felt the slow throb­bing pain along his arm and wrists. Wendy re­alised some­thing was wrong, felt his chest, clasped his hands and looked in­to his eyes. What could tran­spire be­tween hus­band and wife? What could have been the facts which on­ly they both knew? What­ev­er Lyons straight­ened him­self and breathed in the cold air. His hands tight­ened on his pan sticks, a fierce glow in his eyes. But he nev­er spoke. And then he heard his name called, "San­to Lyons, the last Pan­man from Mara­bel­la."

Lyons walked up to the stage and placed his tenor pan on the sup­port stand. He felt the heat and the glare of the stage lights on his shoul­ders. In the glare he stood alone in his open-neck white po­lo shirt he had bor­rowed from a friend and which Wendy had spent a whole day scrub­bing in her al­most wa­ter­less tub. And in his band­ed fore­arms and painful el­bows, he felt an ur­gency he nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore.

On this stage, he looked down on the large au­di­ence, awak­ened by the glow­ing thrill of the mo­ment, as his wrists curled and twist­ed and he leant for­ward, stood back, and un­der his blaz­ing whirring sticks, the tenor pan erupt­ed in an up­roar of mu­si­cal splen­dour of thrilling scales. But he was ner­vous. He was sweat­ing. The night air failed to cool the heat en­rap­tur­ing his body.

He held his two sticks with con­fi­dence he nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore. This was a call to du­ty, a de­sire that came out of his tor­ment­ed soul and the sil­very notes of mu­si­cal tones waft­ed out over the heads of the huge crowd. Thrilling, cap­ti­vat­ing, haunt­ing­ly rem­i­nis­cent of the back in times melodies, "Smoke gets in your eyes," "The Pan­man’s Rhap­sody," the Span­ish tunes, "Bel­la Bel­la Marie" and "Cumanchero."

His face was wet as he stood in com­mand and his lim­ber­ing arms moved over his pan with ex­pert adroit­ness. His heart swelled with joy, the tem­po­rary pain halt­ed by the pre­cious oc­taves of mu­sic he was dis­pens­ing through the mag­i­cal skill he had in com­plete con­trol with him­self. And then it was over—a re­sound­ing cli­max of his su­perb pan­man­ship.

He bowed to tu­mul­tuous con­tin­u­ous ap­plause, turned to go out, but felt the pain again strong on his arms that trav­elled across to his chest. He felt some­one hold on to his arms, tak­ing him away from his pan. Dizzy, he could hard­ly stand. They took him back­stage.

He was lean­ing against the stage wings and heard, felt peo­ple around him. He had faint­ed hav­ing ex­pend­ed his en­er­gy un­der the hot stage lights. And when he opened his eyes, ly­ing on the floor Wendy was hug­ging him, speak­ing to him with her left hand un­der his head, her right hand fan­ning him ex­cit­ed­ly, with an en­ve­lope that came from the judges. She spoke above the up­roar of con­tin­u­ous ap­plause, "San­to, you won boy, you beat them! All ah dem $1,000, we rich now!" She opened the en­ve­lope and showed him.

Then he smiled, his eyes lit up and his body con­vulsed, clutch­ing the en­ve­lope in a fierce grasp that made Wendy in­creas­ing­ly con­cerned. He re­mem­bered the MC in­tro­duc­ing him as The Last Pan­man.

She tried tak­ing the en­ve­lope from him.

To no avail. In a low, whim­per­ing voice he man­aged to say, "For Julie and Jen­ny, take care." She hugged him afresh whis­pered in his ear but he re­mained with a frozen smile, say­ing noth­ing. She shook him on his shoul­ders, looked in­to his un­blink­ing, un­see­ing eyes, then she clutched her heart and screamed.

Her shrill voice screeched in­to a far­away mourn­ful note echo­ing across the pavil­ion stands, over the crowds and lost it­self in the cool paths of pass­ing night winds.

Willi Chen is an artist, play­wright, po­et and au­thor of eight books fea­tur­ing short sto­ries.