On Country shit… and other lost stories

My paternal grandfather grew sugarcane on the farmland of his property. The soil left unsalted by macoutes, and fertile with the water flowing from a creek nurtured sugarcane that climbed high under the Haitian sky. Rumour—and truth—has it that he used those same sky high sugarcane to make a mash that he fermented in barrels and distilled into rum. Haitian clairin would put hair on your chest and clouds under your feet. My grandfather made dancers out of stoics, and then he made them fly.

And he had a double barrel attitude adjustment for those who found too much courage in their liquid. But for my father’s stories--which were usually a complicated retelling of his childhood--we never would have known about my grandad’s rebel past.

We have no recipes

My maternal grandmother was a botanist, or a herbalist depending on who you asked. She could grow almost anything with a patch of dirt, water and patience. Rumour—and truth—has it that she could pick anything from her garden for what ails you. And she had a machete by her door in case an attitude needed an adjustment. 

We have no instructions.

Instead, we are left a patchwork of half remembered stories, holy as they are. 

Such is the way of country folk, no matter where in the diaspora we come from. The ones who didn’t win war, the ones whose stories are second tier experiences. 

Sometimes it's hard to think of myself as country, while sitting in a Brooklyn apartment, a bacon, egg and cheese from my local bodega less than half a block away. On most days I’m not. I’m a long way from goats in the yard, and digging in the garden for maniok, but still it is close. 

And for me, it’s the way that mango juice runs down my hand in the summer time, the smell of meat being cooked over an open fire, the sounds of a machete hitting a tree stump. In the decades of growing in Florida, it also looks like candy coated cadillacs on spinning wheels, it tastes like pickled eggs and hot sausage bought from the ice cream truck, and crushed in a potato chip bag (don’t judge, it made sense in the moment).

And country for me means, politicians don’t visit til voting season. It means that promises get made in hard-bottom shoes and the barefoot can never cash in. It means the stories of my folks can die with me, and if I don’t speak them aloud. 

Krik

Krak