From the first day of my job at the port, I let everyone know my father was a bookkeeper. I made it clear that I was able to switch effortlessly between the Queen’s English and the rudest Patwa imaginable. They soon learned I could read and my handwriting was more than legible- it was precise.
And once it was discovered I spoke Spanish, I was sent out on all types of errands- there was always a South American ship in port and language was a constant barrier. They called me Habanito. I didn’t really mind, because it set me apart from all the other cannon fodder looking to get ahead.
After a few years, I was eventually promoted to customs clerk. It was my responsibility to meticulously log line items from an endless series of manifests and bills of lading into an absurdly massive logbook. It wasn’t a demanding job, but a necessary one- in those days, everything ran on paperwork.
There was talk amongst my supervisor and the men who controlled such decisions of allowing me to train as a bookkeeper- eventually. But even at such a young and inexperienced age, I was fairly certain that was just a way for them to keep me in line- a highly productive member of the lower ranks.
When I was twenty-two, I was six years into my “career” and starting to give up hope of progressing. One of the dock managers could smell my desperation and he took advantage. He and his gang of cronies started pressuring me to leave them alone with my paperwork. They started forging entries and had me validate the bogus lines. The money they’d slip me at the end of every week did little to assuage my feelings of anger and guilt. But what could I do?
When the scheme blew up, I took the fall and spent two years inside Kingston Penitentiary.
I did my time quietly.
My marriage was dissolved.
Aside from my younger sister, who was barely out of her teenaged years, not a single person visited me. Hetty had convinced our uncle to drive her over to the prison to see me. He refused to go inside with her, choosing to sit in his car reading his bible.
Yet when I was released, he was the one who came to take me home.
