Bad Man's Woman

Bad Man’s Woman A short story by Austin Mitchell My friend, Elroy Reid was relating to me what had happened between him and his longtime girlfind, Carline Weston. They had been friends from high school. They lived just a kilometer apart in Keswick. It all started when Carline decided to go to a commercial school on Kingston. “I told her to take the morning bus and come back with it in the evenings.” “So what did she say?” I asked. “Said, that she wouldn’t get any time to study.” “Maybe she’s right. She would have to get up too early in the mornigs and come home too late at nights. We were sheltering under a shop plaza as it was raining cats and dogs. I was getting the feeling that maybe Elroy didn’t want Carlineb to go and live in Kingston. Maybe he feared that she would find some other guy down there. Anyway above strong objections from Elroy, Carline went to live with her aunt in Kingston. Elroy swore that he wouldn’t have anything to do with her but changed his mind when she started coming up on weekends. Elroy couldn’t be happier and they went to dances and parties together. But it all ended about three months later. Carline would still visit her parents but it would be every month. “By the time I hear that she come country she’s gone aready,” he told me one day. That was because Carline would come up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and return the same evening. He told me that she was working and going to school part time. Elroy was now operating a shop in an adjoining district. One of his uncles had recently come from England and bought a fifty farm nearby. Elroy was operating it for him. He had persons working in his shop. He bought a pickup and would go to various towns to sell produce from his farm. He was especially generous to Carline’s parent. He would give them loads of produce from his farm. All in vain I thought as Carline wasn’t coming back to him. I remembered seeing him one day. He was driving his van with produce to sell in Linstead. As he wasn’t passing, Carline parent, Sammy and Miss Fay’s house, he asked bme to take some goods to give them on my bicycle. Among the produce was a huge bunch of ripe bananas which I took for myself. A month later he gave me the largest breadfruit I ever saw plus two dozen ackees to give his suppposed in-laws. We did make a feast of that breadfruit and ackees. Me and my brothers all agreed that anything Elroy gave us to give Carline’s parents, we would keep for ourselves. This continued foe another three months or so. Somebody told Elroy of what we were doing. He cursed us off. He even threatened to go to the p[olice. We scoffed at that, we didn’t take all the things he gave us for his supposed in-laws. So as not to arise suspicions we always gave them some of it. Elroy was stupidly accusing us of causing Carline to leave him. Of corse nobody believed him. Elroy’s farm was so fruitful that he could throw some tomato seeds outside his windows and be picking tomatoes the next morning. Girls were running him down but he ignore them. He believed that Carlene would return to him. I saw another of Elroy’s friends one day and he said to me. “Butler, I think Elroy is wasting his time hoping that Carline will come back to him.” “I believe Carline has left him, Vince.” We were drinking beers in Chappie Chung’s bar in the Keswick Mountains. “That guys's to stupid. How can you still love a girl, who doesn’t want to see you,” I told him. A girl, Silvie, had joined us. She was an assistant teacher at the primary school. She was short and round. I bought her a soda. “I thought you and Elroy were going to Kern’s dance tonight.” “Me and Elroy, no sir. He still loves Carline. I don’t know when he’s going to get over her.” Another young lady, Leta Brown had joined us. She was a clerk at the local branch library. Vince bought her a soda. “Carline is along with a Don, that’s what I heard,”Leta told us. That’s what I had heard too. ”That’s what I hear too. But Elroy won’t believe it.” Elroy did believe it because he started going around with Justine Harris, a practical nurse at the local clinic. As he and my entire family weren’t on speaking terms after he accused us of stealing his goods I didn’t get to ask him any question. I only heard those stories on the grapevine. “I hope Elroy isn’t using my daughter. I have a feeling that he’ll lave her if Carline comes back to her,” Miss Jenny, her mother, said to me one day. “Don’t say that I told you so, but Carline isn’t coming back to Elroy. She’s along with a Don in Kingston.” “What!” Miss Paula expressed her surprise. She knew all about Dons and their reputation.(Read the full story in ' Days in Long Hill' to be published soon.