THE HIGHFLYERS-Excerpt

The Highflyers a short story by Austin Mitchell I knew Tony Dillon. That was when we lived in Allman Town on a road called Gresham Road. He had a car, I believed it was a Morris Oxford motor car. He was a taxi driver and sometimes coming home from the movies at the Carib Cinema I would take his taxi home. He had a sister, Charmaine, and my friend, Bobby Chen used to be friendly with her. I was at a café on Port Royal Street when I spotted this waitress and sure enough it was her. There were quite a few cafes and bars dotting the waterfront going all the way up to Slipe Road and all the way across to Rae Town and to Marcus Garvey Drive. Kingston had really changed. There were so many vehicles on the streets and people were moving freely about. At this time of night seven years ago you would only find a fraction of the people now on the streets. I ordered a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll. The café was a small one. I was parked on the other side of the street from the cafe. The waitress brought my order and it was Charmaine. She was a tall girl in her late twenties. “Hi, Charmaine, remember me, Danny Walters.” For a moment, she looked me over without a sign of recognition. Then suddenly she shouted. “Danny Walters, I can’t believe it. It’s been so long.” I got up and we embraced each other. When I retook my seat, I said. “Charmaine, I want to talk to you. I want to link up with Tony.” She looked a bit frightened when I mentioned Tony’s name. “I can’t talk to you now, Danny, maybe later or you can give me your cell phone number so that I can call you.” I gave her my cell phone number and took hers before she left me to continue her work. I was staying at the Hill View Hotel on Upper Orange Street. It was a small hotel. I could have gone to others Uptown but I had chosen it because of the view it offered. After I finished my cinnamon roll and had my coffee, I returned to my car and decided to go over to Port Royal and pick up Avrill Jones, my steady girlfriend these days. We went to a bar on East Queen Street. It was owned by a fat man, Max Deslandes. I ordered a gin and tonic and a Canei for Avrill. “So how is it going, Danny, sold any records yet?” he asked as he served us our drinks. “I’m still looking for a producer, Max. Know anybody I can trust?” “How about Tony Dillon? He has one of the biggest studios on the island.” “I’ve heard about him, can’t say what I’ve heard is favorable.” I didn’t want anybody to know that I knew him. “He controls a lot of artists, plus hits by his artist dominate the charts,” he informed me. “I’ll look him up and give him a call. Maybe we can do a deal.” “You do that, Danny. I don’t think he can try any of his tricks with a guy like you.” “He’d better not try, Max.” Max went back to serving his other customers. Avrill and I had some more drinks before leaving to go to the Emerald Night Club in New Kingston. We left there about one thirty that morning. I dropped her home before returning to the Hill View. I was disappointed that Charmaine hadn’t called me. I decided that I would call her in the morning. I had spent seven years in England before they kicked me out of the country for overstaying my time. My friends had always been encouraging me to get married and get my stay, but maybe I’d been through too many women before I met Janey Upshaw, the only one of them I felt like marrying. But I had met her two months before I was sent packing. We still called each other, but I just didn’t feel like returning. I didn’t feel like living as a second class citizen any longer. Since I’d returned to Jamaica and seen the changes to the downtown Kingston landscape I just didn’t feel like migrating again. I mean I hadn’t seen the rest of the island, but if developments were like those that had taken place in Kingston then I didn’t have anything to worry about. I had some tapes that I wanted Tony to hear. I had sung them since I came home. I woke up at seven thirty that morning and did my usual chores before going down for breakfast. I ate my callaloo, ackee and salt fish and fried dumplings that morning and then drank my coffee. I knew that it wouldn’t last much longer if I didn’t start turning over some money soon. I had mostly been fooling around music while I was in England, although I’d never scored big. While out here I’d mostly been living on the royalty checks they’d been sending me, but I needed to make a name in my homeland. I decided that I would stop by the Tom Redcam library to look up old friends. I bought copies of the two morning dailies and returned to my room to read them. There wasn’t much in the headlines. I put through a call to Charmaine and got her voice mail. I wondered that maybe she just didn’t want to talk to me. If you enjoyed reading this excerpt, why not hop over to the Austin Mitchell pages at Amazon. Incidentally, the full story can be found in 'Going to the Bushes to cut Firewood.'