…hope you enjoyed Free as a Bird the short story which concluded in this column last week. I was experimenting with verbal rhythms and their musical connectivity in our Guyanese speech patterns…am talking about the harmonics of our creolese; hence my use of hyphens. I called up the accomplished Guyanese musician Marilyn Dewar to see if there’s a music metaphor for the hyphen in this context – “a walking note” she said.
So, except for those walking notes, I believe that to create/write Guyanese creolese, we should let it be fluid…absolutely free in its lyrical expressions of the pulse of our nation and her people. We should let it slip “magically greased out of the locks and chains of definitions” (thank you, Julian) such as confine The English language which informs its base. Because it’s a visual as well as an aural way of communicating, one must hear creolese as well as see it in the words on the page. When my husband, Julian Mayfield left us to join the ancestors, he was absorbed with this idea of “painting with words” – that’s the idea…”How To Write Creolese The Creolese Way”
I returned to Guyana circa 1985 to settle on Yukuriba Heights to finish the book Clarise Cumberbatch Want To Go Home. I hadn’t yet arrived at this point of thinking of The Creolese in terms of its harmonics with walking-note-hyphens et al. . How I wrote it then was sufficient to excite the imagination of my publishers. After reading the first chapter I’d submitted as a short story, Nolan Miller of The Antioch Review said: “…the first chapter of your novel is a delight… it’s been a long time since we received a short story that we knew we wanted to publish so eagerly…”; then he referred me to a his colleague in New York. Cork Smith was an Editor at Ticknor & Fields; he gave me a hefty advance (for a first book) and sent me home to finish it.
Like Somebody Sprinkle Guinea Pepper? is fiction…the prologue to an unpublished novel that was conceived while I was overnighting in a porkknocker camp on the Ireng River, observing the “tek-ups”. As I’ve said before, at that time creolese was to me, only The English as we spoke it in Guyana. Here’s the first part….hope you enjoy the reading, as I did the writing …

Was she that night with the big squall, the one that blowaway all the tekups …?

That woman reach Rasta-man camp late afternoon. She say she walking to Kurupukari. Walking to WHERE? Kurupukari? Anyway – she had a down-load warishi and she looking weary bad. But she ain complaining. She say she just want to rest a little before she go long she way walking to Kurupurkari. Walking to Kurupukari? Is how far from here to Kurupukari? Is how much swamp and hirihiribali-hol’-mih-back-plimpla-bush, loose-sand and…
Whatever!
…is nuff mad people trodding this backdam, so nobody not taking her on. She could walk to the Brazil border if she want – is she dead. They just give her lill food; some farine with steam pakou just ketch fresh from the seine that same afternoon, and a cup of coffee. Then they show her a jackass nobody using and Blackie say:
“Welcome sister…t’row-back…rest yuh physical.” Then they all forget d woman. Cause? Is a tekups going on in every corner d camp this night; is sheer confusion all round.
Eh-eh! Is like if SOMEBODY SPRINKLE GUINEA-PEPPER PON D GROUND?
…is before seven o’clock…parrot done-pass, but Burnham-bee didn’t holler yet; neither d last maam in d bush didn’t hail-out that long, lonely call before darkness fall; only dem rain-bee screeching…signifying d weather for tomorrow.
“Ow lawd! More rain? Is rain again? No mo please!”
Is so dem man dem poke-knocker-man bawling, they groaning, they moaning:
“Ow, stop d water now, Lawd! No mo rain again tomorrow please?”
Cause not too long ago, they come back from the pit where whole live-long day they bailing-bailing water with bucket, cause the pump steady-steady brukking down; they barely avoid a cave-in. Now they just chilling after a hard hard day.
Some of them playing dominoes; some of them bathing by the riverside; some stooping-down pon d takuba over a hole in d ground in d bush. That is they toilet. And is a tekups over here…another tekups over there. Is everywhere it got tekups, pon this camp ground tonight –
Is just like if somebody sprinkle guinea-pepper pon d ground.
Eh-eh! Watch! Look! Look! Hear!
FAWBS! FAWBS! FAWBS!
Is that big-voice crappo that sounding like if he saying: FAWBS! Is he cranking-up for his night-time bass-session. He make poor Endsaman nearly fall off d takuba he stooping-down pon and drop-in the pit like that PLOP! that just hit –
“Shit! Is that damn frog again!”
Is Endsaman say so…he vex baaad.
FAWBS! FAWBS! FAWBS! FAWBS!
Is Fawbs croaking and Endsaman cussing and hopping and tripping in the bush trying to pull up his shorts, forgetting to clean he-self…he mean to shut up Fawbs mouth now-now, once and fuh-all. He busing:
“After man wuk like a damn jackass whole day…this heah is too much RASS to bear! I showing ayuh! But tonight-tonight Ah gon KILLY! I AM GOING TO FIND THAT DAMN FROG AND KILL IT! Tonight-tonight! AH GON KILLEEEEEEE!

Eh-eh! Watch Endsaman with he lill runty self…listen how he screaming and pulling up his shorts…running to the ‘paulin. Now Look! he coming back with a torchlight, he picking-up a big-wood…plunging in d bush, shining the torch, whacking and cussing and – he searching fuh Fawbs.
“Is what that poor toad do you Endsaman? Why you can’t leave that frog let him do his work and you go do yours? You know is your turn to cook our dinner? My belly hungry here and you chasing-down crappo in d bush?”
Endsaman vex baaad. He screaming:
“Buckman! Buckman! Is why you doan mine you own damn business eh? “
“Ow Endsaman, but you-self-too, is not Buckman relative you chasing-down so? How you know that FAWBS is a frog and not a P-I-man – “
“I warning you one more last-time Coolie-man! And you too Ends-a-man! Don’t call me Buck-man! My name is Simon. Do not call me Buck-man!”
Coolie-man start laughing. He pulling up his shorts and calling out to the camp:
“Haye! Blackie, Rasta-man! You hearing dis ting baye? Buck-man say he ain name Buck-man no more. He name Mister Simon. You better chant dat poem you mek-up d other day by d pit. Chant it again fuh he Blackie.”
“Coolie-man, doan call Mister Simon Buck-man,. You don’t understand that that is not P.C. these days? You have to call Buck-man, Amerindian Man! or Mister Simon, right Mister Simon?”
“Nah! Is since-when Buck-man ain name, Buck-man? Is since d bush turn rainforest or wuh? And what d hell is P.C., Blackie?”
But instead of answering, Rasta-man start chanting:
“if you ever come to Guyana’s rain-forest
said to be pristine-est –
take a tip from us…avoid d pests –
is a rich house-nigger and a buck-foreman
is a coolie police-man –
a putagee dredge owner
or a deh-bad white-man
and a, and a –
Then Blackie holler out –
“Haaaye yall decide yet what we going to say bout Chinee?”
And somebody else say:
“All I know is that dema ring-ding a-Beijing and that Chinee never had a V.J. Day…but you tell we Chinee…
But Chinee not taking nobody on. He aint pick he teeth He sit down pon his jackass picking chigga out his big-toe – but even-so, before he could answer, is one big-blast in a corner over there. Hear! Is another tekups again!
Is how come dese ’oman-drawers get pon my jackass eh?
You see what I telling you? MUSTBE…Somebody sprinkle guinea-pepper pon this camp-ground!