After breakfast, he carry my daddy some water, then he gag him. He pick up that box and tell me to come with him, we goin for a walk. We head off into the hills, with him draggin me along. The box, I’m noticing, ain’t solid. It gots tiny holes drilled into the wood. Pinholes. Must be a thousand of them. I ask what he keepin inside it, but he don’t answer. That were his custom. Times he seem like an ordinary Yankee, but other times it like he in a trance and the most you goin to get out of him is dat dead mon’s smile.
Twenty minutes after we set out, we arrives at this glade. A real pretty place, roofed with banana fronds and wild hibiscus everywhere. The mon cast he eye up and around, and make a satisfied noise. Then he kneel down and open the box. Out come fluttering dozens of moths…least I t’ink they moths. Later, when he in a talking mood, he tells me they’s butterflies. Gray butterflies. And he a butterfly scientist. What you calls a lepidopterist.
The butterflies, now, they flutterin around he head, like they fraid to leave him. He sit crosslegged on the ground and pull out from he trousers a wood flute and start tootlin on it. That were a curious sight, he shirtless and piping away, wearin that pith helmet, and the butterflies fluttering round in the green shade. It were a curious melody he were playin, too. Thin, twistin in and out, never goin nowhere. The kind of t’ing you liable to hear over in Puerto Morales, where all them Hindus livin.
That’s what I sayin. Hindus. The English brung them over last century to work the sugar plantations. They’s settled along the Rio Dulce, most of them. But there some in Puerto Morales, too. That’s how they always do, the English. When they go from a place, they always leavin t’ings behind they got no more use for. Remember after Fifi, Clifton? They left them bulldozers so we can rebuild the airport? And the Sponnish soldiers drive them into the hills and shoot at them for sport, then leave them to rust. Yeah, mon. Them Sponnish have the right idea. Damn airport, when they finally builds it, been the ruin of this island. The money it bring in don’t never sift down to the poor folks, that for sure. We still poor and now we polluted with tourists and gots people like the McNabbs runnin t’ings.
By the time the mon finish playing, the butterflies has vanished into the canopy, and I gots that same feelin I have the night previous on the deck of the Santa Caterina. My ears ringing, everyt’ing have a distant look, and the mon have to steer me some on the walk back. We strop my daddy to the bed in the back room, so he more comfortable, and the mon sit in he chair, and I foolin with a ball I find on the beach. And that’s how the days pass. Mornin, noon, and night we walks out to the glade and the mon play some more on he flute. But mainly we just sittin in the front room and doin nothin. I learn he name is Arthur Jessup and that he have carried the butterflies up from Panama and were on the way to La Ceiba when the storm cotch him. He tell me he have to allow the butterflies to spin their cocoons here on the island, cause he can’t reach the place in Ceiba soon enough.
I t’ought it was caterpillars turned into butterflies, I says. Not the other way round.
These be unusual butterflies, he say. I don’t know what else they be. Whether they the Devil’s work or one of God’s miracles, I cannot tell you. But it for certain they unusual butterflies.
My daddy didn’t have no friends to speak of, now he men been shot dead, but there’s this old woman, Maud Green, that look in on us now and then, cause she t’ink it the Christian t’ing to do. Daddy hate the sight of her, and he always hustle her out quick. But Mister Jessup invite her in and make over her like she a queen. He tell her he a missionary doctor and he after curin Daddy of a contagious disease. Butterfly fever, he call it, and gives me a wink. It a terrible affliction, he say. Your hair fall out, like mine, and don’t never come back. The eye grow dim, and the pain…the pain excrutiatin. Maud Green cock her ear and hear Daddy strainin against the gag in the back room, moanin. He at heaven’s gate, Mister Jessup say, but I believe, with the Lord’s help, we can pull the mon back. He ask Maud to join him in prayin over Daddy and Maud say, I needs to carry this cashew fruit to my daughter, so I be pushing along, and we don’t see no more of her after that. We has a couple of visitors the followin day who heared about the missionary doctor and wants some curin done. Mister Jessup tell them to bide they time. Won’t be long, he say, fore my daddy back on he feet, and then he goin to take care of they ills. It occur to me, when these folks visitin, that I might say somet’ing bout my predicament or steal away, but I remembers Mister Jessup’s skill with the pistol. It take a dead shot to pick a man off a launch when the sea bouncin her round like it were. And I fears for my daddy, too. He may not be no kind of father, but he all the parent I gots, what with my mama dying directly after I were born.
Must be the ninth, tenth day since Mister Jessup come to the island, and on that mornin, after he play he flute in the glade, he cut a long piece of bamboo and go to pokin the banana fronds overhead. He beat the fronds back and I see four cocoons hangin from the limbs of an aguacaste tree. They big, these cocoons. Each one big as a matrimonio (hammocks large enough to hold husband and wife). And they not white, but gray, with gray threads fraying off dem. Mister Jessup act real excited and, after we returned home, he say, Pears I’ll be out of your hair in a day or two, son. I spect you be glad to see my backside goin down the road.
I don’t know what to say, so I keeps quiet.
Yes sir, he say. You not goin to believe your eyes and you see what busts out of them cocoons. That subject been pressin on my mind, so I ask him what were goin to happen.
Just you wait, he say. But I tell you this much. The man ain’t born can stand against what’s in those cocoons. You goin to hear the name Arthur Jessup again, son. Mark my words. A few years from now, you be hearin that name mentioned in the same breath with presidents and kings.
I takes that to mean Mister Jessup believe he goin to have some power in the world. He a smart mon…least he do a fine job pretendin he smart. Still, I ain’t too sure I hold with that. Bout half the time he act like somet’ing have power over him. Grinnin like a skull. Sittin and starin for hours, with a blink every now and then to let you know he alive. Pears to me somebody gots they hand on him. A garifuna witch, maybe. Maybe the butterfly duppy.
You want to hear duppy stories, Clifton be your man. When he a boy, he mama cotch sight of the hummingbird duppy hovering in a cashew tree, and ever after there’s hummingbirds all around he house. Whether that a curse or a blessing, I leave for Clifton to say, but…
Oh, yeah. Everyt’ing gots a duppy. Sun gots a duppy. The moon, the wind, the coconut, the ant. Even Yankees gots they duppy. They gots a fierce duppy, a real big shot, but since they never lay eyes on it, it difficult for them to understand they ain’t always in control.
Where you hail from in America, sir?
Florida? I been to Miami twice, and I here to testify that even Florida gots a duppy.
Evenin of the next day and we proceed to the glade. The cocoons, they busted open. There’s gray strings spillin out of dem…remind me of old dried-up fish guts. But there’s nothin to show what else have come forth. It don’t seem to bother Mister Jessup none. He sit down in the weeds and get to playin he flute. He play for a while with no result, but long about twilight, a mon with long black hair slip from the margins of the glade and stand before us. He the palest mon I ever seen, and the prettiest. Prettier than most girls. Not much bigger than a girl, neither. He staring at us with these big gray eyes, and he make a whispery sound with he mouth and step toward me, but Mister Jessup hold up a hand to stay him. Then he goes to pipin on the flute again. Time he done, there three more of them standin in the glade. Two womens and one mon. All with black hair and pale skin. The mon look kind of sickly, and he skin gray in patches. They all of them has gray silky stuff clinging to their bodies, which they washes off once we back home. But you could see everyt’ing there were to see, and watchin that silky stuff slide about on the women’s skin, it give me a tingle even t’ough I not old enough to be interested. And they faces…you live a thousand years, you never come across no faces like them. Little pointy chins and pouty lips and eyes bout to drink you up. Delicate faces. Wise faces. And yet I has the idea they ain’t faces at all, but patterns like you finds on a butterfly’s wing.