I looked at my left arm. The bandage had been ripped away and I was bleeding again. “You go inside. Over the sink, there’s a little first-aid kit. You get that, and I’ll be right in.”
“Where you goin’?”
“Is that ring really worth something?”
She shrugged and made a noncommittal face. “Man, I just thought it somethin’ pretty ’til Clare tell me. But them Rasta people, they sit around at their reasonins, smokin’ their herb and talkin’ shit, I don’t think they know what’s real, what isn’t. Haile Selassie, he the king of all the Rastas, they think he God. So, yeah, it could be worth some money.” She looked from me to the water. “What about them big sharks, though?”
I said, “I’ll get the ring; you get the first-aid kit.”
Tomlinson was looking at the ring, holding it up to the light. I listened to him say, “What we might have here… what you need to understand first is, Rastafarianism has two important symbols. One’s the Rastafarian bible, the Holy Piby. The other’s the royal ring of Haile Selassie. Wait, make that three important symbols. There’s also the Rasta colors, black, red, and green, or red, black, and gold. It varies. The red stands for the church triumphant, which is the church of the Rastas. Black as in black Africans. Green represents the beauty and vegetation of Ethiopia. The gold, it might have something to do with this ring. I did a research paper on the sect, back when Rasta was just beginning to spread from Jamaica to the other islands. I spent a couple months down there. Love the people, man. The kids jumped right into Rasta because it was a way of saying screw you to the establishment, particularly the white establishment. And let’s face it, who can blame them?”
I have no politics, though I seldom share Tomlinson’s indulgent view of human behavior, but made no comment. I listened to him say, “The story behind the ring is, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church gave it to Selassie out of gratitude when he pledged loyalty to the church. This was back in the 1930s. Supposedly it belonged to King Solomon, who’d given it to the Queen of Sheba so that she, in turn, could give it to their son, Prince someone of Ethiopia. Menelik. That’s the name. Menelik was the first Ethiopian king in a dynasty that Rastas believe lasted for more than three thousand years. It ended in 1975 with Selassie’s death. Selassie wasn’t much of a leader-his people starved, lived in filth, and he didn’t much care. He liked to dress up in uniforms and get his picture taken with young girls. Didn’t matter. I don’t know why it is, but failed kings make the best gods, which is what happened. The Rastas think of him as the second Christ.”
“The Lion of Judah,” Ransom said. “That what they call him. The way they paste their hair and rub it out, it supposed to look like a lion’s mane. I grew up dealin’ with the Rastas, that how I know. But how you know so much about them, man? Down there writing your paper.”
I said, “When it comes to religion and illegal drugs, Tomlinson’s IQ jumps about fifty points.”
We were in the lab. My arm newly bandaged, I was sitting on the wooden roller chair by the Cabisco binocular scope. The marina’s black cat, Crunch amp; Des, was in his familiar spot on the stainless steel dissecting table by the window, tail thumping. Every now and again, the cat would lift his head, reconfirm our presence with yellow eyes, then flop his head down, immediately asleep again.
Ransom said, “You think that really is the famous ring?”
I didn’t. I’d already studied the ring under low magnification. I have no interest in nor appreciation for jewelry, but I don’t think it would have impressed me anyway. It was made of gold that was worn and smoothed from handling. Inset onto the face of the ring, in oynx, was the head of a lion, the design of which I associate with British royalty. The lion had two tiny diamonds for eyes.
Stamped into the bottom of the band was a jeweler’s hallmark: 18K. Inside the band at the top, just to the side of the setting, was the apparent place of manufacture: NEW YORK.
It wasn’t three thousand years old, that much was certain. Had never been worn by King Solomon or the Queen of Sheba. It also seemed very unlikely that an Ethiopian church would have given their new king a ring made in America.
“You never know, though,” Tomlinson said. “It’s possible. For instance, say one of the archbishops or an Abun-one of the church’s patriarchs-happened to be visiting New York and got the idea that a ring might ingratiate him with the new king. So he finds one with a lion’s head or maybe had it made. Waited around spending church money in the Big Apple then sailed back on the Queen Mary. I can see it happening.”
I said, “He plans to tell Selassie the ring’s a couple thousand years old, but lets the jeweler stamp New York on it? That’s a stretch.”
Tomlinson made an open-handed gesture- Who knows? -and handed the ring to me. It had some weight to it. He said, “I can make a few calls, do some research. The important thing is, it doesn’t matter what we think. The two Jamaicans think it’s the real ring. Maybe there’re others who think the same. Maybe hundreds of others, which makes it very dangerous, man. Screwing with people’s religious icons is a no-no.” To Ransom, he said, “The guy you stole it from, what was his name?”
“His name Sinclair Benton, but I never saw it as stealin’. That man call me names and treat me mean. Worse, though, he call Daddy Gatrell names. Probably made it hard for Daddy come see me sometimes. The way it happened was, I walkin’ past the house of that ol’ dead witch, and one of his boys grabbed me and tried to make me to do the jiggy thing. I let him get drunked up good on cane rum, got his clothes off him, and let him pass out thinkin’ happy times was comin’.
“That how I got the whole house to myself, but it spooky, man, ’cause of the feeling that old witch still around. I found me a box full of money and that ring laying on the desk, right out in the open. So I didn’t see it as stealin’. It more like a payment to me from the good Lord, cause that devil-man Benton, he so evil. Besides, how can you steal from a thief?”
“Do you think Benton had the kind of power or the connections to get his hands on something so valuable? The ring, I’m talking about.”
“Everyone through the islands know Sinclair Benton. Even the voodoo people in Haiti afraid of that man. And he rich. He charge people for the spells he cast. The more desperate a person be, the more he charge them. I know a woman in Arthur’s Town who give Sinclair her house to drive the demons outta her sick son.”
Tomlinson looked at me. “See, then it is possible. When Selassie died in 1975, the ring disappeared. Somehow it ended up in London a couple of years later, where, supposedly Selassie’s grandson, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, gave it to Bob Marley as a present. When Marley died… that was around 1981, I think. Anyway, it disappeared again. Some say it was stolen, some believe it was handed down to the next Rasta prince. What I’m saying is, even if no one else wore it or owned it but Bob Marley, it would still be valuable… and dangerous.”
When I didn’t respond after a few seconds, Tomlinson said, “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” Then to Ransom, he added, “Doc lives in his own little hermit world. Fish and test tubes and microscopes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even know who Bob Marley was.”
I knew. But I sat and listened to Tomlinson tell me the story anyway, tell me that Rastafarianism was never really popular in the islands until 1966, when His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie visited Jamaica and converted Rita Anderson, who was Bob Marley’s wife. That day came to be called by the brotherens as “Groundation Day,” perhaps the most important day in Rasta history. Later, Anderson convinced Marley to convert to Rastafarianism and he and his reggae band, the Wailers, spread the teachings of Rastafarianism throughout the world with his music and lyrics. Everywhere, from Central America to Australia and the South Pacific, people listened. Not an insignificant number of the world’s population took the lyrics seriously and were converted to Marley’s religion. Selassie was the God, Bob Marley the psalmist and prophet.