Mr. Vice was at it yet again this week paying homage to virginal Miss Virtue. A duh incident at a local sybarites’ hangout was all it took to draw antsy red formicidae out of their nests to swarm the Internet with their characteristic gooey droppings. Playing leading roles in the widely publicized war of slurred words were a local gentleman of presumed high standing and the establishment’s owner—an Englishman who for some forty years has been a resident of this simply beautiful-on-the-outside nation of ours.
What may have distinguished the cited incident from similar Facebook attractions had less to do with its black and white features than with the standard of behavior normally expected of elected officials in this country that was named in memory of a beautiful 20-year-old Italian signorita who chose to die rather than give up to strangers a most precious gift from her mama—which might explain the shameless xenophobia in some local quarters. In all events, no other community is as committed as we are to the Pharisaic concept of “do as I say, not as I do!”
Of course we’ve never subscribed to the notion that all concepts are created equal, any more than that our neighbors deserve to be treated as we would have them treat us. After all what would be a chief without his Indians, a king without his food tasters, a politician without his Frank Charles? Which returns us to the matter at hand, but only to say the truth of what actually went down last Sunday in Marigot depends on whether it’s heard through red or yellow earmuffs. Suffice it to say the Englishman at its center has dismissed the incident as a storm in a whisky glass, so to speak, and unworthy of time that might be better devoted either to a bottle or two of Gordon’s Dry or Lordson, depending on your particular preference—with a dash of mosquito repellent!
Let us instead consider the outrage and shock, albeit short-lived, that immediately followed the revelation that our politicians (perhaps with the exception of PJP) know four-letter words other than love, kiss, and pure. Several years before his passing the prime minister John Compton (who never set foot on Saint Lucia before he was 14 years old yet had mastered kwéyòl, peculiar nuances and all) was the keynote speaker at a government function—something to do with local culture.
The event at a school that may or may not have been in Laborie drew a full house. (On second thought, the venue could not have been in Laborie—the Labour Party’s most faithful stronghold.) Most of the audience was female. Also onstage were the Minister for Community Development, forever prim and proper Heraldine Rock, accoutered from crocheted hat to toe in Breezed white, and two or three other stony-faced lady gatekeepers of the Legion of Mary.
All suited up in grey pinstripes, Compton arrived at the microphone, his normally oily face shinier than usual in the hellish room temperature. Before getting down to the root of the matter, he told a joke about a beautiful woman and a lusty male visitor. In the prime minister’s telling: they are sitting in her living room, gabbing about every subject imaginable, save for what’s on the gentleman’s mind. After a time the lady gets up to fetch beverages from her kitchen. When she’s out of sight and presumably not within earshot, her visitor mumbles to himself, in Kwéyòl: Ou sa fè sa ou vlé. Oswè-a mwen ni pou pwen’ou. (Rough translation: “Do as you please, but tonight I’m gonna fuck you!”)
At which point, says Compton, the woman re-enters her living room, picks up the gentleman’s straw hat, hands it to him and demands angrily that he get the hell out of her house and never again darken her doorstep. Little did he know the object of his desires, although not Looshan, was as fluent in Kwéyòl as was he—as are most Dominicans!
If his mainly female audience considered the prime minister’s joke hilarious, the Heraldine Rock in their souls demanded they pretend otherwise. Their applause was barely lukewarm. Not that the prime minister noticed, cracking up as he was at his own sailor’s humor. It’s a good thing cell phones were still unheard of. Otherwise, the cost to Compton’s career might’ve been heavy. Then again, as even the staunchest Pharisees will doubtless recall, he would in time discover himself in circumstances worse by far—and emerge absolutely unscathed. Which again goes to prove not all hairy situations are created equal!
