Kalypsoul: The Other Self: Organ Donor

Sunday, July 09, 2017

Organ Donor

It was already nine o’clock. Regine checked herself in the mirror. She looked just right. The olive colored suit, a Mychael Knight original, complemented her caramel coloring, hazel eyes and honey-colored hair. She was riveting and she knew it.

”You think I’ll impress Simkins?”

Petite, freckled and bubbly, Jen nodded as she caught the hairbrush Regine flung at her.

“He’s big league, honey, rolling in dough. If I get this case, it’ll be a handsome payday. Noon at Justin’s. You said he’ll find me?”

“He’s seen you on TV. Everybody has since the Laveau case.”

Regine preened one last time, “That was brilliant if I do say so. Guilty bastard walked with probation and community service. Which bag? Coach or Kenneth Cole? Okay Coach - the black one.”

Jen quickly transferred her things.

“You should have seen the DA’s face when the sentence was handed down - priceless.”

“He said he had to attend to some important personal business on Moreland first but he should be there on time.”

“This is my big opportunity. If only I didn’t have to take care of that lost driver’s license first.”

After that official police warning the previous evening, Regine could not put it off any longer. It would not do to be caught on the wrong side of the law, not to mention the negative press.

“Anais. Now why couldn’t you do this for me, too?”

Jen laughed. “Sorry. I can’t.”

Regine sprayed on some Anais and snatched the keys from Jen’s extended hand on her way out. Jen would clean up after her as usual. That’s what personal assistants were for.

“Don’t be late.” Jen called after her. “You know how you are!”

The Department of Motor Vehicles, located on South Moreland, one of the seediest parts of Atlanta, and jammed with people, smelled like a cross between a triage ward and a cheap café. Too bad she couldn’t hold her breath for the duration. There was standing room only and the queue inched forward. Regine glanced at her diamond-encrusted Rolex. Almost ten thirty. With a sigh, she pulled out her Kindle to pass the time with Afterburn, a Zane sizzler.

It was hard to ignore the tall, lanky man of about forty standing next to her wearing a badly-fitting brown polyester suit with sallow skin, and sunken cheeks. His stale tobacco odor assailed her as he edged closer apparently to say something to her. Strike One. She glared at him and he backed off, but only for a second. She took a deep breath and refocused on Zane. She could feel the creep’s nicotine-laced breath warm and eager against her neck. For some reason he seemed intent on making conversation, however unwelcome. Regine shut him down with a steely stare. But his intense gray eyes and ever-present smile refused to leave her head.

An hour later the queue had barely moved. She would have to call Jen. She rummaged in her bag for her Blackberry Curve but came up empty-handed. Jen must have forgotten to transfer it.
“Here, use mine,” Mr. Nicotine offered.

It was either that or, heaven forbid, the outside pay phone. As she accepted the grungy Motorola RAZR, she noticed the grime embedded under his fingernails and concluded he must be an auto mechanic or something equally loathsome. The first ring brought Jen’s perky greeting. Regine had no time for pointless pleasantries. She cut her short.

“Call Simkins. Make sure he doesn’t leave.”

With a forced smile and a curt thank you, she returned the phone.
“Lost your driver’s license, too?” He dared to claim affinity. “It costs less for organ donors, you know.”
Strike Two. Smoker and cheapskate. She wondered if he planned to donate a diseased lung just to save a penny.

Just then they called G506. A smile spread across his face making him look almost handsome.
“That’s me. See you later.”
“Not if I can help it.”

He was answering his phone and missed her vitriol.

Another fifteen minutes went by before she heard her number. With all paperwork in order, she handed over a Platinum Visa.

“We don’t accept credit cards. Don’t know who you are; don’t care. Exact change or nothing. Fifteen regular, eight organ donor.”

Regine bristled and fished around in her Bermuda Triangle while Ms. Ghettofabulous, seated behind the window, tossed her weave and drummed her long, painted acrylic nails on the counter.

Regine found a five and three ones -- just enough for organ donation. When she hesitated, Ms. Ghettofab rolled her eyes. “Next!” Regine plunked eight dollars down on the counter, “Organ donor endorsement.” Ms. Ghettofab raised one penciled-in eyebrow and snorted.

Five minutes later, Prada shielding her light-sensitive eyes, Regine turned her royal blue BMW onto the downtown connector, her thoughts fixed on Lonnie Simkins and lemon trout at Justin’s, P.Diddy’s classy restaurant on Peachtree in Buckhead. She was already behind time. At the 400 exit, she pulled alongside a rusted Taurus hooptie belching thick, gray exhaust fumes. The driver was Organ Donor. Was he following her? Strike Three.

She stepped hard on the gas, and cut him off on the merger. Too late she saw the silver Benz approaching at high speed from the Sidney Marcus direction. Regine swerved to the right but ended up wedged in the ditch, engine sputtering, steam rising, the passenger side jammed against the noise barrier, cars whizzing by. Her door refused to budge. Her stomach lurched.

Suddenly, there was Organ Donor again, springing into action with a crowbar in hand, prizing her door open. His strong yet gentle hands lifted her out to safety. Tearful and weak with relief, she slumped against his shoulder.

“One more coat of paint, and you could have been an organ donor,” he teased, securing her in his passenger seat and fastening her seatbelt.

She had to smile. “You are a godsend.”

“My pleasure, Miss West. Lonnie Simkins at your service.”

“You knew all along?”

“I tried to tell you.”

***

06.19.2009

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The Way I Use Language

Author’s Note: Codeflow

You will find that I have started to experiment with movement in communication referencing (in speech and thought patterns) from dialect to standard that is neither unidirectional nor formulaic. This is deliberate. The style used here is my experimentation with what I call code-flow. I find myself writing the way I speak – in a comfortable, fluid mixture of standard and dialect, often within the same sentence, the same thought. It is what we Caribbean people do in uncontrived everyday speech. It is not code-shifting with which the literary world is familiar. Code-switching or code- shifting tends to follow a certain pattern, dialect for speech and standard for description and narration as has been traditionally used in Caribbean fiction. I am taking it a step further, letting dialect flow into standard and back again in both dialogue and narration/description, mingling together in the same sentence, the same thought. To me this shows the true fluidity/reality of how we operate linguistically in everyday life. We do not think in standard English and converse in Trini dialect; we think in both and speak in both but not all the same time. I may begin a thought in the standard received form but suddenly I want to express surprise, hilarity, indignation, outrage and the standard does not have the right words. I flow effortlessly to that in which I can express those thought, those ideas, those sentiments most comfortably. I express them and, depending on what I wish to reference next, I either move back to standard, stay where I am or move deeper into another dialect comfort zone. I may say it in French Patois or Cocoa Panyol or a dialect of Hindi or of English or I may use a uniquely West African turn of phrase or grammatical construct or express m thoughts in a totally creative word or expression known only to my country or one group or individual within. Language gets created through use and new words and expressions all have a very specific starting point.

Code switching is an improvement on the outright rejection of the use of dialect as having no place in the written word or in Caribbean literature. It also differs from the outright rejection of the standard as a form of linguistic resistance to colonialism. Yet, code switching is a colonized, conformist mode that, in spite of itself, accepts the superiority of the standard and makes apologies for dialect by restricting its use only to direct speech. It reflects the pedagogy of colonial education which polarized the acceptable standard of the reading books and the classroom from the unacceptable dialect of everyday use by everyday people. It was a time when the whip was applied to purge the tendency towards dialect use in respectable settings.

Code sliding attempts a more integral blending of the two and brings together a variety of Caribbean dialects in one form. It moves in the direction of defining a distinct and decolonized Caribbean identity in the aftermath of colonialism. The term code-sliding, however, implies for me a lack of control, a downward sort of slippery slope movement, and a built-in acceptance of linguistic hierarchies. Instead I advance the concept of code-flow which conveys the sense of non-hierarchical fluidity and an effortlessness that defines acceptance of a unique identity in the context of postmodernity rather than deliberate conscious resistance in the context of coloniality or postcoloniality. It speaks of creativity, reinterpretation and transformation. The smooth fluidity of language that melds the standard with dialect in a thought, in a phrase, in a sentence, shows not so much a rejection of historic influences but an acceptance of the new self, the birth of a Caribbean identity in which colonialism and an ethos defined by resistance to it are merely blurred distant memories. Caribbean code-flow essentially involves and emerges from an unequivocal acceptance of all aspects of a new self: Africa, Europe, India and Mesoamerica, all integral to the new identity through reinterpretation and transformation. It is méstissajé, creolité, unrepentant.