The
same zealot in the frilly light-blue blouse who tries
to sell everyone tickets to Billy Graham crusades at National
Stadium. The same prematurely released out-patient who
decided last Saturday morning at
7 AM to tell everyone at Preston Hall
about the blood of Jesus Christ
and the coming rapture(whether you wanted to hear it or
not).The
same zealot in the frilly light-blue blouse who tries
to sell everyone tickets to Billy Graham crusades at National
Stadium. The same prematurely released out-patient who
decided last Saturday morning at 7 AM to tell everyone
at Preston Hall about the blood of Jesus Christ and the
coming rapture(whether you wanted to hear it or not).
-‘JESUS LOVES YOU,
she howls, ‘ALL DI' HEEEEE-VIL DAT IS IN DI' WORLD...DI'
LARD JESUS CHRIST DID DEAD ‘PON DI' CROSS FI' CLEANSE
YOU FRAM EET AND SAVE YOU FRAM DI' HEEEE-TERNAL FIRES
OF ‘ELL."
As is usual , everyone
is annoyed but nobody says anything because her sort of
madness is excusable since its only GOD she's ranting
about and not the invisible, 9-foot tall goat that's been
following her around and telling her to buy AMWAY products
ever since she missed her dose of lithium last week. Not
surprisingly, she's getting on my nerves more than anyone's
else's. Partly because I'm a faithful reader of the WEEKLY
WORLD NEWS and have already been warned about the impending
arrival of Satan's army of rapist devil-monkeys who will
appear in Times Square within the first ten seconds of
the new millennium and drag all non-believers to hell
(otherwise known as downtown Kingston).
As she continues on, talking
about the Sabbath and pork and Jezebels and Jonah and
his giant fish and the various evils of every other religion
but the one she learned under a tent somewhere in Portmore,
I begin to cringe in my seat in an effort to restrain
myself from throwing a half-full bottle of Welch's grape
juice at her head. Its moments like this when it becomes
a little easier to understand why the murder-rate is so
high in Jamaica even though I would never actually try
to murder anyone (unless of course I came home and found
a stranger walking around my room dressed only in my underwear
and a crude necklace made out of my mother's teeth).
Anyway, after another
five minutes, I can't stand it anymore and I turn around
and say : ‘Hey mad-lady?! Why don't you shut up?!'
Expressions of shock creep over the faces of several students
who start to wriggle around in their seats as if they
are expecting the bus to be struck by lightning at any
second.. Unfortunately, however, the crazy woman pretends
not to hear me and starts on a new ( and louder) sermon
about the how GOD will smite the gentiles and cleave their
tongues to their knees for all eternity.
-‘Yow! Mad-lady!?
You never hear me? Mi seh...SHUT-UP YUH BIG-MOUTH NUH?!'
That's all it took: an older woman (one of UWI's many
50-year-old students) suddenly stands up and points at
me as if trying to expel a bullet from her finger: ‘Hey
bwoy! Shut up unu damn mouth!'
Another student pipes
up : ‘Why he must shut up when dat mad-woman can
scream down di' bus as much as she want?!'
-‘Because is di'
word of GOD she a' speak!"
-‘She mad!'
-‘You mad!'
-‘Yuh face tuff
like Spanish-town handcuff!'
-‘Suck yuh madda!'
-‘...and JESUS said
unto di' Lard...forgive dem Lard..dem know not what dem
‘a do'
-‘Mad-lady shut
yuh rhatid mouth!' The driver turns up the radio and everyone
is quickly drowned out by the voice of Allan Magnus (the
RJR morning guy) telling another one of his crap jokes.
The arguing simmers down and the bus pulls into the post-office
parking lot across from Sovereign Plaza.
Everyone piles out of
the bus. Some of them look at me and shake their head.
Others smile. But not the crazy church woman. She's running
across the street. Away from the wicked heretics and the
harlot verses of Nadine Sutherland and the giant invisible
goat with his catalogue of AMWAY products. ‘Leff
me!', she mutters angrily as the goat follows her gingerly
across the street, ‘me don't need no damn Cubic-zirconia
earrings'
Praise the Lord
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