Aligzander
Aligzander shares thoughts of the fiftysomethings!
Caribbean stories. I am underweight. I have been told that for years. Who cares now that I am fifty something? I have had a number of problems with eating. My wife would nag me for eating and also for not eating the right foods at the right time. She was a nurse by profession and now that we are both retired, my worst fears have been realised. I secretly call her – the food police. You know me, I am very strong willed. True, I love her but was I determined to win this battle on my eating and my lifestyle choices!
It may or may not have helped that I remained married to this woman for the past fifty eight years. We had six children or have six but at Christmas time it felt more like twenty with all our grandchildren thrown into the mix. I was in the minority in every way. The small pair of trousers, the smallest pair of shoes – come to think of it, the smallest of everything – almost!
As I was telling you, I have had the battle of eating my food since in my teen years. Today I was determined to win again. My dog Buddy sat with me during our meal times, always at my left side. I devised a plan that worked. I began with detracting my ‘food police’ with jokes about my early life in the Caribbean. She loved to hear my jokes and I indulged.
Today I talked about the time a dog chased me from the neighbour’s yard as I attempted to take some yams as a gift. I had shouted at the dog and it responded in kind. “So what did you say?” to which I responded, “don’t look at me with dem big ugly eyes! You hear me, you …” I did not get to finish the sentence because Mr. Spencer – my mother’s neighbour was not at home that day. None of us knew that and the rest was history. As my wife bent her head in shock, she was not amused. I eased a handful of food on to my lap and Buddy dutifully accepted. This went on for roughly half an hour or until Buddy had had enough. The plate was always scraped clean by me.
It never failed to amaze me how clever Buddy and I had become at tricking my dear wife. I thought of other things I could trick her at but those special and untried would take much more planning and skill than I was quite prepared for. I was tired of coming home to this same routine.
Then one night I had the thought that I should rendezvous with Mrs. Fairweather. She had invited us both to come around anytime. I told my dear wife who also encouraged me to attend to her friend’s every need. Now, what a lovely wife indeed! Mrs. Fairweather has been our family friend for years but I hardly knew her husband.
It was Friday, we had our dinner and after having one glass of wine I headed straight to Mrs. Fairweather’s home. She was excited to see me as usual and her perfume was quite ‘overpowering’. Mind you, not that I was offended but I quite like the change from the usual smell of Limacol and Vicks from that other place. She had a door to be fixed and I was able to accomplish the job in record time. She invited me to have something to eat and I had my fill. I had forgotten how small my stomach had become due to my overdependence on Buddy. I sat down for a few minutes and must have fallen asleep.
The next thing I knew was that I was being wheeled across the pavement in a wheelbarrow. I tried in vain to free myself from the strings or cloth or whatever it was that fastened me securely to the inside of the wheelbarrow. The journey to my home was taking far too long for my liking and repeatedly I shouted to my driver to either untie me or increase his pace. None of my requests were adhered to. I snuggled back and became satisfied with my lot. I questioned myself as to how in God’s name I had arrived at this ‘place’ in my life. I was wondering what explanations I had to come up with and just how to make amends, if any to my dear wife. My hands and feet were begging now for Limacol and Vicks. I praised the creators of those products and imagined my wife’s hands rubbing my wounds.
My journey had suddenly ended. On this night it was really dark. I could not identify any of those familiar stars in the sky. At least I knew the ‘big dipper’, and ‘Polaris’ – the north star was not in sight at this time of the year. The man who was once pushing the wheelbarrow had decided it was time for him to get rid of whatever excess liquid he had in his stomach. I tried to free myself during that time. I soon realised that I had to settle with working out the quantity of liquid from the time he spent in the nearby bushes. My weight was unimportant at this time because I weighed just about a hundred and twelve pounds that could not help me in this condition. I was securely fastened.
Aligzander in wheelbarrow. Photo courtesy thecampsiteblog.com
Here in Bellerose Gardens everyone had a tendency to be quite ‘nosey’. The sound of an oncoming truck interrupted my mathematical computations and we were on our way again. “Mr. Fairweather, how are you?” My mind almost exploded, it was Mr. Fairweather who was pushing me in the wheelbarrow! Oh my God, this is death for me, I thought! No, no, Oh God please God, never…
The voice grunted a response. The truck stopped and the voice continued, “Mr. Fairweather, it is me!” Again, there was no answer except that there was the sound of footsteps running away from where I lay in the wheelbarrow or thrown. I was shoved unceremoniously into a clump of bushes. My feet were caught between some wet bushes and my head? Where was my head? Someone shouted to get a flashlight and another said, ” wait is Mr. Lipton. He dead?” They were able to see me within a few minutes and released me from my captor that none of us knew at the time. It really did not matter because I was free. Free? I stretched and attempted to stand and fell. My world spun upside down. I must have fainted.
I shuddered to think that it was not Mr. Fairweather. I began questioning myself as to how I got into this mess in the first place. I was a respectable man; a man of class, a man of integrity, a former principal of a secondary school..
“Mr. Lipton, please come I am taking you home.”
Moments later, I got home to my dear wife with the assistance of Mosie and his friends who drove me all the way without a single question. They must have felt sorry for me. I was ever so grateful. Mosie held me close and whispered, “next time old man you are dead meat. Count your lucky stars tonight.” Was this some of kind of a set up? But no, I comforted myself with the thought that my wife should never know this dreadful tale.
Unknown to us, my wife was looking through the upstairs window of our house at the commotion outside in the yard when the truck pulled up. I found my way slowly upstairs. I crept into my bed that night and held out the bottle of Vicks for my dear wife to do the usual. She took it without resistance and whispered ever so gently in my ‘good’ ear. That was my left ear. She knew that I could only hear from that one. “How was the ride in the wheelbarrow? My dear you have to stop giving Buddy all the food that I give to you and put on some more weight.”
I could not sleep for months thereafter! Each time my wife brought food to the table, I dared not give a morsel to Buddy.
Bother me no more with my weight.
They say that this too is the life of the fifty – some-things!
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