by Garvin Heer­ah

It was a cus­tom that was al­most rit­u­al­is­tic for some of the men from the vil­lage to gath­er in the old aban­doned pavil­ion on morn­ings. To­day was just like the oth­er morn­ings. The first to ar­rive was Sarge. He was a re­tired sergeant from the reg­i­ment and would come to the field every morn­ing as a rule to walk his laps. Clad in his green jer­sey and old bat­tered army trousers, he would walk in al­most march-like steps with his chest up high and his hands clenched at the fist, and with pre­ci­sion rhythm, he walked around the field from ear­ly, even be­fore the sun­rise.

Then there was Ral­phy and Ramjohn. These two were in­sep­a­ra­ble and vil­lage sto­ries had it that they had been bo­som bud­dies from since school days. Span­ner would al­ways be the last to ar­rive but as a rule, they would all as­sem­ble at the pavil­ion and be­gin heat­ed dis­cus­sions on the is­sues in the coun­try and cur­rent af­fairs. These guys did not need any Wi-Fi or YouTube to keep abreast. They seemed to have it live and di­rect as the aloo pie man used to say.

So, this morn­ing, the con­ver­sa­tion was heat­ed. Sarge was an­gry as hell. He could not be­lieve the state of killings and shoot­ings he was hear­ing about. He asked Ral­phy, “You hear about the shoot­ing right dey in the rich peo­ple place in Wood­brook?”

Ral­phy replied that he had heard about it and he him­self could not be­lieve his ears. He went on to ex­press that you hear about shoot­ing and dri­ve-by killings in cer­tain parts of the coun­try, more so the hot zones and ar­eas not­ed for gangs and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. But we were not used to hear­ing about shoot­ings in ar­eas such as these. Es­pe­cial­ly with pa­trons sit­ting in the moon­light en­joy­ing a so­cial drink and fine con­ver­sa­tion.

Span­ner jumped in, “Don’t get tie up you know! It don’t have no bound­ary and line and place now when it come to killing in Trinidad.

“We feel that the killing thing and the shoot­ing is on­ly for the ghet­to and the train line, well let me tell all yuh some­thing, just in case you didn’t know, the thing turn up­side down!”

Sarge agreed. He went on to say that this was one of the main rea­sons that he was so an­gry; that these crim­i­nals had no re­spect for life, a wan­ton dis­re­gard for the law and just didn’t care who they shoot or where they shoot. He mur­mured to him­self from up on the top lay­er of con­crete seats in the pavil­ion, words that sound­ed like if he had his way, what he would’ve done. The pavil­ion gang didn’t mess with Sarge, or old sol­dier, as folks from the vil­lage used to call him. They knew his ca­pa­bil­i­ties and many re­spect­ed him for his ser­vice to the coun­try. He was a no-non­sense type of guy. I re­mem­bered Ramjohn telling us younger fel­lars how some bad boys had en­tered the vil­lage some years back and was sell­ing weed by the pa­n­yard. He told us how Sarge paid them a vis­it and con­front­ed the whole gang. Word has it that they had rushed the old sol­dier and he beat from a side go­ing back, break­ing one of the fel­lars legs and dis­lo­cat­ing an­oth­er’s jaw. Every­one was scared for the old Sarge, ex­cept him. Word went out that these young pests had de­cid­ed to ride (dri­ve up and down) to take out Sarge. Ramjohn said how Sarge made one call to the reg­i­ment, and they came up the hill in jeep loads. They had the place hot for days, Ramjohn said, smil­ing. The old sol­dier didn’t show any re­morse or emo­tions, he just used to say, when any­body asked him about it, “Them boys still have meh back you know!”

But any­way, con­tin­u­ing with what Span­ner was say­ing.

Span­ner said, “I hear two po­lice­man talk­ing the oth­er day in the health of­fice. They say that street jus­tice is a way of life now in Trinidad yes.”

“Street Jus­tice!?” Ral­phy ques­tioned.

“What was that?” Span­ner went on to ex­plain.

Based on what the po­lice­man and them was say­ing, it seem like once you have a fall out or any dis­agree­ment with any­body, rather than mak­ing a re­port and go­ing via the chan­nels of the law, peo­ple turn­ing to the street, hir­ing a hit­man and pay­ing mon­ey to take out peo­ple. He went on to stress that it was a thriv­ing busi­ness. Peo­ple knew where to go, who to go to and were con­tract­ing hired as­sas­sins to take on jobs.

Well, the whole pavil­ion got silent and all ears and eyes were tuned un­to Span­ner.

“Span what you say­ing boy?” Ramjohn asked.

Sarge jumped in.

“I know that ah know. Ah know that was go­ing to hap­pen soon­er or lat­er, them crim­i­nals would’ve tak­en over!”

Span­ner said that no­body had faith in the po­lice again. They pre­ferred to take the law in­to their own hands and deal with the mat­ter.

The re­al­i­ty was that this was now a run­away horse. Be­cause ac­cord­ing to the ground, peo­ple were be­ing killed, more so as­sas­si­nat­ed, for triv­ial things. Mi­nor con­flicts, small amounts of mon­ey be­ing owed or mi­nor dis­agree­ments were now be­ing dealt with by hired guns.

Sarge said he heard that a lot of gam­bling debts were be­ing closed by this type of ac­tion. He went on to say that his army batch friends were talk­ing the oth­er day and they said that a lot of young busi­ness­men were neck high in gam­bling debts. Ow­ing big, big mon­ey. He said peo­ple were not be­ing pa­tient and af­ter two or three warn­ings, next thing is a shoot­ing and a killing. Ramjohn said he heard some­thing sim­i­lar, but didn’t have all the facts.

“What you hear?” Ral­phy probed.

“I hear it have a new thing go­ing on call snatch and re­lease. Way they does kid­nap you, or steal your car, and de­mand quick pay­ments of small amounts, like $10,000 and $20,000, if you re­port it, your life could be in dan­ger.”

Ramjohn said he heard plen­ty peo­ple have been vic­tims of this but paid up the mon­ey quick, quick. He did re­peat that he was not sure about this, as he didn’t have all the facts. But just the pos­si­bil­i­ty of it hap­pen­ing, was a cause for con­cern.

“So, this street jus­tice thing is re­al then, Span­ner?” Ral­phy asked.

“Well, it seems so. I hear two po­lice talk­ing about this you know, so as the old folks used to say, ‘I hear it from the horse’s mouth’.”