HOW JASON
SIFFLET FAILED
TO FREE BUTU
ON FRIDAY
This is a distress call for St Lucian Justice...
When I got
the call that Butu was in handcuffs, he was already in custody.
I broke
down.
It was 1799
all over again. Lambert was dead, Pedre was compromised, Flore Bois Galliard
had disappeared into the earth or from the very face of it.
The War of
the Dasheen was lost.
I had failed
all my soldiers. I took them past freedom to the verge of independence and then
lost it all because I didn’t understand economics.
I could just
kill myself.
I pulled
myself together.
It’s 2014. I
determined not to let Butu down. I wasn’t the same crazy old witch doctor that
I was in 1794. I was an information warrior.
I put on my
stripes and headed from my Palenque to Castries. I was not going to let my
soldier down this time.
This time, I WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN... |
WHO IS BUTU?
Butu is a
young 21st century Neg. Like
most of us, he made some really stupid mistakes. Unlike most of us, the system
caught him in his net and accused him of a white collar crime.
It is one of
the few white collar crimes prosecuted in St Lucia, in spite of no lack of
white collar crimes. Ironic. And yet, consistent with history. Scapegoating is
an essential element of the justice system. It has always been. Especially for
Neg.
They accused
him, arrested him, charged him and bailed him.
Since then,
Butu has waited his turn for justice. He also picked up the broken pieces of
his life. Unlike most in the circumstances, he didn’t just keep his head down
and try to fly under the radar.
In the midst
of a trial where he is accused of a crime, Butu flew his flag high. He took a
hard shot at recovering his life.
‘This little
light of mine…’
It almost
worked.
Almost
everyone reading this knows Butu as one of the most famous, intelligent and conscientious
all of today’s St Lucia, at home and abroad.
It almost
worked….
It’s 1794.
It’s 2014.
It’s all the
same to neg like Butu and I. (Or rather, me and Butu, to use the correct Neg
sentence structure.)
No matter
what year it is, Butu is my soldier. My real, heartical soldier. My little
brother. Butu is a guy who will buy me a pack when I ask for a cigarette, even
though we’ve really been brothers since he joined my lie of work. Not just my
brother. He is my bredren. An inextricable and essential part of the I and I.
But today,
there is something more.
Today, he is
not Butu. He is Noah Sifflet.
Today, he is
my son.
My little criminal.... |
They have MY
SON in custody. Their stinking, dirty detention hellhole. Their prep school for
the university of crime in Dennery. Their human rights abuse factory.
They have my
son.
OUR Son. They
have our son.
Now I get
it. All those mothers of convicted, crippled and dead young criminals who cry
on the television while I vilify them and their sperm donors for neglecting OUR
children….
All those
weeping mothers of bad boys….
Now I get it…
I know why
the mothers cry. Because now, it’s my son.
My little Negmarron... |
IF THEY SAID IT WAS NOAH SIFFLET…
If they said…
Noah had
embezzled some money from the bank where he worked. Was arrested. On trial. On
bail. Making years of torturous, soul crushing court appearances. Enduring public
humiliation that he may or may not deserve. Facing almost insurmountable
obstacles to getting a job. To getting a girlfriend.
Not knowing
if he can trust his friends. Not knowing who his real friends are. The
insecurity. The shame. The guilt. The trauma.
Working his
way out of the pit he dug for himself.
WHAT IF NOAH REALLY
DID IT?
I’m just
saying…so that we can imagine the worst case scenario. Butu, himself, is not
yet innocent or guilty. So that’s undecided.
What if
Noah did it?
What if I felt like I failed the only test that mattered?
But in the
five years since he embezzled that money, he picked up his stupid, misguided,
egotistical little ass off the ground and became one of one of the brightest,
best young people that any of us know?
THE BATTLE FOR BUTU
a.k.a.
I AM KENNA
If Butu is
Noah, I am Kenna.
On any other
occasion, I would be flattered and honored. Kenna is a Neg pioneer, not just an
entrepreneur. Kenna put solar power on a van and had email on his laptop in the
bush when most of us were on dial-up.
But being
Kenna today is a slow dance through hell.
I am Kenna,
fighting for a son who is still paying for something that the courts have not yet
decided that he did or didn’t do.
I am not
trying to make him escape justice. I am trying to get him out of custody FOR
THE WEEKEND until I get the land valuation papers to a standard that satisfies
Registrar Sharon Gardner that the surety worth at least 15 times the value of
the bail.
His Uncle
Errol, my brother, withdrew the surety for the bail without forewarning me. My
son walked into court thinking he still had that surety. If I knew or he knew,
my son would never be in this position.
Kenna and his brother Errol |
I am Kenna,
my green eyes turning grey with pain from this stab in the back from my own
brother. I am Jason, thinking about Toussaint and Dessalines. Crazy Horse and
Red Cloud. Malcolm X and whoever those bastards really were.
My love for
my son is feeding the stifling economy with phone credit and fees and expenses
and…
My love for
my son is stifling the nation with days of lost productivity, as laywers and
magistrates drink scotch at leisure while we patiently wait.
I am Kenna…
I am all the
other Negmarron mothers and fathers who try not cry in the moment of battle
when our children are in the teeth of the enemy.
I am Jason
watching Butu’s father heroically taking chage. I am Jason, gathering intelligence,
offering alternatives and making calls. I am Jason freaking out as Butu enters
the wagon while Kenna negotiates a way for him to stay at Custody Suites in
Castries instead of being transferred to The Place That Shall Not Be Named.
I am Jason
running across Castries like a wet fowl, following the wagon so I can see Butu
before visiting hours end. I am Kenna trying to get the deputy registrar, Anwar
Brice, to have some reasonable goddam compassion for a Neg brother who only
really needs a few minutes past closing time on Friday to prove his surety, but
now has to wait til Monday.
I am Jason
in the visiting area with Butu getting the call that everything might be okay.
I am Jason walking across town with Butu and a cop, smoking a Benson instead of
an Embassy because I’m so sure that the Neg won this one.
In the
moment of greatest hope, the wind of freedom making my locks celebrate with
dance, I am Jason, watching Butu walk out of the registry with a police escort.
I am Kenna grasping at straws in the office upstairs.
All our best
efforts have failed. We didn’t free my son. Noah has to spend the weekend in…that
place. They have my son in custody.
I mean, his
son. Kenna’s son. Kenna…
Kenna was
broken by the day. I was just his lieutenant. But I bravely relieved him,
making him as many comforting promises as I thought I could keep. I’ll do this.
I’ll do that. I’ll call Sharon Gardner. I’m sorry I didn’t do it before. It’s
my fault. Don’t feel bad Kenna. I’ll try to fix it. Sharon is a friend of mine.
Sharon was
no fucking help at all.
NO FUCKING HELP AT ALL!!!! |
Something
about the procedure and whatever. I know the procedure. I was asking for 48
hours of Christian compassion. So much for that.
I didn’t
have the guts to call Kenna, so I asked The Most High to lay him down to sleep
while I do the only thing I really know how to do. I started weaponizing the
words.
Butu’s
macocotte, a maronesse named Pal accompanied me to a Neg general’s Palenque. We
plot. We conspire. We plot and conspire some more. Then, I start to load the
weaponized words.
When
suddenly…I am back at the end of the day. Right at the moment of defeat.
I am Kenna
walking away from Jason. I am Kenna holding back my tears as Jason watches me
and holds back his tears. I am Kenna boarding the bus for Desruisseaux, my mind
out of space and time, floating in black, blissful oblivion and then rushing
back in torturous, torrential flashbacks of this, the worst day in hell.
I am Kenna
on the verge of tears for hours. Hours. Bursting with sourness like a sad,
force ripe mango, brutalized by the sun, instead of nurtured by it.
And I can’t
cry. Not yet.
I get home
and everyone wants to know every gory detail. And we gather like the ancestors
round the fire with only the night for our friend, we, this family of eternal
outlaws, while I relive the worst day ever so that they can live it for the
first time.
I am Kenna
trying to eat. Spacing out while the TV watches me. Waiting in suspense for the
news anchor to mention my son’s name and send him one more step down the road
to ignominy.
I am Kenna
in the bathroom. On the bed. In the shadow in the yard. Alone for a moment.
Smoking. The image of my son inside that place for the night emerges from the
darkness.
That place.
That place
that is written up in international human rights reports. That place where
errant boys first learn to become hardened criminals.
The dam
breaks. The flood is too much for me.
My son. Your
son. My son.
I am Jason
Sifflet.
I am crying
into a notebook on the waterfront at Rodney Bay in the light of a lamp post and
the shadow of a coconut tree.
I am Jason
Sifflet, father of a dirty little criminal Negmarron. Whatever I did wrong as a
father, punish me. But my son…
He’s trying
to be better. Just set him free for the weekend while I do these documents
over. Even if he really was a bad boy, he’s a good boy now and…
I failed.
In the past.
Today.
Or whatever.
He failed,
in the past. But he didn’t fail this year. Not for five years. And I just need
the weekend to give you what you need to be sure my land is worth more than the
bail.
I am Jason.
If it really
was Noah, I wouldn’t have the surety.
I would have
to declare all out war on the justice system for me to help my son. It occurs
to me perhaps I should do that now. Noah is four years old. I have a decade,
maybe a little more to make sure that what happened to Butu, what happens to
young Negmarron EVERYDAY, does NOT happen to MY son.
Yeah. I
think maybe I should attack them now, before it’s too late.
This is not just investigative journalism at it's best. ..this piece is a new invention it is hybrid writing. ..it is investigative journalism intermingled with history and social commentary written in prose...not just an article, but a brilliant work of art.
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