Read Online Miguel Street by V. S. Naipaul - Free Book Online Page A

watch and see. You know the calypso?’
“The more they try to do me bad
Is the better I live in Trinidad”
    time so next year, I go have the King of England and the King of America paying me millions to make fireworks for them. The most beautiful fireworks anybody ever see.
    And Hat or somebody else would ask, ‘You go make the fireworks for them?’
    Morgan would say, ‘Make what} Make nothing. By this time so next year, I go have the King of England the King of America paying me millions to make fireworks for them. The most beautiful fireworks anybody ever see.’
    And, in the meantime, in the back of the yard, Mrs Bhakcu was saying, ‘He have big belly. But what yours have? I don’t know what yours going to sit on next year this time, you hear.’
    And next morning Morgan was as straight and sober as ever, talking about his experiments.
    This Morgan was more like a bird than a man. It was not only that he was as thin as a match-stick. He had a long neck that could swivel like a bird’s. His eyes were bright and restless. And when he spoke it was in a pecking sort of way, as though he was not throwing out words, but picking up corn. He walked with a quick, tripping step, looking back over his shoulder at somebody following who wasn’t there.
    Hat said, ‘You know how he get so? Is his wife, you know. He fraid she too bad. Spanish woman, you know. Full of blood and fire.’
    Boyee said, ‘You suppose that is why he want to make fireworks so?’
    Hat said, ‘People funny like hell. You never know with them.’
    But Morgan used to make a joke of even his appearance, flinging out his arms and feet when he knew people were looking at him.
    Morgan also made fun of his wife and his ten children. ‘Is a miracle to me,’ he said, ‘that a man like me have ten children. I don’t know how I manage it.’
    Edward said, ‘How you sure is your children?’
    Morgan laughed and said, ‘I have my doubts.’
    Hat didn’t like Morgan. He said, ‘Is hard to say. But it have something about him I can’t really take. I always feel he overdoing everything. I always feel the man lying about everything. I feel that he even lying to hisself.’
    I don’t think any of us understood what Hat meant. Morgan was becoming a little too troublesome, and it was hard for all of us to begin smiling as soon as we saw him, which was what he wanted.
    Still his firework experiments continued; and every now and then we heard an explosion from Morgan’s house, and we saw the puffs of coloured smoke. This was one of the standing amusements of the street.
    But as time went by and Morgan found that no one was willing to buy his fireworks, he began to make fun even of his fireworks. He was not content with the laughter of the street when there was an explosion in his house.
    Hat said, ‘When a man start laughing at something he fight for all the time, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’ And Hat decided that Morgan was just a fool.
    I suppose it was because of Hat that we decided not to laugh at Morgan any more.
    Hat said, ‘It go make him stop playing the fool.’
    But it didn’t.
    Morgan grew wilder than ever, and began challenging Bhakcu to fight about two or three times a week. He began beating his children more than ever.
    And he made one last attempt to make us laugh.
    I heard about it from Chris, Morgan’s fourth son. We were in the café at the corner of Miguel Street.
    Chris said, ‘Is a crime to talk to you now, you know.’
    I said, ‘Don’t tell me. Is the old man again?’
    Chris nodded and he showed me a sheet of paper, headed CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.
    Chris said with pride, ‘Look at it.’
    It was a long list, with entries like this:

For fighting     
i) at home
Five strokes
 
ii) in the street    
Seven strokes
 
iii) at school
Eight strokes
    Chris looked at me and said in a very worried way, ‘It funny like hell, eh? This sort of thing make blows a joke.’
    I said yes, and asked, ‘But you say is a