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

crime to talk to me. Where it is?’
    Chris showed me:

For talking to street rabs   
Four strokes
For playing with street rabs      
Eight strokes
    I said, ‘But your father don’t mind talking to us. What wrong if you talk to us? ’
    Chris said, ‘But this ain’t nothing at all. You must come on Sunday and see what happen.’
    I could see that Chris was pleased as anything.
    About six of us went that Sunday. Morgan was there to meet us and he took us into his drawing room. Then he disappeared. There were many chairs and benches, as though there was going to be a concert. Morgan’s eldest son was standing at a little table in the corner.
    Suddenly this boy said, ‘Stand!’
    We all stood up, and Morgan appeared, smiling all round.
    I asked Hat, ‘Why he smiling so?’
    Hat said, ‘That is how the magistrates and them does smile when they come in court.’
    Morgan’s eldest son shouted, ‘Andrew Morgan!’
    Andrew Morgan came and stood before his father.
    The eldest boy read very loudly, ‘Andrew Morgan, you are charged with stoning the tamarind tree in Miss Dorothy’s yard; you are charged with ripping off three buttons for the purpose of purchasing some marbles; you are charged with fighting Dorothy Morgan; you are charged with stealing two tolums and three sugar-cakes. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?’
    Andrew said, ‘Guilty.’
    Morgan, scribbling on a sheet of paper, looked up.
    ‘Have you anything to say?’ Andrew said, ‘I sorry, sir.’
    Morgan said, ‘We will let the sentences run concurrently. Twelve strokes.’
    One by one, the Morgan children were judged and sentenced. Even the eldest boy had to receive some punishment.
    Morgan then rose and said, ‘These sentences will be carried out this afternoon.’
    He smiled all round and left the room.
    The joke misfired completely.
    Hat said, ‘Nah, nah, man, you can’t make fun of your own self and your own children that way, and invite all the street to see. Nah, it ain’t right.’
    I felt the joke was somehow terrible and frightening.
    And when Morgan came out on the pavement that evening, his face fixed in a smile, he got none of the laughter he had expected. Nobody ran up to him and clapped him on the back, saying, ‘But this man Morgan really mad, you hear. You hear how he beating his children these days …?’ No one said anything like that. No one said anything to him.
    It was easy to see he was shattered.
    Morgan got really drunk that night and challenged everybody to fight. He even challenged me.
    Mrs Morgan had padlocked the front gate, so Morgan could only run about in his yard. He was as mad as a mad bull, bellowing and butting at the fence. He kept saying over and over again, ‘You people think I not a man, eh? My father had eight children. I is his son. I have ten. I better than all of you put together.’
    Hat said, ‘He soon go start crying and then he go sleep.’
    But I spent a lot of time that night before going to sleep thinking about Morgan, feeling sorry for him because of that little devil he had inside him. For that was what I thought was wrong with him. I fancied that inside him was a red, grinning devil pricking Morgan with his fork.
    Mrs Morgan and the children went to the country.
    Morgan no longer came out to the pavement, seeking our company. He was busy with his experiments. There were a series of minor explosions and lots of smoke.
    Apart from that, peace reigned in our end of Miguel Street.
    I wondered what Morgan was doing and thinking in all that solitude.
    The following Sunday it rained heavily, and everyone was forced to go to bed early. The street was wet and glistening, and by eleven there was no noise save for the patter of the rain on the corrugated-iron roofs.
    A short, sharp shout cracked through the street and got us up.
    I could hear windows being flung open, and I heard people saying, ‘What happen? What happen?’
    ‘Is Morgan. Is Morgan. Something happening by Morgan.’
    I was