Read Pao for Free Online Page A

scratch a living outta nothing.
    And even though a lot of the disturbance is against the Chinese, Zhang say it not about them and us. Zhang say Marcus Garvey is only concerned about the African, but the African’s plight is the plight of the poor man everywhere. He like that word ‘plight’. Just like it is the plight of the Chinese peasant ‘who is right now fighting for liberty, equality and fraternity’. Zhang say Garvey right ’bout one thing though: ‘the people will never be free as long as they are colonised by a foreign power.’ Zhang say the Jamaicans same as the Chinese, poor and exploited and oppressed. He say we are ‘brothers in arms’.
    Every night Zhang tell us ’bout the revolution. How the British smuggle opium into China, and how the Chinese fight to stop it, but the British send armed forces and warships, and we lose. And then afterwards we have to pay them everything we got in war indemnities, and they still carry on with the opium anyway. Zhang say the revolution is a war between ‘an army of workers and peasants determined to overthrow the feudal warlords and foreign powers; and the imperialists and counter-revolutionaries who wish to suppress them’. That is how Zhang talk.
    Then one day me and the boys sitting on some empty orange crate on the corner of Barry Street trying to catch some shade when Hampton look across the street and say, ‘That bwoy well out of his jurisdiction,’ which start me and Judge Finley laughing.
    Finley say, ‘Where you get a word like that, bwoy?’
    And Hampton lean over to him and say, ‘Is the wrong word?’ which set me and Finley off laughing even more.
    I look over and see some skinny white boy standing outside the post office trying to look mean.
    ‘Is a white boy?’
    ‘No,’ Hampton say, ‘him just like to think so. Him papa white, but his mama just some whore from West Kingston.’
    ‘What, a real whore?’
    ‘They all whores, man.’
    ‘So who he is?’
    ‘Him called Louis DeFreitas, fancy himself a big-time gangster, but him nothing but a punk.’
    I turn to Judge Finley, ‘You know him?’
    ‘Not as such. I know about him. I know him got a gang in West Kingston.’
    Then Hampton jump in, ‘Him got a gang alright, but him don’t have no inheritance.’
    I look at Finley but him don’t say nothing, so I say to Hampton, ‘What you talking ’bout inheritance ?’
    ‘God will forgive me for saying this, but when Uncle Zhang gone all of this is yours, man.’ And him extend both arms, palms turned up to the sky. ‘Your brother don’t have it in him. Yu going to be the man. Everybody know it. I know it the first time I clapped eyes on your scrawny ass that day yu land at the dock. Uncle know it too. I can tell from the way he always putting yu right like him got yu in training for something, and how him look so gentle at yu even when him giving yu a dressing down.’
    ‘What everybody call him Uncle for anyway?’
    ‘Because he is not your papa but him look after you, man. Everybody got a uncle, or them know what a uncle is anyway. Them know yu can go to your uncle with your troubles and he will do right by yu. Them know Uncle Zhang tough, but them also know him fair.’
    ‘Them know all that?’
    ‘Yah, man. It all got to do with McKenzie.’
    ‘What, that McKenzie that come to my house every day play cards and dominoes with Zhang?’
    ‘That same one. That same McKenzie with the tartan socks. I swear every time I see that man him wearing them socks. I don’t know how many pair he got or if he rinsing out the same ones every night but he always got them. You must have checked the socks, man. Don’t tell me yu no notice.’
    ‘I know the socks. I know what you mean.’
    ‘And you never hear the story ’bout McKenzie?’
    So Hampton tell me the story.
    ‘When Uncle come from China he sort out everything in Chinatown good because the people could see him could fight and him frighten them to hell with it. All this Chinese