The Duppy Read Online Free

know!” I shot back. “De golden rule I observe is, ‘Never thief from a man unless he first thief from you.’ And everybody who ever did business with me knew dat when it came to dis one rule, I was quite the stickler.”
    As this telling point struck home we trudged along in silence, for it was obvious that I had stumped the wretch. We continued quite a ways down the road before his brain could cook up even a lame reply. Finally he muttered that if we didn’t ride a minibus, we’d have a long walk to the culvert.
    I drew brake in the middle of the road just as a diesel truck roared through my belly button and careened recklessly down the street, nearly fricasséeing a corporeal peel-neck chicken. “Culvert? What culvert?”
    He looked pained. “To get to heaven from Jamaica, Mr.-Baps, we have to crawl through a culvert.”
    “I not crawling through no damn culvert at my age!” I roared. “I was not a bad Jamaican. I paid taxes. I denounced political tribalism and bogus voting. In forty-seven years of life I grind only five maid who work for me, and I fire only one for saying no. Some Kingston barrister grind five maid a week and fire ten a month over ‘no.’ What I do dat I must ride minibus and crawl like mongoose through a culvert to get to heaven?”
    “Mr. Baps,” he announced wearily, “everybody in Jamaica get to heaven through the same culvert. From prime minister to electrician down to rude parson. It is de only way!”
    “But what about de bright light and de dark tunnel and de sweet music?”
    He mumbled that he didn’t know what I was talking about.
    So I told him about a television show I’d once seen featuring people who had died and been revived and how every one of them had testified that they felt themselves sailing through a dark tunnel and soaring toward a soothing white light while sweet music played in the background. Not a one of them had said a word about minibus and culvert.
    He heaved a weary sigh and explained that the people I had seen in the television show were Americans, and that the U.S. government had indeed installed an automated portal for use by its deceased citizens. As independent Jamaicans, we had our own gateway to heaven. And it happened to be a special secret culvert.
    “You know something,” I barked gruffly, “I not going anywhere with you.”
    I stormed across the noisy road and headed back toward my own house. He came racing after me, bawling at me to wait, saying that I didn’t understand.
    “Why should I go up dere when I can stay down here?” I snapped over my shoulder, as my duppy body glided through traffic, trees, hedges, fences, barking dog, and all other earthly obstruction and obstacle. He jumped in front of me and asked me what, above all things in the world, I liked doing best of all. I asked him if this was a riddle or a trick and he swore that it was a serious question.
    I stopped in the middle of a neighborhood backyard with the dog snarling and barking up a storm and considered my mind.
    The truth was that best of all I liked keeping shop for the reason that it gave me the opportunity to impose discipline and fiscal restraint over ole negar. I could cut off the credit of ole negar when they spent too much or dun their backside when they paid too little. I could enforce good posture on my district by banning all leaning and slouching of ole negar youth against my doorway or counter, and every now and again—and this was the sweetest of all—I’d catch a clerk thiefing and get to fire her backside after raising a satisfying stink.
    But as I stood there in the strange backyard with a dog trying its best to bite my duppy foot, I felt ashamed to admit that such down-to-earth pursuits were what I loved best. Even when I was alive, if someone had asked me what was my first love in life, I probably wouldn’t have blurted out, “Ruling ole negar.” And now that I was dead and a duppy, I felt that I should aspire to something more highbrow like