Clarence Chance, Contributor

Some of the wires steal down behind the lightpost on the right side of the lane. They travel underground the length of the lane and emerge at the point where the gate should have been. There, they climb a post and are distributed to some of the houses. The rest of the wires swing arrogantly above the lane. About mid-lane there is another post to support them as they travel towards the remaining houses. These wires are current-carrying conductors, illegal connections to the public supply system. They provide power for the people who live in the lane, in the board and concrete houses.

Some time ago this constituency was a marginal one; so, one day, just before the enumeration process began, the Member of Parliament imported people from a safe constituency and herded 55 men, women and children into five two-bedroom houses. And so Big Yard was born.

Travelling downtown, east along Beverly Street, right there where another house could have been, you will see the lane. You enter the yard through the space where the gate should have been, and then, if you turn right immediately, you see a gambling table, about seven feet long and three feet wide. There's a 16-year-old girl there, six months pregnant, playing cards in hand and a beadie she has just smoked blazing in her brain. Her mother is away in England, in prison, for having transported drugs in her body. The pregnant 16-year-old was first left in the care of her aunt, her mother's sister; but she, too, is away now - in England, in prison - because she, too, had carried drugs in her body.

If, instead of turning right, you had turned left, you would have seen a garden - just a few plants, really, covered over with wire to prevent the goats from eating them. This is Sandra's garden.

To get to Sandra's room you would walk straight up to the standpipe in the centre of the yard. You would pass a little boy, his nose running, sitting unattended with no briefs, in the dry dust. The standpipe is where the women wash their clothes and dishes and where they congregate to discuss the latest happenings.

The yard is shaped like a giant horseshoe. After the initial five houses were built, other people added one bedroom to the existing structures. Ryan, Sandra's boyfriend, was one of those people. As the women stood at the standpipe they could look through the half-open door.They could see Ryan and Sandra lying in bed, she, propped up against a pillow set against a wall, and he sitting sort of adjacent to her, his legs lying across hers and hanging off the bed while he feeds her ice cream.

The women do not feel the strange joy women sometimes feel for another sister when she is well treated by her man. Nor do they feel any jealousy, as is often the case. They know that tomorrow, or later, maybe, the hand that gently fed Sandra will slap her in the face, the legs that lay intimately over hers will chase her down the lane and on to the main road, and if he is in one of his better moods he may not bother to kick her.

Big Yard bordered the all-age school at its rear. Some time ago, the school had built a 10-foot wall there, and one of those attached one-bedrooms almost kisses that wall. Push the door to that one-bedroom and there, lying on his bed, face-upward, is Winston Smith. Hunger is tearing through Winston Smith's gut and Tanisha is on his mind. Tanisha had said she would wait for him. She had said she would wait a thousand years.

'You damn well couldn't wait three years,' Winston said aloud now, to no one.

Winston had spent approximately three years in prison. He had stolen cars for a living. Not that he made much money. It was Mr. Anderson who sold the cars and paid Winston a 10 per cent commission - when he felt like it. Nine out of 10 times, Winston wasn't paid; so he'd decided to go into business for himself. But two days after he told Mr. Anderson to go to hell Sergeant Jones came for him. It was 5 a.m., and the door was being thumped by hands and pummelled by feet, and Tanisha was cowering behind him, and there were shouts of, 'Open up! Police, police!' Winston didn't open the door, because his friend Tapper, with whom he'd spent 16 years at the Boys' Home, had opened his door when men had come knocking and shouting, 'Open up, police' and he wasn't here today. But the thumping and pummelling broke the door down, and it was Sergeant Jones and his men all right.

Hewas foolish to have believed her, Winston thought. But then another thought occurred to him. It might have been this belief in her, this waiting to see her, that had kept him sane all those years in that hellhole. Men had gone crazy in that place. Take Bull, for example. Bull had threatened to tear his genitals out. But all he did now was put his head between his legs and rock back and forth like a nincompoop.

Winston pocketed the last $100 he had and bent to get his shoes from under the bed. By the time he had put them on, he suspected he was going to steal again. And by the time he had made his way through the lane and was flagging down the $50 robot taxi, he was sure of it. Winston decided on Liguanea. Liguanea was a good place to start, he told himself.

Winston knew from experience that when security guards were posted at plazas, people might not bother to activate their alarms. Not that it mattered; he could neutralise those alarms in a jiffy. It was Tapper who had taught him that part of the trade. Now Winston saw a gray Honda Torneo parked in a corner, ready for the taking. The security guard was talking to a young woman. Winston made his play. He leaned against the car. No alarm. He bounced the car a little with his back. No alarm. He reached into his shirt and took out a flat, thin piece of metal, about three-quarters of an inch wide and 18 inches long. The tip was slightly curved, like the back of a coconut man's cutlass. Almost immediately he was in. He was about to start the engine when:

'A leopard can't change him spot, eeh, man!'

It was Sergeant Jones. Winston shook like a coconut tree being tossed by a hurricane. He thought of rushing the door, but the policeman had spread himself wide like an eagle, blocking it, his hands spread on top of the car.

'Yu looking on, 'bout 10 years, Smithy, boy,' the policeman said mockingly.

No word came from Winston's mouth.

'Lock up the car and follow me,' Sergeant Jones said.

They passed the security officer and the young woman and made their way around to the back of the plaza. It was only then that Winston could speak. 'Is set yu set mi up, Sarge?'

'Yu set up yu'self,' the policeman said sharply. 'Anyway, I am a reasonable man.' He paused, looked around suspiciously, then went on: 'You don't want to go back to prison, and I want to get in the car sales business. So' - Sergeant Jones emphasised the 'so' - 'we can accommodate each other. Yu catching the drift, Smithy, boy?'

Winston nodded. He wanted to ask a question, but the older man was talking again.

'Mi going to send you down MoBay, give you a room in Flankers. Yu give me three Hondas a week, and everybody live happily ever after.'

'So what I get out of it, Sarge?' Winston asked timidly.

'Yu freedom, Smithy, boy, yu freedom.'

'Why MoBay, Sarge?'

'Tomorrow morning early mi come round Big Yard and fill yu in on the details, and by Monday evening you in MoBay.'

Sergeant Jones reached into his pocket, handed Winston $2,000, and told him to go home and get some rest.

But Winston didn't go home immediately; first he went downtown, to the waterfront. The waterfront was one of Tanisha's favourite spots. Why did Sarge want to send him to MoBay when there were so many Hondas in Kingston? He didn't get it. He didn't know the place; he had no friends there. But he would take MoBay any day over prison. He went next to Devon House, had himself a cone of rum-and-raisin ice cream, and decided to go to the mart at the gas station in Half-Way Tree to catch a snack. He walked down to Half-Way Tree. As he was passing a line of cars parked at the gas station, his eye caught a red Honda Accord near the end of the line. It was a beautiful machine. Sarge would be pleased with this one, he told himself; perhaps so pleased he would change his mind about MoBay.

Winston made his play as he usually did. But as he was about to open the car he saw a young woman, a baby in her arms, and an older man in T-shirt and jeans, emerge from the mart. They seemed to be heading towards the car. He shifted himself into thesemi-darkness caused by two blown bulbs at that end of the compound.

The young woman placed the baby in a child seat in the back; then both adults got into the car. The roof light was switched on, and Winston saw the man using a coin to scratch the back of a phone card. He could see them clearly through the untinted part of the windscreen. It was Sarge and Tanisha.

Winston leapt out of the darkness and banged three times on the roof of the car. Sergeant Jones, startled, started the vehicle and was about to drive away when he realised it was Winston.

'What yu doing in car with Sarge, Tanisha?' Winston screamed.

Tanisha was too frightened to answer. Sarge stormed around to the side of the car where Winston was standing and said angrily, 'Is mi babymother, if yu must know! Yu think hot girl like this woulda stick with yu? Yu had anything to give her? Eeh, thiefing bwoy?'

Winston ignored him. 'Yu help set me up, Tanisha?'

Still the young woman didn't answer.

Sarge shouted at Winston: 'Mi give Bull mi money to get rid of yu in prison, and him mess up everything. Now yu come out prison and mi heart get soft and mi decide to make some money off yu and yu trying to mess things up. Thiefing bwoy!'

By this time, the taxi men who parked near the gas station and some passers-by had started to gather around them. Sarge went around the back door, opened it and exclaimed: 'No future here for you! Look on mi son!'

'Is not your son!' Tanisha declared, finding her voice at last.

A collective gasp came from the gathering. Tanisha took the baby from the child seat and attempted to hand him over to Winston. 'Is your baby,' she said. Tears were streaming down her face.

Puzzled, Winston didn't take the child from her.

Tanisha turned to Sarge. 'I was already pregnant when yu hold mi down,' she told him. She turned again to Winston. 'I was waiting for your birthday to surprise you with the news, but them lock yu up and wouldn't allow me to see you. Is when mi go down the station to find out 'bout you him hold me down.'

Here one of the taxi drivers shouted: 'Don't tek no jacket so easy, youth!'

'Winston,' Tanisha said desperately, 'him tell me yu die in prison, and him start to give me him things, and mi say who me going to turn to now ...' She didn't finish the sentence; she was crying uncontrollably.

For a moment the policeman, humiliated, seem about to reach for his waist. But the crowd was swelling. Sergeant Jones got in his red Honda Accord and drove away.

After the crowd had drifted, Winston and Tanisha stood looking at each other, saying nothing. Then Winston said: 'Yu coming or what?'

He turned away and, with their baby in her arms, she turned to follow him. Like that, they made their way towards Big Yard.

Three weeks later, early on a Monday, somewhere in St. Catherine, a farmer stumbled upon the body of a male. The police brought Tanisha to the scene to identify the badly decomposed body. It was lying face down in the dirt, clad in the corduroy pants and plaid shirt Winston had been wearing when he left home two weeks earlier. With trembling legs and lips and drowning eyes, Tanisha said, 'Yes, is him. Yes, is Winston.'

Two weeks earlier, at a secret meeting place, Winston had taken a phone from his ear. He had been listening in on a conversation and it was just as the man had said. He had heard it for himself: Sarge saying to waste him and to throw the body in a field in St. Catherine. The man said: 'So, yu believe now? The police sergeant want yu wasted badly, and he offering peanuts to do it. But I know a good deal when I see one. Yu coming with me to MoBay or what?'

At that point Winston had taken off his corduroy pants and plaid shirt. The man had smiled. 'Yu won't regret this, man. The police sergeant will think yu dead, the police them will think yu dead, yu get rich in a year and come back home to yu woman and pickney.'

'An' yu will take care of them for me till I come back?'

'A' wouldn't lie to yu, Brother Winston. Wi going into a partnership. You steal the cars, I sell them, andwe split the cornmeal equally.'

Unknown to Tanisha, a plan had been concocted to get a body matching Winston's body type. The day the badly decomposed corpse was found, Winston had already been in MoBay for two weeks. His mission was to steal at least two high-end cars a week.

The night Winston went missing, Sergeant Jones was on the phone with the man who had promised to take care of Winston's family. 'Yes, Sarge, the man take the bait like a big fat fish! Him down MoBay right now.'

'Good, good.' Sarge was about to say something else, but then he hung up the phone.

Like that, Sergeant Jones finally managed to land Winston in Mobay, and Tanisha back in his bed. But the question remains: Will he utilise Winston's skill at stealing cars? Or does he have something else in mind for him?

- Clarence Chance