Jamaican Juice

Andre Gordon

Description

Three short stories vividly explore the reality of Jamaican immigrants in the United States as each battles their own unique challenges.
Jamaican immigrant Ray Moore has only one objective when he moves to New York—to make enough money so he can help his brother, Rudy, receive cancer treatments in Kingston. Despite his best efforts, Rudy is only getting worse. When Ray receives an offer he cannot refuse, everything changes as he leaves his job as a hotel dishwasher and embarks on a dangerous path into the world of drug dealing.
It has been a year since Marisha Craskell was forced to drop out of university and become a bartender. When she receives an anonymous text offering her full financial support to return to college, Marisha is left wondering who the author is and whether she should accept his invitation to go on a date with him. But what Marisha does not know is that a phone call is
about to propel her down a new path.
Malik Brenner never thought his cousin, D’angelo, would find his way to the United States from Jamaica. But when he opens the door to him, Malik soon discovers that the decision to open the door comes with enormous consequences.
Jamaican Juice shares three short stories that explore the reality of immigrants in the United States as each battles their own unique challenges.

Sujets

• Nueva York
• Jamaica
• Crime
• Fiction
• New York

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 08 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663202888
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

JAMAICAN JUICE
 
 
 
ANDRE GORDON
 
 
 
 
 

 
JAMAICAN JUICE
 
 
Copyright © 2022 Andre Gordon.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
iUniverse
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-0289-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-0288-8 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912714
 
 
iUniverse rev. date:  08/08/2022
 
For my late brother Fitzroy and my daughter Isabella
CONTENTS
Jamaican Juice
The Bartender
Contraband
JAMAICAN JUICE
T HE POTS AND PANS NEVER stopped coming, or at least that’s how Ray Moore felt when the restaurant got really busy and he had to wash dishes as fast as he could. But he didn’t mind, not really. In fact, as an immigrant from Jamaica, he viewed his humble post as a dishwasher in a fine New York restaurant located in a swanky hotel with a subdued degree of satisfaction. As he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his right forearm, he paused from washing the never-ending procession of oversized pots and pans at the industrial sink deep in the confines of the hotel’s kitchen. He hated commuting into Manhattan from the Bronx to do his mandatory menial labour, labour he welcomed despite its monotonous nature because it allowed him to send money back to Kingston, Jamaica, for his brother’s cancer treatments.
He had only one goal and one objective with moving to New York—one thing he could get there that he couldn’t obtain in Kingston. For all the natural splendour and spectacle his home country had, none of it was ever for him, or for his family. They were too poor to afford the niceties of the very place they were born in. They were looked down on by the employers and leaders of industry, domestic and foreign. And they were pitied, too, for his brother’s early sickness.
It was like a slap to the face after the kick in the rear that was his family’s life. A kid that young getting diagnosed with cancer. Even the best doctors they could see would give only a few years and painkillers. Rudy’s valiant efforts to remain positive inspired Ray, and he knew the rest of the family felt the same way. But drained at the same time. They all had to look at his smiling face, wondering when it would be the last smile he ever made.
Raymond wasn’t willing to just sit and wait the last years out. He was determined to try to make things change, even if it was useless, in the hope that it could matter. It was his time to break away and start making something great of himself for the sake of his brother. Anything was better than what was available to him in Kingston.
Once he had successfully moved, he immediately started making plans to get his brother’s care underway. He took the first job he could find and all the hours they gave him, plus more. Raymond was a young man, bright eyed and motivated, the perfect candidate for a cheap labour position. The Hotel Escariot hired him on as an apprentice kitchen technician, a dishwasher. Eight hours a day, and sometimes more with overtime permitting, he was standing up scrubbing plates and glasses.
After a few days, he had got good at it. He was kind of proud of himself for it. Back in Jamaica, it was never his job in particular to take care of the home or clean things up. He learned fast and participated to his full ability in whatever he was told to do. He thought if he worked harder than anyone, he’d get more opportunities, and more money. Anything beyond what he needed to live within the most basic means went back to his family, to his brother. But that was starting to dwindle.
He couldn’t readily enjoy life anywhere knowing his brother Rudy was going through hell back home. He sent letters as often as possible between his double shifts and sleepless nights. All around him, he saw people living poorly, like he was used to, but somehow felt worse off. He had his own room, his own fridge and stove and microwave, all things that were considered luxurious in the life he had abandoned. But it wasn’t enough for others. Everyone else wanted the high-rise life. They were suffering as long as they weren’t “on top”.
What was so good about being on top? Ray never understood the hip New York locals in that way. For the first few years he was living and working there, he was so self-focused that nothing but his work and his brother mattered. He didn’t mind being denied promotions, or being denied opportunities, as long as he did enough. He was happy with just enough for the longest time.
Now at age twenty-five, and after two years of working as a dishwasher, he got a terrible letter from his parents. Rudy was in the hospital. His constant stream of funds had been enough to get him treatment, but it didn’t slow the disease. The cancer was starting to strengthen within him. He needed stronger treatment, and surgery, to fight back. Those were so far out of the way, out of Ray’s ability, that he started to lose hope. He pleaded with the hotel staff for better work, more money, any jobs at all that he could do, but he was denied. It was dishes or the door. And not wanting to go without a job, the door was out.
This seemed to be the end. While he toiled in a worthless pit of existence, his brother was deteriorating back home with each passing moment and losing the battle Ray was so desperately trying to help him win all along. It seemed like everything would be lost until Ray took a chance with something else.
On one of the few days Ray didn’t work all the way through his break doing someone else’s job, an employee in the back room of the kitchen who Ray got along with, Devon, brought something into the break room. The kitchen was busy; only the best hands had to be on deck at all times, and Ray had earned himself a place as the master dishwasher.
“Hey, Ray,” Devon said, “you hit with any good smack yet?”
Ray wasn’t used to the deep-city vernacular. Even after two years, he wasn’t used to many of the New York– and Bronx-related words that never reached the shores of Kingston. “I don’t know,” Ray admitted. “Hit like … ?” Ray started pumping his arms, as he thought Devon was talking about boxing, like Rocky, but Devon shook his head.
“No, no,” he said. “Man, Juice, you been working thirty hours every day since I got here. How do you take the edge off?”
Ray shrugged uncertainly. His nickname had stuck ever since he took an unhealthy spray of unfiltered orange juice while cleaning out a tank that was supposed to be empty. It taught him a lesson—to double-check everything sent his way before he began cleaning it—and gave everyone else a good laugh and memory to share. In his eyes, it was still a positive experience. But still, he couldn’t answer his co-worker clearly.
“The edge is always there,” Ray admitted. “I have a lot of things on my mind day to day, have to keep going, push forward—no turning back.”
“That’s hard stuff,” Devon said. He jumped up from where he sat with a plastic baggie in his hand. In it was a jumbled, half-caked mess of white powder still clinging to the sides of the bag with a sifting, shifting core of dust in the middle. “But, man, you have to realize, that’s no way to live.”
“Isn’t it?” Ray asked.
“No, no,” Devon said. “Listen. We’re down here busting ass every day, looking like fools, eating shit and breathing soap, while the fat cats up top spend their time sitting in chairs; their hardest job is fighting off sleep. And they can’t even do that right, because when they get too bogged down and slow off the fat of their own asses, what do you think they do? Man, they take a hit. Of this.”
He held up the baggie and let it dangle in front of Ray’s face for a moment.
“What is it?” Ray asked, pointing almost close enough to poke it. Devon pulled it back and away to hold up for himself again. He shook it to settle the contents and then carefully stuffed it into his pocket.
“It’s smack,” Devon explained. “Crack. You know, nose candy.”
“Candy?” Ray said. Then he understood. It wasn’t uncommon in his apartment to see men or sometimes women slumped over in the corners with white dust around their noses. He knew what it was. The same thing was present in Jamaica, but in much smaller quantities, and not relegated to the poor people like in the Bronx. “Oh, right. That kind.”
“That kind, yeah,” Devon said, patting Ray on his left shoulder.
“If you are doing it,” Ray said, “you should wait to get home. Someone may find out if you do it here.”
“You’re right,” Devon said, “but no, this isn’t for me. This is actually—I kind of have a second job here, on the side.” He sat down and waved Ray to sit down next to him. They huddled together over the plastic table that they had to share. “See, I know a guy. He