Mas: De Real Horn Self

I was feeling the feeling on Carnival Friday around the Savannah. Everywhere the sound of pan. Then I hear meh song, Ah wrong again. I have a little break foot but still I trying to chip. That singer Skinny Banton from Grenada, like he bring back all the innocence we use to be. He not vex with the woman who he think horn him. He wonderin’ what he do wrong. He love she anyhow.

You know. No cutlass for she. No bad words, no talk of bi... or gold digger. And he sweet riddim. No wonder his song win in the semis with Exodus.

The vendor with the dreads watch me with a big smile, say,”- look woman, doh fight it, yuh cyah run, and you cyah walk.” He hand me a coconut for free. Just so. “Sit down,” he order me. Listening to he I realise like is every Trini have lyrics.

Hear him, “You feelin it in your skin? Me too. Energy, vibration, anticipation. It in the air, in de hills. For the last two weeks, even when it quiet I hearing pan like I in Panorama with me own riddim section beatin bottle, glass, anything with spoon.

“I sleep and wake with it. You know like when Shadow sing baseman, that song, ‘ponponpodepom’...like that. In the panyards in Port-of-Spain everybody sounding sweet. Renegades is best, well yes, but I give Exodus win. Yes, girl, your song.

“Ten years old, I was a little skinny boy visiting my grandparents on the Plannings on Nelson Street. First time I was wearing long pants. I get permission to push All Stars pans. From four in the morning to eight, I pushing pan, just across Duke Street, down Frederick Street, and back across Prince Street struggling to lift the pan out of the pothole, hearing the pans beating next to my head for four hours.

“20 years old. You taxi to town, go Oval fete on a Sunday night and when the fete done, join Invaders heading downtown. They say J’Ouvert is madness. Is de only time we sane. Yuh covered in mud and you ain’t care who you rub against because we strip away social nonsense and connect as humans.

“Everyone could be anybody, judge, people with BMW, or living in the street and everybody—men in dresses, wigs and placards, Dame Lorraine, Blue Devils. Smiling.

All of we blood red, want love, want to connect, believe in divinity, feel good when we do good for other people and go dead. Aint? “30 years old. Holdin my wife hand, she leggo as this is J’Ouvert.

She in she own headspace enjoying it for she self. It don’t matter. I covered in oil, my teeth and all. How J’Ouvert sunrise always gentle, rise like ah gold coin? Eight o’clock walk home in the hot sun.

You rushin. In them days they have no ap. Running from corner to corner where the band gone. Laughing and running. Looking for your band. For two days you runnin on adrenaline, alcohol, and pelau.

“Now you in pretty mas. You watchin the women, how they fix their hair and make-up like dolly and wondering how section leaders could play mas for two days in high heels and you think, that’s a Trini woman, yes.

“Lining up the stage and you leave your band to see the other band costume, like Vegas, or Back to Africa, craning yuh neck to see what Minshall doin this year.

When Tan Tan and Saga Boy came out the crowd faint. Minshall yes, always disorganised, always last minute, but Lord, when Minshall make the river and everyone in white and they throw the colour on you, you feel like you become a butterfly from a chrysalis and you part of the river of the universe.

“40 years old. That stage, that stage, that stage, three minutes of fame, of abandon. Las lap was always pan. As the big truck shut down, keep going. It feel like riding the wave in Maracas. When the wave break and you see white water going to shore and you trying to ride that white water as far out to shore as you can get to stretch out your Carnival as much as possible to that feeling of joyfulness, of energy, of all is well in the world, all that is important is the moment. That is it.

Trinidad is Eden, Moses throw he water here. A small space where rivers of people of the world, all colours, shapes, sizes, religions, class, jamming together.”

As I hand him my coconut to cut for the soft jelly, I say to him, “Carnival tabanca. That is the real horn self.”