The Polished Hoe Read Online Free PDF Page A

help you round the yard when I was a lil boy. ’Specially in the long vacation, June, July and August. I uses to sweep-up the yard with a coconut broom; feed the sheeps and the other stocks; washdown the pigpens; and burn the trash and dry-leaves, in a’ empty oil drum.”
    “And what is your name?”
    “I name Bennett. Granville Chesterfield Bennett Browne. But they calls me Benn, ma’am. My proper name is Bennett.”
    “And you’re a Constable in the Force!”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “You have a nice name.”
    “My gran-mother give me these big-names.”
    “Years and years ago, Constable . . . after Wilberforce finished at the same Sin-Davids, and start attending Harrison College . . .”
    “I went as far as Six Standard. And straight outta Six Standard, I join the Force.”
    “You did..Well, too! And your gran-mother gave you three nice names. Anglican?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Confirmed?”
    “Well, not exactly.”
    “It must be the police work. Oh, here Gertrude comes!”
    “Evening, Mistress. Good evening, Constable.”
    “Good evening, ma’am,” the Constable says.
    “Constable, is there anything at all I can offer you? Cocoa-tea, or anything?”
    “A cup o’ cocoa-tea, please,” the Constable says. “I don’t normally drink cocoa-tea, but as I on duty, ma’am . . .”
    “Good! Cocoa, then. Bring the Constable a nice glass of milk, Gertrude. He could mix-in the cocoa on his own. I’ll have my usual . . .”
    The Constable, who is about twenty-two years old, has a head shaven almost to its shining pate, as if it is purposely done this way to fit the policeman’s peak cap, issued too small. He is handsome in his night uniform of black serge tunic and trousers; “for the occasion, boy; for the grave occasion,” Sargeant had told him; and beside him, on the floor, he has rested his cap, that has a red band round the side. He is sitting up, in a straight-backed mahogany tub-chair; and is watching Gertrude with one eye; and with his other, Miss Mary-Mathilda Bellfeels—he calls her Miss Bellfeels, as she is known in the Village—to see if she is watching him watch Gertrude.
    Gertrude is.Well-built, not fat, but with large breasts, round face, large brown eyes and a.Well-padded behind—a “big botsy,” he calls it. Gertrude’s skin is like velvet, black and smooth. She is five feet seven inches. The Constable sees her as a very appealing woman, for the first time, in this new light; but before tonight, and previously, on his own rounds, he would see her coming from Wednesday night prayer meetings, and revival meetings, particularly during Crop-Season; and in all these years, he never had eyes for her; never looked at her with lust. Because of the competition from other men, among them Manny who owns the Harlem Bar & Grill. So he went his way, and she hers. And then, on that Friday night, when the annual Harvest Festival of the Church of the Nazarene, where she was a Sister, ended, with the clapping and the shouting and the singing and the testifying and the sound of the joyful tambourines late in the humid, sweating air and in her spirit, Constable saw Gertrude holding Sargeant’s hand, entering a field of canes.
    He looks at her now, as she comes into this front-house, twice the size of the house in which he was born and still lives; facing him; the two of them thrown together in this Great House, with its shining floors, whose wood give off the smell of freshly polished mahogany, and the smell of Hawes Furniture Polish; surrounding him with a smell of sweet sexual sweetness he imagines coming from her; and he lowers his eyes to watch her small, dainty feet, bare; uncovered; not dressed in washercongs, or even Indian slippers. They are greased with coconut oil. Yes. It is the coconut oil that he smells. Not the polished mahogany furniture, nor the Hawes Furniture Polish.
    Gertrude moves silent as a cat, over the thick Persian carpets. He can see the sinews on the insteps of her feet; he