The Duppy by Anthony C. Winkler Page B

light sifted through the surrounding grove of trees spattering leafy patterns on the ground and blurted out to God that I was a wretch, a nasty, conniving backbiter who wasn’t worthy to be in His presence.
    “You right ’bout dat!” my parson hissed.
    God wondered why I felt so about myself when from all He could see I was quite a decent chap.
    “Because I loved pum-pum too gluttonously when I was on earth, oh Lord,” I quavered in a craven voice. “I used to chase it all de time, and when a maid wouldn’t give me, sometimes-.-.-.” here my lips trembled with contrition and my voice cracked, “sometimes I would fire her, for I am a wicked, no-good brute.”
    I was going to add that of late some of these maids from the country were meaner with the pum-pum than a dog with a bone and well deserved firing, but I held myself in check by remembering that no earthly excuse could atone for my wanton behavior.
    Perched like a bird on the low-lying branch of a tree, God seemed to digest this candid confession with some gravity.
    Finally he wondered in a bemused voice what was pumpum.
    “What is pum-pum? Lord, it’s what you always blasting in scripture!”
    God said that I must be mistaken, for He had nothing at all against pum-pum, and whether I felt like chasing it or butterfly was my business.
    I had to laugh at this naïveté.
    “Oh, pum-pum much harder to catch dan butterfly, Lord,” I said in worldly explanation, adding, “but to say you have nothing ’gainst pum-pum after everything you write ’bout it-.-.-.”
    I never wrote a word about it, God declared firmly.
    “Den who wrote all those harsh words ’gainst pum-pum?”
    God thought for a brief moment or so and said that he didn’t really know but that a long time ago there was a bearded chap who had been bucked off a horse someplace in the Middle East—He couldn’t exactly remember when or where—and hit his head on a rockstone, and when the fellow woke up he began railing against something similar, although he didn’t call it pum-pum, which must be a Jamaican nickname-.-.-. Hmmm-.-.-. What did he call it again?
    “You talking ’bout St. Paul on de road to Damascus!” my parson bellowed with outrage. “Dat is blasphemy!”
    He remembered now, God recalled dreamily. The fellow who dropped off the horse and hit his head got up screeching against women.
    “Some people call it dat,” I said gloomily.
    The philosopher jumped to his feet and took an erratic spin around the stout trunk of a nearby tree, looking bewildered and lost in thought. A few minutes later he sat back down with a satisfied smirk.
    “What sweet you?” I asked him.
    “The sight of God shook me up and made me question my theory about oblivion after death. But I see now that there’s a simple explanation.”
    “What dat?”
    “God must be in my head, too, along with everything else. Now, if you don’t mind disappearing for a bit, I’m going to take a walk and think this through.”
    With that, he wandered away down the trail, glancing once over his shoulder to see if we were disappearing before he was swallowed up in the bush.
    “If dis peenywally is truly God,” my parson shrieked in his harshest brimstone voice, “why He didn’t smite those rude American students, eh? Why?”

Chapter 12
    I am not a pushy man: I don’t rub up to big-shot politician just to pepper them with questions on their days off. But I had plenty questions to ask God.
    For example, why was excursion bus and boat and train rammed with ole negar always crashing, sinking, and derailing, resulting in ole negar breaking neck, drowning, and being blown to smithereens by the dozen? Why every time a ferry sank in some woebegone foreign land it was always crammed with pure ole negar? And how come every time I read about a crocodile or a tiger or a lion in some misbegotten country devouring someone, it was always a ole negar being eaten? How come white man never get eaten, too, or does he taste too