The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir by Staceyann Chin Page B

the long train ride. Delano picks limes and we fill a big bag with the best ones for Auntie Ella. I pick fresh mint and fever grass. Grandma uses the bruised limes to make a bottle of lemonade. When Aunt June leaves for prayer meeting she takes the other children with her. Grandma feeds Pa Larry and puts him to bed. Then she fries some chicken and roasts two breadfruits. When it is just me and Delano and Grandma, I pretend that this is our house and that we can do whatever we want in it. I wonder what it will be like at Auntie Ella’s.
    The following morning we get up at four. We do not wake anybody to say good-bye, except Uncle Harold, who takes us to the train station. We catch the first train out of Montpelier station. I didn’t believe that Aunt June would really let us go and as the train pulls away I do a little dance. Delano laughs at me. I am so happy to leave Galloway District, even if it is only for five weeks out of the long hot summer. I am not going to Canada, or America, or England, but Kingston is almost like a foreign country. Kingston is where everybody on TV lives. I ask Delano if he thinks Auntie Ella will take me to meet Fae Ellington so I can tell her how much I love when she reads the news. Delano wants to have a shoot-out, with real guns like they have in the cowboy movies.
    Grandma cannot eat anything for the whole day on the train. She is afraid she will throw up and mess up the train seats and her dress and everything. Delano says I shouldn’t eat anything either because I might throw up too, but Grandma says I cannot stay hungry all day. She puts some newspaper inside my dress and tells me it will make my stomach feel better. Then she lets me eat a little and I throw up into a plastic bag with more newspaper in it. Aunt June would be vexed with Grandma if she knew that I was eating on the train. But Grandma says, “What rat don’t tell puss, don’t harm dog.”
    I take small bites of my corned-beef sandwich and look out the window at the trees passing by. The conductor laughs loudly and makes jokes with us.
    “How are we doing there, big man?” He pounds his palms on my brother’s back, but he smiles and tips his hat at me.
    “And how is my little lady?”
    I say, “Fine, thank you, sir.”
    The candy man comes by and asks if we want cotton candy. We say yes, but Grandma has no money. He gives us one tiny piece each and keeps moving, all the while shouting, “Candy man! Sweet, sweet candy! Anybody for the candy man?” I hear him long after he has disappeared. We finally get off the train at the Six Miles stop. There are so many people getting off the train I almost forget to wave good-bye to the conductor. Grandma steps down onto the platform and tells Delano to hold on to me while she puts the bag of clothes on her head. Then she reaches for my hand.
    More people than I have ever seen pass by while we wait for the bus that will take us uptown. A pregnant lady and three little children holding on to her skirt wait with us. A man with one arm and a scar that runs from his left eye to the right side of his mouth nods at Grandma. Two old men with white beards approach us and smile at Grandma. They smell like the rum that Aunt June uses to soak Christmas fruits. Both of them are grinning and shaking their hips at Grandma. She pulls us closer to her and looks the other way. They laugh louder and tip their hats before they stumble away.
    The bus is teeming with all sorts of people carrying bags and boxes. There is no room to sit. I squeeze Grandma’s hand and press my body against her. The air is hot and heavy with sweat. Bob Marley is wailing that he shot the sheriff, but he didn’t shoot the deputy. A girl not much older than Delano has a large cardboard box with holes punched in it. She pulls herself away when Delano places his ear close to the box. He leans over to me and whispers that he heard chickens peeping inside. An old man smelling like cow dung balances a bundle of sugarcane and