Fathead

Fathead Ishion Hutchinson (bio) We didn't see it coming for Fathead.But when it came, we were preparedto be gentle, to show the sympathyrequired of us when this thing happened.You never know when it will come to youor to someone you know. Plenty peoplelike that. They ghost about in our yards,allowed under cellars, never insidethe house, called up to the veranda's edgefor something to eat or drink, small kindnesswe give, not entirely without reproachbecause they are beyond reproach, darkenedby a phantom haze, shifting through cinder, thorn,and zinc, vanishing for the day or weeks,others for years like Robinson Crusoe,returning with a rusty, seraphic look.Our small kindness is our mercy,and that not easy, not easy at all,when workhouse and almshouse empty and brokeworse than most of us. Still, we give mercy.So when Fathead bulb finally blew,our kindness was ready, and our mercy.But Fathead? The shopkeeper? That surprisedus, for a shopkeeper was somebody,a someone, top of top, top shelf you couldsay if that didn't sound a bit cruelsince we are talking about Fathead, who givesout trust you'd think he was selling it.Good man Fathead. Too good to scramble up. [End Page 109] What really this goes to show is that God,if it is God, doesn't discriminate."Fathead," says God, "it is now your turn to crack."Couldn't we have seen when the signs started,the first chirp? Signs aren't always clear,or signs to begin with, and by the timethey become wonders of someone losingit, that person gone. The Bible did warn,"A wicked and adulterous generationseeketh after a sign; and there shall nosign be given unto it," and, yes, farmore adulterous than wicked here, wicked—small wicked, mind you, like our mercy—scatter all bout, like those who say moneyflew up in Fathead's head, that the first signhe started to slip he tapped his head sidewith two fingers and looked vacant-like downon the counter for coins, invisiblecoins, counting them under his breath. True, heonly speaks numbers now, figures for words,mouth dribbling like a newborn in the shadeof the almond tree with the stray mongrels.So what? How coins flitted in his mind madthe same man who gave trust left, right, and center?You ever hear such malice? But alright,them see that silver lust taking Fatheadto a dark place and no one said nothingto Sister Will, his mother, old, bent, nowback at the counter beneath the cardboardsign TRUST DEAD which Fathead had taken downlong ago, so long we didn't remember it—a shock and shame to see—but there it is,in coal letters, the writing on the wall,the implacable sign that we deserve,at least those who said coins clotted Fathead's [End Page 110] brains. To be fair, when he finally snapped,we all noticed. You didn't need Bibleand key or psychiatrist to see thatFathead was no longer Fathead that morning.That man was gone. Mouth opened, tongue missing,propped on the counter was a goat's headwhich Fathead, mouth opened as wide, cradledwith one arm, the other stretched toward uswith his usual indiscriminate trust,the goat's snow-white tongue, Fathead's last offerbefore Sister Will spat at us to leaveand her son broke into a mass of sums. [End Page 111] Ishion Hutchinson ishion hutchinson** is the author of the poetry collections School of Instructions: A Poem, House of Lords and Commons, and Far District. Born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, he is the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University.