Mr. Phillip and the Moon…by Justificus
Saturday, April 12th, 2008The sky was as transparent as the inside of a gigantic crystal ball. The ceiling of this crystal ball appeared to be painted in a rich midnight blue - a reflection of the face of a deep blue ocean. The moon was shining like a spotlight fixed in the sky and illuminating every space beneath. I sat and reflected. I looked up at the moon. On this beautiful night, the moon caught my gaze because I could not resist its brilliance. The moon was large and perfectly round. I felt like I could outstretch my hand and pluck it out of the sky – the moon seemed to be so close.
As I stared at the moon my mind revisited my childhood and the home in which I grew up with my grandmother. She was a very strong, serious and wise but gentle woman. I loved my grandmother dearly. We lived in a two story wooden house that was covered by a galvanize rooftop, painted in a military green with gray trim, on a hill. The house was located on Schuller Street and overlooked the city of Port of Spain, capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. My uncle told me that the land was cut perfectly square and the house stood on it facing true east. The restroom facility was detached from the house and the bathrooms were enclosed in sheets of galvanize. There was a bed of rocks on the upper level. The bed of rocks was used for placing the white clothes out to sun for bleaching. A walkway that led to the only W.C. went through the center of the bed of rocks. Our family occupied the top floor of the house while the bottom was rented out.
I enjoyed sitting on the wooden banister and absorbing the lush vegetation that decorated the mountainside to my right. Immediately in front of me I could see the people intermingling with the cars along Duke Street and Piccadilly Street. I could see clearly all the way to the waterfront down on Wrightson Road. Off to my left I could see the outline of South Quay and Sea Lots. But, Mr. Phillip lived in the room immediately below this banister, my favored spot. He was one of the tenants who rented from my grandmother.
Mr. Phillip’s complexion was very dark. He was very tall and slim built. He had a small head covered with thick, wooly, jet-black well-groomed hair. His eyes were extra large and bulging. They looked like they wanted to drop out of their sockets. He looked like a giant in my little eyes. I neither saw him in the morning time nor saw him engaged in a conversation with anyone. However I often saw him in the evening on his way in from wherever he had spent his day. He rode a bicycle. It was huge and green. The frame curved down the center between the wheels. He would lift the bicycle, almost wrapped around his body, up the three steps and into the yard. The wheels were massive and would spin very fast as he took the bike, parallel to the ground, from the street to its resting place. Mr. Phillip would disappear into the yard for a while and then reappear inside of the front gate with his pipe in hand as the golden sun was sinking behind the horizon.
After positioning himself on the left side of the entrance to the yard, he gazed into the dusk. He appeared to be looking and waiting for something in the sky as the night began to fall. Mr. Phillip would proceed to dip the pipe into a small cloth container that looked like a small sack. Next he withdrew the pipe from the pouch to begin packing it with a brownish substance. Then he would place the pipe into his mouth between his lily-white teeth. He supported it with his left hand and dropped some fire from a lighted match on top of the brownish substance in the pipe. His cheeks almost disappeared into his jaws as he sucked violently on the pipe. The fire descended and disappeared into the chamber. Very shortly afterwards, a volume of smoke would funnel through his both nostrils and at the same time his eyes would open as big and as bright as the moon that was rising into the clear perfectly blue sky.
With his gaze fixed on the moon, Mr. Phillip often uttered some sounds as if he were communicating with some entity on the moon. Whatever he was saying was said in very rapid speech patterns and with a sort of stutter. Although the sounds coming from Mr. Phillip were audible I could not understand the words. His conversations often continued until his pipe smoking ended. After the billows of smoke faded, he would stand motionless with his pipe in hand behind his back and his feet spread about 12 inches apart for a few minutes. Sometimes his shadow looked like the formation of a black star on the ground behind his physical posture. When his silent period expired he disappeared into the darkness. Many evenings I sat in anticipation to see Mr. Phillip wheeling his huge, green bicycle into the yard and re-enact his ritual. As he stood there, planted in the center of the path of the moonlight, it appeared as if he and the moon was all that existed. Whenever the moon returned in its fullest state I could picture Mr. Phillip totally immersed in its presence, its brilliance and its beauty - even in his absence.
On moonlight nights there was no need for street lights because the natural radiance of the moon was enough. Children took advantage of its brilliance as we played games like “Tin Cup” and “Nancy Twee Twee Twee” in the very narrow winding Schuller Street. The street was so narrow that sometimes, depending on the size, one vehicle had to mount the embankment for the other to pass. The surface of the street was pitch-black and covered with gravel that was coated and held together with tar. Under the watchful eyes of our parents and guardians, we, the neighborhood children, played while the adults conversed in the brilliant moonlight. All the children could be easily discerned because the moon shed its light like a grand spotlight upon us.
Although I often bathed in the glow of the moonlight like Mr. Phillip, I paid little attention to the beauty of the moon until I migrated to New York to attend college. In Brooklyn, I lived in a six-story, brownish-gray, concrete building that was enclosed by other six-story buildings similar in shape, dimension, texture and color. A broad four-lane avenue overflowing with cars that jettisoned to and fro separated the buildings. The moon was always out of sight but its glow could be caught sneaking a peep through the crevices that separated the buildings in an attempt to be recognized and appreciated. Whenever I looked up I saw the top of monster size buildings reaching through the grayish clouds on towards the sky. The moon was obscure or very small, yellowish and far off into the sky.
In Miami, where I now live, the terrain and the buildings create an undulated sculpture against the clear rich blue sky. The moon is visible from almost any point, just like in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. On this beautifully moonlit night, I revisit my childhood because I am mesmerized by the brilliance of the moon. In my mind’s eye, there I am, sitting on the wooden banister of my grandmother’s two-story wooden house that is covered by a galvanize rooftop. Here I sit and observe the ritual of Mr. Phillip and the moon.