Ratty would now be in his mid-twenties, I figured. If he was still alive. In 1996, when I met him, he didn’t look like a kid with a promising future. He had puffy eyelids which gave him a slow, sleepy appearance and seemed to have difficulty grasping basic concepts. Like the reason I wasn’t overjoyed to find him hanging out on my balcony when I emerged from my room first thing in the morning. Or why it wasn’t practical for me to mail him a football all the way from Trinidad.
During the two or three days I spent at Jake’s, Ratty followed me around like a shadow. I wondered if he behaved that way with every guest, thought jokingly that he should be listed among the hotel’s amenities: CD player, ceiling fan, mosquito nets, ocean view, 12 year-old Jamaican boy. As far as I remember, I was mostly patient with him. If he had a family, they were nowhere in evidence. He didn’t seem to be in school. The people at Jake’s appeared to have adopted him, in a manner of speaking, and during the time I was there he spent most of his day on the property.
Jake’s, Treasure Beach
I struggle now to recall what Ratty and I talked about, but all I remember is him asking me for things, which is probably highly unfair to him. In those days I used to draw almost as avidly as I take photos today (though with far less success), and seeing me one day with a pencil and sketch book, Ratty commissioned the two portraits below (drawing him sleeping was his idea). The fact that I still have them in my possession would suggest he wasn’t too impressed with his likeness or my drawing ability, which would in turn suggest that he was much more discerning than I gave him credit for.
Returning to Treasure Beach week before last, I wondered what had become of Ratty. It became a running joke among my idle villa-mates to point out Treasure Beach limers in their mid-twenties and say “Hey, look Ratty”. Or to conjure up wild stories in which Ratty was cast in absurdly negative or positive roles: Ratty as village don, Ratty as ultra-successful businessman and owner of several choice beachfront properties. And they teased me endlessly about Ratty’s “Rosebud“, the football that I, dasher of poor village boys’ dreams, had failed to send him. If Ratty had indeed gone off the straight and narrow, it was all my fault.
On our last evening in Treasure Beach I had the chance to ask Jake’s owner Sally Henzell what had happened to Ratty. Sally sighed. “We let him go only last week,” she said, in a way that suggested that it wasn’t the first time they’d had to do so. “Drugs.” I didn’t mention the football.
I was impressed, though not surprised, that Jake’s had remained committed to Ratty, even if only off and on, over the course of 12 years. Jake’s is that kind of place. When I first stayed there, in 1996, before there was a wall out front, they didn’t serve breakfast, insisting that guests walk down the road instead and patronise a local establishment called the Trans-Love Café (now called A&J Heart of Love).
Perhaps the 12 year-old Ratty had in fact been a part of the hotel’s amenities, a way of reminding guests that the chic, pricey establishment they were staying at was in fact part of a community, a community that sometimes produces boys like Ratty, in the hope that a few of them leave with a sense that their fate and Ratty’s are intertwined. So that they’d make the effort to mail a football–which, while impractical, isn’t impossible–or maybe do something even more meaningful.
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almost made it jake’s several years ago, but here’s what happened…errr…long story. Made short I stayed in Negril by myself. More or less. Good to hear all is well at jakes — still have a credit.! (hopefully)
Comment by john pasmore 06.05.08 @ 5:07 pm