All by Jess Smith

Joey and The Wrath of God

Joey and The Wrath of God

Jess Smith
Life Lessons, Personal essay, Travel Humor, cultural musings, travel essay

by Jess Smith

Dear friends allow me to invite you on another Gypsy memory from my years traveling the country roads and glens of bonny Scotland in a blue single decked bus. I was the tender age of seven.

Spring with its bouncing lambs, yellowed valleys of blooming gorse bush and bluebell woods had given way to a warm sun kissed summer. Early spring rains had brought the fruit fields a mighty yield of raspberries as big as a man’s fist. The farmer on seeing his annual droves of Gypsies arrive at his family friendly campsite was rubbing his hands with glee.

photo by fotologic via flickr (common license)My family of seven sisters, parents and our snappy terrier dog crowded down at the bottom of the field, signalling dad to reverse our bus home onto a nice flat piece of ground which was south-facing and secluded by a hedge of mayflower to meet a rising sun. I ran around laying marker sticks for our relatives who would soon join us. Aunt Maggie and Uncle Joe along with little Ed and his big brother Joey were the first to arrive. I swear to you, Joey was an all time excuse for a human being and I hated the ground he walked on. I had good reason to feel this way because he took a sadistic delight in torturing defenceless creatures like mice, birds and insects where as I gave them all the protection I could.

By late afternoon, Aunt Josephine and Uncle Sandy with their three kids arrived, followed by Aunt Jenny, uncle Toby and their brood of ten who erected a circus tent to accommodate them all for the duration of our fruit picking holiday. By sunset we were a big happy bunch of gypsy people circling a blazing campfire, sharing stories, singing songs and enjoying our cultural ties.

To complete the characters who make up this memory I must now introduce old bible Nell; the most formidable lady in the entire campsite. To the Gypsy people, Nell was a Priestess of high esteem. She wrote the rules on how everyone should behave and co-exist as gypsies. No drinking alcohol on the campsite, no flirting with another man’s wife or another woman’s husband. Dogs should not be allowed to run amok and babies should never be set out in the sun without a hat. Every child who didn’t want a slap from her bony hand or nurse a swollen backside after being caught by a flying wallop from her one-legged crutch stayed well away from her tent. Out of earshot, youngsters would call her a witch, older people with no respect said she was Lucifer reborn.

Gypsy Memories

Jess Smith
Life Lessons, Personal essay, cultural musings, travel essay

 

The ginger-haired boy positioned his freckled face above the school gate, “Hey you, white nigger.”

I gulped a lungful of air and screamed back defiantly, “Go roll with your pigs, farm yard scum.”

He slammed the gate shut, and screeched back, “Rather live in a dung heap than a filthy tent! Tinky vermin, your mother can’t knit, your father kicked a policeman and is lying in the nick (jail).”

I flew at him with fanned fingers and grabbed bunches of red hair. Like tail tied wildcats we scratched, punched and rolled in the dirt and chuck gravel. I knitted my legs around his heaving chest and hissed, “My daddy says your father spends more time on the hillside with the sheep than he does with your ugly mother!”

Teeth clenched, he retorted, “Your mother’s a witch; you’re a goblin, so there!’

Fueled temper blotted all memory of the battle, except for the teacher shouting as he cast me aside like a rag doll, “Bloody uncivilised tinker, go home. You too, boy.”

I limped home from school that day sporting two bruised shins; he was such a big boy with hard capped boots. Layers of pink flesh under my nails and red hair between my swollen fingers proved I managed to hold my own.  

“Mammy,” I cried, “why does every school have a nasty boy who hates us and what’s a nigger and when did we live in tents?”

The previous month, my beautiful raven-haired mother had given birth to her eighth daughter. Her back was still weak and painfully sore as she bent over a metal bath scrubbing nappies (diapers). Rising slowly, she straitened her spine, inhaled and rested two soapy fists on slender hips. I rushed over and circled her thighs. “Oh mammy. Why is life so awful?”

“Oh dear, not another fight.” She blew onto my tear-sodden eyes and kissed my knuckles.   

“Empty headed boy, he’ll never live as rich a life as you.  All that waits for him is moaning about the price of cattle food.”

She lifted my chin and smiled. “You share the world with all God’s creatures and strong, powerful warriors from Africa are called niggers but only by ignorant people who don’t know better. Now remember I told you about grandma and grandpa living in tents most of their lives. Tree bark peeling, hazelnut gathering, snaring rabbits and selling the skins put food in our bellies just like you going berry picking in summer and potato lifting in the autumn. I was raised walking behind the horses’ hooves, as was your father. If the tent was erected properly, it was cozy and kept out the worst snow and gales.”