Stuffy Girls + Mavado = Merry Bloodcl**t Christmas

I’m looking around, and I don’t know where I am.

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My friends and I are rolling around the neighbourhood of Norbrook in St. Andrew, Jamaica. We are on a quest, similar to that of Frodo Baggin’s in his quest to deliver the rings to the volcanic mountain in the heart of Mordor. We are looking for a place called Cedar Grove, which could fit any number of LOTR situations. “There ye go,” says a bush that can speak. “When you walk through the green fields of Manor Park, pass by the Norbrook Creek and you’ll find Cedar Grove a few paces through an enclave of trees.” Sadly, there was no talking tree to help us find this place, but a pizza man making a delivery at a housing complex would. Armed with our knowledge, we proceeded to drive the wrong way yet again.

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We turn on a road called Park Drive and see many cars parked, but hear no music. I immediatley know this is a “big man” party. (i.e, businessman/doctor/lawyer drinkup). A few individuals confirm this. They don’t know where the mysterious Cedar Grove is either, because they probably live up in Gordon town somewhere…near Mordor.

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We eventually find the party and we laugh. Cedar grove is one street away from the house of a friend of mine… if only she had been in the country when we were on our quest to find the house…We reach extremely early and get eyeballed by a few guys as we come in. Its a bottle-party, and for the uninitiated, it works on the BYOB rule. (Bring Your Own Bottle). Our bottles are stashed in the car, but I’m more interested in seeing if this party will be a flop or not. My friend goes to chit-chat with a few guys standing near the pool and I talk to the guy who lives on the premises.
“Its not a problem,” he says. “Have a drink with us. Drink!”. His eyes are a little glassy for 8 p.m, then I realize those guys have been drinking for a while.

This party will become an example of the strangeness of certain aspects of Jamaican society i’ve grown used to. My friend has been telling me for over a week that the guest list is filled with really hot girls and it should be a good event. For me, these parties are 50/50. It is usually an assortment of people from similar backgrounds who all know each other, who stand up, talk and pose. They occassionally use the bathroom, walk back to thier spot, and pose some more. It is a very boring, but extremely common. Just wait until you pay five grand for a party and see everyone do the same thing, THEN it will blow your mind.

I like to talk to people, and I like to interact with people I’ve never met before. But if you say “What’s up?” to a guy standing beside you, then he looks you dead in the face and walks away, then you are in a really tough crowd. Luckily for me, I learned this little tidbit through my friend. “Even the guys are giving attitude?” he lamented. It was funny.

This is a version of the small town effect. If people don’t really know you, they won’t say hello, or otherwise interact in a manner that is past what I call “ATM behaviour”. At an ATM, a person might look at you, give you a vapid nod and then walk away as quickly as possible. This party was similar, but the area was small. The Vapid nods ran abound, but there wasn’t much space to walk briskly away to.

This party was the usual representation of this area of Jamaica; a smattering of ambiguously racial individuals, all of a similar hue, most of whom are well off. The split between the racial groups became quickly apparently. Near the pool where the speakers were, you saw more dark-skinned people in groups standing up, moving to the music. Near to the front by the entrance were all the ambiguously racial kids drinking up and chit-chatting.

Luckily for myself and my cousin, we left the party for about an hour to rendezvous with my sister at the airport. On the way there, we laughed to ourselves as my friend send me a text:
“Boy…tough crowd star.”

I could see why. But this wasn’t the first and last place I’ve seen this type of behaviour. It is a very encapsulated, almost anti-social behaviour i’ve observed for as long as I can remember, but now I’m more like Jane Goodall when I watch these people interact, than an annoyed socialite.

I test my theory about how stuffy these girls are by chatting to a girl standing near to me. She looks at me in the same way a lifeless mannequin would, trying to avert her eyes. I chose her for one reason: She has been standing in a small group of girls at the mid-point of the pool crowd and the entrance crowd for most of the party. As far as I could tell, not ONE guy approached her, tried to dance with, or even speak with her. Her friends all seemed to be content to stand where they were and not talk to anyone. So I said to myself, “Ah, let’s see if these girls REALLY got dressed, left their houses, drove up here, all in an extreme effort to completely isolate themselves and NOT talk to anyone.”

Sadly, I was right. I asked her a cute question about her age and I got about as much response as a mosquito biting the ass of a Rhino. Eventually I ended up telling her something to the effect of” Oh? That’s how you always talk to people? hrm… I ABSOLUTELY CAN’T talk to a girl like you! Ciao.”

Not that the statement really meant anything, but hopefully at least one ice-chip fell of her heart. So the night progressed in the same fashion, with my entourage getting mostly drunk, me chatting to a few of the more social girls in the party and trying not to drink too much myself.

High point of the night : Strolling in, being taller than most company present, sporting bottles of Vanilla Vodka, opening said bottles and doing shots while pointing at girls and telling them “If you want a drink, you’ll have to tip me baby!”

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The party begins to get dull and we leave and head to our favourite after spot, the infamous Wally’s for some Jerk Chicken. Immediately a battle ensues. Our first statement to wally is, “Yeah man, Wally run the BIGGEST piece of chicken!”
To this statement my friend immeidately protests, saying that I am using my role as the driver to squeeze favourable opinion. I see Wally toss a massive piece of chicken on the chopping block and give it a few decisive whacks with a large meat cleaver. I grab the ends of the foil the chicken lies on.
“You lose.” I say with a chuckle. My friend begins the protest again and then a dark grey SUV pulls up. A man with a shaved head and dark eyes looks directly at me. The car comes to a stop no less than a foot from where i’m standing. My cousin, who was in the background touches me on the shoulder.
“Yo, that’s Mavado in there.”

“Really?” I reply.

Sure enough, I  glance into the car and see the Gangsta for life staring back at me. Contrary to popular belief, his myspace picture doesn’t do him justice, he looks MUCH rougher in person. I felt like saying hello, or even raising a fist to salute him, but I felt an odd fear course through my system. After all this is the guy who talked about murdering infants and doing certain things twice a day.
“Yow, we want some fowl fast!” Mavado barks at Wally.

For the second time that night we are relegated to lower status. First by prissy chicks who like to dress up and not talk to anyone, and then by the Gangsta for Life. We couldn’t help but laugh.
Wally forgets my chicken and immediatley starts to work on Mavado’s order. Our eyes widen as we see Wally pull out two of the largest pieces of chicken we have even seen.

“Damn, ” I say. “Wally, you give the man di “Real McKoy” piece of chicken!” My friend adds,

“Damn Wally, you have the Mavado stash waiting in the back!”

We all start laughing and then I look nervously to my left, hoping Mavado isn’t pointing a gun at me as I say this.

Thankfully he isn’t.

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Wally chops up the two large pieces in record time and starts tossing Ketchup and pepper on the chicken. He puts back the pepper bottle and them Mavado speaks for the second time.
“Yow! Put more BLOODCLAT peppa pon di chicken! You tink a gyal you a serve?!”Wally froze for a moment. He is always smiling, and I felt that he himself would erupt into laughter, but feared being shot as well. He put a few more sprinkles of hot sauce on the chicken and handed it to Mavado and his driver. Mavadao gave us a quick glance.
“Yeah, stand up you dun know!”The SUV pulled off with a roar. The three of us pause for second and then start chatting excitedly. “Yeah, stand up, you dun know” is the equivalent of Mavado wishing us a  “Merry Bloodclaat Christmas” or something to that effect.

The night in brief review:We came from an event with some stush chicks, got trumped by Mavado in the chicken line at Wally’s, and it was great. For the next few days, anything myself and my cousins were eating would be predicated by the statement:”Yow! Put more BLOODCLAT peppa pon di chicken! You tink a gyal you a serve?!”Christmas in Jamaica is awesome.