Pum Pum Rock

9. Pum Pum Rock

Nate sat on the kitchen counter of her Echo Park Lake apartment scrolling through a string of unreturned text messages that she'd sent to Tru. Irritated, Nate let her head drift slowly back against the cabinet. Tru was unreasonable. One small disagreement was no reason for her to ignore Nate. She had no right! Pissed, Nate hopped from the counter, walked through her living room and slid the patio door open. Besieged by an assortment of banana palms and cycas trees, Nate's mind drifted instantly back to her island roots.

Barely fourteen-years-old, Nate made her way through the moist grove, pushing past vines and shrubs as she had done so many times before. She'd been traveling to Kingston with her father, Minister Barrington Williams and her best friend Jocelyn, for as long as she could remember. At first glance, the old St Ann's aluminum plant and abandoned railroad tracks represented a depressed, West Indian economy, but Nate was able to see beyond the spoiled exterior to its center; condensed milk sweet and Blue Mountain strong.

As Jamaica's Minister of Youth and Culture, Barrington went to the capital quarterly and it was, in fact, his idea to bring the girls along to participate in what he believed were educational field trips. Nate remembered how her father always encouraged her to, look beyond textbooks" and to "learn from real life."

In theory, Minister Williams idea sounded great, after all, what kid doesn't love a field trip; but as hard as they tried the girls were usually bored out of their minds. Barrington wanted them not merely to listen in, but to participate, as he believed hearing from teenagers when deciding on their best interest would only help matters. As an honorable member of Jamaica's bicameral Parliament, Barrington was responsible for the development of Jamaica's young people. Through aligning himself with community organizations such as churches, private and government-run entities he had spent the last several years working to reform the government's approach to youth empowerment. His goal was to make sure that Jamaica's youth had access to not only fun events like camps and concerts but also programs aimed at providing both professional and life skills. And while Nate and her best friend, Jocelyn loved getting out of Montego Bay, they weren't completely sold on sitting in on meetings led by Barrington.

Barrington, however, remained persistent, often waking them with a sharp elbow or quick pluck to the forearm to stop them from dozing off during summits. Although, it wasn't until a prank had gone terribly wrong, landing a lawmaker smack dab on her stately rump that Minister Williams finally agreed to give up on the whole field trip notion.

"Why you look so shock, Natty? We good," Jocelyn asserted self assuredly.

"You know my father's gonna kill me," Nate sighed. "Then he'll tell my mom, and she'll pay off some Obeah man to resurrect me so that she can do the same 'ting!"

"You so dramatic." Unbothered, Jocelyn was clearly the more brazen of the two. "You ran right into councilwoman, had the poor woman's big drawers exposed for everyone to see!" She chuckled. "Big football star like you should be better on your feet."

Nate laughed, "I'm not saying it wasn't funny, but did you have to pull that fire alarm?" "You wanted out of that boring meeting didn't you?" Nate didn't answer Jocelyn's question, so Jocelyn quickly concluded that Nate's nonresponse meant she was right.

"For now, we good," Jocelyn continued. "Enjoy the moment."

"I guess." Nate took several steps forward and moved gingerly through the shaded brush, each inch bringing her closer to the edge of Bog Walk's steep mountain terrain. Unlike the upper-class Montego Bay community in which she resided, the Middlesex County parish offered the sense of community and adventure that Nate craved.

Fast on her heels, Jocelyn followed Nate deeper into the lush island bush. Within minutes Nate began to relax, as the full force of the sun's UV rays began to caress her chestnut-colored shoulders. This was her happy place. Nate craned her neck heavenward, shut her eyes tight and inhaled the sweet yet barely detectable scent of jasmine.