Isaiah John. Mr. Isaiah John

March 27, 2002

Isaiah John.
Mr. Isaiah John


Skin night black as a raven’s wing. Luminous. His teeth were like polished tombstones in a military cemetery - sturdy, gleaming, evenly spaced with a slight gap between each one, his smile, wide as the back row of an angels’ choir, wide as Buccament Gorge, the ancient geological rift through which one passed to reach the tip of the island where Mr. Isaiah John's rum shop - specializing in chicken wings, sea moss, and politics - stood off road in a clearing on a bluff overlooking a bay where incoming waves exploded against the rocks below. Listening to that thunder, I understood why our collective subconscious harbors all sorts of imps and omens. Mr. Isaiah John greeted everyone with, literally, wide open arms and a "Welcome, Brother." Even me. He’d rarely had a white man in his shop before - Caucasians were a mini-minority on this island - but he was an amiable and gracious host: “Welcome, Bru-tha’!” Plus a fascinating one. Conversations we had were a combination of chess and checkers - thoughtful yet filled with unexpected jumps. He knew his history. He knew Marcuse and Fannon. Not a conversation I’d’ve had at a Bris on Park Heights Avenue. Not a judgment. Just a difference.

I was on the island working with an expedition funded both by the Smithsonian and a wonderful organization, Earthwatch, fronted by a charming PR woman, Blue Magruder. Great name, huh? We had lunch at the Algonquin and agreed I’d do an article for them. Said article has since become a book, although no one’s seen it, yet. It’s called, Siserou, the native term for a rare parrot that’s dying out of existence because, somewhere in evolution, it lost the ability, the will, to defend its young. A woman named Holly Nichols had been successful breeding rare birds in captivity. She was funded to develop a captive breeding program in order to save Siserou from extinction, and I had signed up to work with her. We bushwhacked through near impenetrable mountain rain forest through hostile Dread territory, but that’s another story. Read the book…if I ever finish it.

Mr. Isaiah John’s trade took place outside his rickety, rooms-tacked-on wooden hutch set on a cinder block foundation. His wings were divine, kettles of them frying on two tables made of old doors laid on top of scavenged oil drums. His home-made sea moss with island rum let you down slowly and kept you there, gurgling, giggling, innocent as a baby. He was a wonderful host, a gregarious man…However. However. However. In actuality, Mr. Isaiah John was an island radical, a kind of West Indian Samuel Adams, a bit like Tom Paine, only more deft - a firebrand served softly. Aside from his political influence, it was known on the island that he was in touch with the jumbie, the spirits of the jungle. Fascinating guy.

I’d spent the past two weeks trekking up a mountain rain forest where the mud was so thick it sucked your boots off if your mind wandered. It was difficult terrain complicated with the tension caused by knowing we were in rebel territory and could expect a confrontation at any time - a confrontation, by the way, that never happened. Mr. Isaiah John had offered me a sofa for the night. “Yes, yes, yes,” I said, looking forward to sleeping on something other than the ground.

It was late at night. More like three am. All his customers were gone. Between his sea moss and his homegrown, we were open and mellow, laid back on a sofa with a history. Outside the jungle was awake. Awake or not, seed pods dropped from great heights and landed in the mud with a thwop ‘n’ a thud. Mr. Isaiah John pushed himself out of his seat and crossed the room to an old bureau.

“Come. Look,” he said, taking something from the bottom bureau drawer, reverently, holding it out to me as if it were a reliquary containing the remnants of a saint. It was a package of some sort swaddled in rags, saran wrap, and cardboard.

“Open it,” he said.

I undid the rags first, then the plastic wrap, then the cardboard. All of these had kept pristine and precious a book - Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver.

Eldridge Cleaver was a famous, Black radical from the 60’s who escaped the United States for Africa rather than spend the rest of his life in prison. Mr. Isaiah John’s Rum Shop was one of his “stations” along Cleaver’s “underground” trek to freedom. Cleaver’s scrawled inscription thanked Mr. John and wished him well.

When I was a kid and first realized I wanted to be a writer, I thought, “What the hell does a Jewish boy from the Golden Ghetto of Baltimore, Maryland have to write about?” Phillip Roth had already done it and a lot better than I ever could. Later on, Barry Levinson managed to do it, too, but not me. So. I set about the world looking for stories. Siserou was one of them. Like I said, Mr. Isaiah John was not someone I’d’ve met at a Bar Mitzvah. Now, please do not mistake me, I have met lots of interesting folks at Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, shiva houses, bris (what’s the plural?), and the like, but Mr. Isaiah John would never have been one of them.

My stories are the characters that are in them.