Pawdy (the full English version)

It's a funny story about a man from the country.

Chapter 1

Fortnight

 

      When Pawdy was a young man, he once worked at a construction site as a labourer in Portland. His job was to mix the mortar and carry concrete blocks in a wheelbarrow. That was hard work, especially since he had to work in the broiling sun. The foreman was a wicked person; he did not pay the workers on time. Moreover, he would give them partial payment and tell them that he owes them the balance.

      Every payday he would go to a bar with the workers’ money in his briefcase and drink rum all evening. The workmen had to wait until nightfall to be paid. Sometimes he did not pay the workers; he told them that he did not collect any money from the contractor on that weekend. Therefore, they would have to wait until the other fortnight to get their meagre wages. He and the workers perpetually argued and quarrelled over money because of his dishonesty.

      On a windy afternoon, a friend of Pawdy bumped into him on the road, and he asked him where he worked. Pawdy told his friend that he worked at the construction site near the hill. “How long have you been working there?” the friend asked. “I started two weeks ago. This is my first fortnight, and I’ll get my first pay today,” Pawdy responded cheerfully. “I’m sorry for you because that foreman doesn’t like to pay the workers. Furthermore, I saw him in a bar drinking white rum, so you might not get any money from him,” the friend said. “The best advice I can give you is to try and get your money from him by any means necessary,” the friend added. Pawdy was surprised to hear such discouraging things. “I didn’t know that he was such a wicked man, I’m glad that you told me,” he said. With that, his friend bade him farewell and went on his way.

      Pawdy thought about what his friend said to him, and he reflected on the two weeks of hard work that he did in the hot sun. He did not intend to work so hard for nothing, so he decided to take action to get his money from the foreman. “I’ll go to the bar to see if he’s still there,” He said to himself. A few minutes after that Pawdy arrived at the bar, and he saw the foreman sitting on a stool drinking liquor from a glass and chatting with the cute bartender.

      He went in the bar, stood beside the counter, and cleared his throat. This drew everyone’s attention. “What are you doing here?” the foreman asked. “Bossy, I come to collect my pay, sir,” he replied, “Go back to the construction site and wait there until I come,” the foreman said authoritatively.  Pawdy did not like the foreman’s attitude and tone of voice. “But it’s getting late, so I want my money now,” he demanded. “The other men are at the site waiting, so who do you think you are?” the foreman shouted.

      Pawdy was getting impatient. “Will you give me my money or not, sir?” he asked. “I say go back to the site and wait like the others,” the foreman replied. When Pawdy saw that the foreman did not intend to pay him, he got angry and hit him in the head with a bar stool. The sharp blow knocked him out cold. Pawdy quickly searched the foreman’s pockets and took all the money he had along with the briefcase that contained the other workers’ money. He did not try to find out whether the foreman was dead or alive; he quickly ran from the bar with the money and found a hideout. Later that night, Pawdy took a bus to Kingston, and he never returned to Portland.

 

Chapter 2

G. Mills Engineering

Part 1

 

      Many years after Pawdy left the country, he got a job as a janitor at an engineering company called G. Mills Engineering. He was an illiterate old man, so he could not get a better job. Moreover, he was a backward person. Pawdy did not take good care of himself. Every day he would smoke cigars and drink white rum. He had a son who was a photographer. Some people called him Pawdy Bwoy.

      One day while Pawdy was mopping the floor upstairs, the phone rang. He answered the phone, and the person on the line asked to speak to the supervisor. The supervisor’s name was Mr. Doctor, and he was standing downstairs at the time. Pawdy notified Mr. Doctor that someone wanted to speak to him on the phone. The supervisor answered the phone downstairs. While he was speaking to the person, he heard a loud sound in the receiver, and he realized the sound was coming from the phone upstairs, so he told Pawdy to hang up the phone. Pawdy did not even know what it meant to hang up a phone, so he put the receiver on top of a file cabinet. Mr. Doctor was still hearing the noise in the receiver, and he could not figure out what was happening.

      When the call ended, the supervisor went upstairs, and he was surprised to see the phone receiver hanging from the file cabinet. “What kind of foolishness is this?” he asked. “You told me to hang up the phone, sir,” Pawdy replied. Mr. Doctor laughed at him, and then he called the other workmen and showed them what Pawdy had done. “Imagine, I told the man to hang up the phone, and this is what he did,” he said. Pawdy could not speak proper English. “Don’t talk those questions, Mr. Doctor,” he responded. One of his co-workers said, “He doesn’t even know how to hang up a phone, what a stupid man!” That was the best joke of the week and everybody laughed at him.

 

Part 2

 

      The manager of G. Mills Engineering was Mr. Mills. This man behaved like a slave driver. He knew that Pawdy was a feeble man, yet he gave him a difficult task to remove a large heap of scrap metals from the back of the workshop. It took him about three weeks to move all the junk and he alone had to do the job by hand. Moreover, he had poor health because of his bad drinking and smoking habits.

      On the day that Pawdy finished moving the heavy pieces of steels, he went to buy lunch at a nearby shop. When he was crossing the road, a car hit him, and he fell face down on the road. He got up and brushed himself off, and he told the driver that he was okay. Pawdy had received minor bruises, but he did not realize he had also received internal injuries. Consequently, he passed away the following week. When Pawdy’s co-workers heard that he had died, they did not think the accident caused his death, so they blamed the boss for it. Moreover, they said that Mr. Mills was a wicked man because he worked Pawdy to death.

 

The End

Author's Note

For those who do not understand Patois.