By Harold A. BascomAs we continue our series on Guyanese myths, we bring you this four-part story from the imagination of author and three-time Guyana Prize winner Harold Bascom.Yvonne Holder doesn’t believe in ghosts. You don’t believe in such stuff when you’re a trained psychologist and crisis counsellor. But, while on assignment in Port Kaituma to investigate a rash of suicides, it slowly becomes clear to her that something is stalking young men from the North West community…something released from the ruins of Jonestown… something that would soon stalk someone she loved… “It’s interesting that all the newspapers wrote about ‘a spate of suicides in the Northwest district region…” said Yvonne Holder, psychologist and crisis counsellor. “But not one of them said that all those four suicides took place in one Northwest district mining town.”“Four young men,” murmured the assistant. “All from that one place; don’t sound catholic.” She stood next to the filing cabinet nearest the window out of which poinsettias, bloomed tropical red, in the windless humidity of Georgetown.“Why?” the psychologist asked rhetorically.“Well… that’s why, the day after tomorrow, you’re flying into the Port Kaituma.”The charwoman, entering with a wheeled bin behind her, piped in: “Port Kaituma. That is near Jonestown, where crazy-man Jimmy make over nine-hundred, damn-fool American people commit suicide—you don’t remember that, Miss Holder?”“And who would forget that, Beulah?” the young psychologist said.“Well…” Beulah continued, taking a brush and dustpan out of the bin. “If four young men kill themself in five months—just like that? Eh? It could only mean one thing: Evil!—and what you could expect happening in a place like just ten miles from Jonestown that must be haunted like hell! … You know what it is to have a place where over nine hundred earthbound jombie crying out in that darkness?”The assistant was suddenly staring, stony-eyed, out the window.The psychologist chuckled. “You Guyanese people really superstitious, you know,”“And you is what, girl?” the bespectacled charwoman with the hip-shorted gait said challengingly to the young psychologist. “You’se Guyanese too! So, if you going to that place to keep workshop—I’d advise you to make sure to walk with some kinda guard! Don’t fly to that place unprotected!”Chuckling, the psychologist said, “So I should walk with a bodyguard or something, Miss Buelah?”Beulah Plass stopped cleaning, adjusted her bifocals on her nose, and fixed the young psychologist with a stern glare before lifting a scolding index finger. “Miss Holder!—you’s a very bright girl—and I respect you for that! But, listen … to … me! —not because I does sweep offices I don’t have sense!”“We would never say that, Beulah,” the assistant piped in.“Never meant to offend, Beulah—I’m sorry…” Yvonne Holder said.“You walk with a guard! —something ‘round you neck or something! I got a nice little guard chain I will bring for you tomorrow! Wear it! What you could lose? And if anybody see it, all they going see is a nice gold chain.”“Okay, Ms. Beulah,
Cheap NFL Jerseys,” said the psychologist. “But just tell me what’s on this guard chain—anything that smells?”“No chile; the chain I will bring for you don’t smell. It got a little pendant-thing like a small egg at the bottom. But what it have inside! It strong enough to repel any spirit—any demon that try to come ‘round you! I can swear by that!”“Powerful medicine!” the assistant said.“Yes!—It real powerful!” said the charwoman, and continued with her cleaning.Yvonne Holder thought of her sibling, Brent—whom she always referred to as her ‘lil, red-skin brother’.… Beulah sounded so much like him. Brent took it upon himself to recall myriad stories of the supernatural they had both grown with—stories that had been told to them by their maternal grandmother who lived with them. She could never have foreseen that those very stories would have made her brother the popular figure he became through his weekly column for a local newspaper, ‘Stories of the supernatural’.Brent, unlike her, embraced psychic possibilities—spiritual possibilities. She, however, was quick to scoff at anything science could not corroborate; and every time, he would respond, “Vonny, my sister…your disbelief in something, does not negate its existence.”She smiled whimsically to herself. Maybe I should let Brent follow me to this place—why not? She meant to get to the bottom of the suicides. Brent and his investigative skills would come in most helpful—why not?He would enjoy it—maybe he might even find material for an article or two. She remembered too, that he had always wanted to visit Jonestown, but had never gotten around to it.She called him that evening, after she got home, to see if he was working on anything that he couldn’t take a break from. (He wasn’t.)“You heard of the ‘spate’ of suicides in the Northwest district?” (He had.) “Where do you think
