His mother despises his father and regards the narrator as his father's kid, while the narrator regards her as his enemy. Because his father has promised him a box of crayons if he remains with him, the narrator stays, producing a gap between him and his mother.
Child Lives With his Mother
"abuses"
His father works as a driver on a sugar plantation and abuses the workers. In the middle of the night, they begin to hear frightening voices speaking outside their house. They acquire a dog and keep it outside, but one morning they wake up to discover him dead, chopped to bits on their front steps.
Broken Hand
His father becomes afraid one night during a heavy rainstorm because he feels the menacing voices will be able to do anything to them in the darkness and roar of the storm. His father dies that night as a result of his dread.
Child Wishes to be Loved
I wish I was a god
Fear is a powerful force- sometimes driving people apart, sometimes drawing them together.
He returns to live with his mother after being ashamed that his father died of fear, and they relocate to Port-of-Spain. His mother criticizes and punishes him more and more. In reaction, the narrator becomes rebellious to his mother, frequently engaged in heated battles with her.
"Hit me"
1
One day, a neighbor named Hat begins knocking down his old latrine to replace it with a new lavatory, and the narrator jumps out in front of a falling wall, knocking himself unconscious.
AAHHHH!!!
You good?
For the first time, he knows how much his mother adores him. He wishes he were a Hindu deity with two hundred arms, just so he could break them all and see his mother's tears again.