Benji and the Cliffside Crew · Jamaica
Benji and the Rain That Didn't Stop
Rain has been falling on Cliffside for four days, and a culvert near the school is blocked. Benji has been at the culvert since Tuesday morning.
It rained in Cliffside for three days.
Not unusual rain — Jamaica in April could do this. But heavy, continuous, the kind that turned the gully behind the community centre into something faster than it should have been and made the lower end of Barbican Road collect water in a way that made the older residents look at it and say nothing, which was how older residents expressed concern.
Benji appeared at the top of the street on the first afternoon.
He sat at the high point of Cliffside Lane, where the road crested before going down toward the lower neighbourhood, in the rain, and he did not move.
“He’s been there since three o’clock,” Clevie said. He was watching from the window. “In the rain.”
“Something in the lower part of the neighbourhood,” Omar said.
“The culvert,” Nadine said.
They both looked at her.
“The culvert on the east side of Barbican Road. It’s been half-blocked since January. Mr. Duncan reported it to the parish council in February. They haven’t cleared it. In normal rain it doesn’t matter. In three days of heavy rain—”
“The water backs up,” Omar said.
“And goes somewhere it shouldn’t,” she said.
They put on their rain jackets — Clevie’s had a broken zip, which he managed by holding it closed — and went to Benji.
He walked immediately, as if he had been waiting for exactly this. Down the lane, past the junction, to the east side of Barbican Road where three older houses sat slightly below the level of the road.
The water was already at their gates.
Not flooding. Not yet. But the culvert at the road edge was completely blocked with debris — dead leaves, plastic bags, a piece of zinc sheeting that had come from somewhere in the rain — and the water was backing up fast.
“We need to clear it,” Clevie said.
“We need to call someone,” Omar said.
“Both,” Nadine said. “Clevie, start pulling the debris out. Omar, call Mr. Duncan — he has council contacts. I’ll go to number fourteen and tell them what’s happening so they can start moving things off the floor.”
“You’re giving orders again,” Clevie said, already at the culvert.
“You’re already following them,” she said.
Clearing the culvert took forty-five minutes of wet, cold, unglamorous work. Clevie’s broken jacket zip was not helpful. Omar’s council contact reached someone who said they would send a crew, which eventually meant two men arrived at five o’clock with the proper equipment and did the work that the three children had already done by hand.
The houses at number fourteen and sixteen got their floors cleared in time.
Number twelve did not — the family there was elderly and by the time Nadine reached them the water was already at the doorstep, but it went no further because the culvert cleared when it did.
Sergeant Peart drove past at half past five, looked at the children, looked at the culvert, looked at the dog, and said: “Go home and dry out.”
“We cleared it,” Clevie said.
“I can see that,” Sergeant Peart said.
“The council crew got the credit,” Clevie said.
“That’s usually how it goes,” Sergeant Peart said. He sounded like a man who had personal experience with this. “Go home.”
They went home.
Benji, who had moved from the top of the street the moment the culvert started clearing and had been at the work site throughout, walked back up the lane at six o’clock in the still-falling rain and sat in his usual spot in Miss Gloria’s yard, which had a small overhang that kept a corner dry.
Miss Gloria came out with a towel.
She dried the dog without comment.
This was, Nadine felt, the highest possible expression of respect from her grandmother.