- Part Three -A Pilgrimage to Nine Mile
A lump grows in my throat and tears well up in the corners of my eyes. The walls of the mausoleum are adorned with photos and memorabilia including photographs of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie, the great African-American civil rights leader Marcus Garvey and a detailed needlepoint of a lion. There's a picture of Bob’s brother propped up at the base of the crypt. Bongo Jo speaks in hushed tones as he tells us that the body of Bob’s brother occupies the lower part of the crypt. He was killed in Miami in the late ‘80’s. At the head of the crypt, on the eastern wall, there is a large circular stained glass window, gloriously back-lit by the sun. We are told that Bob is lying with his favorite guitar and a stalk of Sensemilla, his favorite herb, the species that he used when he wanted to meditate.
Bongo Jo tells us that Bob is laying with his head to the east, toward the rising sun, but that it wasn’t always so. Several years back, after Bob’s mother and some parish priests had independent visions that Bob had been mistakenly laid to rest with his feet to the east, the crypt was opened and the coffin was taken out, turned around, and correctly replaced. We spend several minutes in the chapel, looking around at the objects within and absorbing the tranquility.
We leave the mausoleum. On the west side there's a sycamore tree, planted by Rita, Bob’s widow. I stretch my neck to look to the top of Mount Zion.
“Bob climbed to the top to smoke an’ meditate,” says Bongo Jo.
We move into the clearing. The grounds of the mausoleum border on a yard belonging to a family who is related to the Marleys. There are a couple of young girls playing there. They see us, come over to the fence and start to sing ‘Three Little Birds’. We listen for a while until the singing breaks up into laughter. Bongo Jo laughs with them and tells them that they can’t sing.
We cross the clearing and sit on a rock in a flat area across from the little house. It is so tranquil here, the silence broken only by the singing of birds and the laughter of the children. This is a spiritual place. The words of ‘Redemption Song’ echo in my mind. I look over at the mausoleum and wonder what would have become of Bob if he were still with us. What more could he possibly have given us? Maybe it was destined that his message be short, sharp and loud, so as to ring clearly down through the years. After several minutes of quiet contemplation, we get up and head back down the path. I dab my eyes, Bongo Jo looks at me knowingly. He puts his fist up, we tap. “Respect, my friend,” he says. He’s seen this before.
On the way out of Nine Mile we pass a big sports field on the west side of town. Last week the field was the scene of the annual Nine Mile Bob Marley birthday bashment. Reports are that it was huge this year, blocking the road until 7:00 the next morning. The field is torn up and there’s still some litter lying around, mute testament to the party that was. Bob lives.
Our ride back starts out in silence. I reflect on our visit to the mausoleum, we take in the sights and Cliff answers our few questions. About thirty minutes out of Nine Mile our thoughts are disrupted by the booming bass of amplified music. It gets progressively louder as we move down the road. We round a corner and the source of the music is revealed to us. Music, at an earsplitting volume, is blaring from two enormous banks of speakers that have been erected in a vacant, dusty parking lot. Each bank faces the other from opposite sides of the lot. A few young men are in the parking lot standing between the speakers. They are apparently engaged in testing the sound equipment and they seem oblivious to the deafening volume. A couple of children are sitting at the side of the road watching the sound test and I fear for their tender ears. Each bank of speakers is about twenty feet wide and twelve feet tall, making the setup that I saw at Cuba’s look like bookshelf units. We roll by the parking lot, the car vibrating from the music. Each time the bass thumps something inside the dash buzzes in harmony. Amy holds her hands over her ears.
“What is that all about?” I holler to Cliff.
“Dere’s goin’ to be a big bashment 'ere tonight!” he shouts.
A short distance down the road we enter the small city of Brownsville. It’s a bustle of activity. We pass a school during ‘shift change’. In Jamaica, due to the scarcity of classrooms and teachers, some schools have been forced to institute morning and afternoon shifts. The kids are dressed in school uniforms that differ in color and detail depending on their ages and the school they attend.
About two miles outside of Brownsville, the traffic, which has increased to a surprising level, slows to a crawl. The reason soon becomes apparent; there are two men in the middle of the road waving makeshift red flags. On closer examination I see that in fact they are not red flags, but bouquets of red hibiscus blossoms. Each of them is also holding a bucket. They’re dressed in tattered clothing and are barefoot, so they’re obviously not police or municipal road workers.
“Dere collecting handouts to do repairs on de road,” Cliff explains. The road here is especially bad. We weave slowly around the deep potholes, pass the 'flag' waving panhandlers without making a contribution, and continue on our way. I wonder out loud if they might have made the potholes deeper and wider to aid their cause. Cliff shrugs in answer.
A little further on Cliff points to a cave on the side of the road. “Dats Sergeant Corner,” he says. “Dere’s a man living in dere, he’s been dere for fifteen years.” The cave mouth is festooned with bits of cloth and it looks very lived in. “He was in de army an’ he got an honorable discharge and dat’s where he lives now,” Cliff adds.
It has happened to me again, every time I start to believe that I’m getting to know this country, it shows me something that I never would have imagined.
We descend toward the coast but my mind turns back to Bob’s mausoleum, I’m already thinking about going back to Nine Mile someday. I wonder if they would let me climb Mount Zion?
- End of ‘A Pilgrimage to Nine Mile’ -
