That Jamaican Grocery

I just thought of this the other day, and it made me laugh just remembering it. There was one summer when, after band practice, we would take a drive down to Stamford. There was a small Jamaican grocery, in an unassuming house. You could buy plaintains, yams, breadfruit, ackee, saltfish, scotch bonnet peppers, and so on.

But... if you knew the owner, you could also, with a slight nod of your head, and so long as no strangers were in the store, be allowed behind the counter. As you came around to his side, he would open a trap door in the floor. You duck in, and descend a set of wooden steps into a West Indian night club. They had a DJ, mirrored balls, Guinness, Red Stripe and hard liquor, hot food, and Rasta men sitting in the corner rolling big spliffs and puffing on them. My band mates and a few of our friends would spend several hours in this basement hide-away, dancing, eating, and drinking with whoever else wandered by, before we had to return to the surface and go back to our regular lives.

What a weird place!

Comments

  1. Anonymous10:57 PM

    "dancing, eating, and drinking with whoever else wandered by"

    And, um, smoking? I would assume.

    ReplyDelete

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