Open Water

It is still overcast on Carnival Monday, the second day of the festival and the one most known for its parties. The narrator runs into a friend with whom he exchanged letters while the friend was incarcerated. They don’t talk about the hard things that lie beneath the surface of their interaction. They decide that they’ll find each other later that day, though the narrator thinks that unlikely due to bad cell service during Carnival.

He bumps into more friends who take him to a rooftop party, which reminds him of a moment in Zadie Smith’s NW. The party has a great view down into the streets, and one of the guests suggests that there is always violence at Carnival. Though they cut themselves off before explaining why, the narrator asks what they mean. The clear inference is that violence is what happens when Black people gather in large numbers. The party is quiet. Someone gives the narrator stereotypical Jamaican food and tells him to enjoy himself. He becomes angry, especially witnessing signs of racist appropriation at this party.

The narrator returns to the streets where he sees a woman jolted by a heedless man running into her, hard enough that she drops her patty (a savory Jamaican pastry).