Bob, Mama & Me

Bob, Mama & Me
I meant to go to work. I was up in time and everything but when I got to the bus stop the darkness of the winter morning got inside my soul somehow and, for the third time in a fortnight, I turned back.
What would Bob say, I wondered as I made my rambling way back home. No working in factories for him. I ran through Redemption Song in my mind as I walked, marvelling again the sheer genius of the man; taking a simple slave song and making it his own. I re-worked that song so many times trying to conjure Caribbean rhythm in my cold, drab room but my best efforts were nothing compared to his.
I let myself in the front door quietly although there was no one there to be vexed with me for sneaking off work one more day. Mama was gone and I had no brothers and sisters to keep me on the straight and narrow so I lay right down on the unmade bed and looked up at Bob pinned on the wall. My favourite picture that one; shot in 1978, before I was born, and black and white, just Bob and his guitar, singing powerful into the mic and meaning every word.

ME ' What would you do Bob?

I often spoke to him this way, as if he was right there in my room and I didn't feel a fool either. It was natural to talk to Bob. I'd done it all my life.
I switched on the CD player and the heartbreakingly sweet opening riffs of No Woman No Cry filled my space.

BOB ' What you doin' there girl? Wastin' time like yo' Mama aint gonna like.

I sat up, pulled the headphones off my ears. Was this a live version of the song I forgot I downloaded?

ME ' Say what?
BOB ' Over heah girl. Yo' eyes painted on yo' head?
ME ' No way! Yo' dead.
BOB (laughing) ' So them say.
ME ' I must be ill - wha's happenin' - I don't do drugs '
BOB ' Aint none o' that kinda t'ing chile. Only here to he'p is all.
ME ' He'p me how?

Now I know what you all are thinking. You're saying Wha'! Bob Marley heself comin' to take charge of a poor girl's life. Aint true. She tellin' lies. But I swear before God I aint. Bob Marley came into my room that day and talk to me just like I'm saying it.

ME ' Yo' a ghost Bob?
BOB ' Naw! Real as yo' is. T'ing is girl, me see yo' sad and me here to try put some order in yo' life, is all.
ME (suspiciously) ' How yo' know where to come?
BOB ' Yo' brung me.
ME ' Brung yo' how?
BOB ' Wit' all this stuff yo' keep all around yo' room an' in yo' head (laughing) yo' aint too hard to fin' girl.

I looked around the room then. My room. The one I'd lived in ever since Mama ' well I been here a long time now - and I see for the first time how I dedicated my whole living space to Bob. Funny I never noticed before. My whole life was a shrine.

BOB ' Aint healthy chile.
ME (amazed) ' Yo' mean yo' don't like it?
There was Bob Marley memorabilia everywhere. Bob Marley posters, CD's, ornaments, T-shirts, ashtrays (even though I never smoked), I had key-chains, incense sticks, patches, caps, magnets, buttons, postcards, calendars and a car licence plate I bought online even though I don't drive. I blinked. I never knew I had so much stuff. He sat on the bed right beside where I was sitting and the mattress depressed with his weight so I'd know he was real.

BOB ' Wha' yo' gonna do?
ME ' Jus' keep on livin', singing yo' songs, doin' wha' I always done.
BOB ' Yo' only half livin' girl. Aint no use. Bob Marley been an' gone offa this ol' earth an' aint never gonna be another one like I. Jes' like there aint never gonna be another one like yo'. Yo' special girl. Jes' like I is an' like ever'one is. Yo' gotta be yo'se'f. Yo' unnerstan'?

Every picture, every video clip I'd ever seen of Bob Marley (and I think I've seen just about them all) did not do justice to those deep brown eyes that looked right into mine like there was no escape and it was me who looked away first.

BOB (softly) ' Yo' gotta fin' yo' own way in this worl'. Yo' can make excuse from now till the day yo' die but that's the plain trut'. Yo' hidin' chile.
ME (angrily) ' But yo' music ' yo' songs ' that's all keepin' me goin'. Aint got no other life, no frien's, no Mama, no '
BOB ' An' is that wha' yo' wants?
ME ' No.
BOB ' Then stop hidin' behind I chile. Step away from all this and fin' yo' own path.

I felt weird then. As if he was trying to take something away from me ' the only thing I had left and I got up from the bed and sat by his feet like I was worshipping him or something but Bob didn't like that. He took my hands and pulled me up and I sat on the bed beside him.

ME ' I grew up wit' yo' music. My Mama kep' yo' records all in the house ever since I can remember.
BOB ' Yo' Mama aint heah no mo' chile and neither is I. Jest yo' girl ' yo' life an' wha' yo' gonna mak' o' it.

I never been so angry since Mama ' anyway I never been so angry for a long time -and I pulled right away from him.

ME ' Seems to me yo' oughta 'preciate all this.
BOB (smiling) ' I 'preciate fine aint doing yo' no good. Yo' living too much in yo' own head. Aint right. Yo' young. Oughta be on out there in de worl', havin' a good time, givin' de bwoys hell an' livin' yo' life way it 'posed to be live. Not like dis. Aint no use livin' somebody else life. Caint never be. Aint how Jah want it. No way.

Although we didn't talk about Mama I looked around the room then and I noticed I had not one thing of Mama's around.

BOB ' Where yo' Mama t'ing?

Then I knew he was a ghost because he was sure reading my mind.

ME ' I kep' all Mama t'ing.
BOB ' Lemme see.
ME ' Now?
Bob ' Now.

Weird, but since Mama died I put all her stuff away and never looked at it once, but now years later, I knew exactly where everything was. There was dozens of photographs of her and me from when I was a baby right up until the age of nineteen which was when Mama passed away. I found ornaments too, all her precious glass animal collection which she'd been collecting since before I was born and which were carefully dusted every Sunday morning. I found clothes, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, hand written recipes and cards ' all bundled away too painful to look at. Every single thing I discovered held a memory for me and it was as if Mama was in the room with me.
I held up a framed photograph of Mama and me on a church picnic. I was about twelve at the time and I stood proudly beside her in my new red dress, red ribbons in my hair and Mama smiling so proud beside me. That picture was Mama's favourite and she had it framed especially. I remembered how it looked when Mama hung it on the wall over the fireplace. My baby and me she'd said. I thought maybe it would look just as fine on the wall above my bed.

ME ' Hey Bob. Would yo' feel bad if I put Mama's picture up instead of yo' poster?

But when I looked around Bob was gone.