A Balmy Day in Bluefields

By Douglas Arroliga

 

This story is true and authentic. It happened in Bluefields, on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, in the 1920’s. Professor Guillermo McLean told me this story many years ago.

The Reverend Hodgson, a ponderous well-mannered black gentleman, besides shepherding is Baptist flock had the secular duty of being Chief of Police in Bluefields. He was a man educated in the most orthodox Southern Baptist way: courteous, generous, soft-spoken, and conservative. The Reverend was incapable of vulgar or colloquial speech. His baritone voice thundered when he addressed his parishioners at church with the most sophisticated lexicography possible. You could hear him booming at Sunday school: “Hear ye, hear ye brethren, when will thee stop living in damnation and concupiscence? …vengeance in mine sayeth the Lord.”  Such was his cultured speech that he would refer to the female sex as “the focal point of the geographical feature of the female homo sapiens”. The word “vagina” was not in his dictionary much less would he dare utter such an ungodly and taboo word. 

One fine day, as Rev. Hodgson prepared himself for another tedious, balmy day in Bluefields, a terrified Creole woman came rushing into his office. She was breathless, her hair disheveled, and her dress half-torn.  In her vernacular she tried to explain the reason of her sudden visit: “Beg your pardon pastor…the man…arsehole, want to rob me now…help…” Rev. Hodgson coolly regarded the woman in distress and said: “Calm down my dear. Would you care to explain what transpired?” To this, the woman retorted abruptly in broken speech “A man try to…them see nothin’…t’was in the bushes behind the store…beat me…”  

Patiently, Rev. Hodgson interrupted the woman and said, “Please child, gather yourself and proceed to describe the affair”.  The woman, not quite sure of what the reverend said launched herself into a diatribe spilling the details of the event in the most raw terms, “He throw me against the wall, beat me face, open me purse, big ugly man, open his pants front, take out his…” Appalled, the Reverend interrupted her: “Do you mean to say that the gentleman in question, against your will, pushed you against the wall, slapped your face, violently yanked your pocketbook, lifted your petticoat, and deliberately displayed his organ before you?” Half-confused the woman quickly replied: “Well, it never look like an organ, Reverend, it look more like a flute.”