Satiricus couldn’t believe his eyes. There in black and white was the claim that the most intellectual man in Guyana was nuts! And of all places it was made in a court and by a man who was a lawyer. He retired to his assignation at the Back Street Bar still seething.
“It’s jealously!” he exclaimed to his friend Cappo, the cane cutter who had beaten him to the drink and was already seated. “It’s pure and simple jealously!”
They were ensconced – as was their custom for years – at their back seats, just as they had sat in class during their primary school days. Cappo had always been the class clown.
“Sato, me shore a jalasy!” he said mildly as he took a sip of beer. “”But a who yuh ah täk ’bout?”
“Didn’t you read about it?” he demanded. “That two-bit lawyer, Han No Man, claimed Kiss-Soon is “nuts”!”
“Na, me na read da,” Cappo confessed. “Me read de laa-ya seh Kissoon “incontinent”. Da wan prappa big word and me look am up in me data dickshanary. ‘E mean Kiss Soon cyaan hold in ‘e sh*t”
Sayiricus eye goggled and he looked at Cappo carefully to see if he was pulling his leg. He decided not and said, “The lawyer said Kiss-Soon was “incompetent”…which means that Kiss-Soon is nuts!”
“Wha’ mek ‘e seh suh?” Cappo replied innocently.
“Well, yuh know Kiss-Soon is the biggest intellectual in the world,” said Satiricus who was still agitated. “And Han No Man couldn’t put his question in an intellectual way that Kissoon could understand them!”
“Gi’e me wan example na?” said Cappo quietly and he continued sipping his beer.
“Well the lawyer asked Kiss-Soon if he saw the man who threw the miasmic substance at him and Kiss-Soon asked him back whether he was using the word “see” in an “epistemological” or “ontological” sense,” reported Satiricus.
“Raas Budday!” Cappo exclaimed. “Me bin t’ink eider yuh see de man or yuh na see de man!”
“That’s because you’re not an intellectual, Cappo,” said Satiricus firmly, “As Kiss-Soon said, “There are dimensions of the truth. I am educated, sir.”
“Yes da adda big in-chu-lek-chwal pan Channel 6 bin seh suh too,” said Cappo. “Ev’ry story gat t’ree side. Me side…you side and de adda side! He and Kiss-Soon shou’d täk to mattie!”
