The Coil: Stink City

by Vidyaratha Kissoon  
The coolie man with the green APNU tee shirt had me taking a second look since it was the Friday around 130 pm – a few hours before this column is due – and I wanted something to write about and he was not wearing a PPP shirt.
The man was stomping the grass near a lamp post – kind of like how we had to stomp down the grass weeks after the Clean up at the picket for Courtney Crum Ewing. The man started to pee near the lamp post on Middle Street not far from some of Georgetown’s fine old buildings.
I turn into Main Street  and there is a small jeep. PRR series, and man in nice shirt and khaki shorts kind of standing up not far from where Sacred Heart Church was. He was not far from Qik Serv where you could use the toilet if you are a customer (or buy a ¼ pint ice cream or cheaper pastry). But the man was there, kind of behind the jeep door and hiding and not hiding at the same time.
Earlier in the week, I was at one of the most beautiful churches in Georgetown, St Andrews Kirk opposite the Parliament.  Around 4pm, a man came in and used the fence at the back of the church – looks like the Demico local liquor could not stay in and it was easier for him to stumble into the church yard.
Something about Georgetown. It is a large toilet for many persons.  The pavement near St Andrew’s stinks at 5pm in the afternoon. A man asks me for a hundred, then reduces to forty. I wanted to ask him where he goes to urinate but he had started to smoke something.
There is a toilet near Stabroek Market. Private sector run. The lady asks me what I want to do, and says it is $40 dollar for the Urinal. I don’t know if ladies have to pay more.
I ask the police at the Stabroek Market outpost if it is an offence to pee in public. They said yes. I told them about the man in the church and they said I could have called and reported it.
I don’t know whether the call to the police would have worked and whether the police would have wanted to handcuff the hands of a man who just finish urinating.  This influence is really negative as in my street, two American missionaries took their leaks near one of the beautiful trees and I remember someone saying .. “but they will go and shake people hands afterwards”.
I thought of this as a man who had begged from me before came up to sell icicles. He was still dressed in dirty clothes. $20 for an icicle. I wanted to connect because I was wondering if there was a story here to write about. The man has a speech impediment and cannot speak.
I watched where he held the icicle .. fingers around the middle far from where the mouth would go to bite the opening.  Of course when I finished eating the thing in the way without touching it, I thought of how it had been held before he handed me .
Georgetown is a garbage bin for many persons. I saw a vendor throw his plantain chip bag on the ground near some other bags. Full of my civic consciousness and trying to find content for this article, I went up and asked “Man, like you need a rubbish bag, your place here look nice”. He looked at me as though he would hit me and said “I clean up in the afternoon”. I said.. right right and walked away.
Mayor Hamilton Green recently said he was concerned with the litterbugs.. and talked about the junkies. A man who walks and sells confectionery said that the place needed more garbage bins but “den de junkie would tief dem and sell dem”.
He said that,  “dey could lock down the bins because dem junkie gun tief dem to sell”,  I wonder if junkies would sell rubbish bins to other junkies or whether the people who buy the bins are causing the problem. He said that “dey could work wid de junkie dem to clean de rubbish and pay dem”
I asked him about the urinating in public. He said that  it is wrong and that there is the public paid toilet, but that maybe there could be more and that “the same junkie dem could manage the toilets and get a raise or get other people as times hard. “
I checked Cap 8:02 Summary Jurisdiction (OFFENCES) Act to see which offence, there is something about exposing in an indecent manner.. so the man shyly behind the door of his jeep on Main Street might get away with it? Would this be the same law used for women breastfeeding in public?

The Summary Jurisdiction Offences Act is a fascinating read. The state could raise a lot of money if some of those offences are actually enforced.