Party to the Max!

The object, which had just brushed my back, was metallic, except I could tell that it wasn’t a pan rack, toasted by the sizzle of steel and sun, but something a lot colder. I looked anxiously over my right shoulder to see what it was that had, a moment before, chilled my spine, literally. What the hell? Between the six-pan rack on which I was precariously perched and the one a few inches behind it, were massive, armed men in combat blue. Their machine guns were pointed downwards, but keeping these in this position was proving difficult as the men contorted their large frames into narrower forms to squeeze through the slither of space. What was I seeing! Was that a policeman’s gun that had grazed my back? On the Track?! I spun my head forward. Players and supporters were being parted like the Red Sea by more big boys in blue. Pan racks were being shoved frantically aside. What in the name of all the gods of this, our nation’s heavenly acoustic instrument, was going on? Yes, this was Desperadoes, the band from the “bad” hills of Laventille, but a police raid during the semi-finals of Panorama? Nah man. “The President passing through the band!” I heard someone shout. “Who?” I yelled back into the commotion. “Max!” the unknown informant bellowed. “Is Max on the Track!”

No way, I thought. Had our President become Mad Max? I had earlier been told — but not believed — that the President was sitting in the North, not Grand Stand, in a special cordoned off area. “You crazy or what?” I had declared with more than a soupcon of disdain to the pal who had told me this most surreal of stories. “How is the President going to be in the North Stand with all that jamming? He’s only going to put himself, his security detail and the people there in unnecessary danger.” My news bearing friend had steupsed and then retorted before walking away, “You don’t realise this is Trinidad or what?” Now, looking around me at the Ole Mas, which Max had brought to the Track, I knew when I saw my friend, I’d have to apologise. A lot. She had been right. This was Trinidad. (Not Tobago.) However, I, worse than a doubting Thomas, still didn’t have faith in the spectacle of police and guns and pans and people, my eyes swore they were witnessing. Had I been blinded by the afternoon sun gaily bouncing off the steel?
Our Head of our State had to have seen the throng of citizens lining either side of the Track and the chaos of metal and flesh pelting down this, pan’s runway, to make it to the Big Yard stage.

How could he conceive of satisfying an impulse to be among the bacchanal when he was never alone, but surrounded by weapons, large powerful ones, held by huge, intimidating policemen? What if one of his giants in blue had been toppled by a rack and panicked, or simply, what if one of their firearms had gone off? These were not impossibilities. Had Max not thought of the people before he decided to party with them? Or, if he felt duty bound to give Despers His Presidential blessing, he could have led a standing ovation for the band’s sweet rendition of “Whop Cocoyea” from the

Grand Stand. But, it was dangerously self-indulgent — to the max — for our President to decide to be this country’s first People’s President. Come on Maxwell. A man of your qualifications should not only be a man of all seasons, but one of reason. Didn’t you realise when you took your oath last March that several sacrifices and responsibilities would come with the trappings of office? Two of these were the North Stand and the Track on any given pan Sunday! Didn’t you think when you placed your hand on that Bible last Carnival that you might have to wave goodbye to all the whimsical gods of the dry season festival, this and other Carnivals? You promised to uphold the citizens’ Constitution, not imperil theirs. Yet, in my view, that is exactly what you did on Sunday when you and your men in blue traipsed through the band and when you limed in the North Stand.

And what of your security detail? They already had their hands full protecting a President living at his family home; did they need the added stress of one that did not sit still in the secure Grand Stand during Panorama? How they must have longed Sunday for the days of Mr Robinson! But you see me Max; I don’t particularly care if a man in your position wants to gamble with his life. If it tickles your spine to take such risks, fine. But I don’t want mine tickled by any of your men’s guns when I am in the Big Yard. You simply do not have the right to put my life in jeopardy so you can play People’s President. You want to do Your People a favour? Stay in the Grand Stand. You might be a chemical engineer, but you are no tuner or arranger. Do not seek to meld the metals of machine guns and steel pans, because the resulting sound will only be a ricochet declaring death. And Your People do not go to hear a dirge when they head to the Savannah for pan, but to listen to notes that carry joy. We’d like to be free to enjoy and support our Despers, our Phase II, and Exodus, Silver Stars, Redemption Sound Setters and all our other steel orchestras, without fear. We’d like to jump, Mr President, not be jumpy because our Head of State has to party to the Max. I end with some advice, Mr President, conveyed in a (poorer) variation of Shadow’s 2004 calypso:

“If you have a tabanca,
Max, for Your Carnival fever,
Go and see de obeah man,
But please stay still Mr Pres
We really doh need de stress
When we go to hear we pan.
Whop Cocoyea!”

Suzanne Mills is the Editor of Newsday.