THE FIRST words Everette Chisholm exchanged with his father, man to son, edging up to puberty, was the day the elder Everette was shot. It was also the day, Chisholm remembers, that he first saw his father cry. He was driving with his children

back to Southside, Kingston, after going to see their aunt, who was visiting from England.

The crying came before the shooting, the two indirectly related, as the elder Chisholm encouraged his 10-year-old son to never stop drumming. He had just heard his son play during the visit to his aunt and, Chisholm says, “To me he was not listening”. But his father had been listening.

“On the way home, he said it was good. Don’t stop,” Chisholm said. His father said, “I know you hear a lot of bad things about me. I hope you don’t take that road.” Chisholm had started hearing about his father’s ‘donship’, although his dad was a head chef at a prominent hotel and had been an altar boy. His sisters and brother were there, Chisholm says, but as the oldest one there, “I was the only one hearing what he was saying. He said he wanted to come out, it was not a nice thing, begging me not to trod that road, begging me like crazy.”

‘talk to me’

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