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The preacher who sleeps in everybody's room

Kingston

No room, no rent, no surname, no home town. A Rasta preacher with locks to his back who sings to the sea and sleeps wherever a door is open.

Every room in this house is my room, bredren. That is why I never lock one.
Kingston
Lives
Iloro House, No. 3 June 12 Street, in whichever room will have him
Rent
None. The landlord has stopped asking
From
Nobody knows
Found at
The beach at dawn, the bush pitch in the afternoon, the veranda after dark
Faith
Rastafari: he preaches it and sings it

Kingston is the only name anybody has for him, and he gave it himself. He talks like a man from Jamaica and has never been there. Nobody in Iloro House knows his real name, where he comes from, or where he goes when he is not with them. What the street does know, and says quietly, is that he spent time in a psychiatric hospital after a breakdown that came from smoking too much cannabis, and that he came out calm. He still smokes, out on the beach or in the bush, never in the house. Funke tells him plainly what she thinks of that. He listens, thanks her, and does not change.

He has no room. He sleeps in everybody's: on Danger and Benny's floor, on the mat in AJ's room, across the doorway of Tiny's box room, in the kitchen when Mama Ronke allows it, and on the veranda bench when nobody does. He pays no rent. He sweeps the corridor at dawn without being asked, and he leaves every room cleaner than he found it.

His faith is Rastafari, which calls God Jah and calls the world of money and power Babylon. He preaches it to the waves, to the football crowd and to the queue at the gate, and he sings it: songs of his own about justice and the poor, chanted slow on the beach at dusk and on the veranda when the power goes. He never hurries and never shouts. When he starts, the noise seems to step back. Everybody on June 12 Street agrees that he is all right, and nobody minds having him.

In the game

Kingston is not in the game yet. When he is anywhere, it is the beach beyond the bush.

Kingston's Story

Kingston is the only name anybody has for him. He sleeps a night or two in every room of Iloro House, pays no rent, sweeps the corridor at dawn and preaches to the sea. Nobody knows where he comes from. Then the rains flood June 12 Street, a child goes missing in the dark, and the house finds out why it keeps him.

  1. 1No Room"A man who has no room," the landlord said at last, "cannot be put out of it."
  2. 2Bredren"London is in your mouth, bredren. Jamaica is in mine. Same country. A place you carry in your mouth."
  3. 3The Flood"Hush now. Babylon is loud tonight. The child is not."

Also on June 12 Street