Mango season has returned like a merry-go round and I'm so glad!

Where I live, the mango trees don't bear. We get our mangoes from the mango women who pass the gate selling mangoes. Two hampers, full of mangoes, are loaded on to the donkeys' backs and the women sell us mangoes from these hampers.

I love mangoes. There are the stringy ones that we call common mangoes. These are cheap, but the black mangoes and the number eleven ones are not so cheap. Sometimes Papa buys the whole hamper load of mangoes and we eat mangoes as if they are going out of style.

Another person who loves mangoes can't done, is Maas Fawni. He always befriends the women in order to get brawta. Sometimes he jokes with them, and they like it.

"It look like yu gwine haffi carry mi home with yuh so I can just sit under the mango tree and eat mango till mi belly full," he says to a fat mango woman.

"Yu can come yu know. Mama would feed yu so till."

"Yu lie!"

"If a lie a die."

"Don't be surprise if a teck yuh up on yu offer."

Each time the conversation goes along that line.

We have not seen Maas Fawni for two days. He returns on day three with a big bag of mangoes and tells us that he went to Clarendon, and they treated him nice up there.

After that, he starts making regular trips to Clarendon and each time he returns with a lot of mangoes.

Then, one day he comes back pleased as a puss, and immediately we know that something is afoot.

"Him up to him tricks again," mama says, and she is usually right.

Maas Fawni buys three pounds of beef from Uncle Dobson! Maas Fawni, who always buys sardine and rice, has money to buy beef!

Maas Fawni buys new clothes! And the tongues start wagging.

"A wonder which fool him con now?" Maas Tom wonders aloud.

Good fortune

But not a word will Maas Fawni utter about his good fortune.

For those who don't now yet, Maas Fawni is the biggest ginnal in the district. He makes a living by outwitting people, but he is so smart, nobody can nab him.

Everybody is guessing and spelling, till at last the story comes out.

When Maas Fawni went to Clarendon, he met an elderly woman named Mama Joyce. Her grandson, who is a lawyer, with his business place in Kingston, was there. They say the man handsome so till! He came to spend the weekend with Mama Joyce, who proud of him can't done! The people complain that their ears can't grow grass the way Mama Joyce praise up the young man. Maas Fawni met him.

The story has it that the fellow confided in his granny, and told her how his business wasn't doing well at all. He and his batchmate from university set up the business in New Kingston.

"Granny, mi graduate with first-class honours and mi business partner have upper-class honours, so I don't know what the problem is," he told her. "Other lawyers in the same complex are doing good business."

Mama Joyce told Maas Fawni about the problem and he, of course, persuaded her that he was just the man to solve the problem, since he was a 'science' man. He gave her some cock-and-bull story that her grandson had an enemy watching him and didn't want him to prosper.

Mama Joyce swallowed everything hook, line and sinker.

Hear him to Mama Joyce, "Whatever a tell yuh now, must be in strict confidence. Nobody must know that a working for yuh, or the spell they put on the fellow will never break."

What about mi grandson?

"Then what about mi grandson? Don't mi will have to tell him?" she asked.

"No!" warned Maas Fawni. Find some way to force him to carry out the instructions that a going to give yuh, but yuh mustn't mention our little business at all."

"It sound serious like is big obeah them set pon mi grandson, after him father spend so much money pon him."

"Yes, but jus bi careful to follow mi instructions, then stand back an witness the miracle."

Mama Joyce looked doubtful, and Maas Fawni detected it.

"I'm an honest man, but I see doubt in yuh eyes. I'm not going to take a penny from yuh until yuh si the good results. All I want today is my bus fare and a little lunch. At the end of the month, after yuh grandson do what him mus do and reap good results, then yuh pay mi," Maas Fawni told her. "But remember, not a word to a soul."

"Mi lips are sealed," she told Maas Fawni. "How much it will cost?"

"Three pounds," said Maas Fawni without blinking an eye.

"All right."

"Yu grandson has to remove his name from the sign on the door of his office. Let him put the name of his business partner on the door instead. By the way, what is the name of the partner?"

"Mr Harry Virtue."

"Well, the sign must now read Harry Virtue & Associate, Attorneys at Law."

Business picked up

Mama Joyce followed the instruction to a T, and the business picked up like wild fire. They got so many clients that people had to start making appointments to see them.

Mama Joyce was so elated, she didn't even wait for the month to end. She sent for Maas Fawni and paid him the fee with brawta on it.

Maas Fawn pocketed the cash and went home to bask in his new-found wealth.

"Let them wonder," he told Maas Jimmy. "I have to think on mi feet to earn my living. Is gullible people like those put bread on my table. But yuh know Jimmy, what I can't understand is how a intelligent educator could expect him son to succeed in the lawyer business when him write him name so big an bold on him office door."

"But nothing nuh wrong with that." Jimmy interrupted. "That's what all lawyers do."

"But what in God's name meck Professor John Swindler, lecturer at the university, give him son the name, ADAM!"

- Patricia Whittle