The Stolen Cascadura
by
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The basketball court was the life of the Gardens. If you wanted to get a ‘piece’ you came to the basketball court. ‘Piece’ was a multifaceted noun. If you wanted sex, or a gun or a joint of marijuana or a rock of cocaine, you wanted a ‘piece’. And if you wanted any of these ‘pieces’, you needed to check with a fella they called Cut Outta. Cut Outta was a wanted man. The police wanted him behind bars, the women of the area wanted him for his money, the pipers wanted him for their drugs, the bandits wanted him for their guns and Reverend Miller the pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist church wanted him to give his life to Jesus.
Cut Outta was only forty years old. He had served some time in YTC as a youngster and then later on in Golden Grove prison for petty crimes, robbery, aggravated assault and marijuana possession. He had been charged with rape on two occasions but both witnesses refused to testify in the end. Rumor was they had been threatened. He had also been charged with the murder of a Muslim fella up in Never Dirty Trace in Laventille, but an accomplice to the murder turned state witness succumbed to a mysterious illness while in prison which led to his sudden death. The coroner said it was some rare food poisoning but everyone knew that fella was a dead man from the moment he agreed to testify against Cut Outta.
In all the Phases of Beetham Gardens, the name of Cut Outta was both respected and feared. The wiry looking brown skinned man was not an impressive sight. At only five ft five, the man who had earned his name at sixteen when, with one seamless swoop of his knife he cut open a man’s stomach leaving intestines dangling between the man’s legs, was quiet and reserved. His right hand man Bellies was not only his bodyguard but the one responsible for most of Cut Outta’s finances. Bellies was burly and muscular. Nobody wanted to be in a fight with Bellies. A blow from his fist could knock a few rotten teeth out of a piper’s mouth. Bellies was good at beating people up. He did it with a callousness and heartlessness that only a man unchanged by fifteen years in prison could have. Death was not his enemy; neither was jail or those who threatened his life. His only enemy was ‘
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About the Book
Eddy is an ambitious teenager. He attends one of the most prestigious boy’s colleges on the island and has big dreams. The only problem is that he lives on the Beetham, and to be from the Beetham in
Brian’s mother Sally tries desperately to salvage a marriage that is already beyond repair. Her husband’s infidelity is not as frightening to her as the thought of her becoming a divorcee. Matt defines who she is in the world and without her identity as his wife, life could become unbearable. However she slowly discovers that infidelity has its own vicious consequences.
Jesse Guevara is the eldest of five and the daughter of simple
Jesse, Brian, Eddy and Lisa are all from different backgrounds and different socioeconomic status. However, when the lives of these four young people and their families collide through circumstance, their vulnerability is revealed and their secrets exposed. Each of them discovers that there is something they hold dear to their hearts. Something that once stolen can never be replaced.
About the Author
Beverley-Ann Scott is a medical doctor and author of the novel The Stolen Cascadura, which was selected by the Trinidad and Tobago National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS), for the 2012 One Book One CommunityProject. Dr. Scott holds a BSc in Information Systems and Management from the University of London and a Doctor of Medicine degree from Our Lady of Fatima University, Manila, Philippines. She spent many years in the business and banking sector before deciding to pursue a career in medicine. She is one of the youngest authors of West Indian fiction from the island of Trinidad and Tobago where she currently lives and works.