After 4 years, he was sacked for incompetence, when he absent-mindedly left the weekly, office wage package in the foyer of an office, having to repay it from his savings, intended to pay for his acting fees at Pasadena Playhouse.
His next job was as a bar stock keeper at a smart, French hotel, the source for his play “Independence.” where he fantasised about the female guests, while checking the pool bar accounts. And where he was taught to be creative with the stock figures by the Barmen and, acquired the taste for fine wines, liquors, American, Russian and, French cigarettes, not forgetting Cuban cigars.
And where he was instructed on the aphrodisiatic qualities of Pernod, by a Barbadian Barman, called Drakes.
He was sacked for lack of industry.
His next job was as a well paid, tally clerk on the wharves, by this time his career intentions were quite vague, he wanted to be a Actor, having enjoyed work as a pirate extra on Swiss family Robinson, A Painter, he copied Rembrandt and, Van Gough, an Architect, blame Corbusier, Airline pilot, all of which he was not academically qualified for.
But what was certain, was to his desire to leave “narrow minded” Trinidad and, be an artist, do something creative, in “broad minded” Metropolitan, England, because Playboy Magazine had continuously told him, that’s the way to meet and, have sex with beautiful women.
Whilst on the wharves he was wrongfully accused of being an informer, thereby experiencing a life-forming, Marlon Brando, “ On the Waterfront” scenario for a few weeks, until the real informer was revealed to be a Baptist preacher, called Righteous.
On his way to England, 14 days at sea, Mustapha shared a cabin with a part-African, part-Cherokee, American, Jazz sax player, called Duce, on the way to Paris to link up with the Jazz scene. He had been deported from Trinidad for drug offences and, walking naked down the street.
By choosing the cheapest passage, steerage, Mustapha didn’t realise it meant he would be confined to the lower decks with 200 males only, with no entertainment provided, except his walks to the bow, observing the receding horizon, wondering what lies ahead for him.
He began writing a love letter to a Woman he left behind, which turned into a daily diary of his thoughts, feelings, the gambling on board, the stealing, the fights, the stowaways, females, etc., All who emerged as the Ship headed into open waters. And he posted the large roll of curled pages to her on his first day in England. He mourns the loss of letter.
On board he also befriended a Dutch sailor who swapped him, his copy of Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk wood” for Mustapha’s current Playboy with erotic, kimono Japanese prints, which also contained poems by Robert Graves. He mourns the loss of the prints.
On his first morning in Earl’s Court, he was awakened by a beautiful, tall, blonde, aristocratic, Chelsea beatnik, Artist Model, who had just come out of prison for bouncing cheques. She gave him a brief insight and, taste for London Bohemian life, when his money ran out so did she.
After a year in England, working as a Hospital porter, he left to go to Rome with a fellow Trinidadian, Horace Ove the film Director, because they had heard film extra work and, rich women looking for gigolos was available.
The vita turned out to be no dolce, hot, hungry, rehearsing a dance sequence for a comedy western, but while there he got a job as a curtain puller for a production of “Shakespeare in Harlem” a jazzy look at black life, by Langston Hughes. An iconic Black American theatre figure, who he met when he attended a performance.
But a job which he was sacked from after panicking and, pulling the curtain at the wrong time: catching the actors unawares, embarrassing them and himself.
But for those few nights he stood in the wings, hand on ropes waiting, listening to the words, mesmerised by the actors.
The idea was born, that he will forget the Roman way, return to London, settle down, get an undemanding manual job and, write plays about West Indians in London.
By this time it was the middle Sixties, the old structures were crumbling and, new ideas, new ways of doing things, a sexual, creative and political revolution was happening and, being on the fringes of the Black Power movement, his political views of Colonialism was formed.
And combining an anti-Colonial, political perspective with the authenticity of Caribbean life in London, with dialect to match, he wrote three short plays set in Ladbroke grove, which were produced to critical encouragement, much to Mustapha’s surprise, as he had only written them, to show to his friends.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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