Augustown: A Novel

One day, Gina told Matthew she did not want to go to school, so they went to the Garricks’ house in Beverly Hills. As they looked over the view of Kingston, Gina shared her perspective on the divide between Babylon, the white system of power, and Augustown, particularly the role that Matthew’s father played. Matthew struggled to understand her critiques of the system. He quizzed her about chemistry, and then they kissed. The second time they went to the house, they had sex. Gina thought Ma Taffy would not approve, but she carried on her relationship with him anyway.

In June, Matthew left for Harvard. He told Gina that she should apply to school in Boston since she was as smart as him. Gina already knew she was pregnant and was determined not to tell Matthew because she did not want to adhere to stereotypes of a “ghetto gyal.” When she told Matthew she had never even been on a plane before, he replied that one day, she was going to fly.

Mrs. G convinced Mr. G to fund Gina’s education. When he resisted, she reminded him that he owed her because she gave up teaching for his pride, and he acquiesced. Still, Mr. G never liked Gina: He felt she did not “know her place” and found her dreadlocks “disgraceful” (212). When he imagined telling Mrs. G to get rid of her, however, he knew that she would use her knowledge of his extramarital affairs to hurt him, further denting his pride. At work, he tried to sabotage the idea of his company supporting Gina’s tuition, but the PR department found it positive for the company’s image, so the idea was pushed forward. Still, he resented helping a woman he deemed beneath him, regardless of any potential positive PR. 

On the day of the autoclaps, in the garden with Gina, Mrs. G wants to tell her about the funding, but Gina still wants to open her decision letter with her family, so Mrs. G agrees to drive her home.

The autoclaps begin as Mrs. G drives Gina home. Gina tells Mrs. G that she wants her to meet Kaia. When she arrives home, she feels herself transform from Miss G, the helper, to Gina, the free, proud, Rasta woman. She does not regret Kaia, but she does wonder what her life would have been like without him. Still, at 2:35 am, the time she might have drowned Kaia, she feels an echo of the “blood memory.” She tries to be a good mother, protecting Kaia and loving him as best as she can. He’s worth it to her and has helped her grow up, even though she is only 21 years old.

Gina can smell the same rotting, ripe jackfruit smell that Ma Taffy smelled on Kaia. When she sees Kaia, she has flashbacks of Clarky, hanged. She holds Kaia as he cries before telling him she will be back soon. She heads to the school, where the crowd is energized by her arrival. The woman who cleans the school shouts at her deceased dog that the autoclaps have begun.

Gina’s rage fills the crowd, becoming not a crowd full of anger, but an extension of Gina, an angry mother. Even Bongo Moody, who incited the march, is an extension of Gina. Gina and Bongo Moody have hardly acknowledged each other in the years since Clarky’s death, but they acknowledge each other now, their anger mirrored in each other. The crowd follows Gina as she goes through the school until she finds Mr. Saint-Josephs. She sees Kaia’s hair on the floor. She asks why Mr. Saint-Josephs cut Kaia’s hair, and he responds that Kaia looked like a “hooligan.” Gina grabs him by the shirt, and he begins to shout the same insults he shouted at his wife during their fight, calling her a “slut.” As Mr. Saint-Josephs shouts at Gina, she is reminded of the same insults that Ma Taffy shouted at her the night of Kaia’s birth. She then remembers Ma Taffy’s reminder: “Use the tools of Babylon against Babylon” (227). She grabs the scissors, the tool Mr. Saint-Josephs used to violate Kaia. The crowd holds its breath as Gina stabs Mr. Saint-Josephs in the eye. The crowd, horrified and no longer an extension of Gina, separates. Gina takes Kaia’s hair from the ground and the bloody scissors and heads home.

The cleaning lady calls Mrs. G to report the violent incident. Though she has called Mrs. G for “emergencies” in the past that were just schizophrenic delusions, Mrs. G answers and hurries to the school after calling the police. 

As Gina walks home, everyone in the town looks at her. As she nearly arrives at Ma Taffy’s house, she doesn’t hear the police arrive behind her and call for her to put her hands in the air. Gina sees Ma Taffy and Kaia run toward her, but she does not hear the first warning shot, nor does she feel the second and third shots as they pierce her body. She sees Ma Taffy fall to her knees, but she cannot understand why. She sees Kaia run to her, calling out to her. Her thoughts drift and echo, and she falls.

The police flee quickly after killing Gina. A silence falls across Augustown: a dangerous silence that makes Babylon nervous. The police leave the body in the street, so Ma Taffy wraps Gina in white sheets, and the neighbors help move her to the front yard. The citizens of Augustown drag old refrigerators, stoves, and tires into the street and set them ablaze. Fires rage around Augustown, and the citizens of Beverly Hills and Mona are told to “exercise caution.” Mrs. G is trapped in Augustown, cleaning up the blood and the mess from Mr. Saint-Josephs’s classroom. In the future, Mr. Saint-Josephs becomes the one-eyed madman of Papine named Oney, a part of the equilibrium of the community even as he defecates in the street and wanders around naked. Mrs. G feels regret, knowing that the first time Mr. Saint-Josephs came to her and complained about Kaia, she should have gotten rid of him. She goes to Ma Taffy’s house and sits with Ma Taffy and Kaia as the community plays music and mourns Gina. At midnight, Ma Taffy turns off the music and begins to sing. The community joins her in song and watches Gina’s body begin to rise. Gina rises higher and higher like a dove until she cannot be seen. 

The narrator reveals herself to be Gina, or the being formerly known as Gina before she flew into the sky and became “another consciousness without a human body; another story pulsing in its intermittent light among galaxies” (237). Though the people below in Augustown wait for her to return with lightning in her hands to punish Babylon, she will not. She is “simply here,” floating in the sky.