Pigeon English

May opens with the carnival and everyone enjoying himself and there is an understood hiatus from the everyday stress. Harri wins binoculars at the carnival, which he implements in his detective work. Even though the Dell Farm Crew is at the carnival, they do not speak to Harri, as “there’s no business on carnival day, everybody forgets their business for one day and just has fun” (109). However, once the carnival passes, everything seems to go back to the way it was. The Dell Farm Crew vandalizes Harri’s church, The Jubilee Center, to the point that services cannot be held. This incident makes Harri think that if he was part of the Crew, he would be able to tell them about God and discourage that kind of behavior, making room for missions that are not of a destructive nature.

His next mission, however, puts him in a very uncomfortable situation. Outside of the grocery store, the Dell Farm Crew is searching for a target to knock over and rob. The man they choose happens to be Mr. Frimpong, from Harri’s church, which makes Harri sick to his stomach. He is knocked to the ground and they steal his wallet. Harri tries to cover himself so Mr. Frimpong does not recognize him, and then he just keeps on running, overridden with guilt. When he gets home, he tosses his coat down the garbage shoot, destroying it as evidence. He also tosses his toy Mustang, like a form of penance. He admits to himself, “The devil’s too strong around here” (122), a very different experience than when he lived in Ghana.

Later, Harri, Dean, and Terri Takeaway try to train Terri’s dog, Asbo, to sniff out evil so they can locate the killer, which they test on the Dell Farm Crew. Harri notes the test as a success when Asbo jumps up on Killa and the Crew leaves quickly.

Back at the Jubilee Center, Mr. Frimpong laments that no one even tried to help him during the attack. Harri thinks to himself that that’s the way it is in England–no one helps anyone else out in case it’s a setup or a trick. He prays in his head for God to “’please stop all the bad shit happening. Thanks a fucking lot. Amen’” (130).

Back on the investigation scene, Dean and Harri use Harri’s bedroom as their detective headquarters, where they keep all the sellotape lifted fingerprints and other collected evidence. While Harri is at the apartment, Miquita is over with Lydia and she is straightening her hair with a hot flatiron. In a position of power as the one holding the hot iron, Miquita uses this moment to question whether or not Lydia is “with [them] or against [them]” (140), keeping the iron close to Lydia’s eye in a threatening manner. She lets the iron burn a small patch of Lydia’s face. Later, when it is just Lydia and Harri, she begs him not to tell anyone about her visit to the laundrette, explaining that “it was only a test” (142) and she did not know where the clothes came from–she was just doing what she was told to do.