With the right attitude and determination to achieve success, 17-year-old Rodney Bent left his Clarendon home for Kingston with the belief of obtaining a job, only to experience life at world's end.
Upon arriving in Kingston with the intention of being employed at a sawmill, Bent, also known as Ruddy, learned that he was duped when his promise of securing a job proved to be just a castle in the sky. "I travelled from Alston, Clarendon, with the intention to get a work from a gentleman. When I come now, the man never give me the work, mi just box around, box around, fight me way through," he said.
His refusal to return home jobless saw him enduring the wonders of the night, as he was left to call the root of a tree, home."The way how me grow, me sleep under tree," he said while recounting the rueful events. "Night after night I sleep under it ... house that is a mango tree."
Despite a dusty and rocky bed in an open lot beside the Grant's Pen Clinic, Bent remained there, determined to find a job in the area. "The insect dem a night-time dem no bodda trouble me again because me just say dem nah bite me, because me no have nowhere to live," he said. Read more:
