ON Wednesday, March 4, 2009 after 9:00 a.m., I walked into Pub Magnum, a small, colourful shop engulfed by throbbing dancehall music.      

There was no one behind the counter.  

To the left of me, a woman sat on a bench positioned against the wall covered with a Rihanna poster. I saw no one else.
I looked at her and asked for a Coke. She turned to the right of her and called out for Theo. I followed her gaze and saw a sombre-looking man get up from a table at the back of Pub Magnum.

Theo came to tend to me.

Sipping on the Coke, I looked his way as he went back to sit at the table. On the table was a red cell phone and beside it was a black Bible with gilded edges. Theo began reading the Bible.

Talking to him, he told me he was reading Jeremiah 30:17:

But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the LORD, because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares.
 
He also read 2 Chronicles 20:17:

“You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.

“I learnt them in prison, so I went back to them [this day].”

Barely two months after his release, Theo seems to be looking for an escape, so every day he reaches for his Bible.

“The things that I see in life and the things that go on around me, I remember them [these scripture passages],” said Theo. 

Theo does not have to look too far past Fort Thomas Road, where Pub Magnum is located, to see “things” and remembrances of them. 

For on the night of Tuesday, February 24, Theo saw 18-year-old Jusan Hendricks lying in his blood after a masked gunman entered Pub Magnum and shot the teenager multiple times. Theo said he did not witness the shooting.

“I was up the road in Shaw Avenue by an alley talking to a girl.”

That was when he heard the gunshots. Asked if it immediately registered that they were gunshots when he heard them, he said, “Yeah, of course. I accustom to hearing them.”   

Theo said he ran down the road and saw Jusan on the ground with a lot of people around him.  The teenager died later that night. That was the fourth killing in the Federation since the start of 2009.

As if to make things easier, Theo reaches for his Bible.

“I must feel bad, Miss,” Theo said to me. “Too many people dying.”