“CISCO” KID WAS A FRIEND OF MINE

That androgynous face which masked so many layers of loneliness which he concealed so cleverly.

I never heard him ever complain of being exhausted or tired or for that matter, “calling in sick” for work.

Cisco was never late for an event or an engagement where his services as driver, personal attaché or just being the life of the party was on the line.

I opened my phone at 9:15 am and TJ Olander in Chicago was texting “Cisco made his last dance this morning.”  Simultaneously; Elcott Coleby, Director General of the Bahamas Information Services (BIS)   had the photo and the death announcement in my phone, effectively confirming the sudden death of Keith “Cisco” DeCosta on Tuesday 24thJune 2025.

My shock and disbelief was intensified by the fact that a mere twelve hours earlier, Cisco was on the Edward Charles Carter Park in Sea Breeze at the ruling Progressive Liberal Party’s regional rally. Being the political animal that he was, he would not have missed that. 

Cisco, the boy who was born on East Street and who grew up just a few doors down from where Sir Lynden Pindling would have grown up was gone. I experienced a sudden flashback to the time where being a PLP in that iconic East Street community during the evolving progressive movement of the early 1970s represented a call to a sacred political and national duty.

For many of us, the initial news of a death unforetold is quite numbing. As time passes, the realization quietly begins to etch itself up your tortured spine. That video reel of times recently shared and words spoken begin to play automatically in your head. You dial a number. The number is busy. You want to hear the voice of a friend, or any other friend of your now departed friend, to share this personal pain brought on by Cisco’s inevitable departure from this life. 

Danny Johnson wasn’t picking up. 

Edith Stuart wasn’t picking up. 

Andrew Jackson wasn’t picking up.

The conversation I had started with David Moss as we left Starbucks, Harbour Bay, on the stark disparity in coverage of the PLP’s regional rally by the two major morning newspapers is paused.

The “Cisco Kid” redirects the morning.

I saw Cisco literally every day. Our paths would cross at Danny Johnson’s Fort Charlotte Foot Clinic. We would meet at Island Luck down town. I’d walk into Cisco standing at the window buying his numbers on paper. I’d run into him when I took Woods Rodgers Wharf behind the Straw Market as a detour. In the afternoon, Cisco would be sitting on the window sill of Starbucks, Charlotte and Bay Street, or on a bench across the street with taxi drivers. Later, Cisco would be seen floating at Byron’s Tiki Bar on Long Wharf or moving inland to Fish Fry. Every stop he made, the people knew him. Tourists were drawn to his innocent face and simplicity. And when the music started playing, Cisco could dance to the rhythm. 

Nobody knew how to “wheel and turn a tourist partner” with such agility and no strings attached like Cisco.

He took his role as the unpaid and non-contracted hospitality ambassador to our nation’s visitors; and he took this very seriously. He did not do it for tips nor was he seeking a gratuity. This was Cisco in his natural element – the modern day Vernal Sands. The East Street boy from the Ghetto was indeed an enigma. He was well known and welcomed by four Prime Ministers - Pindling, Ingraham, Christie and Davis - yet he walked alone, unpretentious about his associations, contacts and relationships among the elite in Bahamian society. These relationships had been earned by his humility and his unassailable character and humility and the trust he engendered.  

Over the years a certain smile had been carved into Cisco’s face. When we were children I thought Cisco was a caricature cut out of MAD Magazine - the iconic youth with the bat ears, wide gaping teeth and pimples.

I first met Cisco in 1969. He had just entered Windsor Lane or “Miss Blatch” Primary School in grade one. I was in Miss Fynes’s Grade Four. Naomi Blatch was the headmistress and my mom Clara Belle Williams was the Chief Assistant.

I vividly recall from our youth one Dr. Clifford Humes, the Dean of Barbering in this country. I knew Cisco lived atop East Street Hill, opposite what used to be the main watering hole for the Audley Kemp liquor establishment.

As little children at Windsor Lane Primary, Mrs Humes- “Cliffie’s” mother was the number one lunch lady. Cliffie was a teenager, already graduated from Queen’s College and Janet; his sister was two grades ahead me in the primary school.

Cliffie was the fourth person I called when I received the news of Cisco’s death.

“Cliffie, I think we just lost Cisco,” I said.

The usual pause of shock and grief. Cliffie was also now receiving the death notice in his phone.

“He is related to the Demeritte’s, the Horse people in Mason’s Addition,” Cliffie said. 

This was new to me. For as long as I knew Cisco I had never made a connection to the Demeritte horse family.

“Larry Demeritte, the Bahamian trainer who had the horse in the Kentucky Derby is Cisco’s close family,” Cliffie said.

My dad Earlin Senior and the late Thomas Demeritte, the patriarch of that clan were the best of friends at Hobby Horse Hall Race Track. Tommy and my dad had a morning ritual where they met around 7 am every morning while out walking a horse and they would each take a swig from a bottle of Methuselahm Rum, nicknamed “old Man” , “to kill the worms” before walking off and promising fierce competition between their stables on race day.

Now I was remembering Cisco circa 1975 at the Race Track working as a groom in a Stable – could have been the Demeritte stables - when we were still teenagers. We were yet to become friends.

The years moved on and I would meet Cisco in various Government Ministries where he now worked as Civil Servant.

Our new connection began around 2000 when Cisco arrived one day at Christie Davis and Co Law Chambers in Del-Bern House, Victoria Avenue to see Mr. Christie.  I was surprised at how their conversation suggested theirs was a political alliance long before my time in the Perry Christie political camp. From here on in, Cisco was an indefatigable part of the Christie movement to 2002 and his election as Prime Minister.

Cisco was a “ladies’ man”. I mean women just gravitated towards him. He spoke a language of friendship and respect which did not pierce their confidentialities and vulnerabilities. With Cisco, women saw a guy who came with no hidden agenda, no strings attached and he was no news carrier.

I marveled at this rare ability he possessed. Even the husbands, boyfriends and significant others of women respected Cisco and made him their friend.

Cisco had this ability to appear to be absolutely ignorant, uninterested, and clueless. Acting in the capacity of a political attaché and confidante, Cisco’s professionalism was most potent and effective. Many plans and plots hatched around water coolers and in the parking lot got foiled before they were executed because there were those who were just dismissive of “Cisco in the dirty shoes and same old shirt.” That disguise or uniform was a Cisco prop. When all around him the debate was raging and voices raised high, Cisco was silent and inconspicuous, but deadly.

 I never knew how he got the nickname “Cisco” as a child. I think it was after the “head fella” in some western movie or cowboy film at the Cinema Theatre on Lewis Street, someone once said,

It may have been Neville Wisdom, who upon assuming the portfolio of Minister of Youth Sports and Culture in 2002 elevated Cisco to the role of Personal Attendant and driver.

The new polished Cisco lasted for about a month and half. And Cisco was back in “uniform”. He may have on the same coat, his shoes “begging for bread” but his hygiene was impeccable.

His personality loomed large.

He mastered the art of dealing with rowdy, abrasive, impatient constituents.

His years on the political stump had taught him how familiarity in the Bahamian political sphere does not amount to a relationship.

Constituents call their Members of Parliament by their first name or nick names. Reverential is for another sector. So Cisco learned how to figure out in seconds how important the meeting with a constituent was to his Minister and how well the Minister even knew or was aware of the visitor. Cisco’s instincts were never wrong. And because he did his job so smoothly no one ever got offended.

 While Neville brought Cisco up from virtual obscurity to frontline politics, I thought he could have been more hospitable.  Perry Christie made the mistake one day of asking me to go get him a sandwich in Bank Lane while he waited in the Opposition Committee Room of the House of Assembly. I knew Christie did not eat mayonnaise and he forgot to remind me. So I ordered Christie’s sandwich and instructed that the mayonnaise and mustard be as generous as I wanted it. When I returned Christie said I should have remembered no mayonnaise. Then he caught himself, laughed with Bradley Roberts how I made sure to get my lunch first; as he sent me back with new money to bring back the sandwich he wanted. I don’t think Cisco could have played that trick on Neville.

I make this point because every function I have ever attended with Danny Johnson as Minister of Youth and Cisco as his personal attendant, I never met Danny with a plate and Cisco staring looking on.

Cisco knew his role and his place and he played it perfectly but he also felt and reflected the solid friendship that Danny offered him.

I remember in the early days of their  official context, Danny saying he had asked a senior Policeman once attached to the former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling, to give Cisco some courses on deportment, dressing,  arm’s length, table manners  and how to brush and clean his shoes.

When Danny took to preferring the White Truck over his preferred means of official transportation over the sleek navy blue Toyota Camry plate number CM 16, I knew it was because Cisco had hit the car once too often and maybe the truck was a better fit for his chauffeur.

Danny could laugh stuff like this off even while gently scolding Cisco. These two men recognized their roles and respected their spaces and places and both knew perfection and pretentiousness and autocracy does not make for the winning team effort.

We arrived in Santiago de Cuba in 2013 for the Festival of Fire and Danny instinctively brought Cisco along.

Here, with more than 100 nations of the world, including the United States, the UK and the entire Caribbean Basin in a cultural competition, the Bahamas’ reputation was on the line.

The combined ensemble of the nation’s major Junkanoo groups, the precision and management of Ian Poitier as Chef de Village and the roll out of every major aspect of our culture at Bahama House, which was created in our Village, the Bahamas would have to put on a show of shows.

At evenings, we invited all of Santiago de Cuba to party with us at Bahama House under the courtesy of First Lady Bernadette Christie. The Junkanoo rose to the occasion.

And then there was Cisco, Mr. Bojangles himself. Mr. DeCosta could dance every number the great Cuban dancers presented and when the Bahamian music struck the chord, Mr. DeCosta had assembled an ensemble of dancers with him in the middle as he danced his country into fame and glory and the shock and astonishment of the Cubans and the other foreign delegations that spent time with us.

The signature closure of the festival saw hundreds of Bahamian Junkanoo artists drawn from all over and led by Vola, Brian, Darron, Fast Eddie, and others as the Cuban national song: “Guantanamera” in the Junkanoo rendition of horns, goat skin drums, whistles and cowbells, left no doubt that the Bahamas was indeed El Numero Uno.

Cisco, the kid from East Street played a core role in creating the legacy of Bahamian culture and the talent of our performers on Cuba and the rest of the world.

Cisco was more than fun. He had a clear political mind. It was the things that few people thought mattered which piqued his interest and drove his political skills. And he knew how to apply what he heard along the way as he logged miles through this City mostly on foot; by public bus and sometimes in his own vehicle.

I have never been to a Christian church of any denomination and not met Cisco in attendance.

Sundays he lived for Church. It could be St Francis, St Barnabas, Christ Church, Zion Baptist, Wesley, St Paul’s, St Joseph, First Baptist, and any church door open late in the inner city. Cisco had scores of Godchildren. He knew them all. We’d be in an office or on an Island on in the Airport and Cisco would say, “My god child works here. Let me go give her a hail.”

I remember his sojourn into the Pentecostal movement. Cisco on ZNS television every Sunday morning in the Leon Wallace’s Voice of Deliverance theatre.

I see him all fired up for his beloved Saxons on Boxing Day and New Year’s. Sitting in a Sports Bar on edge for NBA and baseball games. Back in the day he frequented the local baseball and softball circuits.

We usually sat one pew behind each other at the early morning Mass at Transfiguration Baptist Church where we let the congregation know that while they loved to sing Anglican hymns, as a true Anglican, Cisco and I led the way.

That evening in Bimini Bay when Cisco and I was graciously allowed to sing along with Stevie S for about 60 seconds and I still think it was Cisco who messed up on the “Sweet Caroline” the evening we did karaoke in the bar outside the Hilton Hotel.

He was at my Aunt Judy’s funeral in February.

Three Friday’s ago he was at her son Adrian, my first cousin’s funeral again in St. Agnes.

I saw him on Wednesday last week as he waited for Danny to return from Toronto.

I see him now sitting outside the Fort Charlotte Clinic in his favourite chair, lost to the wind sweeping in off Arawak Cay and Long Wharf. Eyes closed but aware of everything that is moving around him.

The respect and friendship he shared with the staff were amazing.

The doctors and nurses saw Cisco as a column of the property on which they worked.

As Cisco was gingerly reversing Danny’s wife truck from the parking lot, a month or so ago I popped my head out of my car window to ask, “Is Madam Speaker here?”

Cisco would move his eyes in two or three directions. “Italia not here yet. I don’t think she be here early today.”

He knew I was looking for Danny, but for Cisco if you did not ask the specific question; his answer was restricted to what he was asked. 

I took a slow walk pass what used to be Skans Cafeteria on Bay Street this morning as I wanted to look in the window and reminisce. The restaurant is gone and in its place sits a high end and upscale cosmetics outfit.

Danny asked me to meet him here for lunch on a Wednesday when the House of Assembly was on adjournment in 2012. He was hosting Navado Dawkins, the C. V. Bethel High School Student as a Youth Ambassador to lunch. I don’t know what I was thinking but I walked pass the place and Cisco saw me and came outside to get me.

“You don’t know Bay Street hey?” I remember Cisco saying as he laughed at me mischievously.

Sleep Well Mr. Bojangles.

Mr. Bojangles come back and dance.

Please.

Come back and dance.

Bay Street will never forget you.