T
were hiding out there in the
HOSE LITTLE BASTARDS
tall grass. The moon was not quite full, but bright, and it was
behind them, so I could see them as plain as day, though it
was deep night. Lightning bugs flashed against the black
canvas. I waited at Miss Watson’s kitchen door, rocked a
loose step board with my foot, knew she was going to tell me
to fix it tomorrow. I was waiting there for her to give me a
pan of corn bread that she had made with my Sadie’s recipe.
Waiting is a big part of a slave’s life, waiting and waiting to
wait some more. Waiting for demands. Waiting for food.
Waiting for the ends of days. Waiting for the just and
deserved Christian reward at the end of it all.
Those white boys, Huck and Tom, watched me. They were
always playing some kind of pretending game where I was
either a villain or prey, but certainly their toy. They hopped
about out there with the chiggers, mosquitoes and other
biting bugs, but never made any progress toward me. It
always pays to give white folks what they want, so I stepped
into the yard and called out into the night,
“Who dat dere in da dark lak dat?”
They rustled clumsily about, giggled. Those boys couldn’t
sneak up on a blind and deaf man while a band was playing. I
would rather have been wasting time counting lightning bugs
than bothering with them.
“I guess I jest gwyne set dese old bones down on dis heah
porch and watch out for dat noise ’gin. Maybe dere be sum
ol’ demon or witch out dere. I’m gwyne stay right heah
where it be safe.” I sat on the top step and leaned back
against the post. I was tired, so I closed my eyes.
The boys whispered excitedly to each other, and I could
hear them, clear as a church bell.
“Is he ’sleep already?” Huck asked.
“I reckon so. I heard niggers can fall asleep jest like that,”
Tom said and snapped his fingers.
“Shhhh,” Huck said.
“I say we ties him up,” Tom said. “Tie him up to dat porch
post what he’s leaning ’ginst.”
“No,” said Huck. “What if’n he wakes up and makes a
ruckus? Then I gets found out for being outside and not in
bed like I’m supposed to be.”
“Okay. But you know what? I need me some candles. I’m
gonna slip into Miss Watson’s kitchen and get me some.”
“What if’n you wake Jim?”
“I ain’t gonna wake nobody. Thunder can’t even wake a
sleepin’ nigger. Don’t you know nuffin? Thunder, nor
lightning, nor roarin’ lions. I hear tell of one that slept right
through an earthquake.”
“What you suppose an earthquake feels like?” Huck
asked.
“Like when you pa wakes you up in the middle of the
night.”
The boys sneaked awkwardly, crawled knees over fists,
and none too quietly across the complaining boards of the
porch and inside through the Dutch door of Miss Watson’s
kitchen. I heard them in there rifling about, opening cabinet
doors and drawers. I kept my eyes closed and ignored a
mosquito that landed on my arm.
“Here we go,” Tom said. “I gone jest take three.”
“You cain’t jest take an old lady’s candles,” Huck said.
“That’s stealin’. What if’n they blamed Jim for that?”
“Here, I’ll leave her this here nickel. That’s more’n
enough. They won’t ’spect no slave. Where a slave gonna git
a nickel? Now, let’s git outta here befo’ she shows up.”
The boys stepped out onto the porch. I don’t imagine that
they were hardly aware of all the noise they made.
“You shoulda left a note, too,” Huck said.
“No need for all that,” Tom said. “Nickel’s plenty.” I could
feel the boys’ eyes turn to me. I remained still.
“What you doin’?” Huck asked.
“I’m gonna play a little joke on ol’ Jim.”
“You gonna wake him up is what you gonna do.”
“Hush up.”
Tom stepped behind me and grabbed my hat brim at my
ears.
“Tom,” Huck complained.
“Shhhh.” Tom lifted my hat off my head. “I’s jest gonna
hang this ol’ hat on this ol’ nail.”
“What’s that s’posed to do?” Huck asked.
“When he wakes up he’s gonna think a witch done it. I jest
wish we could be round to see it.”
“Okay, it be on the nail, now let’s git,” Huck said.
Someone stirred inside the house and the boys took off
running, turned the corner in a full gallop and kicked up dust.
I could hear their footfalls fade.
Now someone was in the kitchen, at the door. “Jim?” It
was Miss Watson.
“Yessum?”
“Was you ’sleep?”
“No, ma’am. I is a might tired, but I ain’t been ’sleep.”
“Was you in my kitchen?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Was anybody in my kitchen?”
“Not that I seen, ma’am.” That was quite actually true, as
my eyes had been closed the whole time. “I ain’t seen nobody
in yo kitchen.”
“Well, here’s that corn bread. You kin tell Sadie that I like
her recipe. I made a couple of changes. You know, to refine
it.”
“Yessum, I sho tell her.”
“You seen Huck about?” she asked.
“I seen him earlier.”
“How long ago?”
“A spell,” I said.
“Jim, I’m gonna ask you a question now. Have you been in
Judge Thatcher’s library room?”
“In his what?”
“His library.”
“You mean dat room wif all dem books?”
“Yes.”
“No, missums. I seen dem books, but I ain’t been in da
room. Why fo you be askin’ me dat?”
“Oh, he found some book off the shelves.”
I laughed. “What I gone do wif a book?”
She laughed, too.
—
THE CORN BREAD
was wrapped in a thin towel and I had to
keep shifting hands because it was hot. I considered having a
taste because I was hungry, but I wanted Sadie and
Elizabeth to have the first bites. When I stepped through the
door, Lizzie ran to me, sniffing the air like a hound.
“What’s that I smell?” she asked.
“I imagine that would be this corn bread,” I said. “Miss
Watson used your mama’s special recipe and it certainly does
smell good. She did inform me that she made a couple of
alterations.”
Sadie came to me and gave me a kiss on the mouth. She
stroked my face. She was soft and her lips were soft, but her
hands were as rough as mine from work in the fields, though
still gentle.
“I’ll be sure to take this towel back to her tomorrow.
White folks always remember things like that. I swear, I
believe they set aside time every day to count towels and
spoons and cups and such.”
“That’s the honest truth. Remember that time I forgot to
put that rake back in the shed?”
Sadie had the corn bread on the block—a stump, really—
that served as our table. She sliced into it. She handed
portions to Lizzie and me. I took a bite and so did Lizzie. We
looked at each other.
“But it smells so good,” the child said.
Sadie shaved off a sliver and put it in her mouth. “I swear
that woman has a talent for not cooking.”
“Do I have to eat it?” Lizzie asked.
“No, you don’t,” Sadie said.
“But what are you going to say when she asks you about
it?” I asked.
Lizzie cleared her throat. “Miss Watson, dat sum
conebread lak I neva before et.”
“Try ‘dat be,’ ” I said. “That would be the correct
incorrect grammar.”
“Dat be sum of conebread lak neva I et,” she said.
“Very good,” I said.
Albert appeared at the door of our shack. “James, you
coming out?”
“I’ll be there directly. Sadie, do you mind?”
“Go on,” she said.
I WALKED OUTSIDE
—
and over to the big fire, where the men
were sitting. I was greeted and then I sat. We talked some
about what happened to a runaway over at another farm.
“Yeah, they beat him real good,” Doris said. Doris was a
man, but that didn’t seem to matter to the slavers when they
named him.
“All of them are going to hell,” Old Luke said.
“What happened to you today?” Doris asked me.
“Nothing.”
“Something must have happened,” Albert said.
They were waiting for me to tell them a story. I was
apparently good at that, telling stories. “Nothing, except I
got carried off to New Orleans today. Aside from that,
nothing happened.”
“You what?” Albert said.
“Yes. You see, I thought I was drifting off into a nice nap
about noon and the next thing I knew I was standing on a
bustling street with mule-drawn carriages and whatnot all
around me.”
“You’re crazy,” someone said.
I caught sight of Albert giving me the warning sign that
white folks were close. Then I heard the clumsy action in the
bushes and I knew it was those boys.
“Lak I say, I furst found my hat up on a nail. ‘I ain’t put dat
dere,’ I say to mysef. ‘How dat hat git dere?’ And I knew
’twas witches what done it. I ain’t seen ’em, but it was dem.
And one dem witches, the one what took my hat, she sent me
all da way down to N’Orlins. Can you believe dat?” My
change in diction alerted the rest to the white boys’
presence. So, my performance for the boys became a frame
for my story. My story became less of a tale as the real game
became the display for the boys.
“You don’t says,” Doris said. “Dem witches ain’t to be
messed wif.”
“You got dat right,” another man said.
We could hear the boys giggling. “So, dere I was in
N’Orlins and guess what?” I said. “All of a sudden dis root
doctor come up behind me. He say, ‘Whatchu doin’ in dis
here town.’ I tells him I ain’t got no idea how I git dere. And
you know what he say ta me? You know what he say?”
“What he say, Jim?” Albert asked.
“He say I, Jim, be a free man. He say dat ain’t nobody
gone call me no nigga eber ’gin.”
“Lawd, hab mercy,” Skinny, the farrier, shouted out.
“Demon say I could buy me what I want up da street. He
say I could have me some whisky, if’n I wanted. Whatchu
think ’bout that?”
“Whisky is the devil’s drink,” Doris said.
“Din’t matter,” I said. “Din’t matter a bit. He say I could
hab it if’n I wanted it. Anything else, too. Din’t matter,
though.”
“Why was dat?” a man asked.
“Furst, ’cause I was in dat place to whar dat demon sent
me. Weren’t real, jest a dream. And ’cause I ain’t had me no
money. It be dat simple. So dat demon snapped his old dirty
fingas and sent me home.”
“Why fo he do dat?” Albert asked.
“Hell, man, you cain’t get in no trouble in N’Orlins lessen
you gots some money, dream or no dream,” I said.
The men laughed. “Dat sho is what I heared,” a man said.
“Wait,” I said. “I thinks I hears one dem demons in the
bushes right naw. Somebody gives me a torch so I kin set dis
brush alight. Witches and demons don’t lak no fires burnin’
all round ’em. Dey start to melt lak butta on a griddle.”
We all laughed as we heard the white boys hightail it out
of there.
—
AFTER STEPPING ON
them squeaking boards last night, I knew
Miss Watson would have me nailing down those planks and
fixing that loose step. I waited till midmorning so I wouldn’t
wake any white folks. They could sleep like nobody’s
business and always complained to wake up too early, no
matter how late it was.
Huck came out of the house and watched me for a few
minutes. He hovered around like he did when something was
on his mind.
“Why you ain’t out runnin’ wif yo friend?” I asked.
“You mean Tom Sawyer?”
“I guessin’ dat da one.”
“He’s probably still sleepin’. He was probably up all night
robbin’ banks and trains and such.”
“He do dat, do he?”
“Claims to. He got some money, so he buys himself books
and be readin’ all the time ’bout adventures. Sometimes I
ain’t so sho ’bout him.”
“Whatchu mean?”
“Like, he found this cave and we goes into it and have a
meeting with some other boys, but we get in there it’s like he
gotta be the boss.”
“Yeah?”
“And all because he been reading them books.”
“And dat sorta rub you da wrong way?” I asked.
“Why people say that? ‘Rubbing the wrong way’?”
“Well, the way I sees it, Huck, is if’n you rake a fish’s back
wid a fork head ta tail, ain’t gone matter much to him, but
if’n you go ta other way…”
“I git it.”
“It seem sumtimes you jest gotta put up wif your friends.
Dey gonna do what dey gonna do.”
“Jim, you work the mules and you fix the wagon wheels
and now you fixin’ this here porch. Who taught you to do all
them things?”
I stopped and looked at the hammer in my hand, flipped it.
“Dat be a good question, Huck.”
“So, who did?”
“Necessity.”
“What?”
“ ’Cessity,” I corrected myself. “ ’Cessity is when you gots
to do sumptin’ or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Else’n they takes you to the post and whips ya or they
drags ya down to the river and sells ya. Nuffin you gots to
worry ’bout.”
Huck looked at the sky. He pondered on that a bit. “Sho is
pretty when you jest look at the sky with nothin’ in it, jest
blue. I heard tell there are names for different blues. And
reds and the like. I wonder what you call that blue.”
“ ‘Robin’s egg,’ ” I said. “You ever seen a robin’s egg?”
“You right, Jim. It is like a robin’s egg, ’ceptin’ it ain’t got
the speckles.”
I nodded. “Dat be why you gots to look past the speckles.”
“Robin’s egg,” Huck said, again.
We sat there a little longer. “What else be eatin’ you?” I
asked.
“I think Miss Watson is crazy.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Always talkin’ ’bout Jesus and prayers and such. She got
Jesus Christ on the brain. She told me that prayers is to help
me act selflessly in the world. What the hell does that
mean?”
“Don’t be swearin’ naw, Huck.”
“You sound like her. I don’t see no profit in askin’ for stuff
just so I don’t get it and learn a lesson ’bout not gettin’ what
I asked fer. What kinda sense does that make? Might as well
pray to that board there.”
I nodded.
“You noddin’ that it makes sense or don’t make no sense?”
“I’m jest noddin’, Huck.”
“I’m surrounded by crazy people. You know what Tom
Sawyer did?”
“Tells me, Huck.”
“He made us take an oath in blood that if’n any of us tells
gang secrets, then we will kill that person’s entire family.
Don’t that sound crazy?”
“How you take a blood oath?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to cut yer hand open with a knife and
shake with everybody else what done the same thing. You
know, so your blood gets all mixed and mashed together.
Then you’re blood brothers.”
I looked at his hands.
“We used spit instead. Tom Sawyer said it would do the
same thing and how could we rob a bank wif our hands all
cut up. One boy cried and said he was going to tell and Tom
Sawyer shut him up wif a nickel.”
“Ain’t you tellin’ me yo secrets right naw?” I asked.
Huck paused. “You’re different.”
“ ’Cause I’m a slave?”
“No, taint that.”
“What it is, den?”
“You’re my friend, Jim.”
“Why, thank ya, Huck.”
“You won’t tell nobody, will ya?” He stared anxiously at
me. “Even if we go out and rob us a bank. You won’t tell,
right?”
“I kin keep me a secret, Huck. I kin keep yo secret, too.”
Miss Watson came to the back screen and hissed, “Ain’t
you done with that step yet, Jim?”
“Matter fact, I am, Miss Watson,” I said.
“It’s a miracle with this here boy yakking your ear off.
Huckleberry, you get back in this house and make yer bed.”
“I’m jest gonna mess it up agin tonight,” Huck said. He
shoved his hands in his britches and swayed there, like he
knew he’d just crossed a line.
“Don’t make me come out there,” she said.
“See ya later, Jim.” Huck ran into the house, running by
Miss Watson sideways like he was dodging a swat.
“Jim,” Miss Watson said, looking back into the house after
Huck.
“Ma’am?”
“I hear tell Huck’s pappy is back in town.” She stepped
past me and looked at the road.
I nodded. “Yessum.”
“Keep an eye on Huck,” she said.
I didn’t know exactly what she was asking me to do.
“Yessum.” I put the hammer back in the box. “Ma’am, what I
s’posed to keep my eye on, zackly?”
“And help him watch out for that Sawyer boy.”
“Why fo you tellin’ me all dis, missum?”
The old woman looked at me and then out at the road and
then up at the sky. “I don’t know, Jim.”
I studied on Miss Watson’s words. That Tom Sawyer
wasn’t really a danger to Huck, just a kind of little fellow
sitting on his shoulder whispering nonsense. But his father
being back, that was a different story. That man might have
been sober or he might have been drunk, but in either of
those conditions he consistently threw beatings onto the
poor boy.
CHAPTER 2
T
I sat down with Lizzie and six other
HAT EVENING
children in our cabin and gave a language lesson. These
were indispensable. Safe movement through the world
depended on mastery of language, fluency. The young ones
sat on the packed-dirt floor and I was on one of our two
homemade stools. The hole in the roof pulled the smoke from
the fire that burned in the middle of the shack.
“Papa, why do we have to learn this?”
“White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can
only help if we don’t disappoint them,” I said. “The only ones
who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us. Perhaps
I should say ‘when they don’t feel superior.’ So, let’s pause to
review some of the basics.”
“Don’t make eye contact,” a boy said.
“Right, Virgil.”
“Never speak first,” a girl said.
“That’s correct, February,” I said.
Lizzie looked at the other children and then back to me.
“Never address any subject directly when talking to another
slave,” she said.
“What do we call that?” I asked.
Together they said, “Signifying.”
“Excellent.” They were happy with themselves, and I let
that feeling linger. “Let’s try some situational translations.
Something extreme first. You’re walking down the street and
you see that Mrs. Holiday’s kitchen is on fire. She’s standing
in her yard, her back to her house, unaware. How do you tell
her?”
“Fire, fire,” January said.
“Direct. And that’s almost correct,” I said.
The youngest of them, lean and tall five-year-old Rachel,
said, “Lawdy, missum! Looky dere.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Why is that correct?”
Lizzie raised her hand. “Because we must let the whites
be the ones who name the trouble.”
“And why is that?” I asked.
February said, “Because they need to know everything
before us. Because they need to name everything.”
“Good, good. You all are really sharp today. Okay, let’s
imagine now that it’s a grease fire. She’s left bacon
unattended on the stove. Mrs. Holiday is about to throw
water on it. What do you say? Rachel?”
Rachel paused. “Missums, that water gone make it wurs!”
“Of course, that’s true, but what’s the problem with that?”
Virgil said, “You’re telling her she’s doing the wrong
thing.”
I nodded. “So, what should you say?”
Lizzie looked at the ceiling and spoke while thinking it
through. “Would you like for me to get some sand?”
“Correct approach, but you didn’t translate it.”
She nodded. “Oh, Lawd, missums ma’am, you wan fo me to
gets some sand?”
“Good.”
“ ‘Gets some’ is hard to say.” This from Glory, the oldest
child. “The s’s.”
“That’s true,” I said. “And it’s okay to trip over it. In fact,
it’s good. You wan fo me to ge-gets s-s-some s-sand, Missum
Holiday?”
“What if they don’t understand?” Lizzie asked.
“That’s okay. Let them work to understand you. Mumble
sometimes so they can have the satisfaction of telling you not
to mumble. They enjoy the correction and thinking you’re
stupid. Remember, the more they choose to not want to
listen, the more we can say to one another around them.”
“Why did God set it up like this?” Rachel asked. “With
them as masters and us as slaves?”
“There is no God, child. There’s religion but there’s no
God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward
in the end. However, it apparently doesn’t say anything
about their punishment. But when we’re around them, we
believe in God. Oh, Lawdy Lawd, we’s be believin’. Religion
is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when
convenient.”
“There must be something,” Virgil said.
“I’m sorry, Virgil. You might be right. There might be some
higher power, children, but it’s not their white God.
However, the more you talk about God and Jesus and heaven
and hell, the better they feel.”
The children said together, “And the better they feel, the
safer we are.”
“February, translate that.”
“Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.”
“Nice.”
HUCK CAUGHT ME
—
as I was hauling sacks of chicken feed from
the buckboard to the shed in the back of the Widow
Douglas’s house. He was studying on something intently and
I could tell he wanted to talk.
“What be on yo mind, Huck?”
“Prayers,” he said. “Do you pray?”
“Yessir, I prays all the time.”
“What do you pray fer?” he asked.
“I prays for all sorta things. I pray once that the lil’ girl
February would get better when she be sick.”
“Did it work?”
“Well, she be better now.” I sat on the buckboard and
looked at the sky. “I pray fer rain once.”
“Did it work that time?”
“It did rain, sho nuff. Not right away, but ’ventually.”
“Then how you know God done it?”
“Reckon I don’t. But don’t God do everything? Who else
make it rain?”
Huck picked up a rock, studied it in his hand for a bit, then
hurled it at a squirrel high on an elm branch.
“Wanna know what I thinks?”
Huck looked at me.
“I thinks praying is for the people round you what wants
you to pray. Pray so Miss Watson and Widow Douglas hears
you and ask Jesus for what you knows dey wants. Make yer
life a sight easier.”
“Maybe.”
“Ever’ now and den toss in something like a new fishin’
pole or like dat so they can scold you.”
Huck nodded. “That makes sense. Jim, you believe in
God?”
“Why, sho nuff I does. If dere ain’t no God, den how we get
this here wonderful life? Naw, you run on and play.”
I watched as Huck ran on down the street and turned out
of sight around the corner in front of Judge Thatcher’s big
house. Old Luke came up behind me as I was about to hoist
the last sack up on my shoulder.
“You startled me,” I said.
“Sorry about that.” He hopped up and sat his short body
on the wagon bed. “What did that little peckerhead want?”
“That boy’s all right,” I said. “He’s just trying to figure
things out. Like the rest of us, I guess.”
“Have you heard about that McIntosh brother down in
St. Louis?”
I shook my head.
“Free man. Light like you. He got himself into a scuffle at
the docks and the police came and got him. He asked what
they were going to do to him for fighting. One of the police
said they were probably going to hang him. The brother
believed him. Why wouldn’t he? He pulled out his knife and
cut them both.”
A white man walked up and for some reason studied the
horse hitched to the wagon. Luke stopped talking. We tried
to not make eye contact with the man. We had been talking,
so we had to keep talking.
“Go on,” I said to Luke.
“Okee. So, blue gum monkey on up da alley jes lak Lucifer
done bit on da broomstick. And dem charlies be down on him
like white on rice. I means dey be on ’em lak dem bubbles on
soap.”
I nodded.
“Hey,” the white man shouted.
“Suh?” I said.
“This here horse belong to Miss Watson?”
“Naw, suh. The buckboard be belonging to Miss Watson.
Da horse be dat of Wida Douglas.”
“You think she wanna sell him?”
“I wouldn’t know dat, suh.”
“You ask her when you see her,” he said.
“Yessuh, I sho will.”
The man looked at the horse one more time, spread the
animal’s lips with his fingers and then walked away.
“What do you suppose a fool like that wants with a horse?
He doesn’t know anything about horses,” Luke said.
“This creature is hundred years old and can barely pull
this wagon when it’s dry and empty.”
“White people love to buy stuff,” Luke said.
“So, what happened to McIntosh?” I asked.
“They caught up to him and chained him to an oak tree,
piled sticks under him and burned him alive. I heard he
screamed for somebody to shoot him. Men yelled they’d
shoot the first person who tried to save him from his misery.”
I felt sick to my stomach, but it wasn’t so different from
many stories I’d heard. Still the day felt hotter and I realized
how sticky with sweat I was. “A terrible way to die,” I said.
“I suppose there’s no good way,” Luke said.
“I don’t know about that.”
“What do you mean?” Luke asked.
“I mean, we are going to die. Maybe all ways to die aren’t
bad. Maybe there’s a way to die that will satisfy me.”
“You’re talking crazy.”
I laughed.
Luke shook his head. “That wasn’t the worst part. Colored
people die every day; you know that. The worst part was
that the judge told the grand jury that it was an act of a
multitude and so they couldn’t recommend any indictments.
So, if enough people do it, it’s not a crime.”
“Good Lord,” I said. “Slavery.”
“Got that right,” Luke said. “If enough of them kill you,
they’re innocent. Guess what the judge’s name was.”
I waited.
“ ‘Lawless.’ ”
“Do you think we’ll ever get to go to someplace like
St. Louis or New Orleans?” I asked him.
“When we’s gets to heaben,” he said and winked.
We started to laugh and then we spotted a white man up
the road. There was nothing that irritated white men more
than a couple of slaves laughing. I suspected they were
afraid we were laughing at them or else they simply hated
the idea of us having a good time. Whatever the case, we
were slow to hush and so captured his attention. He’d heard
us and walked our way.
“What you boys gigglin’ like little girls ’bout?” he asked.
I’d seen the man before, but I didn’t know him. He tried to
strike a pose like a dangerous man. That made me more and
less afraid of him.
“We was wonderin’ if’n it be true?” Luke said.
“What be true?” the man asked.
“We be’s wonderin’ if’n dem streets in New Orleans really
is made a gol, lak dey say,” Luke said and looked at me.
“And if’n it be true dat when it flood, it flood da streets
with whisky. I ain’t never tasted no whisky, nosuh, but it sho
nuff look good.” I turned to Luke. “Don’t it look good ta you,
Luke?”
It was at this point that I imagined, for a second, that he
saw we were making fun of him, but he laughed big and said,
“It looks good ’cause it is good, boys.” He walked away
howling.
“He’s going to get drunk now, not so much because he
can, but because we can’t,” I said.
Luke chuckled. “So, when we see him staggering around
later acting the fool, will that be an example of proleptic
irony or dramatic irony?”
“Could be both.”
“Now that would be ironic.