The first thing I noticed was the uniform. I’d seen an Army uniform before, but usually on paler skin, or partially constructed—an Army shirt with blue jeans or Army trousers with a white T-shirt. I’d see the wearer holding a bottle of Coca Cola or a glass of iced tea on a late summer afternoon, surrounded by family members celebrating his return. Carvall, however, wore his full dress uniform—hat, tie, and all—which made the other passengers pause a moment and take notice. In turn, Carvall seemed uncomfortable with the attention, which might have been why he chose to sit down right next to me instead of taking advantage of the empty bench that faced us. He slid his duffel bag beneath the seat, then removed his hat and placed it on his lap.
“Man, if I only knew that it was going to be this hot today,” he said to what I first assumed was no one in particular. “Glad to be leaving? I think I am, too. Especially on days like today.”
“Where are you from?” I asked. I’m not usually interested in conversation, but the anticipation of our departure made me a little nervous, and I was longing to pass the time until the train actually moved us away, as if, at any moment, a cop or spirit or storm could come and trap us here in a pile of bruises or thick mud or regret. Talking, I figured, might keep the clouds and mists, or at least idle time, away.
“Florida,” he answered. “But I was stationed down in Mississippi.” He folded up his hat and stuffed it into his pocket. “Where are you heading?”
My eyes fell to my hands. “All the way to the end. Pittsburgh. Buffalo maybe.”
“Me, too. I plan on getting a good job up there and never look back. Steel mill. Milkman. I don’t care.” After wiping his palms against his trousers, as if preparing himself for a day’s work, Carvall extended his hand and properly introduced himself. He had broad hands, scratched as those of someone who’d worked in the field, and an enormous, luminous, straight smile. I didn’t ask about his Army rank, or if Carvall was his first or last name. “Going to get me some respect, too,” he continued. “That’s important. Yes, sir. Those Negroes in the Army taught me that, the ones from the North. They demand respect.”
“My name’s Minister,” I said as we shook hands.
“Minister?”
“Yes.”
“Was your father a minister?” he asked.
“No.” I could tell he was surprised by my answer.
“Did they want you to be a minister?”
“Not that they mentioned.”
“So why did they name you Minister?”
“I’m not sure.” To me it was just a name, and I’d never thought about it much. “Never had a reason to ask.” Before Carvall had a chance to respond, I added, “Maybe they thought it was regal.”
“Ain’t nothing regal about any of the ministers I know.”
“Maybe they thought I needed the Lord.”
Carvall stared at me for a while before smiling. “Well, I knew guys named Deacon so I guess it’s about the same, huh.” I smiled back. “The guys at the base used to make fun of my name. They said I got my name because my daddy was probably a ‘car full’ of niggas. Get it? Car full?” We both laughed. “So, Minister, what do they call you for short?”
“Nothing, really. People rarely use my first name, and if they do, they rarely say it more than once.”
“Why? You important or something?”
“I don’t think so.”
He pulled a packet of gum from his uniform pocket and, realizing it was empty, crumpled it back into his pocket. “So no nickname?”
“Nope.”
“What do your own people call you? The people who know you.”
I didn’t want to talk about my family and hoped he didn’t ask about any friends. I thought about my daughter, lying here deep in the southern earth, and about who would take care of her when I was gone. “I’m not sure.”
“Shit, even ghosts have names.” Carvall settled himself into the seat with a renewed purpose. “Well, then, that’s what we’ll do. By the end of this train ride we’ll find you a decent name.”
I expected him to loosen his tie in preparation for the long journey, but instead he straightened it and looked out the window closest to us, searching its contents for a solution to the equation that was me.
* * *
Divinion and Lanah were the last two people to settle their things, although I’d seen them enter the train long before I did; they switched seats multiple times before selecting the last two in the coach, the ones across from Carvall and me. Like many of the passengers they were dressed in their First Sunday best, but their First Sunday apparel was of higher quality than many of us were fortunate enough to own—Divinion wore a tie that seemed to change in hue and pattern as you watched it, and Lanah flaunted strand after strand of white pearls, which shimmered a watery blue under the right glint of the sun, resplendent. She was stunning in a beige dress with cream lace and accents. Lanah was lighter-skinned, Divinion darker; the two complemented each other. Divinion removed his fedora and wiped his handkerchief across his brow, while Lanah waited some time to take off her wide-brimmed hat. When she finally did, I noticed that she had mesmerizing eyes, whose liquid hazelnut brilliance exuded clarity of soul. Once they were settled—Divinion by the window, Lanah on the aisle with a small valise on her lap—Carvall introduced himself and stretched his hand out to Divinion, who shook it with the same warmth that was offered before introducing himself and his wife.
“Where did you serve?” Divinion asked.
Before Carvall had a chance to answer, Lanah asked me, “Do you know how long this trip is going to take?”
“They say about a day,” I answered.
“About a day,” she repeated to Divinion.
“It’ll be over sooner than you think,” Divinion replied.
Lanah then reached a gloved hand into her purse, pulled out two wrapped pieces of hard candy, gave one to Divinion, and opened the other for herself. She placed the candy on her tongue, looked away from all of us through the window across the aisle, and waited until the train pulled away from the station—into the expanding sunlight, away from the station’s shadow and gravity—to swallow. I looked out the same window, towards the shrinking platform, curious as to what interested her so much, because all I saw was a chaos of insects and ash and tin cans filled with tobacco spittle rusting in the sun. I saw a woman standing at the station counter trying to purchase a ticket. An old man sat on a bench near the platform, staring intently in the direction the train had traveled from, as if he were waiting for something else, something better, to follow.
The train rattled, metal jolting metal, as cinders and traces of coal streaked the windows—each flake the color of pepper, carrying its sharp scent throughout the coach; you had to blink through the fog of heat, noise, sweat, and conversation to maintain your bearings. Unlike Divinion, I wiped my brow with the back of my hand for fear that my handkerchief would never dry.
We were moving, but on that platform that old man’s gaze didn’t change. We were on the only daily train; no others would follow. What was he waiting for? My father? My uncle? A slave ship? A tall ship? Something ancient to return? But there was only smoke.
We were like the nautical travelers of ages ago, headed towards the edge of the earth, unconcerned with falling over. All we had was faith and what we could barely see beside or behind us, but we were eager for change, anything different, even drowning. By the next morning we would be reborn. Deep down, many of us didn’t trust or believe the newspapers and store catalogues that had promised a better life hundreds of miles colder. Many of those who’d traveled north before us had never returned, or we’d never heard from them again. As far as we knew, we were heading straight for the precipice, into salvation or perdition, and we were fine with either.
* * *
We were in motion for fifteen minutes before Divinion introduced himself to me as well, and t
hen Lanah followed suit. It was not a lack of openness or politeness; it seemed that Carvall and Divinion had formed a quick rapport around which Lanah and I circled. Divinion hadn’t served in the military but at one time had worked for the WPA out west and afterwards found himself fascinated with any portion of America that wasn’t the South. He’d returned eager to leave the South again, and when the opportunity to move north and make a comfortable living in the steel mills presented itself, he bought one-way tickets for himself and his new wife.
“Chance to see more of this big world, you know,” Divinion announced. He mentioned that he had family close to our train’s route.
I thought again of the family I’d left safely buried in the holy earth. I wanted to tell him about my uncle out west, just to enter the circle that was forming between him and Carvall, but before I spoke I realized that all I had was the myth of adventure, nothing certain, and nothing that I could claim as my own.
We exchanged overviews of our family genealogy to see if there was a blood connection between us, but oddly enough we couldn’t find any. Nonetheless, we agreed to consider each other cousins for the duration of our time together, as much to cement the bond we’d formed among ourselves as to shut others out of our burgeoning conversation.
“Were you overseas?” Lanah asked Carvall. “I have family overseas.”
“Yes, ma’am, I was in France.”
She straightened her back. “France? Why, that’s where my family is from.”
“I didn’t see too much of it, though.”
I wanted to ask Lanah what family she had in France, where I imagined clear blue skies cut by swifts or the contrails of war machines, but instead I skipped ahead in my thoughts and asked Carvall, “Did you see any airplanes shot down?”
“What?” he asked in reply.
Before I had a chance to explain—I’d only seen a few airplanes by then, and I wanted to know how quickly something so magical could fall through the cold, damp air—Divinion waved his hand dismissively and leaned forward to ask: “You make it with any of those French girls? I heard...”
“Divinion,” Lanah interrupted, as Carvall just smiled; yet she looked at him as if waiting for an answer.
“Okay, okay,” Divinion laughed. “They let you kill any white people?”
“I sure tried.”
This time the two laughed together, Divinion slapping Carvall on the knee as he leaned into his hard-backed seat. I didn’t join in, not because I didn’t want to but because my focus was still on explaining myself, formulating my question in a better way. By that time Divinion and Carvall had moved on, and they made the subsequent conversation their own private joke, impenetrable, cultivated over easy time. Lanah kept staring at Carvall for a while, then looked over at me and smiled, as if my silence were an attempt to prove that I was above it all. She was right: I was hiding the part of me that wanted to join the camaraderie and brotherhood. I could admit that only to myself, though, and begrudgingly.
Divinion smacked his lips. “Hell, no white man is ever going to let a nigga kill another white man, German or not. White folks are too smart to start that shit.”
“Still, I tried.” They laughed again.
“I bet you did, brother,” Divinion said. “I bet you did.”
Lanah leaned forward into the mottled sunlight and asked, “Did you keep your gun?”
With a sly, bashful grin Carvall acknowledged the innuendo, which Divinion felt obligated to punctuate by asking, “Which gun do you mean, honey?” Lanah smirked as Divinion laughed at his own joke.
Lanah leaned in even closer and gave Carvall an even slyer smile. “Did you keep your black pistol?”
“Why are you getting personal with that man?” Divinion protested. When the three of us just ignored him, he added, “Maybe he got it shot off?” He turned to Carvall. “You get it shot off?”
“Can I see it?” Lanah whispered.
“Goodness, now you want to see the man’s gun?” Divinion asked.
“Yes,” Lanah answered without looking at him, continuing her game, piercing Carvall slowly with her stare. “I want to see that long. Hard. Black. Steel. Gun.” She was savoring each morsel of Carvall’s discomfort, as if every one of his uncomfortable swallows were a ripened delicacy. She smiled even broader as she noticed, then savored, the same discomfort in me.
Saving us both, Divinion erupted into another burst of laughter—nervous, perhaps, but just as boisterous as true laughter would have been—and shook his head. “Now you know they ain’t give no nigga no gun. Barely let him leave with the one he come in with. You mean more like a wash pail. Or a fry pan. Or a mop. A floppy mop. That’s all they gave niggas in the service.”
Lanah leaned back in her seat and allowed her husband to change the subject.
From then on they talked freely amongst themselves but little to me, as if I were only an observer and not as interesting as I fashioned myself to be initially. In turn, I shared little, kept quiet, opened my lunch pail, and ate last night’s leftovers as the minutes passed. On the road to the station I’d realized that I hadn’t brought a book or a newspaper with me, but I’d decided not to return for one—not that I expected conversation on my journey, maybe just a little wonderment to keep me occupied. Instead, I spent the time stealing as many glances at Lanah as each moment offered, then looking out at the high dust of the South Carolina afternoon, watching for butterflies as the sunlight coated the fields.
The rattling of cargo and bones was punctuated by the train bell as we approached stations, about one every hour, where more passengers got on board but few disembarked. There were two bells as we approached, three as we were to depart. Each stop could last half an hour, or sometimes what felt like several hours, as people and luggage were crammed inside or on top. There were cardboard boxes filled with cracked porcelain, and dime store jewels only precious for the memory of the souls who’d once worn them. I watched porters and engineers walk along the sides of the coach—one on the platform, the other on the tracks—and grimace. I turned to look behind me, hoping to see beyond the passengers to the front of the train.
Each coach filled with more souls; some stood, but few talked, fewer laughed, and no one else entered our row, which I attributed to the sharp look Lanah gave any man, woman, or child who tried. It was as if she’d chosen her court, and no one else needed attend. A little boy in a suit stared at her for a moment, mesmerized, before looking to me for an explanation of who she was and why she was on a train like this with us. As an answer, she produced a folding Chinese fan—black lacquered to look expensive, with red silk and gold embroidered cranes—and opened it with a flourish, then lazily waved it as a comfort and a shield between herself and the others.
“I could have ridden first class,” she finally admitted.
“What? Lord knows I paid enough for these tickets here,” Divinion replied.
“I could have.” She had the complexion and demeanor for it.
“Now, Lanah,” Divinion began again.
“I could have walked right up there to that ticket counter, spoke a little French.”
“You know French?” I asked, finding my voice again.
“Barely,” Divinion tried to answer for her.
“Enough,” Lanah replied.
“How do you know what’s enough?” Divinion turned to me. “She learned some from this old Creole boy.”
“Still, it was French.”
“They probably speak something completely different over in France.”
“French is French. As far as those crackers know. Those white folks would have let me right in.” She adjusted her gloves as if that, along with the gloves themselves, were proof. “Except you stopped me.”
“They would have stopped you.”
Lanah shook her head. “Maybe, but they didn’t, you stopped me.”
“We would have b
een apart, honey,” Divinion added.
“You can take care of yourself for a little while, can’t you?” Lanah wasn’t interested in his answer. “Doesn’t matter now. But that’s the problem. Black men are always trying to keep Black women down. Trying to tell them what they can and can’t do, only because they can or can’t do it themselves.”
“That’s what you think.”
“It’s true. Y’all just feel small so you try to make us feel small, too.”
“Small to who?”
“To every white man y’all see.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Deny it all you want.”
“I ain’t never felt small to a white man my entire life.”
“Honey, you were born feeling that way. You just got used to it.”
“You ever seen what those crackers can do? Really do?”
“They’re just men,” Carvall interjected.
“No, sir,” Divinion continued. “Real men don’t do what I’ve seen, do that to another person. I’ve seen the bodies of Black folks swinging from the trees, all charred with the skin falling off. I’ve walked miles of roads at night where they left dead Black boys to rot in the dirt along the side. That is, what pieces of those boys were left. An arm here. An arm there. Just left for the crows.”
“And you kept walking.” Lanah added.
“What?”
“You didn’t do anything but keep walking. You just walked away.”
“What would you have had me do?” Again, Divinion waved his dismissal. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He pulled Lanah closer to him and smiled. “Besides, walked right into you, didn’t I?”
“Hm,” was all she answered.
The Salt Fields Page 3