I knew very well that the negro controlled almost nothing in this world, having that white hand strangled around our necks so tight, with our sights in constant view of what little we had—our toil and our souls and our God—His land a bounty stretched in front of me, belonging only to the white man. That surge of blood coursed through my brain and caused those few cars on the road before me to burn red hot beneath the sun as it cast mirages over the fields like a sea of watery graves out amongst the cotton and peat moss, graves that ran for miles in both directions and caused the soil to sway just like that vast ocean it mimed, those graves placed out there for the just folk, I knew, someplace my Henry most likely laid.
For here, the negro worked, his hands grown harder and his heart just the same, his hair not flowing and dainty but rough, his eyes a darkness that grew to handle the sun, and his feet a plagued callus he stood upon. Looking up from my seat of discontent I found the Missus still in her frustrated state and felt my stomach sour, my tongue water with urge to speak, and my hands tremble from that struggle to hold it all down. I could say so many things at that moment but knew Floyd was right, and so I kept quiet, forcing those thoughts back into the depths of my mind for God’s watchful eye to keep. Instead, I remembered Henry as I did each night, and his smile gave me peace. I thought of Floyd and acted like the good nigger I was supposed to be as I watched the land along with the Missus, the cotton a misery to me that she prayed would always be present in our lives, something my daddy knew and his daddy before him, too—that whiteness to be a devil.
CHAPTER 9
The Mississippi summer seemed to grow hotter each year, and that summer of 1967 was no different. Lord willing, we would make it through. The buds of the pagoda dogwood hung low, fanned out over the horizon in a white pageantry of pomp and dance, circumstance enough for us to walk amongst the fields in admiration of their splendor, which the Missus and I did almost every morning before the sun rose too high and suffocated us in its grief. She’d taken to having two showers a day, yet even then the heat was unbearable, that lasting kindness of a spring day long gone while in its wake stood the bearer of oppression. Even during the night we stayed out from under covers, as the sun never fully retired, even if it did turn its head.
In slow succession we made our way from the kitchen to the front porch, Miss Lula unwilling to sit indoors on any day now that there were workers in the fields. She was excited by the work of those men, insisting to me how she could just never spend so much time under that hot sun, how she could live a hundred years and never grow to like it one bit and how those people just got it in their blood. She had kept her good spirits since her recovery and seemed to strengthen each day we watched those men, calling for vast amounts of time in my company, which kept me from the fields. On occasion, Floyd would toss a wave or send over some piece of fruit he’d plucked from a tree out back. Missus never ate any, yet she enjoyed it all the same, that feeling of connectedness that grew just by being present with those around her. Often Floyd would join us on the porch once his gift was presented, resting his dog-tired feet and exhaling loudly as he took in the shade and a cold glass of water, the remainder of that glass’s contents serving as a cool bath over his head as he stood and went back to work. When Jesse returned after having taken a week off from the house, some excuse he’d given about a trip to Jackson or thereabout, Floyd sent him over with the plucked item that still bore the leaves of the tree on its stem.
“Bernie, go wash it,” Miss Lula demanded as Jesse presented it.
Ain’t never eaten one bite a day in her life and now she wanted to try it.
Jesse placed the fruit in my hand and watched as I walked it inside, his hand having been confiscated by the Missus who prevented him from leaving. I hurried to the kitchen with the fruit nearly falling to the ground in my haste. Nonetheless, by the time I’d washed it and returned, Jesse was seated by the Missus with her hand upon his shoulder to keep him there. My attempts at catching the boy’s eye were blocked each time by the Missus’s protruding knee.
“Jesse,” I called in a voice that screeched from my body like shoddy brakes.
His eyes met mine in a state of panic.
“Take a piece back for you and Floyd,” I instructed him.
Jesse attempted to stand but was stopped immediately by the Missus’s grip as she squeezed his shoulder and he eased back to the ground.
“If only for a bit,” she said slyly. “Floyd does it all the time.”
Jesse settled at the Missus’s feet, a stiffness in his movements that never allowed him to get too comfortable, I was happy to see.
“So how’s it been so far?” the Missus asked.
“Just fine, Miss,” Jesse said.
“Well, I don’t see how you manage with this heat,” she continued.
“It’s not so bad, Miss,” he said. “Once you get used to it.”
“I tell you, I’d just melt in a minute,” she said. “Can barely keep up with Bernie as it is in the mornings.”
“Yes, Miss,” he replied.
“So tell me, how’s your brother?” she asked, that bit of devilment finally peeking through as she lifted her lip and flashed her piercing fangs. “We sure do miss him around here.”
“He be fine, Miss,” Jesse said.
“Wished we could’ve kept him,” she swore, placing her sights on me now. “Just ain’t enough work sometimes. Nothing you can do though.”
“He understands,” Jesse said. “Mama sent him down to Jackson this summer with my aunt and uncle.”
“This’s no place for a smart boy like him anyway,” she said with a smile.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“But, Jesse, you gonna stay, right?” Miss Lula asked.
“Of course, Miss,” he said. “I likes it here.”
“Good, then we’ll have to have you stop by more often,” she said, her smile growing larger. “Maybe let you help out in the house as well.”
“Thank you, Miss,” he said warmly, oblivious to her undertones.
“Well, I best not keep you or else Floyd will pitch a fit,” she said. “But be sure to stop by tomorrow and we’ll see what work we have for you inside.”
Jesse stood and took the pieces of fruit from my hand, the Missus watching this exchange as if she were a referee awaiting some action that was against the rules. Jesse turned to her, their eyes meeting just as they had on that one day inside the house. Jesse was young and knew beauty, but he also knew not to stare at a white woman too long, and so he quickly made snug the fruit in his hands and took off at a slight jog toward the fields.
The Missus exhaled then turned to me, having lost that smile or any bit of encouragement that would assure me she was still in good spirits.
“Don’t be mad, Bernie,” she said. “It’s just a bit of fun.”
Miss Lula then returned her eyes to the fields and the workers there, later adding once things were much quieter and the sun had completely passed away, “I think it’s a change of heart I’m having, but who can know for sure.”
I didn’t believe her as much as I would a drunk in a bar pleading for another round. That night I took Floyd inside the backhouse and disclosed to him the events of that day. I told him about the Missus’s lust for the boy, as I saw it, and insisted we keep him away from the main house as long as possible. Whatever she was planning, it would happen soon, I said, and could possibly cost the boy his life. It was decided between us to keep this bitter knowledge to ourselves, forcing Silva to remain in the dark a while longer, at least until we knew for sure what the Missus would do. In the meantime, Floyd would take Jesse farther out each day and have him work where the Missus had no chance of seeing him. Floyd would still bring fruit by the house as usual, so as not to draw attention to our deceit, but only at certain times when the Missus was not present, and he would place it on the front porch as if he’d somehow missed
us so that she could never inquire about the boy. We would keep this up until further details of her heart were known.
CHAPTER 10
The next day we walked, the Missus and I, around the tulip trees and the magnolias that stretched high up. We followed the paths the tractors left then crisscrossed the fields’ narrow rows. We found a shaded area and slowed our speed then hightailed it to high heavens within a hotspot that had no trees to block the sun. We walked faster until we’d cleared that devil’s beloved playground before finally slowing to our normal pace as we continued toward the sticker bushes and other shrubs outside the house.
The Missus was a thing of beauty, her shawl wrapped around her hair like a turban, her golden ringlets falling in atypical places that made her seem almost thrown together with an effortlessness that befell her like rain. Her eyes looked about her with a sense of expectancy, somehow aware of the future, with no need to wait, hope, or pray as us regular mortals. For her eyes were bent to God as one who commanded His armies and walked with the conviction of that One who had breathed life into every man, and with this she knew her power.
Once our walk had ended beside the shaded porch, she insisted we take another, that omniscience she had leading her to see things I couldn’t, as she declared more animated than at any other time that she just wasn’t tired yet.
“Another?” Silva protested, emerging from the house with drinks to conclude our stroll.
The Missus smiled.
“Here,” Silva said. “At least drink this so you don’t turn to stone.”
Miss Lula took the glass and sipped it slowly, turning to me, for I had not yet accepted mine. Her gaze was sinful, having trapped all that Tree of Knowledge had to give and possessing it now fully in her sights.
“You two, I swear,” Silva fussed.
“Better know good advice when you hear it,” the Missus instructed me.
I reluctantly lifted the glass and drank, the coolness rushing down my throat just as the condensation fell along my wrist and forearm, that chill meeting almost immediately with the sulfur that encases a coconspirator’s heart. I couldn’t stand the sight of Silva, knowing my deceit, yet couldn’t stand the sight of Miss Lula either. Once our glasses were both empty, I was eager to return to the fields, where Miss Lula and I sat with our backs facing each other, feet in the grass, alone in our plots.
The heat provoked a shorter route this time, just around the white flowers and bull bays east of the plantation. Miss Lula picked at their buds while I sat with my hands at my ankles and fanned the flies that dared approach. The Missus looked around for some specific target yet never seemed to find it, her eyes darting wildly and never settling even once in my company. I spied her movements like my very own shadow that bent then spread then covered the world around me. She walked with her hands clasped tightly as the wind kicked up dust, pushing it before her as if it somehow steered the way. Around one corner she met the contempt of a thousand gusts, while around another sat a wind sent straight from the swells of Hades, leaving her blinded for minutes at a time as she marched with one hand out front and the other covering her nose and mouth. Once the blustery assault drew tears from the Missus that were too numerous to continue, she gave up her mission, and we both returned to the house without a single word.
At the porch the fruit awaited us, bundled by a single thread of yarn and placed inside a bowl beside the Missus’s chair. She looked at it furiously, having lost that bit of omniscience that would have surely warned of such an occurrence.
“What’s this?” she said. “What am I, a dog? Some beast that has its food left on the ground until it eats? I would think I’m better than that. Wouldn’t you say?”
“I reckon they were busy today, Miss,” I tried. “Floyd never means any harm.”
“I don’t like what it implies, Bernice,” she said. “Ain’t no decency in it.”
“Yes, Miss,” I replied.
“I won’t stand for it,” she said. “Tell him not to bring it anymore if he’s gonna do it like this, or we’ll just chop the whole damn tree down. Fine with me either way.”
The Missus stamped off and was not seen outdoors for the rest of the evening. Silva snooped to discover the motive for the Missus’s foul mood yet quit her efforts when she deemed it best to stay out of her way or else she’d get an earful, too.
Mr. Kern had settled in his parlor beneath the murky light. He sat with his paper and his pipe, his eyes a magnet to those words even as the Missus crept in, easing by him with the tote containing her needlework and a blanket in case she got cold. She sat in a corner of the room opposite him where her frustrations could be clearly seen, although it still took several minutes for Mr. Kern to actually acknowledge her presence.
“Guess I might tell Floyd to watch the pigs tonight to make sure they don’t fly away,” Mr. Kern said without looking up.
“He should be told many things but not that,” she said sharply.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, finally placing aside his paper.
“Nothing,” she swore. “Just some of his workers should be more careful, that’s all.”
“Then I’ll tell him tonight,” he said. “Anything I should know?”
“No,” she answered before drawing her next words more kindly than she’d uttered any other. “Just some things out of place I noticed this morning during my walk. Nothing too important, but it still bears telling.”
“Good,” he said.
“But let me tell him,” she insisted. “I wants to make sure he knows exactly where we saw them so that he knows for next time. You knows how I hate having to repeat myself.”
“If you wants to, handle it,” he said. “But tell me, how is it this heat don’t bother you no more? Walking every day now.”
“It’s not so bad,” she answered playfully, scrunching her face and rolling her eyes. “Once you get used to it.”
These words brought a smile to her face that lasted longer than the amount of time it took for her to say them, as if a thought had latched onto her heart and wouldn’t let go. Later that evening, she found Floyd outside the stables, still with that smile blatant as ever.
“Evening, Miss,” he said as she approached.
“I swear it is,” she replied. “Can’t be nothing else.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Tomorrow we’ll have work for Silva’s boy Jesse inside the house,” she said. “Shouldn’t take all day. I meant to tell you earlier but you weren’t around. Just send him to the main house around noon. Should have him back within an hour or two before you can even miss him. You can send him with fruit, too, if you like.”
The Missus turned and walked toward the house, a scowl covering her face as if it hurt her to breathe. Then, without a single thought to make it reasonable in the world, she turned and smiled as she waved to Floyd in likeness to a beauty queen on a parade float.
“I swear she crazy!” Floyd protested later that night as we sat in his back quarters. “Done gone plum mad. That boy can’t come back here. Ain’t safe.”
Even if I agreed with him, there was little we could do aside from telling Silva who would rave stark mad at our theories of the Missus’s attempts to taint her boy or, even worse, bring him harm.
“If we tell her, I swear it’s only going to bring more problems for not only Jesse but Silva too,” I said, as I was sure Silva would have no patience with the Missus and would go and get herself killed. “This thing involves a lot more people than just those two. It’s all of us now.”
It was for this reason that I agreed to watch the boy while he worked inside the house, never leaving him alone with the Missus and “never givin’ ’er a chance ta ruin him,” as Floyd insisted.
Jesse was sent for around noon the next day, that coldhearted being taking no chances the boy would not show and instead sending Silva to claim him. Si
lva left the house to me as she ventured outdoors to the back stable. Miss Lula and I sat at the kitchen table, the young woman’s chatter a breathless assemblage of words and sometimes mere guttural sounds as she reviewed her plans for the work to be done. She would rearrange the entire house, she insisted, as long as it took.
“You mind your business and be done,” I said to Jesse as soon as he entered, taking his ear privately when Silva and the Missus weren’t looking. “You got one job to do, and then you get back to Floyd to help him out. Cool air doesn’t mean a thing if everyone can’t enjoy it.”
Jesse smiled with that look of trouble, kidding as he normally did, although my pinch to his arm straightened him right up.
“You make sure you mind your manners around Miss, too,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he finally said, fixing his face rather quickly.
“You do your job and be gone, or else I’ll box your ears.”
Miss Lula seized the boy’s arm, pulling him to the table, although she was halfhearted in her reproach.
“We have work to do, son,” she said. “Standing around’ll see you passed up at heaven’s gate. Now you don’t wanna be left behind with the rest of them, do you?”
Silva noticed the boy’s eyes still on me and prepared him for a lecture.
“Jesse,” Silva said sternly, “you listen real good and pay attention now.”
Miss Lula smiled at this bit of chastisement.
“It’s okay,” she promised. “Work inside the house can’t be that exciting for a boy like him. Most boys prefer to be outdoors anyway. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“Still,” Silva demanded.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jesse said to both Miss Lula and Silva respectively.
Jesse started his work inside the kitchen, forcing both Silva and myself to find duties elsewhere. During that time I took up chores in the barn, staying as close to that outside portion as possible, where you could hear a fluff of cotton fall from its stem if you listened closely enough. Silva kept busy in the upstairs quarters while the Missus walked about the outer stables, passing me every so often, yet never saying a word. She hadn’t spoken to me or the boy since he’d entered. He worked a decent shift that day. By the evening, Miss Lula sent him back and promised she would call if need be.
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