by Kola Boof
When the wagon come from up north bringing the new girl that the Sullivans had purchased from Heyden’s Bed and Breakfast in New Netherlands, Ain’t Sarah was waiting right there, her wrinkled black hands chained together by arthritic fingers, and her backside bent over with a minor hump in it as she now looked older than God. In fact, people thought sure she had crossed the one hundred mark.
“Heah it come, Ain’t Sarah”, said the little barefoot black chillens as they skipped around the sway of her broom and tugged on her skirt coat. “Heah come the new nigga gal, Ain’t Sarah. Alla way from up Norrf!”
She was a pretty thing, too. Sad faced, of course, because she was young and had been sold away from her mammy and pappy, but even with the long face, the field Africans liked her looks right away. She was plump, cushy and round as men liked women in those days, but not too fat and Mammy-sized like Ain’t Sarah had become.
She was dark fudge and shiny as fresh molasses and said her slave name was Queenie Hampton, but that her slave daddy had named her “Remember” in secret. Ain’t Sarah nodded, knowingly, and whispered, “I keep yoh sicrit, chile. You daddy muss not been born from here like dese new niggas now days. I from Africa myself. My son was de kang over back yonder, but he soul us like a bag uh chrissmas nigga toes--come to find out he’s a slave his own self now down in Georgia. Hoodi slave. Anyway, you come on here, you got to meet your new master and his chillens.”
Queenie Hampton was taken to the bedroom of Master Bob Sullivan, an old, old, old white man who could barely see and never got out of bed anymore. He farted his hello, but his children, Marsa Jefferson and Miss Britney Jane Sullivan, they welcomed Queenie and were just as prim and proper, inviting the new girl to have a plate of honey with a biscuit and a glass of sugar water before she got out to the fields to start her new life.
Ain’t Sarah hated going in that damned Sullivan kitchen, because that’s where the house niggers were. Some of them, like old Mammy Pauline and her castrated husband William were still Africans, but most them were high yaller and cinnamon brown rape babies. They proved they were worthy to live with whites by developing and displaying a scornful, snobbish hatred for the field Africans whose blood they had come from, and quite frankly, Ain’t Sarah thought it was understandable that they would believe that their white blood made them superior to the pure blacks, because after all, they spoke better English than the field Africans, they had a strange grade of hair that could more easily mimic the look of their slave master’s hair, their facial features took on a slimmer quality than the royal negroid features of the pure blacks, and they smelled better than field Africans and kept themselves cleaner being in the house all day, and they were usually adored and taken into confidence by their white masters--some were even taught to play chess, others, both male and female, were used as sexual concubines, and God help any girl that grew into a beautiful mulatto woman, because she was often the object of not only her master’s lustful indulgence, but also the vitriolic jealousy of his pale lily white wife.
Ain’t Sarah had seen many a mulatto beauty beaten and kicked by the rage filled white wife, even stabbed to death while pregnant with their master’s babies--but still--those mulatto babies would toss their long, wavy hair out of their light colored faces and regard Ain’t Sarah and the other field Africans as though they were living, breathing pieces of shit.
This new breed that the field Africans called “authentic niggers” really did like being yellow and they guarded that yellow skin best they could, making sure as possible to breed in-house, and if possible, yellower.
The only one who wasn’t like that was the girl child that had been born from Roo Ife Ife (Hattie Mae) before she died--Red Annie (the white folks called her Anna Mae). Not only was Red Annie beautiful, but she was a conjure woman and made it known that she not only felt a psychic bond to the field Africans, but that she preferred them to Caucasoid and house niggers. She had a pretty little brown daughter named Jemima who hung by her petticoats.
“We got a new nigga heah”, said Ain’t Sarah as they entered the kitchen. “Massa say give us some honey and a biscuit. Lemonade, too.” She winked at Queenie knowing damn well that Miss Britney said sugar water.
Red Annie took one look at Queenie Hampton and stopped stirring the pot she was tending. She turned round, took off her apron and walked over slowly. She and Ain’t Sarah’s clothes were made of osnaburg cloth (coarsely woven flecks of bastardized cotton seed), but fudge brown Queenie’s dress was real nice pure cotton and her dark brow was poised intelligently. Red Annie say, “You don’t look lak no slave. Whuss you name gal?”
“Queenie Hampton--I come from an establishment on Manhattan Island, New Netherlands. My master was Mr. Tom Hampton, my parents were Delbert (Shange) and Night Hampton.”
“Dat ain’t yo name, heffa. Whut you real name is?”
“Ah...well...my daddy calls me ‘Remember’, but that’s a secret.”
Red Annie burst out laughing and said, “Thass yo name and I know who you is!”
“I beg your pardon, miss.”
“You’re that fish girl I been see’n in my dreams lass few monfs. Half woman, half fish--swimm’n off de coast ‘a Carolina.”
“Don’t pay Red Annie no mind”, say Ain’t Sarah. “She tetched in de head, sometime she kin see the few-cha, sometime she kin read minds, sometime she jess plain crazy.”
Red Annie’s stare bore into Queenie’s brain, her hazel eyes frightening the girl as she said, “I ain’t crazy--you come here to find my brother, ain’t ‘cha? My brother yo man, ain’t he?”
“Your brother?”
“Yessum. Shango Carolina. Big tall black field nigga, finest man on Sullivan soil. Dess my brother. He da only one my mammy kept ‘fo she died.” Little Jemima stared up at her mama while she talked. “I got another brother, but he yeller like me ‘n wuk as Marse Jefferson’s valet. He don’t sociate wid me much, doh. On account my head nappy ‘n his wavy.”
Red Annie liked Queenie so much that she said forget the lemonade, forget the sugar water--she went and got her secret stash of barmonia weed and poured hot water over it, as house slaves did in those days, to make tea. Then she took a pewter pitcher, poured in the tea, added some sugar and a shot of whiskey and served it round merrily. She told Queenie, “YOU...is a house heffa tiday, have you someth’n ta drank, chile.”
The women laughed and sipped their tea, completely unaware that they were being watched by Hog Mall, a big mean tar colored slave who worked as assistant overseer and loved nothing more than seeing other slaves get whipped to death. Ain’t Sarah he hated in particular, because she always sang pretty spirit songs for the other slaves when they got beat or was sick, but never for him, on account he was such a tattletale. He lurked in the pantry behind the canned goods, peeking through the cracks so as to get a good look at the new slave girl. He often raped the new girls, because with his rank and power on the plantation, he could do just about whatever he pleased.
Red Annie noticed the “charm string” tied around Queenie’s wrist and went on to asking her questions about that. Slave girls up north were notorious, at that time, for wearing a piece of string tied around their wrist and adding items to it, such as beads, buttons off people’s clothes, clothes pins, until some of them were six and seven feet long, and supposedly brought good luck. The northern male slaves made do with a rabbit’s foot, their status amongst each other rising immediately once they had one, and in the south, of course, the West African cowrie shell was still in abundance, the slaves passing them and ga Dai (watermelon seeds) down, generation to generation, as far as they could and trying to keep white people from noticing them.
“I heard that a lot of slaves up nawth talk in strange languages, too”, said Red Annie, suddenly.
“Yes”, agreed Queenie. “We have a lot of Dutch families on Manhattan Island and they own a lot of Africans. Up north, we don’t have plantations, and many of the homes only have one or two slaves. It’s common, really, to see
niggers speaking Dutch where I come from.” And then, as Hog Mall eavesdropped from the pantry, the new girl said, “Ik...hou..van..jou maan.”
Both Ain’t Sarah and Red Annie got real nervous and quiet, but they asked her what she’d said.
“I said--I love the moon--in Dutch.”
“Girl, you betta hesh up”, whispered Red Annie. “Massas down south will cut you tongue out fer speak’n another language other den Anglash.”
“Dey scurred”, said Ain’t Sarah, “that the African slaves gone pass the devil languages to the baby niggas. I know, ‘cause I’m one outlaw nigga bitch myself. I whisper my words in black nigga babies ears in my cabin come night. I sholl have spoke it whenever I could.”
Hog Mall heard everything.
Ain’t Sarah leaned into Queenie Hampton’s face and said, “Tokomuno ekibah nongo shebafa.”
And Queenie Hampton knew exactly what Ain’t Sarah had said, because her father, Delbert (Shange), back in Manhattan spoke the same language in secret. But, luckily, she didn’t answer the old woman, just smiled.
And Hog Mall took his whip and come out from the pantry and he say, “I’m gwine tell Miss Britney Jane Sullivan bout you speak’n da devil’s languages--old nigga bitch you!”
Red Annie screamed! She forgot that little Jemima was clinging to her petticoats. Her hands went over her mouth in horror as she ran to Hog Mall, pleading, “Please don’t do that, Hog Mall--please. I suck on you tongue like you been want’n me to all yer life. Please, big Papa!”
But he ain’t paid her no attention. He run upstairs.
And Ain’t Sarah, who was damn near old as God, nearly had a heart attack, because unless a miracle happened, she knew she was cooked. The Sullivans would forgive a lot of thangs--but they didn’t tolerate no nigga’s being learned how to read or speak’n African devil languages.
••
RooAmber Childress awoke with her hand pressed against Shane Roberts’s chest. The light sound of an aircraft passing over the Bullova Carriage House made her think about flying back to Washington and she sat up in the dark, wondering if she should slip out and fly away.
She had turned her cell phone off earlier and decided now to check her messages.
There was one from her husband:
“Hi babe, it’s Scotch. I’m on a plane leaving for Oklahoma City right now. I got bored being here by myself and thought I’d drop in and see my mother and visit a few colleagues at the university here. I’ll catch you by phone tomorrow and see you in person next week. I love you, RooAmber, I miss you, take care.”
RooAmber felt sick hearing his voice, the nausea creeping up into her brain. She closed her eyes and whispered, “I miss you, too.”
••
The Washita River
Southern Oklahoma
•
Scotch Childress, while firmly gripping the machete in his right hand, opened the door to the square one room gut house and marched out into the night completely naked, his milk colored skin almost one with the pale bright
moon that hung overhead.
On his face he had smeared black ash until it appeared chalky and gray, and on his penis, with a piece of black coal, he had drawn three rings around the upper hose part of it. He was a child of the Raccoon People, but being so white and so blue eyed, no one could possibly remember it.
He walked on away from the river, his mind lost in the stars. To the east of him were the Cherokee trails--the old landings where escaped black slaves and Cherokee had mated and lived together before the whites deliberately brought in small pox to wipe them out, and just west of him was the clearing where his own people, the Paniwassaha (Seminoles and Bambara Africans of the 1600’s who were called “Raccoon Indians”), used to dance for Ajowa (the rain goddess).
In the dark, snaking through the woods, Scotch came upon the wire cage that held the trapped possum. It was a male, too, so it was nice and fat--and of course, it played dead as soon as it heard footsteps.
Scotch opened the cage and killed it for real. Then he picked it up by its tail and carried it back to the gut house.
There was a huge pot of boiling water on the stove which Scotch turned off and let subside for a minute. Then he dunked the possum in the water and pulled the animal’s skin clear off. After it was skinned, he cut it open down the middle and began gutting it.
He chopped the head off and was careful how he wrapped and saved it, because he knew a place at 10313 South Sunnylane in Oklahoma City that paid good money for the skulls of marsupials, and of course, the possum is North America’s only marsupial.
Scotch cleaned it good. She said, “You cain’t stop cleaning it until it’s white as a stone”. He saw his hands cleaning it, and suddenly, they looked like black woman’s hands. Dark brown hands, coarse and ashy with hardworking crooked fingers.
Then he put the possum in another pot, this one filled with river water and salt, and he let it soak over night.
••
Come morning, he awoke on the floor of the gut house, still butt naked with ashes caked over his face and three black rings around his long, thick white penis.
He took the possum out of the soaking pan and drained it real good and then hung it by its tail on the front porch to dry for about an hour.
Scotch chopped up some onion, hickory, rosemary and bellpepper in a fresh pot of river water and brought it to a boil. He then carefully wrapped the possum in corn husks until the whole animal was covered and then placed it into the water and let it boil for half an hour. Just half an hour and no more would produce a good medium broth. While that was going, he took some flint, wood and coals and got a good fire crackling in the oven.
As the warm, golden sun beamed through the door and chimney, he thought he heard the Paniwassaha Indian male say, “I like the way you mix honey and pepper over the meat. This is strange, honey and pepper together, but so delicious.”
“It really be good”, say the pretty black lady, “if’n I had my pumice stone and my nigga seasonings from down south, but none a dem weeds grow out dis way. Shit, I lucky to be alive when yall Indian niggas found me.”
Scotch removed the possum from the boil, threw away the corn husks, and then greased the possum with real Oklahoma butter. After that, he coated flower all over the possum and then took a stone and beat cracked pepper into the coat of flower.
“Neh, make sure my oven jess right”, says Jemima. “And chop that tail off. I fry that with some corn meal and steep it in greens, make some dumplings and hash.”
Scotch placed the possum into the hot oven and baked it for two hours, watching ever carefully.
He peeled four good sized sweet potatoes and then placed the sweet potatoes around the animal to bake along with it, basting and basting with the broth from the boil until the whole pan was golden brown and the aroma of sweet potatoes and roast meat hung in the air like spring news.
“Dinnah reddy!” hollered Jemima Sullivan.
••
Sag Harbor, New York
•
RooAmber Childress walked down to the edge of night’s ocean tide, her eyes trying to behold the ageless moon, but of course, she couldn’t look at it for long. It turned something in her.
Somewhere in the corners of her mind, she thought she heard an old woman singing. The voice elderly but powerful, full of spirit, singing, “...my soul looks back and wonders...how I got over.” But of course, RooAmber thought she couldn’t be hearing that. There was no one out there but her.
It seemed to be a peaceful quiet night, the sloshing of the bells and sea life humming from the mooring fields, but then, out of nowhere, she heard a voice call her name--not the name on her birth certificate, but the one that her mother, Soraya, had meant for her to have when the nurse mistakenly jotted down “RooAmber”.
The voice called out, “Re-memba?”
Startled, RooAmber turned around, and as her mouth fell open, her heart beating wildly, she tried to scream--but no sound came out.
> There was a creature dressed in one those antebellum Dixieland hoop gowns.
“Re-memba...iss me.”
The thing came over closer, and as she gasped, unable to move, RooAmber realized that it was some kind of woman. A woman unlike any she had ever seen before.
She was black. The kind of black where the skin looked like folds of fudge cake batter wrapped around more and more layers of shiny black batter and then over baked. Her hair was cloud jungle nappy. White and thick as cotton. Her face was hanging like a mudslide, the lips and nose giving her the features, in RooAmber’s opinion, of a gorilla--and she was fat like Hattie McDaniel, but remarkably feminine like McDaniel as well.
“Who are you?” RooAmber managed to ask.
“I’se you Ain’t Sarah”, said the ancient looking black woman. “I’se you flesh ‘n blood from Ronoake, Va-jinn-ya, and befoh dat, South Kay-lina and befoh dat...Africa. I come ta see yuh jess now, ‘cause I wants you...to dream me a dream.”
“What?”, RooAmber’s mystical green eyes beheld the woman with the same humbled awe that a child might regard an angel, and somehow, she knew that that’s exactly what Ain’t Sarah was--an African angel.
“I say heah, chile...I’se you Ain’t Sarah from back yonder...and I comes all dis way to ask you kindly...to dream me a dream.”
16
Eternity.
•
Our mother’s name was Ajowa. Her name means “love”. Our father’s name was God. His name means “justice”. These are two things that Africans are obsessed with. I come over on the ship from Ajowa.
When I got heah...I seen everything...but I didn’t realize I was see’n it.
I was an old, old woman...the mother of a King...and they put us in a holding pen, like what you keep cows and hogs in, and they kept us there til the next day, then they put us up on the auction block in front of a whole crowd of dem whites. And you cain’t be on the auction block unless you naked as the day you was born, but luckily, most of us that come straight from Africa didn’t care bout white folks seeing us naked. In fact, back in those days, our naked black bodies was the last symbol of royalty we had. That and our crown. Our nappy hair.