Poon rebuked her. “You acts like this is your fields and your food!”
Always answered, “In a way, they is. Yours too. We depends on them fields for our livin. We could have a betta livin if the land bring in more.”
Poon never in her life had thought like this and it took time for her mind to grab what Always was sayin to her.
Always continued talkin. “I wants more. We all wants more. Jason wants more. Mistress is goin to have a baby child. They gonna need more room. I wants to get a start on fixin up that ole chicken house not bein used. It’s big, an can be a one-room shack for me, an I still be close nough to the main house for them to call, do they need me.”
Poon understood that. “The chicken house? What you gonna fix it up with? Who gonna take time to do it? Sho can’t take them slaves out the field you so busy worryin bout!”
“Fix it with all what’s left over from you-all’s shack. Fix it myself. Done watched em fix yourn. I can do it. Take longer, thats all.”
Poon took a disbelieving breath. “I declare on God, you sho is somethin I ain’t never heard of. I blive you think that light skin of yourn make you white as them is! How you gon get Masr Doak to let you make a garden and make money from it? His land!? And just what make you blive he gon let you build you yourn own room, even if it ain’t in nothin but that ole chicken house? Either you a fool or you crazy! If you blive you white, you crazy!”
Always made a ugly smile. “Naw … I don’t. Least I ain’t that crazy! But, I makes me whatever I can. For my chile, for myself. I think of a way. Lots of slaves has they own shack. And they own gardens.”
Poon understood that. “To eat on, not to sell and get money on.”
Always spoke quietly. “Well maybe I start somethin new. But it please me if you don’t talk none bout it til I find my way to it.”
Poon stirred on her stump, she had been thinkin of tellin it, and laughin, to Masr Jason.
“Sides,” Always continued, lookin toward Poon out the side of her eyes, “I can share it with Masr Jason and you. Masr Jason need somethin to do, build up his arms and strenth. He can help work it, it bein close to the house.”
Poon opened her eyes wide in the dark. “First you got him sittin on horses and bein a overseer. Now you got him workin in YOUR garden on his land! You somethin, chile!”
Always stood up to go. “You can work with me and better your life too … or you can tell all I say and mess with my plan … but … every somebody with any sense wants what’s better. Silver look good in your pocket as it do in Master’s. Freedom talk still.”
Poon cut her off. “Shush, chile! Ain’t you got no sense? At all?”
Always moved close to Poon. “Don’t Masr Jason read them papers Master Doak bring home? Ain’t you clost enough to him, for all you do, to get him to teach you how to read so you can read to him fore he go to sleep at night?”
Poon laughed shortly. “What I’m gonna do with readin knowledge?” She looked off cross into the darkness. “I usta, once or twict, want to learn to read. But now, I’m old. Readin ain’t gonna do me no good, no more.”
Always leaned closer. “You ain’t dead. And slavin can kill you. You ain’t sold again … yet … and readin can help you. Somethin in your head worth as much as silver in your pocket … sometime. Ask him!”
Poon. “It’s gainst the law.”
Always. “What he care bout the law? He a white man.”
Poon. “You ain’t gonna get me killed.”
Always. “Ain’t tryin to. Tryin to get you to better …”
Poon. “Well, leave me be. I’m doin alright. I got my own house now.”
Always. “Masr Jason house.”
Poon. “Mine too! And I don’t have to answer all them calls no more. I don’t have to tend to Masr Doak’s bed, just Masr Jason …” She stopped talkin and started in the shack.
Always spoke the last words.
“Masr Jason may die, then where you be? Get him teach you readin … then, you teach me. Someday, I pay you back.”
Poon went on in the house and Always went on to the main house, stoppin by way round to the chicken house and seein in her mind what it could be.
The next day she began to gather stuffs to fix it, puttin by. Bout a week later, Poon, one day, held a scrap of paper up to Always, say, “That’s a A, that a B, and that a C. Ain’t they strangest?” Always took the scrap and studied on it, remem-berin some of the things Sun had taught her. She slept with it and finally stuck it in her mouth, chewed it and swallowed it and smiled. She already knew some from what Sun had taught, but this learnin over again made it easier and quicker for her.
Mistress Sue didn’t mind Always move to the fixed-up chicken house. Just took Always’s hand and said, “I don’t want you far away, I need you close. The time is goin fast and my baby is near to bein born … and I’m scared. Oh, truly, I am frightened. My mama can’t come, she’s down sick. My daddy wouldn’t be no use, and my sister is havin her own. It’s only me and you.” She looked at the fullness of Always’s belly that matched her own. She could never decide whether to resent it or not, but her heart was not full of malice, so she threw the thoughts away. “Your time near, too. Poon will be some help. But I want you, only you, to help me.”
Always pressed Sue’s hand in return. She had grown to like this woman with the kind heart. “Don’t you be worry your mind, you gonna be just fine. I done asked questions bout babies comin from everybody I can walk to round here. I know aplenty.”
She had walked to the closest farms askin questions bout babies. While she was there she also found out bout things planted and growin. Any different things. Bout seeds and catalogues for Masr Butler, which she knew seeds would be in. She asked bout recipes and things wanted but not found in that region. She tried to learn everything she could. She was already up to Z in the alphabet and could read small words and spell out long ones. She was learnin. My child. Doak let her walk about because she was on Mistress business.
My space, where I was, was warm and proud of my child-woman. See? I knew freedom was near, I could see it from here. I wanted her to live, and my grandbaby. Of all the grandchildren I was to have, and did have by Peach, this one of Always was already my favorite. Sun was still workin his way.
IN THE MEANTIME. From time to time, and I didn’t know much bout my kind of time early on, when I would think on one or other of my children, swift as a second I find I am where I can see the one I’m thinking bout. That’s how I knew Peach was doin alright.
Thinkin hard on Sun, one time, I found myself where he was and stayed for a while.
Sun, still young, had been scrounging and makin his way north for some two years. Workin here and there for practicly nothin. Doin odd jobs all along his way from the time his little money ran out. His bein white-lookin helped him a lot and he could read way enough to understand which way he was goin and many other things.
He had reached a place near some water with beaches. Layin on the beach one day, havin swum in his clothes for a bath, he got hungry as usual. The season musta been bout over for swimmin cause not many peoples was there and the food stands was not always open. But hunger can see things when satisfied can’t. Sun spied one with a man walkin round it and in and out of it, so he went over to see what he could do to get some food in him.
The man was just a-walkin and cussin and fussin, picking one thing up, settin it down only to pick up another and do the same thing. Sun was bout seventeen then. He was growin tall and hard times made him look older, even tho the young sunshine in his face told he was very young.
He greeted the white man in a mannerable way and asked him if there was some job he could do in exchange for food. The man ignored him after a mean glance. After a minute, Sun asked again.
The man found his voice, which had a foreign accent, and ranted and rowed about people always be able to ask for somethin, but never able to do anything worthwhile to get it. “Just look at this place! A mess! I can’t get no cook to come
and stay and work without them cheating me. Stealing me blind! Eating up my profit or giving it away to their friends. Then, leaving! They even leave sometime with the door open, so anybody can come in and help themself to anything that may be left.”
Sun just stared at him and round the good-size stand. It was for sandwiches or somethin like that, and french fries. I never heard em called that, we just called em fried potatoes.
The man went on talkin with his strange accent that turned out to be French. “I’m not gonna take it anymore! I’m gonna close the damned stand and just keep the restaurant in New York I run myself. I’m sick of this American business shit!”
Sun just started movin around pickin up things for the man. He was still listenin as he put em on the nearest convenient spot, piling dirty pots and pans in the sink.
The man just kept talkin, but began to pick up and place things with a little more thought to his actions. Said, “I tried them all: church people, no-church people, women and men, all. The church people were sometimes the worst of them all!”
Sun ran dishwater and rolled up his ragged sleeves. He sure did know how to do any kind of hard work. What he was doin now was easy to him. He asked the man, “How you make one of them san-whiches?”
The man looked at him, “Where you been, kid?”
Sun answered, “Nowhere.”
The man looked at him harder. “How old are you?”
Sun answered, “Twenty.”
The man laughed, “Twenty!”
Sun asked again, as he kept plowin his hands to the shoulder almost, into the soap suds, washin dishes and pots and pans. “How you make them things what you sellin?”
The man said, “Okay. You doing some work. I didn’t promise you no thing … but you doing some work, I tell you. If there anything left to show you with, I show you. Then I clean up, lock up and go. I’m sick of this problems.”
Sun said, “Show me. If I make a mistake, I’ll eat it.”
The man stopped and suddenly laughed. “You not smarter than me, kid. I come to America a lot younger, and smaller than you are. I come through a lot … a lot more than you ever know, and I make it. I am only tired now.”
“Me too.” Sun tried to smile. “And hungry. Thinkin I eat, I won’t be so tired and I’ll clean up this whole place and make them san-whiches til you make me stop. And I’ll sell em and give you all your money … and,” went on Sun, “and I’ll work for you three weeks for nothin but a bed to sleep and food to eat. I don’t eat much. And after that, if you like me and know you can trust me, you can pay me whatever you want to pay me. And I’ll work here til I die and you’ll never have to worry bout closin up this here place again.”
The man, whose name was Mr. DuBois, sat down on a box and looked at Sun. “You will work … for nothing?”
“For nothing.”
“Three weeks?”
“Til you know you can trust me, for a bed and food. I’ll sleep right here in the back.” See, he had no place to go at all and no food at all, so for him that would be like a fortune or somethin. Mr. DuBois made a wry smile and got up, picked up a wrinkled loaf of bread layin under the counter and stepped to the sandwich bar. “See? You take the bread and this is called mayonnaise, I make mine myself. Maybe I show you how sometime, if you work out like you promise. It’s the best in America. And after three weeks, if I want you to stay, and if I trust you, I pay you fair.”
Well, Sun was hungry for everything, needed everything, and didn’t have another choice in the whole world at that moment. His happiness made his name show on his face. He worked good and kept that place open and did good business cause, my son, he was a nice person and grateful. He smiled cause he was full and he slept without waking all through the night wonderin what or who was close to him.
That place worked and the business grew even in the small time was left in that first season. Mr. DuBois then took him into the city to work with him there. Soon, a year or two, another one was opened, the third. Soon Sun was just running them, helpin Mr. DuBois. And then there were four. All different places. And Sun was paid good cause he worked good and he learned all he could.
By that time Sun knew all Mr. DuBois’s family. His pretty daughter, Colette, was just a little older than Sun, and educated. She fell in love with Sun and Mr. DuBois was glad because money should stay in a family and Sun had a future there. Course, they didn’t know Sun was a negro and a slave. He never talked bout that to nobody. In time, they married. I knew then Sun had his future pretty good. Because he worked hard.
But he also went to worryin less and less bout Always comin to him. She was very light, but not white … enough. He stopped writing Loretta bout buyin her. Wellll, I knew Sun had his future going pretty good. He would have money. And children. Little African, French and whatever all the Master had been, but, white children, new blood. I went to thinkin on Always. Pretty soon, I went back to Always, my blood.
BACK TO ALWAYS. That same ole time was still the same kind of time when I reached Always. She was sad in her heart, and alone in her mind. She worked and thought, but always with that sad, depressed hard rock sittin on her chest, lodged in her breast, just above her baby’s head. She was almost through workin on her chicken-house shack. Her mind was always runnin.
Masr Jason gave her a hand when he could. Cause he was sittin a horse now and overseein most days. It was true, it brought some life back to him. He only didn’t like that it took two men and Poon to put him on, tie him, then untie him and take him off. Poon had to rub and soothe his tired muscles and chafed skin. But he did it. After all, it was his farm too.
Doak was glad about the arrangement. It gave him even more time to be off and gone on whatever he called his business. Lookin over livestock, goin to dog races, rooster fights, things like that. His farm was doin better than ever and he didn’t really know why, just knew it was. He wasn’t really a dumb man, just not born a farmer, but was born to know he liked land and money. Knew the land could bring him money, and slaves, but after knowin that, he really didn’t feel much like workin at it, just havin it. Farm doin well, pretty wife havin his baby, that was all he knew and cared about. He was gone when Always moved into her chicken shack. He was gone, again, when the babies were born.
FIRST OFF, MISTRESS SUE came early by a week or so. Always did all the work with her swollen, heavy belly pullin her down. Heavy, heavy. She was up thirty-nine hours with Mistress Sue til that baby boy was born.
She put on the water, folded the bed back, tied ropes down each side of the bed to be pulled on when needed. Laid out all the clean rags and towels she thought they would need. Boiled the scissors for cuttin the cord. Kept layin Mistress Sue back down and squeezin her hands when she screamed. Wiped her when the sweat just poured out of that scared young woman who kept screamin for her husband that was too far away to hear her. The birth took so long, Always had to keep going out to the well to get more water for boilin. She even changed the wet, soiled sheets a few times. Had to. Heated soup for the young woman who could not eat more than a spoon or two. The woman, Sue, cried, Always cried, holdin each other, both feared of how this new life was comin. When the time got real close, Always had to hold and lift that woman and she didn’t feel small nomore. She was heavy longside that weight inside her own body.
The blood gushed along with the water, at last. Hot and heavy with its odor. It made Always retch and like to vomit on the woman cause she couldn’t let go her hands. The woman had strength! Always asked, “Let me call Poon!” Mistress Sue screamed, “No, no! I don’t want nobody to see me like this. I only want you!” So that was the end of that. When that baby was born, Sue was screamin and Always was cryin, tears runnin down her face. But she never stopped movin, tearin rags, wipin, pullin gently, cuttin that cord, tyin it and cleanin that baby. Mistress Sue lay back, at last, exhausted and near death, tho neither one of them knew how close.
The baby, a boy, was pink and ugly as almost all new babies are. It had dark hair and what looked like dark
eyes when you could see em. A fine boy. Mistress Sue shook her head, No, when Always was handin her the baby, so Always made a sling and tied him to her own chest.
When Mistress Sue was restin, Poon was called in to help clean up round things. That’s when Always’s pains came and she went to her shack to lay down, rest, til the pains would leave. But the pains stayed and soon her body was heavin in her cornshuck bed … alone. She screamed, in spite of herself, but she had bit down, again, on her already ragged lips. Poon came. She sent Poon away, even still keepin Sue’s baby with her, layed to the side of the bed, while she gave birth to her own. Said she knew all what to do for herself. Just bring hot water, she already had everything else ready.
In two hours or so, Always gave birth to her baby. As fine a baby boy as ever you want to see. He had dark hair and blue eyes like his daddy. Always looked at him and smiled. She smiled as she struggled to clean him and then clean herself. She smiled when she lay both babies to her breast and fed them. Then she fell asleep. An exhausted, deep, hard sleep, which she needed so bad.
Poon woke her up hours later. Said Mistress Sue was still sleepin. She brought broth for my grateful Always. Poon tried to pull back the homemade baby blankets, but Always pushed her away, sayin, “Leave em be. Don’t wake em up. You got time nough for years to see these younguns. And let Mistress Sue be. I’ll feed her boy for her, cause she too weak.” Poon wouldn’t argue, she left to go check again on Mistress Sue fore she went to see bout gettin Masr Jason off his horse. Mumblin, “Womens and babies, womens and babies. What’s all goin on round here.”
Always woke during the night and lay lookin down at the two baby boys. Holdin them, thinkin.
In the early, early dawn she got up and, takin one of the dyin embers from her little fireplace, she burnt a tiny place on her hip a little bigger than the size of a good-size pin. It hurt, but the plan was made. Then she burnt her own son on the same hip she had burnt on herself. She rubbed a little soot on it, then a little healin salve she made herself. Every day she rubbed that soot and that salve on it. When it healed, it looked just like a mole, a big mole. Hers and his looked just alike. While she was doin this, she prayed Master Doak did not return. He didn’t.
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