Gumbo

by E. Lynn Harris

  “Now, Baby, I know y'all are different from folks around here but there are a few rules you must follow if you want to mingle in.”

  “What do you mean we're different.”

  “First of all, anyone with half a brain can see that. We might be country but we ain't stupid and we do have cable. We've seen folks like you.”

  “What rules?” I asked firmly.

  “Well, this is Texas. More important, this is Sugar Lick. And nobody would throw a party on a Friday night this time of the year. Especially when the Sugar Lick Fightin' Panthers are playing the Salt Lick Bobcats for the State football Championship. It's been twenty years since we made it to the State finals and everybody in town was at the game. You two coulda stole the whole town tonight,” she cackled as she hit her knee in delight.

  “So, who won?” Marc asked as he walked into the living area with a tray of three martinis.

  “Let me take a sip of my drink and then I'll tell you.”

  Marc and I exchanged quizzical glances with each other as Miz Clara finished her drink with two quick gulps. She looked at me and said, “I know his name 'cause he grew up around these parts, but honey, what's your name?”

  Before I could tell her my name was Lisa, Clara shot off another question, “How long y'all been midgets?”

  Meeting Frederick

  BY JEWELL PARKER RHODES

  FROM Douglass's Women

  Late Spring ain't never sweet in Baltimore. Hot, slick. Sticky beyond dreaming.

  I was twenty-eight, surviving as best I could. Had me a calico cat. Lena. I'd fan both her and me. Put ice chips in her milk. Ice on my head and wrists. May was as hot as July and there'd be no relief 'til November. Breezes didn't cool no sweat.

  Legs itching against cotton. Arms damp, staining crinoline. Beads of water draining into my hair, down my cheek. Nights, just as bad. Laying in my shift, barely breathing, counting the tiniest stars I could see through the windo-top.

  I felt drained. Hungry for more water. For something to fill me up.

  I'd growed. I wasn't ‘Lil' Bit' no more. Wasn't cute no more, either. Just short, round, dark; beyond lonely.

  Mam say, “Beauty lives in the heart.” But Mam was thirty miles away. Pa now dead, Mam had her own troubles living old. My trouble was forgetting the kind things she said, the words that made me feel special.

  Now I was Anna, Housekeeper. Got servant's wages. Three dollars a month. Half sent to Mam. Got food, which I cooked. Milk for the cat. A room: clean but too small for a chair.

  Eleven years. Working for the Baldwins. A good position. Nobody slapped me. Or cursed. Or expected me to bed them. But there wasn't much room for getting ahead. So I sewed and laundered on my off day. Thursdays. Anna, Seamstress. Wash woman. Carrying baskets to the docks.

  Baltimore, great city then. Harbor for all kinds of goods and people. French and China silk. Spices. Rum. You need a gold cage for a bird? Baltimore. Sugar cane from Haiti? Bananas? Whale oil? All in Baltimore.

  Irishmen, New Englanders, Virginia planters, Chinamen, British, Spanish, free colored men, they all passed through that harbor. And women—some dressed fine as queens, some barely dressed—waited for them. Waited for the men to slip them coins. Some folks went off in carriages; some went to the tavern; some got no farther than an alley.

  Everybody mated, two by two.

  Only new slaves—male and female—kept separate. Each had their own cage at the dock's east end. When I could, I slipped bread and meat to the women (some just children). On Sundays, men with great buckets splashed water at the slave holds. Great buckets to wash away the dirt and smell. Nothing washed away the heat. Except when my mistress ordered it, I kept clear of the docks on the Lord's Sabbath and Auction Days. Kept clear of seeing misery I couldn't fix.

  Still. 1835. Baltimore, a great city.

  Except for colored folks, everybody a bit rich. Got pennies to spare for colored gals to wash their shirts, pants, and privates. I worked for sailors stitching where a knife sliced, soaking tobacco stains and spit, cleaning where stew crusted on their sleeves and collars. I starched jackets for captains who brung tea, goblets, and Africans across the sea. Some I stitched gold braids for when they got promoted or won slaving treasure. But captains be the worse. Mean. They say your work not good. Insist you buy brand new shirt. After I lost my profit once, I never worked for any captain again.

  This May that felt like late summer, I was working for Gardner's men. Carpenters with lots of money and no respect. Their clothes, more grease and sawdust than cotton. Mr. Gardner had a contract to build two man-of-war brigs for the Mexican government. They say July, if Gardner be done, he win big bonus. All the carpenters win bonuses, too. So everybody work hard—black and white—building those great ships.

  I made my deliveries at dinner break. Men eating be generous. Less likely to complain: “This not clean enough.” “This not ironed right.” Foolishness. They complain to make me lower my price. Eating men don't talk much. Some even toss an extra penny.

  I'd just finished giving William, the mast-maker, his clean clothes when I looked up and saw this young man standing at the unfinished bow, the ship still on stilts, looking out across the water. Not more than three feet away. He stood there, legs spaced, solid. Like nothing tip him over. No waves. No wind. He was pitched on the edge of the horizon. Boat beneath his feet. Orange-streaked sky above his head. Endless water fanning out the harbor. Seem like nothing move him from that space he choose to be. He could be a colored captain, watching, waiting for some change to happen. Some sign from the birds flying high. Some new streak of color in the sky. Some sweet odor of free.

  His pants weren't fine. Brown burlap. His ankles and shins poke out. Shirt gone. His back was broad, rolling mountains. Copper-colored. Trails crisscrossed his back. I knew then he was a slave or ex-slave. No pattern to the marks. Just rawhide struck, hot and heavy. Enough to know someone had been very angry with him. Once. Twice. Maybe more.

  I think I fell in love with his head. He look up, not down. Tilt of his head tell me he not beaten. Not yet. His hair curls in waves, almost touching his shoulders. Black strands lay on his neck. Made me want to reach out and feel. Made me wonder what it be like to bury my face in his hair. Would I smell the sea? Smell the oil they use to shine wood?

  His hair made me think of Samson. God's strength upon him. Something else came up on me. Some wave of feeling I'd never felt. Made my feet unsteady. Made my heart race.

  “Girl,” Pete, the ironmaker call, “Hurry your nigger self here.”

  I scurried like a scared rabbit. So ashamed. This Samson man turned and saw me. Really saw. His eyes were golden, like light overflowing. I knew he saw me as a weak woman. Big. Too fat. Hurrying to this scum of a white man.

  But I couldn't stop myself. Mam taught me, “Never irritate white folks. Do your work. Collect their money.” But this one time I didn't want to scurry. I wanted to move slow, sashay my gown, and have this man I didn't know, think I was pretty. No. Lovely. I wanted to be lovely.

  Twenty-eight and never had a man look at me with love. Never no passion. Desire. Mam taught me not to say those words. But I learned them as a woman. Learned them watching folks at the wharf. Learned them, too, listening to Miz Baldwin's friends—women promised to one man, yet mad about some other. They was mostly sorrowful. Passionate and sorrowful.

  Mam said God made special feelings, especially for men and women. She and Pa felt them. I'd never felt one. Never 'til this man, this slave looked at me from the bow of an unfinished ship.

  I hadn't enough backbone to tell this white man, “I'm coming. Don't hurry me.” I scurried toward him and away from those light-filled eyes.

  Head low, I got rid of all those clothes. Quick as possible. Out with the clean clothes, in with the dirty. Collect my money. Just move. Don't think about shame. The colored men were kind. Like they knew my sin. One tried to tell a joke. But it was no use. I hurried to leave that dock. Trembling. Not sure I'd ever come back. Ev
er hold my head high.

  That evening I lay on my bed and cried. Cried 'cause I wasn't lovely. 'Cause this man would never love me. Cried 'cause he couldn't love me. Him being slave. I, being free. Him, young. I, old. Him, handsome. Me, ugly.

  I cried and bit my pillow to keep from letting my screams out. I'd never have my own home. My own babies. I'd work my days 'til too old to work, 'til crippled and less than nothing, with no children, surviving on what little I'd set by.

  Time makes the world fresh. Seven days, the world created. Seven days, my pain eased. Stopped feeling like a horse be sitting on my chest. Sabbath helped. I remembered the Lord loved me. And while I was singing “My Redeemer,” I felt Mam just as if she was right beside me, taking my hand.

  Got so I could see my reflection again and think I looked respectable. Clear eyes. Thick lashes. Clear skin. I didn't have to worry about freckles like white women. But it was a sore fault not to have Mam's sweet smile or Pa's even nose.

  Lilbeth got Mam's smile and four children. Even mean George, with his trim features, had a family of five. All told, I was aunt to twenty children. Two in the oven. Thinking about my family, I start thinking about this man. Handsomest man I've seen.

  Between kneading bread, slicing yams, serving the Baldwin's food, I be thinking, Why this man off by his self? Where his dinner pail? His food? Why this slave be at the shipyard? Why he not sitting with free coloreds? Where's his master?

  I think, Charity. I can show him Christian charity.

  I keep thinking of his hair too. Light trapped in it. Him standing on the bow, looking like gold glowed about his head.

  His daddy must be white. Most likely his daddy be his master. His Mam being white be rare. The grocer on Dinwidde Street had a daughter who visited with a free colored. Not even a slave. When her belly rose up, her folks whipped her awful. She lost the babe. The colored man ran to Canada.

  I packed a dinner. Miz Baldwin wanted chicken and biscuits. So I cooked extras. Just a few. Then, I slipped in a piece of banana pie.

  Charity was Jesus' blessing. I'd take that man supper.

  I was so nervous. I wore my best dress. It was blue and I always felt small in it. Married women seemed small. Delicate and needful, like Miz Baldwin. If I didn't cook and clean for her, she'd fade away and die, resting on her ottoman.

  My blue dress had little buttons down the front and back. Had lace at the wrists. Shouldn't have been wearing my best dress among those coarse men, among that sweat and dust. But I wanted that slave man to see me different.

  The trip was all right. Passed out the white carpenters' clothes then went to the colored men. They ate off to the side. Gaines, a free colored, who trimmed sails acted shocked. “You almost pretty, Miz Anna.” I nearly slapped him. Everybody would've seen me blush if I was less dark. I passed out the clean clothes. Collected new ones. William's pants had bloodstains from where a saw nicked his thigh. Everybody working too hard. Making mistakes. But now they was having dinner. I had passed out my clothes and if I was gonna meet this slave man, I had to do it now. Had to march myself to the ship edge and holler, “Good day.”

  I couldn't do it. Too nervous. I stood at the edge of the dry dock looking up. Looking up at this man looking out to sea on a ship on stilts, I started chuckling. Funny. Both of us weren't going nowhere.

  He turned, looked down at me. His hand on the rail. He smiled. I did too. I said, “You eat?” His face twisted, puzzle-like. “You eat supper? You hungry?”

  “No. I . . . I didn't eat. I am hungry.”

  My heart fell because he talked proper. Even so, I said, “Come down then.” I lifted my smaller basket. “Else I'll feed this here to the gulls.”

  He smiled and it snatched my breath. He moved, fast yet smooth, down the bow steps, then ran to where it was safe to leap over the ship's rail. He, nimble, swift. He came upon me eager. Widest smile. His beauty nearly undid me. I wonder whether Delilah felt this way when she first see Samson:

  But he wasn't Samson. No Egypt black man. Seeing his features straight on, I could see more of the whiteness in him. But the drops of whiteness didn't matter. He still a slave. Such sadness undid me. My life was surely better than his. Not handsome, I knew I'd struggle to make a man love me. Pa said my darkness didn't matter but the world taught me it did. Even colored children called me “Afric.”

  But a handsome man—mixed black and white—might dream a better life. Might wish for genteel society. Hard to have Master be your father. Hard to see white brothers and sisters enjoy privileges not yours.

  William catcall, “Better leave that slave alone. Ain't got the sense of a dog.”

  “Hush,” I answered back. “Your sense got cut off with your baby finger.”

  “That's a fact,” said Peter, the nail man.

  The colored men laugh and I smile.

  “It's true.” This man's eyes were lit fierce. “I don't have a dog's sense.” Then, his voice fell to a whisper. “A dog will stay where it's put. Or if it won't, a chain will hold him. I'm a man. I won't be held. Chained or unchained.”

  I kept real still. I knew he was staring at me. Expecting some response. Maryland was a slave state. Words could get me whipped. But here was this man asking more of me. Asking me to agree that holding a man a slave was wrong. I inhaled, murmured low, “That's proper. Nobody has the right to hold a man.”

  He smiled sweetly at me.

  “Or woman.”

  He tilt his head back and laugh. Then he held out his hand. “Frederick Bailey.”

  I forgot I was wearing my good dress and wiped my hand on my skirt. “Anna Murray.”

  “Anna,” he say. My name sounded like a jewel. he clasped my palm good and solid and made me feel like I'd made a friend. Not just a good time friend but a forever friend.

  And, just as quickly, the word “dangerous” flashed through my mind. “A dangerous friend.” Don't know where those words come from. They just sprung up. As soon as they did, someone struck a bell and this heavy-set–looking man come between us.

  “Boy. Hear that bell? Work needs doing. Go on. Get.”

  “He needs his dinner.”

  “Don't tell me what he needs,” the man turned angrily, causing me to back step As I did, Frederick made a move forward. I held up my hand, not wanting to cause him trouble.

  “No, sir,” I said. “I understand. I just brung chicken. My Christian deed. It's still warm. You're welcome to some. I be trying to get my spirit right. Do a little something for my fellow man. But, next time, I'll come earlier, so I won't interfere with work. Would that be all right? I can bring you chicken too. My mistake this time.”

  This foreman looked at me. His eyes squinting as if figuring if I meant what I said. He had a big bushful of hair on his head and face. But his eyes seemed flat, weighing me cold as if we did or did not have a bargain. Then he smiled crooked, spoke tickled yet also mean.

  “You sweet on him? Won't 'mount to much. Him a slave and all.”

  “I know,” I said as Mr. Bailey said, “We're acquaintances.”

  I felt anger flood me at high tide. But all mixed up 'cause I wasn't sure I was upset at just the foreman. “Acquaintances” sounded cold. Yet that was us. Barely met. Barely knowing each other.

  “I'm simply doing my Christian duty. Seem like his master would want him fed.” I knew I was pushing too far.

  “I'm his master as long as he's working for carpenters, learning how to build ships. Go on, now. Get.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Bailey,” I said, bowing neatly. Just like at a dance. Suddenly, I felt embarrassed.

  “Good-bye, Miss Murray.” He looked at me quizzing, like he don't understand me at all. Then, he bowed at the waist like he had all the time in the world.

  “Boy. Come here, boy,” somebody was already calling. Then, there was another cry from the opposite direction. “Boy. Over here. Brace this beam.” The foreman was shoving Mr. Bailey along. I walked from the place real slow. I still held my baskets. One filled with old clothes
. One filled with my best cooking.

  I knew I'd return next Thursday. The sky was sheets of red, orange, yellow piled on top of one another. The clouds had turned slate gray. A storm be rolling in from the gulf, the Caribbean Sea. I felt happy and shy. Scared and nervous. My world was upside down.

  How to be more than an acquaintance? How to get Mr. Bailey to think well of me? Few words exchanged on a year of Thursdays didn't add up to much. And even if it did—a free woman and a slave? Hah. Don't carry much future. I ain't so dumb I didn't know that.

  But little things can add up to big. “Be special like you,” Mam would always say. I just had to be patient. Take my chance when it comes.

  That evening I looked for my cat. She come in late, purring. I turn my back and face the wall.

  Thinking of Mr. Bailey, it be some time before I finally sleep.

  Eva and Isaiah

  BY VALERIE WILSON WESLEY

  FROM Ain't Nobody's Business

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20

  When all was said and done, Eva had to admit that any fool with two working eyes should have seen what was coming. It was bound to happen—and sooner rather than later, considering her state of mind. Yet it took her by surprise—just like everything else since that hot June night when Hutch had left. Isaiah Lonesome was more matter-of-fact about it.

  “I knew the first time I saw you,” he said. Although Isaiah reassured Eva that that first time was when he'd picked her up on the Garden State Parkway and not when Charley brought him home, and that his desperate search for a temporary home had nothing to do with where things ended up, Eva was still distressed by his words.

  It all started out innocently enough, with a question about his music. Up until then, everything had gone as Eva had planned. So little seemed to have changed in her life, she hadn't even bothered to mention her new living arrangement to Charley or Steven. First of all, she was sure they would disapprove. Besides that, they were both preoccupied with living their own lives: Charlie with working and preparing for her October debut. Steven with Dana. Eva knew that one or the other was bound to stumble upon the truth at some point, and she'd do her explaining then. If she bothered to explain at all. Truth was, it felt good for once not to bother with what anyone—particularly her children—thought about her life. It made her feel free and completely independent.