They rode bout three miles. Then Whole Daddy stopped the horses and stepped down from the wagon. He spread his arms wide, marking off the best fifty acres on Sabine Hall. All this mine, he say. Far as yo eye travel yonder and yonder and yonder and yonder too. I repeat, all this mine. Enter on pain of your life.
Okay, Ernest, Page said.
Since the hailstorm, Page had tried to be a better man than his father. But you can’t run wit the hare and hunt wit the hound.
What? she said.
Whole Daddy said, I’m gon come back fo some mules and hogs. Now get on back home.
Page tipped his hat to the ladies. Walked the three miles home.
They bedded down in the wagon. Whole Daddy sleep between the Indian twins. Those first weeks, Whole Daddy and the Indians keep one eye sleep and one eye shut. They didn’t take no chances. Never know if a cup of courage replace Page’s morning coffee. Never know if the old paddies come ridin. So they ain’t take no chances. They greet visitors down the sight of a rifle.
Whole Daddy and the Indians set to the sweat of work. Whole Daddy was a glutton for work. That’s why he stuffed his belly with three plates of food at each meal. Wore out his boots in a week. He say, In the morning sow yo seed and until evening do not let yo hand rest. Labor is the deck. All else is the sea.
He and the Indians sawed trees, split logs, cut and trim timbers fo a foundation and laid a line of Page’s bricks fo the house. Built the house with scrap boards from Page’s lumberyard. The house was nothing fancy. Front room, two bedrooms, a kitchen. They built a fence. Dug a well. Cut and hammer an outhouse. Nothing fancy. Jus a plank of oak stretched over a hole in the ground. When it rained, Lawd. Pappa Simmons pinched his white tomahawk nose, red.
They build a barn, a smokehouse. (The smokehouse my favorite place. Manfred and me, we be playin out behin the smokehouse, whipping each other wit chitlins.) And a hogpen. Fenced off with a shelter jutting from the barn. Hogs closed off in stalls.
Chickens. Yall ain’t have no chickens?
We had a coop. They built that too. And planted the harvest. Know how? Press a hole with yo heel. Drop a seed. Now cover it wit yo foot. Hard work. Pick worms off the growing crops.
Yuck. Slimy worms.
And we tended the yard. Oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, and what have you. Any kind of tree you can name.
Porsha looked out the window at the tumble of vegetation in Inez’s garden.
The Indians always take the dirty clothes down by the spring where stones sparkle like big white diamonds under the running water. Scrub your clothes clean clean. By and by, they build them a springhouse.
Them Indians could cook up a storm. Jack salmon wit some black-eyed peas and wild raspberries. My favorite. And squirrel.
Squirrel?
Yo mamma ain’t never make you no squirrel?
No.
I’m gon have Inez cook you one.
No, thanks. Yuck.
The Indians sold ginger cakes and whiskey. And they made shoes and seams. Spinned and weaved. One would treadle while the other wind fast. (You got to wind fast and take the thread right off the spindle, else it get tangled up.) Then they switch.
When he could catch a day or two away from the farm, Whole Daddy labor on the county railroad. Ride down and work a day here, a day there fo something extra to fill his pockets. He was a trackwalker. Walked ten miles a day hammering down loose spikes.
DON’T KNOW WHEN I WAS BAWN. Whole Daddy write it in his Bible. (The one he took from Page.) Then somebody lose the Bible. So, don’t know when exact, cept Whole Daddy say sometime around hog-killin day. So it musta been in December or January. You know how to kill a hog?
No, Pappa Simmons.
Get yo rifle and blast him right here. Pappa Simmons pointed to his forehead.
Porsha shut her eyes. At the back of her mouth, behind her clenched teeth. She tasted metallic gunfire. She opened her eyes.
Then slit the throat.
She closed her eyes. Red seeped through.
Dunk that hog in a vat of boiling water to get his hair off. Make him pink and white. Pink white. Now he ready fo the smokehouse. You bind and skewer his hind feet, then hoist him high on a pole in the smokehouse. Rip him ass to throat so the insides clean out.
IT RAIN ONE DAY and it cold next day and it rain again and cold again. Storm slow down work but it ain’t stop it none. You got to eat. Take two spoonfuls of turpentine. And fish oil to make you thick inside.
Yuck! Double yuck!
Mamma get sick, bone-sick. Whole Daddy work while Aunt T watch, then Aunt T work while Whole Daddy watch.
You ain’t going to die, is you?
I’ll have to. You want me to live forever?
Whole Daddy take the pillow from her head to ease her dyin. Turn her bed east facin the crossroad. And he cover up the clock wit a hog sack to keep her spirit from stealin into the glass. But she didn’t die. She didn’t die the firs night or the second or the third.
Aunt T and Whole Daddy grew tired of workin and waitin. By and by, some of the church women come over and sit wit Mamma all night, singing them church songs. (Whole Daddy and the Indians tend church regular.) People tend her like she tend people. Come mornin, all of them sisters gone. Nowhere to be found.
What happened?
Water burst from Mamma’s body. Them church sisters run off. Scared.
AUNT T FOUND THE SHARPEST KNIFE and cleaned it in her skirt. She cut a line on her forehead so that her blood could mix with her tears. Then she cut her a gown from a flour sack and a veil from some mosquito netting. She and Whole Daddy put Mamma in the box and rest that box on two chairs, then they call in a preacher who know how to whoop and holler.
We make ash of the body.
Ash?
Aunt T spread Mamma’s filthy ashes over her face. Then we bury her out in the yard behind the house, plenty near the creepin gators and the diggin and shovelin coyotes. Whole Daddy hammer a cross three foot high to remember where we put white roses every day. (We grew our own.) He put Mamma’s favorite quilt over the grave.
WHOLE DADDY SAT DOWN on the front porch wit the double barrels of the shotgun across his lap. Aunt T sat beside him. Old. They couldn’t do much else but watch me and Manfred work.
THE COUNTY SENT A WOOGIE to take the farm, the barn, the smokehouse, the hogpen, the outhouse, the springhouse, and everything else in and outa sight. The county hit like a flood and carry it all away. What the Lord give, he sho can take. He can even take what he don’t give. The woogie say one word, Taxes. Death taxes.
Suh, I said, beg pardon but there must be some misunderstanding.
Manfred came right out wit it, You can’t steal what ain’t yours!
The woogie look at him. Nigga, go hire you a lawyer.
WE LEAVE RAINS COUNTY with one hundred twenty-six dollars Whole Daddy had kept tied in a knotted rag and buried in an old barrel out in the barn. Wasn’t nothing to keep us in Rains County, make us wanna stay. Shake the tree and see what falls from the branches. Sides, niggas talk. (Don’t we?) In the city, the fire hydrants full of wine and all the grass green onions and there taters neath the sidewalks. Mighta gone to Library if we knew how to get there.
Had to steal away durin day cause the white folks guard the railroad at night. Guess them white folks thought rightly no nigga stupid nough to leave in broad daylight. Broad or narrow, me and Manfred git.
Packed everything I owned into a grip. I wuz lookin good the day I left Rains County. Never will forget. A duster.
A duster?
High dicer.
High dicer?
A derby. Lil hot fo the summer. Frock coat. Vest. Paper collar. Watch chain all shined. And my brother was lookin good, too. (Folks took us fo twins, only he was taller.) Straw hat. Spats and high boots polished with Bixby’s Best Blacking.
If I live nother hundred years, I ain’t gon forget that railroad station. Station house no bigger than a toolshed and this lil ole red-faced woogie in striped ov
eralls, like a convict or somebody on the gang, wheezin behin these three lil rusty iron bars wit his red face stuck in a piece of window. You can tell he think he high dukey there behind his window. One of those real nasty woogies, the salt that make the cracker.
How yall? he say.
Fine.
A good day fo travelin.
Yes indeed.
Two tickets fo two niggas, Manfred said.
I stomped on his foot.
That woogie’s eyes snapped out of his face, like red whips. Niggas?
That’s right, Manfred said.
We don’t low no white niggas in this here county.
Yes, sah.
And we don’t low none to leave.
We won’t tell if you don’t, Manfred said. He winked at the woogie.
Boy, you need to school you some manners. The red-faced woogie take the money and slid the tickets under the bars.
Manfred had to have the final word. Make sure his money rang loud on the counter. Thank you, white folks, he said.
We wait fo the train on a piece of knobby plank they called a bench under the station porch. Then it come.
Inside Porsha, the story grew and grew. She could see it, the locomotive puffing short blasts of black smoke that held, lingered in her memory, then grew, a long black plant.
I stand there and watched the moving walls of that train as it come rushin in and past, fast as a flood.
A few woogies get off and yawn and stretch.
We want the Jim Crow car, Manfred say. See, Whole Daddy had told us many stories about travelin woogies. Nasty. Spittin in the aisles.
Son, you know we don’t low that.
If I’m payin, I’m nigga.
Suit yoself.
So we board at the noon whistle. Ride in the Jim Crow car. Niggas give us a curious eye, tryin to pretend like they ain’t lookin. We right up front near the engine. Cinders jus fly right in through the window.
She faced him in light where red was missing. Shadows of dreams passed along his forehead, clouds over water. So you fled across a black land similar and same to the black land that birthed you. The train rushed on. And your heart raced to keep pace. You leaning to the window, watching the fleeing countryside, the tracks hill-rising and valley-plunging, and your heart leaning into your chest, trying to flee your tight skin.
But that car was dandy. Real dandy. Red carpet. Lamps glintin on the ceiling. Leather seats soft like a pretty lady’s skin. This shiny-buttoned porter bawling out the stations. And the woogie conductor wit his shiny ticket puncher.
We stop to water the engine.
Water?
That’s right. Just like a horse. They ran on steam. (Live and learn.) And we go on.
That train snort and burp and cough and fart and ginny and shake. And the walls shove you and the ceiling shovel you on top of the head and people camped and cramped bout and the flo rollin this way and that spillin people into yo lap this minute and out the next.
Damn, Manfred, I say. Move over.
What? I ain’t on you.
See, I ain’t never been on a train befo. Wasn’t like no horse or no wagon or nothing else. That locomotion get in yo stomach and it spin round and round and round. I had no eyes, no ears, no nose, jus a mouth. Next thing I know, I spilled all over my brother’s shoes.
Yuck. Disgusting, she thought, not saying it.
Christ! Manfred said. Christ! Jus like that. Jumping back like it was hot water.
He hand me his initialed handkerchief. (Aunt T had stitched us both one.) I wipe my mouth.
Christ! he say. What bout my shoes?
I get my handkerchief. Clean his shoes. Then I throw both hankies under his seat. The train wuz still movin but I felt better. And the train started to slow down.
Then the train slowing down but your heart still rushing. Yes, the train slowing into town. And your body a gathering of tremendous effort. Cause this you must do and it can’t wait. A sea of faces white-waiting on the platform. Like hot stones, they draw the water from your body. Something breaks and rushes away.
I felt worse again. All I could do to dam my bowels and keep it from running down my leg. I tell Manfred, I gon get off.
What? he say.
I can’t stand it.
You seasick again?
Do fat ladies eat?
We proceed. See, the conductor said. That’s what yall get fo niggerin.
I was so glad to feel land again. But standin there on that platform, I feel something else too. Red eyes on me. Feel like a fish in a bowl and I’m hopin these woogies don’t kick the bowl over.
Manfred, you get back on the train. I’ll catch the next one.
Couldn’t you go on a boat? she asked.
Nigga, you crazy? Think I’m gon leave you here?
Why didn’t you go on the boat? she said.
You know what’ll happen if these woogies discover us? Better one than both. I’ll find you.
Yall should have rode a boat.
Know how many colored folks in that city?
I’ll find you.
So we talk like that, him fussin and me fussin. Manfred knew what I knew. Life don’t sit still. It may wait a minute. So when time come to get back on that train, he get on. He ain’t look back. And I ain’t seen him since.
Where was you?
Mobile.
Mobile, Alabama? She could find it on any map.
No. The other Mobile.
Oh.
I get me a room in a boardinghouse. Live regular wit the woogies. Every now and then, a wonderin eye peep you, but the mouth say nothing. If somebody woulda asked, I woulda told. That’s how I am. Always was, always will be.
Well, I got me a job workin on this bridge. Know how to build a bridge?
No, Pappa Simmons.
Well, you got to build both ends at once. It meets in the middle. Building backwards.
Why?
Ask me if I’m an engineer. Well, I ain’t. I jus knows it meets in the middle. Building backwards. Well, I eat cheap and sleep cheap and save my money.
When we finished the bridge, I get me a job hauling sugar sacks at the process factory. I work and save. I bought me a brand-new Model T with cold hard cash. A man has to get around. My barking Model T scared all the dogs. And all the woogies laugh. Ernest, what you got there? they say. An automobile? You think worse than a nigga. Soon, they come beggin me fo a ride. I oblige. Charge them a nickel to ride in it.
So I ride and work, ride to work, work to ride. Well it went like that fo months and years.
Then the Broad River Baptist Association held their annual picnic. I ain’t never been to the church. Like I say, I ain’t big on church. The Scriptures got mo religion. I pray. God, kill all the woogies but leave all the niggas. But I figured I’d go to this here picnic.
Why?
I was gettin on in years.
I don’t under …
How you today, white folks? All the niggas look at me. This here a Jim Crow picnic, they say.
I’m Jim Crow, I say. You see, I had let them believe what they believe.
Well, fix you a plate.
I joined in the hospitality. I saw this girl, sitting out under the chinaberry tree, legs stretched out white and stockinged. Eatin an apple. Takin lil polite bird bites. She was a small woman. Small. Bird bones. If you glance her with the tip of yo elbow she snap right in two.
Porsha thought about it. Mamma remembered his wife, Georgiana, as a sickly woman with olive-colored hair. (Pappa Simmons rarely mentioned her, the name trembling on his lips, rattling the cage of his flesh.)
Yes, distant stovewood am good stovewood. Her all dolled up in a choir robe with gold sash. Didn know that in a few weeks we become a divine institution. I’d been waitin fo the right gal to come along. Nothing should be plucked until it’s ripe.
I joined her under the tree. We talked. I invited her for a walk in the trackless forest. Then I took her rowing on the lake.
Her teeth and lilies are
alike
Sing, fellows, for my true love and
The water will take the long oar strike
Come sundown, I drove her home in my Model T. We screamed above the barking engine. Simple as that.
If you want to catch you a gal, give her something nice occasionally to wear, and praise her up to the skies whenever she has anything tolerably decent.
When the woogies see me in town wit this girl, they knows I was a nigga. Mobile ain’t but neigh big. Everybody got one foot in they do and one in yours.
Come morning, I’m fired. (Each day begins wit a lesson and ends wit a lesson.)
I had worked my way up to foreman. I worked my people hard and ain’t tolerate no nonsense. Mr. Simmons, they say, he mean as the devil. I try to teach em to work and save, work and save, work and save. Don’t spend every fool penny.
Boss man say, Ernest, you a good worker and bout the best foman I ever had. And I ain’t got nothin gainst niggas. But—
I understand, suh, I said.
Here yo pay, and here yo half-day. I know you wouldn want me to give you mo.
No, suh.
And Ernest?
Yes, suh?
Good luck. A nigga need all the luck he can git.
GEORGIANA WAS A LAZYBONES. Her mother and father let her do nothing but sit around all day. Watch them work. Lazybones. And many a time I talk to her something fierce to get her to lift a light finger. A man should never strike a woman. Rather trespass on an angel.
Wasn’t but two things a nigga could do in that town, wash or field. Unless you was a preacher, but the town already had one.
Did yall share—
By and by, befo you could blink good, Georgiana swell up and start to totin her belly round. We work, bear a child, work. Cept them woogies never pay you what you earn. Georgiana pray. I complain. Pray. Complain. Ain’t much else you could do. Then the night riders—
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