The Gospel Truth
Page 3
Way I heard it,
Charlie dared Shad to climb higher,
and Shad slipped and fell out the tree
on top of that poor old bird.
I shake my head and smile.
If I’s ever in need of rescuing,
Shad surely be the worst one to do it.
according to Phoebe
B u r n e d
“That’s an awfully big basket.”
Shad peek under the checkered cloth.
“Why don’t you let me lighten your load?”
I turn away and he reach for the basket,
arm stretching ’round my shoulder.
I kind of like it there.
“Come on now, Phoebe.
Those two can’t possibly eat all this.”
He snatch a hot scone,
and I laugh as he bobble it in his burning fingers.
“Phoebe!” Missus call from the front porch.
I near drop my basket
as she come around the corner.
Me and Shad in a heap of trouble
if Missus know we stole from her.
I look at Shad standing there,
hand empty,
cheek lumpy,
eyes swimming.
“Quit your dawdling, foolish girl,” Missus scold.
“The doctor and Tessa are waiting.”
When she goes inside,
Shad spit a hot mess into his hand,
wave the other at his scalded mouth.
I shake my head.
Like Bea say,
If you play with fire, you gonna get burned.
But Shad can’t help himself.
I guess that’s what makes him Shad.
I guess that’s why I like him so.
according to Phoebe
C h i t C h a t
Doctor Birdman don’t seem happy that Miss Tessa
come with us in the woods.
But I don’t mind.
Her chitter-chatter keep Doctor Birdman away from me.
I’s free to walk ahead and find the trail.
I know where them waxwings is, I think.
But it don’t matter none.
’Cause all of Miss Tessa’s chitter-chatter
gonna keep the birds away from us, too.
according to Phoebe
T o S e e a B i r d
When I was little,
Momma used to walk with me in the woods on our way to the Big House.
To see a bird, she say, you gotta be
still as a dusk pond;
quiet as a white moth;
and as patient as a grub snug in a cocoon.
Root yourself in the dirt, she say,
and we wriggle our toes in the cool earth.
Breathe in the big sky, she say,
and I draw all the wide blue I could
into my tiny chest.
Hold it deep inside your heart, she say, smiling.
And wait.
We’d stand there in the dawn light,
Momma and me, fingers to our lips,
listening to the leaves shush my heartbeat
until all was still.
Then come the morning song
of that bright red bird,
perched high in the branches above.
Birdie-birdie-birdie
Momma was right.
’Cause you gotta think you’s part of the woods,
if you want that bird to believe it, too.
according to Tessa
D e e p in t h e W o o d s
“Are we there yet?”
We’ve been walking for ages,
and still no sign.
Of birds.
Of rest.
Of interest in me.
Be charming, Mother said.
Listen to his stories, she said.
Laugh at his jokes.
But the man never speaks.
Am I to feign interest in silence,
while we slog through the underbrush?
“Oh, the heat!” I say to his back.
But he presses on.
Surely this godforsaken wood has one bird in it.
Any bird will do.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going, Phoebe?”
She nods and forges ahead,
leading us in circles,
leading us on.
She best find something soon,
fool of a girl,
or I’ll strap her myself.
according to Tessa
H o t o n t h e T r a i l
I’m melting under all these damned petticoats.
A lady never swears.
A lady doesn’t perspire.
But I am.
I feel it—my composure. Drip. Drip. Dripping away.
“Can we stop?” It’s not a question.
“Phoebe, drink.” I shouldn’t have to ask.
She puts down the picnic basket.
Yet even under its load,
she’s barely broken a sweat,
barefoot, brown, and breezy
in her cotton dress and blue headscarf.
But then, they’re made for this weather, aren’t they?
I sit in the shade,
flutter my fan,
bat my eyes.
But he is too busy looking at the treetops
for his waxtail whatever.
He knows all about bird behaviors,
and nothing of women.
Honestly, it’s like I’m not even here.
Phoebe brings him another old nest.
“Look, Miss Tessa,” he says,
like she’s given him a handful of money, not muck.
“We’re on the trail.” He smiles. “He’s elusive,
but we’ll track him.”
“Absolutely.” I smile back.
Like I’m speaking of birds and not
a husband.
according to Phoebe
S q u a w k i n g
Birds be every place in the woods, really.
Well, every place but here.
They long gone
or hiding, anyhow.
They hear Miss Tessa’s cawing from a mile away.
“It’s so hot.”
“Are we there yet?”
“Can we rest now?”
Doctor Birdman know it, too.
He never gonna see no waxwing,
with all her chirp-chirping.
“What y’all find so exciting about birdwatching,” she say, “is beyond me.”
Yes, I think to myself. Yes, it is.
“Let’s have lunch,” Doctor Birdman finally say.
’Cause there ain’t nothing else to do.
I throw the blanket, set out all Bea’s fixings:
cheese and ham sandwiches,
apple slices, sweet lemonade,
and scones with strawberry jam.
Good thing Bea knows Miss Tessa’s favorites.
’Cause when Miss Tessa eating,
our ears finally get a rest from all that squawking.
according to Phoebe
B i r d s W a t c h i n g
We spend all afternoon wandering the woods.
When Miss Tessa grow tired of complaining,
a couple chickadees perch on high branches,
watching us with their pinhead eyes.
Heads tilting this way and that.
Who’s watching who, Momma used to say.
Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee!
one warns,
then they fly away
before Doctor Birdman can open his sketchbook.
Momma told me the more dees, the greater the warning.
People ain’t always what they seem.
But nature don’t lie, she say.
So I always listen to the birds.
And they say Doctor Birdman and Miss Tessa
be a four-dee danger,
each one surely on the hunt for something.
according to Phoebe
/> R a i n e d O u t
Fat rain tap the leaves.
I fetch Miss Tessa’s parasol and hold it over her
while she fuss and fumble,
trying to keep her skirts and locks dry.
“Don’t worry, Miss Tessa,” Birdman tease,
“it’s only a few raindrops.”
“Oh, I know,” Miss Tessa say,
“but I’m just so sweet,
I might melt like sugar in the wet.”
I wonder if she know the same thing goes
for plain old salt.
I lift my face to the cool drops.
Let some tickle on my tongue.
But Miss Tessa move to leave,
so I follow,
careful to keep her parasol just so.
“Don’t you think we should get back?”
she ask Birdman.
Even I know it ain’t a question.
That doctor, though, he just stand there
looking at me,
at the treetops,
and finally at Miss Tessa, like he thinking of an answer.
I can tell he disappointed.
Everybody know, the best birdwatching be
right after a summer rain,
when the air cool
and the ground wet and wriggling with life.
That be when all them hide-a-birds come out,
looking for a bite and a bath.
And he gonna miss it.
according to Phoebe
F e e d i n g T i m e
Bea eyeball me when I come in,
then nod at the pot cooling on the kitchen counter.
Sometimes it mush and beans,
but today it full of cornbread scraps and pot likker,
water from tonight’s boiled greens.
“They been waiting on you.”
I carry it out the back door, down the stoop,
around the corner
to where I know they’s hiding,
watching me tip the trough and spill the muddy rainwater,
waiting for me to fill it from my pot.
They come a-running then,
elbowing for a good spot along the wooden sides.
Doctor Birdman watch from the stoop.
“Are those … children?” he ask,
like he never seen one before.
I look at them:
sack dresses dirty and wet,
bare feet muddy
from walking up from the Quarters.
All knobs and knees, all rag and bone.
I nod.
Of course they’s children. What he think they is?
“But,” he say, “they’re only babies.”
True, some be only one or two summers old, if that.
But some’s seen four or five.
They’s just scrawny.
Master going set them to work soon.
Any one not fit for work—
he sell.
And nobody ever want to be sold.
Like Bea say: Better the devil you know
than the devil you don’t.
They scoop sloppy handfuls to their mouths.
Soon enough, the trough empty.
The littlest one, Noah,
he run his fingers inside my bucket and lick them clean.
Doctor Birdman walk down off the porch.
Rain spots his shirt,
makes his slicked hair and moustache curls
droop and drip.
But he just stands there
like he don’t even know it’s raining.
He strange, that Birdman.
And I wonder what kind of devil he be.
according to Phoebe
N o a h
The children shy away from
the white man standing in the rain.
Alls except Noah.
He ain’t learned yet.
“Where’s his mother?” Doctor Birdman ask,
kneeling in the mud,
meeting Noah face to face.
I point at the fields over yonder.
Noah lucky. He gonna see his momma at sunset.
But most of them won’t. Most their mommas
got sold away.
Like mine.
Doctor Birdman look all confused.
Sad, even.
Don’t he know the way of things?
Noah touch one of Doctor Birdman’s dripping curls.
I s’pose he ain’t never seen hair like that before up close.
His eyes go all big
and he smile.
Doctor Birdman take a biscuit out his pocket.
“A snack,” he whisper, handing it to him, “to tide you over until dinner.”
It’s a good thing I don’t talk.
Else I gotta tell Doctor Birdman
this be the only meal they’s getting today.
according to Phoebe
A N e w W o r d
“It’s those damned abolitionists, I tell you!” Master say.
He slam his hand on the table at dinner,
making the women jump.
I don’t know that word: a-bo-li-tion-ist.
But whatever it is, it sure got Master riled.
Even Shad look worried as he come in
with more wood for the fireplace.
“Why, just today,” Master say,
“I read about a $1000 reward for the one
skulking around Norfolk a few weeks back.
Thirteen slaves went missing shortly after he did.”
“That’s terrible,” Doctor Birdman pause,
a forkful of pie midair.
“Do they have a description?”
Master shake his head.
“Did they catch the slaves?”
“Two,” Master say.
“Not much left of them
after the paddyroller’s hounds got at them.”
Shad look at me. I know he thinking about Will.
About what could have happened.
Doctor Birdman put down his fork,
like he ain’t hungry no more.
“Such a waste.”
“You’re right. Theft, plain and simple,” Master say,
as I clear away the plates.
“But I’ll tell you this:
anyone trying to steal my slaves is going to wind up dead.
I have the right,” he look at me and Shad,
“to protect my property.”
And Shad and me smile and nod at our Master,
grateful.
according to Tessa
O n T h e P r o w l
Mother enters my room the next morning,
carrying one of her ridiculous wide-brimmed hats.
“That sun is ruining your complexion.”
Ever the critic, my mother.
She’s right, though.
Damn her.
I glance in the mirror at Phoebe behind me,
dutifully pinning my hair,
as perfectly as she does every morning.
The sun has ruddied my cheeks and arms,
splattered my nose with freckles the color of dirt.
“A couple more days out there,” I say,
“and I’ll look like Phoebe’s sister.”
I feel Mother bristle, like Rufus,
hackles raised,
eyes narrowed.
I half expect her claws to come out.
She strikes lightning fast, slapping Phoebe’s face,
scattering a handful of hairpins across the floor.
But Phoebe doesn’t flinch, cower, or cry out.
She knows better.
She’s learned it over the years.
“Leave us!” Mother shoves her aside.
And Phoebe slips away,
silent, as always.
In all the times she’s been reprimanded,
I’ve never heard her make a sound.
Too bad she’s gone mute.
Sometimes a whimper or two
is t
he satisfaction Mother’s temper needs.
according to Tessa
M y P h o e b e
We grew up together,
Phoebe and I.
Two peanuts in a shell.
In truth, she was my only playmate.
We laughed and told stories,
we shared secrets,
we slept in the same room:
my bed, a four poster
and hers, a pallet of straw at the foot of it.
But we never noticed the difference
of our beds;
of our dresses;
of our skin.
We hid from the dragon,
the fire and fang we knew as
Mother’s wrath.
Those were long days of fantasy,
when brave knights rescued us from castle towers,
when dust held fairy magic,
when a black girl and a white girl could be friends.
Such childishness.
It wasn’t until my seventh birthday that I realized she was
a slave.
Because that was the day she became
my slave.
A gift given to me by my father
along with Sugar and Rufus.
A pony.
A kitten.
A slave.
Just one more pet to own.
I think Phoebe stopped talking then.
I don’t really recall.
I needed a servant—not a storyteller.
I wanted someone to pin my hair and press my clothes.
I no longer cared what she had to say,
so long as she remained my faithful shadow.
And she has. Once I trained her.
I taught her so well,
my Phoebe often knows what I want or need
even before I ask.
Perhaps that is what angers Mother so much.
That Father gave Phoebe to me.
And not to her.
according to Phoebe
D r a w i n g L e s s o n
Miss Tessa come birding with us again
and, surprise, surprise, we ain’t seen no birds.
She blame me. Say I’m not tracking right.
So I take them to the honeysuckle bushes,
part the leaves and, sure enough,
huddled in the crook of the branch
in the bowl of a nest