“Grandma knew him?” As Helene questioned, her mother’s eyebrows set down.
“Yeah, she did. You know how your grandma was. Took in every stray cat, dog, and raccoon in Lafayette. Guess she didn’t know the difference when Chess came sliding up on the porch.”
“I guess she wouldn’t have,” Helene said. Even Annie b softened when she spoke of Liberty.
Queen Ester continued. “Your grandma took in anything and everything. When she was living, this house was filled with things other folks would of turned out the door.” She moved out of her puddle and then grinned. “Got myself some kind of wet.” She pulled opened a drawer and took out a kitchen towel. After patting herself dry, she put it back in its place and continued. “You know, we had this chicken that wouldn’t lay eggs worth nothing. Shoulda killed it. All that bird was good for was a cooking pot. But Mama said, ‘Naw, it ain’t right to kill a body just cause it don’t act the way you expect it to.’
“Then we had this cow that looked like rain and only thought about giving us milk on Saturday nights. I kept telling Mama: Steak, steak. But she wouldn’t listen. Had that cow for the longest time. Folks was always stopping by to tip they hat or tip a cup or get a slice of pie or talk when they wives swept them out of the door.”
Without prompting, Queen Ester was filling in the blank spaces of her daughter’s memory and Helene loved her for it. She could see black women in thin cotton dresses, draped on bar stools, laughter in their mouths, while they waited for her grandmother to fill their plates.
“Yes, yes, them piano fingers of his.” Queen Ester’s voice broke into Helene’s thoughts, and suddenly she remembered: tapered hands holding a caramel Mary Jane between two fingers. Yes, I’m sure that was Chess. All I needed to start remembering were these things around me. Mama’s troubled hands holding her empty cup, her rumbling voice, and the fistful of letters on the car seat. His hands were attached to the candy placed in my mouth, the fleeting taste of a Mary Jane suddenly snatched away, its sweetness turned bitter on the tongue. Where was this? Yes, right in front of the house, this house, my house, and then Helene wondered if it were her uncle’s knowing she thought of now or her own.
Why my house? And then she remembered: someone had told her—Uncle Ed?—some deep rolling voice saying, “Yeah, this your house, baby girl, more yours than anybody, cause here, right inside the door, right upstairs you was born.” Rolling laughter. “You the only one born in this house. Now what about that? Ain’t that something? Not many folks can say they was born in a house with a blanket waiting on them when they come out.” Did something turn sour in the voice? Whatever it was, it smelled bad, since Helene or someone else wrinkled their nose.
“But Chess couldn’t play for nothing and couldn’t read to boot. Best he could do was write his name. He should have been listening when Mama was trying to teach him what a group of letters say.”
In the space that opened up while Queen Ester caught her breath, Helene asked about her father. “But Mama, what about Daddy?” she whispered softly, her voice studied, casual. “What was Daddy like?”
“Oh, your daddy was real nice, real nice man.” Queen Ester picked up a dishrag folded on the kitchen sink, playing with its ragged edges. “Real nice.” She spun her finger around a loose thread and pulled. Hard. “Yes, sir. Nice as pie.”
“There’s got to be more than that, Mama. Uncle Ed said he worked at a place called Mr. Carthers’s sawmill.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” But Queen Ester didn’t look up as she spoke; her eyes held fast to the unraveling dishrag. Loop after loop, its stitches opened as Queen Ester plucked at the thread. “I made this myself. With that sewing machine you saw upstairs. Chain-stitch machine is what I got. Tug a bit on a loose thread, and whatever you make is liable to fall apart. Just like this here.” She tugged at the string. “I always wanted one of them lockstitch machines they got out there now. Pedaling ain’t so hard.”
Helene waited for her mother to pick up her story and spin a life out for her father the way she had for Chess and her grandmother. According to Aunt Annie he was good, boring. He never stole anyone’s wife, beat a child, or drank himself into a stupor. No one talked about him, a vanished thing whose name (Helene only knew his nickname; Ed had thought and thought and come up with nothing else) she had heard twice, foolish and poor sounding—Duck. The name of a boy of twelve. That was her father. He died right before Helene was born, cut to pieces in a sawmill accident. Filling two sacks they put into a coffin, along with bloodstained wood shavings, he was the parent gone by childbirth, a mother accident that chose the father instead.
Queen Ester’s silence had crept between them and spread. “Yes, well, that’s nice. We should try to get you one.” Helene smiled at her mother, but Queen Ester didn’t look up from her hands. A nest of thread sat in her palm. “About Daddy. How long did he work at the sawmill? What did he do there? Where is it?” Helene piled questions atop of questions. “How old was he when he died?”
“Good Lord,” Queen Ester said. “Well, let’s see then. All them questions in a row, just lined on up, you got them. I don’t know. That sawmill was over yonder.”
Helene tried to disguise her disappointment. “Why don’t you know?”
Queen Ester put the rag down at the edge of the sink. “Well, baby”—she picked at the unraveled string, her fingers gnawing at the thread—“your daddy come and gone so quick, ain’t like nobody got to know him.”
“But you said that Chess was a friend of Daddy’s?”
“That’s right, baby. Chess sho was a friend of Duck’s.”
“So where’s Chess? Where is he now?”
Queen Ester pinched the edge of the dishrag and bit at the thread with her teeth. She looked satisfied. “Baby, Chess dead.”
4
IN 1927, CHESTER Hubbert believed he was knee-deep in the life being lived by every Negro in the state of Mississippi: steeped in rising debt and back-crushing work. Even in the late twenties, cotton plantations still dotted the delta, mixed with sawmills. Land once covered with willow oaks and cottonwood trees was now laced, crisscross fashion, with acres of land worked and worked over by black hands. For the most part, Chester was right. His father sharecropped for the Sillers plantation, kissing debt so tenderly that for seven straight seasons he’d been clutching at the hope that he could crawl out from under the money he owed Mr. Sillers. But in other ways Chester was wrong: his mother sang, traveling in an arc that took her to places like Itta Bena and Cleveland, Mississippi, where she sat on high stools, her legs open while she bellowed melancholy songs about string beans and the Devil. White men wearing loosened plaid bow ties stared at the ever-darkening gap between her thighs. And on the days when she struggled home, smelling of male sweat and whiskey, Mrs. Hubbert would stay up all night with Chess, whispering stories about gleaming black men who fought in barns with knives and women who could save whole cities with their bare hands. For fourteen years, Chess lived almost like every other Negro in Mississippi: quietly, with despair within arm’s reach. But then in late April 1927, with spring struggling to arrive, it began to rain.
When it came, without a rumble, sharecroppers and owners alike were thankful. With cotton cultivating only weeks away, they had been worried because a generally rainy winter had turned stingy in early November, cracking low-tide creeks and withering gardens. Backbreaking work had become even more so, and every farmer between Corinth and Pascagoula prayed for just three days of rain—the ceaseless rolling kind, so that by May the earth would fold up and over itself like cloth—and at the end of April their prayers were answered. Before a grandmother could clutch her knee with familiar pain, it started to rain in the early morning.
When one day turned into two, which flashed into three, something not too far from pride swelled inside the tenants of the Sillers plantation. Hadn’t they prayed and He delivered? They began plotting how many days it would take to finish cultivating so many acres and planned visits to faraway relative
s. Even when the rain stretched to four days and five, they refused to be troubled. “Didn’t we ask for rain? Can’t look God in the mouth now,” they all murmured over late dinner. But by the end of the week, the rueful comments stuttered to a close. Even the old couldn’t stamp out general concern with, “Ain’t studying no rain. Week worth of rain ain’t nothing.” Mrs. Hubbert reined in her travels, only going as far as Oxford that weekend and then turning immediately back for home.
One week slid into two, and now when children tucked in their chins and raced to gather kindling out of the wood bins in the morning, topsoil greeted them at the front door. Dogwood blossoms and trumpet honeysuckle drowned on the vine. Without being told, the sharecroppers knew their prayers had turned into a curse. With almost a full month of rain, acres of land were too wet to cultivate, and even the stubborn—who thought, You want rain? Gone rain, then, and soaked themselves through while dropping cotton seed in the ground—had their efforts cleanly swept away.
A respite arrived in the middle of May. Sudden and harsh, the rain stopped. For five hours, nothing came down, and Mrs. Hubbert swept puddles of muddy water off her porch. But before her neighbors could complete their collective grateful sigh, intermingled with mutterings of, “That sho was close,” the rain began again, drenching marigolds and daylilies, and if anything it rained harder. Two more full weeks of rain went by, and Mrs. Hubbert didn’t leave the house at all, since rumors reached the Sillers plantation that farther north, everything with the misfortune of standing still was now covered with water. What they had thought was personal grief was in fact drowning everything near the Mississippi River. Cairo, Illinois, was on the verge of being swept away; the Ohio River had turned contrary and begun flowing upstream.
Now, instead of planning visits to faraway family, the Sillers tenants had conversations that stayed close to the strength of the nearest levees, man-made structures that kept the river in its place. Many thought they should gather what they could and travel as far east as possible but, deep into debt with Mr. Sillers, no one could travel even to Jackson. And worst of all, there was gossip that Mrs. Sillers and her children had left for New York weeks ago.
So they gathered. Dread licked at their feet at night and no one wanted to say aloud what passed in front of their minds: that this was the one, the culmination of God’s wrath that would wash away the sinners. If true, they were damned. Hadn’t He said forty days and forty nights? A month had passed they were sure. Thirty-four days turned into thirty-seven, but there had been that five-hour break that stood between them and God’s word. Mrs. Hubbert swore she had counted out the hours: from one to six o’clock. Others weren’t so sure how long the lapse had lasted: wasn’t it just as long as it took to get dinner ready? But Mrs. Hubbert held fast to her godless knowledge; five hours, no more, no less. Her certainty filled the Sillers tenants with fear, since to admit she was right was to concede that they were not destined; they were just unlucky.
They met, but not in the usual place, the church. With its weak roof, the church had stood in almost two feet of rain by the second week; now, at the beginning of June, the pews swam underwater. The tenants congregated instead at the Hubberts’, safe from drowning since Mr. Hubbert tarred his roof each January. Desperate, neighbors crowded into the house; they spoke all at once. Maybe they should run, but where to? Texas too far away, flashed one woman’s voice, silencing them for a moment. Despite themselves and their notions of self-sufficiency, they thought of getting help from Mr. Sillers, who hadn’t said a word about the rain to any of his tenants. As far as they could tell, he still expected them to lay seed and chop cotton. But as quickly as they thought of him, they dismissed his phantom help. Wasn’t it because of him they couldn’t leave in the first place? Brooding produced a long stretch of silence, and in that space they pulled together the rumors they had heard from as far away as St. Louis. Murmuring turned to shouting. The old, feeling ignored, coughed sharply into their hands and banged the ground with weathered canes. Their hands rose as they assured people that just north of them the river had broken and stretched as long and calm as a dance floor.
Mrs. Hubbert moved into the middle of the room, trying to shoo away the small children running around the house. “Can’t y’all go somewhere?” she said. Chess, who stood at her side, began tugging on her dress. “What, boy? Can’t you see we taking care of grown folks’ business?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Round up these kids and put them somewhere.”
“Can we go outside?”
“It’s raining.”
“I know it. But Mr. Paw said he gone make a raft. We can gone out and help.”
“Well, Lord Jesus, what he think this is, God’s flood?” His mother waited for laughter to scoop up her words but, the silence too long for her to bear, she added quickly, “Lord know he ain’t no Noah,” and then it came from every mouth, cautiously and without mirth. Mrs. Hubbert looked at the seven children standing at the front door. “Well, y’all gone and help Mr. Paw. Better than having you underfoot.” The door swept open, then banged closed. Still in the middle of the room, Mrs. Hubbert thought, Well, at least them children gone. Might as well tell them what you heard, minus the ribbons you might add. She looked closely at the twelve men standing in the room, their hats still on. And they, in turn, watched Mrs. Hubbert, since sending children away always meant bad news.
Mr. Till plucked off his hat and spoke out. “Well, come on, Miz Hubbert. Say what you want.”
“I been hearing how them levee men round up black folk and carry them off.” Her words prompted a small rumble of voices.
Mr. Hubbert said softly, “We ain’t that bad off.”
“Fixing to be.”
“Ain’t you the one that started the laughing just now?”
“That was for them children’s sakes. Mr. Paw ain’t no fool; if he—”
“Girl, God ain’t bout to send us no old-ass nigger for Noah.”
“Who done said he’s Noah? I ain’t said that. I’m just saying Mr. Paw ain’t no fool, is all.”
“We right behind the government levee, girl.”
“Don’t I know it? But them levees just like this here house: man-made. If ain’t no need to worry, why they been sweeping up the black folk?” She reached for her husband’s hand. “We should hitch out and gone to the levee now. Tween all of us, we got three wagons. Let’s get what we got—” Again she did not get to finish her thought. Angry, her husband interrupted.
“I ain’t heading out to no levee. I seen Mr. Sillers on his own porch just yesterday, smoking his pipe. He ain’t moved on no levee.” Mr. Hubbert banged his hand on his table. But Mr. Till, who had coaxed Mrs. Hubbert into saying what was on her mind, spoke up.
“Well, now, that ain’t quite right. My wife say he been packing; just real slow at it. She say he got a whole mess of trunks lined up in his parlor. I reckon he gone be gone by tomorrow.” They all turned to Mrs. Till, who stood next to the window.
“He’s right. I said just that, and I reckon it’s true.”
Mr. Hubbert refused to budge, refused to believe that even he with so little would be asked to leave it all. “I been in this house for more than fifteen years, tarred my roof every end of winter. It ever rain on you in this house? Well?”
“You know it ain’t.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We don’t need to take off to no levee. Right now we just as safe, safer than we would be standing under some white man.” Mrs. Hubbert turned her back to her neighbors and cupped her husband under the chin.
“We can stay on here if you want. I ain’t gone make us leave. But something’s cooking if even Mr. Sillers packing.”
Mr. Hubbert lowered his voice, laid his words coaxing and soft between them. “They really picking men to work the levee?”
“Done plucked Willy Boy’s son right tween his mama’s house and the church.”
“Well, shit,” Mr. Hubbert said, and his curse was quickly eclipsed by the fright tha
t fell on his neighbors’ faces. Mothers rubbed their hands over their chests in fear, and then they all began to plan to leave, since black and white alike knew that Willy Boy’s son, whose mother liked to call him “my special little bit,” weighed not even one hundred pounds, soaking wet. Though no one would say it aloud, Willy Boy’s son was worthless. If they had swiped him up, something really bad lay afoot or else the people running the levee were desperate. Either way, everyone at the Hubberts’ house knew it was time to go. The question was which levee. The Greenville levee was closest and strongest, but Mr. Till swore the white people there were mean as spit. The Helena, Mounds Landing, and Yazoo levees were all contemplated and dismissed. Finally the Sillers tenants decided on the Vicksburg levee. Though farther away than Greenville, it would be safest.
Chester spent the next three hours (along with everyone else), packing the good chairs, racing back and forth from his home to the wagon, stuffing between wooden planks nightgowns and Sunday shirts his mother could not bear to part with. Running with his arms full of things considered too worthy or too costly to leave, Chess thought—with the confidence of a fourteen-year-old mind crammed with his mother’s nighttime stories of men lifting burning houses single-handedly to shake children gently out the front door—Yes, sir, this here is what I been waiting for all this time. The troubled faces of his neighbors didn’t bother him, since to Chess that was how it was supposed to be—the look of flight, soaked clothes clinging to women and children. Chess watched them, their hope making them foolishly jam doors closed and nail to the floors items that were precious but unwieldy. The only thing missing as far as Chess could tell was singing—a choir of voices with baritones and sopranos, perhaps even a small child’s voice trailing slightly behind a four/four beat.
More than seven hours had gone by since the tenants decided to flee for the levee when Chess, standing among them, was suddenly snatched up by his mother. Her hand tightened around his arm, dragging him to the wagon. Both mother and child landed inside it with a sharp hah. Mrs. Hubbert leaned toward her husband and said, “Let’s get.” And then Chess heard what his dreaming had previously drowned out: a loud plaintive moaning that seemed to come from everywhere.
Knee-Deep in Wonder Page 5