by Daniel Black
“Why not?” Possum inquired.
“’Cause we knowed nobody would believe us. We didn’t even believe what we saw, so we knowed wunnit nobody else. This de first time I ever mentioned it since it happened. But it did happen. You believe that.”
Granddaddy sat back in the rocker with a self-assurance no one could alter. He examined everyone’s faces to see how much they believed him, then he said, “Okay,” and relaxed in his own inner peace. “You ain’t gotta believe it. De truth don’t need no witnesses.”
Possum often found herself in relentless silence after hearing her grandfather’s tales. He never told normal stories, she used to say, about killin’ hogs or stealin’ watermelons; instead, he always talked about the supernatural, the illogical, the unbelievable, the impossible, and the boundaries of Possum’s little brain simply didn’t extend far enough for her to believe most of what he said.
Now, walking down the road as a grown woman, Possum needed to believe in the impossible, for it would take a miracle, she knew, to get Clement back in her arms safely. What exactly had the boy done? she asked herself. Why didn’t Daddy beat him and make him act right?
The cute little open-toe shoes, which started aching once she arrived in Greenwood, now swung by their straps in her right hand. Her feet hurt so badly that she wanted nothing more than to lean back and throw the damn things as far as her strength would allow. Because she had no others, though, she decided to tolerate their existence, especially since she might have to wear them again. Whoever had convinced her that heels were attractive was a fool shonuff, she thought, as she tiptoed her way to her old stomping grounds.
The bra had to go, too. It didn’t matter much anyway since Possum’s breasts had never grown beyond a 34B. However, her small, perky breasts had long been the envy of all her woman friends, most of whose huge breasts, without a bra, sagged like wet potato sacks. She reached behind her back with both hands and unsnapped the hooked brassiere, releasing a sigh of a woman deeply relieved. Folding it into a warped ball, she placed the bra in her pocketbook and wondered—like she had about the shoes—who had convinced women they needed it at all. It had to be a man, she concluded, for surely no woman would ever have created anything so uncomfortable and constraining. When she thought about it further, Possum decided that much of what women do is for male pleasure and comfort. “You ain’t got no business wit yo’ titties hangin’ out!” she imagined men telling a busty woman. “It ain’t decent!” But do men know how uncomfortable that damn thing is? she thought angrily. Do they care?
She began venting aloud. “And who created dresses? Certainly nobody who knows about Mississippi mosquitoes!” Possum laughed at herself. “And what idiot came up with this shit called stockings, especially in the summer?” She frowned at an invisible listener, pointing her finger and rolling her neck rebelliously, transferring arbitrary frustrations to a wind that gladly carried them away.
“Hey there!” a voice startled her.
Possum jerked around abruptly, clearly unprepared to entertain another. At first, she did not recognize the voice or the face.
“Good afternoon, Miss Possum Johnson. I knowed you wuz comin’ soon. I heard ’bout yo’ boy.”
Possum thought she’d never see Sammy Spears again. “How you doin’?” She smiled.
“Real good. Real good,” he said, still sitting atop the wagon. “Got me a wife and three daughters, so I ain’t done too bad for myself I guess.”
Possum couldn’t think of any more small talk, so she bypassed it, and asked, “You heard anything about my son, Sammy?”
He shook his head. “I ain’t heard nothin’. I sho do hope he’s all right though.”
“Yeah, me too.” Possum tried to smile, but couldn’t.
“I went to de meetin’ yo’ daddy had. He asked colored folks to help him find yo’ boy, and I been askin’ ’round, but don’t nobody know nothin’.”
“Or ain’t nobody talkin’.”
“Yeah. You know how that goes.”
An awkward silence lingered between the ex-lovers who shared more history than either desired to remember.
“How old was—is your boy?”
“Fourteen. He be fifteen in a few months.”
“Wow. He ain’t a kid no more. That’s how old I was when I first asked yo’ daddy if I could come see you.”
Possum smirked, but she wasn’t in the mood to walk down memory lane. “How old are your girls?”
“Fifteen, twelve, and eight.”
“Is that right?” Possum tried to figure out how to segue out of the conversation without being rude. “Well, I guess I’d better be getting on—”
“It don’t look good, Possum. You know how white folks do ’round here. They ain’t changed.”
She grabbed hold of the wagon to steady herself. “I don’t know what I’d do without my son, Sammy.”
He descended the wagon and embraced her. Possum immediately recognized his fish-and-motor-oil scent.
“Everybody prayin’,” he said with her face pressed into his chest. “Don’t get upset ’til you know somethin’. God can do the impossible.”
“The question is, will He,” Possum said, rubbing tears into her cheeks. “I guess we’ll see,” she huffed.
“You gotta believe,” Sammy said. “You can’t think the worst.”
“You de one sayin’ it don’t look good!” she shouted and broke free of his embrace. “That’s ’bout the last thing I needed to hear!”
“It’s the truth, Possum. But that don’t mean stop believin’. You gotta keep yo’ faith.”
“I’m tryin hard, Sammy, but it’s slippin’ fast.”
“I can only imagine. If it was one o’ my girls—”
“I guess I better be gettin’ on,” Possum interrupted, clear now why she had dumped him. “If you hear anything, you will let me know, won’t you?”
“You know I will. Ain’t neva been a time you couldn’t count on me.”
“Thanks,” Possum said before Sammy took her to a place she didn’t want to revisit. “I’ll be seein’ you around.” Possum turned.
Sammy mounted the wagon. “I really loved you, Possum Johnson. I really did.”
“I can’t handle that right now, Sammy,” Possum said, shaking her head. She refused to face him.
“I understand,” Sammy whimpered. “I just needed you to know.”
“Why?” Possum regretted asking.
“’Cause I get a feelin’ de next few days might be the hardest days o’ yo’ life, and you might need to hold on to somethin’ real.”
“Was it real, Sammy?” Possum turned and hollered. “Was it? Or was it always about you?”
“It was real,” he answered coolly. “I ain’t never felt like that about nobody before or since you.”
“Let’s just let bygones be bygones,” Possum suggested. “Right now, I gotta find my baby.”
“I understand,” Sammy muttered. “But don’t forget what I said. And if you need me, just send word.”
“You have a wife, man!”
“I know. But I’d swim de ocean for you.” His gaze pierced her heart.
“Go home, Sammy Spears. Just go home. I gotta go, too. Pray for me.”
Possum walked away, and Sammy led the mules in the opposite direction. Farther down the road, she passed the pear tree where they shared their first kiss. She remembered how his full, pink-and-brown lips engulfed her more narrow ones and how his strong grip made her feel safe and wanted. His pearly white teeth, which distracted folks away from his extralarge forehead, granted him a smile that, in 1935, made all the girls in Money envious of Possum. The night they made love for the first time, she remembered how his teeth shone in the moonlight and how his guttural laughter eased her apprehension.
Now, the last thing she needed was to consider life with a married man. So, with a slight wave of hand, she dismissed Sammy from her immediate reality and tried hard to hold herself together until she arrived home. Every time she tried
to imagine where Clement might be or what some old dirty white men might be doing to him, her chest throbbed, and her breath evaporated. “Everything’s gon be all right,” she had repeated all the way from the Windy City to the Land of Cotton. Believing it was now the challenge.
Approaching the old house, Possum felt her resolve weaken. Miss Mary was sitting on the front porch shelling peas into her apron when she looked up and saw her only daughter. It was the meeting of their eyes simultaneously that brought Possum to her knees. She breached all internal contracts and emitted a screeching yell that made Miss Mary’s skin dance.
“Momma! Momma!” she shouted from a deep, dark place within, and wilted in the front yard.
Miss Mary jumped, spilling peas in every direction, and ran to assist Possum. “It’s gon be all right, baby,” she comforted, struggling to stand her daughter upright again. “De Good Lawd gon make a way. You watch Him.” Possum’s piercing cries loosened Miss Mary’s otherwise airtight faith.
“What they done done to my baby, Momma? Huh?” Possum mumbled like one fully inebriated. Her head lay limp on her mother’s shoulder.
“You jes keep the faith, baby. Everything gon be all right. Clement’s jes fine.” Miss Mary rubbed the left side of Possum’s face soothingly and rocked both of them back and forth, searching the heavens for something else reassuring to say. Finding nothing, she called loudly, “Jeremiah! Children!”
“Momma,” Possum pleaded, “where is my baby?” She was clawing Miss Mary’s arms. “Is they done killed my baby?”
“No, chile!” Miss Mary whispered. “Now stop talkin’ like that. Clement’s gon be jes fine. Yo’ daddy, brother, and everybody else is lookin’ for him, and they gon find him. Mark my word.”
Possum didn’t hear the assurance in her mother’s voice she desperately needed to hear. “Oh God!” She wept bitterly.
“It’s gon be all right, Possum,” Jeremiah preached, lifting her from the earth. “Don’t git beside yo’self now, baby. We gotta keep a straight head so we can think.” He threw her right arm across his shoulders and nodded for Enoch to support her on the left.
Chop and Sarah Jane cried from the porch and watched the menfolk drag Possum into the house. Her paralyzed legs hung impotent beneath her torso, and her small, firm breasts pressed forcefully against the contours of her dress. She looked nothing like the children had envisioned. Even in her distress, she was a pretty woman, Sarah Jane noted, unlike the bold, recalcitrant, unruly child everyone had described. As the men carried Possum into the house, Sarah Jane discovered her aunt’s narrow waistline, complemented by protruding, rounded hips that produced an hourglass shape like one she hoped to have one day. She wanted to tell her how pretty she was, but it was clearly not the time.
“Get yo’ aunt Possum some water,” Miss Mary called out. Sarah Jane obeyed instantly, and when she presented Possum the glass, Possum’s weak smile evoked her own.
“You must be my Sarah Jane,” Possum murmured sweetly.
“Yes ma’am, I am,” Sarah Jane said excitedly. It was the my she loved most.
“You just as pretty as a purple sunset,” Possum complimented. She sat in her father’s rocker and tried to recompose herself.
“Thank you, Aunt Possum. You’re pretty, too. I been thinkin’ ’bout you and tryin’ to imagine what you might look like and Uncle Enoch always be tellin’ us kids stories ’bout you, him, and Daddy and sometimes I think about Chicago and what it must be like all de way up there ’cause Clement used to tell us—”
“Hush, chile,” Miss Mary reprimanded. “Don’t talk yo’ aunt’s head off befo’ she git to relax a li’l bit.”
Trying hard to refashion a familial atmosphere in the midst of intense chaos and unspoken fear of Clement’s demise was more than Sarah Jane could handle alone.
“You, sir, must be Pork Chop,” Possum said more lightly.
“W-w-well, no, mmmmam,” Chop corrected innocently as he moved to stand before his aunt. “I-I-I’m Chop, b-b-but I ain’t p-pp-pork chop.”
“Yessir,” Possum cackled. “And how did you get that name?”
“Everybody say w-w-when I w-w-was lllllittle I ate a wh-h-hole pork chop, b-b-b-b-b-b-bone and all,” he explained, then smiled, clearly proud of the achievement.
She patted his head lovingly. “Well, you jes keep on eatin’, young man, and you’ll get big and strong jes like yo’ daddy.” Chop embraced Possum like Clement used to. She held him until he pulled away.
“I’m Ray Ray, ma’am.”
Possum turned and saw Enoch as a child again. “If you ain’t the spittin’ image of yo’ daddy, boy, my name ain’t Possum!” she declared. “Come over hyeah, and hug yo’ aintie’s neck. You might be big, but you ain’t grown.”
Ray Ray shuffled across the floor, not wanting to be treated like the other younger ones.
“Just as handsome as you can be! Look at ya!” Possum slapped Ray Ray on the shoulder harder than he had anticipated.
“You mighty purty, Aunt Possum,” Ray Ray complimented freely. “Mighty purty.”
“Well, thank ya, son. You don’t look half-bad yo’self.”
After the introductions, Miss Mary said, “Come on to dis table and let’s eat.”
Ella Mae placed cabbage, fried pork chops, sliced tomatoes and onions, and butter beans on the table, and everyone waited for Possum to sit first. Once she took her seat, the others began to chatter, hoping privately to avoid the topic of Clement, at least until supper was over.
“When God created the world,” Enoch began solemnly, “He looked at everything he made and evaluated it.”
“Uh-huh,” Ella Mae responded, trying not to laugh prematurely. She spilled butter bean pot liquor all over Possum’s dress. “I’m sorry, girl,” she apologized, and dabbed at the spots with an old dishrag lying on the table. “Yo’ brother is a straight fool, chile,” she commented.
Possum never smiled.
“He made the stars and the moon, then He stepped back, and said, ‘That’s good’.”
“Yeah!” Ella Mae said far too loudly. The children were snickering by now although their grandmother was giving them the eye. Miss Mary would have stopped Enoch’s blasphemy, as she called it, except for her hope that his humor might bring Possum temporary relief.
“Then he made the trees and the flowers, and God stepped back and smelled their fragrance, and said, ‘That’s good.’”
“Well,” Ella Mae moaned, old Baptist-deacon style. Possum wished they would simply be quiet.
“Then God made the oceans and the seas, the lakes and the rivers, and He stepped back and looked at them, and said, ‘That’s good.’” Enoch’s shoulders began to jerk, but he denied their fullest expression in order to tell the remainder of the story.
“Tell it, tell it,” Ella Mae encouraged as she discovered that Jeremiah, Miss Mary, and Possum weren’t even listening.
“Then God made the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, and God looked at the animals, and said, ‘That’s good.’”
Ella Mae couldn’t fake it any longer. She, too, hung her head and let Enoch proceed alone.
“Then God looked at everything He made, the stars and the moon, the animals and the birds, the oceans and the trees, and He said, ‘I’m lonely still. I think I’ll make me a man.’”
Enoch determined to finish the story whether the adults listened or not. At least the children were laughing.
“So God scooped down in the bed of the river and gathered a ball of Mississippi Delta mud and shaped it ’til he had formed a strong, muscular Black man. And God looked at de brotha and said—”
“Ththththththththat’s g-g-good!” Chop belted.
“That’s right!” Enoch said, and continued: “Then God looked at dat good-lookin’ brotha, and said, ‘Ain’t no need in him bein’ on dis earth all by hisself. He need a helpmate. So God went back to de river and scooped up some more clay and decided to shape it a li’l different. He put lumps in de chest—”
Miss Mary cleared her throat.
Enoch paused, then said, “He made another figure out of de clay from de riverbed and called this figure woman because that’s what Adam said when he saw her—wooooooo man!”
Ray Ray chuckled loudest while Sarah Jane and Chop only smiled.
“That ain’t the end of the story,” Enoch declared, refusing to admit that what the family needed was not humor.
“So God put the man and woman in a special garden where they didn’t have to do nothin’ all day but eat and enjoy theyselves. God looked at them together, and said, ‘That’s good.’
“Then God heard the man and woman huffin’ and breathin’ loud one day and God came to see what was wrong. When He got to de garden, he saw the man and woman makin’ love, and God looked at them, and said—”
“Enoch, that’s enough,” Miss Mary muttered. “Ain’t nothin’ funny ’round here today.”
Possum reached and touched his shoulder gratefully. Enoch had no choice but to stop.
Miss Mary rose and sat in the rocker. She opened her Bible and read silently. Jeremiah joined her.
Possum followed Enoch to the edge of the front porch. “I know what you wuz tryin’ to do, and I’m mighty grateful, but I ain’t got nothin’ to laugh about right now.”
“I know, sis,” Enoch said. “I just hoped I could make you smile at least once.”
“I’m jes glad you here, li’l brother.” She reached for his hand. After a few seconds, Enoch said, “I wish I coulda protected him, Possum.”
“It ain’t yo’ fault, Enoch. It ain’t nobody’s fault, I guess. ’Cept these goddamn crackers who don’t care ’bout nobody and nothin’ but theyselves.”
The siblings stared across the open field, unsure of what more needed to be said.
“It’s definitely hot,” Possum offered to lighten the mood. “I guess Mississippi is ’bout as close to hell as one can get on earth.”
“It don’t git dis hot up in Chicago?”
“Yeah, it do, but it’s a different kinda hot.”
“Really?” Enoch asked, confused. “Heat is hot everywhere.”
Possum said simply, “Guess you right.”