by Cynthia Bond
The porch was quiet for a while, each man climbing out of the well of memory. As they did they touched upon stones—recollections of other lynchings—family and friends slain in open fields, dragged on the backs of cars, swinging from a low branch. Ephram’s mind caught on his father dying alone in the piney woods.
The men outside of Bloom’s had drunk from that well plenty—knew it was a dangerous place where water could suddenly rise from all sides. A man could drown like that.
Rooster pushed back his thoughts with, “Hear they n-n-never could cl-cl-clean that blood stain off the floor.”
Charlie added, “I hear ain’t nothing but haints on Bell land.”
Gubber coughed up a wet laugh. “Hell, only thang livin’ in that house is one butt-ugly, crazy-assed heifer.”
Pete rose and retreated into the wall of shadow. He stopped and looked at Ephram. The two men shared a gaze.
“Rumor say them White folk up in Neches who take Ruby in wasn’t right,” Charlie sent back, “that lady draggin’ her around like she own her.”
K.O. shook his head. “Why anyone hand over they child to slave for White folk is beyond me.”
“Plenty folk done had trouble,” Gubber spit, “don’t mean they got to walk around with no man’s pants on they knucklehead. We just sitting round playing dominoes and here she come wearing them soiled pants—then just walked blind into that ditch.”
Charlie snorted. “Folks was laying bets on whose pants they were.”
Rooster jumped in, “W-well we kn-kn-kn-know they wasn’t G-g-gubber’s, ’less she got a head the size a’ barn door.”
Gubber took aim. “Watch out Rooster, or I’ll find some little girl to whoop yo’ ass.” A direct hit.
Rooster’s hand reflexively touched upon the scar a nine-year-old Maggie had torn across his cheek.
Gubber rallied, “I come up on her whiles she was butt naked, wrapped around one a’ them mother pines.”
Charlie’s mouth flew open. “Ain’t so!”
“My mama seen her humping rocks on the ground.” Gubber kept on, “Cleary seen her grinding herself into the clay road. She just throw that used toothpick she call a body at anything happen by livin’ or not.”
Rooster found his voice, “And wh-what she be buryin’ out th-there every n-n-night?”
Charlie added, “And all that screaming and hollering. Something got to make her do that.”
“M-my m-mama always say it’s some evil th-thang living inside of her.”
“That ain’t all she wants up inside of her, you catch my meaning.” Gubber smacked out a grin.
K.O. lifted himself from the stairs. “Even that stump catch yo’ meanin’ Gubber.” He spoke to an unseen ally. “Lord please do something ’bout these ignorant Negroes!” Then to the men behind him, “I need me a drink.”
Charlie and Gubber reluctantly rose and followed him into the house. Ole Pete looked after them, then back at Ephram and the rest of the men hidden in shadow. Then walked onto the red road into a bath of moonlight.
THE CLOTH trembled against the cake in Ephram’s hand. The hot wind pressing it close. Ephram turned back and saw the steam from Bloom’s mash rising just over the low trees. He shook his leg and felt the cool flask between sock and skin. He took it from its hiding place. Not much left. Enough for a quick shot of courage before knocking on her door, but no more.
He looked down the long road in front of him and thought of Ruby at the end of it. Each step he took was a question. How would she answer? Would she laugh at him as Celia had done? Would she slam the door? Would she kiss him? Raise her skirt for him? Would she remember Ma Tante and Marion Lake when he showed her the little dolls? Ephram felt a root of fear spike into his belly so he unscrewed the flask’s cap and took another sip.
He turned quickly, flask slipped back into his sock. Bloom’s wasn’t far. Just a few shaded yards away now through the trees. A sudden thirst caught hold as he crossed into the open yard.
“What chu’ doin’ there boy?” Ephram looked over and saw Bloom and Sheriff Levy, Junior, Sheriff Levy’s only son, standing just to his left. Folks called him Sheriff Junior, though he was well past fifty. Ruddy faced with a beefy build, his mustard hair spread thick across his forehead.
“Sheriff Junior, you ’member Ephram Jennings. Live with his mama just up the way. Work up there as bag boy at the Newton Piggly Wiggly.”
He stared blankly at Ephram. “Sure do.” Then, “You ain’t spying are you?”
“No, Sir.”
“Stealing?”
“No.”
“Well you didn’t come over this way for spirits did you? Newton’s a dry county and jail’s the place for drinking men round here.”
“No, Sir.”
“Well that’s good.” He stared at Ephram for a long moment. “Can’t be too careful.” His mouth smiled, slow and steady, but his eyes stayed fast on Ephram.
Ephram noticed Sheriff Junior’s patrol car hidden behind the back of Bloom’s Juke.
“What kind you got there?” The Sheriff nodded towards the cake.
“Angel food. I’m—taking it to a sick friend.”
“Can’t be too sick if they eating cake.” He laughed at his joke. Bloom joined in.
“Don’t suppose you could spare a slice for a working man. Y’all got me so busy I plain missed my dinner.”
Ephram paused. He tried to imagine handing Ruby a half-eaten cake, then imagined saying no to this Sheriff Junior. The moment yawned uncomfortably.
A sudden clank to Ephram’s left. The Sheriff wheeled in that direction and pulled the forty-five from his holster. A large crow lifted in flight from Bloom’s trash can, perched in a nearby tree and cawed. The Sheriff laughed nervously, gun in hand. He looked at Ephram again.
“Can’t be too careful now ’days.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Later, Bloom.”
“Thanks fo’ stoppin’ by.”
The Sheriff walked to his car with the gun loose in his hand, got in and rolled away. When he had cleared the distance of vision, Bloom walked swiftly to Ephram, finger poking hard into his chest. “What is wrong with you!”
Ephram stepped back holding tight to his cake.
“What I tell y’all ’bout comin’ here daytime Saturday?” Bloom turned back towards his house. “Y’all gone git me and your own stupid ass kilt over this shit! Man lets me be. Just don’t want nobody foolin’ with his business.” He paced, raising dust. “Then wouldn’t give him a piece of cake! Get away from here Ephram Jennings and you best stay ’way fo’ a month.”
Ephram stood as if punched, then turned and walked swiftly to the road. He was breathing quickly. A sticky musk stained the underarms of his shirt. His shoes were dusty, his pants torn. How could he face her now? He felt the tug to turn back but fought against it. He looked at his Timex. Ten after four. He was losing the day. But, he figured, he could still stop at P & K, stitch his pants and reach Ruby’s before nightfall if he was careful. And Ephram Jennings was a careful man. He was careful of the cloud of sweetness he carried on Celia’s fine plate, careful not to let the August breeze blow dirt under the cloth. Careful not to hope.
Suddenly, a cool sludge plopped onto the dome of his scalp. It dribbled mulberry and white down his temple, his cheek and onto his clean collar. Ephram looked up and saw what appeared to be the same black bird from Bloom’s making lazy circles in the air above him. As he retrieved his handkerchief to wipe the bird’s waste from his face and neck, the bird began to fly south over the Samuels farm. Ephram watched as it veered west towards Bell land.
Chapter 5
The crow caught a cross current and gained altitude as the man grew small and then vanished behind a rise in the earth. She tilted with the curve of the horizon. The sun warmed her hollow bones, her blackest feathers holding its heat. She flew over thatches of land, gold, green, brown, following the red river road until she reached the town square. Far below she saw a knot of men crowded onto the store�
��s steps, the women fanning their faces and looking on, headscarves tied. A woman chasing three boys off with a broom. She saw the different roofs, black tar, shingled, wood. She flew on. More farms. Wide, wild pines spearing the clouds. Pockets of green. Bony fences leaning into the road or boxing in pigs, chickens, cows. A woman in white hanging white sheets out to dry. A berry cobbler set out to cool. A red melon split on an outdoor table, children gathering around it like flies. The crow saw two men plodding home, carrying empty pails. Smoke from the mill in the distance. She flew past Marion Lake and the tangle of woods beneath, a wealth of beetles, grasshoppers and other legged insects, until she finally reached Bell land. The dried grass and empty hard field. Figs and apricots wormy on the earth. Gravestones littering the hillside. The house with holes poked through the roof. Rain and sun cutting them larger each day until now the foot of the girl’s bed was in view. She was asleep on her belly, her black soles facing the sky. The crow landed outside of her window, feathers light with ruffled wind. She spread her wings and cawed.
Inside the old house Ruby was sleeping, which was rare. Ruby did not sleep—much. For her mind tangled like a fine gold chain, knotted, she was certain, beyond all repair. Still she tried each day to trace the links, only to lose them again and again.
Ruby had lost much more than that. She had lost the 562 dollars she had brought to Liberty, tucked inside the change pocket of her Etienne Aigner purse. A week later, the purse had gone missing. Then, inexplicably, four pairs of capri pants, six madras blouses, three shirtwaist dresses. Most of her shoes, including her favorite pair of Beth Levine red stiletto pumps. Her hot comb, her Royal Crown hair oil, her lipstick, makeup bag, and the suitcases they had all come in.
She began losing time as well. It folded in on itself so that hours passed in minutes, weeks in days. She would start walking, eyes on the road, and suddenly find herself eight miles away, outside of Newton; or in a ditch; or once, chin high in Marion Lake, water filling her mouth, coughing, rasping.
Sometimes Ruby would wake on the forest floor—her clothes hiked above her waist, the sour milk scent of a man on her thighs. Her ribs aching with each inhalation, plum bruises on her face. The burning scrapes on her back made her cry out when she tried to stand. Still she would lift herself, smooth her dress and walk back to her Granddaddy’s land.
She lost the rising curve of her shape. Already thin, she wasted to a sliver, her clavicles like handrails. The plump in her calves and thighs disappeared. Her breasts drew close to her chest. Her wrists withered to blades of grass, bones knobby and hard under her skin.
Impervious to her monthly blood as it dried in fresh smears down her legs, until the loss of weight caused her womb to stop its monthly orbit.
More than all of this, Ruby had lost her train ticket home to Manhattan. She had lost New York.
She remembered wearing black stockings clipped into place, red lipstick and hair hot-combed and slick. The parties and whispers in her ear about so-and-so and what he painted, what he wrote, who he slept with and the heady rush of the drinking, clinking crowd.
She’d remember the telegram from Maggie, pulling her trump card and calling Ruby home.
Ruby remembered the crush of a dark Manhattan penthouse loft, flooded with women in black tights and false lashes, a few Chanels and Ceil Chapmans in the crowd like lights on a Christmas tree. The men in skinny slacks and ties, or leather jackets with pony caps. The room was filled with a gray cloud of smoke where people appeared then floated away. There were the magnet men who walked with headlines fluttering over their heads, who carried a circle of human bodies, tight to their arms, their voices. Who waited with ready laughter and deference. Then there were the falling men, who had slumped out of the limelight, who sat with a glass resting on their crotch, a stringy female threaded through their arms and Ruby gliding through it all. One of four brown faces who were not famous—each a footnote in the Bohemian Guide to Entertaining.
That she looked like Dorothy Dandridge was the compliment most often paid her. Makeup like Sophia Loren, heels adding two and a half to her five eight so that she looked down when she was introduced to the poet Gregory Corso and the painter Robert Motherwell. Quite far when she spoke briefly to James Baldwin—about Texas and little Liberty and the victory of Brown over Topeka’s Board of Education. He told her she was beautiful in that pure way that only gay men can, and peeled generously away only when the hostess, Mrs. Gladdington, called for him.
And for a moment after, she had become a magnet, as if mere proximity had gifted her with the power of attraction, and a circle had orbited her, until they realized she was not an author, a famous man’s girlfriend or a singer—only a pretty Negro girl who worked for the hostess, and all had drifted away. Still from across the room, she caught a supportive, conspiratorial wink from James Baldwin and felt, for a moment, seen and known by sparkling brilliance.
In a second she was back in Liberty. Ruby looked down at the browning mattress and could feel his crinkled grin fading. Her dresser mirror in Manhattan, her bras, panties, stockings, cigarettes, the bottle of Chanel 19, her English-French dictionary, for the trip she was to have taken with Mrs. Gladdington. Gone.
But for all that Ruby had lost, there were many things she had found.
A rising growl that rumbled out of her belly. Drool that wetted her lips and slid down the angle of her jaw. A jerking, rhythmic contortion of her face. Because these often happened without her permission and in view of the town, Ruby found what it was to no longer be seen as human.
She discovered that she could hammer her pride so wafer thin that she could accept alms like a beggar.
Then, one late afternoon, Ruby found a new pitted terror, as she sat on her bed watching dust swim in the light. She heard the slow creak of the screen door, a flutter of sparrows outside. She listened as a cup of water on the kitchen table turned over, and a thin cascading splash, like a man urinating, poured onto the floor. Ruby waited—it would not be the first time someone had come unannounced. But instead of a man, she saw a weighted, umber thickness slide into the room.
It shifted, moving along the floorboards. It darkened the corners, adding mass to the shadows. Ruby whispered, softly to herself, that there was nothing there, just the coming evening. Still her skin tingled hot, her mouth dry as it crossed the space between them and pressed against her, flattening her dress against her chest, her legs.
Ruby did not know why she sat on the bed, then lay down, but the old curtains ruffled towards the window frame, not away. Then something fell upon her chest. The scent of a dead candle filled her, making it hard to breathe. When the mattress sank deeper, Ruby thought to scream, but whatever lay upon her whispered the creaks and groans of the house into her ear, it smoothed and relaxed her until she felt a soft pressure upon her groin. To her fogged surprise, her body responded, a swelling excitement that ebbed through her thin frame. Ruby felt compelled to turn onto her stomach and push her pelvis into a mattress spring just under the padding. The bed seemed to roll under her, its legs grating, rubbing on the floor. Ruby knew this was a Dyboù—what Ma Tante had spoken of so long ago. A heat pulsed around her, then entered her. The house seemed to shake.
She spoke, but it was not Ruby speaking. In a low graveled voice she grunted, “Bitch,” hot air escaping her lips, “Whore.”
She ground harder, faster, with mechanical precision until, in the building heat, an explosion roared through her. Her scream filled the room, the house suddenly still. Her sex spilled, chest empty, Ruby had fallen into sleep.
The Dyboù had come the next night, shifting the pillars of her grandfather’s home, entering her pores, her follicles, until it moved like oil under her skin. Soaking, filling every second of her heartbeat, each rise of her breath, night after night until she felt that she became what he called her. Slapping at her own buttocks, grabbing handfuls of her hair and smashing her face into the bed. In this way, Ruby found the Dyboù. In this way, Ruby learned to rape her body each night.
She was exhausted and drained when she found it—heard the sound of a child crying, faint, like wind through the tall pines. It was not the cry of a living child, Ruby knew that much. She had seen and heard the ghosts of children before. She followed the sound, and found a cloud of a girl weeping in Marion Lake. She was clear as glass, cinnamon brown, and no more than seven. She rippled the water with each sob. When she saw Ruby looking at her, relief loosened her shoulders.
She flowed towards Ruby until she was inches away. They locked eyes and Ruby felt, knew that the girl had not merely drowned in that lake—someone had held her under. Ruby put her arms around her, but because she could not hold air, the child walked inside of her body, curled there and settled into her womb. Ruby held her belly and rocked. She hummed and said softly that everything would be all right now, and the girl let out a little burp and fell asleep.
Ruby knew something about ghost children. Along with the hundreds of ghosts, they too had passed through her body. Seven had even taken up residence, but had been scared and wily enough to hide inside of her marrow. This new child was not so lucky.
That night, when the Dyboù slid into Ruby’s bedroom, it stopped at the door. It seemed to grow larger. The air became electric. Spider cracks spread across the panes. Instead of reaching for Ruby, the Dyboù lifted above her, the whole of the ceiling in shadow, then it dropped down upon the new spirit sleeping within her.
In seconds the girl was gone, inside the creature, screaming, terror flashing in her clear eyes, small arms reaching for Ruby, as the Dyboù slithered across the floor. It paused and turned as if it suddenly sensed the other spirits Ruby had hidden deep inside her years ago. Ruby shouted out and quickly it turned away and was out the door. Ruby followed, ran outside into the black. The trees were hollow, the shadows between them empty. She did not know what to scream. She did not even have a name. So she shrieked, howled into the woods—wailing like a distant train.