by Cynthia Bond
“Did I make a mistake?” He pulled the cord tighter. Ruby felt the world spin darkly.
“Did I? Did I?”
Ruby spit out, “No.”
“No? You’re sure? You’re sure now?”
Ruby nodded, unable to speak. “So you are my good girl. You are she.” He loosed the cord a bit and added, “And good things don’t mind when we punish bad things, do they?”
Again no.
“And if they do, then we know that they are bad too. Don’t we?”
Ruby nodded yes.
So the man removed the cord from Ruby’s neck and turned and lifted Tanny from the floor.
Tanny cried out when he put the cord around her neck again. She coughed and pooped, as the man dragged her all about the room, Tanny trying to fight, Ruby saying nothing. Then she hated Tanny for being so evil with the Devil. And then she did not. As he put himself in Tanny’s mouth again, Ruby shot silent words into her friend’s heart, i’msorryi’msorrysosorryiloveyousorry, until Tanny hung limp, and the man’s body trembled and jerked. When he was done he dropped Tanny to the floor. Still. Too still. The entire world slowed up then stopped. Her chest did not rise. Did not fall. Her face was plum dark, fat. Her ankles were too twisted under her waist. Her body like an empty sack.
So Ruby died with her. Where was she? Ruby looked wildly around the room. Then high up, she saw Tanny shooting up through the ceiling, and she wailed, Wait! I’m sorry! Sorry! So Ruby lifted up, spirit to spirit, up above the tin roof, out of the gray. Where … where to go. Where … Then down, Ruby looked down and saw herself sitting on the bed, pink dress, pigtails, and sadly guided Tanny back. Down into Ruby’s own body. Invited her inside, to live in there with her, to take root. There was no place else to go. No God, no nothing else. Couldn’t be. So she swallowed Tanny in deep where it was safe.
Because Ruby knew in her evil, evil heart that the Devil had indeed made a mistake. That Ruby was the bad one and Tanny the true. She knew it as the Devil stood gasping in the center of the room. He walked to the door, placed his hat on his head and said, “Be good now,” and left.
Then it was like a rubber band snapped inside of Ruby. She let out a scream that exploded out of her chest, ricocheted against walls until it busted out of the crack in the door. Ruby heard feet running but she could not stop, the air sucked in her lungs too fast. Spit fell from her mouth. Miss Barbara swung the door open. Looked at Tanny. Walked over to Ruby and slapped her in the mouth. Slapped her silent.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Then sweet as cotton candy she explained, “You see, baby, he ain’t rent your friend there,” she motioned to Tanny as if she were a dead mouse, “he done bought her fair and square, and paid plenty, so he could do what he liked with her.”
Miss Barbara smiled, showing her shining square front teeth. “We ain’t about to let that happen to you. That is unless you curry mischief like your friend done.” She looked at Ruby hard, then stretched her lips into another smile. “If you stay a good girl and do exactly what our friends ask you, you gonna be fine.”
Then Miss Barbara patted her on the leg and said, “Come on and get that ice cream while we clear this here up. You got another friend, going to be here in two shakes, and he asked for you special.”
RUBY SAT beside Tanny’s soul, her fingers sifting dirt and patting the small mound. A sob bubbled up from her chest but she’d long ago learned to swallow those back down. Ephram hadn’t, he wept openly beside her, so she reached over and wiped his tears.
“Shhhh.” She whispered. “It’s all right.”
A rush of longing stole through Ephram and he took Ruby in his arms and held her, the blanket folded between them. He held her so long and so tight that the bubble in her chest found its way into the night air and she let it go, one long deep sob that echoed into the woods. A cloud of bats rose into the air before settling again in the pines, an owl let out her hoooo, and the crow flew out of the elm’s hollow and landed on the earth, strutting and pecking at the ground.
Ephram found his voice. “That’s one story?”
Ruby nodded. “You ready to leave yet?”
He brushed her hair and found the dip of her temple. He pressed his lips against it. Then her wet cheek, he kissed there as well, the cut of her jaw. Her long turning neck, the hollow between her collarbone. He kissed until he uncovered her heart and then he pushed the flat of his palm into it and held. His lips found her mouth and entered there with his pain, his desire. He whispered into her ear, “I ain’t going nowhere. If you brave enough to live it, the least I can do is listen.”
Ruby fought against the rise of hope. She lost when he said: “Girl, you a miracle of nature.” Then, “We got to find a way to keep these souls safe ’til they can make it home. And they will make it home, Ruby. They will make it home. We’ll make sure of that.”
Ruby nodded.
“Then you got to tell me what on this earth you believe in.”
Ruby scanned the dark sky. “Only two things, that chinaberry and that old crow.”
“Then move your children up high into those branches. I’ll build a house for to keep them dry. And you ask that crow to keep an eye. I’ll watch over them too, Ruby, you tell me how, give your mind a chance to rest. Give your body a chance to sleep. You been holding up the whole world, girl. Let somebody help you out.”
So Ruby said a prayer to the tree and it waved against the stars. The old bird stopped its scratching and before Ruby could think to ask, the creature bowed its dark head and flapped its large wings. Thank you, Maggie …
She stood and said, “It’s Monday.” From Ephram’s questioning look she continued, “No ox.”
He grinned sheepish and rose to his feet. “No ditch.”
He couldn’t help but gather her in his arms, then hoist her up, cradling her like a baby, like a child, like the woman she was; he rocked her in his arms and somehow found the courage to kiss his Ruby again.
The night leaned in as somehow Ruby found a way to accept that kiss and, in so doing, dipped her big toe into life.
OF COURSE she didn’t hear the knock on the door ten yards away. Or the second. In fact, ten people had gathered on the front porch without Ruby or Ephram hearing a sound. It was not until Celia, the Pastor and the rest of the congregation surrounded them on the small hill that Ruby sensed an inkling of danger and looked away from Ephram. She let out a short scream and slipped from Ephram’s arms, feet weak beneath her.
Ephram stepped up bravely. “Y’all best get—”
Five grown men tackled him, including Sim and Percy Rankin. They pulled him out of the door, down on the wet ground, while the Pastor began, “Ephram we come here to re-re-re-re-reclaim your soul in the name of Jesus.”
Ephram pushed against them with all his might. “Damnit! Y’all stop this foolishness and let go of me!” But they pressed him harder into the mud.
Sim slapped his hand over Ephram’s mouth. Ruby hung back, unable to run, unable to fight. Two strong Rankin elders gentled her onto the land as the congregation began to pray over Ephram. Release this child of God. Release this child of God. Over and over. Soon, the congregation whipped up a froth of hails and hosannas. The Pastor yelled above them, “ ‘For G-G-God so loved the world that he g-g-gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever b-believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ ” Amens leapt up from the circle like flames. Pastor Joshua continued, “We are g-gathered to cast the unclean spirits from our Brother Ephram Jennings.” Ephram struggled against the men sitting upon his chest. He flipped over onto his stomach and broke free for a moment. The men yelled, Whoa there! Git him! Hold him, until he was once again conquered. They sat again, this time upon his back, his stomach pressed into the mud. Celia stood holding a Bible, eyes closed in apparent meditation, but there was a steel girder in her jaw. Ruby was frozen. She wanted to run but was held in place. She tried to speak, but terror caught in the back of her mouth.
Finally she scratc
hed out a whisper, “Ephram …”
Celia let her left eye slide open, then her right and a grin tugged at her lips as she started walking towards Ruby, left hand holding the Bible, right palm raised against the night, “Lo, be free of the inciting words of Jezebel,” and the women called out, Jezebel! Jezebel! Celia sang louder, “Jezebel, what called her man from the righteous path. For she will not sway thee, for her is nothingness against the wall, food for dogs!” Righteous Polk found the one dry spot of grass and fell out on it, her body writhing, speaking the gibberish of tongues.
Gertie Renfolk began singing, At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light, while Celia advanced upon Ruby. Ruby heard the growl before noticing that it was coming from her own throat. It built in size and stature as Celia and the women closed in. Celia’s voice rose over the rising sound, “I command ye out! Out of this woman, you unclean demons. ‘Ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.’ ” Ruby crouched against the ground and somewhere under the rubble of men she could hear Ephram calling for her. The world began to sway for Ruby, as if she were in a tire swing, up and down, up and down. And the burden of my heart rolled away. Ruby swung her open fist at the women before they reached her, falling off balance from her own momentum, from the sway of the earth. She overheard one woman whisper, You sho was right, Sister Jennings, them demons got hold of her for sure! Then a chorus of You sho was. Tell the truth and shame the Devil. Amen! Then from Celia, “Child, accept the Lord, renounce the sin that opened the doorway to the unclean spirit.” Ruby’s growl was a roar now, she heard a song bitten off in a crush of voices. Ruby could see through the legs of the women. The Pastor was bending over Ephram, throwing something down on him; he yelled out. Someone grabbed at her left leg and held it tight so she kicked the right with great might as the tire swing looped over and over, spinning the hands and the stars, and her growl had turned to biting snarls and oil was on her forehead, now her right arm was held when she looked down in the mud and saw the pocketknife; she grabbed it in her left hand and swung. It caught the fleshy part of Celia’s thumb. The Bible went flying. The world fell silent as the women backed away. Ruby leapt to her feet, the knife thrown into her right hand. She stood like a beast. Celia was scrambling up, up, then running, then tripping over Righteous Polk’s brown legs and falling flat, and Ruby was over her and she was screaming, blubbering something about her thumb, about not to cut her, please God, yelling, That crazy bitch is gonna kill me, as Ruby towered over her, knife pointed sharp against the wind. The thumb squeezed out blood that fell on the earth and Ruby’s children scrambled away, scrambled into the chinaberry, scrambled into the tip-top branches. Then the men were all up, running towards her, She’s got a knife. Gonna hurt Sister Celia! Tryin’ to kill her. Grab her! I ain’t ’bout to get myself cut. Jump her back. You jump her back, fool, don’t be telling me what to do. The roar was bellowing from Ruby’s chest, the knife pointed at her tormentor when some man came up to her, his voice was soft like she had heard in a dream and he was saying her name, saying, Please don’t hurt my sister, saying, Please, baby, give me the knife, they done now, ain’t y’all done? And a chorus of voices agreeing that they were done. But done is a cake, like the one some man brought her days before, done is a cobbler like the kind some women stuffed into her mouth, done had nothing to do with this she wanted to say but the sound from her mouth mixed with saliva dripping. Then someone was reaching out to her, some hand was on her wrist saying, Baby, stop Ruby, please, for the love of God, so she threw the knife back into her left hand and cut into the air only it wasn’t air, it was soft, and then it was hard and then it was wet warm wet warm warm wet sticky warm and a man was falling like a dove to the earth and then everyone was gathering and blood, blood hitting the earth. Dark wet spreading from the belly of his shirt. Then they were lifting him, all of them, the woman and her fat thumb screaming and crying, tears flying hot under the trees. There was a parade of men and women screaming, directing, saying to put pressure, to move, to—but words were a rumble in her head as she fell to the earth. Now the growl of a broken spent thing oozed from her mouth. Somewhere in the distance they carried a man, a man spilling blood, spilling hope, spilling a name over and over and over again, a name she had forgotten was hers.
Alone on the hill the black book flipped wind-thin pages, spine open on the earth. Ruby lay on her side and watched as they flipped this way and that, this and that, catching the moon in their white. Her body was untouched, unharmed, still she did not move, could not move, only watch the wind and the paper for hours, her heart pounding soft in her chest, until the black night became gray, and gray became the pink of sunrise, and pink became yellow, which became hot white and the pages dried from morning dew and started turning again. She heard a buckboard easing down the road, some kind of tittering as it rolled steadily by. Lucky that it was a back road, lucky not one single human paused at her door. Finally, as the evening settled, Ruby heard the black bird cutting the air with a gentle clucking. She crawled towards it, then discovering the knife still in her hand, brick brown sticking between her fingers, she plunged it into the earth and dragged her body after her. It seemed impossible to use her legs, unthinkable to stand. In this way she made it to the chinaberry as the sun was dipping over the western horizon, orange and plum streaking after it.
The crow stood stock-still on a low branch. One night, one day and another evening with no water, no food, barely taking in enough air. The crow would wait like that until the next morning, not breathing too deeply, lest it ruffle the air around the girl. Ruby wrapped herself about the tree trunk and did not cry.
Chapter 22
It was Miss P who found Ruby after three weeks and one day of being lost to God and man. She found her half alive by Marion Lake. Chewed dandelion greens in her mouth, hair twisted with twigs and pebbles. She had wasted to nothing but still held tight to the knife. Miss P had been scouring the woods every evening where she imagined Ruby might hide. When she saw the girl, she eased the knife from her limp hand.
Ruby felt like air against Miss P’s side as she walked her back to P & K Market, and she fell like cotton onto the little cot kept inside the market closet. She gave the girl dandelion root tea with a touch of ginger, and sweetened it with honey. She watched Ruby take a sip without fully waking. She saw the warmth spread onto the child’s lips, her face. Then Ruby was asleep again.
Next, Miss P gave her a spoonful of chicken broth, with big chunks of celery and clear onion. Ruby swallowed it down, then leaned up sharply, eyes jutting about the room. Ruby looked down at her hand, then began feeling for her knife.
“Ain’t no need for that, child.”
Ruby jerked up from the bed. Panic streaked across her face and Miss P tried to calm her, told her that she was perfectly safe, that nobody was going to hurt her, but Ruby stood and tried to run to the door. She fell against the frame and sunk to the floor.
She did not escape until the fifth day, after she had regained some small bit of strength. Miss P did not try to stop her, just as she had not tried to stop her mama, Charlotte Bell, forty-one years ago, when she ran from rape, from hate and a small brown baby named Ruby Bell. Ran to Newton, to Beaumont, and eventually to some old city folks had thought to call New York.
RUBY RAN down the road to Bell land, stopping to catch her breath, then running on. She wanted her knife. The guns pointing in a circle like they had at her Auntie Neva, the cord wrapped around Tanny’s throat, Abby Millhouse’s missing kneecap, Ephram Jennings being dragged away from her home. Ruby knew she needed her knife as a small little match against the night.
The road cut into her feet. The road was her enemy as well, dragging against her, pulling her back to P & K, back to the wolves. She fought her way home, fought her way to her children.
When she reached Bell land she stopped dead. There were no mewling whispers, no cries, no little hands reaching through the soil. The ground was as hollow as an empty womb. She leapt onto t
he rises, digging furiously, yanking up tufts of soil, huge gulps of dying grass, soft clay and mud; she tore earthworms from their home and cast a dozen roly-polys out of the crumbling brown.
“Where? WHERE? ARE? THEY?”
Even the crow was silent in the tree. Even the pines turned away. Ruby knew they had been powerless to stop him, powerless to save all of the children who landed in the Dyboù’s gullet while she rested on a soft bed only a mile away from home.
She let out a scream, a mighty screech that boomed up to the treetops, careening so that it pierced the tangle of branches and flew out of the piney woods, out of the burning atmosphere, bolting into space.
Ephram heard her from the road he had been walking to Bell land. He gingerly, carefully picked up an ounce of speed and made it to his Ruby.
He had been dragged away over three weeks ago, the night Ruby had cut into his belly full up to the knife’s handle. The night the congregation nearly killed him, dropping him on his head while trying to drag him away. Over three weeks in the Jasper County Hospital due to an infection, due to the fact that his liver had been “lacerated” and his bowels nicked. He had lost so much blood, the White doctor said, not particularly interested in looking Ephram in the face, that he should, in fact, be dead. It was Miss P’s call that pushed Ephram out of the bed. Away from the smooth brown faces of the Women’s Auxiliary, who plied him with fried chicken and pound cake, even though the nurses insisted he eat soup and crackers until his belly healed up. Away from Celia, who, despite his objection to her presence, stayed every minute of posted visiting hours, and sometimes beyond, propping up his pillow, slipping on clean socks and combing his hair. All the while humming the tune of “At the Cross, at the Cross Where I First Saw the Light.”