I didn’t see a soul when I carried Ashley to the car. It was my lucky day. I didn’t even mind the ten-dollar parking ticket on my windshield. It was a small price to pay.
I opened the back door, and Ashley fell into the seat. She hit her head with a nasty THWAK! She didn’t feel a thing, but I was hurting. She’d strained my already sore muscles. Soon those muscles would never hurt again.
But now I had to get rid of Ashley’s body. I wasn’t going to risk the ocean—it’s too shallow here, unless you get about three miles out into the Gulf Stream. The canals were too risky for the same reason. But if I drove west, I’d be in the Everglades. The “river of grass,” they call it. It was full of alligators. Perfect. I wondered if the gators would find Ashley as tough as I did. I smiled at the thought.
I was on Highway 27, which ran along the edge of the Everglades, in about an hour. I turned down a gravel road, bumping past a dusty-looking ranch and then a palm tree farm. The road petered out in the sawgrass, mud, and murky water that mark the start of the Everglades. They don’t call it sawgrass for nothing. That stuff can literally slice your arm off.
I wrestled Ashley out of the car. I was sweating like a hog. I dragged her into the water, ignoring the mosquito stings and the sawgrass slashes on my arms and legs. The water was shallow and tea-colored. I didn’t want to think about what was in there.
I looked for some big rocks to sink the body. But when I got back with my first rock, Ashley was gone. A few seconds later I heard a loud plop! It was an alligator, sliding into the water. My own stomach plopped a bit at the thought, but I knew Ashley was gone for good. I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone finding the body.
I was home long before Francie got off work. She found me on the couch watching You Only Live Twice, sipping single malt, and eating salted cashews.
“Jake!” she said, surprised. “What would Ashley say?”
“Not a damn thing,” I said cheerfully. “She’s taking a long rest. So am I.”
The scotch made my tongue slip. Francie didn’t seem to know what my remark meant, but I’d have to be more careful. I’d have to make sure to go to Jamal’s Jym at my regular time Thursday.
I didn’t get a chance. Two police detectives, one fat and one skinny, were on my doorstep the next day. They told me Ashley’s body was found in the Everglades by a fisherman. Jamal said I was her last appointment, and she never came back. No one had seen her alive since two o’clock yesterday.
I wondered why that alligator had not taken care of my problem, but I didn’t say anything. I was cool. I told the cops that Ashley and I worked out as usual. The last I saw, Ashley was running south on the sand to Jamal’s. I was headed north, toward my home. I may have sweated a little when I said this, but it was July, wasn’t it? The detectives finally left. They seemed satisfied with my answers.
They were back the next day. The fat one asked me to describe my last afternoon with Ashley again. I said we’d worked out on the beach, then I ran home and she ran off the other way.
“You ran home?” the fat cop said.
“All the way,” I said smugly.
“Then why did your car get a parking ticket on the beach about the time that Ashley disappeared?” the skinny one said.
“Uh,” I said, and shut up until my lawyer showed up. The cops got a warrant and impounded my car. I wasn’t worried. I’d taken it to a car wash.
But the police found three of Ashley’s long blonde hairs in the back seat and her sandy footprint on the inside door. I’d tipped the carwash guy ten bucks, too. Good help is hard to find in Florida.
There was no point in claiming we’d had a little afternoon delight back there because the police found traces of some nasty substances on the seat. The body sort of lets go, you know. No, I guess you wouldn’t. You’ve never killed anyone.
The cops also found plenty of motive. Jamal testified that I’d had a “bitter quarrel”—his words—with Ashley at the gym, and tried to get out of the contract.
My wife told the court about my strange behavior on the last day Ashley was seen. I couldn’t believe my Francie would do that.
The jury, which was mostly men, couldn’t understand how I could kill that gorgeous blonde. They didn’t understand that she was killing me.
So here I am on death row in Florida. Today is my last day on earth. The chaplain asked if I was sorry.
I am.
I am very sorry I didn’t come up with a better body disposal plan. You can’t depend on alligators. They don’t really like humans, and only eat them if they’re desperate or disturbed. It’s crocodiles who find us tasty. I learned that in the prison library. I had a lot of time to read while my appeals were being denied.
The warden served up the final irony.
“You can have anything you want for your last meal, Jake,” he said. “Even steak.’’
I couldn’t stop laughing when he said that. I remembered what Ashley had said: “Mark my words, dude, red meat will kill you.”
That’s all we are. Red meat.
And Ashley’s one hundred twenty pounds of red meat killed me.
The Maids
G. Miki Hayden
When some of the cows dropped dead in their pasture, Little Marie merely laughed.
“Oh, that’s terrible,” I said, not understanding. “Those poor things—and now the children might not have milk for their breakfast.”
Little Marie gave me quite a wicked look. “And why should the Benoit offspring have milk every day? Do my own children have such luxuries? No. They are whipped and made to fetch and carry for the master, with only what we ourselves grow for their food. If the Benoit children, like the cattle, drop dead, I will not care. And you should not either, Luisah. You have the pink stripes on your body from the mistress’s whippings.”
Little Marie and I spoke in the language we had taken with us from our home in West Africa. In the house, we were supposed to speak only French, so I glanced around nervously and hurried away, digesting the ideas she had given to me.
To wish the children of this house to die was wrong, was it not? I was a Catholic and must not think such things. Yet my back and my soul bore the marks of our mistress’s malevolence. And I had many troubles in my life, the source of which were solely she and the master, who intended only, always, their own wealth and comfort.
Had I asked to be stolen away from my parents and brought to Haiti, or Sante Domingue, as this was called—the island of Hispaniola—when I was six? Had I asked to be put to work as a house slave from that age until now, so far eighteen years? Had I asked to be married to the slave Michel Benoit, a cruel man, and one of those who helped to oversee the field slaves? Or to have my two children torn from me and sold to a neighboring plantation? No. All this was at the wish of those who owned me. And Little Marie, a fierce adherent of the Vodou priest Ras Berbera, did not entirely shock me with her imaginings.
I brought the morning milk pail to the kitchen. And let that be the last of it for them to drink. I had many questions to ask Little Marie about what she had said. Yet so much work to do, as well. I must scrub the kitchen floor each day before breakfast and help the cook. Once the family was up, I must serve the food, and then begin to make a fire outside for a boiling vat. I must then strip the bedding and place the linen in the tub where I wash each sheet clean every other day. I then heat the iron on the stove and take the wrinkles from the cloth—so that when it goes back on their sweet-smelling beds, the feel and the appearance are just so, to Madame’s satisfaction.
This is the start to my day that ends near midnight, when my husband, should he choose, takes the opportunity to abuse me. After which, I may have some six hours—the only ones in the day—to myself, and those spent in the dead sleep of exhaustion.
Angelina stepped up behind me and pulled my cap, setting my restless hair askew. I whirled and smiled. Might I slap her? Only if I desired to be hung from the tree behind the kitchen door, where I have seen others like me hung—black gi
rls who misbehaved and were disrespectful.
“You are up so early, Miss Angelina,” I said in French to the twelve-year-old. “Have you had sufficient rest?”
“I am riding to Cap Francois today, with Mama to buy many exquisite new frocks. A boat has come in from France with the latest fashions.” She looked quite pleased at the prospect of making herself pretty.
For sure, she had the basic good looks to be a beauty, with flaming red hair—but sometimes the fiery temper to match. Her parents worried that the girl might not attract a husband because of her lack of amiability. I heard them discuss this. I listen to everything freely in the house, since I am a part of the furniture and nothing to notice.
“You shall be lovely,” I declared. But somehow I thought of what Little Marie had said about the children dropping dead, and the idea failed to pain me. “In to breakfast with you, then.”
After their meal, the mistress told me I would come to town today with her and her daughters—Angelina and Angelina’s eight-year-old sister, Brigitte. If I behaved well, I might be given the job of personal maid to Mademoiselle Angelina, since her own black maid had died of a yellow fever the previous week. I curtsied in gratitude, although I was not sure I was exactly grateful. The new position meant I would dress the girl throughout the day and bathe her, in addition to the regular duties of my own. Such was the life here.
I rode on the outside of the carriage with the driver, Andre, a man who had come as a youth from his home in the Congo. We passed the place where the cows had died. A similar plague had broken out across many of the plantations, the master had told his wife at breakfast today. Madame did not pay particular attention, as she never cared to listen about business. The cows were being burned as we went by, so as not to infect the other livestock.
Death has a certain sense of comfort here, because those who die need not labor any longer. Since my two children were taken from me, I have learned to abort the pauvres—the poor little ones—before they are born. We maids have discussed this. We don’t want our children to suffer our own fate. So perhaps this dying is good, too, for the animals. I do not know. Maybe the Fathers could tell us in church on Sunday, although I do not understand them or the language that they mostly speak.
On top of the coach, I broiled in the fierce sun of Haiti and was jounced mercilessly along the stony road. I thought further on the idea that the Benoit children might soon expire and was not perturbed. My own youngest had died soon after being sold to the master at a nearby plantation. Beaten to death. This was not unusual, and no one thought of the matter again, save for me.
I went in with the ladies and helped Angelina and Brigitte try on new clothes. Angelina kicked me once in her displeasure at my clumsy buttoning of her dress. When they were done with me, I went out to wait before going to the next shop.
Finally, after all the dresses and some cloth were purchased and stowed in the coach, they entered the hotel for their lunch. Of course I had forgotten to bring either food or water for myself, but I stood on the square in the area where the slaves loitered in wait for their masters. We must stand somewhere, after all, must we not? Not being invisible.
In a few minutes, Andre, the driver, came across the open park from the carriage. “Come sit on the step of the coach,” he urged. “You will find a little shade.”
I accepted, and while I sat there, fanning myself with my hand, he brought a sweet yam grown in his own garden to share with me and, after, carried, in his own cup, water from the fountain for me to drink—not once but twice.
No man had ever shown me such kind regard. In fact, no other human had.
A little while later, I thought the mistress and her daughters might be coming back and I stood. Now I was on a level with Andre, where we could speak.
I broached the subject of my earlier talk with Little Marie. “Many of the plantations have dead cows and sheep,” I said. “At some of them, the families, too, are dead. Do you think we black slaves can die from this awful disease, as well?”
“No,” Andre answered me at once. “This is not an illness for the blacks to suffer. Just the whites and their animals. The disease is of greed and greed is not catching, the Vodou priests say. You must come and hear them.”
Indeed, I was a Catholic, and I feared the Vodou for more than one reason. “What do your priests tell you?” I asked in curiosity.
“Not only the priests, but the Maroon chief Francois Mackandal has talked to us. He was once owned by the Juin family, but set himself free. He says that we may rid ourselves of the plantation owners forever.” A spark of excitement brought Andre’s face to a life he had not shown before. “Mackandal said that in the homeland of the French, the peasants talk about revolt as well.”
“Ah,” I exclaimed. I had heard the Benoits speak of farmer uprisings in their native land, yet not with approval. But perhaps such a thing was now permissible. The Maroons, of course, I knew about—disobedient slaves who had run off to the hills. Had they a chief?
“The priest says the God of the French must be cruel, because they act cruelly in obedience to him, but our loa, the spirits we serve, are full of love only. Those of us who worship before the altars in the Vodou temple are loving to all who wish us well. The French do not, so we need not tolerate them any longer, but may seek out vengeance.” Andre smiled, empty spaces showing where teeth were gone, either through beatings or simply because our teeth fell out from lack of nourishment.
I smiled, too.
“The houngans—our priests—and the mambos—our priestesses—say the bullets of the French will turn to water. They cannot touch us. Our God will protect us, and theirs will fail.”
I had a great deal to think about on the ride home, past fields of cane and sugar-cane presses, past cotton fields and land where the indigo grew. This island produced bountiful riches. The master praised it often for its cocoa and rum and molasses—none of which I knew by taste. What if those who worked the land were to own it? What if I had a fancy silk frock—ruffled on the bottom to keep off the mosquitoes? Perhaps Andre, who would work his own property, would buy me frocks and never hit me with his fists.
With our wheels rumbling deeper into the countryside, the stench of death grew. Fallen sheep lay scattered like logs in the neighboring pasture. Mistress must be frightened by the sight, revolted by the smell. In the distance, I observed flames and dense, black smoke. When we came nearer, I saw a plantation house on fire. The fine home was quickly consumed as we drove by, with slaves outside laughing, and no owner sending for water to fight the blaze. Where were the master and the mistress and their children? Dead of the plague?
I jolted awake the instant we reached the Benoit wrought-iron gate, and, soon, Andre fetched me down, daring to risk a moment’s delay in opening the coach door to our mistress and the children.
I knew what all the slaves were told. Rules had been passed by our masters for us to live by and those rules said that no slaves might congregate during the day or night. We must not sing, except in the fields. And no drums were to be heard anywhere in Haiti. These things were expressly forbidden to us.
What I knew from listening to the master’s conversation with his friends was that other rules had been passed in the colony as well—the Code Noir, which said we must be fed a certain amount of food every day and given two hours after lunch to rest. We must have Sunday off to say our prayers. But the owners laughed and continued on as they chose. Yet the rule on the black slaves against our meeting together was strictly enforced. And that meant we were not to gather for Vodou ceremony.
I am a Catholic, as I have said, and always attended services with the family. As a Catholic, I know right from wrong, and I have been told that the practice of Vodou is a grave wrong. But add to that, since it is not allowed, I am afraid to go because of the punishments. After I smooth the clothes with my hot iron, sometimes it is used to sear the skin of a slave who has misbehaved. Other times, a very bad slave will have honey poured on him and be staked to the
ground, where he is eaten by insects. Other times...oh many evil things are done. Perhaps the Vodou priest is right. Perhaps their God, Jesus, is no good, since the acts of the whites are so very wicked.
Early the next morning, Little Marie invited me in quiet whispers in our tongue to come to the Vodou ceremony that same night.
I wondered what had inspired her to ask me that. “Has someone told you anything about me?” I inquired. I was jealous. Perhaps she and Andre were close, and they had talked. Perhaps they were lovers. I must shake the dresses he would buy me from my mind.
The blankness in her eyes seemed to tell my answer. “We must know those we can count on,” she said. “Not cook. She is old and unreliable.” Little Marie darted her head around, watching to see if anyone spied. “Midnight,” she murmured. “Toward the swamp. Past the stables.”
This was out of the question. A Vodou ceremony was no place for a baptized Catholic. I practically shivered, I was so afraid to think of it—although Andre would be there and many others. Could they crucify or hang us all? But they might. The idea was not entirely inconceivable.
Thus, when I found my weary self at something like midnight on the path to the swamp, I knew that I must turn back. I was a Catholic, which was enough, although many who were Catholic for Sunday were Vodou, too. But the Vodou slaves were those who had come here grown, who were already Vodou from their homeland. I had come here too young to know the ways of the loa—the spirits—or to worship them.
When I arrived at their meeting place, the bonfire was a small one, and not a sound could be heard. The field slaves danced—and Little Marie and Andre—the only ones from those who worked in the house. The dancing was silent, since we were forbidden to sing or to drum.
Some on their knees or on the ground jerked in their bodies. I resolved not to do that because my dress must remain very clean. The difference between a house slave and a field slave is our clothing. Our garments are not rags like theirs. We must not offend the eyes of the family.
Blood on Their Hands Page 12