“Jimson ain’t know I mixed a huge dose of white mulberry sap into the jam each Saturday. Tree grew right next to my quarters. Before I got up to start the house chores I went and tapped the sap to mix in with the jam. Every Saturday. Hot biscuits and peach and mulberry sap jam.”
Letty nodded to herself. “Sometimes when I serve Missus Mr. Cheatham sitting in the parlor with her. I never look in his direction. But when I go to put his plate in front of him he sneak his hand under the table and squeeze my thigh. Squeeze hard and let go. Like he pumping a cow teat for milk. Then I sit in the kitchen and wait. Hear the scraping of spoons against the jar and the clink of forks across plates that I washed and prepared. Every Saturday.”
“Shole ‘nough, Missus start to act strange. Start to see things.
People in the corner of her room. Clocks running across the parlor floor. One time she claw Mr. Cheatham face bad because she saw bugs crawling around his face and neck. But she still ate those fresh biscuits and jam.”
Letty lets out a careful sigh past the fire ants scurrying behind her mask. “Then Missus say she start seeing Coffey. Coffey was her chamber maid. Coffey bout twelve or thirteen with middle brown skin, a little puff of black hair, and sad brown eyes. The sun never shined on her eyes the right way. Sweet as pie and anxious to please Missus. Brush Missus hair. Empty out her pot. Warm up her bed in the winter. But Missus treat Coffey mighty bad.
She never got it right. She brush too hard. Say Coffey didn’t warm up all the bed. But Coffey just curtsey and work. Missus beat her with the end handle of a whip cause Missus felt throwing the whip weren’t ladylike. After Coffey’s beatings she was a pitiful sight and Missus couldn’t stand it so she threw her into her bedroom closet. Sometime she stay in there for days. We’d sneak her bread ends and sips of water when we could.”
Letty pats her chest. “One night Coffey heart just give out. She curled up in Missus bed like she was trying to warm it. Missus come in and think she just fall asleep on her bed. She yell and scream at Coffey. Coffey don’t move. She hits her in the head with the whip handle. Coffey still don’t move. She hits Coffey on her back. Missus think Coffey in a deep sleep. She stomps barefoot to the top of the stairs and yells for me to get August. August is Coffey’s brother.
Gruff, quiet, and mean looking. August come to Missus bedroom and see his sister curled in a ball like a roly poly. He try to eat his own moan. He pull his throat tight to stop from hollerin’ out.
August puts one hand under her head and the other around her waist to lift her up. Missus snarl, hiss, and scream.
‘Just yank her out. Yank her out! Damn you, August! Get her out my bed!”
August move slow. Tender. Missus hit him on his back with the whip handle. Tears fall. He still move slow and tender.
“Move quicker than that! If you don’t move I’ll lash you from here to Sunday!” Missus tiny white hands ball up and hit August on his back. He still moves slow and tender.
After Coffey die Missus move to another room.
But Coffey move with her. Coffey makin’ herself known because Missus’ eating white mulberry sap. She stand at the end of Missus’ bed. She stare and wait. Missus peek over her covers and look Coffey in her face.
“Why are you here, you pickaninny? Why? You’re dead. Dead!” Coffey don’t move. She stare. Missus wails.
“If you must stay, go on back into the closet. The closet! The godforsaken closet!” Coffey don’t move. She stare.
Mulberry sap got Missus brain full. She starting to see Coffey everywhere. Mr. Cheatham grow worried.
“The closet! Oh Jim! I can’t stand looking at her! Don’t you see? Can’t you see the pickaninny? She’s right there staring!”
Mr. Cheatham sigh and look towards the closet. He don’t see nothing. “There is nothing there, my dearest Amanda. No one’s there, indeed.”
“But she needs to be in the closet!”
Missus collapse back on her bed. She tired of seeing Coffey.
Mr. Cheatham sighs from deep in his chest and opens the window to let in a breeze.
“Maybe the smell of magnolias on the breeze will bring her around,” Mr. Cheatham say to no one in particular.
Missus continues to whimper about the closet. Coffey stands at the end of the bed and stares.
“Should I bring her biscuits and peach jam, suh?” I ask. “She would like that. We will eat here.”
I go to fetch the biscuits. I put another heap of mulberry sap in the jam. I think of Jimson winking at me and smile. Something was trying to grow between us. Force itself out and grow. “Letty, those biscuits!” Mr. Cheatham hollers.
I scurry up the stairs and serve Mr. Cheatham and Missus. Mr. Cheatham stares at my hands. I look down and see the sap starting to cake over white. I brush my hands across the front of my dress.
“Why are your hands so sticky and white?” Mr. Cheatham stands up and looks down on me. I cringe.
“Spilled a bit of dough and flour to make the biscuits. Just forgot to wipe ‘em clean, suh.”
Mr. Cheatham look at my hands. He reaches out a finger to touch the top of my left hand. It presses down and the sap covers his finger tip.
“What’s this?” He puts the fingertip to his nose. His eyes widen. Mr. Cheatham grabs my wrists and shakes me.
“What the hell is this?”
“Jam. It’s jam, Mr. Cheatham suh.”
“This ain’t no damn jam. What did you do? What the hell did you do?”
He throws me to the floor. I curl into a ball like Coffey. Missus screams.
“You worthless nigger!” he yells. “Letty,” I say.
He grabs my plaits and drags me down the stairs. He hits me with each fist as he shoves me down the stair and drags me outside.
Mr. Cheatham tells Peter to fetch him a knife from the kitchen. “The closet!” Missus yells from inside the house.
Mr. Cheatham cuts my plaits. He cut the braids by my ears like he cutting with a saw. He ties me to the Oleander tree and rips my dress. He doesn’t lash me. He beat me with his own hands. Each blow I see white. Bright white. Could’ve been the sun but I feel it was God watchin me die. The blows to my face take away shapes. I only see colors and smell something sour. I wonder if the sour smell means my blood turning cold. I hear dirt moving.
Somebody lifts me and put me down deep into a hole. “Not the head,” Mr. Cheatham say.
I smell Dirt. Oleander. Blood. Magnolia.
I hear Mr. Cheatham walk away. Then he come back.
Something wet hit my left cheek. Mr. Cheatham kicks dirt in my face. I can only move my neck. Then something thick and itchy hits the top of my head and covers my face. He put this mask on my face. I can’t breathe nothin’ but sticky and dirt. Sticky and dirt.
“Kick the nest!” Mr. Cheatham hollered. Letty gasps and stands up to shake out her dress. More fire ants fall from the creases of her crumpled dress and face mask.
“Jesus!” I holler.
“Naw, Gris, it ain’t him,” Letty say. She reaches her hand out to me. There ain’t no skin.
“This ain’t as bad as fire ants. You ready to come with me? You further along than I was when I was dying.”
A Real Friend Will Let You Break
by A. J. Locke
Beneath this tidal wave of misery
there is some semblance of a face.
But your eyes are sunken and hollow,
and your cheeks are floppy bowels of flesh.
I can squish my fingers around in them
but that does not make you smile.
I suppose you’ve gone and
planted yourself to this spot.
Thrust your roots into desert ground
and suck on intangible things when you thirst.
But your throat is still parched, is it not?
You are a viciously empty shell.
So perhaps I will poke you until you shatter,
and leave the pieces for that miserable wave
to lick clea
n in salty contempt,
or perhaps choke and drown.
That way, whatever it is,
you can finally forget.
Ma Laja
by Tracey Baptiste
As soon as she put her foot in the shoe, she feel like Cinderella.
Oh! It feel good. But there was still the matter of the other one. She lean against the wall, and push the hoof in gingerly, afraid for the shoe, and she own hoof. But there. It fit. Just like the other one. Now she stand in front the mirror and watch sheself. Is the first time she could ever lif ’ up she skirt and look at two foot. So many years she had to hide. How many is that now? So many she stop counting. She take a little walk in front of the mirror to see how the shoes fit. She smile. No more: one foot down, drag the cow heel. Now she was walking regular like other women. Who would know what she was? Even though these days, people didn’t look so hard at you. They was always in them phones watching the world pass by with they hand in front they face. Not that it didn’t have plenty maco spreading gossip around, but even the maco them was busy with they own thing and spending less time in other people business. It was the TV that started it. As soon as that box come in everybody house, people stop looking out they windows.
That make Ma Laja happy. She didn’t need anybody watching she. Staying in the shadows by the edge of the road was how she survived all this time. Now the road them paved, and all them fellas driving on it fast.
As she stand there admiring the new shoes, the warm blood spread almost to she foot.
“Lord, no!” Ma Laja cried. “Not mih new shoes!”
She quick-stepped out of the way of the spreading pool, and toward the door of the shoe store. She took one more look back, at the boxes of shoes that other customers had tried on during the day, the shut blinds that meant the store was closing up, the manager’s blood soaking up the carpet, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling fan that rotated slowly, whoop, whoop, whoop over their heads, and her own self in the mirror, so pretty, the manager couldn’t resist letting she try on that one pair of shoes even though the CLOSED sign was already out.
She thought, “Is a good thing it wasn’t a woman, eh?”
Ma Laja liked to stick to the rules. These days though, some of them rules had to be adjusted, wiggled a little to allow she to live in peace.
She step outside the store and close the door behind her. The dark was welcoming. It fall around she shoulders like a cape. Ma Laja decide to walk around town a bit to test out how the new shoes would work. She didn’t have to go far. It was generating plenty of looks already, even people in they fast, fast motorcars slow down to get a better look. Nobody had shoes like these. They was unique.
One guy leaning out he car say, “Mmm! Doux doux! You lookin’ good, Mama. Whey you get them crazy shoes from?”
“Psst! Sweet thing! You going to a party or what in them fancy shoes?” A young boy call out as she pass him and his group of friends.
A couple of women walk by. They watch she foot, and then
watch straight ahead again, pretending not to see. But it was hard to ignore a pair of shoes that look like two cow feet. After she pass them, she could feel they eyes on the back of she, staring.
Ma Laja smile and draw sheself up to she full height. She never feel so good in all she born days. When was it she was born? She couldn’t remember exactly, eh? In her earliest memory she look exactly the same way she look right now. Well, she used to change up the hairstyle and the clothes to go with the fashion, but her face never change. Sometimes she would see people that she know from years and years gone, and they faces was always different. First the cheeks them lose they roundness. Then the color slowly leech out. Then the skin get loose around they bones. Always changing. But not Ma Laja. She never change.
She turn down a narrow alley behind the row of stores, and follow it back to the river. Not too many people know ‘bout that little road. No lady in she right mind would walk down it. Town was dark, but there it was darker, no street lights, nobody to hear if you call out for help. Dangerous for a woman. The heels of the new shoes click on the stones in the middle of the street as she walk, and it sound like music. Make she start to swing she hips.
“You ent ‘fraid something happen to you on a desolate road like this?”
Ma Laja turn around and see a tall, dark-skin man watching she.
Something in his fingers curled smoke up into the air. She knew that scent.
“You got another one of them?” Ma Laja asked. She walked toward the man. He look surprise. Didn’t expect she to be friendly. Probably expected she to try and run off.
“No, but you can share this one.” He hold the cigarette out and smiled like a cat who corner a mouse. But he didn’t know who he was dealing with. He shoulda run. But now, it was too late for he.
SHOESTORE MURDER MAN MISSING
MEN RUNNING OFF
EPIDEMIC, the newspapers say.
People was getting nervous. Nobody could understand what was happening. Every day a new headline. Every night a new man gone. The nights them was getting real quiet. There was only light reaching into the streets through shut doors like shards of fear. But plenty of brave ones was out and about still. It was nice for Ma Laja. It had been so long she didn’t have such fun.
An evening, she scuff up the new shoes by the corner of St. James and Boulevard. As she lean down to rub off the dirt, a car pull up and a man ask she if she lost and want a ride somewhere.
She suck she teeth, steups. But it was a nice looking man, eh. In a suit. With a gold ring on he finger. The woman sitting next to he have she face swell up and she arms cross over she chest. But no gold ring.
Ma say, “Yeah. I looking for something.”
From the front seat, the woman was saying “I really need to get home,” and “That’s probably your wife buzzing the phone.” Ma Laja nearly abandon the whole endeavor, when the man say, “Leah, you’re right. No need for both of us to get home late. I’ll drop you at the bus and see you in the morning.”
He drive them a little ways and stop at a corner, and didn’t look at the woman until she get out the car. Then Ma Laja come around to the front.
“Is nowhere I going, you know,” she said.
He say, “Those are interesting shoes.”
The next day, it was LADY KILLER crowding up the front page and everybody eye bugging out they head as they read it.
Evening again and she walk to a street vendor for some coconut water. The machete ring against the husk as the vendor chop open the top and hand to she. It all went down in one gulp, some of the coconut water run down her bare neck and past the bony hill of her clavicle to the soft skin beneath.
“The flesh sweet,” he say.
She nod and hand the coconut over. He hack it in two and slice off a little husk for she to scoop out the white jelly inside. She ate another one, and another as the light over the savannah dim and you could almost hear the sounds of doors shutting, locks clicking, bones trembling. The street lamps was on, buildings was shuttered again.
“Everybody gone,” she said. “Why you ent packing up?” “You still here.”
“I done, man.”
“Nah,” he say. “You ent done yet.” She notice he glance down at she shoes.
The machete surprise she for sure. Is a long time she didn’t see she own blood, and she forget how much hurt could hurt.
“I know who you are,” the man say, swiping again with the blade. “They looking for you, you know.” He jogged out of her reach and threw one of the older coconuts at her head. “If you think is me you go ketch—”
She reach him and they wrestle a bit behind the cart, in a veil of shadow between two street lights.
When it was all over she suck she teeth steups and roll she eyes.
She never did like mess eh. And even in the dim light she could see was lots to clean up. Worse still, the shoes them have blood and dirt stains and coconut jelly clinging to the fabric. She try to wash them off in a nearby
standpipe, but it didn’t work. The sole pull away, and the leather warp. It wasn’t easy to walk in them after that either.
She look back toward the coconut cart and the man lying beneath. The shoes them leave a trail of blood to the standpipe.
The shoes, she thought. For days they meant she had feast and freedom. Now they was looking for she. And they was looking for the shoes. Ma Laja run through town toward the old cemetery. The rain-dampened ground was soft like flesh, making an unsteady path. And the whole time the shoes—on top of everything else—was getting more and more muddy. They was only a few days old. They shouldn’t already be so beat up. It was the principle of the thing that made she vex. Vex enough that she was looking at she feet when she bounce up the young man near the cemetery fence.
Their bodies and bones and breath knock together all in one before they stagger apart. He was running from something in the graveyard, she running to it. Both of them look through the high wrought iron fence into the dark slopes of the burial ground, its stones reaching like bony finger tips to the moon.
He smelled like fresh dirt, and was holding something in his hand that shine in the little light left from the street lamps and windows. He wipe he hand on he pants and swallow.
“Good evening,” he say.
Ma Laja nod. She try to go pass him.
“You eh see me, you hear?” He look through the fence again. “If they find me, I go find you, you hear?” He look she up and down and stop at the shoes. He step back.
“I saw those shoes in the paper,” he say. “The police say they were stolen from a shop where a man was killed.”
Ma Laja step forward. “Well we is both thief then.” He shake he head. Then he take off. Or he try.
A crack in the ground cut up she hand a little bit when she grab he and pull he down to the sidewalk. They was intertwined like insects, rolling off the sidewalk and into the road. He body was soft, which was a surprise, and smaller too under all them clothes. She manage to get she hand around he delicate little neck, but before she could snap it, the man whimper in a way that make she hand go slack. Then the man elbow she in the face, and pull heself to he feet. Ma Laja recover quick and get up too. They look at each other for a moment, panting, then the man take off again. She coulda let him go. She didn’t need him. She already eat for the day. But he done see what she was and anyway, it wasn’t greed exactly to have a few meals in a stretch. There was plenty of starving years when people was driving motorcar and nobody walking anyplace. It was stockpiling she was thinking of. Besides, he was a thief. Who would miss he?
Sycorax's Daughters Page 6