Nowhere Is a Place

by Bernice L. McFadden

  Sure have, seen a lot of things.

  That’s good. Mama, where the emergency money at?

  I sneak a peek at Sherry, turn my head toward the window, say, Where it always is.

  I checked there, he say.

  In the coffee can, behind the cornmeal? I whisper.

  When you start putting it there? I thought it was in the coffee can in the freezer.

  Oh, I moved it. Thought I told you that. What you need it for anyway?

  Aw, Mama, he say like that suppose to answer my question. I miss you, he say.

  He just like his daddy. He as slick as oil, know just what to say to make me melt.

  I miss you too, Sonny Boy. You coming down?

  Don’t know yet.

  When you gonna know? It’s already Wednesday.

  Soon, Mama.

  Meet-and-greet happening on Friday.

  I know.

  Okay, now.

  You heard from Madeline?

  Now, boy, what kind of foolish question is that!

  He laugh, say, Be safe. I love you, Mama.

  * * *

  Memphis coming up.

  We gonna stay there? I ask.

  Sherry look at the clock on the dashboard. It say just after one.

  If you want to, but I’d rather head down to Birmingham and stay the night there.

  I shrug. It don’t matter to me much. Okay, I say, whatever you wanna do.

  She look out at the highway for some time, fiddle with radio buttons, adjusts the rearview mirror, and then say, Then Willie came?

  What? I say.

  Willie, Suce’s husband.

  Oh, yeah.

  What you know about that?

  Some, I guess.

  Was it Kentucky?

  Some say Louisiana.

  New Orleans?

  I dunno.

  Creole?

  What?

  Fair-skinned, nice hair?

  Yeah, yellow nigger, I say, and laugh. Sherry make a face. She don’t like that word. I fold my bottom lip in and say sorry with my eyes.

  Now, he was your uncle Vonnie’s father, right?

  I cringe up when she say Vonnie’s name, go straight for my bag, my wet wipes.

  Yeah, I say under my breath, and wipe at my hands.

  Willie and Suce

  ___________________

  By the time the Union army fell Savannah, Charlie Lessing’s land had shrunk, had borders—sold off for one thing or another: gambling debts and taxes.

  So as far as the eye could see was no longer Lessing land. Beyond that, something so wonderful loomed that it felt too good to think about for long periods of time.

  North.

  North, where slaves were men and women, holding down jobs, making money, owning property. Children learning. New clothes and places to go and wear them.

  The folks who listened to the old slave named Paps shuddered. Sometimes they held themselves and sometimes they held each other as they listened; hearts clamoring, feet planted, but souls already stealing away.

  Paps had been there. Five years. Two babies—boys—walking and talking, learning their ABCs. He, Paps, tended the horses for a white family. His wife Margaret cooked their food, washed the clothes, and kept the house clean.

  Happy?

  “Every day of my life. Not a care. Not a worry, not slave, but a man,” Paps said.

  “But you here now.”

  That he was. Back in the devil’s clutches.

  “How did it happen?”

  Stolen, right off the street. Knocked in the head with a rock. Woke up in Virginia. Chained up, blood dried and crusted on his forehead. Shit in his drawers.

  He had never been put up on a block. He had been born on Seymour land.

  “Where that?”

  “Kentucky.”

  “How you get free?”

  “White people bought me, said they were farming in Arkansas, then took me north with four others. Burned my sale papers right in front of me and said, Paps, you’s a free man.”

  “What kind of white people are they?”

  “Amish.”

  “Am-a-who?”

  “Fire burn the sale papers away, but your skin still black. Nothing can change that.”

  “Yep, so there I was, thirty-two years old, stinking, shivering, head hurting like hammers banging inside. White man asked me, What your name, nigger?”

  “What you say, Paps?”

  “I just looked at him and said, Free.”

  The women smile and clutch themselves tighter, while the men shake their heads in disbelief.

  “That white man laughed. Gavel went up, numbers called, hands raised, shouting, gavel went down, and here I be,” Paps said with heavy resignation.

  ___________________

  Jeff had heard the story told the same way for more than ten years. He thought about it—all of it. Dissected it the way he split logs—with precision. And so one morning he just ran. Barefoot and without food.

  Ran until he could feel the land change under his feet, ran until his chest burned and his heart begged him to stop, ran until night fell and the woods came alive with sounds he’d never known on Lessing land. Ran so hard that he ran right into the paddy rollers.

  His back told the tale. Nothing but bulging skin that had healed rocky and then on the second run was peeled open again and healed into molehills that shouted through the material of his shirt.

  His face was still beautiful, though—beautiful enough to make the women still grieve over the one that swung.

  How they wanted him, lusting behind him, using their eyes to tell him how much they wanted to scale his back, conquering every peak, before huddling themselves in the valleys beneath. But Jeff (now called Brother, so as to never forget the sacrifice made for his sake) had warm words only for Lou.

  He bathed her feet and he was the one who attended to her meals. He had smiles only for her. The women milled around to see those strong white teeth and hear his laughter, like clapping thunder. They tried to prod Lou for the words she used to make the thunder roll out of Brother; maybe they could use it for themselves and be dampened by the tears that had to follow laughter that powerful.

  But Lou just smirked at them.

  The baby Lou had been carrying when they strung Jim up came a week later and she named her Suce.

  Everyone came to see, expecting Jim’s face to be pressed into some part of that newborn. Anywhere—her leg, her stomach, the soft wrinkled cheeks of her behind—she had to be marked. God would not allow a woman—a mother—who had made a choice such as the one Lou had made to live the rest of her years and not be reminded of it every single day.

  But that child was perfect. All ten fingers and ten toes, perfect.

  And now, twelve years later, Suce had grown into a beautiful girl. And happy too. Seeming to walk in sunlight no matter the hour of the day. Her laughter, songlike, magical, and generous, was always giving the people who heard it the courage to imagine palms as smooth as cream and fingers long, brown, and unblemished by the scars that came along with picking cotton.

  ___________________

  Already wintertime and still they labor. Lessing thinks that he is the luckiest man this side of heaven.

  All over, niggers strolling like men. Real men. Backs straight, arms just a-swingin’. Heads held high. Mercy! Who would have ever dreamed it?

  But not there, not on the Lessing plantation. Niggers there remained stooped over and shuffling. Shows how stupid they were. Freedom so abundant, you could smell it. Charlie Lessing could. Freedom so pungent that he’d taken to walking around with a handkerchief pressed up against his nose. So ripe was the scent of it, it kept him up at night.

  Five months and still his property remained just that, his property!

  He had decided that no lost war or nigger-loving president was going to just say a few words, sign his name on parchment, and declare that his property—property that he had bought and paid for—could just stroll off and be fr
ee.

  Not there. Not ever.

  Lessing had seen the signs and started the fence just before Atlanta was taken. The fence enclosed the remaining forty acres of land he owned.

  There were dogs posted on the borders and a man on horseback who patrolled the grounds.

  Malroy was dead now. His sons were dead, killed in battle, but Lessing had his shotguns and two new whips with steel tips to keep them slaves in line. And how he used them, whipping them just because.

  Because he hated them.

  Because he’d lost so much in so little time.

  Because he hated them.

  Because he’d lain down with the females and loved it.

  Because he hated them.

  Because the war was over and his side had lost.

  Because, because, because.

  He started picking them off with his shotgun. Sunday afternoons, Saturday mornings. His feet propped up on the porch railing, chair tottering on two legs, drunk. Even in that precarious position, he pulled the trigger and was able to fell the unsuspecting target. Even shot dead his horseback-riding man, but that had been by accident.

  ___________________

  Suce rose just as dawn started breaking through every place it could find to slip into. Careful, she thought, Lessing don’t like no sunlight before his eyes can clear and catch hold of something familiar, so she’s careful at night to make sure the shutters are closed tight and the drapes are pulled closed.

  Since October he’s been tied down. One leg, one arm, just in case he needs to scratch or wants a drink of water from the glass Suce keeps filled on the nightstand.

  When he shot his own man and still no white men came, Brother had walked right into the house, knocked Lessing down, and dragged him upstairs.

  Lessing was crazed, that was for sure. A raving lunatic, and if the killings didn’t prove it, well then, him cradled in Brother’s arms like a baby did.

  His arms were wiry and pale, those he threw around Brother’s neck, and it disgusted him; he’d seen women wrap theirs around Lessing in the same way. But that was before the war and before the money dwindled to nothing. Before the madness’d started eating at his mind. The women took what they could after they’d drowned him in gin and pussy, then cut and ran north just like some of the Negroes did.

  Brother’s skin had crawled beneath the feel of Lessing’s arms, and when he threw him down on the bed, he restrained himself from pummeling him with his fists, the walking cane propped in the corner, and anything else that would leave that white man pulped and bloody.

  Brother’s eyes took in the room—velvet drapes, silk-covered chairs, crystal this and crystal that. “Umpf!” he snorted, and punched his palm with his fist.

  Here he was, living like a pig: mother dead, father probably dead too, twin brother lynched, burned, and buried. Friends gone. Just him, Suce, Laney, Hop, Tenk, and Spin left.

  Brother could have killed him, but things come back and haunt you. Lou had warned him of evildoings early on in his life; she said it was Jim who’d started picking away at Lessing’s sanity.

  Not too long after Jim swung, she’d seen two shadows walking alongside Lessing. He’d seen it too, she could tell by the way his feet came to a halt, the confusion on his face, and then the horror before he jumped and ran. After that day, something in his eyes changed. She knew that look, had seen the same change in Buena’s eyes after they took Nayeli away from them.

  “Jim ain’t too happy with me, neither,” she’d said, pointing at the swell of her stomach.

  Lou’s belly bulged out beneath the tattered gray fabric of her shift. Suce was ten years old by then, and Lou hadn’t had the hand of another man on her since Buena was sold off.

  But you couldn’t tell Laney that. She looked at Lou’s growing belly and then at her husband Tenk, who had always seemed to forget himself in Lou’s presence—stumbling over his words, blushing beneath his dark eyes, and grinning like an idiot.

  “What you saying, Laney?” the people she confided in asked.

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  “Well, Tenk may have been a wolf once, but he an old dog now!” they laughed.

  “What that mean?” Laney turned on them.

  “It mean he may have the heart, but not the might!”

  * * *

  The rumors had floated back to Lou and she had laughed before the hurt set in. She approached Laney. “You think I would do such a thing? We like sisters, almost,” Lou had said, taking Laney’s stiff hand in her own. “You think Tenk would do you like that?” she pressed.

  Laney had snuffed and snatched her hand from Lou’s grip. “Well who it belong to then?” she sneered, indicating Lou’s bulging stomach with her chin.

  Lou cradled her belly and rocked a bit on her heels. She smiled, but the smile was heavy with grief, and then she turned those sad black eyes on Laney and said, “Oh, this here is my Jim.”

  Laney’s eyes widened. “You got fever, Lou? The sun getting to you again?”

  “Nah, I knows it’s him,” Lou said, and rubbed her stomach.

  Laney shook her head in dismay. “How you know that?” she asked in a mocking tone.

  Lou rolled her head and pressed her hand into the small of her back. “I knows it’s him,” she whispered as she patted Laney’s shoulder and began moving past her, “’cause the way out is back through.”

  * * *

  Whatever it was, it remained in her for three years, eating Lou from the inside out. At the end all she was, was hallowed cheeks, sunken eyes, and stomach.

  The slicing pain came late one night, cutting through her middle and gnawing at her back. Lou sprung up right in her bed and howled. The hounds’ ears shot up and they began yelping and pissing until finally they huddled against one another and curled their tails between their legs and shook.

  Lou howled again, curdling the blood of everyone who heard it. Lessing turned over in his bed and pulled the shotgun he slept with into him like a warm woman. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and prayed.

  Brother rushed to his mother’s side, as did everyone else who had heard that horrible noise.

  Someone lit a lamp and the darkness was shattered; Lou’s eyes bulged and Brother and the rest of the onlookers gasped in shock when the lamp was brought closer and they saw that Lou’s hair was completely white.

  Laney had stumbled where she stood, but Tenk got hold of her arm and steadied her.

  “Mama,” Brother started, and placed his hand on Lou’s exposed thigh. Her skin made a rustling sound beneath his palm like dried leaves, and he snatched it back in terror.

  Lou pushed, and her belly bucked and writhed beneath her shift. She howled again and, God forgive him, Brother backed away from her.

  Lou, up on her elbows and legs as wide as they could go, snarled between howls now, her lips skinned back on her teeth, eyes wild as she bared down,

  There was praying going on, sacred words being thrown out into the air, someone humming a favorite spiritual they sang down in the clearing on Sundays, someone else pleading for it to stop, another urging someone to do something, anything.

  But no one was stepping forward (too scared) or stepping out (too curious).

  Another howl, another push, a sudden gust of air, and the lamplight flickered and then faded. “Git it lit, git it lit!” someone demanded. Fumbling, a cuss word or two passed, and then the sound of water, of breaking waves.

  In the darkness they turned bewildered faces on one another and then the lamp finally gets lit again just in time for them to see a blue ocean rushing out from between Lou’s legs.

  * * *

  That was three years ago, but the memory of it was planted in Brother, dug in deep and rooted like a stubborn weed. That recollection and the feel of his dead mother in his arms, soft and wet and smelling of seawater, her legs grainy with sand.

  Thinking about it just made him angry all over again, and Brother balled his fists and turned on Lessing, who was curled into a ball of
whining white flesh in the center of his bed. Eyes unfocused and watering, he looked up at Brother and pleaded, “Please, Papa, don’t hit me.”

  Laney had followed them into the house and, against her will, she felt some pity sprout in her chest for the old man. She made herself known at the bedroom door, brought to a stop what was about to happen by saying, “What us gonna do with him?”

  * * *

  There was bread and all types of jam and some pork in the cooler, and ale. Little else, but that was a feast for them. At first Hop and Tenk wouldn’t come past the porch. But Spin stepped over that threshold like it was his house.

  So frightened were Hop and Tenk that their kneecaps jumped and their stomachs churned with gas.

  Brother came to the door a third time, his mouth chomping contently on something. “Where Suce?” he said.

  Hop nodded toward the left of the house. Brother stepped out onto the porch and called for her: “C’mon, Suce.”

  Suce slipped slowly from the shadows.

  “C’mon now, it’s okay,” he said, looking off into the dark woods and then over at Tenk and Hop. “Y’all too. C’mon inside ’fore someone sees y’all out here.”

  Hop and Tenk exchanged fretful looks and then followed Suce through the door.

  * * *

  At the kitchen table they ate like men and women, Laney dabbing the corners of her mouth with a linen napkin and gushing at the absurdity of it all.

  Tenk guzzling down ale so fast, he burped his words out. Hop and Spin roaming through the parlor, Spin scared to touch anything, just staring openmouthed, and Hop greedily snatching up everything that caught his fancy and quickly shoving it into his pockets.

  Suce trailed behind them, careful to keep her hands at her sides.

  When they were full and Brother told Laney to “sit back down; you don’t have to clear no table here,” the question was asked again: “What us gonna do?”