American Histories

by John Edgar Wideman

  * * *

  But now, I respond. Today. Where are all those words, stories, names. Now when enemies crush and shred us, piss on us. Or string us up to the tops of poles. Fly us like flags without countries in the prison yard.

  * * *

  Same old uncle also said, he says, that the past reappears, not disappears. Different and same. Like your name when it’s said by someone who speaks a foreign language. Same and different. Like grass and weeds sprout through the motel’s gravel driveway no matter how much I kneel and pick, pick, pick . . .

  * * *

  Man behind the counter offers me the motel or at least his job managing it in exchange for my place in line the next day. Offers to take my woman, or at least one of my women, he smiles, to accompany him while he occupies my spot in line. What do you have to lose, he asks. Who will miss you. Blame you.

  * * *

  I’ll be stuck here alone.

  * * *

  No. No. Not alone. Guests arrive. Surprises. Lines of them sometimes stretch to the horizon.

  NAT TURNER CONFESSES

  * * *

  Nat Turner no stranger to me. The grad-school education I’d been privileged to receive in the early 1960s included an American Studies course which mentioned slave revolts and named a few slaves responsible for bloody, short-lived, essentially futile outbreaks of violence that occurred before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War ended legal slavery in America. My curiosity led me to discover a handful of radical, left-wing scholars who specialized in uncovering and preserving evidence of slave resistance to bondage. Thanks to the research of those scholars I learned more about Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, etc., and rebellions they had perpetrated. More information, of course, piqued my curiosity for more. But not the kind of curiosity that killed the cat. My good liberal education was also instilling moderation. Instructing me how to divide and conquer. Conquer and divide myself first. A very large, unforgiving, ruthless world out there and no one—especially some lucky someone like me who had been granted a special pass to enter places reserved for people not my color—could afford to squander time and resources on projects leading nowhere. Except to the dead ends of history, to dead people buried in the rubble who had wasted their lives in hopeless quests.

  * * *

  Nat Turner addresses the spectators with silence. A goodly number had turned out to see him hanged and he is pleased. The more of them shivering under a slight drizzle this dismal morning, the easier it is for him to say nothing. Easier to wish he’d begun the work of killing them sooner, these strangers and the few he might recognize if he cast his eyes about the throng, dark faces here and there among white faces he’s sure, the ones ordered by masters to attend this edifying spectacle, or dark faces peeking curious, wide-eyed, pretending to be invisible at the edges of the crowd, and though he blinds himself to it, he hears and smells the mob fragrant as the pig yard where someone not him, thank goodness, must be shoveling mud and shit already at this hour. A rabble boiling around the hasty scaffold, this cross erected in a farmer’s field just beyond Jerusalem. So many white faces it’s easier to forgive himself and his band for not completing the work of eliminating them all, every single one, as he’d conceived in his plan and exhorted the others, returning in one instance to a ransacked dwelling, strewn with corpses of a family they had just murdered, to bash in the skull of an infant girl he remembered they’d missed in an upstairs nursery. One by one, every single guilty one of them, man, woman, child slaughtered until he and his recruits had emptied Southampton, Virginia, the entire world, or until they, themselves, cut down.

  Not a word Nat Turner desires to speak to anyone today, not a person he wishes to see, only the dead, his loyal troops who did not survive, scores of innocent folk, men, women, children rounded up on plantations, from village streets, swamps, woods, and rumored to have paid with their lives for his sins, the Emmetts and Trayvons murdered as if guilty of riding with Nat Turner that August night of killing, and yes, oh yes, speak a last word to his poor wife beaten unmercifully until she produced, they say, “odd papers written in blood” then stripped and whipped again, as if a flesh-and-blood woman whose husband long a ghost to her could reveal his whereabouts, as if her naked flesh privy to his secrets. Sorry, sorry, he might whisper to his lost bride, to those victims he served.

  Then Thomas Gray intrudes. Not his face picked out from the crowd. Thomas Gray’s gray face not seen from the scaffold this last morning. He’s invisible as the other spectators, invisible as I had been while he read my so-called confession to the court at my trial. Confession Gray had written himself and claimed that I, the accused, had dictated to him. Gray’s lying voice heard again here in this moment of truth, the moment people say no one dares violate with an untruth because death imminent, and we fear God’s all-knowing stare.

  I would relish an opportunity to watch the eyes of Thomas Gray—my inquisitor, lawyer, judge, jury, priest, executioner as he variously styled himself—watch his eyes consume letter by letter, word by word, not the counterfeit confession he authored. Watch him pelted by the witness I bear, the truth of this unfolding tale I compose to occupy myself during these final minutes while I stand beneath a gallows fitted with three hooks and ropes, standing above a mob that now mutters and seethes as it grows more restless, impatient because I say nothing, my lips stones, though I believe, in the instant Gray meets his creator, he must listen to every word I brew now, words scourging him, words streaming, stinging up from my belly to my heart to my silent mouth this morning.

  May Thomas Gray hear my confession, not his. My words. Not the words he’s written and intends to publish for great profit, a businessman like others in the crowd who wait for my body to be cut down so they can strip patches of my skin, chunks of my flesh and peddle them as Christians once peddled splinters of the true cross.

  * * *

  As a boy I learned to read. Taught myself names of letters, sounds of letters that are also their names. Learned the alphabet: A–Z.

  A = an apple. Apple bitten ends darkness. Animals wake up to light which is another dark. Animals see what they have never seen before. See themselves and see one another and it’s the beginning of the end. A–Z. Alone. Not alone. A–Z begins with first taste of A for apple. First open eye. First glimpse of what a world is. What a person is not. World holds others like you and unlike you. Creatures with nothing to do with you. Separate. Like rivers, trees, mountains, sky, snow, a bird, shadows. And everything not you burns, roars loudly or silently. Creatures hungry, hunt, haunt a world beginning and ending with the alphabet that begins with letter A. Ends with letter Z.

  B = Book = Bible. Be. Bee bee busy bumble bee. Buzzy, fuzzy, striped B for bug with wings, stings, hives, honey. To be in pain. b. To begin to read the Bible letter by letter because each letter a sound, the world an empire of sounds buzzing in your ears, noises people make, world makes. Bee crawls, slow, striped black and yellow, and you catch it in your fist, listen, crush, squash it. No buzz. Before it was a bug, a bee, but nothing now, even when you open your fist, open your eyes, only darkness. Read dark, darker, darkest. Bible opens to letter A, to letter B, alpha to beta, A–Z, I read somewhere and learn to sound out names for god, suckle at the alpha-beta tit, listen to blood-red, white milk squeezed up sweet inside, singing inside warm pillow of skin, sometimes it puts me to sleep, wakes me up in the deep, down darkness, deep quiet again—being alone with only God again—still as a squashed bug, squashed b—it’s not Him, not me, not it—broken—but, because many, many Bs—busy, busy b’s—b b b—you could spell a world with nothing but b. Beginning begotten baby born black butt big boy bigger better best blest bought beaten beast behave beg blind until he learns C, the next letter, and learns next, and next creature, because black boy learns (A–Z) to read God’s Book.

  C: See with eye. C sounds like see. Eye sounds like I. Eyes C. I see sounds like icy. Icy makes you slip and fall. Feet up over head. Head down under feet. Happy litt
le white girls and boys bundled in bright, happy colors skate on ice in Lil Miss book. What is ice. Ice cold, dummy. White, smooth, slippery ice. You slip and fall and fall, if you not careful. Boom down you go. C, I told you so, dummy. Crack your noggin. Hard head nigger noggin. I told u so. U better b careful. Or when you C eyes first time you fall. What is ice. Not nice. White, white eyes everywhere, cold, colder, coldest after dark, after sun goes down. No ice here, see, c, it’s there in picture book, God’s snow and tall mountains and his children in bright colors fast as deer, his cold ice and hot sand of his deserts you will never see, you sleep, fall asleep and darkness wakes u, u C, eyes see pictures in books with pages u cannot turn, pages turning too fast, too slow, pictures with no pages your eyes see. Icy. You slip and fall. See nothing. Eyes cold white as God’s ice everywhere.

  D for Dread. Dream. Did. Dirty. Deed. I did it. I admit I did. Fucked her, yes. Did it, but swear I’m not happy or proud I did it. Swear she said okay. Not all slave masters enjoyed screwing their slaves. Whipping slaves. Slavery, yes, a terrible, terrible institution, I admit it, and we all agree, but still not all masters the same. There were good guys and bad guys. Bad apples but some decent, too. Not everybody roots for the same team. Always winners and losers. Heroes and goats. Why shouldn’t I be a winner for a change. Me, Nate Parker, and my underdog, underground railroad team. We did it. Made a Nat Turner movie and everyone promises it’s a hit. On top for once. Let me tell you it hasn’t been easy. Making a movie not a cakewalk. Not one easy step along the way. And not easy now. Even now after a winning score in the book declares me a winner. On top at last. Free at last. Film in the can. Hand in the till. Here, let me sprinkle some this honey money on your tongues, my brothers. No fun all these years being exploited. Called bad or evil or flat-out ignored. But if you are willing to forget and forgive, I am. We can go from here. New start. New season. Put the bad times behind us. What’s over is over. And done. Let’s put that bad stuff out our minds. I’m willing if you are. New day. New game. What makes America great, the game great, is it not, my sisters and brothers of all colors. Thank you for this opportunity. This chance to perform. Said I was sorry, didn’t I. Didn’t Mr. Gray read my confession. Can’t you hear my sobs of remorse. Let bygones be bygones. Let’s all us be free at last. Why lynch me now. Won’t bring back the dead. We got our whole history in front of us. Let’s do it, Maceo. Give the drummer some. Let the good times roll. Promise youall I’ll be a good boy. Hardest worker in showbiz.

  E: With about forty Es lined up in a row, a long chain gang of Es maybe different sizes, shapes, colors, letters strung out one after another, would the sound of all those Es make the sound of a mule you might hear dawn or dusk mad cause it’s tired, hurt, broke, pissed, weary, tired of being whipped, winded, trembling at the knees, long mule neck aching so bad, not one more mule step left in skinny mule legs, emaciated mule muscles, nothing left to do except squeal eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee till the final mule breath exits its mule-assed body, mule-assed soul. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  F: Father. Fast, flee, freedom, friend. Fount of wisdom. Foundation. Founder. Fire, fear, flee, feast, famine. Father forgive. Flay me. Fly me. Far, far away.

  G: Only one sound, one letter, and I am unworthy. They say I am forbidden to utter, to spell it—only G. No other letters. Only an empty space after G___ for my God’s name.

  * * *

  If you believe you already know my story, perhaps you should stop here. The story you know suffices. You will discover nothing useful in what I have to relate. Nothing that will raise doubts or supplant truths or untruths inside you that you have transported until your life’s journey progressed to this point where you find me offering my alphabet, my tale, my confession as if it begins here, gushing new like pure water from a pristine mountain stream, when both of us, though we speak separate languages, understand the fact my life, like yours, has been unraveling a long, long time and we are both past the point of going back or starting over, strangers in this moment we might prefer to be a moment of truth, strangers to each other and ourselves as we pass by, as we exchange words weightless as strangers passing by.

  * * *

  Sad day yesterday.

  Heavy day, sure enough.

  Lil Miss coffin didn’t weigh much. Mize well be feathers in there.

  Not carrying a coffin what I’m talking bout. Talking about tears. All that crying. Ole Missus and them so sad. And fixing to rain all morning before we dig that hole put the box in the ground.

  See. You just didn’t want get wetted up. Fraid your black ass gon melt it get wet.

  Know what you can do for my black ass, nigger.

  Turrible day. Turrible sad, what I’m saying.

  Not your mama in the box. Nor your daughter they sold away last planting season.

  * * *

  I decided to kill white people when the voice I hear sometimes in my head reasoning with me said you don’t need them. Need no one to tell me I am not one of them and never would be. Don’t need masters. Do not need the heaven and hell in their churches. Nor the hell on earth they make of this Virginia. Don’t need fellow slaves. Nor slave rags and slave rations and slave quarters. Don’t need nasty sheep to tell me I am a nasty goat and don’t belong in the sheep pen.

  I found it strange then, since I had been persuaded, agreed wholeheartedly, I thought, with the voice of reason, strange that once I had commenced the killing, strange that at first, each time my turn to strike a fatal blow, fear or panic or pity or something else I have yet to fathom, caused me to hesitate. Standing over the bed of sleeping Joseph Travis—appropriately our first victim since he was owner of the plantation on which I, leader of the plot, resided—I struck him several times with a hatchet, but Will’s assistance necessary to dispatch him. When I attacked Miss Newsome with my sword, Will’s implacable ax was required again to deliver the fatal blow. In the side yard of her family’s dwelling, Mrs. Margaret Whitehead grabbed my hand and pleaded, but I struck her numerous times with my sword, causing her to collapse to the ground, though she didn’t die until I snatched up a loose fence railing and crushed her skull. Were these mishaps the result of small, inadequate weapons, or my novice’s ineptitude at killing. Or did I hesitate, temper blows in each instance, because I still believed if I eradicated them, I might miss the presence of white people.

  * * *

  I am called Nat Turner, a name made up for the convenience of sellers and purchasers of me. A made-up name like I invented a name for the voice inside me, calling it God’s voice when I endeavored to describe the source of words no one besides me able to hear. Though that source, I must admit, far beyond my poor wits to fathom and remains impossible for me to explicate, I tried with all my powers to share the words of the source with my brethren in chains. Attempted to convince them that if they listened carefully to words that seemed to issue from my lips, they would hear more than Nat Turner speaking. Prophecies and mysteries would descend upon all of us when we gathered in secret places in the woods.

  * * *

  WHITE PEOPLE DO NOT CHANGE. WILL NOT CHANGE. SO THEY HAVE CHANGED YOU. WROUGHT YOU—BENT, TWISTED, EMPTIED YOU—TO BE WHO YOU ARE. ARE YOU SOMEONE YOU WISH TO BE. OR SOMEONE WHITE PEOPLE WISH YOU TO BE. YOU ARE INSIDE THEIR PLAN, NAT TURNER. BUT NOT INSIDE THEM, NAT TURNER. THEY ARE INSIDE YOU. REMOVE THEM. REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THEIR PLAN.

  * * *

  I began life with a mother and father. Like everyone does. Like you, like Mr. Thomas Ruffin Gray, I started with an Eve, an Adam. Though Eve and Adam not my parents’ names, just conveniences I’m making up, like the name slavers fabricated for me. My mother’s and father’s names lost and forgotten long ago. The names they happened to bear when I was born had been passed out like tools passed out to field hands to serve their masters. Name to distinguish one piece of livestock from another, a name obliging you to come when it’s called and face dire punishment if you don’t respond quickly enough, names to shame or make fun of our condition, names stamping us as belonging to somebo
dy, somebody’s property branded with a name not connecting us to our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, ancient blood families preceding us in time, names erasing kin we are supposed to, taught to forget, names like mine, Nat Turner, who as far as I know never possessed another. Nor a family in whose bosom I was secure, protected as it was said white people we slaved for guarded their offspring.

  Nevertheless, I was an extremely fortunate child. Still inside my mother’s belly when she was ordered to the big house to serve Mrs. Travis and wet-nurse the infant Mrs. Travis expected. Extremely fortunate that after a baby everybody called Lil Miss born to the Travises, I was born, too, and accompanied my mother daily to the big house where she waited upon Mrs. Travis—suddenly Big Miss or Ole Miss or Ole Missus behind her back—and nursed the new daughter with whom you might as well say I shared a birthday.

  My mother, less fortunate than me, told me, You two babies long wit everything else I had to do just bout killed me, boy. Said she carried us two, one on either hip, one at either titty, she said youall alike as two peas in a pod, except one pea white, other pea black and my mother smiled when she said it, and said young and strong as I was you two wore me out said too much work to do around the house, always more, chore after chore, kitchen, nursery, them two older chillens needing me, scrub, tidy this room then that and you babies hanging on to me mize well be twins, twin trouble, double whining and double hollering and double wet and stinky and sick and mischief, and running off and hiding or fighting or into something you ain’t got no business being in soon as the two of you large enough to get up on two legs or four legs you could say, my, my, the two of you had my poor head spinning round trying to keep up, lay you down at night, my son, then dropped down myself like a dead person on that mat in the little closet kinda room behind Ole Miss Travis room lots of nights but seem like quick as a person could say Jack Robinson one or the other of you screaming in one or the other room, then both fussing and it’s starting up again weary as I am it’s starting again and Ima tell you the God’s truth you two little devils just bout killed me and Ole Miss all laid up in bed all whiskey-headed and mumble bout this or that nothing or laid up under her soft sheets and wool blankets snoring never lift a finger to help.