47

by Walter Mosley

  "For this niggah here?" Albert said.

  "That's what he said," I answered for the third time also.

  "What they call you?" Albert asked the strange colored slave.

  "Tall John."

  "Tall John? Why ain't they called you Skinny John or Copper John or just John?"

  "Tall," John said as if he were considering the word for the first time in his life. "Tall... is a funny word, you right about dat. I mean you could have a tall flea as long as he taller den alia the other fleas. To you an' me dat flea ain't no mo' den a tiny midget but to alia da othah fleas he be like some kinda king."

  Once again Tall John was talking like a whole different person. I came to understand that he spoke one way to white people, another way to slaves, and still another way to me when we were alone. In this way John hid his true nature from everyone but me.

  "King flea," Champ Noland said, and a few of the men laughed at the outlandish idea.

  "So now you want us to call you King John?" Billy Branches, slave Number Thirty-nine, asked.

  "I's jes' talkin' 'bout tall right now," John said. "Fas jes' sayin' that if a flea could be tall den why cain't I be?"

  "But dat flea you supposin' was taller den the othah fleas," said Number Seventy-five, also known as Black Tom. "I see a lotta men here taller den you."

  John's eyes got big and then he rolled them around the room to check out Black Tom's claim. He looked so foolish that many of the men started laughing. I felt a grin come across my own face.

  I had only been out in the slave quarters for a few weeks. In that time I had never heard general laughter among the men. Sometimes, before we were chained to our bunks, the men would gather under lamplight and talk in low tones about mundane events of the day. But hearing John brought lightness to our hearts.

  "I don't like to conta'dict you, suh," John replied after rolling his eyes some more. "But I done spied around myself 'n I do believe that I am the tallest person hereabouts."

  John's outlandish claim brought loud protests from the men.

  "Dat nigger's crazy," one voice shouted.

  "Dat's a lie!" another indignant man said.

  There was a great deal of shouting but as angry as the sounded they were still having a good time.

  "So says you," John said in response to the doubting mob of slaves. "But let me pose you dis . . ." He held up one finger and the whole room went silent. "If you sees a wood barrel stand up to here . . ." he held his hand at the level of his diaphragm "... would you call dat a tall barrel?"

  "No," somebody said. "Dat's jes' a regular barrel. It'a have to be up to here to call it tall."

  The man, Number Nineteen, held his hand shoulder high to show what he meant.

  A few of the men grumbled their agreement with Nineteen.

  "All right den," Tall John said. "Now what if you see a blade'a grass come all the way up to my chest? Wouldn't you call dat a tall blade'a grass?"

  "Sure it is," a voice from the back said.

  "Uh-huh," Champ Noland agreed.

  A few of the others had to admit what John said was true.

  "Now look here," John said then.

  He went to stand next to Champ Noland, who was the tallest and broadest man on the whole plantation.

  John came up to about the middle of Champ's neck but he was so skinny that it would have taken four of him to match the big man's girth. Everybody in the room could see that Champ was more like a squat barrel where John was tall like a blade of grass.

  The men broke out laughing and I was proud that I was the one who found Tall John and brought him into our midst.

  But even then I wondered at the many faces of my new friend. In front of the master he was a cowering slave wanting nothing but the master's approval. With Albert and the rest of the slaves he was a wise-cracking joker outthinking us but at the same time making us laugh. When we were alone he sounded like an educated white person from some far-off city like Atlanta or Charleston. But not only that when we were together John acted as if we were always meant to be friends.

  When we were walking toward the slave quarters after seeing Tobias, John had said to me, "I'm glad that we found each other at last, Forty-seven."

  "How do you know my name, boy?" I'd replied.

  "I've known who you were since before you born, son. All this time I've been doing your job. Pretty soon now I think you'll be doing mine."

  "Well," I'd said, "seein' that we's both slaves I guess one thing's the same as t'other."

  John laughed out loud and slapped my arm. Then we got to the slave quarters, where he told us about the barrel and the blade of grass.

  "Okay," Albert said, finally, after much laughter about John's riddle-like argument. "Time to hit the hay. I'm gonna move Champ over to bunk with Thirty-two and I'm gonna put Number Twelve and Forty-seven in the same cot." "Why you wanna do that?" Seven, who we also knew as Charlie Baylor, asked. "Forty-seven and this new boy is small. It'a make more sense to put them with big men like me so we could have some room when we tryin' t'sleep."

  "Sleep is the last thing you need, Charlie Baylor. Every time I sen' some'un to look for you they find you nappin' under some cotton bush."

  The slaves all laughed then. I could see in Charlie's face that he didn't like being made fun of but I also knew that Mud Albert was free to say anything he wanted as long as Champ Noland was there to back him up.

  So John and I were given the lower bunk nearest Mud Albert's brass bed. Champ went around chaining everybody to the bolts in the floor. After a while Mr. Stewart came in to check our chains. All he did was go to the foot of each cot and shake the chains. He didn't even notice that there was a new boy in the cabin.

  After Mr. Stewart was gone Albert snuffed out the lanterns and so there was only one candle for light. He took this candle and came to sit next to our bunk. "Tall John is it?" he asked my friend. "You bettah believe it, brothah," John replied. His smiling teeth flashed in the flickering light.

  "You evah hear tell of the one dey call High John the Conqueror?" Albert asked.

  "You mean the trickster from Africa who makes fun'a the mastah an' who means to free alia the slaves an' bring'em back home?" John answered and asked.

  "That's the one. They say that High John was sent by ancient African gods to bring us slaves back home to where our mothers' is still waitin' for us," Albert said. "If'n I put high in yo' name instead'a tall dat might jes' be you."

  "I haven't come here to free the slaves, Mud Albert," John said, no longer joking or making light. "I came here to find Forty-seven. He has more interest in freeing slaves than do I."

  These words made Albert bend forward and peer closely at my new friend.

  "Be careful, boy," Albert said then. "You might think you so skinny dat you kin slip through any crack but you can get cut down by the reaper jes' like all the rest."

  "I heah ya, boss," John replied, once again smiling and cracking wise.

  "This ain't no foolin', boy," Albert said in his most serious tone. "These white folks'll kill a smart-mouf nigger like you an' then sit down to Sunday suppah."

  The smile on John's face faded then. But he didn't look scared. It was more like he felt sorry for Albert's fear.

  Albert walked over to his bed then. I saw his dark form for a moment and then he blew out the candle, making the room pitch black. After that the men all fell asleep quickly. They were tired from their labors and the cabin was soon filled with the sounds of snores and heavy breathing. In only a few minutes it seemed that I was the only one left awake.

  I should have been asleep too. I had worked hard that day too. But I was wide awake because of Tall John. Every day before in the slave quarters was the same. Up before dawn. Work, work, work and then work harder. And then back to the bunk, where sleep came down like a hammer. We never laughed before sleep or had conversations with Master on a country path.

  John was something new and this lit a fire in my mind that would not go out.

  I want
ed to talk to John but I knew that you never woke up a sleeping slave. Slaves needed their rest. The reason they called us lazy was that we worked so hard and we never got enough sleep so we were always tired.

  I looked at the sky through the cracks in the ceiling, wondering when sleep would come.

  At that moment I heard a silvery musical note. It sounded like a tiny bell and lasted for two breaths. Then John propped himself up on one elbow. He was awake too. "Let me see your hands," he said. I did as he bade me, happy that he wanted to talk. I had never met a colored person who talked like he did. Not even the manservant, Fred Chocolate, was as well spoken or articulate as the new boy. Tall John even put Master Tobias to shame with his silver tongue.

  I held my hands out in the darkness, palms up. John traced his slender fingers across my palms and down my wrists.

  "The infection is bad," he whispered. "If it isn't taken care of you'll die."

  "But I don't want the horse doctor to cut off my hands."

  "He won't." John let go of my wrists and moved to get

  out of the cot.

  "Don't," I said. "If Mud Albert sees you, you be in

  trouble."

  "Don't worry, Forty-seven. Everybody on the entire plantation will sleep until morning. A gunshot wouldn't waken them from their beds."

  Upon saying these words John reached into his pocket and came out with a metal tube that looked something like a tin cigar. There were red and green and blue beads up and down the sides of the tube that shone almost as if there was a tiny candle behind each one. On the top was a black button like a brimless hat.

  "Did you hear a tiny chime?" he asked me. "I sho did."

  "That was my little sleep machine here." Then John hunched over toward our chains and I pulled down under my shirt. Slaves didn't have blankets in the summertime. If it got cold you just had to use whatever you had to wear to keep you warm; that and your

  bedmate.

  It was never comfortable in the slave quarters; I had always known that. Flimsy walls that let in the winds, chig-gers and fleas and ticks biting all the time; no water from the time you went to sleep until the next day when you took your first break from picking cotton. If you were sick the slave boss called you lazy. If you were scared they made fun of you and then whipped you so that you'd be more afraid of them. We were fed sour grain boiled with bitter greens. If there was meat it was half rotten and field slaves never got milk.

  Some of the slaves that had come from Africa, or had been around those that did, knew how to steal blood from cows and weren't afraid to eat fat worms and other bugs. But no matter what we did our lot was a hard one. Our hearts and souls were forged in the furnace of slavery and we were made so strong that we dragged the entire nation on our skinny backs.

  I felt the manacle around my ankle give. Then John jumped out of bed and lit one of the oil lanterns, illuminating the room of sleeping men.

  "What you doin', niggah?" I said to the boy called Tall John.

  "Neither nigger nor master be," he said. "Get up, Forty-seven, and fight for your life."

  Slowly I raised up and looked around. All of the men were sleeping in the cabin. But it was more than just a bunch of men sleeping. It was like in the late fall when Mud Albert would take his secret fermenting jug from its hiding place in the barn and him and Mama Flore would drink from it and fall unconscious just like as if somebody had hit them in the head with a rifle butt.

  "What's wrong with them?" I asked my newfound friend.

  "There's a place in your brain," John said, touching my forehead with a long thin finger, "that tells you when to sleep. When there's a certain vibration in the air that place

  kicks on and you have to stop what you're doing and get a deep rest. I caused that vibration to happen everywhere on the whole plantation with this." John held up the tin cigar. "All I did," he said, "was push this button and everybody within a quarter mile of here fell into a sleep like the

  dead."

  "Then why ain't we asleep?" I asked. "Because we're special," John said, flashing a grin. "I ain't special," I said. "I ain't got no tin cigar to put peoples t'sleep or tricky words t'git peoples t'laugh. I'm just a nigger wit' bloody hands."

  John leaned close to me and said, "Not nigger but man. And you are special, Forty-seven. In your mind and your heart, in your blood. You carry within you the potential of what farty old Plato called the philosopher-king." "Who?" John smiled. "Come," he said.

  He grabbed me by the wrist, pulled me out of the cot and toward the door. I followed, afraid that Mud Albert would jump up at any minute. But he didn't and we went out into the yard in front of the cabin.

  The night air was filled with the chirps and clicks of insects and the smell of night blooming jasmine. The nearly full moon was wearing a cloud as a belt and stars winked all around. I remembered when I slept in the barn that sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and look up on a sky like that.

  "Can we go back to the cliffs where we saw the bear?" I asked.

  "Not now," he said. "It's over ten miles from here and I can't carry you when there's no sun."

  Ten miles!! thought that the new boy must be crazy. But then again he did open our chains somehow and I had never heard of the river we saw that day.

  "Come on," he said. "We have to go off into the woods." Tall John had regular Negro features except for his odd coloring. And when he spoke his voice was filled with authority so I felt that I had to go along with him. It wasn't the way that I felt when white people ordered me around. I was afraid of white people, but I wanted to do what John asked of me. I wanted to follow him and find out what he was showing me. Most of what he said I didn't understand, but that didn't matter; I stored it all away thinking that one day it would all make sense.

  John led me back to the path where we met that afternoon. We went off about two hundred yards into the shrubs and bushes until we came to a big elm. There was a recess like a cave in the side of the tree and from there John pulled out a shiny yellow sack that was about the size of a carpetbag. He rummaged around in the bag until he came out with three small tubes that were like glass except they were soft. Then he returned the yellow bag to its hiding place.

  A carpetbag was a small suitcase that traveling salesmen and government officials used when traveling around the country. It was large enough for an extra suit of clothes and whatever other necessities one might need, such as writing paper, a razor, and maybe a little food.

  "Come on," he said, and we headed back to the road and then toward the slave quarters.

  "What is that you stoled, Tall John?" I asked as we went back up to our cabin.

  "I haven't stolen a thing," he replied. "These are mine and yours."

  "A slave don't even own his clothes, boy," I said, repeating words that I had heard my entire life. "He don't even own his own body."

  "No one owns their clothes, Forty-seven," Tall John said, "nor their bodies. These things are just borrowed for a while. It is only the mind that you truly own."

  "Says what?" I asked.

  "And," the strange boy continued, "if no one owns even their own clothes how can they possess another?"

  "So you savin' that Master Tobias don't own his black leather boots?" I asked.

  "Every single particle in the whole wide universe is responsible for its role in the unfolding of the Great Mind." "What's that s'posed t'mean?" I asked. "It means that if you stick your hand in a fire and burn yourself that you are the one responsible for the pain," John said. "It means that if a man calls you slave and you nod your head that you have made yourself a slave." "Are you crazy, niggah?" I said.

  He stopped and turned, pointed his elegant finger at me

  under moonlight, and said, "Neither master nor nigger be."

  A sudden scurrying came up behind him and I could

  see Master Tobias's bloodhounds coming fast. They were bounding at us under a sickly lunar glow.

  My breath caught and John turned around. When he s
aw the dogs bearing down on him he fell to his knees. I figured that he lost all of his arrogance and was now kneeling before the Almighty in the moment of his death. I would have knelt down too but my faith wasn't so strong. I was trying to get my legs to run when the dogs leapt on John. He put out his hands and I thought that they were biting his fingers until I realized that they were licking him all over like he was their long lost mama come home to suckle and love them.

  He cooed to them in a language that I couldn't understand. One by one they fell on their backs and exposed their bellies for him to scratch and thump.

  "Come over here and meet my new friends, Forty-seven," he said.

  "Nuh-uh," I said. "No, suh."

  "Come on," he insisted. "These dogs won't bite you."

  One of the vicious hounds got up and came over to me. When she licked my fingers I started to laugh. After a while the dogs, John, and I were scampering around the yard, playing as freely as little white kids under the moon-cast shadow of the Master's mansion.

  After a long while John bade good-bye to the dogs and led me back to the slave cabin.

  Once inside John slapped his hands together on one of

  the three glass tubes he stole. This covered his hands with a thick clear paste that he rubbed into the brand that Pritchard had burned into my shoulder. It felt cool against my skin and the pain that still lingered from the burn went away.

  John returned the lantern to its place and snuffed out the flame. We got back on the cot and put the shackles around our ankles. Then he gave me the two soft-glass tubes to hold, one in each hand.

  "Squeeze these as hard as you can in both hands," he told me.

  I did what he said and both little pipes burst in my hands. A cold sensation went through my wounds and I shivered there in the hot and smelly cabin.

  "Keep your fists clenched like that," John said to me. "Keep them tight and in the morning the infection will be gone."

  I held on tight and John put his hand on my shoulder.

  "This wax will heal you," he said.

  I was feeling good because for the first time since I had come to the slave quarters I wasn't hurting. My hands and my shoulder felt good and I wanted to talk some more.