by Carter, Noni
“Don’t think I ever met no one like you,” she said, standing up to stretch. “You say you from Africa, an’ what a picture you paint of that place!”
I laughed, gathering up the children who had congregated outside for play and sending them inside for bed. We followed them inside.
Later, when we headed to our room, I asked Florence about her family.
“Well, ain’t nothin’ much to it,” she said, her eyes more dreamy and distant than sad.
“My mama and pappy was freed folks. My mama’s folks was free, too, but she left them to move on here, to Ohio, with my pappy. We was living with some black folks in an Indian village. Don’t remember much from there.”
I smiled and ran my hand across her braided hair, which was tossed across her shoulder. “You have Indian blood in you?”
She nodded. “Yes. My pappy’s daddy. Mama died before I could even walk, an’ Daddy moved on here.” She seemed to be considering that as we settled into our room. “You know, the more I think about it, I never really knew him that well either. I know he loved women—Mama Bessie told me—and I’ve always had a feeling my mama never liked that. He loved me, but he didn’t feel responsibility for me. We came here, he an’ I, and I met Mama Bessie, an’ that was the end of it.”
“The end? You mean, you neva saw him after that?”
She bit her lip, lost in thought. “Mama Bessie said I did. Once or twice.” She shrugged. “He was young. Used to doing things on his own.”
I nodded, understanding. An urge came over me suddenly to tell Florence about John. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out right.
“There was somebody … I mean back south….” I felt out of place looking at Florence, feeling the coins in my pocket, dressed in freedwoman’s clothes, wrapped in the dignity of calling my own self Masta. And where was he?
“Anna?” she asked, questioning my silence.
I started again, gazing down at my feet. “Back south, there was a man I knew. We was …” I stopped again. What right had I to speak of a time and place that seemed so distant from me, a place that still caged his soul?
“We was …”
“Good friends?” she asked.
I smiled over at her, burying the words back down in my soul. I couldn’t share that with her, not now. I’d tell her about Mary instead.
“Yes. Had a good friend down there. Wish you coulda met him. Real good fellow. Then there was the woman that took me in,” I said.
“Before we ran from that plantation, she had—” I stopped short as I noticed Florence’s piercing eyes spring alive with questions.
“‘Ran from’? You say … you say ‘ran from,’ Anna. I … I kinda always thought you ran, that you wasn’t freed like you said,” she said in a loud whisper.
“How you figure that?” I asked her, feeling my emotions shift from mild alarm at how easily I let the words slip, to gratitude for her understanding.
She shrugged. “Guess that’s jus’ something good friends can do.”
“Flo, but you know …”
“I know, I ain’t s’pose to say nothing about it. Don’t worry about me, Anna. I understand. Besides, you see me tell anybody yet?”
“Yet?” I teased her, laughing. She joined in.
“So, you from Africa. Then you run all the way here from … ?”
“Kentucky,” I lied, sticking to what seemed safer.
“Kentucky. Which means Sebastian ran too?”
I nodded.
“Hmph,” she said, sighing and sitting back in surprise. “So, that’s why you call him somethin’ different sometimes. Heard you call him Daniel a few times. An’ he called you Sarah. Always wondered, but didn’t ask no questions. Figured you’d tell me if you needed to.”
“I didn’t know we said those names so much! We ain’t suppose to.”
“Naw, don’t worry. Anna, I’m around you two all the time. Y’all don’t use those names too often. Jus’ sometimes, you two get to talking an’ forget. Funny, to me.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask no questions.”
“Well, you cain’t know everything. But what … how did you …” But her thoughts were interrupted by a slow, heavy knocking on the door. Florence hopped up, pulled the knob, and stood face to face with Daniel. She stared at him for a moment, taking in the anger in his eyes and his heaving chest. Sweat trickled down his forehead.
“You all right?” she asked him softly.
“Wanna ask you if I can sleep here tonight,” he said.
“You talk to Mama Bessie?” she asked. He nodded.
“All right then, I’ll move on to an empty room for the night.” She moved away to take what she needed while I looked hard at my brother.
“Sebastian, what’s wrong?” I asked him. He collapsed against the doorway.
“Rodney’s gone, dead. They killed him.” Florence instantly stopped what she was doing and sank down next to him. I brought my hand to my lips, eyes still on Daniel. Rodney—the young man Daniel had stayed with upon arriving in the neighborhood—was gone.
“Stole some of the crop, that’s all. Jus’ stole some crop fo’ his motha an’ his brotha, an’ they kill him. Mr. James say he would do it if he found out who it was. Rodney say to me the man jus’ talk, that’s all. But no. The man killed him. ’Course, cain’t nobody prove that all of a sudden, but we knows the truth.” I looked over at Florence, who looked at me with concern. She turned back on my brother, watching his movements like a hunter.
Daniel threw his hands up and let them fall on his knees.
“Don’t reckon y’all think it’s right, they jus’ come round here killin’ folks, huh?” His question went unanswered.
“Reckon decent folks would do somethin’ ’bout that.”
“No, Sebastian, that ain’t smart,” Florence said to him in a soothing tone.
“Look here, they gonna take a man’s life fo’ a simple thing like that? They give us every right to do somethin’ ’gainst it. Ain’t a decent law that exists sayin’ no free man cain’t defend, protect, and strike back fo’ his own!”
I leaned back against the wall, letting his words settle into my own thoughts.
“Ain’t our place here, Sebastian. Black folks ain’t got no say in the law,” Flo said.
“But—”
“Say, you want them to find you out an’ take you back down south?” Florence asked even more softly, every muscle in her face working hard to contain her emotions.
Daniel’s face snapped up. “How you know that?” His lips were trembling.
“No matter, I asked you, is that what you want?” she asked. “’Cause I know this place, Sebastian. I seen people taken ’cause they mixed up in the wrong mess an’ get found out. You cain’t do nothing now. Best let it be!” Her words cut sharp and forcefully through the room.
“Just let it be, huh?” he retorted, sarcastically.
“Uh-huh,” she responded.
“Cain’t just let it be.”
“Yes you can, too!”
Daniel was silent. He knew Florence was right. Florence placed a hand on his forehead, running it across his short hair.
Florence left a little while later and, as Daniel fell asleep sprawled across the pallet I usually lay on, I lit my candle and sat thinking thoughts that chased the sleepiness away.
After a little bit, I pulled out some old newspapers I had. I dipped my quill in ink and scratched the word injustice through one of the columns. Daniel stirred and lifted his head.
“That you, Anna?” I gazed at my brother—his swollen eyes, dry, pursed lips, his furrowed brow—all evidence of weary, gruesome dreams.
“Yes. Was just thinkin’, Daniel,” I whispered to him. He grunted, turning to lie on his back and resting his eyes on the ceiling’s wooden planks.
“Thinkin’ ’bout what?” He asked.
“Thinkin’ of what I’m gonna do when I get my education.”
“What’s that?”
&n
bsp; “Gonna write me a trea-tise.”
“What’s that, Anna?” he asked with a broken yawn. Lately, he had fallen more into the habit of calling me Anna, even when we were alone. He seemed to like the name.
“Those things that folks write when they wanna talk about somethin’ that means a lot. Figure I’ma call it my Treat-ise on Injustice.”
He closed his eyes again.
“If it’s about Rodney, I …”
“Shh. Not jus’ about him. Rodney ain’t the first unfair death we seen since we been here, Daniel.”
“So, tell me ’bout it,” he said with another yawn.
“Well, I ain’t really wrote nothin’ yet, Daniel. I told you, I need to be educated fo’ I go writin’ somethin’ like this. I don’t—”
“Jus’ tell me what you thinkin’ of.”
I sighed. “All right. I was thinkin’, how far black folks really gonna go here? Are we eva gonna have the rights otha folks got?”
“That’s a question we all got,” Daniel mumbled.
“Well, seems to me we got the same things goin’ on up here that’s goin’ on in the South. Only difference is, we ain’t under no whip an’ ain’t nobody gonna beat us fo’ thinkin’ fo’ ourselves. But we ain’t treated like people, Daniel. Been listenin’ around, heard someone say we ain’t even got a right to this black community, though we call it our own. Say they got the power to jus’ take it from us—an’ why not? We don’t seem to have a real place in that city of theirs. We cain’t defend ourselves in the courts. We s’pose to give five hundred dolla’s jus’ to live in this state, Daniel—you think them folks had to pay money like that?” I shook my head and looked away from him.
“What if … what if all of us young folks around Hadson—all the folks workin’ an’ raisin’ families—what if we all got to learnin’ an’ all started understandin’ all they important papers an’ laws, an’ all started protestin’ on paper. That would be somethin’, wouldn’t it? That’s how otha folks are heard—that’s how they make their points and convince othas to believe them. Why would it be any different fo’ us if we did the same? What you think would happen?” I asked, but left him no room to respond.
“I’ve bin thinkin’ ’bout why they ain’t want us learnin’ in the South. They were scared of what we would do if we had some learnin’. Here, learnin’ ain’t against the law, but they don’t want us nowhere near their schools. Maybe, somewhere deep inside, they scared of the same thing,” I said with a dry laugh.
“Or what if … what if all the beatin’ hearts ragin’ fo’ justice turned into real violence, Daniel. Me an’ Florence sit here an’ tell you the smart thing is to jus’ let it be. But what if this happens jus’ too many a times an’ none of us can jus’ let it be? You cain’t be suppressin’ that kinda energy fo’ too long. How long can you hold folks back, ’specially folks who know they s’pose to be free, ’fore that need for justice starts turnin’ into somethin’ dangerous? Reckon somethin’ oughta be done. But what, Daniel, what?” I finished my rambling with a low grunt and gazed over at Daniel’s face, half-expecting him to have fallen back into his troubled sleep. But his eyes were wide open.
“Reckon you voicin’ the thoughts of many folks round here, Anna. Didn’t think you thought about it that deep. That idea bout folks learnin’, though … you know, that seems betta than anythin’ I eva heard, Anna,” he whispered into the night. I shook my head.
“It’s not so great. Ain’t wrote nothin’ but a word,” I responded, dropping onto Florence’s pallet. “But thinkin’ ’bout all this, an’ dreamin’ of writin’ somethin’ on it all is the nearest thing I can do to an’ education.” He sighed and turned away, and soon enough I heard the steady rise and fall of his breathing. I fell into sleep just as swiftly and my ideas of freedom weaved in and out of my dreams.
CHAPTER
34
REVOLT. REVOLT. WE SHALL REVOLT.
The words passed through the sea of black bodies like a fierce wave from the ocean outside. I pushed the two bodies on my left and right aside, and stood up to see who had spoken. The darkness that hung was thicker than heavy smoke, but I could see quite clearly.
Revolt. Revolt. We shall revolt.
No one had spoken those words aloud. Instead, I could see the words creeping through the bodies; I could sense the collective feeling breathing as if it were alive. The ship tipped heavily one way, and the bodies shifted with it—that ugly sound of human chattel sliding across the wooden boards of the bottom of this slave ship melting into one long, deep breath. The ship dipped back the other way, and the breath taken was released in a loud boisterous hum that seeped heavily through skin past eardrums to soul, the pain that lay beneath it sharp enough to kill.
I want out! Let me get away! I screamed.
The hatch above us opened. A barked order reached our ears. Up deck! Now!
They came slowly, bare bodies blackened by birth: bumping, thumping, limping, sulking, dragging themselves up. Old bones gave out, legs collapsed, but the monster-men prodded, as if nudging animals from their cages.
But there was a light up there. What did it mean? After all that time in the darkness, did freedom await us? Was there an ending to this horrid reality called hell?
Then the sunlight hit our eyes. The pain stabbed at our bodies and minds, swirling steadily between our brows but bringing with it a lightness that touched our souls. Whiteness! It was the light of hope and faith, a sign that we were being freed! Our bodies would be rid of these chains. Our minds would be rid of this prison. Our hearts would be rid of this horrendous burden!
But once we emerged onto the deck, our dreams and fantasies plummeted back to reality. The whips and rods awoke from their resting places. The whiteness we had believed was pure now oozed from the skin of those demons. It wasn’t whiteness, it was redness, it was hate, it was un-God-like terror, it was the monster-men, who had fooled us out of a freedom.
On deck, a drum sat waiting for us.
Dance! A shouted order that the whips helped us understand.
Dance!
Soft shuffling, low humming that drifted from souls rather than throats; prayers to sprout wings and fly—these were our dance. The dance became louder, quicker, the beating suddenly taken over by someone who knew how to speak through the drum. I looked for something familiar to hold on to in his gaze, but I saw only emptiness and … rage. His eyes were screaming, Let me die, then let me fly, fly back home, just let me try!
And his drum spoke: Do you, do you, do you feel it?
We danced faster, our feet beating stronger, drowning out the pleas and whimpers and screams of the young women who had been dragged to far corners of the ship while we danced. They were ripping through the womb of our land, and it was too much for the moving bodies to bear.
Do you, do you, do you feel it?
We danced more rapidly, our limbs moving more freely. We refused to be animals herded and prepared for slaughter.
Do you, do you, do you feel it?
Then the fire stick was raised to the skies to stop us, but we wouldn’t stop!
It clicked again, but we couldn’t stop!
This time, the fire stick spit flames into the air. Clubs came out, knives were drawn, fire sticks from both sides shouted insults at one another.
Revolt! Revolt! We must revolt!
Screeching voices, tumbling bodies, wide stares, and bloodcurdling screams filled my ears and eyes. And we wouldn’t stop it!
Frantic monster men, leaping bodies, explosions, and high-pitched screams floated through the air. And we couldn’t stop it!
And there beside me, a young girl standing over me, skin shining rich in the sun, slipped carelessly out of the air. She had a hole in her chest. Her eyes, her frown that gripped the edges of her jawbones, her fingers that groped for the point of impact—they all seemed to lock themselves in place, suspended.
The bullet tore through my own skin, and I fell down into the hole below, down, down, down, watch
ing as three pairs of bare black legs were sent dangling, hanging, swinging back and forth above me….
I hit the ground, a blanket of snow, and rolled aside quickly as a procession of angry townsfolk stormed forward in protest.
Pitchforks, flames, and guns clasped by bodies adorned with farmers’ clothing were raised high to the heavens. They marched on to witness the reincarnation of a body left rotting in the fields, the stolen crop now the bars that bound the man’s body in place. Townsfolk screamed, the murderer at the forefront, scarecrows in the dark trying to remove the bars and the body; but to no avail. Through death, he was speaking to them.
Do you, do you, do you feel it? I’ve had enough.
The marching continued, but the pitchforks, flames, and guns turned to documents, pieces of parchment. An awareness arose that the quick-witted tongue and well-read mind could help win this battle and bring success to this revolt.
But let me do it, I can do it!
I stared at a single white face in the crowd who had hollered those words. He stared back, his white face turning chestnut, turning deep brown, turning a purplish black.
I am ready! Let me do it.
There was a crack, a hush that was suspended over the crowd, and the man lay dead.
No, no! I want out! Let me get out!
This time it was Daniel kneeling above me, frantically calling my name.
My eyes came open.
“Daniel,” I said, rubbing the tears away.
“You all right? Is there somethin’ I’m s’pose to do?” he asked me, his eyes tired but filled with concern.
“Naw, Daniel, figure I’m all right. Jus’ …” I sat up, trying to remember how and where I used to bury that heavy feeling my dreams gave. My last nightmarish dream had been months before, when I was escaping from the plantation. I had allowed myself to forget what the dreams felt like.
“You bin havin’ many of those, Anna?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “Haven’t had any, actually. Maybe Mary was right. Maybe I will get rid of ’em for good after some time.”
Daniel got to his feet. “Hope so. Cain’t stand seein’ you like that.”