My Name's Not Friday

by Jon Walter

The ladies manage a smile in my direction, and when we reach their tent they say, ‘Well, here we are. Home, sweet home.’

  It ain’t much of a place, but it’s better than having nowhere to stay. We put their buckets down just inside the flap, and Joshua nods at the floor. ‘We could just tuck in there and you wouldn’t notice us. We wouldn’t make no noise, and we’d fetch your water every morning and evening.’

  ‘It’d be nice to have some help around the place,’ says one, but the other says, ‘I don’t know. We ain’t got much space.’

  ‘What if we paid you?’ Joshua spreads his hands wide as though it’s more than fair – the best offer they’d get for sure. ‘We could manage ten cents a day.’ He already has a coin in his fingers and he holds it up for ’em to see. ‘First day up front.’

  So he bags us a place on their floor, just inside the door of their tent, and I’m glad of it when the rain begins again.

  *

  The next morning, Joshua keeps his promise. ‘Don’t you follow me,’ he says, putting ten men or more between us, and I don’t know where to look when he gets chosen for a job in the officers’ mess. I’m still standing in line an hour later, with all the work already gone.

  I don’t give up though. I spend the whole day asking for work, going from one place to another, but it seems that if your face don’t fit, people won’t even trust you to dig dirt. I don’t go back to the ladies’ tent until I have to, and it’s already dark when I come inside the flap. The three of ’em all have empty plates on their laps.

  ‘Where you been?’ Joshua asks me.

  ‘Around.’

  One of the ladies hands me a plate with corn and rice. ‘We saved you something to eat. It might be cold.’ I take a mouthful and it is. ‘You been looking for work?’ she asks, and I nod. ‘You get anything?’ I shake my head.

  ‘My brother’s made for better things than labouring,’ Joshua tells ’em. ‘He always has been. Did I tell you he could read and write? He’s a teacher too. A good one.’

  Those ladies look impressed. ‘Maybe you could charge a few cents from the parents roundabout? There’s plenty of folks want their kids to read. Maybe you could set up a little school or something.’

  ‘I don’t do that any more.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I ain’t got no books or boards, and anyway I don’t like the thought of taking money from people when they should be learning by rights. It ain’t fair.’

  Those ladies look a bit put out. ‘Seems a shame to waste a gift the good Lord gave you, particularly if you’re going to be a burden on the rest of us.’

  It doesn’t do to pick fights with people who are putting a roof over your head and I ain’t so sour that I’ve lost all my common sense. ‘I know that, ma’am,’ I say. ‘I’ll find a means to pay my way, you can be sure of that.’

  In the coming days we find the women to be decent folk, if not overly generous. They are both heading eastward, searching for their sons who had been sold away some years before, and they let us know that they won’t be staying at the camp any longer than they have to and we can’t go with ’em.

  I’m the first in line every morning, but it’s useless. I go to the barracks. I go to the stores. I even go from one tent to the next, but I don’t find work and I don’t think I ever will. Once the women leave, I’ll be a burden to my brother. I know I will. Cos nobody wants a Negro with a face like mine. Perhaps Joshua won’t want me either. Perhaps he can’t wait to get rid of me.

  One afternoon I’m sitting at the side of a path when a coin drops in my lap. I call out to the officer who must have dropped it, holding it up for him to see. ‘Sir? You just …’ The officer looks back and nods but he carries on walking and I realize that he didn’t drop it at all. He assumed I was begging. I hold the dime up to my face, the first money I made since we arrived at the camp. I put it away in my pocket quickly.

  That evening, I put the coin on the up-turned crate which the women use for a table when we eat. ‘It’s not much, I know.’

  ‘Where d’you get it?’ the ladies ask suspiciously.

  ‘A soldier got me doing his chores. Says he might want me to do ’em again.’

  The next day I take myself around the soldier’s tents, begging for money. I say, ‘Please, sir. Some money for supper,’ making sure they see my face, knowing it makes ’em feel bad. I make a couple of dimes before I stop. I find a tin that I can put ’em in so tomorrow I can rattle it and then I won’t have to talk.

  *

  One morning I’m waiting at the well when a girl walks past, holding her mother’s hand. She takes a good long look at my face and that’s rude, but I forgive her. I even give her a smile, though I know it don’t look too good.

  Well, that girl can’t take her eyes off me and she pulls at her mother’s arm. ‘Look, Mama!’ she says. ‘Look!’

  Her mother turns to look at me and her mouth falls open. She takes a couple of steps towards me, then stops, hardly daring to come any closer. ‘Samuel?’ she asks me finally. ‘Is that you?’

  Now I know I have never seen these people before – I’m sure of it – so I have no idea how they know my name but the mother knows me for sure. I can see it in her eyes as she takes me by the arm. ‘What happened to you, Samuel? Oh dear God, what happened to your face?’

  She can see I don’t recognize her. ‘It’s Celia,’ she says immediately. ‘Hubbard’s wife. And this here is our daughter, Sarah.’

  The girl holds her finger up to my face and there’s her ring of braided grass, the same one she offered me through the wall of Hubbard’s cabin. I put down my bucket, astonished that I know ’em both, even though I’ve never seen their faces. ‘You’re Celia? And Sarah? It’s really you?’ The little girl beams up at me when I touch the top of her head. ‘I’m so relieved you’re all right …’ I stammer to a halt, ashamed at having left ’em to wait in the woods when Hubbard lay dying in the cotton field. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to find you, I’m sorry I left you there not knowing ’bout Hubbard, but once I started running I couldn’t stop …’

  Celia puts a hand to my mouth as though none of that matters. ‘I’m so glad we found you. Hubbard will be so pleased to see you. I know he will.’

  It takes me a second to hear the truth of what she just said. ‘You mean he ain’t dead?’

  ‘He weren’t five minutes ago,’ she laughs.

  I can hear the words but I can’t believe my own ears. ‘But I was with him in the field. I saw how he was …’

  And for a moment I’m back there again, watching the light disappear from his eyes, the blood spreading quickly across his green shirt. There was so much blood … Could it be that he really is alive? That all the time I thought I was alone, Hubbard was alive and that he’s here, right now, in the same place I am?

  ‘Come on.’ Celia takes me by the hand. ‘Let’s go and find him.’

  They lead me through the tents in a state of shock. If it weren’t for holding her hand, I wouldn’t believe she’s real. But she is. The woman leading me along the pathway says she’s Celia and I can’t find a reason to think she might be lying. Except that Hubbard’s dead. I’ve been thinking he was dead for so long I can’t believe he’s actually not dead at all and that I’m gonna see him any moment. We walk back along the path and I look at the faces of everyone we pass, expecting ’em to be Hubbard, though none of ’em are. Then, just for a moment, I lose my nerve. Perhaps he won’t want to see me. Perhaps when he sees my face like this he’ll wish we’d never met. I’ll be a burden on him. I’m sure he’ll think that, same as the women at the tent.

  But then little Sarah takes hold of my other hand and she’s skipping along like she just won first prize in a lucky dip. And she looks a lot like Hubbard. I can see him in her face and she’s got a smile like the sun itself and it warms me through, giving me courage when I’m losing it.

  They bring me to one of the larger tents on the far edge of the site, a makeshift structure of coppiced wood and t
arpaulin, all held together with rope and string. Beside it stands the old nag and a wagon from the Allen plantation, the same one I sat in when I first met Gerald.

  ‘Hubbard?’ Celia calls out at the entrance. ‘Hubbard? You come out here right now. I got someone to show you.’

  They stand back, leaving me exposed, as a pair of thick black fingers grip the edge of the canvas and pulls it aside. And suddenly Hubbard’s in front of me, having to stoop as he comes out, then straightening up till he’s standing as tall as he ever was and looking down at me, his eyes adjusting to the daylight.

  I’m hugging him before he’s even sure who it is and I’m feeling like a little boy again. I could be Joshua. I could be any of the lost kids at the orphanage, hoping one day they’ll be hugged by someone who loves ’em.

  ‘Samuel? Is that really you?’

  If Hubbard’s scared at seeing the state of me he don’t show it. He hugs me so hard I can scarcely breathe, and little Sarah laughs out loud, seeing me struggling for air, cos she must know just how it feels, being hugged like that by her daddy. She looks happy enough to burst.

  When he lets me go, Hubbard holds me by the shoulders to get a good look at me. ‘I didn’t ever expect to see you again.’

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ I tell him, and then I go and burst into tears and that makes me ashamed, wiping a hand around my face and smearing myself all in snot. ‘I was sure of it. I was sure you must’ve died.’

  ‘Oh, I ain’t even close,’ he tells me, smiling. ‘Matter of fact, I’m feeling better than I have for a very long time.’

  ‘Don’t make the boy stand there, Hubbard.’ Celia takes us both by the arm and pushes us gently back to the door. ‘Bring him inside. We got a lot to talk about.’

  They sit me down on some stuffed sacks that they got for chairs and I arrange myself with my best face forward as Celia brings us all some sliced apples on a plate with a spoonful of jam. She lights Hubbard’s oil lamp – that very same big oil lamp – and hangs it from a pole so we can see each other clearly.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ I tell him again, unable to think of anything else to say.

  Hubbard raises an eyebrow. ‘For a week or so I thought so too.’

  ‘But you know how stubborn he is,’ Celia interrupts. ‘I don’t think he’ll let the Lord take him till he’s good and ready. Anyway, Sicely turned out to be a good nurse and she knew a thing or two about Mrs Allen’s medicine cabinet.’

  I can picture Sicely immediately, the same as she was when I’d last seen her, with bottles of ointment and her pockets full of bandages. But I don’t like to dwell on that moment cos Gerald’s there in the same room. I can still see him standing over by the window and I don’t want to think about how he was only moments later, spread out bleeding on the broken glass.

  ‘What’s happened to Sicely?’

  ‘She’s safe,’ Hubbard reassures me. ‘Least I think so. Lizzie wanted to stay on at the cabins. Far as I know, that’s where they’ll be.’

  ‘She would’ve been waiting for Milly.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s what she wanted. You know the Allen house burned down? Well, there weren’t much of the plantation worth saving by the time the Yankees left, and Mrs Allen had no interest in it. She returned to live with her family just as soon as we buried Gerald.’

  My heart breaks right there as the little piece of hope I had turns cold. I have to swallow hard before I can speak. ‘Did you bury him up at the old elm?’

  ‘Yes, we did,’ replies Hubbard quietly. ‘It’s where he would have wanted to be set to rest, right next to his daddy.’

  I know the truth of that and I nod enthusiastically. ‘He’ll be happiest there.’

  We each take a moment for ourselves.

  ‘Tell us what happened to you,’ says Celia, and she leans across and takes hold of my hand. ‘You look lucky to be alive.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’ I take a deep breath and begin from the point where I ran from the field. I tell ’em about the river and the embalmer, how I got to be blown up by old Whistling Dick and how the Major saved me. I get a lump in my throat knowing he’s probably still missing. ‘I ain’t as certain about things as I used to be,’ I tell ’em once I’m done. ‘The world’s a lot more complicated than I thought it was. I suppose if I’ve learned anything, it’s that.’

  Celia smiles at me and says, ‘You’re still only young.’

  Hubbard brings out his pipe from the pocket of his shirt and opens the tin where he keeps his tobacco.

  ‘So how come you’re here at the camp?’ I ask him. ‘How come you didn’t stay on at the plantation?’

  ‘We’re on our way to the Sea Islands. They’re off the coast of Carolina. So we ain’t here for long. Just till we make some cash.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ I weren’t prepared for that, but I should’ve been, cos that’s the way it always goes. All the good men always leave.

  ‘There’s a place called Port Royal,’ Hubbard continues. ‘It fell to the Yankees in the first few months of the war and they’re letting the slaves work it for themselves. I heard they’ll give you forty acres and a mule if you look like you can handle it.’

  ‘That can’t be true, can it?’

  ‘I think it is.’ Hubbard sits up straighter on his sack. ‘Lincoln wants to see what happens when us Negroes get our own land. It’s sort of an experiment. To see if we can make it work. People say that when the war’s over they might do the same for all of us.’

  ‘We want to be a part of that,’ says Celia. ‘We want to show ’em we can survive on our own when we have the opportunity.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say quietly, thinking how I could never get me and Joshua there, not when it took me such a long time to get us where we are now.

  Hubbard has his pipe in his fingers, all ready to be lit, and he leans toward me as he puts a flame to it. ‘Did you ever find out what happened to your brother?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I found him. He’s out working at the minute, but he’ll be back. Him and me always stick together, for better or for worse.’

  ‘Good!’ says Celia smiling. ‘Then we won’t have to go and find him before you come along with us.’

  *

  Celia’s nice. I don’t think I ever met a woman who’s so full of sweet thoughts as she is.

  When I bring Joshua to meet her, he comes ready to impress, tells her he already has a job that pays a dollar a day, with a selection of fresh vegetables to bring home if there’s any left over. She tells him that’ll be ever so helpful.

  When Sarah takes Joshua outside to show him the horse, I let Celia know that he ain’t as grown up as he likes to think. ‘He can be naughty too, but you don’t need to worry cos I can keep him in line.’

  ‘He seemed sweet as pie to me, but that’s good to hear.’

  ‘I’ve been looking after him since the day he was born, so there’s no way he can pull the wool over my eyes. I’ll be onto him soon as he begins to misbehave.’

  ‘Thank you, Samuel,’ she says again. ‘I am reassured.’

  *

  When Hubbard takes me out to the work line, he stands right next to me. The first officer that comes along wants men to dig trenches, and he passes me over but touches Hubbard’s arm.

  ‘I ain’t stepping out without my son,’ says Hubbard. ‘The two of us come together as a team.’

  The man looks back at me doubtfully. ‘The boy’s too young.’

  ‘No, he ain’t. He’ll do the work of a fully grown man and I’ll do the work of two. That’s three days work for the price of two. Take it or leave it.’

  The officer takes another look at the size of Hubbard, then he touches my arm and we both step out together.

  After three weeks of work Celia says we’ve enough put by to move on, and she reckons, if we’re thrifty, we might make it all the way to Carolina without needing to stop again. Hubbard agrees. ‘We’ll get to the Sea Islands,’ he tells me. ‘It won’t be long now, and if they giv
e us land, we can build a house. There’s a lot you can do with a few acres and a mule.’

  I say amen to that.

  For my father is a shepherd and he leads me to lie by still waters.

  Surely goodness and mercy will follow me always and I shall dwell in his house for ever.

  *

  There’s a long way ahead of us and the horse we have is knackered. She was knackered when Mrs Allen owned her and she’s knackered now, so she only takes small steps along the road. I don’t mind. I just hope her big ol’ heart don’t give out along the way.

  Above us the sky holds dark clouds and sunshine, the sort of day that can’t decide which way it wants to go. It ain’t raining but it ain’t warm either. A patch of sunlight pools on the distant road and the hill we have to climb. It’d be nice to get there before it’s gone.

  In the back of the wagon, Joshua and Sarah are squabbling like little kids. I’m riding up front with Celia and she says to ’em, ‘Why don’t you two jump out and run alongside for a bit? It’ll do you good to stretch your legs.’

  ‘Don’t want to,’ says Sarah.

  ‘Me neither,’ says Joshua.

  He’s been getting younger by the day, but I reckon that’s a good thing cos it don’t do to grow up too soon, not if you don’t have to. Sarah made him a ring out of braided grass and he won’t take it off his finger cos he says they’re married now. They might be too, cos the two of ’em ain’t stopped arguing ever since. Those kids always make me laugh.

  Hubbard’s walking out in front. He’s leading the old nag so she goes in a straight line. These days his boots have got holes in the toes where they never would before, but he don’t mind – at least I don’t think so.

  A broken-down shack comes into view and there’s an old fella standing out the front, hoeing at the dirt as he watches us arrive. Sometimes these poor folk give us trouble when we come their way. They ain’t never had much to call their own and they don’t like to see a family of black folks with a wagon and a horse. Used to be they could at least say they weren’t slaves. Now they can’t even say that. Not this side of the battle lines.