by Daniel Black
“She went on down the list, givin’ out every curse word you could think of, until she read to number ten. After that, she surprised everybody and said, ‘Number eleven: Cleatis.’ Everybody looked around the classroom confused. ‘Number twelve: Chicken.’ Couldn’t nobody figure out what was goin’ on. Ms. Swinton smiled like a Chess cat and said, ‘Number thirteen: ass and number fourteen: whuppin’!”
The earth trembled from people’s uproarious laughter. I looked at Daddy and saw he was laughing, too. He didn’t deny the story, revealing that it must have been true. I had heard tales of him and Mr. Chicken doing all kinds of wild stuff, but this one was the best yet.
“Ms. Swinton tore our asses up, too,” Daddy offered after the laughter subsided a bit. “My mind tole me to check dem damn words Chicken was puttin’ in her drawer, but for some reason I didn’t. Dat boy used to git me in trouble all de time!”
“Y’all was some crazy fools,” Uncle Roscoe confirmed.
Relatives shook their heads and laughed for about thirty more minutes, until Uncle Roscoe requested everyone to make a gigantic circle in the middle of the field.
“For what, man?” people asked irritably.
“You’ll see! Shit!”
Folks didn’t appreciate his bossy nature, but he was too big to argue with, so everyone began to form a big circle in the middle of the land. It took seemingly an hour. Folks kept laughing and talking and clowning around until Uncle Roscoe said, “All right, niggas! Let’s go now. Y’all movin’ like dat ole tired mule we used to have!” and the family circle finally materialized.
“We gon’ give thanks for everybody in the family who done passed on,” Uncle Roscoe explained. “We gon’ go round de circle and give everybody a chance to call de name of any family member that done died. Say de name real loud for everybody to hear. Dese chil’ren need to know who dey is and where dey come from.”
I loved the idea. It also gave me a chance to count the number of people who had come to the reunion. We resembled an African village, I remember thinking proudly. The whole scene reminded me of Roots.
“We gon’ start with Wizard Lee and go right round de circle till we git back to him. If you don’t know nobody you ain’t got to say nothin’, but try to remember, specially you older ones. I’m gon’ git dis boy heayh to write down all the names so we can make a list for next time, jes’ in case we start forgittin’.”
I ran into the house and got my notebook and came back anxious to hear the names of people I was related to but surely had never known.
Wizard Lee began with, “Aunt Mae Helen,” screaming like we were fifty miles apart.
“Snuke James,” said the next person.
“Uncle Buddy Epson.”
“All right, all right,” mumbled Uncle Roscoe as he remembered people from way back.
“Aunt Trucilla Faye Nealy,” the next person said.
“Eloise Tyson and little baby Joyce.” I had heard of them. It felt good to hear someone’s name I recognized. Eloise was Daddy’s oldest sister, who died in childbirth. Minutes later, the child stopped breathing, too. Nobody knew why.
“Uncle T-Bone Jones.”
“Daddy Jake Tyson,” said Uncle Fred, my daddy’s other brother. Uncle Fred’s real name was Alexander, but they called him Fred because he looked liked Red Foxx. He acted like him, too.
“Mother Lucille Tyson,” one of Uncle Jethro’s boys called out.
“Aunt Mary Francis.”
“Uncle Nimrod Tyson.”
“James Earl Anthony.” That was another name I knew. I remembered him because he must have been the sweetest man I had ever met. He would sit around and cry tears of joy all day. Folks said he was weak and got on their nerves, but I adored him. He came to visit one summer and I saw him crying so I asked him what was the matter. “Oh, I’m jes’ fine, son,” he replied enthusiastically. “Then why are you crying, sir?” I asked, bewildered. “’Cause it’s jes’ good to be alive!” he exclaimed. I sat down beside him and he put his huge arm around my shoulder and I cried too. I don’t know why.
“Andre Morris.”
“Janie Mae Reed.”
“Uncle Lang Hughes.”
“Aunt Joe Ester.”
“Grandma Bertha Tyson.” My daddy’s grandmother.
“Priscilla Ray Barnes.”
“Cousin Catherine McDaniel.”
“Boy and Girl Williams.” These were twins who died of crib death before they were named. Grandma told me about them.
“Princess Tyson.” Daddy’s second-oldest sister. Her husband killed her because he thought she slept with another man, Uncle Roscoe told me. People always spoke of her as the prettiest woman anyone had ever laid eyes on. She was rather tall, I understand, five-eight or so, and jet-black. She was thin, but not too thin to be fine in the country. I wished I had met her.
“Fatback Reed.” The whole circle chuckled. People said all he wanted to do all day was eat fat meat, even as a child, so they called him Fatback. I don’t know how he died.
“Aunt Margaret Fuller.”
“Aunt Estelle Fuller.”
“Cousin Neck Bone.”
“Erma Joe Dean.”
“Willie Tyson.” Granddaddy’s other brother.
“Precious Tyson.” I frowned because I had never heard that name before. Uncle Roscoe leaned next to me and groaned, “Your daddy’s twin sister.” I gaped at him. “Close yo‘mouth, boy. I’ll tell you’bout her later.” I was flabbergasted. Daddy had never even breathed her name before. Ever. I definitely wanted to hear that story. I remember shaking my head woefully and saying to myself, “The secrets we keep.”
“Granddaddy Moses Horton.”
“Big Mama Izadore Walter.”
“Zora Mae Hurston.”
“Uncle Well Springs.”
“Uncle Jeremiah Moore.”
“Aunt Christine Sandidge.”
“Cousin John Baldwin.”
“Aunt Jessie Bell Sanders.”
“Cousin Ella Faye Larsen.”
“Uncle Bigger.”
“Antionette Morrison.”
“Auntie Kay Powell.”
It was almost my turn. I didn’t know much about the family, so I wasn’t sure whose name I was going to call. All the names I remembered best had already been said.
“Grandma Evernessa Green.”
“Sloufoot Cunningham,” I said, and people immediately burst into laughter.
“What chu know’bout Sloufoot, boy?” an elder man asked me.
“Nothin’ really, sir. I jes’ heard people tell stories about him.”
“Dat’s jes fine,” Uncle Roscoe said, rescuing me from the interrogation. “We almost through, so let’s keep it goin’.”
More names were called and I recorded each one of them. I had pages and pages of names of people I wished I had known. In the stories, they always sounded interesting.
After the last name was called, Uncle Roscoe said, “We gon’ bow our heads and pray.” He moved from the edge of the circle to the center and bowed down on one knee. “Lawd, we thank You for the gatherin’ of jes’ a few of yo’ humble servants. We thank You fu’ life, health, and a reasonable po’tion of strenf. We wouldn’t be nothin’ without Chu, Lawd! Please bless all dese heayh people under de sound of my voice and don’t let no hurt, harm, or danger come upon us. As we travels to and fro, on de dangous highways and byways, keep us safe, Lawd. And until we git togetha again fu’ anotha reunion, protect us. All dese things we ask in Your Son Jesus’ name, Amen.”
“Amen,” the crowd responded loudly.
“Now let’s eat!” Uncle Roscoe announced. “It’s ‘bout five o’clock and you niggas act like y’all gon’ starve to death! But I don’t blame you. Hell, I’m hongry, too!”
There was enough food in the middle of that field to feed everyone in the state of Arkansas. Barbecue ribs, chicken, fish, ham, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, collard greens, mustard greens, squash, green beans, black-eyed peas, potato salad
, potato pie, peach cobbler, blackberry cobbler, egg custard … you name it, we had it. And I mean folks ate! Uncle Roscoe had three plates, one of meats, another of vegetables, and another of desserts. “I’m gon’ eat light today,” he told me, grinning. “I can’t do like I used to.”
I got my plate and sat next to Uncle Roscoe, anticipating the story about Aunt Precious, Daddy’s twin sister.
“Well, boy, ain’t much to tell. When de twins wuz born, both of ‘em was healthy and doin’ jes’ fine. The little girl wuz so pretty. She smiled all de time and no one ever heard her cry. Ever. Now yo’ daddy wuz a different story. He didn’t do nothin’ but cry. Seemed like couldn’t nobody figure out what wuz wrong wid him. In de middle of de night he’d just start hollerin’ and keep on hollerin’ till de sun came up. Precious laid right next to him and never mumbled a sound. While yo’ daddy was hollerin’ she’d jes’ lay there grinnin’ like she knew exactly what was goin’ on. After a few days, yo’ daddy stopped cryin’. Everybody wuz kinda shocked actually. But what really troubled Momma wuz the fact that Precious stopped smiling. All of this happened on de same day. Yo’ daddy started smilin’ and Precious started cryin’. Every time she would cry, he would laugh. Momma sent me to get Miss Liza, the community healer. Miss Liza came over and studied de twins for a little while. She took dem into de back room and wuz saying somethin’, but I couldn’t make it out. When she came back into de front room, she was shakin’ her head sadly. Momma asked her what wuz de matter, and at first Miss Liza jes’ kept on shakin’ her head. I knew it wuz somethin’ bad’cause she looked real pitiful. Miss Liza said, ‘De boy is takin’ de girl’s spirit. She gon’ die in a day or two.” Then she left. Momma was cryin’ real hard. I ran to de field and told Daddy, but he said wasn’t nothin’ he could do’bout it, so I came back home and sat wit’ Momma. She jes’ cried and cried. I went into de back room where de twins wuz and yo’ daddy wuz layin’ there grinnin’ like he had done won a prize. De baby girl was whimperin’ and tremblin’. She wuz lookin’ at me like she wanted me to do somethin’, but I didn’t know what to do. I picked her up and held her real close to me and rubbed her back. She quieted down for a minute, but soon’s I laid her back down, she started cryin’ again. That’s when I named her Precious. Momma hadn’t named neither one of ‘em’cause she said she jes’ didn’t imagine she was havin’ no two babies. I called her Precious because she was pretty and I really liked her. I told Momma dat I named her Precious and she said dat was fine.’What you call de boy?’ she asked. I told her I ain’t thought of no name fu’ him so we didn’t call him nothin’ fu’ almost a year.
“Precious died three days later. I woke up and knowed she was already dead. I ran to the little homemade crib and found her layin’ stiff as a board. She wasn’t smilin’.”
“How do you steal somebody’s spirit?” I asked, perplexed by the whole story.
“I don’t know, son. I don’t know,” Uncle Roscoe replied and he sucked on a rib bone. He bucked his eyes at me, trying to convey how crazy the whole story was to him, too.
“It’s some crazy shit done happened in dis family, boy,” he announced, rising to find a napkin to wipe his hands.
I didn’t know what to think. Finding out about Daddy as a baby seemed strange. I couldn’t imagine he had been anything other than a grown man his whole life. But how did he steal his sister’s spirit? Maybe it wasn’t that at all, I told myself. Maybe that’s simply what old folks said and no one questioned it. Nevertheless, the story left me uneasy.
Uncle Roscoe consoled me, “Ain’t no needs in worryin’ yo’self’bout what done happened fifty years ago, boy. Don’t nobody know why de Lawd do what He do.”
“Uncle Roscoe, do you believe what Miss Liza said? I mean, do you believe Daddy stole Aunt Precious’s spirit?”
He didn’t say anything at first. He just kept eating and grunting, apparently unsure of whether he should answer me.
“Yeah, I believe it. Some folks come in de world wid dem kinda powers. Everybody don’t, but some people do. I believe dat. Jes’ like dat time when—”
I tuned Uncle Roscoe out. He had left me with a lot to think about. I always knew Daddy was mean, but I never guessed him to be someone who could take another person’s life. Maybe he was too young to know what he was doing. After all, he was a baby. Yet I didn’t believe what I was thinking. I studied Daddy across the field, wondering what else, in God’s name, I was going to unearth about him.
Just then, Sister approached me and said, “All the kids are getting together to play kickball. Wanna play?” She sounded too excited for me to refuse, so I left my plate half-eaten and ran to join cousins, some of whom I knew I would probably never see again.
The elders were our cheerleaders. “Kick de ball, shit!” they hollered as we tried to show off in front of our families. The weak and prissy—boy or girl—were ridiculed shamelessly.
“Come on, Jamie! Kick dat muthafucka!” said Auntie Pearl, Granddaddy Jake’s sister. “If you don’t kick dat ball, I’m gon’ whip yo’ ass!”
We chuckled, but Jamie didn’t. Folks said he had always been a shy child who simply would rather be left alone. I didn’t see any problem with him, but other folks did, especially his grandmother. She said he was too sorry to be a boy. Wouldn’t no woman want no man who can’t hold his head up in public, she told him. But Jamie never changed as far as I knew. He and I were the same age, only three days apart, and for most of the family reunion, he only spoke to me. He never acknowledged other folks.
“Did ju hear me, boy?” Auntie Pearl screamed.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jamie chirped softly and tried with all his might to kick the ball, although he missed it completely.
“Come here, boy!” Auntie Pearl demanded, hobbling swiftly and awkwardly toward the homemade kicker’s mound on knees that people expected to collapse straightway.
“Ain’t I done told you to be a man, boy?” She slapped Jamie across the face. “Cut out all dat sissy shit! And stop dat damn cryin’!”
Auntie Pearl didn’t believe in coddling children. I avoided her like the plague. Sister said Auntie was sad because all her kids had died and she didn’t really have anyone to take care of her. I didn’t care about the seed of her discontent; I just knew I didn’t want to encounter her if I could help it.
Jamie walked away embarassed and humiliated. I didn’t see him again until nightfall, when people were getting ready to leave. He must have gone for a walk in the woods, I concluded, because Sister and I saw him approaching from behind the house. We went to him.
“It’s OK, Jamie,” Sister said lightly, grabbing his hand. “I think you did fine. Everybody misses sometimes.”
“I miss all the time,” he mumbled with his head bowed.
“Who cares?” I tried to say boldly but failed. “These people are mean.” My words provided no comfort. “Everybody else likes you, man. It’s just Auntie Pearl—”
“Why didn’t somebody help me then? Huh? If everybody likes me, why didn’t somebody help me!” Jamie was angry, hurt, and embarassed.
“I don’t know. Who gon’ mess with Auntie Pearl?”
Jamie fell silent. He stood there and began to weep again. I felt sorry for him.
“Don’t cry, Jamie,” Sister sympathized zealously. “You’ll get another whippin’.”
“I’m gon’ get one anyway. I always do. It really don’t make no difference.”
He cried harder. I embraced him and let him sob on my shoulder until we heard his grandmother calling his name.
“Try to be strong, Jamie,” I begged. “You can make it. I know it’s hard and all, but you got to hang in there. Don’t give up. We can write each other if you want?”
“Yeah! I’ll write, too,” Sister added.
Jamie smiled a little, giving our hearts temporary relief.
“Thanks, y’all,” he said as he wiped tears on his shirtsleeve. “I’ll never forget you. Never.”
And he never did. We wrote consist
ently for about a year, and then the letters stopped coming. I don’t know what happened to Jamie. When Auntie Pearl died our senior year, folks said, he went to the funeral for five minutes. Busted through the church door, according to Uncle Roscoe, and walked down the aisle to the casket. Jamie stood looking at Auntie Pearl for about ten seconds with absolutely no emotion at all. Then he started laughing real loud, Uncle Roscoe said, and turned and walked out. Someone ran after him, asking how they were supposed to bury Auntie Pearl without an insurance policy. Since he was the next of kin, he should take the responsibility, they said. “I don’t give a fuck what y’all do with the bitch,” Jamie told his relative. “You can throw her in the ground for all I care!” He left beaming. It was a crying shame, Uncle Roscoe said.
I would have been cracking up! I could imagine Jamie as a grown man finally getting a chance to say what he had been holding a lifetime. Of course, I would have gotten slapped in the mouth for laughing at a funeral, but it would have been worth it. I sure hate I missed that one.
The family reunion ended with Sunday morning worship. The church was full. All the cousins, aunts, and uncles came together to give thanks for the madness we called family. After a few good congregational numbers, Reverend Samuels started whooping and hollering. He gave me a headache. Not only was he saying absolutely nothing, but also he was foaming at the mouth and jumping around like a rabied beast. All he said was, “And early one Sunday morning, de Lawd got up from de grave wit’ all power in his hands!” He leaned back and screamed in the microphone as though mimicking Jimi Hendrix in concert. Sister had fallen asleep much earlier, leaving me no one with whom to clown.
Attempting to avoid absolute boredom, I raised my hands and started screaming, “Yes, Lord!” over and over again until I made myself cry. I rolled my eyes into the back of my head and fell on top of whoever was sitting next to me. “Oh, hallelujah, God! Thank ya, Jesus! Glory to God! Hondanna Na Shanda! Kee Bo La Fonda! Hey!” Folks started looking at me crazy. Speaking in tongues was taboo in Swamp Creek and most people’s response to it was, “It don’t take all of that!” I was clowning hard. I started kicking and screaming like an epileptic as my arms flung open wide and my head jerked back and forth as though my neck were broken. I remember hitting someone pretty hard, but I dared not stop to apologize, for then my Holy Ghost experience would not have appeared genuine. I went on sweating, panting, and screaming. “I love ya, Lord! Can’t nobody do me like Jesus! Oh, thank ya, Lord! You sho’ a keeper, Lord! You brought me from a mighty long way, Lord! Ke Si Mo Shonda, Wanda Ke Ne Ne Obanda! Ra Fe Lo Lowanda!” I was full of shit like no one would believe. Somebody shoulda whipped my ass right in the middle of that church service! But, instead, people began to holler and shout that I was being possessed by the Holy Ghost! They were thrilled to see someone that young submitting himself to the power of the spirit and not being afraid to let the Lord have His way. I couldn’t believe they thought I was serious. I knew ushers would come soon to escort me outside to get some fresh air and cool down a bit. Indeed, that was the aim, for once they left me to recover, I planned to sneak off down the road to the General Store. However, my plan took on complications of its own because people truly thought I was spirit possessed. I continued with the charade, amazed at the power I was calling forth unto myself.