by Gayl Jones
Ray say some solutions come from the imagination, and others you’s got to use reason and judgment for.
Seem like I have learned more about using my imagination and reason and judgment driving my truck for Ray’s fugitives than driving it for myself.
Ray, I’m going to tell you a story about my girlhood. It were when I was four years old. Most people thought that I was around seven years old, but I was four years old. They wanted me to sing this spiritual at the Baptist church, ’cause even though I were a little girl I had one of them full, deep voices, so I gets up in front of the church and sings them my favorite spiritual. There is even peoples that had convinced me that I had such a beauteous voice that I should become a singer of spirituals. So I gets up in front of the church and starts singing.
I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside down by the riverside
I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Study war no more
Anyway, so I sings my then version of that spiritual and the peoples they oohs and ahhs and murmurs ’cause you ain’t supposed to applaud in church. I calls it my version of the song ’cause I always sings it “Study war no more,” like it a command, when the true song says, “I’m gonna study war no more.” I remembers I always usedta sing it to say “Study war no more.” But then this woman they calls the root woman, Mizz Cajun, gets up in the aisle and points her finger right at me. The peoples hushes, ’cause even though they is people believing in the gospel, they knows Mizz Cajun to be a woman of power and when she points her finger at somebody that means she is about to read them. I ain’t going to describe Mizz Cajun, ’cause where they is people that don’t like to be photographed, Mizz Cajun don’t even like to be described. She have admonished people not to describe her to nobody. If somebody don’t know Mizz Cajun, then they won’t know her. If somebody don’t know me, then they won’t know me, is what she usedta say to everybody. And they is people that usedta say that didn’t even segregation keep Mizz Cajun out of places. If she wanted to sit up at the counter at Woolworth’s in Louisville, Kentucky, she would sit there. If she wanted to stay at the Phoenix Hotel in Lexington, Kentucky, she would stay there. If she wanted to sit downstairs instead of the balcony of the Palace theaters anywhere in the southern commonwealth, she would sit there. I ain’t know if that is just the tales that peoples would tell about Mizz Cajun and that were just they metaphors for power, but that is what they would say about Mizz Cajun. And there is white peoples that grew up on Mizz Cajun stories as well as colored peoples. Now my mama she don’t want Mizz Cajun to read me, and although she knows the power of Mizz Cajun from all the narratives in which Mizz Cajun is the force and power, and although she is a delicate type of little colored woman, I mean my mama, and I were almost as big as her even at four years old, she gets up to shield me from Mizz Cajun. She tells Mizz Cajun that she don’t want Mizz Cajun to read me. Now although my mama is a delicate woman she is a brave and bold woman and has a boldness of spirit. So she stands there to shield me from Mizz Cajuns reading, but Mizz Cajun gives me my reading anyway. She says to me, Sojourner, I’m going to tell you who you was back in Africa. I didn’t know who you was myself till you started singing that song, then I remembered who you is. You is the one who usedta do battle back there in Africa, you is one of us warrior womens that usedta do battle back there in Africa when they was trying to bring us over here for slavery. I knowed you before the Middle Passage and I know you now. I’m going to tell you who you is and I’m going to tell all these people who you is. That’s who you is. You is the warrior class. You don’t take no shit. You is the warrior class. You don’t take no shit. You is the warrior class. You don’t take no shit. You is the warrior class. You don’t take no shit. You is the warrior class. You usedta battle the white people when they come over there to try to get us to make slaves of usselves. They made slaves of us and they got us to make slaves of usselves. Course you had to battle some of us own peoples ’cause we was over there doing mischief to us ownselves. But you was a warrior woman to keep us from slavery, to keep the white peoples from enslaving us and to keep us from enslaving us ownselves. I didn’t know that they had captured even you, Sojourner, till I heard you singing that song. But they is going to come a day, Sojourner, and this is the truth, when you is going to have to pick up your sword and shield and study war again.
Sojourner is going to do what she has to do, say my mama, but I don’t want her to study war. I wants her to study the word and to mind the word. I don’t want her to study war.
Now the peoples looks at my mama like they thinks that she is a fool, ’cause this is Mizz Cajun. They knows the power of Mizz Cajun. You don’t just talk to Mizz Cajun like you talks to ordinary peoples.
Then Mizz Cajun start singing, like she teaching me a new version of that song.
I’m gonna pick up my sword and shield
Down by the riverside down by the riverside
I’m gonna pick up my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Got to study war some more
Naw, say my mama, don’t he reading that to my Sojourner. The word is mightier than the sword. Words is mightier than the sword.
Only when you controls the medium and the message, say Mizz Cajun.
When you takes the s off the beginning of sword and puts it at the end you’s got words, say my mama.
The peoples in the church starts to murmur like they ain’t never thought to take the s off the beginning of sword and put it at the end of sword till Mizz Cajun looks around at them, then they hushes. ’Cause whether or not what my mama say is clever, Mizz Cajun is still Mizz Cajun.
You say dat de words is mightier dan de sword? ask Mizz Cajun with a laugh.
Peoples knows that laugh, ’cause they says the first name of Mizz Cajun is Sheha. Peoples thinks that it’s Sheba but it ain’t. It’s Sheha Cajun. Shehahahahahahahahahaha, laugh Mizz Cajun. You say dat de words is mightier dan de sword? Years later when I would learn the Swahili language, I would learn that Sheha means a village councillor. I ain’t know if the peoples that named her knew that meaning of the word. All I knows is although they is peoples that says that Mizz Cajun’s first name is Sheba her first name is Sheha.
Shehahahahahahahahahaha
Shehahahahahahahahahaha
Shehahahahahahahahahaha
Shehahahahahahahahahaha
Shehahahahahahahahahaha
I say that Sojourner will do what she has to do, says my mama. But I would prefer that she study the word and mind the word.
I don’t know if she say word with a small w or a large W. If she say it with a large W then it the word of God she talking about. Course I didn’t know the difference at four years old between a small w and a large W.
Now my mama she usually talks in real proper English, but trying to shield me from Mizz Cajun she speaks in the language of the people, and even Mizz Cajun starts saying dis and dat although she don’t usually say dis and dat. They has got different versions of who they wants me to become.
If she is going to have to mind de word she is going to have to remember all of dem dat she hears, say Mizz Cajun.
Sojourner? Peacemaker? Warrior?
A little bird told me
What she shall be
When the words come forth
Enough is Enough
Then she’ll do her warrior stuff
Mizz Cajun turn around looking like them whirling dervishes and then it look like she were transforming herself into all the different colored peoples: Africans, Native Americans, Chicanos, Indians from India, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Hawaiians, Australian aborigines, Inuits and all the other different colored peoples.
Heya Heya Heya Heya Heya
A little bird told me
Peaceable she’ll be
Until the words come forth
Enough is Enough
Then she’ll do her warrior stuff
Y’all know that Enough is Enough! is that expression of them Chiapas rebels. How she know them Chiapas rebels’ language all them many years ago?
Heya Heya Heya Heya Heya
Heya Heya Heya Heya Heya
Heya Heya Heya Heya Heya
Heya Heya Heya Heya Heya
Heya Heya Heya Heya Heya
When she say that, she ain’t whirling like them dervishes hut her ownself again, and then that Monkey Bread comes up and stands in front of my mama and me, like she is shielding my mama and me. So you’s got me standing there, my mama standing in front of me to shield me, and Monkey Bread standing in front of my mama to shield my mama and me.
What is you doing, little pygmy girl? ask Mizz Cajun. I remembers you with your little pygmy spear and little pygmy shield too. Osani. Little pygmy girl, who’s protectress do you think you is? Don’t you try to work me, little girl. I will say, Mizz Johnson, for a little colored woman as delicate as you is, you has got a boldness and bravery of spirit. You makes me proud.
Then Mizz Cajun march out of the church singing her new version of the song, and she sang it real proper.
I’m going to pick up my sword and shield
Down by the riverside down by the riverside
I’m going to pick up my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
I’m going to study war some more
Study war some more study war some more
I’m going to study war some more!
Nimekasirika!
There is people that say that the reason that Monkey Bread is still a pygmy is on account of trying to work Mizz Cajun. They say that if she hadn’t been standing up there trying to work Mizz Cajun, she mighta growed up to be the size of a natural woman. Others say that her people have always been a pygmy people and it don’t have nothing to do with Mizz Cajun. You’ve heard of people saying, Don’t play me, don’t you try to play me, don’t you play me. But when you is dealing with root women, you ain’t playing them, you is working them. And they don’t tell you not to play them, they tells you not to work them. I remember that that is when I started remembering every word and Monkey Bread started writing as her way of minding the word. She were only four years old herself, but she started asking the schoolchildren to teach her to read and write, so by the time we got to school she already knew how to read and write. (Monkey Bread didn’t even know how to say school and referred to it as shule. Teach me what y’all learns in shule, she’d tell the little children. Teach me to read and write and everything y’all learns in shule.) My mama have stayed the delicate type of colored woman, but she have kept the boldest and bravery of spirit that Mizz Cajun told her about. I knew she already had it coming up to protect me from Mizz Cajun, but then Mizz Cajun told her she bold and brave of spirit and seem like that boldness and braveness of spirit become more manifest. But there is even peoples that say there were more to Mizz Cajun’s new version of the old spiritual that she turned into a war song, ’cause it were around that same time that all over the world the colored peoples started new freedom movements and they wasn’t all them nonviolence neither. I mean, they was having freedom movements, but it seemed like they was renewed. There is even people that claims that whenever Mizz Cajun sings that song, whether it is in church or elsewhere, the colored peoples starts to pick up they swords and shields and to study war. To tell you the truth, whenever I hear about colored peoples anywhere saying Enough is Enough! like them peoples I heard you talking about, I thinks that Mizz Cajun must be somewhere singing that song.
Ray and I, us go into the bedroom and play some. Then we’s like figures dancing in a dream, then we’s like surfaces, then we’s the deep thing itself, then we’s doing the African tango, the real tango, then we’s circles and each the center of each circle, then we’s what Delgadina call that radiuses, then we’s the same being, circumferences—what Delgadina call them when she taking that class?—then we’s all things and each other. What my mama say about you’s got to learn from everything in the universe? What my daddy say about claiming wisdom? Well, there’s all kindsa wisdom. We’s the entire universe and usselves. Am I dreaming ’bout love? I’m the root and the tree, the spring and the river itself. Is that love? What did Zora say ’bout the flowering pear tree? Is Ray the one? Is Ray the absolute one? It’s like we’s in slow motion, powerful and precious, pure radiance.
Then I’m dreaming, talking to Ray in my dreams.
Ray, what your idea of love? Love supposed to be something make you feel perfect, make you feel like a full and perfect person?
Tell me your idea of love, say Ray.
I ain’t never had no idea of love. I seen in a book, though, ’bout there being such a thing as separate parts but the same whole. Maybe that’s what true love is, when peoples in true love, they’s separate parts but the same whole.
Then we’s listening to Miles. I’m telling Ray he’s kinda like Miles. You’s kinda like Miles, I’m saying.
I like Miles, but I’m not like Miles, he’s saying. What do you mean?
Delgadina and me was listening to Miles and I told her I likes Miles but I likes the personality of Satchmo and then she told me I ain’t supposed to like the personality of Satchmo ’cause he a stereotype, and then she go to her library and get a book that talk about how Miles and his generation of jazz musicians rejected the demeanor of Satchmo.
The sense of humor and playfulness? ask Ray.
The demeanor of Satchmo and some of them would even turn they backs on they audience. I likes to face my audience myself and play with them, even if they does think I’m a stereotype.
Then I’m telling Ray ’bout Delgadina giving me the whole history of why them men rejected they humor and playfulness so’s not to be confused with the stereotype of the nigger entertainer or just the stereotype itself and talking about Sidney Poitier and even talking about the minstrels and Mr. Interlocutor and then talking of “Amos ’n’ Andy”—I ain’t supposed to like them neither—and then talking about a poet named Sterling Brown and what he say about plaster of paris saints and Langston Hughes and his character Simple and even another Ray Claude McKay’s Ray and the difference between Ray and Banjo and asking him if he heard of that other Ray and something about Martin Delany and then Bojangles and that other Martin the comedian Martin Lawrence. What’s the difference between comedy and stereotyping? ask Delgadina. And all got to do with rejecting or not rejecting one’s sense of humor and playfulness so’s not to be confused with no stereotypes. I tells Ray he is like Miles turning his back on his audience.
All I knows is if I was a jazz musician I would face my audience and play with them. I says, even if they does think I’m a stereotype. Facing your audience and even playing with them don’t mean that you is just there to entertain them. They might look at me and think that I’m an entertainer or even that I’m entertaining them, but I ain’t. I don’t believe in being no entertainer myself, though I knows they is peoples that finds me amusing. They finds me amusing just because I’m who I am. Others has ostracized me for being me. I don’t believe in us being no entertainers myself, ’cause the first thing they does in the movies when they captures people is to make them they entertainment. I seen that in a Civil War movie and I also seen it in a Nazi movie. The captured people always provided the entertainment.
I also seen it on a reservation where these native peoples was dancing for the tourists. When I seen them native peoples dancing for the tourists and not for theyselves, I said that is just like us peoples. It ain’t to say that all the native peoples dances for the tourists. Or it mighta been a war dance and the tourists thought it were entertainment. I knows peoples who is entertainers and I tells them the same thing, that I don’t believe in it. I likes good jazz, though. But you’s like Miles, Ray, and you’s like the other Ray, I don’t mean your other Ray I mean Claude McKay’s Ray. He is the intellectual in the book Banjo and the one named Banjo is just who he is. I guess they is both who they is. You can be a intellect
ual and be who you is. ’Cept you’s different from the Ray in that book ’cause you’s got your guerrillas.
Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?
Then I’m with Monkey Bread and her star and we’s eating caviar and drinking champagne, except we ain’t in Hollywood, we’s sitting in the Galileo in Covington. Then I’m at some museum and Ray and I is looking at a painting. The painting is blue and green and red and yellow oval shapes that seem to rise above the surface of the painting so that one dimension seems three dimensions. I tries to describe that painting like Delgadina would describe it. Nothing in the painting forms a straight line but seems to shimmer sometimes at a different angle. You can’t tell it’s painted colors or blue and green and red and yellow light as if the painting is made of light not color. Sometimes the painting seem smooth, at another angle full of textures, at another angle them colors has a greater intensity more shimmers of light revealing other colors, but some colors is perceived at some angles not at others.
Who painted that picture? I asks Ray.
You Mosquito, you Sojourner.
Then I’m reading one of Delgadina’s books, ’cept the book is describing my painting.
Then I’m in Tasmania.
CHAPTER 15
I DON’T KNOW WHY RAY HAS BROUGHT ME TO THIS canyon. We’re riding donkeys, not horses, along the Rio Grande. We’re in Big Bend National Park, in the South Texas brush country. I ain’t been to Big Bend National Park, but I seen it on television. At first I thinks it’s the Laguno Atascosa, which a national wildlife refuge and reserve, but Ray say it Big Bend National Park. I tells Ray that this is my first time in Big Bend National Park. Ray tells me they’s got everything in this park and in this part of Texas: mountains, deserts, rivers. It’s like a whole other country, Ray says. And that’s exactly the same thing that them tourism peoples says about Texas when they’s trying to get people to come to Texas. People thinks that they knows America, but when they gets to Texas it’s like a whole other country. I’m carrying cornstalk dolls that I bought at a ranch so’s I can show Maria how to make cornstalk dolls, though her dolls is better than these cornstalk dolls.