by H. M. Mann
It can’t be done. I can barely see the car in front of me. Are we moving through a hurricane, or is a hurricane moving through us? I’d jump off just to be safe, but I may end up in the water, maybe hundreds of feet below, and I didn’t go jumping off a bridge in Pittsburgh to end up drowned off a bridge in Alabama.
Luckily, the train slows considerably as we approach what I hope is Mobile. I can make out a bridge looming in the distance, but just barely. I’m supposed to get off before … or is it after that bridge? I can’t remember, and the wind howling all around me isn’t helping me think. I’m getting off the first chance I get where I can see the ground.
I latch my feet on the little rail and lean out as far as I can to the right of the train, looking down mostly at marsh and mud while wind and rain give my hair a thorough cleansing. At least it will be a soft landing, and what’s a little more mud on me? I move my notepads and pens to my front pockets, lace my boots as tightly as I can, and crouch and crawl to the edge of the little platform, feeling around for the ladder. It’s not there. Wait. I caught the train on the other side, didn’t I? Either that or my arms have gotten shorter. I reach around again and feel the ladder with the tips of my fingers. How did I ever get to this little platform? Oh yeah, I had to swing in feet-first. Just when I can’t decide what to do next, the train slows even more until it comes to a complete stop.
Next stop, Mobile, Alabama.
I’m here?
Appears so.
I step off the platform onto the rail, peeking around the car in both directions. I can’t see much further than a few cars in either direction, but I know we haven’t come to the bridge yet. The train just stopped way out in the middle of nowhere, in a swamp, during a major storm? Maybe there’s too much water on the tracks or the train yard’s full or something. I leap off the rail and slide down an embankment into an overgrown puddle, which has become a long flowing stream of brown water. I lift my boots from the muck and step onto some soft, thick, dark green grass.
“Welcome to Mobile,” I say, and as I turn toward the bridge, the train starts up again. I feel goose bumps, and not just because I’m completely soaked. It’s like the train stopped here especially for me. I’ll have to write the train company to thank it for such fine service.
I walk parallel to the tracks and get glimpses every now and then of the raging Mobile River, a regular cauldron of brown and green water, as I slip and fall often. The wind whips me back and forth like a rag doll sometimes, and though I fall, at least the landing is soft. I have to lean forward just to keep my balance, and in half an hour, I can’t tell the difference between my blue denim shirt and my tan pants. I am simply one blob of greenish-brown getting closer to a bridge.
Once at the bridge, I turn west and walk along the soggy shoulder of a four-lane highway, waves of water peeling off it as cars and trucks swim by, many with their flashers on. It should be mid-morning by now, but it’s so dark I run into a sign. Looking up, I see the number thirteen. There’s that number again. I hold onto that sign as another gust whips water up from the road into my face. I’m on Highway 13, good old lucky Highway 13. In the midst of all this chaos, I smile, shaking the rain out of my hair like a dog. Somewhere out there is Africatown. Somewhere out there are all the stories Auntie June told me.
I pull around the sign and keep trudging until I hear a horn beeping behind me. I turn, shielding my eyes from the stinging rain, and see an old busted and rusted pickup truck. I slosh through the headlight beams to the driver’s side.
An old black man with few teeth and less hair rolls down the window. “Need a lift?”
“Sure.”
“Get in.”
I tramp around to the passenger side and have to heave the door open. I get in and have to shut it several times before it catches. “Thank you. Uh, I’m Emmanuel.”
“Nice to meet you, Emmanuel. I’m Tex.”
“You from Texas?”
Tex shakes his head. “No.”
Nice nickname.
You’re telling me.
“So where you headed?” Tex asks.
I feel the spring digging into my behind and rest my hands on the cracked dashboard to give myself some relief. “Africatown.”
Tex chuckles. “You in it.”
“Huh?”
“You in Africatown, ‘course you’d never find ‘Africatown’ on any map, even though they named the bridge back there the Africatown USA Bridge. Jes’ about everythin’ off to the right from Plateau to Prichard is considered Africatown. About twelve thousand folks live there.”
“That many?”
“You live in a place a hundred and forty years, there’s bound to be children.”
He pulls back out onto 13, and I watch the waves shoot off beside us, the windshield wipers barely moving enough water for me to see more than ten feet in front of us. “Some weather, huh?”
“Yeah.” I’m here. I’m actually here, and there are twelve thousand potential relatives of mine somewhere out in that rain.
“An’ this is jes’ a tropical storm. But what you doin’ out in it like that?”
Getting a bath. “Just came down from Birmingham on the L and N,” I say, trying to sound cocky.
“You rode a train in this weather?”
“Yes sir.”
“You’re either crazy or a determined man, then.”
He’s crazy. He hears voices.
Just yours. Where are the others?
What others? Maybe I’m a ventriloquist.
Right.
I smile. “I guess I’m a little crazy and determined.”
“Been travelin’ long?”
All my life. “Yeah. About a month or so. I’m from Pittsburgh.”
“You on a pilgrimage or somethin’?”
A pilgrimage. That’s what I’ve been on. “You could call it that.”
“I seen my share of pilgrims, I have. Like when that Roots book come out. Lots of folks swarmin’ down here, you know, jes’ lookin’ to find. But that was over twenty years ago. Don’t see many pilgrims today. Where can I drop you?”
“I’m not sure.” I try to remember some of the stories Auntie June told me. “I’m related to Kazula Lewis.”
“You mean Cudjo Lewis, don’t you?” Tex asks.
“I’m not sure. Auntie June told me his name was Kazula.”
“That was his African name all right. He was the last full-blooded African to come to America.”
The last one? “And he had a sister named Abassa.”
Tex smiles. “Haven’t heard that name in a good while. You’ll be wantin’ to see the church then.”
“The church?”
“The Union Baptist. It’s just down this road a ways. Used to be called the First Union Baptist, but now it’s called the Second Union Baptist cuz of the new building.”
“What’s at the church?”
“You’ll see.”
The truck crashes through the water on Highway 13, the spray often too much for the wipers. Tex eventually turns into a swampy parking lot covered with water, the wind blowing waves against the steps to a little church. “We here,” he says, squinting. “Don’t know if they got power or not. Lost power durin’ the night most places around here. Sit tight.”
Tex splashes up to the only doors I can see and goes in while lightning flashes and the wind rocks the truck. During one intense flash, I clearly see a face staring back at me from a little brick monument outside the church, the bust of someone familiar. It’s a man’s face, a rugged face. When Tex motions for me to follow, I push the door with my feet and drop into water up to the top of my boots. I have to use my entire body weight to close the door, and before I walk in, I take a longer look at the bust. That has to be Kazula. He has Mama’s high cheekbones and eyes, her triangle nose and long ears. And his moustache, goatee, and bushy eyebrows could be mine.
Tex takes me to a door down the hall from the darkened foyer, the only light coming from several candles on a table. “G
ot someone who’d like to meet you,” Tex says, and he moves me into an office where a man wearing colorful, African-looking clothing sits behind a desk, a single candle the only light.
The man doesn’t rise, doesn’t speak, and doesn’t move, merely staring up at me with something like a smile on his blue-black lips. “There is a resemblance, Tex,” he says. He motions me to a chair. “Please, sit, sit.”
Tex pats me on the back. “Enjoy your visit.”
“Thanks for the ride,” I say.
“No trouble at all,” Tex says, and he leaves.
I stare into the man’s face and see pieces of Mama and Auntie June in his eyes and lips, and even in his ears. “I’m Emmanuel Mann.”
He smiles broadly. “I knew there was a reason for me coming in so early today.”
“Are you the preacher?” I ask.
“Oh, no. I just came in to—” He sits up straighter, still staring. “I came in so I could meet you.”
I feel goose bumps crawling up my legs. I look at the hairs on my arms, and they’re all standing at attention.
“I think I am a relative of yours. I am Maxi Kazula. I am also called Max Lewis, but I prefer to use Maxi.”
“Most folks call me Manny.”
“Manny. Yes. And on such a day as this, you … blow in from the rain.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure you have many questions.”
Too many! “I guess I first need to know … how we’re related.” I feel tears seeping into my eyes, and my nose starts tingling. “I see … I see my mama in your face.”
“And I see Kazula in yours. You have his eyes and chin without a doubt.”
I wipe a tear that trickles down my nose. “I’m sorry.”
“No need.” He smiles. “You have never been here before?”
I shake my head. “I have only heard the stories, from my Auntie June.”
“Tell me what you have heard.”
I tell Maxi all that I can remember, how Kazula and Abassa were taken from their home in Ghana, how Abassa ended up in Ethiopia, how Kazula survived the Middle Passage on the Clothilde and arrived in Mobile Bay. “After that, I don’t know. Auntie June probably told me, but I have forgotten. I’m sorry.”
He tents his fingers under his lips. “It is unnecessary to be sorry for not knowing a history denied to you. Your Auntie June, is it?”
“Yes.”
“She has told you a great deal. Would you like me to fill in the blanks?”
“Yes.”
He smiles. “It is a sad story, but it is true, and it ends well. There was a captain by the name of Timothy Meaher, a steam boatman. Some Eastern gentlemen bet him that he couldn’t run the blockade to Africa and return with a boatload of slaves. Thus, we are here because of a bet between white men.” He pauses. “And we weren’t necessarily the prize.”
“We were just means to an end.”
“Yes.” He nods. “Pawns in a rich man’s game of chess. On the Sierra Leone River were some quarreling tribes. The King of Dahomey raided a Tarkar village and charged Meaher anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars for each Tarkar he captured. Fifty to one hundred dollars.”
We were nothing more than a bundle.
“One hundred and sixty were supposed to get on the Clothilde, but the King of Dahomey had second thoughts and took back forty-four.” He smiles. “You have cousins in Benin and Ghana to this day, Emmanuel.”
I can only nod. I’ll have to look those places up on a map. I do belong somewhere, and I have family on two continents. You hear that?
The Voice doesn’t respond.
“All one hundred and sixteen survived the Middle Passage, which is very rare, but they say the Clothilde was a very fast boat. They were unloaded at Twelve Mile Island onto a steamboat, the Czar. Then, the Clothilde was burned and sunk at Bayou Cane to hide the crime. The Czar carried them to the Dabney Plantation up what was then called the Spanish River to where the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers meet near Mount Vernon. They spent eleven days in the swampy wilderness, and they were moved from one swamp to another to keep government agents from finding them. The government even sent a steamboat, the Eclipse, to look for them.” He shakes his head. “The government never found them.”
“They used a steamboat to look for them?”
“Yes.”
So much for stealth. The government sent a floating birthday cake to the rescue.
“Most were eventually farmed out to Selma …” His voice trails away. “The government made a case against Meaher, but since the government could produce no slaves, the case was dropped. Then the Civil War started and …” He waves a hand in the air. “Our people were slaves for a short time, it is true, but they were still taken from their homeland against their will.”
“How did they end up down here in Mobile?”
He smiles. “For whatever reason, Meaher freed thirty-three of our ancestors, and they settled here. We call them the original thirty-three. And we kept our language and our old names, despite our new names. The simple sound of our language spoken among freed slaves brought others and has kept us together. We settled just north and east of here over one hundred and forty years ago, and we are still here today. If it were not so rainy, I would take you to Plateau Cemetery where Kazula and many others of our family rest, all their headstones facing the rising sun. It is one of our customs. We still have a tribal chieftain, and we still have our own doctor. But mostly, we still have each other.” He stands as we hear doors opening and beautiful voices speaking in a long-forgotten tongue, rapidly and with laughter. “And many still speak our language. Come. Let us go meet some of your relatives.”
I stand. “They just … came to church? On a day like this? Today? It’s Monday, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps they heard of you on the wind as I did. Come.”
I follow Maxi out of the office and see two tall women. They are dark, so dark, and old, so very old. They smile at me, nodding to each other and speaking that beautiful language.
The taller of the two walks over to me and touches my face. “Hello, my son. Welcome back.”
And then I sob and hold them, and they chatter away laughing, touching my hair, kissing my cheeks, and squeezing my hands.
I’m home, I’m home, I’m finally home.
Maxi makes several phone calls, and the church later fills with … with my people. I meet so many people who tell me I’m their first cousin, or their great aunt on my mama’s side, or my second cousin once removed. I can’t keep track of all the names, most of them American followed by African and even a few who use nicknames like “Bug” and “Boo,” but I latch onto the eyes, the smiles, the joy in their laughter. I’m the only one crying, but I’m smiling. And the pictures. I pose with so many people, cameras clicking and flashing all over the place.
I find out that a cousin of Cudjo Lewis married into the Mann family and migrated north at the turn of the century, stopping first in Birmingham to work the steel mills, then traveling further north to the coal fields in West Virginia, then on to Pittsburgh to work the coal and steel there. I also learn that the racial strife that ravaged the rest of Alabama was nearly nonexistent in Mobile.
“We were already separate,” Maxi explains. “And we preferred it that way. We stayed in our community, and the whites stayed in theirs. We may not have survived otherwise.”
We gather in the basement for a delicious meal of foods I can’t name but can only describe as delicious. We eat something like jambalaya or gumbo, fresh mango and papaya, and drink strong hot juice. And while I eat their food, I eat up their laughter.
“We are having a meeting in the park today,” an ancient woman, my mama’s great-great aunt, tells me. “You must come.”
“Today? In this weather?”
Her eyes light up. “There’s weather every day, isn’t there?”
“Well, of course, but—”
“You will be there.”
The church thins out leaving only Maxi and me.
He hands me a plastic bag full of clothes. “Please accept our gift.”
I open the bag expecting colorful African clothes but find a pair of new blue jeans, packages of T-shirts, socks, and underwear, and a short-sleeved gray Polo shirt. There’s even an umbrella in the bag. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He looks down at my mismatched boots. “We should get you some boots, too.”
I stare at my boots. “These are okay. They’ve brought me this far.”
“Yes. They are good boots.”
I change into my new clothes in Maxi’s office, and though everything’s a little loose, I feel like a new man. I transfer what’s left of my money, the notepads, and the pens that still work to my new jeans, but they all barely fit in the back pockets. I look down at my arms, at the snake and the cross. I wonder if they’ll accept me now that they can see these. But when I leave the office, the church seems empty. I go into the sanctuary and find Maxi down front.
“Where is everyone?” I ask, self-consciously folding my arms in front of me.
“Preparing for the meeting.” He hands me a blanket like one I’ve never seen. It has to be handmade, and its reds, oranges, and yellows are so bright. It’s like a tapestry made with golden silk.
“Thank you. It’s beautiful.” I look up and see Maxi staring at my arms. “They’re, uh …”
His eyes soften, but he says nothing.
“They’re scars. I used to shoot heroin.”
“We all have our scars, Emmanuel. Wear them with pride because they are old scars.” He points at a pew, a small pillow at one end. “I’m sure you are tired. Please rest here. I will come get you myself before the meeting starts.” He takes the plastic bag with my remaining clothes. “I will take care of these.”
“But I’m really not that tired.”
“Rest, Emmanuel. Our meetings tend to be long.” He smiles. “You will need your strength.”
But after Maxi leaves, I can’t sleep. Instead, I pull out a notepad and start writing, and for the first time, I feel that my pen has power, that an unseen hand seems to be guiding it, making it dance: