“Well, actually, I...” Mr. Talbert stopped mid-sentence, realizing where Bradley had brought the line of questioning. He swiftly picked up his fist and brought it across Bradley’s jaw. Bradley’s head turned with the force of the blow. Only a keen eye would’ve caught the smirk on his face right before the impact.
“You insolent little prick!” Mr. Talbert spat out.
Bradley immediately shifted the features on his face, and when he turned back to Mr. Talbert, he looked like a wounded poodle.
“I’m sorry, sir! I’m sorry! I meant nothin’ by what I said! Ain’t meant nothin’ by it!”
Mr. Talbert studied him long and hard, looking for a reason to believe his disrespect had been anything but unintentional. But Bradley wore the mask as good as any slave, and Mr. Talbert couldn’t find one.
“You sure are a dumb one, Bradley. You don’t even know when you’re insulting a man, do you?”
Bradley rubbed his cheek and looked down sheepishly at the ground. “No sir, I was jus’ thinkin’ out loud when you struck me, sir. Ain’t know I was offendin’ you.”
“Well, you need to be very careful when you’re talking to a gentleman, Bradley. We offend easily, and I would’ve hated to punish you for something you were too ignorant to understand.”
“Yes, sir.”
Introspection crept over Mr. Talbert’s face as his anger dissipated and he wandered into thought.
“You know, Bradley, Satan really is all about seeking whom he may devour...”
“Yes, sir. I knows it.”
“That money could’ve been spent on a lot of things. A good many things. Gifts for my wife—my daughters...you know how the girls love the dolls from up north...”
“Yes, sir?”
“But Mr. Stanley had a wench. A wench that I had my eye on every time I visited. She worked in his kitchen. I asked him once if he’d ever...umm...sinned against God, and he told me the midwife kept her too close...”
Bradley knew where his boss’s monologue was going, but he continued to play dumb.
“Sir...I...I don’t know if I’m the right one to tell this to...”
Mr. Talbert wasn’t listening. His pants bulged as he continued to reminisce.
“You know what I did with all the money I saved from not paying you? I took it right down to Mr. Stanley, and gave it to him in exchange for that pretty little wench. That midwife. Boy, she put up a good fight! Stanley said it was the first he’d ever whipped her. And that little wench screamed and cried something awful, but she ended up in my carriage. Yes, she did. And when she was so far away that she couldn’t see her home anymore, she sat there beside me and purred like a kitten. Christ help me, I almost threw her out and ravaged her on the side of the road...Christ help me...”
Bradley remained silent. Mr. Talbert shook in disgust with himself, and then snapped back into the present day. He looked around, and then at Bradley. When he spoke again, it was as if he was trying to keep a secret from himself. “You’ve had your share of nigger wenches, right?” he asked in a strained whisper.
“Yes, sir, I have.”
“I think their crotches have some sort of spell in them. Some kind of African voodoo magic that makes them impossible to resist. I swear, I’ve never felt anything like it. No matter how much I pray and read the scriptures, no matter how much I ask Jesus Christ to take this burden from me...I...I just can’t stop...”
He sighed loudly, and turned around and began making his way back to the plantation. This wasn’t the first time he had confessed his sins to Bradley, and it wouldn’t be the last, either. Sleeping with slaves, if the knowledge became public, would ruin a reputable man. Mr. Talbert couldn’t even tell his priest about his indiscretions. But he’d told Bradley, because he knew Bradley’s survival depended on his satisfaction. Bradley, in turn, knew he would never share his boss’s secrets. The damage it would do to him would be far greater than any injuries suffered by Mr. Talbert. But Bradley knew how much his obsession with slave women made Mr. Talbert hate himself. The torture he put himself through was enough satisfaction to last Bradley a few years, and as long as he kept his sins consistent, they would last him for the days to come as well.
My days continued to arrive and depart, like trains traveling through a busy station. The crowds began to dwindle down to three or four people a day—most of them out-of-towners who’d been told about the community’s main attraction. Sometimes a child would have a recurring ape-nigger nightmare, and the mother and father would bring them to my cage to show them that the beast was contained and, according to the way I looked and smelled, damn near dead. The child or children would take turns throwing stones and debris at me as I huddled on the floor. They’d do this until they were satisfied I wasn’t hiding under their beds at night, and then they’d go home content. My mind was so fragile by this time that I had begun smiling at the children when they came. Apparently though, for someone in my condition, a smile looks more like a growl, and I would inadvertently scare both child and adult. They would promptly run away and go and get the hero, Bradley, who would swing open the cage door and quite efficiently knock me unconscious or semi-conscious. He’d then hand the shovel, or bat, or whatever the object of choice was for the day, to the first person brave enough to take it (usually a father), who would gingerly step into the cage and begin to beat me, too. The blows always started softly, because of their fear of being in the cage in the first place. After they were confident that I wouldn’t jump up and eat them, however, the blows came with much more force. Mothers and children would observe the fun that Daddy was having, and inevitably they’d yell out with glee that they wanted a turn as well. My beating would turn into a family affair that, on most occasions, left me so broken Bradley would only bring me partially rotten food to eat for the next few days—until it seemed as though my strength had come back. Then it was back to fully rotten trash, pig dung, and business as usual.
Aunt Sarah still snuck me food a couple of nights a week, and so that became the time I was most active. During the day I lay flat in my cage like a deer that had been hit and laid on the side of the road to die. At night, though, I began to learn the dynamics of my new body. I learned which angles and movements caused a pain that made me faint, and which angles caused a pain that I could live with. I learned how to deal with the agony in my shoulders in order to reach out and grab whatever food was given to me. I retaught myself how to use my arms and how to operate on broken legs, and eventually I was able to push up on all fours. On the nights that Aunt Sarah or one of the girls brought me food, I would crawl from one end of the cage to the other and back before the sun came up. On the days that they didn’t make it, I’d make it halfway to one side and pass out from exhaustion.
I still hadn’t spoken a word to anyone. Not even Aunt Sarah.
Somewhere, in some faraway land, I had been a king. My voice had been known around the world.
I was terrified of the sounds that would come out of my mouth now.
On a particularly hot day, when the transparent heat waves could be seen off in the distance, a young white man walked up to my cage. I saw him through my half-closed eyelids, and I figured he had come to spectate like everyone else. My mouth hung open and my tongue hung limply out of the right side. I decided not to move.
When he got close enough, he found something to cover his nose and mouth to help block my stench. He looked to be about thirty years old, and he wore a solid black shirt, black pants, and a collar that I used to see the preacher from the church on the corner wear.
By this time, Bradley had gotten business from many of the slave owners in the town. If he could tame a beast, they figured, then knocking their most troublesome slaves down to size shouldn’t be a problem. He had kept four slave men tied up at various places around the land, and would torture them incessantly, stopping only if they cried like babies or lost consciousness. He was becoming masterful at inducing either one....
The day the young white man came to see
me, the screams of the slaves echoed off of the trees and caused the wildlife to pray. Their agony had been mine once, and I shed dry tears for them regularly.
The man walked up with anguish as his background music. When he got to my cage, the cloth still covering his mouth, he regarded me with a great deal of intrigue. Most who came had a distinct curiosity. They bathed in the danger of doing something to make me turn back into an ape, and when I didn’t, they credited Bradley for his bravery and effective nigger-breaking methods. But this man actually tried to look at me—to see who I was. He regarded me from head to toe, looking for something that was either never there or stolen along with my freedom. I allowed my eyes to fully open, spending more energy than I thought it would take. I looked back at the white man, unsure of his motives. When our eyes were locked long enough, he lowered his handkerchief and stepped up to the bars.
“Where are you from?” he whispered.
It was the first time since I had been pulled from my subconscious that I was reminded of where I had come from. I lay virtually motionless, yet my mind leaped into thoughts of jewelry and concerts and women and drugs. My mind flashed through pictures of five-star hotels and strip clubs, and for the first time since I’d lost myself, I tried to speak. Fueled by a new determination, I lifted my head about two inches off the ground. The old man noticed my slight movement and stared in disbelief.
“You...you’re...you’re not...are you...trying to talk?”
The young white man’s eyebrows jumped up in fear and excitement. He couldn’t decide whether to stay where he was or take off for the woods. I concentrated on the muscles in my lips and tongue and willed them to move to form words. I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump up and run headfirst into the bars and proclaim that this was not my world, that God had made some sort of cosmic mistake and dropped a square peg into a round hole. I pressed my lips together as tight as I could and exhaled, hoping to hear the word please come out of them.
“Mmm...mmph...mmph...mmph...”
I sounded like a wounded horse. My lips would barely separate themselves, much less form any words. The screams in the air continued to set the ambiance. Defeated and exhausted, I let my head fall back to the dirt. The excitement on the white man’s face faded as I let my eyelids drop back down to half-open. I was in hell. There was no use in hoping for any sort of redemption.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” the white man began. “Or if you can understand me at all, but I’m Reverend Lewis. I’m new here in Charleston. I came straight down here from Massachusetts to spread the good news of Christ Jesus!”
He spoke with an excitement that I hadn’t heard since encountering my last groupie. He sounded as if he was twelve and Jesus was his new toy.
“You seem to be a local superstition around these parts. People use the story of the ape-nigger to scare their children into behaving or going to bed on time. I heard so much about you that I had to come and see for myself.”
He looked at me critically again, trying to draw his own conclusions. Finally, he sighed and looked into my eye.
“Honestly, I don’t know what you are. If you’re a man, which you very well might be, then there’s no excuse for them locking you up and treating you like an animal. If you are indeed human, then this is the most inhumane situation I’ve ever seen. But if you’re something else...well then, I don’t know. I don’t know how the Lord feels about it...I’ve...” He paused and laughed incredulously. “I’ve only prayed for actual people before...never any animals, I’m sorry to say.”
I could see the conflict on Reverend Lewis’ face. He had come to see if there was a man here that needed to be set free. But he’d heard so many stories, and my condition was so barbaric, that he must’ve had a hard time separating fact from fiction. How could he be sure that what he was looking at was a human being if it held the closest resemblance to a dying beast?
“Well,” he said as he prepared to leave, “everything on God’s green earth needs prayer, I suppose.” He stepped closer to the bars and bowed his head.
“Let us pray...Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come...”
I thought my heart would leap a hurdle over my rib cage and charge through my chest. Big Mama! Big Mama used to say the Lord’s Prayer at least ten times a day. She’d make us say it at the table before any meal, and she was liable to break out with it at the most unlikely and random times. When she’d said it to herself, though, when she thought no one else was listening, that was when she made it feel as if God was using her words to step down from heaven. They would hover in the air, dipped in emotion, and it was not uncommon for someone to unknowingly walk into the room and stop mid-sentence, knowing that something was in the air..
The Lord’s Prayer. Big Mama. Mama. Dad. SaTia. How had I managed to forget them? The times I’d spent using my mind to take me back to my old life, I’d sustained myself with images of voluptuous women and insanely expensive cars. But now, thinking of Big Mama saying the Lord’s Prayer, I realized for the first time since I’d woke up in the field all that had been taken away from me. My God, I thought to myself, I’d almost forgotten them.
I felt a pain deeper than any physical ailment. I’d almost let them go. The people closest to me, the people who’d cared the most for my well-being, I’d almost let their memories die inside of my head and heart. I’d reduced my past life to a series of sex acts and blurry hip hop performances. I’d forgotten about the Lord’s Prayer, and everything else that had happened in my life before I became Da Nigga.
The pain erupted before I could try and contain it.
“....die.....die....wheel...beedone...in...earf...asssseeeettttttiiiiiisssss...en....heben...”
A tiny little weight dropped in the bottom portion of Reverend Lewis’ jaw. His eyebrows shot up, but this time they stayed up and refused to come down. He took one step back, then another, and then tripped over a tree root that had sprung up from the ground. He fell backward and hit the ground, his eyes on me and his mouth open the entire time. He scrambled back a few paces on his hands and feet, then flipped his body around so that he was on all fours and scrambled back up the hill like a squirrel.
I would never see Reverend Lewis again. The pale shade of his face after hearing me had convinced me of that. But I already owed him more than I could ever repay. I lay back down on the dirt floor and let memories flood my mind. I remembered the look on Mama’s face after my dad’s funeral, and how Big Mama acted as if nothing had ever happened, spending entire days in church every once in a while after that. I remembered Mama dropping me off for my first day of high school, and watching SaTia walk up the steps like a prom queen. How could I have forgotten these things? How could I have lost so much of myself?
I figured that I’d never see Reverend Lewis again, but if I did, no matter how many years I’d have to wait, I’d try my best to open my mouth again and thank him for waking me up.
As it turns out, my chance came in the next half-hour.
I heard the pastor’s voice before I actually saw him. The excitement that he had before was gone, replaced by a barely controlled rage. Mr. Talbert walked swiftly behind him, and Bradley walked in front of both of them with his arms outstretched on either side.
“Please! Please, Mista Talbert, you can’t do this, sir! Think ’bout the business this nigger done brought in! We’s becomin’ rich folks!”
“You’re becoming rich off of this nigger, Bradley,” Mr. Talbert responded matter-of-factly, very aware of Reverend Lewis’ presence. “I’m financing it, and you’re able to put some spare change in my pocket. That is all.”
“I don’t care who’s making money off of this operation, sir!” Reverend Lewis’ voice bellowed over his companions. “It stops now! This nigger is a human being! There’s a human behind these bars!”
“It...it ain’t no human, though. You mistaken, sir! You ain’t been here long ’nough to know, but this here’s an ape-nigger! I seen him...!”
“Shut up!” Reverend Lewis pointed a finger straight at Bradley. “You shut up! You’ve got this entire community thinking he’s some kind of savage beast! This nigger knows the Lord’s Prayer! The Lord’s Prayer! Do you know the Lord’s Prayer, Mr. Bradley?”
“Yes, sir...well...some a’ the words escape me, but I knows I...”
“My point exactly! I know your type, Mr. Bradley. You torture these niggers because you know you’re closer to them than you’ll ever be to a civilized white man. I’d reduce your entire story to hogwash if Mr. Talbert hadn’t verified how you found this nigger and what he looked like. Now I don’t know where he came from, but I intend to find out from his mouth. You let him out of there now!”
The three men must have caused enough commotion coming from the plantation to draw the attention of the other slaves. A few of them were sneaking into the forest one by one, hiding behind trees that were close enough for them to hear the argument taking place. Aunt Sarah and Roka had gotten so close that I could make them out when they poked their heads around the tree. They looked at each other with wide eyes when they heard Reverend Lewis’ command.
Bradley shook his head from side to side like a guilty four-year-old. When he spoke he sounded the same.
“Naw, sir...I can’t do that. I can’t let him out for nobody. People in this town, they expects me to keep ’em safe. They expects me to protect ’em by keepin’ this ape-nigger at bay, sir, and that’s what I plan to do.”
It was Mr. Talbert’s turn to shake his head. “Bradley, my friend, I do believe you’ve fallen for your own trick...”
Bradley looked at Mr. Talbert with confusion, then back at Reverend Lewis with hate.
“You can’t have him.”
Reverend Lewis turned his gaze from Bradley back to Mr. Talbert.
“I am a man of the cloth, sir. Therefore I will not threaten physical violence against your employee. However, Mr. Talbert, you know who my father is, and you know how much his business affects cotton crops like yours down here in the south. I’m afraid, Mr. Talbert, that if we cannot come to some sort of agreement with this situation...”
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