Antebellum

  “Ask him where he’s from,” commanded Reverend Lewis.

  “Where you be from, chil?” Aunt Sarah said, soft and low, as if she was rocking me to sleep.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember a world gone by. “I’m from a place where there ain’t no slaves.”

  My words seemed to suck the breath out of everyone’s lungs. My eyes were still closed, but the silence I heard made me think everyone was dead. I finally heard Aunt Sarah take in a deep breath after holding it as long as she could. The air trembled as it came from her chest into her throat and then out into the atmosphere. She had a million questions, but she knew she couldn’t ask them.

  I wasn’t sure why Reverend Lewis’ breath got caught, but when he released it, it came out as a laugh.

  “No slaves, huh? So you’re from up north, from my neck of the woods?”

  I didn’t answer. It took a few seconds for him to recognize why I was silent. When he did, he was forced to swallow his pride and nod at Aunt Sarah for help.

  “You be from da north?”

  I shook my head. “No. I ain’t from here at all.”

  Reverend Lewis narrowed his eyes.

  “What do you mean, you’re not from here?”

  Aunt Sarah began to repeat the question, but I stopped her. I had felt some of my fear melt away. I still couldn’t look at Reverend Lewis, but I opened my eyes and looked at Aunt Sarah as if my conversation was with her. Slowly, I swelled my chest, set my face hard, and answered the reverend’s question.

  “Wherever this place is, I ain’t from here.”

  Again, everyone in the room ceased to breathe. Reverend Lewis broke the silence after some time. He spoke as if he had some sort of a secret to tell. “What year is it where you’re from?”

  “2010.”

  Aunt Sarah seemed to be hiding so many emotions on her face, I thought it might burst. I could hear Roka hit his head on something in the back corner where he was sitting. The thud was a reaction to his shock.

  “My God...” Reverend Lewis stared at nothing with a blank face. “Do you know what this...” He stopped suddenly. “Wait... how do I know that you’re from where you say are? What proof do you have?”

  I was still staring at Aunt Sarah as I spoke. “All I got is my memories.”

  Reverend Lewis slammed his hand on the bed and stood up. He paced the room.

  “Well, that is wonderful! All anybody is going to tell me is that I’ve gone down south and found a crazy nigger!” He paced the floor a few more steps, and then sat back down.

  “Alright, let’s hear some of these so-called memories.”

  Aunt Sarah’s eyes lit up and went wider than I’d ever seen. She looked like a little girl, sitting at her mother’s feet, waiting for her fairy tale. I closed my eyes again, and this time the memories came rushing back. They pounded my brain so hard that I felt my body rock back and forth with the motion. I could feel the excitement of my previous life beginning to fill up in my ribcage, and I smiled as I let it out.

  “I...I was a rapper. I was THE rapper! I got all the clothes, money, and jewelry I wanted. Two platinum records, baby. Couldn’t nobody touch me! Aww...man...I had so many hoes, dogg! Chicks would line up. Had a different female every night. And all the money I could spend. Moved my family out the hood and everything. Well...I tried at least. ’Cause that’s the first thing you gotta do when you get some real money where I’m from...you try and get your fam up out the hood! Niggas’ll kill you in the hood, man!”

  I had forgotten where I was. Either that, or I didn’t care. This was the first time since I’d gotten to this horrible place that I felt connected to a life I had before, and that connection took me over. I felt all the pain and terror rise to the surface of my skin and drip off like sweat. I laughed out loud as I remembered my old self, and allowed it to emerge.

  Though my eyes were open, I forgot about Aunt Sarah and Roka and Reverend Lewis. I wasn’t talking to them anymore. I was talking to the American public, to the fans who had tuned in to MTV specials about me. I spoke as if I was back on a private plane with the world under my feet and a camera in my face.

  “See, what you gotta realize, before you learn anything else, is that I’m the best. Period. Niggas can’t see me! That’s why I’m Da Nigga! ’Cause cain’t no other niggas touch what I spit! Nobody else in the game right now is doin’ what I’m doin’, y’know? But don’t get this whole rap thing twisted. I’ll put a nigga in the ground quick! Youngins like P. Silenzas think ’cause they got a record deal, I won’t make a phone call and get they head split open! But it’s all good...I’m not trippin’. We got mo’ bottles than we can count up in here, man! And we got trees in da back! You ever been high at 30,000 feet, nigga? Ha! Yeah, I bet you ain’t! You rockin’ wid Da Nigga right now, baby! I’ma get you high just ’cause I can! Grab a glass so we can toast to the fact that we don’t love these hoes, my nigga! Hahahahaha!”

  I let the laughter reverberate throughout my body. I was Da Nigga again, and it felt like cocaine in my bloodstream.

  “Lemme tell you somethin’, my nigga...if Pac was still here, I’d be the only nigga he messed with! Pac woulda destroyed all these fake niggas in the game right now! He woulda torn ’em all apart! But Pac ain’t here, and Biggie ain’t here, and now all these fake niggas wanna turn the game to a ringtone contest. But you best believe I’ma hold it down. See this real hip-hop right here. You cain’t get thrown off by the platinum chains, baby! I’m an artist at the end of the day! I take everything that the hood gave me, and I turn it into my music! I make music for the ghetto, you feel me? I seen niggas shoot each other in the head, so I rap ’bout shootin’ niggas in the head! ’Cause that’s what the streets taught me, know what I’m sayin’? I seen hoes in the street trying to get over on niggas, so I rap ’bout stanky hoes ’cause that’s all I seen! If you ain’t no hoe, then don’t take no offense to it, feel me? Look...look...real talk, man, this is my art. This is what I does, and I does it well! I make smash hits and I dick down chicks! Hahahahaha! Deez Nutz Records for life, baby! New album, Hoes In Da Attic, in stores right now! Go grab that! In the meantime, I’ma go say yes to some drugs! Holla!”

  I laughed so hard I began to cry. I lay back onto the bed and let the bellows lunge out of my chest and bounce around in the air. Somewhere inside, I knew that when I stopped, I’d be returned to a foreign land, and I laughed until I coughed uncontrollably and my chest became tight and my throat felt as though it was on fire.

  When I opened my eyes, I hoped to God that I’d see the ceiling in a privately chartered jet, but the mud and straw brought me back to reality. Instantly depressed, I blinked away tears as the power I had felt dissipated, and I returned back to the place where the white man beside me made me want to devour my own flesh.

  I slowly leaned forward, and everyone seemed to come back into my view in slow motion. Three blurry figures surrounding me, encasing me as I tried to accept the weight of this world. Roka must have moved while I was under my own spell, because he was now standing five steps away from me and to my left. Aunt Sarah still sat in front of me, and Reverend Lewis was still to my right. I didn’t pay attention to either of them as I dropped my head. I was too engulfed in my own emotions to pay attention to anyone else’s. Having to bear the cross of this new reality was bad enough, but having it removed, if only for a moment, and then placed back onto my back was nearly unbearable. Desperate, I did the only thing I could think to do for support. I reached out for my lifeline. I looked up at Aunt Sarah.

  If having to return to this world was a cross that I could barely carry, then Aunt Sarah’s face became the lash of the whip and the crown of thorns that made me long for death. She stared at me with a mixture of extreme rage and utter sorrow. Single tears from both eyes came down her face, and I realized then that since I had come to this world, I had never seen her cry. I had never seen a break in the shell that allowed her to survive on Master Talbert’s plantation. But she looked at me now like a l
oving daddy’s girl who had just been told her father wasn’t coming home anymore. She looked at me as if I had stolen something from her. As though I had taken her hopes and dreams and ground them up. She looked at me as if she hated me.

  And then, just as soon as she was there, she turned her face away from me, got up, and left the hut.

  “Aunt...Aunt Sarah...?”

  It was as if she never heard me.

  I turned to Roka for some sort of explanation, but his face was riddled with confusion. He had just heard a riddle from me that he couldn’t figure out. He stared at me hard as he tried to decipher what I had said.

  Unconsciously, I turned my head from Roka and back toward the door that Aunt Sarah had walked through. Before I knew what had happened, I’d come face to face with Reverend Lewis.

  His grin was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.

  I cried out and turned my head away, as if his gaze would turn me to stone. He couldn’t have cared less. He stood up from my bed, still grinning, and shook his head in disbelief.

  “Jesus Christ in heaven—thank you for your blessings! I can’t believe what I’ve found! A nigger from the future! I swear I didn’t believe it—” he turned and looked at me “—until you spoke! You sound just like what I imagine a nigger from the future would sound like! It’s amazing!”

  Reverend Lewis’ words were like a lightning bolt, and I began to understand why Aunt Sarah hated me now.

  Reverend Lewis picked up his coat and hat and gleefully put them on. When he was all set to leave, he turned around and looked at me again. He was still pleased, but seriousness coated his voice.

  “Listen here, you belong to me now. You understand? I’m going to talk to Talbert right now. He won’t be able to refuse. You get yourself ready to go traveling, nigger. I’m taking you back up north with me.”

  “You sayin’ it wrong, sir.”

  I didn’t know what I was doing. Roka looked at me as if I had given a death threat. I still couldn’t lift my gaze from the floor, but I spoke desperately. The desire for redemption, no matter what form it took, was too strong for me to ignore.

  Reverend Lewis’ face went blank, and then the red began to come back to his cheeks. I could hear the tremble in his voice.

  “What?”

  “You...you sayin’...it wrong...sir. My name’s Da Nig...Da Nig...”

  I couldn’t get the name out. My mouth refused to release it. And there was only one other name I could think of. “My name’s Moses, sir.”

  I knew what was coming. Quickly, I turned to Roka, looked him dead in the eye, and shook my head.

  “No...”

  That was the only word I could get out before Reverend Lewis’ boot came down across my face without warning. Unable to cover my mouth and nose, I fell back onto the bed and let the blood gush from my face. Reverend Lewis dove quickly on top of me and wrapped his hands around my throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roka twitch, and I gagged out one word before Reverend Lewis’ hands cut my air off completely.

  “No...!”

  I began suffocating.

  “You listen good, you dumb nigger...I don’t give a damn what your name is! You ever talk to me like that again and I’ll burn you alive myself! You think you’re something special because of where you come from? A nigger’s a nigger! You proved that just now. It doesn’t matter how far you go in the future, a nigger will always be a nigger!”

  He let go of my throat and sat on top of me as I coughed and choked. He cocked back his hand to hit me again, but a large commotion started outside of the hut. Horse hooves and men’s voices filled the air, and Reverend Lewis jumped off of me to see what was happening. Roka, fearing the worst, immediately picked me up and carried me to the back shadows of the room.

  Reverend Lewis stepped outside to a mob of about fifteen white men. Each one of them had probably endured a hard days’ work and smelled of the slaves they had beaten in the daylight hours. I managed to raise myself and look out the window as best I could. The night sky was lit up by their torches, and the thick rope wrapped around Bradley’s arm seemed to catch the light and shine brightly. The overseer led the pack with a determined countenance, and as soon as he saw Reverend Lewis, he lowered the barrel of his rifle.

  The fourteen men behind him went quiet, and the silence seemed to last an eternity before one of the men in the mob yelled out to break it.

  “We s’posed to be killin’ that nigger, Bradley! Why you got the gun aimed at the Reverend?”

  “Shut up!” Bradley called back behind him, and the man shut his mouth.

  “I come for my nigger,” Bradley said matter-of-factly.

  “He’s my nigger now,” Reverend Lewis replied just as assuredly.

  “Either I takes ’im with me or we hangs ’im tonight, but you ain’t gettin’ ’im. I kill you where you stand before I let that happen.”

  “You can’t shoot me, Bradley. You can’t shoot me because you know who I am, and you know who you are. One of these men behind you would probably shoot you before you even got in to grab the nigger. So why don’t you put the gun down? We both know you aren’t fooling anyone.”

  “You can’t shoot the Reveren,’ Bradley!” another one of the men behind him called out.

  “Shut up!”

  Bradley kept the gun trained for another thirty seconds, and then raised the barrel and shot into the air. “Goddamn you!” he screamed out as he fired.

  Reverend Lewis looked contently at Bradley, and waited for him to lower his gun completely before he spoke again.

  “Now, here’s what’s going to happen,” the man of the cloth said, loud enough for the whole mob to hear. “None of you are going to lay a hand on that nigger in there. He belongs to me now.”

  “Hell he does!” Bradley screamed out.

  “Would you like to go and discuss the matter with Mr. Talbert? I have a feeling that after I make my offer, he’ll see things my way.”

  Bradley’s head looked as if it was seconds away from exploding.

  “Like I said,” Reverend Lewis continued, “he belongs to me now. He is not to be touched. I’m taking him back north with me just as soon as the next train leaves out.”

  “Reverend,” another man from the mob said. “Hopes you don’t much mind me askin’, but why you so fond a this here nigger? We comes up here to kill ’im before he heal on up and destroy the whole town. We gots wives and chirren, and ain’t nobody safe till that ape nigger’s dead.”

  The church leader spoke as if he was bored with the conversation. “I know all about your superstitions, gentlemen. I assure you they aren’t true. Bradley here has been feeding you all lies. You want the real truth? The real truth is that my colleagues up north are worried about these niggers getting too much power if we end slavery—and what I’ve got in there is proof that no matter what, niggers will never be the kind of force that my colleagues worry about. It’s just not in their genetics, nor will it ever be. It’s impossible. And that nigger in there proves it. I don’t imagine any of you know the political implications of proving that we can both civilize and industrialize our entire nation by ending slavery, and not worry about the niggers gaining unwanted power?”

  The men in the mob turned and looked at each other for a translation of what had just been said. When no one said anything, Reverend Lewis nodded his head.

  “That’s what I thought. Bradley, I’m on my way to see Talbert. If anything happens to that nigger, I’ll see to it that you are hung with the same rope you have around your shoulders. Good evening, gentlemen.”

  Reverend Lewis tipped his hat at the mob, and walked away whistling. The high-pitched noise echoed off of the trees even after he was out of sight.

  Fifteen men sat on their horses out in front of Aunt Sarah’s hut, looking around trying to figure out what to do.

  “It’s up to you, Bradley,” the same one who had questioned Reverend Lewis said. “You got us out here. Whatcha want us to do?”

  Bradley jumped
down from his horse and ran up to the door of the hut. He stopped just short of knocking it in, and stood still in front of it as he tried to decide between his pride and his life.

  “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  Bradley let out a scream that seemed to shake the ground. Then, slowly, he turned back to the mob of men he had brought with him.

  “Y’all go on home,” he said with defeat in his tone. “Jus’ go on home.”

  One by one, the men directed their horses away from Aunt Sarah’s place, and rode off into the moonlight. Bradley was the last to leave. His horse trotted slowly as its rider swallowed his humiliation once again.

  Roka and I heard everything, and the knowledge that a group of men had come to kill me settled itself into my bones. I didn’t know if I’d ever sleep again.

  Minutes passed after Bradley’s horse left, and I assumed that I was safe for now. Just as Roka started to take me back over to the bed, the door to the hut flew open again. He dropped me down to the floor and stood in front of me, trying to protect me from whatever it was that had invaded the space.

  This is it, I thought to myself. They’ve come back to kill me. This is it.

  A figure stopped in front of Roka. It held a tiny candle, and used it to light a larger one that illuminated the room.

  “Auntie Sarah say da white folks is gone. Says y’all come over to da cabin now.”

  I looked at the face in front of me and stopped blinking.

  “SaTia...?”

  I moved my right shoulder enough to loosen the tie on the sling, and used the free fingers from my left hand to pull it completely off. The pain was harsh, but unimportant, and Roka stood amazed as I reached out to her with my formerly incapacitated hand, letting it float in eternity.

  12

  She hadn’t changed much. She still had the same beautiful brown skin, absent the artificial glow of makeup and moisturizers. The dirt on her face seemed to have scrubbed all her pretenses away. She stood in front of me pure, like a kindergartener in a grown woman’s body. As she always did, if there was something serious going, she pressed her lips together.