I breathe relieved, glad Ondrea the one told ‘a she on the walk home.
Over took with what she done, or that Miemay dying, more tears stream down Ondrea’s face, which she try to catch fore they fall.
“It’s all ova nah,” Miemay say, satisfied and staring into Ondrea’s eyes trying to comfort ‘a.
Ondrea keep fighting what’s already done. When she cain’t stop ‘aself, she storm out the room slamming the door. “Jet! She done tricked me into tellin ‘a,” we hear Ondrea tell ‘a husband before breaking into loud sobs. Sound like she crying in his chest.
Chapter Three
AIN DEAD YET
“Come on nah, cetch mah hand, Linay.” Miemay holding a hand out while she stirring, trying to push ‘aself up from the bed.
I stop reading and rush to ‘a side, pull ‘a up to sitting position.
“Wooo,” she breathe out hard, looking at me like it’s the first time she seen me before. “Ya strong gull,” she heaving, “as a ox.”
“Don’t talk, Mama Bird,” I tell ‘a concerned.
She fan off the warning, keep on coming.
I realize she getting up. Iain spect this so I’m clinging to ‘a, trying to go with ‘a movements. See where she trying to go.
Leaning on me, she scooting to the edge of the bed, pull the cover from ‘a legs, place ‘a feet on the wood floor then tap me.
I pulls ‘a up on ‘a feet. Hold ‘a real close, in a tight hug, case she fall.
She a tree though, she don’t waiver, she push me away.
I let go slow, then move back looking at ‘a.
She put ‘a hand on my shoulder, steady ‘aself. It’s like we doing a dance, every step she take forward, I take one back.
“Tied of layin down. Gotta walk round,” she say stubbornly, taking a step, while both us wait to make sure her strength don’t fail.
I can already hear Daddy nem scolding me bout how I do whatever she say, and not what’s right. Doctor say, she spose to be laying down. Ever since the doctor told us she had a few months to live, we don’t never leave ‘a by ‘aself. That’s been over year now. So, like I told ‘a then, don’t nobody but God know.
I’m here the most, cause it’s my second home. Plus, I’m the only woman my age ain’t got no man, kids or home to look after. Iain been in the fields much. I cleans up round here, cooks ‘a meals. I even sleep here when other women come stay, case something happen. Somebody be here while I go get help.
“Woncho stick?” I offer her cane. My heart beating so fast, I’m nervous she gone fall. I think of all the ways she could hurt something if she fall between the bed and the wall. Every step she take closer to me, and out of that trap the betta I feel.
Iain never been ‘lowd to watch nobody die. I knowed people that have, but this new to me. Everybody say I’m too young to be here, walking ‘a home, but she say she wont me here.
It’s tons of children she got to do this; she had thirteen when slavery ended. Had three more by Grandpa Jim, but he died from the fever fore I was born. Miemay always say proudly, “Iain had another man since.” And when ain’t nobody round she say, she was tied of the married business too, and having to hold ‘a tongue cause she a woman.
I help Miemay out to the front porch.
She the only woman in all of Zion ever lived alone. People tried to stay with ‘a, and force folks on ‘a, but she always make it a point to tell ’em they visiting. Sooner or later, she tell ’em they got to git. I’m the only one she ever let sleep under ‘a roof without raising sand.
Miemay definitely something else, and I love ‘a for it. She the only one ain’t asking me when I’m getting married, or who I’m sweet on all the time. Now that I’m 20 almost 21, seem that’s all folks talk to me about. By the time most girls get 22, they got 4 or 5 children. Guess that’s cause that’s all it is to do here in Zion, get married, raise a house and fill it with children. Iain got no desire to lay with no man or carry his kids.
After we sitting on the porch for a minute she use ‘a cane to get up. I catch all the weight she gimme then walk with ‘a. I help ‘a down the three steps in the front of ‘a house. We walk round, look at the other house they spose to be building. The frame up, and the floors laid but it’s naked. Lumber and stuff in the barn, but nobody come to work on it no more.
When David and Zachariah first came back from Tuskegee, they got assigned projects to do since they know bout farming and building things better than anybody else. Zion a town of about two thousand niggers that stayed after slavery. Some of us are artisans, draymen, carpenters, seamstress, blacksmiths, mechanics, builders and field hands. So everybody and everything we need right here. Everybody can do a little bit of everything.
All the women learn to sew and cook enough to take care of they families. Miemay joke, say the women of Zion done made enough dresses to bury and marry half the world. All the men show up to raise houses for new families, I go too. All the other women meet for quilting circles to make drapes, sheets and all the other linen needed. Sometimes, I do quilting circles too.
Zion ain’t the kind of town you can move to, you either born here or marry into it. I could name everybody here, and tell how we related cause all of Zion made up of seven plantations; Neville, Remington, Belanger, Atwell, Beaumont, Kendall, and Harper. I won’t though, that would take all day. We our own world, don’t need much from outside, got our own livestock and grow almost anything you could think to eat.
With the railroad coming through, we ship to the other towns and cities round us. Niggas working in neighboring towns or travelling on the railroad come to our little town for supplies and to stay at our hotel. This the only place niggas can stay for miles.
We live pretty good our parents keep telling us, compared to other niggas, compared to old times. We got our own store, school, church, paper mill, post office, cotton gin, hotel, barbershop and a little paper the church put out. Plus we own the land we living on. Doing better than a lot of poor whites, too.
It’s a town called Dewey bout 15 miles southwest pass Kendall, it’s all poor whites. Folks say they got hit the hardest by the war, cause they was overseers and workers when it broke out. More of them went to fight, and got killed, or maimed. So they hate us here in Zion.
They say we take all the jobs cause white folks hire us over them. But white folks won’t pay us like they do other white folks. And for the little they pay, we work harder without complaining. Then, white women think it’s nigga work to be wet nurses, cooks and maids. Sometimes I think them folks in Dewey gone stay poor. That’s why they always looking for a reason to hang one of us, or set fire to something here in Zion. So Miemay taught us to always let on like we ain doing so good, specially when we selling our goods in Dewey.
Since we surrounded by the seven plantations, and our grandparents were owned by they owners, that keeps them folks from Dewey and the Klan out of Zion. Been a few years since they hung somebody out of Zion, but they always hanging somebody.
Some of the women still working in the houses round here for a lil nothing as wet nurses, maids and such. The men fix things, work the land and do what they can, otherwise we stay to ourselves. Don’t travel at odd times of the night, less folks sneaking to Uncle Lucius place, he make it a shine house some nights. We don’t allow no trouble makers to rile us up, don’t get into no politics and just work hard on our little town.
Everything in Zion shared in a way. We share the work and the profit from the land. We all help each other out with meeting the crop deadlines. Specially when it rains a lot and folks get behind. It’s a Planter’s Calendar at church and that’s how we know who growing what and if they need help.
Miemay ain’t tied into Zion like most folks. Grandpa Jim bought some land before the Freedmen Bureau parceled out land. So she own tenant properties with sharecroppers on ’em and Zion’s town store. Since she own so much land, and the store- her voice just as important as all the business men’s voices in Zion, so she have to have a say i
n everything.
For Miemay not to know how to read, she sho know how to add and run ‘a business. Them sharecroppers ain’t making enough money to pay ‘a nothing really, so she stock the store with some of they crop and buy whatever they don’t grow from Zion. Iain never seen ‘a work in that store. One of ‘a children always there, usually one of the boys. For the last few years she been having me do the books and order things. She sell special stuff there too, roots and herb medicine.
They lynch strangers, what they call trouble makers. Only stranger ever come to Zion white folks like was this man Booker T. Washington. Niggas say he spoke for niggas to the president, so it was an honor when he came to speak at our church.
Folks was beaming when he said, “Zion is a shining example of what Negroes could be if we use our resources.” He’s the reason when we can, Zion send some of the boys to Tuskegee to learn how to make the town better.
In fact, he just died last November. Some of the men went up to a ceremony dedicated to him at Tuskegee to pay they respects. When they came back, all they talked about is how nice the niggas’ houses were on campus and in the area.
We’d already built a new hotel, church, school, and store fore they left, cause those is the center of Zion. Then we built David and Zachariah nem’s family a house, they mama was so happy. Then David got married, so we built him a house. Then Zachariah built him a house even though he ain’t got no family. They been teaching us how to lay wiring and install plumbing.
All the houses got to be rebuilt here in Zion, cause these log cabins ain’t made for plumbing. We use to fix up the cabins, til we got new tasks and schedules what we work round the crop schedule. The new schedule say, we spose to build at least three new houses a year.
Miemay ask for a new house next, and they grumble bout it cause she older and don’t let nobody live with ‘a, and ‘a kids grown. All they could think about is how much they needed electricity, or how tied they is of using outhouses. Still, they started ‘a new house but something else always seem more important.
After Washington’s memorial, the men came back with a new wind, and we got back on building Miemay house for a while. Then she sick again.
And ever since spring, when Germany sunk the Lusitania, there’s been talk of war. President Wilson is up for re-election next year. He built a whole platform on the fact that he kept us out of war. Still, there are rumors bout arms factories hiring groves of niggas. We don’t know if America preparing for war, or just supporting the side she wont to win with supplies.
Another rumor going round say, the Lusitania was carrying ammunition. So Zion’s men been getting they own affairs in order, in case they have to go overseas and fight.
I work on Miemay’s house all the time, what I know how to do by myself. My brother Isaiah come help when he mad, and need space from his wife. Most of the men come help like that too, to get away in the middle of the week.
Spose to have five bedrooms, two bathrooms, look like any white person’s house. Raised up high off the ground so when it rain a lot, it don’t flood. Miemay ordered the pieces for the house out of the Sears catalog. Then a kit came on the railroad with all the parts.
Miemay say she want two floors like the houses they showed ‘a in the picture. It’s a beautiful sound house too, specially since we made all the mistakes on the first buildings, and this one came with instructions. Once we get started everybody pleased; it’s the biggest and best house in Zion now.
The day is nice, a cool breeze chasing all the heat away.
Uncle Joseph and Auntie Eartha, David and Zachariah’s folks, told Miemay to come stay with them cause they got ceiling fans. Say it’s too hot to be in ‘a cabin. She tell them to hurry up and finish ‘a house, and she won’t need to stay with nobody else. Miemay love ‘a cabin, I cain’t imagine ‘a ever leaving it, even when this house done, but she say she will.
Finally, we get in front of her new house. Miemay just stand in front of it, with ‘a face sour. Then look up at the sky, like she specting rain.
I don’t say nothing, just marvel at how big and beautiful her house is.
What culla youa paint dis house?” she ask, looking down all sad, and I’m thinking she might be scared she gone die fore she sleep a night in it.
“Want to sneak over here and sleep a night?” I smile, goosing ‘a.
She jump and slap my hand away. She hate being tickled.
I look at the house for a long time, think about paint colors. All the other new houses in Zion white. I think about that picture of a house, it’s all black and white, so any light color would look white. Then I realize Ion know what color that house is.
Then I think about some of the houses I done seen when I go with Daddy to sell our crops. “A nice soft tan. Keep some of the white and get you some dark brown shudders, or maybe even dark red, match that brick round the bottom. Be real nice.” I smile, proud of my suggestions, knowing it'll be nice, like this house I seen in Greenville.
“Humph!” She look at it, with a twinkle in ‘a eye and I know she can see it too. Us just stand there and think about how nice it’s gone be. Then ‘a face fall.
So I say, “But what I know, Iain never had no house, and Iain never gone have one neither, less I get married.” I’m getting grounded by the thought of being with Mama and Daddy for the rest of my life. I’m running from my thoughts, so I say, “Ion wont no husband.”
“Gittin marred ain’t nothin,” Miemay huffs, seeming to catch my sadness and dispute it.
After we standing there a while, I look round for somewhere for ‘a to sit. I get nervous, cause folks been talking bout how she going any day now. She look tired to me, but I don’t know nothing bout dying cept what I hear.
My aunts say one day was a good day or another day was bad for ‘a. They all seem the same to me. She almost ninety-six. So Ion spect she gone get along like she use to, but it don’t mean she won’t live to be a hundred.
“They ain fix dis house,” Miemay comment bitterly, then look around. “Wait’n fa me ta die, I spect,” she spit, then raise a cane pointing at the truck. “Tek me round ta dat chuch.”
Since Miemay sick, they leave a truck here with me most times, case something happen. I’m the only woman know how to drive. That’s why I’m always here, too, cause if not, when other women come to visit, they husbands would have to stay, too.
The church the center of Zion, everything happens there. Somebody always there. Use to be a school, Monday through Friday. We have all our town meetings and things there. Use to have dances there, too. Til somebody said it ain’t right dancing in the Lord’s house. Then they stopped doing the monthly dances and just do formals at the hotel. Don’t matter much, Uncle Lucius jug joint take up the slack.
***
When we get to the church, it’s quiet. Then I see my cousin off in the distance with his shirt off, wiping his forehead. When he look down, he jump, then disappear in the ground.
“Tek me ova thur,” Miemay say, looking in the same direction.
We take slow steps, and my heart beating again. When my cousins tell everybody I had ‘a out here in this heat, and she spose to be dying, Lord knows what they gone say to me.
I hear scraping and see dirt coming up from the ground. The closer I get the more I see the hole.
“Who grave ya diggin?” Miemay ask right smartly, leaning on ‘a cane glaring at ’em in the hole. You’da thought Abner, Joseph and Thomas seent a ghost way they face fall. I turn my head, to keep from laughing in they face. “What wrong witcha, boy? Aincha hear me talk’n ta yah?”
“Uh… um… see… we,” Abner stutters, looking round at his brothers, like they holding some words for ’im to collect.
Miemay stare at ’im, in the eyes, and he swallow whatever lie he bout to tell. Now, I’m feeling nosey and wont to know too.
“We… um… doing what Reverend Patrick say, Miemay.”
“Is ya fool? Oh! Ya thank Miemay fool! Dat ain’t what I ax chu, boy.”
“Yall dig mah grave, but ain’t fix mah house. Gone see bout dis Sunday. Betcha won’t be dead by den,” she fuss, pointing ‘a cane at ’em.
“Wont me to take you round to his house,” I offer mad, too.
“Nah, I wont’s ta git ’im Sunday in front of dat chuch! He prolly ain eben at ‘is house,” she thinking. “Dig my damn grave an Iain dead,” she say under ‘a breath. She so hot she don’t even need no help back to the truck, she walking good. Miemay fuss all the way home bout them not fixing ‘a house, but digging ‘a grave.
I don’t say nothing, I hardly ever say anything just think a lot.
***
Cause Miemay say she don’t want to sit there all day with folks rather see ‘a dead than in ‘a new house, I take ‘a to church when service almost over. When we walk in, the church get quiet, all eyes is on us. We both wearing pants. Women wear dresses everywhere here, even in the fields, so us wearing pants to church really ain’t welcome.
Miemay been wearing pants since I can remember. When I started staying at ‘a house all the time, she fixed me a pair. Mama and Daddy protested, but it don’t make no never mind. She told ’em she got work for me to do cain’t be done in a dress.
I love wearing pants. Like all the women in Zion I sew too, so I’m always making me and Miemay a pair of pants. Now, we all washed up and greased for service in our nice pants.
Reverend Patrick lifts his hand to welcome us. Miemay don’t come to church for nothing but weddings, funerals and town meetings. Since I been taking care of ‘a, I don’t come much neither. Til Mama realize I ain’t been in a while, so she send one of my sisters to care for Miemay. They always complain Miemay too much to handle. So I cain’t even remember the last time I was here on a Sunday.
“Come have a seat down front,” Reverend Patrick offer, his face lighting up, while using his hand as a signal for some of the women sitting on the front row to move, and make room. This is a good day for him, he been praying for Miemay’s soul long as I can remember. Even more lately, since he think she dying.
Descendants of Hagar Page 2