Looking to the dark clouds in the distance, before looking back up at his father, Timothy asked, “Rain?”
Rain. Paul sat at the dinner table later that night staring at Timothy. As evening surrounded them, he looked at his son with the candles giving off only enough light to see him, and so shadows swayed on all of their faces, and the eyes of the servants glowed. Would it have been astute to point out that the expanse of the land itself—which stretched from river to woods, from sunup to sundown—was living proof of his righteousness? That ownership was assuredly confirmation?
Of what?
Of things being precisely the way they were supposed to be.
Timothy ate delicately as Paul watched. Maybe Ruth was right. Maybe his education should have been here, in the bosom, if not of Abraham, then of Elizabeth, where his hands, like Paul’s hands, could know the soil so that they need not ever touch it again. Timothy, instead, spoke of bitter winters the likes of which Mississippi couldn’t imagine; of righteous men who spoke eloquently of liberty; and of niggers unchained, of which he had heard, but hadn’t seen.
He had cultivated the most curious art form, and Paul was, in spite of himself, impressed by the divine hand his son showed. But that was just it: there was no mention of God. And there was no veil upon him that might have evinced contemplation of such matters. The North had done its job, perhaps too well.
As everyone had left the table and the slaves had cleaned it, Paul sat in his chair. Something had kept him there and he tried to determine what it was. He hadn’t, this time, remarked on where Maggie placed the cutlery. He paid no special attention to the tablecloth or its rigid corners. He said nothing when, while chewing, he bit into something hard—like a bone, but burned and circular, in the fowl that Maggie and Essie had jointly placed before him. He had carved it himself, so he had no one but himself to blame.
And yet, he didn’t want to move. He sat there as candlelight had become dimmer and dimmer still. He rubbed his eyes. He pulled his watch out of his pocket. It was attached to his waistband by a gold chain. It was only eight o’clock. He wasn’t tired but had no desire to get up.
When it came, it came from somewhere unexpected. It started not in the cave of his chest, as he imagined it would, but in the pit of his stomach. A rumbling had just begun to form as he clutched himself. The feeling was familiar. He wondered if he would make it to the outhouse in time or if he would have to call Maggie in with a bedpan. How unseemly to have to unfasten one’s britches in one’s dining place, ass exposed in the same room where one feasts, the two scents mixing in unfriendly ways such that one might be unable to separate them ever again. No, he couldn’t do that.
He managed to get up from the table. He rushed into the kitchen, past Maggie—who didn’t look at him, but bent her head as she was supposed to—and past Essie, whose back was facing him, taking the lantern they lit so that they could make quicker work of cleaning, making his way to the back of the house. He burst through the door, bounded down the steps and rushed to the left of Ruth’s garden, to the solitary red outhouse in the cusp of trees.
It was thin and shocking set against the backdrop of the wilderness. He had it built there, far enough away from the house that the odor didn’t overwhelm. Not too far from the flowers so that they, too, could be the arbitration between what stank and what bloomed. He burst into it and closed the door behind him. He put the lantern down. The smell in that summer air, the insects that buzzed and clicked; he didn’t bother to check for snakes because there was no time. He couldn’t get his trousers down fast enough as the suspenders took too long to unfasten. When he felt the warmth begin to slide down his leg, he nearly took the Lord’s name in vain. Though he was sure vanity had nothing to do with it.
“Maggie! Maggie!” Paul cried.
She arrived not as quick as he would have it. She knocked on the red door.
“Massa? You call for me?” she asked, holding another lantern up.
“Did you bring a cloth?”
“No, suh. You need a cloth, suh?”
“I wouldn’t have called you if . . . never mind. Hurry and get one. Send Essie if you can’t move quickly. Go!”
After a moment, Essie knocked on the door.
“Massa, I has the cloth Maggie sent . . .”
Paul opened the door and saw her lantern first. “Yes, yes. Now give it here.”
Paul grabbed the cloth and it was dry.
“Where . . . this . . . no water. You didn’t wet this? Where is my bowl with water?”
“Oh, you wanted water, too, Massa?” Essie put her hand to her mouth. “Maggie said you only asked for a cloth. So that’s what I did. I hurried and brought you this cloth.”
“Blasted!” Paul exclaimed. “Maggie! Call Maggie. Maggie!”
“Maggie!” Essie joined in.
Maggie returned.
“Maggie, get me a bowl of water immediately. And another pair of britches. And be hasty about it. “Essie, here.” Paul took off his pants, suspenders dangling from them. “Go and tend to these. Make sure you wash them thoroughly.”
Maggie looked back. She and Essie glanced at each other. “Yessuh,” Essie said, as she walked off holding the pants out, away from her.
Maggie returned shortly.
“Here, suh,” she said, as she placed the bowl and her lantern down on the ground.
Paul handed her the cloth and she dipped in the warm water and handed it back to him. He looked at her with narrowed eyes and a crumpled brow.
“You don’t expect me . . .”
He stood up, turned around, his ass now at the level of Maggie’s face.
“Clean me.”
He cupped himself in front as Maggie, in upward strokes, like one would with a baby, wiped his bottom, and the muddy stream down his leg, shiny in the lantern light. When she was done, she threw the soiled rag into the bowl and handed Paul the trousers.
“Where are my suspenders?” he asked, as he pulled the pants up, which were spacious around his waist and wouldn’t remain up.
“Massa, suh, I reckon you gave them to Essie for cleaning?”
“Dang it!” Paul shouted. “Move,” he continued as he pushed past Maggie and stomped his way back into the house, holding his pants by their uppermost edge so they wouldn’t fall down around his ankles.
He wanted to blame them. So he had them stand there in the kitchen as he walked back and forth, looking at them as though it were they, not he, whose words weren’t clear and thus left open to interpretation. He would have the doctor to visit and give him something for his stomach—a soothing tea, a healing rub perhaps. He had run out of both since the last time. He looked at Maggie and Essie. Their heads were bent, but they were holding hands.
“Stop that,” Paul snapped, pointing to where their hands were cupped. They released. “Heh,” he spat. “I like to beat you both where you stand,” he said as he paced. He looked them up and down in their twin white dresses, in their twin black skins, though one taller and thicker than the other, one whose body was more familiar. “Maggie: No more cranberry sauce with dinner,” he said finally. “Or maybe it was those blasted greens; the way you spice them . . .”
Maggie nodded. “Yes, Massa,” she said, looking over at Essie quickly before returning her gaze to the floor. Then: “Oh, Massa, so sorry! Your shoe,” she continued, pointing downward.
At the tip of Paul’s black boot, a brown splotch.
“Give those to me, suh. I shine them for you,” Essie said and knelt down to take them from his feet. Maggie joined her.
Paul held on to a nearby wall as they unfastened and removed his shoes. Three lanterns lined up on the floor gave them all a warm glow. He liked Maggie and Essie there, stooped, crawling around at his feet. But there was something odd: They were both kneeling, clearly. But briefly, for just a blink, he could have sworn it was they who were standing.
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And that it was he who was on his knees.
* * *
—
“Yes, Cousin. I do need a drink,” Paul said after James asked.
He and James left the cotton sacks to James’s men, walked over to the barn, climbed atop the horses, led to them by one of the niggers who had performed all of his duties well, save one. And just a moment before, Jesus was offered as a possible solution for that by another nigger, the lot of whom was so low and insignificant beneath Jesus’s consideration that it made even James laugh. But it made Paul think.
They rode on down the rigid and dusty trail. Evening sounds of birds, and cicada, which had claimed the gloaming as theirs, emanated from either side of them and also above. That’s what the trees were for, Paul thought, to shelter and to fortify. They were the breathing borders between man himself and the natural everything that Jehovah gifted to him to survey. Either could cross with some peril involved, but man, above all other creatures, had shown himself most adept at survival.
It was unusually cool, so Paul didn’t mind riding close to his cousin. Had, in fact, in that lessening light of sky and honey glow of lamp, seen the family between them. He had been told that his mother and aunt bore a striking resemblance. In this place, when all of creation was in between light and dark, Paul saw that James carried that matrilineal weight much more than he did. Despite the cranky brow, James looked like their mothers: Elizabeth and Margaret. That was why he didn’t have to do too much to verify James’s story. Kinship was clear on a subliminal level if not, at first, on an obvious one. Paul felt glad that his spiritual senses were, then, intact and led him not to turn away his flesh and blood, since all of his other relations, outside of the family he created himself, had passed—or were as good as.
Sometimes, he thought that his created family might pass, too. Ruth’s womb couldn’t catch hold at first. Might have had something to do with her youth. But soon, she gave him a son with shocking hair and piercing eyes that everyone all over town had come to see for themselves. Paul could detect the envy hidden in their voices even when he carried on about how Timothy hadn’t come into the world all shriveled up like most babes, no. He came into the world not unlike Christ, with ringed blessings above his head and the cornflower vision to see into the very souls of those who would ensure his passage was safe. He let out a deep and lasting cry, and Paul and Ruth laughed because all of those who came before him had only whimpered before they eventually, and too quickly, returned to the dust.
Downtown Vicksburg soon appeared before them. Women in petticoats and men in wide-brimmed hats hurried about, on horses and in wagons. Store owners stood out on the porches of their businesses—the tailor, the butcher, the apothecary, the haberdasher—saying so long to their customers as they prepared to close up shop.
Paul and James rode up to the saloon. It had a gentleman in front of it. Unlike the purveyors of clothes, meat, medicine, or hats, this man was greeting his clientele; he wouldn’t be saying so long until the morning sun peeked over the eastern trees. They dismounted, Paul and James, and fastened the reins of the horses to the hitching rail. They exchanged hellos with the greeter on their way in. When they entered, they moved through a number of people, nodding their respects. They sat down at a small table near the back. When the barmaid came to them, wearing a long black dress and white apron, James smiled and ordered a dark ale; Paul a whiskey. They were silent, taking in the energy of the place, until the waitress returned with their drinks, James’s in a mug, Paul’s in a shot glass.
“So you thinking of giving him what he ask for, that nigger?” James asked, taking a swig.
Paul sniffed the whiskey. Smooth and a hint too sweet. He placed the glass back down in front of him.
“The whole question, you know, is whether a nigger can minister,” Paul said.
“Or be ministered to,” James added.
“That’s not really a question,” Paul said, recognizing that James wasn’t the biblical devotee that he was. “Even the waters curve to the word of God.” Paul shook his head. “No. But can a nigger speak honor to that word, give it its just due via the auspices of his mind?”
“I say no.” James curled his hands into fists at either side of the mug.
Paul added, “I suppose the fundamental question is does a nigger have a soul?”
James grinned. “Men greater than us been debating that since the first settlers came to this hunk o’ land. Doubt we find the answer at this table or at the bottom of these here glasses.”
James held his glass up nearer to Paul and nodded. Paul picked up his own glass, and briefly the two of them clinked their glasses together—James with a “heh” and Paul trying to find the answer in the glass James said it wasn’t in.
On the ride back, James was singing some old ship song he said he learned on his voyage over. It was a briny tune that made Paul shake his head and consider how much James, himself, needed Jesus, never mind niggers. But it also made him chuckle, which made him think about how much he still needed Him, too.
“You never really talk much about your trip. Or England. Or my aunt and uncle, for that matter,” Paul quietly noted.
James inhaled. He blew the air out through his mouth. “There’s so little I remember about my mother and father. Those paintings of Aunt Elizabeth you have in the house help me a little, though,” James looked ahead of him, lulled by the rhythm of the horse beneath him. “And what’s to say about England or the ship? All I can recall is the filth.”
Paul looked at James a moment before nodding. “I reckon so,” he said. “I reckon so.”
They reached the gates of Elizabeth. They both, still on their horses, lifted their lamps up to each other in lieu of verbalizing their good nights. Then Paul went one way and James the other. Paul dismounted and tied up his horse in front of his home rather than lead it back to the barn and have Samuel or Isaiah tend to it. Tired and a little bit dizzy from the whiskey, Paul climbed the steps, walked into the house, then up the stairs, and into his bed. He longed for Ruth, but he didn’t have the strength to take off his boots, much less venture into her room, wake her by lamplight, and wonder, in the midst of it, if she were still young enough to give Timothy a sister. Not that Timothy didn’t already have sisters, but he meant one whom he and Ruth could claim; whose skin was not tainted, not even a little; who sprang out of love, not economy.
He closed his eyes because that was the sweetest thought he could find slumber to. He smiled before the drool gathered at a corner of his mouth, the air lumbered through his nostrils, and the darkness, that he didn’t know was living, entered his room and consumed everything, even the lamplight itself.
When he coughed himself awake, golden arrows were piercing his windows because he hadn’t drawn the curtains upon stumbling in. He had one thought, above all others, on his mind: Give God His glory. Yes, then. He would share His teachings with Amos. Paul wiped his face with the back of his hand. He sat up and swung his legs around to the edge of the bed and faced the window. The brightness caused him to squint and his head pounded just a little. Despite the sting and the thumping, he smiled. James wasn’t completely right, he thought. Maybe the answer wasn’t at the bottom of one glass, or two, or three. But it could be shook loose from the mind when the ambrosia was sweet enough, by which he meant kind enough.
A few months into their study, Paul believed that it was right to provide Amos this opportunity to demonstrate, on behalf of his lot, that niggers could be more than animals. Amos’s sermons out in the tree circle had the necessary tone and tenor, and Paul had to admit that there was music in the way Amos repeated the words Paul taught him that wasn’t present even in Paul’s own pastor. But was there a hint of original thought anywhere to be found?
When Amos came to Paul crying one afternoon, right after Essie had finally given birth to the child, proving Paul right, Amos told him of white-hot dreams and spiraling. Paul i
mmediately recognized this as communion with the Holy Spirit. He didn’t understand how, after just those months and months, God decided to press his lithe and probing hand against the forehead of a nigger—and yet, even in the ecstasy of his own midnight prayers, down, down on the abiding floor, and reciting the proverbs and the psalms and the Ecclesiastes, he felt not even the slightest touch: not on the spot on the shoulder that forever gleamed with his father’s prints, and not at the center of his head. He had no choice but to nod his understanding. He wouldn’t question God’s will, for it was almighty; anyone who knew Him knew that. And there was a crown for anyone who let that knowledge be his portion.
Yes, then, he conceded. Niggers had souls. Which, in itself, introduced new troubles. If slaves had souls, if they were more than beasts over which he and every other man had godly claim, then what did it mean to punish them, and often so severely? Was their toil in the cotton fields on Paul’s behalf also the wages of his visited sin? He returned to the Word and was comforted. For God had said, plain and clear, render unto Caesar, first, and, also, slaves shall be obedient in order to one day find reparation in that exquisite cotton plantation in the sky. The clouds were evidence.
To bring things forth from the abyss was no easy task. The land had its own mind. So did niggers. Only by wresting the control either believed they had from their hands with yours—and more than hands, will—could you claim ownership over things that imagined themselves free.
From the indistinguishable masses of black-black niggerdom, Isaiah and Samuel had grown to the peak state of brawn, which is what Paul had intended, from the start, by placing them both in the toil of the barn. It wasn’t too much to impose upon them the weight of a bale of hay, which, just like cotton picking, required the back to be strong. Besides, darkie children weren’t actually children at all; niggers-in-waiting, maybe, but not children.
The plan was to multiply them through the strategic use of their seed. Matched with the right wench, every single one of the offspring would be perfectly suited for field or farm, fucking or fuel. Niggers with purpose.
The Prophets Page 25