Barely stopping for air, Terry began telling about his day—how Leticia had insulted Regina. Marco chimed in with “Good” when Terry got to the part where he’d told Akins, “Tell your girlfriend not to talk to my sister that way.” But Terry was honest. He didn’t embellish or hide his humiliation. He described how Akins knocked him to the ground, holding him there until Jerome showed up.
“But I thought there was something weird,” Terry went on. He was speaking too fast, but Marco was used to that from him. “I didn’t think Akins even saw Jerome. It seemed like Akins was reacting to me. ‘Cause I had just said, ‘Get off me,’ and pushed him, and Akins jumped right up. But Regina thought that Akins must have gotten up because Jerome came over to help. I mean…I know you haven’t seen him yet, but Jerome’s huge…”
“Yeah, you’ve told me.” Marco wasn’t following every detail of Terry’s narration, but he was gleaning enough to get the big picture. “And then what?”
“Well, he just jumped up off me like he was freaked or something…”
“Well, with a guy Jerome’s size standing over him, what do you expect?” Marco laughed.
“No, Marco,” Terry scolded, “you’re not listening. It was like Akins was…I don’t know…”
Marco stared at the boy, betraying no emotion at all. He reached for the bottle at his feet and refilled the filmy glass on the arm of his chair.
“Anyway, tonight,” Terry continued, “I was on my way here. It was my last delivery. You know, I always come here last.” Marco nodded. “You know,” Terry said sheepishly, “’cause it’s on the way home.” Marco nodded, knowing that the boy made his last stop there every Monday simply so that he could spend extra time with the old man. “So I run into Akins and Leticia again just a block from Greenway…”
“They were probably waiting for you.”
“No, they didn’t even know I worked there. Akins was probably just dealing there or something.”
“He deals? Akins deals?”
“I think so. Everyone says he does.”
“In my day,” Marco interrupted, “you couldn’t even get into that sort of business unless you knew someone or were related to someone.” He didn’t know why he was going off on this tangent, but he couldn’t stop himself. “How'd he get into it?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Anyone who wants can get into it. People you knew are all dead by now.”
Marco wanted to argue that they weren’t all dead, but instead he found himself reminiscing. He had told Terry bits and shreds about the past—his days as a loan shark—a low-level cog in a Brooklyn crime gang—a life Marco was forced to flee after an affair with the wrong woman. But that was decades ago, and Terry was basically right: Marco didn’t know much about the modern criminal world—especially in Harlem. After all, Marco hadn’t even left his apartment in years. What had begun as a forced exile had evolved into agoraphobia. Marco couldn’t make himself walk outside even if he wanted to. “Go on, kid,” he said.
So Terry went on, explaining about Akins and Leticia following him—how they had started insulting him again. “They’re trashing Gina and Jerome. Akins calls Jerome a pussy. He says Jerome is strong but not tough…”
“I’ve heard you say the same thing about Jerome.”
“Come on, Marco, will you let me tell the story?”
Marco relented, motioning for Terry to continue.
Terry exhaled with frustration before going on. “So then Akins says he’s gonna bring his piece to school and wait for Jerome and sneak up on him and blow him away…”
Marco’s neck stiffened and he squinted. “He said that?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn it. Well…well we’ve got to… you’ve got to tell someone…”
“No, Marco. You’re not letting me finish. I think I stopped him already. I…”
Marco almost did a double-take. “You hit him?”
Terry suddenly looked shy. “Well, no...”
“What’d you do?”
“I…I told him to shut up.”
Marco looked him up and down, checking for signs of a lost battle but saw none. “And what’d he do?”
“He shut up. It was weird. He just, like, stopped talking all of a sudden.” Even Terry looked puzzled as he recounted the story. “He got really stiff—like he was sleepwalking or something. Both of them did—Akins and Leticia.”
Marco stared at the boy, his eyelids twitching. “Uh huh.”
When Terry spoke next, his words came slowly and evenly, spilling from his mouth with an upward inflection at the end of each sentence. “And then I told them to get away from me.” He looked directly into Marco’s eyes. “And they did. They just turned away. It was like a magic act on TV or something, where the magician tells some guy to cluck like a chicken, and the dude just does it. They were like zombies.” He sounded more and more perplexed as he went on. “They didn’t even look scared or anything. I told them to get away—really loud—and they started moving away. So I yelled, ‘Get away,’ and they ran, and they just kept going until I couldn’t see them anymore.”
Marco sipped from his glass and swallowed without expression. He rotated the wine glass and raised it to his mouth again, gulping down the remainder. He stared into the empty glass as if searching for something. When he turned back to Terry, his glance was more sorrowful than anything else. “So they obeyed you,” he said in a monotone. “Just turned and ran off.”
“You don’t believe me,” said Terry, sounding disappointed.
Suddenly Marco was on his feet, his eyes alert and ready. He clutched Terry by his upper arm and yanked him toward the small kitchen at the rear of the sparse apartment. “Sit down here,” he ordered as he placed Terry in a metal chair at the rickety table. For a moment, Marco felt embarrassed as Terry stared down at the stained red and white checked tablecloth. The grime was so set-in that the tablecloth could never be clean. But there was no time to worry about that now. Marco needed to know something for sure.
He rummaged through the cabinet beneath the sink until he found an unopened wine bottle. Within seconds, he had pried out the cork with a corkscrew and snatched a coffee mug from the dish rack and placed the bottle and mug on the table. Then he sat down opposite Terry and stared into the boy’s eyes.
“Okay, I want you to do to me what you did to Akins.”
Terry started backing his chair away.
“No,” insisted Marco, grabbing Terry by the wrist. “Stay put, and do what I tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because…just because.” He let go of Terry’s wrist and put both of his own hands flat on the table. “Now do what you did to Akins and his girlfriend. Make me do something—something simple. Tell me to…pour a drink.”
Terry’s eyes shifted several times from the bottle to the coffee mug and then back to Marco’s creased green eyes. “Go ahead,” Marco demanded, “tell me to do it.”
Terry rolled his eyes as he said it: “Pour a drink.”
Marco just stared at him with a sour expression. “No, tell me to do it. Don’t just say the words. Order me the same way you ordered Akins to get away.”
Terry repeated the words, louder this time and with conviction, but the result was the same. The old man didn’t budge.
Marco checked his hands; they were both still firmly on the table. He took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to enjoy what he was about to do, but he felt he had no choice. “Damn it, Terry,” he snapped as he grabbed the boy’s forearms and squeezed hard.
“Hey,” Terry stuttered, frightened.
“When I tell you to do something,” said the old man, “I expect you to do it. Now tell me to pour the goddamned drink.”
Without even thinking, Terry followed the instruction. “Pour the drink,” he yelled at the old man. “Pour the goddamned drink!”
Marco’s eyes turned glassy. His face lost expression. He released Terry’s arms and took up the mug in one hand and the wine bottle in th
e other. Then he tilted the bottle, filling the mug with wine. Finally, he put the bottle and mug down, placed both hands down on the table, and stared straight ahead.
Terry jumped out of his seat and backed up until he slammed into the cupboard behind him. “Shit,” he whispered, “it worked.”
Marco could see and hear Terry. He could still feel the room around him—the bottle and mug on the table, the smell of the cheap wine, the sound of Terry’s voice—but it was as if he was a spectator, watching from afar with no control over his senses.
Terry approached him slowly and tried to make eye contact, but Marco couldn’t control his own gaze.
“Stand up,” Terry said sharply, and Marco did, but he did it in is own style. He pushed his chair backward from the stood, rose, brushed away non-existent dust from his pants, and pushed the chair back in.
“Now take the bottle and go to the sink,” Terry told him. Marco obeyed. He held the bottle over the sink, staring straight ahead into the dark blinds that covered the window. “Now pour it down the drain.”
Marco could feel the bottle turning over. He could hear the liquid exiting the bottle, sloshing through the spout, easing through the ancient pipes. What a sad, lonely sound, he thought to himself.
“Son of a bitch,” Terry whispered. “Son of a bitch.” Then he moved quickly to the door and shut it hard.
Marco could hear the apartment door close and Terry’s footsteps on the stairs, but he couldn’t quite understand what any of it meant. It was much longer before he jolted, suddenly aware of his surroundings and in control of his body.
He spun around, remembering that the door had shut and that Terry was gone. He was still holding the empty bottle, the last drops trickling downward onto the linoleum. He almost smiled at the thought of Terry forcing him to dump out the liquor. The boy was looking out for him. “Damn kid,” he mumbled as he put the bottle in the sink and ran toward the front door. Opening it, he leaned out and called Terry’s name twice. He got no response. He breathed in deeply and stepped into the hallway. His face reddened as he took another step. And another. Soon, he was standing at the top of the stairs that led down to the building’s entry foyer, which led to the outside world.
He gripped the handrail and extended one foot over the second step. Just go, he told himself. It’s just eleven steps and then you’re there. You’ve counted them enough times. Then his foot started quivering. His leg picked up the motion. He felt a pain in his stomach. His heart was rushing. He had to place a second hand on the railing just to keep his balance. “Damn it,” he called aloud as he backed up toward the open door to his apartment, holding a palm against the wall for support. Once inside, he locked the door and leaned back against it as he caught his breath.
Within a minute, the nausea had passed. He was back inside—in his own home. He was safe. He retrieved the phone and sat in his easy chair, cradling the phone in his lap for nearly a minute before sighing and lifting the receiver. He dialed the number from memory, watching the old rotary phone click and whirr with each number. He waited for the hello on the other end before speaking. “It’s me,” he said. A pause. “You were wrong. It’s not just the women.”
Thirteen
“Arise and shine,” Harry says, gesturing with his hand for me to climb from the bed.
It’s my first morning on the plantation. Oddly, I have slept well. I peel away the frayed little blanket that covers me, wondering how it got there. My body creaks as I rise to my feet and try to remind myself that I am sixteen years old; I only feel like I’m ninety.
In the daylight, Harry looks more youthful than he did last night when he led me to this shack. He’s quite fit for a man in his sixties, perhaps the only benefit of a lifetime of slave labor. When I stand and face him, he stares at my African garb, which covers little. He turns away, embarrassed, and tosses me a pair of pants and a shirt.
“You’re a tobacco-farmer now,” Harry tells me, “so you better start dressing like one.” A gentleman, he keeps his back to me while I change into the musty, gray clothing. “One of the women says that was the outfit of a queen you was wearing.” He paused, waiting for me to respond. I don’t, so he goes on. “She came off a boat, too, but that was about thirty years back when she was just a child. She says she can barely even remember it now, like a dream.” He sighs as if he’s amused, but I know he isn’t. He doesn’t even suspect that I understand any of what he’s saying. He’s speaking to me to offer human contact of some kind. “She’s the only other one here who came off a boat. I don’t know from Africa. I was born right here in North Carolina. But I’ll tell you one thing you better learn right now: princess don’t mean nothing here. The only royalty here is Mas’r Van Owen. The sooner you accept that, the better. Now let me hear you say it,” he tells me, his back still to me as he opens the door, letting in the rising sun. “Let me hear you say ‘Mas’r Van Owen’.”
“Master Van Owen,” I say quickly, and Harry spins back around to look at me, stunned that I have understood and responded so quickly and so clearly. I return his glance as if I have no idea I’ve done anything special, as if I’m just mimicking.
I don’t speak English to the other slaves for some time after that. I don’t want to scare them; they wouldn’t understand how an African just off the boat can speak English as well as their master does—with a Southern accent no less. So I let them teach me the language. I follow them into the fields, where they train me in skills I already know, such as how to pick tobacco for curing. I pretend that it’s new to me, though my visions, like memories, have instructed me in knowledge that I won’t have for months or years. I point randomly at objects and stare inquisitively until someone says “tree” or “water” or “chicken.” Then I nod as if I’ve just learned the words, as if I’m collecting them in my mind like tobacco in a barrel.
Kneel. Bend. Reach. Stab. Twist. Snap. Drop.
Repeat.
These are the most essential instructions. I spear row after row of tobacco with a stick, twisting and breaking the leaves at the root of the stem, feeling the calluses form across my palms. I lay the stick into the barrel, take up another one, and start again. Once a barrel is full, Harry or one of the other older men comes along with a donkey to tote or roll it back to the barn, where they spray it with ammonia and hang it. They don’t know why, but I do. Ammonia triggers the nicotine, making it more potent, making the smoker more addicted. Sometimes, in my mind, I can see the cigarette vending machines that will sprout up across this country decades from now, spewing out the poison—from plants just like these—that will cause the deaths of millions. For now, though, I find that I actually enjoy the scent of the fresh leaves. The aroma is both acrid and sweet at the same time. It’s the scent I associate with America, a pleasant scent masking an insidious danger.
Harry is in charge of all slaves. They rarely just call him Harry, though; he’s always “Mister Harry.” He spent decades toiling in the field and proving his loyalty to his master, so now he’s the head slave. He doles out the work assignments, the food, and even the punishments. One spirited young slave, Sam, who is my age and was born here on the plantation, likes to brag about how well he took a “whupping” from Harry just a few months ago. Sam had pocketed some tobacco leaves and, stupidly, tried to smoke them at night after the plantation had gone to sleep. He stole out of his quarters behind the chicken coop, rolled the tobacco into a ball and stuffed it into a pipe he’d made from an apple core. Then, seated on a hay bale, he leaned back against a tobacco barrel and struck a match. He didn’t even have a chance to inhale. The flame illuminated the sealed-off area, revealing the faces of Harry, Van Owen, and two white guardsmen, who stood only yards away.
“You were correct, gentlemen,” Van Owen said to one guard. “Sam was planning on taking a smoke tonight with my tobacco.”
Sam didn’t struggle as the white guards led him out to an oak tree behind the horse barn. As he tells the story, Sam makes it sound as if he was cocky, but I can tell
he feared they’d kill him. The white men tied him to a tree with his chest facing it.
“Five lashes, Mister Harry,” Van Owen commanded. “That should be enough. Wouldn’t you agree, Sam?”
“Yes, Mas’r Van Owen,” Sam answered. “That’ll be enough. I won’t do it again.”
“No, Sam,” Van Owen told him, “next time you’ll probably do worse.”
Then Harry counted twenty paces and turned toward his target and followed his master’s orders.
“And I didn’t cry out once,” Sam tells us. “Not even once. Mister Harry was swinging with all his might. You must o’ all heard that whip…”
His mother, Norma, always defends Harry, though. After hours of instructing me in the finer points of stripping the leaves from the vines, she stands up from her bucket of tobacco and wags her finger in her son’s face: “If Mister Harry had swung with all his might, you’d have been in bed for weeks, not days. Mister Harry may be old now, but he’s still the strongest man on this farm.”
Van Owen is off conferring somewhere with his Confederate comrades, planning their new union. He might be away for weeks. They say he makes periodic announcements to his slaves, informing them of the political happenings and warning them to behave in his absences. They act as if he cares about them. More than once, Harry tells me what a good master Van Owen is—a churchgoer—and what a good man he is. “Must be six years ago, I got thrown from a horse,” Harry says. “Master Van Owen comes running full speed from the house. He was watching from the window, saw the whole thing. Master picks me up in his arms like I’m a baby, carries me to his wagon, and drives me into town himself to see the doctor.”
Sure, I think to myself, he wants his head slave healthy to keep the others in line. He didn’t show you any kindness. He was just protecting his investments. But I don’t say a word. I just turn away.
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