Sugar Land

by tammy lynne stoner

  I don’t remember clocking out or walking into the sun.

  I clicked back in on the tiny sidewalk leading into my shanty. In a numb daze, I walked inside, wrapped up the trash, and fed the stray cats who stopped by for dinner. I pulled out a dozen cookies I’d made a few days before and ate every single one of them. They made me feel better, as if I was replacing the anxiety in my stomach with something solid.

  That night, for the first time in memory, I locked my front door and checked every window, putting sticks up where the locks didn’t work. I kept all my clothes on in case I needed to run—in case the head cook came to my house. I reassured myself with the memory of how fast I’d run down Old Spider Road with Rhodie to escape the killer chasing us. I slept with my finger on the trigger of my rifle, who I called Dead Eye. The rifle that could shoot a tin can off a fence at a hundred paces. I’d shoot him in the guts and the crotch and the face, I said to myself over and over again, like a prayer. Guts, crotch, face.

  Then I lay there, forcing myself not to cry, until morning.

  DOING WHAT YOU CAN

  At every mealtime, I searched the cafeteria for Huddie. Folks say that after three days in the Box you start seeing things. If you are in for more than five days, they say a part of you dies in there—you leave some piece of your mind or your soul behind. It’d been eight days.

  Sometimes, I’d look out when I was working, and I’d see the silhouettes of inmates who’d failed to reach their quota of cotton or sugarcane standing on a barrel right near the Box—two hours on and one hour off. If you lost your balance, your time started over. I hoped they talked to Huddie, but I doubted it, given their situation.

  I wondered how he would recover from that long in the Box. Beyond that, I knew he’d be weakened by the time he’d be released, so how could he reach his quotas? And if he didn’t, how could he withstand the barrel or the whip—or God forbid, the bat—and be ready to get up and try again the next day?

  On the seventeenth day, Huddie finally came into the cafeteria, this time at the very end of the line. His head was down, and he walked not so much with a swagger as with a limp. A kind of prison hush fell as he came in. Huddie gimped through the food procession.

  When he got to me, I saw he had a fading shiner and a giant split on his lip that opened up like the skin on pudding. My eyes popped wide, but I didn’t say anything.

  He whispered through the bars, “It’s gonna be fine” but I could see it was forced. His rage was just on the edges, making the egg whites of his eyes wiggle on hot grease. He looked crazy with it.

  My chest burned for him, but I was trapped there, helpless to do anything to make him feel better. I looked down at my tin of dry cornbread, same thing they got each day. When I saw Huddie that way, I did the only thing I could do and snuck him an extra spoonful of margarine.

  MUSIC IN TRAPS

  A month or so passed without any personal interaction with the head cook, who sauntered by me without looking my way, as if I’d been soiled or something, which I reckon I had. I missed Huddie in the kitchen and felt deep anger at myself for having been the cause of him getting sent to the Box—a place no doubt haunted by evil spirits I could only imagine.

  I wrote to Rhodie nearly every night to keep my mind occupied with something other than guilt over Huddie and fear of the head cook, who I knew must have my home address from my work file. I wrote to Rhodie about the crows I saw fighting over a bag of Grape-Nuts, about how pretty the sunset was, and what I thought might happen if sea otters ruled the world. I told her over and over how much I loved her. I never mentioned troubles with the head cook. She was my escape—the world I kept alive, even though I had been the one to kill it.

  Then I’d burn those letters and fall asleep with my gun.

  × × ×

  As happens with all prison employees at the end of eight weeks, I met with the Warden to review my progress. I’d been tempted to bring up the head cook’s dislike of me, but to what end? There was no position for me to move to in the penitentiary; this was the only job I was qualified to do. I couldn’t leave. Going back to Midland meant going back to the place where Rhodie would be every Christmas, every spring break, every summer. I couldn’t see her or I would fall apart. If anyone found out—and they would just by the way we looked at each other, I knew it—our fate would be sealed.

  The Warden’s office had a huge desk along one wall. Four low swiveling bucket chairs were set up around the room, in no order, and a card table with boxes of poker chips on top sat in the corner. On the wall behind the desk, a pin-up calendar featuring automobiles had the words “wife lunch” marked in red every Thursday. He had a radio, too. It was similar to Beauregard’s, only there were three mesh parts in the front, each shaped like the rounded stained-glass windows you see in churches.

  “How’s your time here going then, Miss Dara?” the Warden asked after the guard who’d walked me over shut the door.

  “Good, Warden. Thank you.”

  He had the kind of barrel chest that filled out the front of his shirts—maybe he’d been in the service. “Come in, sit down. Any one of those chairs.”

  I chose the swivel chair over by his desk, assuming he would want to sit down behind his desk. It sat a bit lower than usual, but with me being a bit taller than usual, it kept me at a good height for desk-to-chair conversation.

  Instead, the Warden stood over by the windows that looked out over the endless fields. “It was my idea having you here—a woman in the kitchen. Thought it might tone down the violence some. I talked to the boys, and they say you’re doing a fine job.”

  Me thinking he must have gotten good words from Beauregard and terrible words from the head cook, and decided to not listen to the cook.

  He continued: “We didn’t know how a woman would do here, but you’re a strong one.”

  I sat there, not knowing what to say to that.

  The Warden cleared his throat. Hissing honky-tonk music sang out from his radio.

  “You worked with Huddie for a while there. One of our more colorful prisoners. Too bad he can’t keep his fists to himself. I was rooting for him in the kitchen, but he’s lost that privilege, as you know. He picked the wrong man to hit, to be sure. Just as well, since the field bosses were missing their best trusty.”

  The Warden turned back to me with a smile that made his eyes turn into quarter moons. He reminded me of Papa Bear. “Huddie’s not only one of the biggest niggers, he can keep most of the rest under control. Not easy, with all those mosquitos in the wet fields. But those Negroes are strong—once you can convince them to work—much stronger than the white prisoners. Plus, the whites aren’t usually in here as long, so they got less incentive to make friends in the fields, you see.”

  The Warden picked up a bottle of milk of magnesia from his desk and pulled back a big sip. A few strands of his hair—pieces of it almost orange from the sun—dropped forward. With one rough swoop of his hand, he pushed his hair back again over his head.

  “Huddie was a big help in the kitchen,” I said.

  “Imagine he was—big nigger like that, especially with Jackson calling in sick with his mystery fevers. That man disappears like a blue jay on Fridays when it’s hot.”

  I smiled.

  We sat there for a minute.

  “Bet Huddie misses the music we have in the kitchen,” I said.

  “I bet some of the people he hurt miss a lot more than music—bet some miss the sight of the flowers coming up and the smell of the fields and their children.”

  I looked down at the maroon carpet on the floor. “Bet you’re right.”

  The Warden put a hand on his chest and held in a belch. His wedding ring was thick and silver. He turned and looked out his office window again, over the vast brownness of the yard against the thick stalks of the fields. We watched four men in a clearing encouraging a tired mule to carry a cart of cane to the mill.

  “Music calms the beast,” I said—not sure exactly why I said that, exc
ept that the emptiness between sentences had started to make me stupid.

  The Warden walked over to his desk and sat down in his squeaky black chair. The prison-order clock on the wall behind him ticked away the seconds with a straight black hand. “I lost a guard the other day. There was a fight between three or four inmates and the guard stepped in, then one of them flung him back against the wall and his neck snapped. It can be just that fast.”

  I nodded. The ceiling fan whirled above us.

  He sighed. “But what do they care? What do they have to lose? The convict who took down my guard is in here for life. There’s nothing more to take away. You got kids?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, remember back then to you being a kid. Once you didn’t fear being hit, your parents lost their power.” He took another swig of milk of magnesia, which left a thin white line on his upper lip—me thinking that I never lost the fear of being hit. “I’m just letting my mind wander about what you said about music calming the beast.”

  He paused for quite some time. I sat still.

  “Rumor is, Miss Dara, that Huddie can play accordion and harmonica and piano and even things that aren’t musical, like spoons and buckets and dirt.”

  “Seems that’s his gift,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Maybe I can use that to give the men something they won’t want to lose.”

  With a quick slam, the Warden plopped down his milk of magnesia bottle and stood up. I followed his lead. He walked over and opened his thick wooden door.

  He turned to me. “Oh, and you getting on good here then?”

  “I am.”

  “Good,” he said, and the guard stepped up. Clearly we were done.

  The guard walked me back to the kitchen.

  × × ×

  Next thing you knew, Huddie had himself a second-hand twelve-string guitar. The whole prison was buzzing with the news. At first, most of the prisoners didn’t take too well to Huddie getting favorable treatment, but then Huddie started playing. When he played, even the weak-minded dropped it down a notch—including Old Redwood, the craziest of the crazy, who’d spend hours screaming at nothing anyone else could see.

  During the relentlessly hot days, the captains let Huddie go from section to section out in the fields, playing his guitar for the men. It soothed them. At night, the prisoners would holler out topics to Huddie—like “Thunderstorms in Louisiana” or “Cigarettes and Whiskey” or “My Pretty Linda”—and Huddie would whip them into songs.

  One day, I heard a white prisoner say in the chow line, “That boy tells deep stories about life.”

  The inmate next to him said, “He’s a nigger, Jimmy.”

  “Yeah, but he ain’t a stupid nigger.”

  When the colored inmates filed in, you could see Huddie shining with his happiness. Beyond the sheer joy of the music, that guitar also made him invincible in the prison pack—there was no way someone was going to hurt the only source of music they had. And the Warden’s thinking was right; he could threaten to take that guitar away for misbehavior. The Warden gained power back over not just Huddie, but over all the convicts.

  Huddie slid down the chow line. When he reached me, he raised his hand in front of my bars and turned it over to the pink and white of his palms to show me the bright red pads of his fingertips, whispering, “Calluses are coming!” as if he was talking about a train filled with gold.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  He nodded and hummed on down the line, me thinking that this man should not be kept in prison. A gift that powerful should not be holed up.

  When I told Beauregard my thoughts, he fiddled with his mustache and turned in the bright kitchen to look right at me. “Maybe his gift is why he should stay,” he said. “Maybe he’s here to give these men a glimpse of genius and proof of God, something every one of them could use. Besides, his playing in here is surely lifting up the Negroes. Watch the way they walk in here now, with considerably more strut.” Beauregard leaned across the counter. “Music like that is made in traps. This prison is making those songs.”

  “Maybe music is made here, but if it doesn’t get out, it’ll surely die here.”

  Beauregard turned back to wiping down his station. “You seem to know a little bit about how music lives and dies. You play?”

  “No,” I said, turning on the water, “but I know a thing or two about being trapped.”

  I turned the water off, and neither of us spoke for a minute. I wanted to tell him about Rhodie—that I had this love once and that it was beautiful—but it clearly wasn’t the kind of thing you talked about.

  “You planning a prison break to get him out?”

  “I just might,” I said.

  Beauregard looked back at me over his shoulder. “I like your style, Miss Dara.” He shook his head, smiling. “I like your style.”

  The head cook walked between us on the way to his office, carrying his clipboard as if he held the names of people who were allowed to pass through the pearly gates. “Shush. This ain’t social hour.”

  I stiffened, wondering if he was going to ask me into his office again. Beauregard noticed, and I felt him notice, but I couldn’t stop the response. He didn’t say anything.

  Later, though, he walked me to the time clock. When we were about to go our separate ways outside, he asked, “You OK?”

  I looked at him and said, “I’m fine.”

  He twirled his mustache and looked off to where the sun had just started setting. “I think we have a different definition of ‘fine.’ ”

  “I’ll let you know if I need help,” I told him, though I knew I wouldn’t for fear of reprisal against him.

  “You let me know before you need help. You hear me, Miss Dara?”

  I smiled and nodded. He lit us both a cigarette and asked me if I needed a walk home. I knew the head cook stayed an hour or so later to lock up, so it wasn’t the walk home that worried me. I worried about what would happen at 10 p.m.. I worried I might sleep too soundly and not hear him break in. I worried that I wouldn’t get him on the first shot.

  I smiled as best I could, not being a very good liar. “It’s a nice cool night.”

  Beauregard scrunched his eyebrows, unable to find the connection between my safety and the weather—and truly neither could I—but he let me have it, as any Southern gentleman would.

  “It surely is. You enjoy it then, on your walk, and I will see you tomorrow.”

  Walking off, I forced myself to think about pie, rather than thinking about the head cook. I felt Beauregard keeping his eye on me until I turned the corner and he couldn’t see me anymore.

  THE WOOD

  That next week, Huddie and I stumbled into a plan on how we could get a private moment here and there, some time to talk, as friends are wont to do. It started with me grabbing the basket of Wednesday tomatoes pulled from the small vegetable field at the precise moment Huddie came in from his time in the fields.

  I hoisted the heavy wicker basket off the ground, to the front of my waistline, feeling the cords on the sides tearing into my hands. Then I tried dragging the damn thing, only it kicked up so much dust that it hurt my eyes. Finally, I figured I’d push it along with my feet—not the wisest thing to keep tomatoes from bruising up even worse than they already were.

  “Dammit.”

  Sighing and in need of a break before my temper flared, I stood up and looked out into the dry, open yard. Dozens of men walked around, moving much slower than they do outside prison—why rush, I suppose. The yard had no rocks or places to sit other than the dirt. A guard on horseback ambled by, holding his gun pointing up on his thigh. Although there was only that one person between me and any prisoners in the yard, I felt safe. The area was so open that no one would risk causing me harm—unlike the closed office in the kitchen.

  Somewhere far off, I heard the dogs howling at their dinnertime—the dogs they turned loose on anyone who tried to escape. It was easy to run off, there being no
fences, but almost impossible to make it much farther unless you could swim across the Brazos faster than those dogs could hunt you down—and many colored folks didn’t know how to swim.

  I brushed a fly away, and it came back again, with a friend. The two of them sounded like electric static in the still air. I swatted and turned to my right and there, tuning his guitar on a rock, was Huddie. I stepped back from the basket, pulled out a cigarette from my sweaty bra, and was walking over to say hello when the guard on horseback rode over and intercepted.

  “Stay back, miss.”

  I motioned to the basket. “I was coming to talk to you about getting some help moving those vegetables.”

  He shook his fat head and said, “Not possible.”

  “Huddie there used to be in the kitchen, so he knows the routine. Maybe he could just step out and carry the basket. It’ll only take a minute.”

  The guard squinted and scanned me, checking to see if I was crazy or not. “Miss, it takes only a minute to get stabbed or slammed against a wall until your eyes shoot out blood. This nigger here needs only a minute, you got me?” He spit on the ground in front of me. “Seems to me you wanted to work in a man’s kitchen, so go work in the kitchen.”

  Huddie didn’t make eye contact with me. He kept his head down and hit the strings a few more times. I flicked my cigarette ash into the dirt. When I looked up, Huddie gestured with his eyes to the Wood—a piece of wood that had been one of the walls of a shed, when there was a shed. Now it stood as the place prisoners could go behind to relieve themselves.

  The Wood sat maybe fifty feet into the yard. Luckily, there were enough cacti and guajillo trees to block me for much of the way. With one eye on the guard, who trotted off toward the fields again, I headed over.

  By the time I got to the Wood, Huddie was already standing there in its shadow. He gestured as if he was urinating, but he wasn’t. I walked up on the side, partly hidden by a tall jumping cactus—so named because it will stretch out to hit you if you walk too close.