Family

by J. California Cooper

  When everything was long over, a month or two, and I could be seen around more in the open again, when the Young Master of the Land needed somebody, he took me. I was still those twelve lines old. I had gone out to that chicken house and got a rock for every line my mama had marked out so I would know my age now that the only other one who would know was gone. So I know I was twelve when he took me. He sneaked so his mama wouldn’t know. But when I caught a baby, she knew. She called, only me, that “twelve-year-old slut.” She didn’t call him nothin but “son.” She didn’t hate me like she had my mama, tho. Cause, I guess, this was her son, not her husband. I blive she was glad that Ole Master was dead and gone. Yes … I was a woman at twelve, and sure was one at thirteen years old when I had my first baby for the Master of the Land.

  Even havin him, I still didn’t have nobody. You all know that! My mind opened up and I understood my mama. I was my mama, now. That’s slavery … they all alike … ain’t nothin. I went back to that dark, broken-down chicken house many a day and just sit and think and cry.

  My first baby was a very light baby, almost white. Look like a fresh peach. Rosy cream. It was a girl. Lord how I cried for this girl-child right after I got through being glad I had my baby. Thought I had somebody of my own to love and be with. I was a fool! I had forgot that child did not belong to me! And when I thought of her future I pained in my heart. I would hold the little sweet body in my arms, fondle her arms, fingers and hands. Her tiny little ears, her soft little tummy. She would press tiny little rose-petal soft lips to my full breast and kick her strong little legs and feet against my body. I would look at her through tears and love cause I knew SOMEBODY had already decided what her life was to be. How far she could go in life … in anything … for as long as she drew breath on this earth. THEY had done decided she would never go to school, never learn to read and count, never be married in the right way in front of the Lord and man, never be in love cause she don’t know how long fore they be sellin her man-love, never have a new store-bought dress was nice, a new pretty doll … just never nothin she wanted.

  I looked up to God to talk to him, say something, ask everything … but I couldn’t find words strong enough to say what I felt. I knew He knew anyway … there was many a thousand of me all around this land and I knew they had talked to Him like I wanted to. I didn’t look up at Him long tho, cause if these white folks think you prayin you can catch the worstest beatin in your life. See … they want Him all to themself too. They want it all! Well, they sure got it! I knew most of em I seen and heard of didn’t blive in Him right noway, cause of all the devilish things they would do under them laws they made up for themself. They just used God on us slaves. But I blived if God was Love like I heard read out the Bible, He never made us for to be slaves and suffer like this. And I never did blive they had all God to themselves. I knew He wasn’t scared of bein whipped or killed by them if He didn’t obey. So I prayed to Him right on, but I did it quiet, inside my head. See … some peoples put they heads in big pots when they prayed, so the sound wouldn’t carry out when they spoke out loud. I knew He could hear me no matter which way I prayed, so I did it my way.

  Anyway … I knew no matter what life had in store for either me or my baby I would love her always. So … that’s what I named her … Always. I mumbled it round the big house so they thought I said somethin like “Alice” or somethin. I don’t care what they wrote down. My baby’s name was Always. Some folks laughed at that name round the slave shacks. But, I didn’t care. It was somethin didn’t nobody have but me and my baby … was that name. Til I realized one day, people use that word all the time. But, still, I knew what I meant, and they didn’t have that!

  NOW … TIME PASSED by slow and fast all at the same time. Ole Endless Time passed. And when the Young Master of the Land came at me again and again, I found out I wasn’t as strong as my mama. I hated him! Ohhhh, I hated him. I never felt love with him or bout him. And the men I coulda loved freely, knew I was hisn so they stayed way from me. And so … well, I just hated him. Not only for ownin my body, but for blockin my mind, lettin my heart dry and shrivel up cause it didn’t have nothin to do but hate him. And I know he didn’t really like me. Sho couldn’t love me! He just shove me out when he be through usin me. Didn’t never pay no mind to his children by me, cept his son, just counted them as property, to keep for work or sell. My son he paid mind to cause he looked just like him and he was white. He had my son whipped, so hard, so hard, I like to die watchin my son bleed from that whip. See … he wanted him to have stripes crost his back and be known to be a slave … so he wouldn’t run off tryin to be free. My son finally did run off. He was hounded to it. He was only fourteen years old. I couldn’t help him and his daddy was killin him. The Young Master had finally married up with a sweet-faced, laughing little lady who mighta tried to be nicer to the slaves if he hadda done right. Some people have evil mean streaks in their souls no matter what happens in their lives. Other people, a few, have kind souls til some other people mess with them so much they can’t take much more of nothin and then they get that mean evil streak in them to fight back with. It’s a few others we ain’t got time to talk bout now. The Young Mistress told the Young Master, “We will always love only each other. NO slaves to bed with like some other no-account low whites.” He agreed cause she was new and his and he loved her. But time kept passing like it does and pretty soon he was at me or somebody again. That Young Mistress took to hating us, and him, and soon after that, life got hard up there in that house and out there in them fields even. She was everywhere where she thought he might be when he wasn’t with her. The Old Mistress just laughed to herself as she ate them big chunks of pecan fudgies, cause it was her son, not her husband, and didn’t we blong to him? Couldn’t he do whatever he wanted with us? Sides, she told her, white women was not ladies if they thought too much of “that.” They should be glad if their husbands “relieved” themselves out in the garbage-bin.

  Now see? I have noticed how people lie to each other when it suits them. I mean, they will mess with your whole life, your whole mind, just to get some point on their side. That old woman knew what was right and what was wrong! She couldn’t have forgot what she had suffered. But she did not expect to have no more nobody to love her again in life so she would pretend … that that was the way she had planned it, wanted it. And she would let that young woman suffer, HELP her suffer, cause misery does love company if misery is in a evil-mean body! That ole woman Mistress use to tell the house slaves to come to her with their problems and she would help them with counsel … like a mother. Chile, I wouldn’t go to her for nothin! None of her lies went for nothin to them house slaves. I went to Miz Elliz. She was almost like family to me and my children. I knew I could trust her for the truth. Time kept passin. Pretty soon Young Mistress had two babies for our Master. I had had six, but only four of mine had done lived. See … when I was still very young and had to go into the fields to work, I didn’t know much bout keepin babies. They wouldn’t let us carry our babies on our backs with us, or nothin. We had to lay them down by the side of the field and leave em there for four or five hours til it was time for us to eat somethin, then we could feed our babies. I laid my first one out there, wrapped in a gunnysack. It was a boy, and he kicked that sack off and lay out there in that bakin sun all them hours. His little tender skin was just bout cooked. He died from them burns. I cried, oh how I cried. You don’t want them to grow to be slaves, but you do want your children to grow up.

  The next one I lost, I put him up high off the ground in a shade tree and he got bit by a scorpion or a snake. Couldn’t save him neither. Yes, lost both of em. As they died, I dug their graves, wrapped them in their gunnysack cloth, and covered them with the land that blonged to the Master. Miz Elliz was the only one had time to be there and she said the few words she knew. “God take this baby wit you.” Then it was back, each time, to go on, don’t miss a step for the Master. All our babies looked alike. Now … that’s really s
omething, if one or two is superior and does not show it. But Young Mistress did not realize the greatest difference of all. Ours would be slaves: sold, or used and misused. Hers … would not. I could see all my children were going to be fine looking people. I loved them all, as much as I was allowed to, cause they all went to the community shack to be raised. But Always was, somehow, my favorite. I guess because she was the first thing mine, after my mother. I always sneaked by the community shack and took her into my little shack with me. I knew mostly the nights the Young Master was comin, and when I made a mistake and he came when I didn’t expect him, it was like that child was grown.

  She would lay under that bed and not make a sound. Sometimes, when he left, she would be sleep with her thumb in her mouth like I used to be. I’d gently haul her out and into my arms and rock us both back to sleep. But that didn’t happen too often cause the Young Master had plenty women on that farm to take hisself, and did. He was his best machine on that farm cause he made many a baby to sell. I could see Always was goin to be a sure-nuff pretty girl and she had such sweet ways. Sweet ways. Oh that child was sweet! Heart just full of love. She loved everything. Trees, flowers, cats, dogs, cows, pigs, horses, rocks, people, babies, everything! She would share any and everything she had! Even beg you to share yours with somebody else! I worried about her heart so full of love, would it be able to stand what I knew was in store. I thought I knew what her life was going to be even before she lived it. So I loved her hard as I could, much as I could, and kept her stomach full of all the good food I could steal, beg, or borrow. I knew the day would come when I, like my mama, would not be able to help her … so I did all I could do while I could do it. Even so, there was times she was struck near dumb and left with ugly bruises from the Mistress’s hands. I could only hold her and kiss them cruel marks when I came in from the fields. I would think, hard, of runnin away with all my children. But then … I would look out crost the world far as I could see and I didn’t know nothin bout what was out there or whichever way freedom might be. I thought white folks was everywhere and owned everything on earth.

  Yes, I heard the rumors runnin round bout some of the white people who did not like us to be slaves … but you know we wasn’t gonna blive that! Believe some of these same kinda people who took everything we had from us, beat us half to death sometimes, hated us all the time … was gonna set us free? White folks? You’d a had to be fool crazy to blive somethin like that! More rumors was round said some slaves had run and made it. Made it to Freedom! Not no slave nomore! I wondered where they ran to … cause the Masters had told us how them people out there in the North thought slave meat was good for eatin and ate em! And that way, way off, far off up more North, they hated slaves with any color to they skin … and killed them right off, first sight they had of em! So I wondered where them who had made it to freedom had run off to. Sometime I would just stand, squeezin my eyes at the stars in the sky and try to guess which way was North or whatever way freedom was. But the sky is so big and endless, like time. I couldn’t make nothin of it. I couldn’t run off anyway. My children was too small and I couldn’t leave em. Couldn’t! Sometimes I’d think, if I could read, I could help all of us. I’d be in the house, cleaning, and I be dustin those books and I would slip one out with me when I’d leave, knowin I be beat most to death if I’m caught with it, but sometime you just don’t give a damn no more when you tryin to learn how to live some other kind of life. And I thought the answer might be in all them crooked marks on that white paper. I couldn’t tell nobody I got it. Nobody! All I could do is sit in the out-house or that chicken house and stare at that book. Turn it one side up then the other. I finally buried one in the ground in that chicken house to save for Always. Maybe we could learn it together.

  I needed help … and there was none. None. But still, ever once in a while I’d go dig up my book and stare into it some more, then bury it again. I now know the name of that book. One thing really made me think. And made me want to read so bad. Was a new man slave brought here in chains. He was caught talkin and even readin somethin to the other slaves in a shack one night. That man they called boy was beat with that whip til he was gone dead cause he kept laughin tween his screams of pain. The beater had to even stop and rest! The beater was tired! You know how they musta beat that man! But he kept laughin tween his screams sayin, “I can READ! And the Lord God HATES you for what you is doin to my people.” Then he laugh again. Say, “I can READ!” He screamed them words til he couldn’t scream no more, then he mumbled them into the ground, into his own blood, mucus, and tears. That’s how he died. Them was his last words on earth. “I can read. The truth has set me free and I know you ain’t nothin, white man. The Lord ain’t give us to you.” SLASH! WHOSH! SLASH! went that whip again.

  But he was most gone, couldn’t hardly hear him then, but he said it one more time: “I can read.” Then he died. The Master bade them keep whippin him even if he was dead. Ain’t that somethin sad? And still, that wasn’t the meanest thing I ever seen done on that place was my home. Home. All I could do for myself and my children was to add a stone to my little collection-horde every year to keep our ages clear. That was mine. That was us. Nobody knew bout it … so they couldn’t take it away. I couldn’t count in a real way but I knew I had a rock for every year for everybody in my real family. Not my slave brothers and sisters, but my little children I birthed. My family.

  One day when the family was bout to have some special party I was called in the house to do some extra cleaning. I was doin my work but I had my last baby on my hip. I could still do my work good cause I was used to workin holdin a child. See … in the fields where they make you lay your baby down over to the side while you work three or four hours fore you come back to see bout that baby? Well, some of them babies have died from sunstroke, or snakebite or be eatin up a bit by somethin that was hungry. I learned to hide my baby in my sack or tote it on my back or carry it in my arm. I had trained myself to work good like that so the seer wouldn’t stop me from doin it.

  Anyway, the Young Mistress come in and was lookin at my baby who was lookin like her husband. I just kept workin. Then that Mistress leaped at me and commenced to slappin me with her hands, first, then a poker that was kept by the fireplace. She hit my baby, oh Lord. Now, I could take a beatin from her. But I was holdin my baby and my baby was too young to take a beatin. Well … I took that poker away from her!! We was both of us shocked! I was shocked to be a fool to struggle with the Mistress of my life, and she was shocked at the sudden change in our way-situation roles, and we was like stuck in time, just starin at each other. Her arm raised to strike and the poker raised in my hand to strike her back! Now! We stood there like we was stone, lookin hard in each other’s eyes and from somewhere the idea came that this woman who was built like me, shaped like me, had eyes, nose, ears, arms, legs, and blood just like me didn’t know what she was doin in this here thing either. The Master of the Land was Master of us both, and all of us, in this thing and she was captured in a net just like I, as a slave, in this net of time. But … she loved him, the Master, while I did not. She had her pain alright, but, I knew mine was worser cause I had her kind of pain … and my own and my children’s too. AND he liked her, which made her life better. He didn’t care a damn for me … I was nothin, and nothin I had for him was nothin either. She should have helped me … not struck me for bein a slave to him. I would have helped her. Our eyes had stared so hard they had to blink.

  We blinked. I put the poker back and left, holdin my baby who I had made safe … for a time. I was sposed to be helpin to bake in the kitchen then, but I went to that old broke-down chicken house again and cried over my baby. Another girl, white as her daddy, headin for trouble all her life. No, I was wrong, she wasn’t headin for trouble, she was already in it! Then, after while, I commenced to thinkin bout my mother who had killed herself. I thought and I thought. After another little while, I quit cryin and went out with my baby in my arm, gatherin every kind of poison wee
d I knew and some I didn’t know. I started cryin again thinkin bout what I was plannin to do to my children. Tears and snot mingled together with the blood from the scratches in my hands, but I kept pickin. Wouldn’t change my mind. Couldn’t.

  I looked out over them beautiful fields, up into that beautiful sky so full of soft white clouds and the sun so warm and good to shine down on this earth. I saw them tall beautiful trees, weavin and wavin in the winds that come from all crost the earth. I saw birds. Birds what was free to fly off or stay, whatever they wanted … free. Better off than me and my slave sisters and brothers. Even the snakes and bugs at my feet was free. That little mosquito was free. But not me. I was cryin when I told God he don’t need to give me everything … just mercy. Just a little mercy. That would be kind enough. I didn’t see no change in store for me tho. And I knew soon as that white Mistress reported that I had raised my hand with that poker at her I would be tied down and beat to the very end of my life.