by Daniel Black
I was about half-finished with my plate when Daddy queried, “What chu puttin’ dem weeds on dat grave fu’? She can’t smell’em, can she?”
“Yes, she can,” I defended. “Only her body’s gone. Her spirit is still alive.”
“Is dat so?” Daddy snickered.
Joking about Sister’s death and her grave angered me. “How can you belittle your own daughter’s death?” My tone infuriated him.
“Don’t start dat shit today, OK? I ain’t in de mood. It’s Sunday anyway.”
“What’s Sunday got to do with Sister? I keep asking you what happened and you won’t tell me anything. I’ve been here a day and none of you have tried to explain the specifics of her death to me. You know how close we were. Why are you torturing me?”
Daddy ignored me and kept eating, Willie James refused to make eye contact with me, and Momma acted as though she hadn’t heard anything.
“Will someone tell me what happened?” I implored after a moment or two of silence.
No one replied.
“I’m not leaving here until I get some answers.”
Momma glared at Daddy. My persistence hadn’t troubled her; the possibility of my extended stay was what worried her.
“TL., all I know is—”
“Shut up, boy,” Daddy told Willie James emphatically.
“Why shouldn’t I know, Daddy? You don’t think I deserve to know what happened to my own sister?” I slammed my fork on the table and gawked at Daddy with the meanest expression I could muster.
“Don’t get beside yo’self, boy. I’d hate to have to whip yo’ ass, especially since you thank you grown and all.” Daddy’s eyes assured me I did not want to push him. “Finish yo’ supper, and I don’t intend to deal wit’ chu about yo’ sister no mo’.”
“I’m supposed to let her go? Just like that?”
“Don’t be a fool, boy,” Momma patronized me. “Yo’ daddy don’t want to talk about it, so let it go.”
“Momma, please! Whatever Daddy says, you just go along with it.”
“Is you disrespectin’ yo’ momma, boy?” Daddy yelled. He stood up. “I’ll kill you if you disrespect yo’ momma again in my house!”
“Sorry, Momma,” I submitted quickly, more to satisfy Daddy than to honor her. “I didn’t mean to disrespect anyone. I’m trying to discover what happened to Sister.”
“We done told you we don’t know!” Daddy screamed, and pounded on the table.
“But y’all do know! How can you expect me to believe otherwise?”
“I don’t expect you to do nothin’. I didn’t expect you to come back to Swamp Creek, I didn’t expect you to amount to much, and I don’t expect you to keep worryin’ me about Sister! Now leave me the hell alone!” Daddy resumed his seat and continued his meal.
Tranquillity subsumed us again. Whenever we approached the point of real communication, we reverted to silence. Strangely enough, we used to go for days and not say a word to anyone. The beauty of verbal expression was never welcomed in our home. Sister’s death seemed, somehow, to contribute to the family vow of silence, and since the taciturnity was larger than me, I said nothing further.
After dinner, I followed Willie James out to the barn as he prepared to feed the cows and slop the hogs. That was once my job. I hated it, but come slaughter day, I didn’t mind.
“Why you followin’ me?” he interrogated.
“I don’t know, really. Maybe I was hoping we could talk.”
His eyes met mine. “About what?”
“Oh, whatever.” I was making a complete ass of myself.
“If you came out here to ask me about your precious little sister, keep it. I ain’t got nothin’ to say.” He filled the buckets with feed and proceeded into the field toward the cows. I ensued.
“I didn’t come out here to ask you about Sister,” I lied. “I came to ask you about you.”
“What about me?”
I hesitated a moment, then asked, “Why did you stay? I mean, you could have left.”
“What makes you think I wanted to leave?”
“Why wouldn’t you? Every man wants to explore the world. I knew how you felt about the limitations of Swamp Creek. I remember you cursing these fields and these animals and talking about how much you hated Daddy.”
“I never said that.”
“Oh, come on! At least let’s tell the truth to each other, Willie James.”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t as easy for me to leave as it was for you. You had the ability to walk away from things, you know.”
“What are you trying to say, Willie James?”
“I’m saying I was never as free from Daddy as you were. I was the oldest son and I was supposed to stay by his side, right?” His tone suggested regret.
“But, big brother, what about you? Is that what you wanted for yourself?”
“Nobody gets a chance to want anything for theyself around here. You know that. Ain’t that why you left? In order to have something all to yourself?”
“I suppose,” I pondered. “You didn’t have to stay all your life, did you?”
“I ain’t never knowed nothin’ but Swamp Creek, and I guess I never will. It crossed my mind to leave a couple of times, but I didn’t. Daddy needed me.”
“For what?”
“To work in the fields. You left and Sister was threatening to leave, and I felt I’d better stay so Daddy would have somebody.”
“He has Momma, doesn’t he?”
“Momma don’t belong to him. He didn’t create her. He needed to see somethin’ which wouldn’t exist if he didn’t. That was me.”
“Why are you so committed to keeping Daddy alive and feeling good about himself?”
“I ain’t. I’m tryin’ to keep Momma alive.”
“I don’t understand.”
He continued, “You know how Daddy feels about women. He’d just as soon rape one as tip his hat. He got mad with Momma when you disappeared. Said you probably wouldn’t have left if she had been doin’ what she was s’pose’ to. Whatever that was.” Willie James paused and then said, “Everything what done gone wrong in this family Daddy blame on Momma. I know you and her ain’t neva been friends, but I kinda feel like I oughta stick around for her sake.”
“What about your sake?”
“What about it?”
“Are you gonna let Momma and Daddy consume all of you? I mean, when are you gonna stand up and claim your own existence?”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to claim, T.L. I was never smart like you, I ain’t neva been too good-lookin’, and God ain’t seen fit to give me too many breaks in life. Look like to me I ain’t got no choice.”
“But you do, Willie James. You do. You got to insist upon your own happiness, on your own terms. You’re beautiful if you think you are. And you are smart. You never did too well in school because you didn’t try hard.”
“You wrong there, little brother. I tried real hard. I gave myself headaches trying to memorize poems and learn algebra. It wouldn’t come to me. I acted like I didn’t care ‘cause I was failin’ and couldn’t help it. I didn’t wanna be a failure, not unless I chose to be one. It’s OK, though. I’m gettin’ by.”
“But gettin’ by ain’t good enough, Willie James.”
“It’s gon’ have to be. You got somewhere I can go?”
I did not. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing with my own life, much less his.
We finished feeding the cows. I wanted to say something profound to inspire my brother to take control of his own life, but I found no words. Once we left the field, we returned the buckets to the barn, and as we walked back toward the house, Willie James said, “I’m glad you left, T.L. I was hoping one of us would get out of this hellhole and live to tell about it.”
“Well, here I am.” I held out my arms like an actor at the close of a play.
“Yeah, here you are,” said Willie James with a fake smile. “Here you are and there she is.” He pointed to Sister’s grave.<
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I did not understand Willie James’s meanness. “Why are y’all doing this to me?”
“OK, I’m sorry. But I think you could have done better, at least by her. Now that she’s gone, ain’t no way for you to make things right. And just in case you were planning to ask me, no, I don’t know what happened. I really don’t.”
“How do you expect me to believe that?”
“It don’t really matter what you believe. I came in out of the field one day and saw the fresh grave. I ran from the tractor and asked Momma what was going on. She stared at the mound and said nothing. I kept asking and finally she screamed, ‘Yo’ sista done gone and killed herself! We buried her right away. I didn’t want you and yo’ daddy to face no funeral. She would have wanted it that way.’ I was going to argue, but I didn’t see no need. I couldn’t bring her back, so I parked the tractor and fed the cows. I knew Sister didn’t kill herself. But since I didn’t have any other explanation, I left it alone.”
“Why didn’t you keep asking Momma until she told you the truth?”
“Because I ain’t like you, T.L. I can live without knowing some things.”
“But can you live without knowing how Sister died?”
“I been doing it, ain’t I?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can do it for a lifetime.”
Willie James wanted to say something badly. “Momma had a strange look in her eyes that day. She kept saying, ‘My baby, my baby.’ I tried to ask her what happened. I was cryin’. I knew somethin’ was wrong, really wrong, but she wouldn’t say nothin’. She was drippin’ with sweat and rockin’ herself back and forth like she was in another world. I tried to grab her and ask what was wrong, but she wouldn’t budge. She just kept sayin’, ‘Yo’ sista’s dead, boy. Yo’ sista’s dead.’”
“Why don’t you believe she committed suicide?”
“Because Sister had a plan of how she was gonna leave here. She was sure about it, T.L. She didn’t kill herself. I know she didn’t.”
“I don’t think she would have, either, but you don’t have even a guess as to what really happened?”
Willie James studied my eyes deeply and said, “Daddy know somethin’. I know he do. But, T.L., he’ll kill you’fo’ he tell you. I ain’t asked him nothin’.”
“Then how do you know he knows something?”
“’Cause he come home and saw the grave and acted like it’s been there his whole life.”
“What?”
“It didn’t move him at all. I knew he was gon’ flip and trip out on Momma and act like a madman’cause his baby girl was dead, but all he did was nod his head when he walked by the grave. Dat’s why I think Daddy know what happened. Plus, don’t nothin’ happen round here’less Daddy give the OK. You know dat.”
“Man, I must be losing my mind. All this seems normal to you?”
“No, it don’t. But who I’m gon’ question? I ain’t neva been bold as you, T.L.”
“I got to question somebody. I can’t live like this. Maybe you can, but I can’t.”
“Maybe you ain’t got nothin’ to lose.”
“What do you mean?”
“I live here. I got to live here, ‘cause I ain’t got nowhere else to go. I can’t stir up shit and leave. I got to walk easy, man, or my life will be a livin’ hell every day.”
“But you grown now, Willie James. We ain’t kids no more. You ain’t got to bow to Daddy like you his slave.”
“Maybe I ain’t his slave, but I sho’ ain’t free.”
“You got to make yourself free, Willie James.”
“How you do dat?”
“By declaring your freedom.”
“I wish it was that easy, little brother, but it ain’t.” Willie James halted. “I was seein’ this girl about two years ago named Arbella. We wuz courtin’ pretty hard. I brought her home and introduced her to Momma and Daddy one evenin’. They wuz nice and all—you know how they do—but after I came back from takin’ her home, Daddy asked me, ‘Is dat de best thang you can find to fuck?’ I thought she was pretty. In fact, she was beautiful to me. But Daddy said she looked homely. He told me to find someone better so I broke up with her. I ain’t found nobody else, though.”
“You mean you left her because Daddy thought she was ugly?”
“Yep. I didn’t want to hear his mouth, and I didn’t want him to hurt Arbella’s feelin’s one day. I was scared Daddy would be rude to her and tell her she was ugly to her face.”
“Willie James! You can’t give Daddy that much power.”
“He already got it. I ain’t got to give him nothin’.”
“His power only worked because we were kids!”
“No, it works right now. I know I could have stayed with Arbella and married her, but the hell Daddy would make her pay wouldn’t be fair. She said she didn’t understand my fear of him and I told her she never would, but I couldn’t ever see myself confronting him.”
“Why couldn’t you? You’re a grown man, Willie James!”
“Ain’t nobody grown to Daddy but Daddy. Since I don’t know nothin’’bout no other life, I felt like I didn’t have no choice but to please him. He told me a pretty girl would come along one day, but I ain’t met her yet. I think I ain’t goin’ to.”
“Willie James, are you crazy? Go find Arbella and marry that woman! Love is too hard to come by in this life to let it go easily.”
“I didn’t let it go easily. Man, I cried for days about Arbella. It tore me up to let her go without a reason I felt in my heart. But I didn’t have no choice.”
“Why didn’t you get your own place and start your own family?”
“Wit’ what? I ain’t got no money’cause I’m workin’ for Daddy and you know he don’t pay. Food and shelter is’bout all you git, and wit’out some education, I couldn’t git no good-payin’ job. I guess doin’ what I been doin’ is gonna have to work.”
“Are you satisfied with that?”
“I’m tryin’ to be.”
“You don’t have a dream, Willie James? You’re OK with Daddy ruling you like a little child?”
“I got to be ‘cause I ain’t got no other choice. It’s all right, though. The Good Lawd’ll keep takin’ care of me.”
I abandoned the discussion when I realized it was going in circles. Willie James put the feed bucket on the ground next to the barn door.
“Is you free, T.L.?” he posed out of nowhere.
I didn’t quite know how to answer him. I had never thought about the possibility that I wasn’t.
“Of course I’m free, man. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Why you come back here then?”
I was stunned. “I, um, thought I needed to come back and find out some things.”
“What difference would they make if you already free?”
I couldn’t answer the question. Willie James was making too much sense.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. Maybe I ain’t as free as I thought I was.”
“Seem like ain’t nobody free really. We all tied to somethin’ or somebody.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Yep.”
Willie James and I investigated each other’s faces and raised our eyebrows knowingly. For an instant, I wished I could have taken him away from Swamp Creek long enough to show him the world. He would be amazed, I thought. He was the obedient child, the one who never rocked the boat. He deserved to know he didn’t have to succumb to Daddy’s demands. Yet what would I do with him afterward? His loyalty to Daddy and Momma would leave him with guilt bigger than anything I could handle.
“How long you stayin’?” Willie James sought to lighten the mood.
“I don’t know. Until I find out what happened to Sister, I suppose.”
“Stay awhile, T.L., if you can.” Willie James’s voice sounded like that of a man in need. “If you can’t, I understand, but if you can, it’d be nice.” He nodded his head and left the barn.
I d
idn’t say a word.
8
Had Willie James told me how Sister died, I would have left Swamp Creek that Sunday. After our little chat, however, I knew it wasn’t going to be him. He was scared to death of Momma and Daddy and afraid to think of what life would be like without them. He was also terrified of what they might do to him if he told me what happened. I couldn’t blame him for his silence. Our family had always reverted to silence when speaking threatened to annihilate our comfort zones. Willie James knew no other way to bear the weight of Daddy’s authority. At times, I felt like Willie James wanted to tell me, but since he couldn’t imagine a life on his own terms, he had no choice but to follow Daddy’s edict. I could tell my agony moved his heart, yet, again, his compassion was certainly not greater than his fear. So he kept his distance from me and probably prayed that I wouldn’t confront him again.
Walking back to the house, I thought about my older sister, Shelia. People implied our extraordinary similarities. She was pretty and smart as a whip, Ms. Polly said. Her kindness and exuberant spirit were rare, even eerie, for a child. Folks said she drowned in Ole Man Blue’s pond a week after her fifth birthday. I overheard Daddy years ago talking to Mr. Blue on the phone about it. Daddy said Shelia had been missing for days and everybody in Swamp Creek stopped what they were doing to look for her. It was mid-November and folks were hopeful that, wherever she was, she was inside. After three days, Daddy said, he stopped searching. “If a five-year-old child can’t find her way down de road and back, she a fool anyway.” Shelia loved to eat, so he was sure hunger would make her reappear. He was wrong. A week went by and no word from Shelia. He said he wasn’t worried. “De Lawd’s will be done.” Then, one day, Old Man Blue was out checking on one of his cows, Daddy said, and noticed a red object floating in his pond. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but then he remembered Momma had told Ms. Polly that Shelia was wearing her red coat the last time they saw her. He walked over to the pond, waded in a short distance, and, sure enough, it was Shelia. He trembled in horror, for her body was floating faceup. This is what Ole Man Blue told Daddy. She had a big grin on her face and her arms were stretched out like she had been crucified. He wasn’t sure whether to pull her from the pond or leave her as she was. He hesitated a moment but then took her body to his house and immediately called Momma and Daddy. When they got there, Shelia wasn’t smiling anymore. Privately, they concluded Ole Man Blue was probably in a state of shock and didn’t know what he was talking about, but Daddy said Ole Man Blue insisted, “She was smiling, I tell ya! When I laid her in dat bed she was smiling. I know she looks pale and frowned now, but just a few minutes ago, she was smilin’. I ain’t crazy. I know what I saw. I had enough sense to drag her out of the pond, didn’t I? What make you think I ain’t got enough sense to know how she was lookin’ when I dragged her? She was smilin’ big and any minute I thought she might open her eyes and tell me everything she wanted me to know. Soon as y’all come, though, she stop grinnin’. I can’t explain it, but it’s sho’ de truth.” Momma and Daddy probably didn’t say anything else. I suppose they thanked Ole Man Blue and Daddy carried Shelia’s body back to the house.
