by Richard Dry
Ruby changed spools and slid the yellow linen under the needle. The foot pedal whirred and clicked in the circular rhythm, speeding up and slowing down, everything under her own effortless control. She turned the fabric between her hands and hummed.
SANTA RITA JAIL
I READ TO you today from Justice Denied:
Thomas James, Jep’s second son, had cast his eyes on a handsome young Negro girl, to whom he made dishonest overtures. She would not submit to him, and finding he could not overcome her, he swore he would be revenged. One night he called her out of the gin-house, and then bade me and two or three more, strip her naked; which we did. He then made us throw her down on her face, in front of the door, and hold her whilst he flogged her—the brute—with the bullwhip, cutting great gashes of flesh out of her person, at every blow, from five to six inches long. The poor unfortunate girl screamed most awfully all the time, and writhed under our strong arms, rendering it necessary for us to use our united strength to hold her down. He flogged her for half an hour, until he nearly killed her, and then left her to crawl away to her cabin.
… there were often certain concrete advantages to be gained by surrendering themselves to the men of the master race that overcame any moral scruples these women might have had. In some cases it meant freedom from the drudgery of field labor as well as better food and clothing. Then there was the prospect that her half-White children would enjoy certain privileges and perhaps in time be emancipated.…
The relations between the White men and the slave women naturally aroused the jealousy and antagonism of the women of the master race.… Sometimes White women used more direct means of ridding themselves of their colored rivals … witness the following excerpt from the family history of a mulatto:
My father’s grandmother, Julia Heriot, of four generations ago lived in Georgetown, South Carolina. Recollections of her parentage are, indeed, vague. Nevertheless, a distinct mixture of blood was portrayed in her physical appearance. And, because she knew so little of her parents, she was no doubt sold into Georgetown at a very early age as house servant to General Charles Washington Heriot. Julia Heriot married a slave on the plantation by whom she had two children. Very soon after her second child was born an epidemic of fever swept the plantation, and her husband became one of the victims. After her husband’s death, she became maid to Mrs. Heriot, wife of General Heriot. From the time that Julia Heriot was sold to General Heriot, she had been a favorite servant in the household, because of the aptitude which she displayed in performing her tasks. General and Mrs. Heriot had been so impressed with her possibilities that in a very short time after she had been in her new home, she had been allowed to use the name of Heriot … in the midst of her good fortune, a third child was born to her, which bore no resemblance to her other children. Reports of the “white child” were rumored. General Heriot’s wife became enraged and insisted that her husband sell this slave girl, but General Heriot refused.
During the winter of the following year General Heriot contracted pneumonia and died. Before his death, he signed freedom papers for Julia and her three children; but Mrs. Heriot maneuvered her affairs so that Julia Heriot and her three children were again sold into slavery. In the auction of the properties Julia Heriot was separated from her first two children. She pleaded that her babies be allowed to remain with her, but found her former mistress utterly opposed to anything that concerned her well-being. Her baby was the only consolation which she possessed. Even the name Heriot had been taken away by constant warnings.
CHAPTER 12A
MARCH 1964 • EASTON 18, SANDRA 19
EASTON SAT ON a stool and drew Sandra as she lay at the edge of his bed. She wore the light blue chiffon dress that Ruby had made for her. The strapless dress came to just above her chest, leaving her shoulders and neck bare. She posed as elegantly as she could, her head turned away and chin slightly raised. She’d been talking to him, while moving her lips as little as possible, about a gallery her friend had set up in Emeryville for new artists.
“They’re into finding what’s real. You know, playing drums, reading poetry. They’d like you. I’m sure of it. I bet they’d put up your work.”
Easton held the charcoal delicately between his fingers, then lifted it to his nose and sniffed. No matter how hard he washed after work, the smell of gasoline would not come off completely, and he went around smelling everything he touched.
“People would buy it,” she added. “I know they would.”
He looked at her and nodded, not at what she was saying but at what he was seeing. Sandra was smiling and looking out the window as if in a dream about his success, a smile like a proud mother might have about her child. He began sketching her this way. Now that he saw something other than just the shape of her, now that he saw an attitude, he sketched quickly and easily, drawing sweeping lines and shading them without pausing.
With the sound of Easton working passionately, Sandra stopped talking and waited. She knew it wouldn’t be long and believed that she must be still for him to capture whatever it was that excited him.
In five minutes he had finished and put the tablet and charcoal down on his dresser. Sandra leaned toward the picture, but she knew he would want to wait. He crossed his legs, put his elbow on his knee, his mouth against his hand, and contemplated her.
“What is it?” She smiled uneasily.
He nodded. “I think I understand now.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said. She was used to his cryptic statements and was no longer baited by them.
“Yes. You see, all this time I thought you were just playing hard to get. But you were just hard to get.” He nodded his head. “Uhh-huh. Yes, it was hard to get you. But now I got you.” She straightened her dress, pulling up on the elastic around her shoulders and then pushing it down again, but not as low.
“Are you going to show me the sketch, or are you going to play hard to get?”
“Yes. I want you to see this. Tell me what you think. What do you see?” He picked up the tablet and handed it to her.
She looked at the picture and smiled. “I love it. I think it’s beautiful and honorable. I look majestic. It’s my favorite.”
“Mmm-hmm. You think I captured you, right?”
“Yes. I think you captured my spirit.”
He nodded and stroked his small goatee. “I want you to do something. I want to sketch you again. Here, give me the paper. But this time I want you to pull your top all the way down.”
She smiled, but when she saw he was serious, she shook her head. “All the way down where?”
“It’s for art’s sake.”
She looked at the door.
“Don’t worry. We’ll hear anyone coming up the stairs.”
In the year they had been dating, he had seen only the shapes of her breasts in the dark while they’d made out. They’d never had sex.
She put her fingers inside the elastic band but didn’t pull it down.
“I don’t really mind,” she said. “It’s just that everyone is downstairs.”
“I want to sketch you. I want you to let me see you.”
She inhaled and pulled the elastic down slowly, edging it to just above her nipples. She stopped and stared directly into his eyes. He waited, hardly breathing. She pulled the elastic down farther, until her breasts were fully exposed. They were small and whiter than the rest of her, milky, with large tan aureoles the size of half-dollars. She stared down at them as if she were unsure herself how they looked, and Easton began to sketch her just like that, her hair falling forward over her face. She heard him sketch and watched his eyes move down her body, along her neck and shoulders, over her breasts, and as if his eyes were brushing against her nipples, they hardened.
When he finished, he stood up and went to the bed and sat beside her. She did not pull up her dress. Instead, she sat straight and looked forward as if she were going to be tested at a spelling bee. He kissed her shoulder without touching her with his hands. He
moved his lips up her neck and then gently pushed her back until she lay on the bed. Then, with his right hand, he reached up and caressed her breasts. He touched her softly with his fingertips, the way he held the textured paper in his hands, stroking her over and over again. They had done this petting before, but never in the daylight and never without the sense of where it would stop. He reached his hand up her thigh and placed his palm over her warm underwear. He squeezed, and she responded by squeezing her legs together. Now he was going further, where he had tried to go so often but she had never let him before, slipping his fingers around the edge of her underwear.
Her eyes closed as he pushed into her with his fingers and she moved to the rhythm of his palm. She felt him harden in his slacks and moved her leg between his to press against him. He kissed her, and they moved together for a while, lying intertwined.
Then he sat up and pulled his fingers from her. He unzipped his pants with his other hand while he lifted his wet fingers to his nose and smelled. The potent tang of her hid the stain of gasoline completely. He pulled off his slacks and she stared at him hard in his underwear. He reached up underneath her and pulled her underwear down around her ankles, leaving them there above her feet like a loose rope. She did not move to encourage or discourage him.
When he had taken off his own underwear, he positioned himself above her, his legs on either side. He lifted up her light blue dress and saw her for the first time, swollen and soft, and then, as if he felt he was not supposed to look, he lay against her fully so that they were again face-to-face. He put his hand on her breast and moved himself against her, pushing against her body.
She looked down at their chests together, his brown nipples and black hair against her lighter skin. And it came to her like a movie, Ruby’s face on the porch that day, asking her if she’d told her father, explaining why she hadn’t, and she still hadn’t, not even four months later. She could feel Easton pushing at her, and her body opening to let him in as he slid along her warm flesh; but at the same time, her stomach soured with dread, and like a fist tightening, it rose up into her throat. Then he entered her, and as if she’d been jabbed with something cold and sharp, she clamped her legs together and twisted so that he came out. She pulled her arms over her breasts and turned to her side.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. She raised her legs to her chest and rocked.
“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. It just isn’t right.”
“What isn’t right?”
“Your sister is just downstairs.”
“She doesn’t know. She’s busy. Don’t worry about her.”
“It just doesn’t feel right. I’m worried. What if I get pregnant?”
“I’ll pull out in time.” He moved himself against her, tried to push himself into her from behind.
“No, I can’t.” She jumped off the bed and stood there above him. “I’m sorry. Not yet.” She stared at him. He covered his penis with his hands, like a boy caught playing with himself.
She pulled up her dress and went out into the hall to the bathroom. Easton listened as the water ran. She took a long time, as if she were washing all traces of him out of her, as if he were something dirty or diseased. When she came back, she didn’t look at him. She pulled on her underwear and then stood at the foot of the bed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just don’t feel ready.”
“Tremendous.” He removed his hands and let himself lie open, naked in front of her, still partially erect, not seductively, but thrusting himself at her as if he were trying to stuff something distasteful into her mouth. He lifted his fingers to his nose and smelled her on them, then reached down and stroked himself.
She turned and saw the portrait of her on the dresser. She held it up like a thin wall between them. “I really love your drawings. You’re so good. I don’t know. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
“Maybe there’s something wrong with me,” he said.
“No. That’s not it.”
“Fine.”
She continued to hold the picture up and look at it from different angles. “Can I keep it?”
“Sure. Have both of them. I don’t want them. Give them to your hipster friends.”
“I think they could really help you.”
“If you want.” He slid his hands under his head and stared up at the blank ceiling, his legs open and spread. “If it will make you feel better.”
She put on her shoes and took both drawings. Before she left, she stopped at his bedroom door and looked back at him again. He knew she was looking, but he didn’t face her. He reached down and stroked himself, making himself hard again.
She turned and closed the door. He clenched his body rigid, to listen, hoping to hear her come back. She walked down the steps, said something to Ruby, then opened and closed the front door. He slammed his fists against the bed and stared at the white ceiling without blinking. Even in the silence, he waited, listening to his own breathing. After a minute the ceiling broke into millions of dots and lines and shadows. The white became dark and pulsed with his own temples, and he pushed his mind into those cavernous places between the light and the dark, where patterns shifted and waves pulled him out away from himself, until finally his eyes stung and he had to close them. Slowly the shapes and shadows faded behind his eyelids, and he lifted his fingers to his nose to smell her once more through the returning fumes of gasoline.
* * *
TWO MONTHS LATER, Easton sat on the bus-stop bench waiting to go up to Merritt College. He brushed his cheek and then pretended to smooth out his thin mustache. He looked sharp and together on the outside, dressed in his brown suit and his new cowboy boots, the first purchase he’d made after Sandra and he broke up. The one thing he remembered liking about Papa Samuel was his dark black boots.
Waiting at the bus stop, he noticed women glancing at him from their cars. He smiled and nodded back, but his smile faded as they passed by into their own locked-up worlds, somewhere far away from him.
The bus took him up San Pablo to MacArthur, where he had to transfer. In a few months he’d buy a car and fix it up so he could get to campus on his own, but for now he kept his face toward the window and quickly smelled his fingers for signs of gasoline.
Merritt College was located on Grove Street in a block-long, high-walled building like a train station. He found himself in the courtyard, people swarming in and out of all the entrances like bees in a hive. Signs pointed different directions for Summer Registration, Matriculation, Information, Financial Aid, and Photo ID; he wanted all of that, and every line had at least fifty people.
The sign above information read START HERE, but he knew that after he stood in line, they would just tell him to stand in the other line at registration, so he saved himself the time and went there directly. As he waited, he watched all the other students, walking tall with their dreams buzzing in the tops of their heads. There were a lot of other colored kids there—some he recognized from high school—all the serious kids like himself who were headed someplace. There were plenty of White kids on campus too, which meant it wasn’t some throwaway place, unless they were all the White kids who couldn’t get in to the university. But Sandra was at the university and he was smarter than she; he was smarter than all of these idiots, punch-happy with their in dependence.
At that moment he heard someone call him from across the courtyard.
“Hey, hey, my Black brother. I see you’ve finally come to get some education. Those are some slick boots; you be like some Black John Wayne.”
“Who are you calling Black?” Easton asked. It was Charles, whom he hadn’t seen since the police beating at Woolcrest’s. Easton just didn’t have the time once he’d started to go out with Sandra. He looked around at the students in line who were staring at this loud man in a green camouflage army suit.
“You Black like me, brother. Black and blue, with the mark of Ham.”
“Can’t you see
I’m trying to get serious?”
“Well, when you get through learnin what they want you to know, you come talk to us and we’ll tell you how it really was. You could be a leader, my man. I’m telling you. I saw the way you was. How you stood up for me. You don’t have to suck up this assimilation shit.”
“Well, I’m just going to keep to myself a while. You know how it is.” Easton turned away and shaded his forehead with his hand.
“You come on over to our table and we’ll teach you how it is, about your slave name, about your history.”
“You see a slave?” Easton turned and addressed the general audience of the courtyard. “I don’t see any slaves around here. I’m trying to register for college, if you hadn’t noticed. You ever hear of a slave registering for college? Now, find your way back to whatever hole you crawled out of.” He felt half off balance trying to move away from Charles but having to stay in line.
“This is a revolution. I’m heading out to Ohio for training next week and then down to Mississippi. Come with me, brother. Don’t you want to be a part of history? We’re changing the world, and you want to sit at a desk and read about it?”
“You never were much for sitting at your desk,” Easton said.
“And what you going to read? You think they’re going to tell you how the Blue-Eyed Devil is lynching and beating us into the ground? No one believes that because it sounds too evil to be true. Soon you’ll question: ‘What are them niggers doin to deserve all that down there in the South? They must be doing something wrong down there.’ Soon you’ll be shouting how separate can be equal. Just be careful they don’t brainwash you, brother. Like I say. Get it right or get it White.”
