When Egypt was gone, the last light went out of the boy's mama. The day Denmark saw his woman drinking varnish, he knew he had to do something. Stupid as she had become, she hated her life and hated him. He agreed with her. Maybe he hated himself even more than she did. Hated everything and everybody else, too. It was chewing him up inside.
That was when he met Gullah Joe. Joe came to him. Little Black man, he suddenly appeared right in front of Denmark when he was in the dirt garden peeing. He wasn't there, and then he was, holding a crazy-looking umbrella all a-dangle with strange knots and bits of cloth and tin and iron and one dead mouse. “Stop peeing on my foot,” said Gullah Joe.
Denmark didn't have much to say. Piss just dried right up when Gullah Joe said so. Denmark knew he must be the witchy man they were always threatening him with. “You come to kill me, witchy man?” Denmark said.
“Might,” said Gullah Joe. “Might not.”
“Maybe you best just do it,” said Denmark. “Cause if you don't, what if I kill you?”
Gullah Joe just grinned. “What, you hit me with a board, put me in a sack, drown me till I can't walk or talk right?”
Denmark just started to cry, fell to his knees and begged Gullah Joe to kill him. “You know what I am! You know I'm a wicked man!”
“I'm not God,” said Gullah Joe. “You gots to go see him preacher, you want somebody send you to hell.”
“How come you talk so funny?”
“Cause I not no slave,” said Gullah Joe. “I from Africa, I don't like White man language, I learn it bad and I don't care. I say people talk real good.” Then he let loose a string of some strange language. It went on and on, and turned into a song, and he danced around, splashing up the mud from Denmark's pissing all over his bare feet while he sang. Denmark felt every splash as if he'd been kicked in the kidneys. By the time Gullah Joe stopped singing and dancing, Denmark was lying on the ground whimpering, and there was blood leaking out of him instead of Piss.
Gullah Joe bent over him. “How you feel?”
“Fine,” Denmark whispered. “'Cept I ain't dead yet.”
“Oh, I don't want you dead. I make up my mind. You be fine. Drink this.”
Gullah Joe handed him a small bottle. It smelled awful, but there was alcohol in it and that was persuasive enough. Denmark drank the whole bottle, or at least he would have, if Joe hadn't snatched it out of his hands. “You want to live forever?” Gullah Joe demanded. “You use up all my saving stuff?”
Whatever it was, it worked great. Denmark bounded to his feet. “I want more of that!” he said.
“You never get this again,” said Gullah Joe. “You like it too good.”
“Give it to my woman!” cried Denmark. “Make her well again!”
“She sick in the brain,” said Gullah Joe. “This don't do no good for brain.”
“Well then you go on and kill me again, you cheating bastard! I'm sick of living like this, everybody hate me, I hate myself!”
“I don't hate you,” said Gullah Joe. “I got a use for you.”
And ever since then, Denmark had been with Gullah Joe. Denmark's money had gone to supporting both him and Gullah Joe, and to accomplish whatever Joe wanted done. Half Denmark's day was spent taking care of new-arrived slaves, gathering their names and bringing them home to Joe.
The whole idea of taking names came from Denmark's woman. Not that she thought of it. But when Denmark rented the warehouse and brought Gullah Joe and the woman both to live there, Gullah Joe asked her what her name was. She just looked at him and said, “I don' know, master.” It was a far cry from what she used to say to Denmark, back before he made her stupid. In those days she'd say, “Master never know my name. You call me what you want, but I never tell my name.”
Well, when Gullah Joe asked Denmark what the woman's name was, and Denmark didn't know, why, you might have thought Joe had eaten a pepper, the way he started jumping around and howling and yipping.
“She never told her name!” he cried. “She kept her soul!”
“She kept her hate,” said Denmark. “I tried to love her and I don't even know what to call her except Woman.”
But Gullah didn't care about Denmark's sad story. He got to work with his witchery. He made Denmark catch him a seagull– not an easy thing to do, but with Joe's Catching Stick it went well enough. Soon the seagull's body parts were baked, boiled, mixed, glued, woven, or knotted into a feathered cape that Gullah Joe would throw over his head to turn himself into a seagull. “Not really,” he explained to Denmark. “I still a man, but I fly and White sailor, he see gulls.” Joe would fly out to slaveships coming in to port in Camelot. He'd go down into the hold and tell the people they needed to get their name-string made before they landed, and give it to the half-Black man who gave them water.
“Put hate and fear in name-string,” he said to them. “Peaceful and happy be all that stay behind. I keep you safe till the right day.” Or that was what he told Denmark that he said. Few of the arriving slaves spoke any English, so he had to explain it to them in some African language. Or maybe he was able to convey it all to them in knot language. Denmark wouldn't know– Gullah Joe wouldn't teach him what the knotwork meant or how it worked. “You read and write White man talk,” Gullah Joe said. “That be enough secret for one man.” Denmark only knew that somehow these people knew how to tie bits of this and that with scraps of string and cloth and thread and somehow it would contain their name, plus a sign for fear and a sign for hate. Even though he couldn't understand it, the knotted name-strings made Denmark proud, for it proved that Black people knew how to read and write back in Africa, only it wasn't marks on paper, it was knots in string.
Besides gathering the names of the newly arrived slaves, Denmark helped collect the names of the slaves already in Camelot. Word spread among the Blacks– Denmark only had to pass along a garden fence with an open basket, and Black hands would reach out and drop namestrings into the basket. “Thank you,” they said. “Thank you.”
“Not me,” he would answer. “Don't thank me. I ain't nobody.”
Came a day not long ago when they had all the slaves' names, and Gullah Joe sang all night. “My people happy now,” he said. “My people got they happy.”
“They're still slaves,” Denmark pointed out.
“All they hate in there,” said Gullah Joe, pointing at the bulging net.
“All their hope, too,” said Denmark. “They got no hope now either.”
“I no take they hope,” said Gullah Joe. “White man take they hope!”
“They all stupid like my woman,” said Denmark.
“No, no,” said Gullah Joe. “They smart. They wise.”
“Well, nobody knows it but you.”
Gullah Joe only grinned and tapped his head. Apparently it was enough for Joe to know the truth.
There was one person who wasn't happy, though. Oh, Denmark was glad enough to have a purpose in his life, to have Black people look at him with gratitude instead of loathing. But that wasn't the same as being happy. His woman was still before him every day, lurching through her housework, mumbling words he could barely understand. Gullah Joe saw that his people weren't unhappy anymore. But Denmark saw that the happiest people were the Whites. He heard them talking.
“You see how docile they are?”
“Slavery is the natural state of the Black man.”
“They don't wish to rise above their present condition.”
“They are content.”
“The only place where Blacks are angry is where they are permitted to live without a master.”
“The Black man cannot be happy without discipline.”
And so on, throughout the city. White people came to Camelot from all over the world, and what they saw was contented slaves. It persuaded them that slavery must not be such a bad thing after all. Denmark hated this. But Gullah Joe seemed not to care.
“Black man day come,” said Gullab Joe.
“When?”
“Black man day come.”
That was why Denmark Vesey was scowling at Gullah Joe today, as the old witchy man carried the basket of name-strings through the knotwork that guarded the place. All these happy slaves. Was Denmark Vesey the only Black man in Camelot who lived in hell?
Gullah Joe pulled the net open and started to pour in the new namestrings. At that moment, cords along the bottom of the net began to pop open, one by one, as if someone were cutting them. Name-strings dropped out, at first a few, then dozens, and then the whole net opened up and the name-strings lay heaped on the floor.
“What did you do?” asked Denmark.
Gullah Joe did not answer.
“Something wrong?” asked Denmark.
Gullah Joe just stood there, his hands upraised. Denmark walked through the hanging junk, circling around until he could see Joe's face. He was frozen like a statue– a comic one, with eyes wide and teeth exposed in a grimace, like the minstrels in those hideous shows that White actors did with their faces painted Black.
This wasn't just a net giving way. Someone or something had broken open the net and spilled the name-strings onto the floor. If it had the power to do that, it had the power to hurt Gullah Joe, and that's what seemed to be happening.
What could Denmark do? He knew nothing about witchery. Yet he couldn't let anything happen to Joe. Or to the name-strings, for that matter, for the name of every slave in Camelot was spilled here. Yet if Denmark walked within the charmed circle that Joe had shown him, wouldn't he be in the enemy's power, too?
Maybe not if he didn't stay long. Denmark ran and leapt, knocking Joe clear out of the circle. They both sprawled on the floor, leaving a dozen large charms swaying and bumping each other.
Gullah Joe didn't show any sign of being hurt. He leapt up and looked frantically around him. “Get up by damn! A broom! A broom!”
Denmark scrambled to his feet and ran for the broom.
“Two broom! Quick!”
In moments the two of them were standing just outside the circle, reaching the brooms inside to sweep the name-strings outside in great swaths.
“Fast!” cried Joe. “He take apart you broom you go slow!”
Denmark hadn't thought he was going any slower than Joe, but then he realized that the end of the broomstick nearest his body was holding almost still as he levered the broom to sweep out name-strings. No sooner had he thought of this than the broomstick rocketed straight at him like a bayonet, ramming him in the stomach just under the breastbone. Denmark dropped like a rock, the breath knocked out of him. And when he did manage to take in a great gasp of air, he immediately vomited.
A few minutes later, Gullah Joe was bending over him. “You got you air? He not hurt you bad. He no see you, or you dead man.”
“Who?” asked Denmark.
“You think I know?”
“You talk like you know everything,” said Denmark.
“When I know, I say I know. This one, he a bad devil. He wander like stray dog, come passing through, he see all the names, devil eat name like food, like cake, taste him sweet. He come in my circle and now he get caught, he no come out. So he mad, him! Tear up net. Tear up name, kill me if he can. But I stop him.”
“I helped.”
“Yes, you knock me down, very smart.”
“Why you holding still like that?”
“See me knotty hair? She wiggle, he get inside, he break me in bits.”
Denmark had long wondered why Gullah Joe had braided his hair with ribbons and scraps. It wasn't decoration, it was protection– as long as the knotted braids weren't wiggling.
“So that hair keep out the devil?”
Joe flipped his braids boastfully. “Hair, she keep him out of me.” Then he pointed at the dangling charms that used to ring the net of name-strings. “These charm, they keep him in my circle.” Joe grinned. “It got him.”
“What you want him for?” asked Denmark. “Can you ask him for wishes or something?”
Gullah Joe looked at him like he was stupid. “You live White too long, boy, it make you strange.”
“I thought maybe it was like a genie or something.”
“You no ask devil help you, he help you be dead, that be his help you.” Gullah Joe began walking around, looking at the dangling charms hanging elsewhere in the room. “You get me that one, that one, that one.”
Denmark, being tall, had no trouble unhooking the charms Joe indicated. Soon they had a new circle created, just like the other one, only when you looked close there were no two charms alike. It seemed not to matter. In a few more minutes they gathered the name-strings from the floor, piled them in another net, and hoisted them off the floor in the midst of the charmed circle.
“Now nobody see them again, they safe, they don't get lost, they don't get found.”
“So we beat the devil this time,” said Denmark.
Gullah Joe shook his head sadly. “No, he tear one up. He pick that one, he tear her up, he break the string, she name be fly off somewhere.”
“Lost?”
“Oh, she name try to get home, she try so hard.” Gullah Joe sighed. “Some name she strong, but she blind, no find the way. Some name see the way, but she no fly, she fade away. This one, she strong, she bright, maybe she get home.”
“Which one was it?”
“You think I tell she name? Call that name to me? You think I be so bad? No sir. I no say she name, I be pray that name find that girl, she a good one. Why he pick her?”
“Don't ask me,” said Denmark. “I don't know why anybody picks anybody.”
“No, he go to her, he know her. He know her. That devil, he been walking Camelot street, him. That devil, be maybe him a man. Be maybe him a White man.” Gullah Joe smiled. “Be maybe him soul fly, get caught here, but he body be somewhere.”
Denmark thought about this. A White man somewhere with his soul trapped outside his body. “You thinking maybe we ought to find him?”
“How much him I catch here?” Gullah Joe asked. “Black people soul, I take name, I take anger, I take sad, all the rest stay body. But the White man, how much he send out, how much he give me?” He went to his table, where a hundred secrets sat in jars and little boxes. He opened one, then another, rejecting each until he found a box with a fine white powder in it. He grinned and picked up a pinch of it between his fingers. Then he walked to the edge of the original circle, where the devil-man was trapped. He parted his fingers as he blew the powder sharply. The fine grey dust quickly filled the exact dimensions of the circle, swirling right up to the edges but never drifting out. Denmark saw a tiny light, like a mosquito with a firefly's tail, changing colors as it darted about within the cloud.
“That's him?” asked Denmark.
“He got him power,” said Gullah Joe, his voice filled with awe.
“How can you tell?”
“You so far off, you see him, right?”
“Sure, I saw him. Like a firefly.”
Gullah Joe laughed. “You so blind! He like a star. Bright star. We got trouble in this circle. He be find a way out. And then he be mad.”
“Then let's get out of here,” said Denmark. “I don't want him clipping me open like that net.”
“No problem,” said Gullah Joe.
“You mean you can keep him from getting out?”
“I got my best circle hold him. She strong enough? I don't know. But I don't got no better, so… maybe we dead, maybe we safe.” Gullah Joe shrugged. “No problem.”
“Well it matters to me!” cried Denmark.
“Be maybe you better go,” said Gullah Joe, grinning. “You go find out what house got him a man, him eyes open, nobody inside.”
“White man?”
“You think Black man break a name-string?” asked Gullah Joe contemptuously.
“Not all Black men be good,” said Denmark.
“Black men all be on our side,” said Gullah Joe.
Denmark laughed rudely. “That the stupidest thing you said
since I know you.”
Gullah Joe looked at him oddly. “I know what I know.”
“Oh, they on your side now, Joe, cause you got their name-strings in a bag, you keeping them happy. But that don't mean they on your side, you fool. White master got them all so scared they want to please him, like little puppy dogs. They not telling now cause what if the White man take their soul? But they ain't on your side. They on their master's side.”
“You think you the only smart man?” asked Joe, annoyed.
“I seen it a thousand times. Blacks betraying Blacks, each time hoping the master will like them better than the other slaves, treat them good. You watch.”
“I be do this long time, lots of year now,” said Gullah Joe. “Black people know what I got here, they never turn against me.”
“Then how did this White devil find out where you were?”
Joe's eyes grew wide at the question. Then he grinned at Denmark. “You show them the way.”
“I did not,” said Denmark. “I wore that memory net you made me, nobody find anything about you from me!”
“He no look in your head, my net make it empty in there. This devil follow your feet till he come in right behind you.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know what I know,” said Gullah Joe, for about the thousandth time since Denmark had known him. “I see him come in.”
“You're lying,” said Denmark. “If you seed him come in you would have told me.”
“I feel him. I feel him hot eyes looking. I feel them charm dance, I feel them charm shake.”
“Then why didn't you stop him?”
Gullah Joe grinned. “Be maybe I think he no find name-string. Be maybe I think circle keep him out.”
“Be maybe you full of shit,” said Denmark. “You didn't know he was here till the net started popping. He probably followed you inside the circle.”
Gullah Joe thought about that. “Better us find him body.”
“So you ain't going to admit he took you by surprise,” said Denmark testily. “You got to keep pretending you see all, you know all.”
“I no see all,” said Gullah Joe. “I see more than you.”
“Sometimes.”
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