“Uh-huh,” Henry said, and moved toward the cast-iron stove. “You ain’t give yourself to him ’fore you all said them words to each other down in the clearing, did you?”
“Sir?” Lou replied, her eyes low, watching his feet shuffle in place and then take a step or two closer to her.
“What you know about God, Lou?” Henry asked.
“I—I don’t know.”
“The Bible?”
“Nothing, I suppose.”
“Well, let me tell you about God and the Bible. God wrote the Bible, and said that a woman must remain virtuous until she takes a husband.”
“Yassir”
“That apply to the white men and women, but you all—I mean the savages and niggas—that don’t apply to you.”
Lou said nothing.
“It don’t apply to you like it don’t apply to the cattle and chickens and such.” Henry moved closer. “God put you all here to serve us. Do you understand what I’m saying, Lou?”
He was in her face now. His stomach brushing against hers, his breath warm on her cheeks.
Lou nodded her head. She understood. This is what Nellie and the rest of the women talked about, warned her about, and sometimes sat back and cried about.
“The Good Book say a slave is supposed to honor and serve his master.” Henry bent and whispered in her ear. “Are you a good slave, Lou?” His hands were on her, everywhere. His breathing labored. “Are you, Lou? Are you?” he said again, breathless as he ripped the necklace of honeysuckle from her body and tossed it to the ground.
“Are you, are you?” He pressed and tore at her dress.
Lou let go a choked scream.
“Don’t you scream, Lou; don’t you do it or I’ll whip you good,” he said, some of his fingers crawling across her breasts, the other ones down between her legs.
“Stop that crying. You stop it now.” A red-faced Henry steps away from her. “Shhh,” he warns, and points to the ceiling above his head. “You want the mistress to hear?” Lou covers her mouth and weeps. “She’ll have you hung if she find out what you done.”
Henry shoves a naked, scared, and trembling Lou into the pantry and down to the floor. He shuts the door behind them and blocks it with a pickle barrel.
In that dark space that is dank with the scent of pounded wheat and jarred peaches, Henry Vicey takes.
He helps himself, over and over again, to her innocence, youth, and virtue. He gorges himself until his mouth has tasted every part of her, sopping up every bit of what she had managed to hold on to from the valley.
He takes.
He takes.
He takes until he is sure that he has depleted her and that there is nothing much left over to bring to Buena.
* * *
Later, Naples sweeps the curled and brown petals of the honeysuckle across the floor and out the back door. She pushes the pickle barrel back into its corner, touches the sacks of flour, rearranges the jarred preserves on the shelf, and eases her aging body down onto her knees. There is a slight thought to the job at hand—just slight; she’s careful not to ponder too long. All pondering does is confuse her head and make it hurt, so she gets down to it and begins to push the wet rag over the specks of blood that are drying dark in the grooves of the wood flooring.
___________________
Her eyes have always been dark, but never empty.
She’s always worn a wistful expression, a longing look, sad sometimes—but now there was nothing.
He reaches for her and she shrinks away, and right then he knows. He stands up, takes a few steps toward the house, balls his fists, pushes them into his temples, and coughs out a sound that could have been a scream. The hounds perk up when their ears get wind of it; the overseer grabs his whip and waits.
But Buena just kicks at the dirt, goes off and punches at the bark of the dogwood behind the quarters, goes down to the stream and dunks his head.
The women try to comfort Lou. Standing over her, hands folded in pity across their stomachs, they say, “Dis here is our life, what you gonna do? Worry yourself into tomorrow ’bout it? It’s already done.”
“It ain’t like you the first—”
“Or the last.”
“You got a husband now. Pick your face up off of the floor.”
“Straighten your back.”
“Dis our life, what you gonna do?”
The men gather around Buena, eyes focused on the horizon as they skip pecan shells across the ground and say, “Sure is a pretty sky.”
“Right fine sunset too.”
“I smell rain, though.”
“Ay-yuh, it coming all right; gonna wash everything clean.”
* * *
What should have been theirs right after the exchange of words in the clearing comes a month later, in the middle of the day, sixty pounds of cotton in a sack across his back, the sun pressing down on his neck.
He’s careful with her down in the dirt beneath the watching sun. Gentle as he slips into her and thankful in the end, even though he is just a nigger and white men tell him the only thing he and the other niggers have to be grateful for is them.
* * *
Now at night, she curls into him, and they touch each other as the others sleep their hard days away. Sometimes they sneak out into the cotton rows, away from every shut eye that ain’t asleep, and share secrets with each other before they make love.
“My real name is Nayeli,” she whispers to him through the darkness. He strokes her cheek and then her neck.
“Na-ye-li,” he repeats slowly, allowing her name to coat his tongue. He closes his mouth and swallows it; now it is as much a part of him as she is. “It’s a beautiful name.”
Lou wants to cry. It is a beautiful name. She’d never thought of it that way. “If it’s so beautiful, why does it hurt so bad?”
Buena pulls her closer to him and cradles her in his arms. “They cut your finger off, it hurts. They cut your toe off, it hurts,” he begins, then takes a breath and squeezes Lou into him. “Same with your name; they cut it from you, and it hurts.” Lou nods her head.
“What does it mean?” Buena asks.
Lou sniffs. “It means I love you,” she whispers.
Lou has many secrets, while Buena seems to have next to none, and the few he does possess are more sightings than secrets. More gossip than confidential.
“Once, after Massa Owen and his wife had a disagreement, I saw him piss in the pail of well water the girl had set aside for the missus’s bath,” he says, and then muffles his laugh.
Lou whispers back, “I can read.”
___________________
The years she’d spent at the foot of April’s bed had not been pleasant ones. April was a brat; that much was true. But she was smart as a whip; her favorite game after hide-and-seek and tag was teacher and pupil.
For the four years Lou shared April’s room, she was not only her slave and playmate, but her student. “You sit there, Lou, and I’ll stand over here and you do what I say and now hold that book properly and sit up straight and what letter is this, have you forgotten, what, are you stupid or something?”
Lou was far from stupid, but she was a great actress and so always looked at the arithmetic and spelling words with a confused face.
“Lou, Lou! I just told you how to spell that word. Now, try it again.” And Lou did, over and over again, looking at the letter F and sounding out an E. Looking at the word “boy” and saying, “Dog?”
Sometimes her acting abilities got her a slap across the face or a book bought down hard on top of her head. April would storm away from her, red faced and cussing. “Mama, Lou is as stupid as the damn dogs!”
“Don’t say ‘damn,’ sweetheart,” Verna would start, and then, “Didn’t I tell you that it was against the law to try to teach a slave?”
“I’m not breaking any laws, Mama, ’cause she ain’t learning nothing,” April would say with a pout.
“True enough; how could she? They’re all
so stupid.”
Lou had learned plenty.
She practiced writing her alphabet in the wet dirt around the stream’s embankment. Counted the petals of the wildflowers. Listened close when Verna went over April’s lessons with her, and even managed to steal a book or two, which she kept hidden beneath a loose floorboard on the back porch.
Who was the stupid one now?
* * *
Lou teaches Buena Vista.
First by the moonlight and then by candlelight. The alphabet scrawled into the dirt, so easily erased.
“A,” he whispered in her ear before snatching a nibble of her lobe. “You taste like honey.”
Lou pushed him gently away and pointed to the next letter. “T,” Buena Vista said, allowing the tip of his tongue to tap at the roof of his mouth. “T-t-t-t-t-t-t. Sound like old Massa’s pocket watch, huh, Lou?”
Lou smiled and nodded her head. “Okay now, Buena. What this here word spell?”
Buena Vista stared down at the letters scrawled in the dirt: C-A-T.
Buena cleared his throat and looked around their little cabin before he laughed and reached for her again. Lou slapped his hands away. “Not till you tell me what the word is, Buena.”
Buena Vista shrugged his shoulders in frustration and leaned heavily against the small wooden bed he’d made for Lou as a wedding present.
“Look here, woman. Plenty of gals right here on this here plantation would love to have a big ole buck of a man likes me, and you here pushing me this way and that.” Buena laughed.
Lou snuffed at him and pointed her index finger at the word.
Buena Vista flexed his biceps before pulling himself up and prancing around the tiny space like a rooster.
“I ain’t got all night, Buena.” Lou’s voice was tired.
“All right, woman,” Buena said, and dropped down to his knees. “C-C-AAAAA—” He turned puppy-dog eyes to his wife as he struggled.
“You doing fine, baby,” she said, stroking his arm, urging him on.
“C-C-C-AAAAT. C-C-AAAT. C-AT. CAT!”
“You did it, baby. You did it.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Buena said, and felt his chest inch wider with pride.
Beneath the cover of night Lou teaches Buena Vista, and will do the same for the children they produce together, with the hope that their children will be able to do the same for theirs—but in the light of day.
* * *
A piece of the newspaper found itself wrapped around the hitching post. Buena had just meant to retrieve it, crumple it in his hands, and deposit it into the trash bin. But he found himself staring at the words, surprised at himself when he recognized at least a dozen of them and then even more astonished when he found his lips moving, sounding out each letter, piecing words and then whole sentences together.
It had happened; he had crossed the line that separated him from his master. The excitement filled him; he could feel every vein in his body begin to bulge with it.
A dam broke loose inside of him and knowledge washed through him. He shuddered. He thought he knew what power felt like. But what he experienced on that day did not compare to felling a pine or wrangling a steer.
This strength that surged through him did not radiate from his hands, but pounded in his mind.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The first few lines she speak I miss, ’cause my mind is drifting, but no sooner than I know it, I’m all caught up in the story again.
I see the fields and Lou’s face, and I smell Buena and he smells like fresh-plowed earth. I feel them inside of me, even though they both dead and buried deep in the ground.
No marker, no mound of dirt.
As soon as I’m all dug in, her cell phone ring and I’m back again.
She look at the name, press the button, say, Hello, yes, uh-huh, New Mexico, me too, okay, bye.
She press the button, look over at me, and ask, How you like it so far?
Was that Madeline? I ask.
She just make a face that say, Now you know that wasn’t no Madeline. Then she say, No. So what about the story so far?
A friend of yours, then?
She smirk, lean back in the chair, and blow air through her lips. She say, Yes, Dumpling, it was a friend of mine.
Boyfriend?
Sherry just watch me.
Well? I say.
I guess I’m talking too loud, ’cause people turn and stare.
Sherry ain’t even fazed by it; she look bored, point to the book, and say again, How you like it so far?
I just shrug my shoulders.
Sherry smirk again, throw some money on the table, and jump up out of her seat.
I guess it’s time to go.
___________________
The slaves try not to stare, try to go about their business, but April is a sight to behold. Busting out of her wedding gown, every which a-way, so big now she walks with a cane.
Twenty-five years old, an old maid, all of the other girls her age have been married for eight years or more, with families of their own.
“Massa had to go as far as Washington County to finds a husband for her,” the slaves whisper.
“Who all would want her anyhow? She as fat as a cow and mean as a witch’s tit.”
The slaves snicker amongst themselves.
“I hear he ailing, ain’t got much breath left in his body.”
“Massa knows that, figurin’ he gonna get hold of the land the husband drop dead and leave behind.”
“He ain’t got no kin?”
“Son died of the malaria some time back.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. Down in Florida.”
“So he ain’t got no kin to leave it to. It just gonna go to his wife, and so that mean it just gonna go to Massa.”
“He a slick old dog.”
April wobbles down the steps, her mother trying desperately to snatch corn bread from her pudgy hands.
“You getting crumbs all over your dress. You just had breakfast, for God’s sake, April!”
“Ah, leave her be, Verna. This here is her day.” Henry beams as he climbs into the wagon. “Sara, Jenny,” he calls, and two women appear from their watching places behind the shed.
They pop out quickly, exchanging guilty glances before approaching, heads bent, eyes sweeping the floor.
“All y’all hands clean?” Henry asks.
They look at their nutmeg-colored palms. “Yassir.”
“C’mon on, then, and help me hoist Miss April up in this here wagon.”
Sara and Jenny exchange looks. They are only twelve and fourteen and reed thin.
“You sure do look pretty, Miss April,” Sara says, and takes her place to the right of April. “Sure ’nuff,” Jenny agrees, and takes her place to the left.
“All y’all ready?” Henry calls down from the wagon.
“Ready,” Sara and Jenny answer uncertainly.
“Ready, baby?” Henry whispers down into his daughter’s moonlike face.
April’s mouth is still working at the corn bread, and so she just nods her head.
Henry grabs hold of April’s arms, and all of the watching faces suck in their breath as Jenny and Sara move to a crouching position and wait for the go-ahead.
“Heave!” Henry yells, and Jenny and Sara straighten their legs, bringing the tops of their shoulders deep beneath April’s armpits, pushing themselves up until they are on their tiptoes. Their hands try to find anchor somewhere on April, but it’s futile—their fingers slide off the silk of the dress.
“Ho!” Henry yells, and pulls with all of his might, which is not much. April rises less than an inch off the ground.
It goes on like that for at least twenty minutes. It goes on like that until Jenny drops down and Sara’s eyes are tearing up from the pain that’s ripping through her back.
Henry snatches his hat off in frustration, slapping it against his thigh as he bawls, “Dammit, dammit, dammit!”
“Can I have an
other piece of corn bread, Daddy?” April asks, more concerned about her stomach than getting to her wedding on time.
“Sure, baby,” Henry answers absentmindedly as he looks desperately around for some other means of getting her up into the wagon.
“No, you cannot!” Verna yells. “Next time you eat, you’ll be a married woman!”
Jenny hides a chuckle in the palm of her hand, and even Sara’s tearful face registers some amusement.
“Buena, Joe!” Henry calls out. “Y’all gonna have to help me hoist April up into this here wagon.”
Verna’s face ices over and then shatters. “Have you taken leave of all of your senses?”
“What?” Henry’s face is a mess of befuddlement.
Verna looks at the approaching men and takes a step closer to her husband, dropping her voice an octave and hissing, “I will not have no nigger men handling my daughter.”
Henry looks at his wife, his daughter, and the men standing a respectful distance away awaiting further instructions.
“Well, how else we gonna get her up in this wagon?” Henry’s voice is full of defeat. He tugs at his hair, then balls his right hand into a fist and shakes it in his wife’s face. “How else, Verna?”
Verna folds her arms across her breasts and huffs. “You just find some other sort of way,” she says, moving off to the shade of a peach tree.
Suddenly, Henry turns and grabs hold of the reins. “Hiya!” he yells.
“What the hell?” Verna’s jaw drops as she watches the wagon start to move off. “What are you doing, Henry?” she screams.
“Where’s Papa going?” April asks as she waves at the swirling dust the wagon wheels have kicked up.
“To hell, I hope,” Verna mumbles beneath her breath.
“Where?”
“Hennnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry!” Verna cups her hands around her mouth and screams as she rushes out into the clearing.
Nowhere Is a Place Page 7
