Nowhere Is a Place

by Bernice L. McFadden

  * * *

  June passed, and a fiery July beat down on them as they each stared at the two silver pieces Paul Archer pressed into their hands. August saw the same heat and another set of silver pieces and so did September and October, when the fields were bare and the freed men and women looked at one another and their silver and asked, “Now what?”

  Willie didn’t have any questions, only dreams.

  He remembered well the last night he spent on the Miggs plantation. He could barely sleep—him and about a dozen others. There was plenty of tossing and turning. Plenty of whispered questions and murmuring—murmuring so loud, the birds lifted from the trees in search of a piece of space they could actually snatch some shut-eye in.

  Willie was up before dawn, up just as the moon became translucent and the stars were nowhere to be seen. He had a piece of old tablecloth, dumped the few items he owned onto it, and tied it to the end of a fallen tree limb. He hustled down to the river, washed the crust from the corners of his eyes, and rinsed his mouth clean. The freezing-cold water rattled his teeth, and his whole body shook against the chill.

  And before he could get far up the embankment, he pulled the piece of paper from his pocket and lovingly fingered it. It was old, worn, and yellow, tattered around the edges, the letters fading—but still, anyone with good eyes could make out the word: MYANMAR.

  Once, many years earlier, before the mice had made a meal out of it, there was another word that said GEORGIA.

  That slip of paper had kept him going. He preferred it to the warmth of a woman, could go without a meal as long as he had that piece of paper close by.

  He didn’t know what had attracted him so to that place. A place as foreign to him as another country. Some little town carved out of a state he had never visited.

  Willie’s mind had painted pictures of Myanmar: green flowered fields, cloudless skies, fruit trees always bearing, and a brook that made music against the rocks beneath it.

  Just a piece of paper with letters that could have said anything, but he knew it was Myanmar because the young Miggs girl had ripped it from the newspaper and had slowly sounded out the word over and over again until her tongue stopped jamming up against her teeth and the elder Miggs girl looked over her book, smiled, and said, “That’s perfect.”

  Willie, pulling weeds and patting earth down around the porch was trying not to listen, but the little girl’s slight voice and the word, over and over again like the awkward scales the young Miggs boy played on Saturday afternoons, stuck in his mind.

  My-an-mar. Myyyyyyyyy-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan-mmmmmm-aaaaaaaaaaar.

  Later, when the girls were called in for supper, the wind caught hold of the paper and brought it right to Willie’s feet. The word looked up at him, beckoned him, and Willie plucked it from the ground and jammed it into his pocket.

  He was near seventeen by then and had had it for nearly twelve years. That paper was magical, painting dreams where there was once just darkness.

  Dreams of him walking a road, the sun high and lemon-colored, its rays warm against his face, new shoes, and Willie high-stepping like the white men—neck straight, eyes savoring all the land that lay ahead of him, not just the dirt road and the grass that grew at its edges—all of it.

  And then the stone wall, covered in creeping honeysuckle, and her.

  His heart always skipped a beat at the first sight of her, and fear struck him someplace deep, but he’d confused that feeling with excitement.

  Her hair was the color of glowing embers and wild about her head, not moving at all in the wind that suddenly picked up out of nowhere and wrapped itself around him.

  Willie knew, before he even saw her face or any part of what she was below her neck, that her hip was pressed against the stone wall—had been pressed against it for a long time, maybe even years, while she waited for him. Everything in him wanted to run to her, raise her skirt, and kiss the purple bruise that he was sure the stone and the years had left there.

  He wanted to do that for her.

  When he gets to where he can just make out her cheekbone, beautifully chiseled and high, he’s honored with an eye—just one—beadlike and black, fixed on the future even though Willie is approaching from her past.

  Her left arm is stretched out on top of the wall, her chin pressed into the fleshy part of her arm just below her shoulder. It is a lazy pose. One that betrays the ardent look that rests in her eyes.

  He always wakes just as her head begins to turn slowly toward him.

  Five years he’d been dreaming about that woman with the fiery hair, languid stance, and eager eyes.

  He’d also been in love with her for just as long.

  And so at the drop of a word Willie set out in search of a place called Myanmar and a woman with chiseled cheekbones and hair the color of a burning sunset.

  ___________________

  He traveled at night, walking through the mouth of darkness without too much worry. There were others moving across the land just like him. Some he thought that didn’t need to. Some were as white as any white man he’d ever seen. So white they were easy to spot in the darkness, like snowflakes on a pitch-dark winter night. But he knew they were Negroes. The nose gave it away—sometimes the lips too; other times something in him just told him so.

  “Spooks were right,” he’d chuckled to himself one evening when a man called out to him from behind a tree. High moon and night sky blotched with clouds that threatened to drop something—snow, sleet, rain—something.

  The voice cut through Willie’s thoughts and triggered the need to pee.

  “Psssst. Hey you,” the voice came again, and Willie quickened his pace, preparing for the full-out hauling-of-ass type of run he would need to break into if the calling voice was unfriendly.

  “Hey. Slow down, friend.”

  Friend?

  Willie threw a slow look over his shoulder, and his gaze collided with bulging, yellowed eyes sunk deep into a black face.

  A wave of a hand and then the “Hey you” again.

  Willie forced his feet to come to a stop; even though the command was swift, his legs took four more strides before halting, and even then his calf muscles pumped away beneath his skin.

  He turned and started reluctantly toward the man.

  The man himself popped back behind a tree. Willie stopped a foot or so away from the tree and called out, “Yeah?”

  The man’s head reappeared, and then a whole body stepped out from behind the tree. He was a lanky something, this man who had a nervous twitch tugging at the corners of his mouth and rapid blinking eyes. “You . . . uhm, going north?”

  Willie didn’t know which way he was going. For the past week he’d just been walking, sometimes strutting when the mood hit him, traveling along and putting all his trust in his dream and the slip of paper he carried in his pocket.

  “Headed to Myanmar.”

  The man’s shoulders jumped a bit and he brushed some nothingness off the top of his head. “Myanmar? Ain’t never heard of the place. Where that?”

  “Georgia.”

  The man’s head bounced. “Can’t be too far; Georgia right here where we standing.” The man’s eyes rolled and he snatched a quick peek over his shoulder before stepping closer and dropping his voice a bit. “I’m heading to Philadelphia. My sister there already. Just awaitin’, I s’pose,” he said, his eyes glazing over. “You got some food?”

  Willie took an unconscious step backward. He had exactly two pieces of slab bacon, one and a half hardtack, and an apple.

  “Nah.”

  The man took another measured step forward. “What you carryin’, then?” he said, pointing a shaking finger toward the bundle that swung from the tree limb Willie had hoisted over his shoulder.

  “Clothes,” Willie said, and gripped the limb tighter.

  The man glanced over his shoulder again and his voice dropped to an inaudible whisper, forcing Willie to lean in a bit. “I sure am hungry. Been on these roads for nearly a m
onth,” he said, rubbing his stomach and moving steadily toward Willie. “Anything you got would help some. Anything.”

  Poor nigger, Willie thought. Well, they were all in it together, weren’t they? All in this mess called life and bound together by one thing or another.

  Willie’s own mother had farmed indigo in South Carolina before she was sold off to the Miggs plantation. She was just fourteen years old and had a baby hanging from one tit and fingertips stained blue that would remain that way until death. His memory of her was faded, but the teardrops that were etched below her eyes and the foreign way in which the American words rolled out of her mouth stayed with him—that and the cool feel of her blue fingertips on his body. He was the youngest of eight children; all the others had been sold off one by one over the years. The day she died was a scene in his mind that had begun to blanch, but if he thought hard enough he could see the wild horse break loose from its corral, he could hear the steady gallop of its hooves as it cut through the field, and he could see his mother’s blue fingers reach up into the air, just before the horse struck her and she was trampled beneath it.

  The memory came as a bright white light that set his forehead to burning even as the cold winter night wrapped its icy fingers around him.

  He shook the memory away and looked at the haggard man who stood before him. Yes, he thought, they were all in it together.

  Willie didn’t say a word, just stepped off the road and farther into the woody darkness. The man followed.

  “They call me Sammy,” the man said after they’d covered a few feet.

  “Willie,” Willie said, and presented his hand. Sammy gave it a blank stare and seemed not to know what to do with it, so Willie pulled it back in place at his side.

  “Been running for a month,” Sammy said as his eyes crawled eagerly over Willie’s sack.

  “No need to run. You can walk now,” Willie advised him, dropping down to one knee and undoing the knot. “President Lincoln done set all of us niggers free,” he explained as he pulled out a hardtack and handed it off to Sammy.

  “Sure ’nuff?” Sammy said, fingering the bread and suddenly breaking down, crying so hard that the hardtack went soft in his hands and then melted on his tongue, and still the tears ran.

  Willie couldn’t remember crying a tear out of hurt, longing, or shame. The only time his eyes teared up was from a troublesome wind or a menacing bit of dust.

  But now he felt like he might cry too; Sammy’s piteousness, weeks of running, black skin, and nervous ways rubbed against him and he felt tears welling up.

  He hurriedly wiped them away and dug once again into his bundle and presented Sammy with a piece of slab bacon.

  They sat, backs resting against a tall pine, whispering their lives to each other until Willie’s words were replaced with even sleep-breathing and the only eyes still open were Sammy’s.

  When the sun broke through the night shadows, Willie found himself alone. His small bundle was gone and so was Sammy.

  * * *

  He was headed for Myanmar, but never did get past Sandersville. Dead on his feet, the front of his shoes flapping and licking up dirt. His back aching and throat dry. Starving and seeing double when he stopped to lean against the wooden post.

  No sun on that day, just a whipping wind, cold rain, and the memory of the last best place: two days in a farmer’s barn, hidden behind hay that had been pressed into blocks, and Willie wrapped in a forgotten quilt that stank like he didn’t know what, but serving its purpose and keeping the chill at bay.

  No food and his hunger was bottomless, open and spreading into his dreams, devouring the red-haired beauty. And then the sound of horses, voices, and the “yuk yuk” laughter that told him the voices were white. Also, something about stoning, lynching, and gutting some “nigga baby” and then the “yuk yuk” again.

  Willie could hardly wait till nightfall before slipping out of his hiding place and hitting the road.

  That was two weeks ago, maybe three. He couldn’t quite remember, all his senses tuned now to what was coming up fast behind him. Death had been tailing him for at least three days. That he was sure of.

  Walking closer to the road, hunger nudging him there, planting hopeful thoughts in his mind, coating his tongue with the memory of fatback and sweet corn, making the clouds look like biscuits and the soft insides of baked potatoes.

  Stumbling along, passing a worn sign that meant nothing to Willie but stated, TOWN OF VALENCIA—his ears clogged from hunger, Willie didn’t hear the sound of the approaching horses, but felt the beat of them in the earth beneath his feet and scurried off and into the woods where he threw himself down to the ground and laid still. Very, very still.

  There, pressed into the frozen earth, he watched as the horse-drawn carriage approached. It slowed as it took the bend and Willie could see the pale-pink face and the hoofed foot of the driver.

  Death himself, riding high and capped.

  Now Willie stumbled along again, careful to keep watch over his shoulder. He’d left a bit of his sanity back there in the woods of Valencia—either that, or he picked up a touch of madness.

  Coming into the town of Ennis, he found shelter beneath a grove of chinaberry bushes. There he gathered dead leaves around his feet and tried to hug himself warm.

  Dozing, dying—he wasn’t sure which, but when he shifted his weight and pulled his knees closer in to his chest, his eyes fluttered open and there staring back at him were eyes as pink as azalea blooms.

  “Ooooh, Scratch, you done found me,” Willie whispered, his mind already failing him. And he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and mumbled words he’d heard the old women whisper on Sunday mornings.

  “Baaa-aaaa,” responded the creature.

  Willie, perplexed, slowly opened one eye and then the other.

  “Goat? A goddamn goat?” he said out loud to the pink eyes that blinked back at him.

  Broad daylight, and Willie walking right out into the open found himself surrounded by twenty goats grazing on the dead grass.

  Some looked at him and scurried a few feet away, switching their tails as they went.

  Willie propped his hands on his hips and laughed. “Goats!”

  * * *

  More scurrying and pink eyes watchful as Willie walks slowly toward a kid whose mother has allowed fear to force her more than ten yards away from it.

  Willie bends toward it, extends an empty hand, and begins making kissing sounds with his mouth.

  The kid’s tail switches nervously and it skips closer to its mother.

  Willie can wait. He looks at the sky, and the sun promises him at least three more hours of light. Willie peers down the road, listens hard for hooves, and hears nothing. He can wait. Patience, he knows, is a virtue.

  An hour of just sitting as still as a stone until the goats wander back toward him, skittish though, hunger outweighing their fear, and they drop their heads and attention away from Willie and begin chomping at the dead grass again.

  Another hour, the light fading fast, and Willie’s heartbeat is so slow, it can’t be felt in his chest or heard in his ears, and his toes are frozen—those and his hands—and he prays that his fingers won’t fail him when it comes time to act on the plan he’s put together in his mind.

  Another thirty minutes and a kid close to Willie’s shoe is sniffing at the sole, licking at the leather before it takes its first nibble of the worn hide.

  Willie’s mind says, Now! but his body takes its sweet time, and it’s a full minute before his hands spring out and grab hold of the kid’s neck.

  The snapping sound sends the other goats scrambling toward a mound of dirt that Willie thought must be a beautiful sight in the spring, carpeted in green and bursting with color. He smiles and pulls from his pocket small knife, which he uses to slice open the goat’s belly.

  Steam rushes out of the open carcass and turns misty in the cold air; then Willie shoves both of his hands into the kid’s bloody, hot organs and sighs with re
lief.

  Hands warm now, his hunger jumps up and kicks him in the gut and, God help him, Willie bends his head and dines on the intestines, the heart, and the liver like the animal his slave master had constantly reminded him he was.

  Little good it does him—the blood, the taste of the flesh, the very act alone makes him puke up every bite he’s taken in. Not to mention the “Whoa!” from close by and the “Hey, nigger, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” along with the bullet that cuts the dirt by his shoe and sends Willie running.

  Now here he is, looking back on four days of walking, goat’s blood stiff on his clothes and flaking off of his hands, hunger beating at his stomach. Frigid cold tearing at his skin, stealing all the feeling out of him, and death somewhere close by watching and waiting to pounce.

  Willie is aware of all of these things but not the curl of smoke coming from the chimney of a small house to his left.

  Not aware of or even imagined before his eyes flutter closed and he falls face forward to the ground.

  * * *

  Waking to warmth made him think of hell, and he knew he would die another death if he opened his eyes and saw the devil looking down at him. The murmuring he heard could be words, but Willie didn’t know what language was spoken in hell and so he concentrated on the smells that swirled around him: beans, salt pork, fried bread.

  He couldn’t tell where his hands were, if he even had hands, and what of his feet? His head hurt and his mouth pulsed. His eyes remained shut.

  “Suce, heat up some water and let me get at these here feet again.”

  “Yessum.”

  Kindling being stirred in a hearth. A woman’s voice, words he knew.

  Heaven, maybe?

  A door opens and a rush of cold air passes over him.

  “He a sight, ain’t he?”

  A man’s voice.

  “Sure is.”

  “Them his shoes?”

  “Yep.”

  “Look like he walked clear ’cross the country in them.”