My Name's Not Friday

by Jon Walter

  ‘But, missus—’ Lizzie seems to swell in size – ‘they’re worth more to me alive than dead. I can sell the eggs, you see. I can sell ’em and save my money. Where am I gonna get myself new chickens with a war on?’

  We’re all thinking the same thing, but Mrs Allen stands her ground. ‘The master is home for Christmas, Lizzie. He’s been away at war, getting shot at and risking his life for the rest of us. Most days he’ll be lucky if he gets pork to eat, the same as you do, and so help me God, on Christmas Day, if we can’t get beef then he’ll taste some chicken.’ She looks around the circle. ‘We all will, and we’ll thank the Lord for providing it.’

  Lizzie must know it won’t do no good to argue, cos she walks over to them birds. ‘I’d rather you took ’em now, missus. Let me rest up in the morning. If we only got three days off work, then I’d like to make the most of ’em.’

  Well, those chickens come to meet her, thinking they’re gonna get some feed like they usually do, but Lizzie bends over and picks one out and she wrings its neck. My Lord, she did. She don’t even hesitate, and I see its eyes bulge and its little legs twitch before it goes all limp. ‘Go get me a basket, Gil. Help me carry ’em over to Winnie.’ She drops that dead bird to the ground, right in among its little friends, before she picks out another one and kills it just as quick. ‘How many do you want, missus? You want ’em all? Hey, Henry, you got that one over by the tree? You bring it here now. We don’t want anyone to go hungry on Christmas Day.’

  Lizzie won’t look at any of us while she does it. She keeps her eyes to the ground and chases the chickens who run away from her, though they don’t go far before she breaks their necks, talking to us all the while in a voice as happy as a songbird, like she’s out at the river washing clothes with Harriet. The rest of us don’t move an inch cos we don’t know whether to help her or stop her, though it doesn’t matter anyway cos we all know those birds are gonna die. There ain’t no two ways about that.

  Once she’s finished, there’s a pile of ’em lying down there in the dust and Lizzie puts her hands on her hips, exhausted by the work of it. When she looks at us she’s got no life left in her eyes; they’re all stony old and grey and she swallows hard. ‘You want the rooster too, ma’am? He’s a tough old bird, but he might as well go now too. He won’t be happy without his lady friends.’ She’s breathing hard as she turns around looking everywhere for him. ‘Now, where’s he got to? Anyone seen that big old boy about here?’

  Mrs Allen says, ‘I think you should let the rooster be, Lizzie.’

  ‘Right you are, missus, though that seems cruel to me, cos he’ll be mighty lonely.’

  Lizzie drops those chickens into the basket one by one, then walks across and holds it out to Mrs Allen. ‘Here you are, ma’am. Just what you asked for. You want me to walk ’em over to Winnie for you now?’

  The missus keeps her cool, I’ll give her that. ‘Thank you, Lizzie, but you can leave ’em for Sicely to bring with her when she comes back to the house.’

  Everyone felt for Lizzie, but nobody says a thing till the missus has gone.

  ‘I won’t eat ’em,’ declares Levi, and Mary says, ‘Me, neither.’

  We all agree on that till Lizzie turns on us. ‘Don’t you be so stupid! If I got to kill ’em, the least you can do is eat ’em!’

  She takes herself back to the cabin, slamming the door behind her, and the rest of us slink away into the night.

  At the table by our hearth, Hubbard takes the polished lamp and turns the wick higher. I ask him how it was the missus could do that, how come she didn’t know what it meant to Lizzie. Hubbard had watched the whole thing and hadn’t said a word so I thought he wouldn’t answer me now, but he did, and I took it as a measure of how far the two of us had come cos he tells me that if we don’t own our own bodies then we can’t have property of our own. Everything we have belongs to our masters. Those are the rules. That’s how it is. And thinking it through, I can see the logic of the argument, but that still don’t make it right. I tell him so too. Rules or no rules, it made no difference, cos we all knew they were Lizzie’s chickens.

  *

  Later that night there’s heavy rain and the chill of a winter wind blows through the holes in the cabin walls. It’s enough to wake us, and we push the rags more firmly into the gaps and we stoke up the fire, listening to the rain on the slats of our roof. In the morning when we wake, it’s still raining and my feet are cold and numb at the toes. I get up from my mattress on the floor, rekindle the fire and sit with my feet up close to the grate.

  Hubbard has his boots on in bed, so he’s right and warm enough. Once he gets up he fetches me rags to bind my feet, though he says it won’t do no good till the rains stop. Still, it is Christmas Eve, the first of our days off, and I’m happy enough to sit indoors by the fire and not have to work.

  Hubbard don’t get a proper day off since he has to drive Mrs Allen and Gerald into town to meet the train. He returns with the news that Mr Allen weren’t on it as planned, and there’s no word of his whereabouts, nor is there another train for five more days, so it seems we will have to do without him for Christmas.

  ‘I bet Gerald must have been upset.’

  Hubbard agrees with me. ‘Both of them were unhappy, but you know how they are – they’ll make the best of a bad deal.’

  Hubbard don’t bother to take his wet things off since he’s taking advantage of having a bona fide pass to see his wife and child. ‘I’ll be back for the roast tomorrow evening,’ he tells me as he goes back out.

  I go over to see Lizzie, running through puddles in the mud, my feet slip-sliding and cold till I hammer on her door to let me in out of the rain.

  ‘You heard the news?’ I ask her, once I’m settled by her fire.

  ‘Sure, I heard it.’

  ‘And do you know why he hasn’t come home?’

  Lizzie adjusts a cup that’s positioned on the floor to catch a drip that falls from the roof. ‘I expect he got delayed. War ain’t no convenient thing.’

  We pray for Mr Allen at our evening prayers, all of us gathered together in Hubbard’s cabin to keep out of the rain, and it’s a sober affair, despite the nip of brandy that Mrs Allen gives us. After she has gone I read the final part of A Christmas Carol and we learn how Scrooge woke up on Christmas morning, how he bought the biggest turkey in the shop and had it sent over to Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim so they could have the best Christmas feast they ever tasted.

  I like the idea that even a man as mean as Scrooge could learn the error of his ways and meet with God’s forgiveness, though to be honest, I don’t think the other slaves believe it could happen here and my reading fails to lift the gloom that has arrived with the rain and Mr Allen’s absence.

  That night, being on my own, I drag my mattress to the fireplace and sleep there, hoping to benefit from the heat before it dies in the night. In the morning, I wake up to a tapping on the door and hear Gerald’s voice. ‘Friday! Come to the door. Friday!’

  That boy has the loudest whisper I ever heard. I jump up to let him in. ‘What do you want?’

  Straightaway he gives me a hug. ‘Merry Christmas!’ He sure is excited. He’s wearing his Confederate tunic with a wide leather belt and a sword that I can tell must be new. ‘Get your clothes on and come with me.’

  ‘Where we going?’

  ‘We got to get to the yard before everyone wakes up. Come on and hurry up.’ He grabs my arm, pretty much pulling me out of the cabin and onto the path. He holds me up as I slide on the mud. ‘We’re gonna make a Christmas sleigh just like the one Santa uses.’

  So that’s his big idea. His daddy had always slung a sack of presents over his shoulder and played at being Santa Claus, so, now he ain’t gonna be here, Gerald’s decided to go one better.

  We pull the cart out from the barn and into the yard. We load it with well-seasoned logs for the cabin fires and with new blankets and cloth that will make our winter clothes. We also bring two sacks from the house,
one filled with nuts and fruit and a second filled with gifts, each of ’em wrapped in paper and string, the way I’d been told it always happened.

  ‘They ain’t as good as usual,’ Gerald tells me. ‘But everyone’ll still have something to open for a Christmas gift.’ We cut sprigs of fir from a tree and twist ’em around the cart for decoration. ‘Go and get the mule,’ Gerald orders me.

  ‘I’m not getting that thing,’ I tell him. ‘I ain’t going anywhere near a mule. Not on Christmas Day.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right. You sit right there.’ He runs back to the barn and returns with the mule, which he straps into the harness, and we find two sticks, which we tie onto the mule’s ears so they look like antlers.

  ‘What do you think?’ Gerald stands back to admire his work.

  ‘I think that mule’s mean enough without you giving him horns.’

  But we ain’t finished there. Next we go along to the gin barn and scrape the biggest clumps of cotton from the walls and tie ’em over our ears so it hangs down like a beard, ’cept that mine falls off cos I’m laughing so much and I have to do it over again.

  Sicely comes out of the cookhouse to see what all the fuss is about.

  ‘Merry Christmas!’ we shout across to her.

  ‘What have you done to that mule?’ She comes in closer for a better look. ‘Oh my word!’ she shrieks, and takes herself back inside, shaking her head and laughing out loud for Winnie to come and see.

  Gerald puts an arm about my shoulders. ‘You haven’t asked me for a Christmas gift yet. What do you want, Friday? You oughta have first choice.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know … There’s nothing I can think of.’

  ‘Course there is. Tell me what you want. If you do it now I can give it to you before someone else gets it. I wrapped all these myself, so I know what’s there.’

  ‘I suppose I’d like some shoes. Now that it’s getting cold and wet, it’d be nice to walk around in comfort, same as Hubbard does.’

  But Gerald shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, Friday, but we ain’t got shoes. I don’t have nothing like that.’

  ‘That’s all right. I only said it cos you asked.’ I close my eyes, reach inside the sack and take out a package. When I unwrap it I find a tin soldier just like the one I never got to buy at the Middle Creek shop. ‘It’s just what I wanted!’ I hold it up for Gerald to see. ‘Which side do you think he’s on?’

  ‘He’s a redcoat. I took him from my own set. I’m glad it was you who got him.’

  We set off to the cabins, me riding on the back of the cart while Gerald leads the mule. He’s ringing a brass bell to wake everyone up and get ’em to come outside. ‘Christmas gifts!’ we shout out. ‘Christmas gifts for everyone!’

  Mrs Allen comes down from the house and she’s smiling again, looking all angelic and kind. She brings butter for our ash cakes and they never tasted better than that morning, washed down with coffee that has half a spoon of sugar from a jar that Sicely said the missus had put aside especially. It had been the last one in the shop, purchased over two months ago, and they hadn’t seen the like of one since.

  Some of us get bright shiny buttons and some of us get ribbons of silk, either yellow or red, and if you didn’t get what you wanted then Lizzie said you had to swap with someone else or save it till you could take it to the market in town to barter. I get a blanket that’s thicker than the one I have already and I’m glad of that. I also get a palmful of tobacco to sell or smoke myself, though I don’t have a pipe and ain’t never tried it before.

  In the evening we gather at the house for our meal.

  Sicely and I bring all the tables together into one room, and when we’re all sat down and ready Winnie brings the chickens in, each of ’em on their own plate, ready to be carved and served with vegetables. We can smell their juices as Hubbard stands nervously and says prayers, thanking the good Lord for our daily bread and hoping for the swift return of Mr Allen from the war.

  When he’s finished, Mrs Allen stands and says a few words, thanking us for a fruitful year of hard work and telling us that she has saved a chicken for the master’s return, so we can finish the food on the table without fearing we should be too polite.

  Winnie and Hubbard carve the chickens, putting the meat on plates which they set before us, though none of us moves to eat till we see Lizzie take the first bite.

  Oh, but she is ever so gracious!

  She behaves just like a lady. She takes a decent chunk of meat onto her fork, chews it through and swallows it down before she turns to the rest of us and says she wonders why she left it so long, those birds are that tasty on the tongue. The missus smiles to hear it – we all do – and then we tuck right in.

  After the meal we return to the cabins and build up the fire till the sparks fly high in the air above our heads. A few fellows come by with a fiddle and drum, happy to play a bit of music for their supper, and we dance and clap our hands and sing songs. There are some that I don’t recognize and some that I have known before but forgotten – songs I had heard my mother sing to me when I was young. Those melodies come back to me now. I remember the smell of her and the gentle rise of her chest from when she sang to me softly. Thinking ’bout her always makes me think of Joshua and I ache for him too, wondering what sort of Christmas he might be having, all cloistered up with the rest of those boys and stern ol’ Father Mosely.

  At the end of the evening there are prizes given for the best dancers. The winners are chosen by Mrs Allen and Sicely, who does not dance herself and so is better able to judge with fairness. Harriet is thought to be the best of the girls and she receives a bonnet, while Levi wins a flask of brandy that is stopped with a cork. Little Gil wins himself a bat and ball for being the best of all the kids, and Gerald gives the prizes himself, handing ’em out from the back of the Christmas cart, looking happier than he’s ever been. I can see the man in him more than ever, see the life and soul of him, battling to become a person his Father will be proud of, and I thank the Lord for that. In fact, when I say my prayers, all curled up on my mattress and ready to go to sleep, I don’t list the good things that I did today. All I do is thank the good Lord for making this a special day, just like it should be.

  May the Lord look after Lizzie and bless her with new chickens. May he keep Hubbard safe and Gerald too. He won’t be happy till his daddy comes home, and I pray for Mr Allen, although I’ve never met him. I pray for Mrs Allen too. Just like Scrooge, she ain’t always easy to get along with, but it ain’t easy for her, I can see that too, and I thank the Lord that, today of all days, we felt like one big happy family.

  *

  Now Christmas is done, all jolly and full of cheer, we fear the New Year.

  Lizzie told me this is when the books must be balanced and our owners think to buy or sell their slaves. Many hearts have been broken on the auction block on New Year’s Day, and everyone’s nervous, hoping it’s the master, newly home from the war, who’ll get to do the sums that will decide our fate.

  But Mr Allen don’t make the next train home either, and we’re back at work by New Year, up to our knees in mud, as we haul logs inside the barn to be stacked and seasoned for the winter after this one.

  Mrs Allen says she don’t want no fuss and she gets Henry to drive the wagon into town. In the back sits his wife, Nancy, and their children, Charles, Benjamin, Lily and Mary. The missus sells ’em to a man who grows sugar, but at least they are bought as a family and will stay together, so that is a blessing of sorts, we think.

  She returns to collect Kofi, our blacksmith, and Able, the fittest of our men. They are taken into town and hired out for the period of a year, the two of ’em commanding the highest fees from among us, on account of their particular attributes. At evening prayer Mrs Allen says these two transactions will balance the books for the coming year, though only if we are vigilant and prepared to work harder in the fields. She also tells us she’ll be working alongside us from now on, getting her hands dirty with the
rest of us. ‘There ain’t no point in running a house I can’t pay for.’ Those are her exact words.

  In the days that follow, I take to spending time with Gil, since Benjamin had been his closest friend and he feels the loss of him more than most. I fill in as best I can and the two of us are playing hopscotch in the yard when Sicely beckons us to the back door of the kitchen. ‘Have you heard the news ’bout Mr Allen?’

  I shake my head. I haven’t heard a whisper.

  She steps closer and lowers her voice, since we are in earshot of the house. ‘He’s gone and got smallpox. That’s official. They’ve put him in a pest house. The missus received a letter when we were in town this morning. It were waiting for her at the store and I was there when she opened it. You should have seen the look on her face. She couldn’t shut her mouth for a full five minutes. I tell you, she couldn’t.’

  I guess we all must’ve looked shocked since there weren’t one of us who didn’t have a story ’bout that dreaded disease. Even Gil knew of it, though he weren’t certain of the name. ‘Is that the one that makes you scratch till you’re raw?’ he asks us.

  ‘That’s the one,’ says Sicely, placing a hand upon his head to comfort him in case he thought to start scratching immediately. ‘George had it. You’d be too young to remember, Gil, but he did. I saw him covered with blisters. He had so many, they joined up with each other and I seen him lie on the floor like some big ol’ sac of pus with staring eyes and he weren’t good to do anything for a month.’

  I could remember something similar: Mannie Western at the orphanage, put in a heated room of his own and told to vomit into bowls. Father Mosely made us all wear cloth across our faces for a week, and when they came to take Mannie away he had so many blisters up inside his mouth that he couldn’t have said goodbye if he’d wanted to, or at least that’s what we were told. We never saw him back again and, though I am relieved at the thought that Gerald won’t be making me read to the master after all, I wouldn’t have wished that disease upon a living soul.