by H. M. Mann
He leads me up to the front, and I close my eyes, tears streaking down my face. I feel hands on my back, my sides, my arms, lifting me, helping me with the weight that’s so heavy on me. I feel so many hands that I start to feel light, like I’m completely in their hands, weightless.
Reach out your hand, brother, a soft female voice whispers in my head.
I try, but I can’t move it. I open my eyes and look at my scars. There are so many. And they’re so deep, too deep.
Jes’ reach out your hand! an older woman’s voice shouts.
So heavy, so heavy. “I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.”
Let it go, let it all go, their voices say together.
I stare down at the cross on my arm then look out into the rain.
“Jesus, come into my heart!” I shout.
And my arm moves, my right arm moves, the cross shining out, my battered knuckles crusted red, my fingers reaching, floating through the air.
Reverend Lewis takes my hand and pulls me to him, hugging me tightly. “Welcome home, brother Emmanuel, welcome home.”
I look behind me and see everyone back on the benches and chairs. They were right behind me, weren’t they? I felt their hands, I heard their voices, I felt …
I know I felt hands helping me, voices encouraging me.
“I felt hands,” I whisper to Reverend Lewis. “I heard their voices.”
“You felt your ancestors’ hands, Emmanuel. You heard your ancestors’ voices. They’ve always been around you, and they’ve been waitin’ for this moment to help you. They was just waitin’ for you to ask. And so was Jesus. He’s been carryin’ you for years, and you didn’t know it.”
I turn again to the crowd, and they’re clapping and jumping and smiling, a few even crying, Maxi shouting, “Thank you! Thank you, Jesus!” to the sky.
“You’re home now, Emmanuel,” Reverend Lewis says, his arm still around my shoulder. He picks up the microphone and sings, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
While everyone joins in, I return to Maxi, who hugs me, calls me “brother,” and urges me to sing. I don’t know the words, so I hum the tune, and the whole time I’m thinking about that sparrow, the one at the McKees Rocks Bridge the night I jumped. It was as soaked as I was, yet it could still fly. Red doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
I can fly.
During the rest of the long service of singing, testifying, and praising, I wonder about my other family, my white family. Do I really need to find them? Do I really need to find the Cajun? A part of me needs to find him, but another part says, “If it’s meant to be, it will be.”
I have had men and women all around me for almost a month, strong, sturdy, hard-working people. They have taught me what it means to be a man, what it means to be human. I know I’m a man now. I feel clean, really clean, and I know I can raise my son to be a man, too. I have to get back home. I know I won’t be a hero when I get there, but I’ll have voices helping me and hands holding me up, all under the watchful eye of St. Benedict the Moor, the white-black man with his arms wide welcoming me back, welcoming me home.
It’s really coming down now, rivulets of water racing under our feet, but no one’s stopping his hands from clapping, or her feet from dancing, or our voices from shouting. I want to go out in that rain, to baptize myself. Can a man do that? I find myself drifting through the puddles into the rain, and I’m not alone. Several others, most of them as young as me, duck out of the tent into the rain, and it’s warm rain, soft rain.
I close my eyes. I don’t quite feel physically healed, but my heart … my heart feels something, and my eyes are wide open, and my soul …
My soul is mighty.
I’m gonna get up mighty tomorrow and get on back home. I may take a bus as far as my money can take me, I may walk.
I may even do a little marching.
Yeah. No more free rides, no more trains, no more boats.
Free.
I open my eyes, and even though it rains hard enough to dent my hair, the sun shines through, and everywhere is a rainbow.
Everywhere.
Rainbows.
Part IV: On the Road
18: On Greyhound, Mobile to Opelika, Alabama
Maxi drops me off at the Greyhound station the next morning. “We cannot convince you to stay even one more day?”
“I would love to stay,” I say, and I would. I’ve never felt more loved, more at home. “Maybe one day I’ll be back with my family for a visit.”
“You will always be welcome here.” He reaches into his shirt pocket for a little card and hands it to me. “There’s someone you should meet.”
I see the name of Olivette Howard with a Homewood address in Pittsburgh. “Who’s she?”
“The ladies tell me that she is your cousin. She grew up here and moved away many years ago. You must introduce yourself to her.”
“I will.” I have a cousin in Pittsburgh.
Maxi reaches into the back seat and picks up a backpack. “The ladies have also prepared this for your journey.” He hands the backpack to me. “Look inside.”
I unzip the main pouch and see cookies, cake, and bread in baggies, a toothbrush and toothpaste, some soap, a hand towel, a canteen full of water, my new socks, underwear, and T-shirts, my multicolored blanket, and a stack of photographs taken at the church yesterday. I flip through the photos and see all those people again.
“Turn them over,” Maxi says.
On the back of each photo are the names of the people in the picture.
“So many names, hmm?”
“I’ll never remember them all.”
“In time you will.”
I dig some more and come up with a disposable lighter. I hold it up in front of me. “I don’t smoke,” I say.
“They insist that you will need it. I asked them to include some bug spray, but they said you would not need it”
I don’t ask how they know, and I drop the lighter back into the bag. “Thank them for me.”
“I will. I am sorry that I cannot wait with you. Our meeting continues again today.”
I laugh. “When will that meeting end?”
“It ends when it ends. We have no clock here.” He grasps my arm at the elbow, and I grasp his. “We will meet again.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.” He releases my arm. “And one day you will know so, too. Just listen to the wind. The wind never lies.”
The wind never lies. You hear that?
It ain’t nothing but African mumbo-jumbo.
I like it.
You would.
I stand in line to get a bus ticket, holding another backpack, ready to travel a thousand miles back to Mary. I only have seventy-two dollars, my boots still look funny, I have a funny tan because my neck, face, and hands are dark as night, and I have pockets full of poems. It’s time to make haste slowly home, and while it’s crazy to take a bus in Alabama, this time crazy makes sense because I am too emotionally exhausted to do any walking this morning. I still have no ID, but I’m no longer lost in America. I’ve been found.
The Africatown folks were in the swamps for a spell and then freed. I’ve been stuck in a swamp for nearly thirty years. Swamp time’s over. It’s dry land time. I have to reconnect with water, earth, and humanity, and I’ll have to come back here one day with my son … or even my sons, who knows? They’ll need a place where they can run free, grow with the land, feel the wind in their faces, taste the rain without frowning, let the sun love them brown, eat collard greens and sweet potato pie, and see the land of their truly African-American ancestors bloom again. I have to bring them here to—
“One way or round trip?” I hear someone say.
“Huh?”
“You’re holding up the line.”
I focus on the man selling tickets at the counter. “Sorry. I was daydreaming. Uh, how far will fifty dollars get me?”
“One-way or round trip?”
“Oh, one-way.”
“Which direction?”
I look at the map of Alabama behind him. “Northeast. I’ve got to get to Pittsburgh eventually.”
He clicks a few keys on his computer. “I can get you as far as … Opelika.”
I like the sound of that. Oh-pell-eye-kuh. Sounds African. “How far is Opelika from Atlanta?”
“About … a hundred miles or so.”
“Fine.” I count out the money and hand it to him, and he gives me a ticket.
“Any baggage?”
I shrug my shoulder toward him. “Only this backpack.” And this is the only baggage I need. I look around at all the folks with their fancy luggage, many of it on wheels. They never feel the weight of their baggage. I wear my weight, feel my baggage, and grow strong by the journey.
Oh brother. Just get on the bus.
As I step onto the 11 AM bus, I glance once more to the west. Here’s to you, Daddy. One day we’ll find each other. Until then—
“C’mon, buddy, move it or lose it,” the bus driver says.
And with that, my journey begins. Again.
Instead of watching the soggy scenery roll by and being lulled to sleep by the bus’s windshield wipers, I pull out a notepad and write a letter to my future son:
Dear son: Some people will look at you and call you a “nigger.” Some people will even smile at you and think you’re a nigger. Some people will even smile at you, hug you, and say, “My nigger.” The first type of folks are okay. They’re ignorant as a stump, but they’re okay. At least you know where they stand. The third type, they’re okay, too. They’re ignorant as a stump at times, but they mean well. At least you know where they stand, too. The second type, though, are hard to figure out, so be careful. You may never know where they stand until they’re standing on your throat.
I re-read the letter and raise my eyebrows. It’s not exactly the nicest thing to say to a little boy, but it’s some truth that I wish my father or anyone else had told me.
You’re going to need other people in your life. I didn’t think I did. I thought I could do it all on my own. And I failed. Appreciate the people in your life. Appreciate your mama and treat each day with her like it was your last. She may not be here forever. Appreciate me as best you can. I’ll do the best I can, and I’ll be here as long as I can. Listen in school with your mind open. You may hear with a closed mind, but you’ll never understand if your mind is closed. And if you can, travel. Get out of your hometown for a while. You may learn more about life and yourself if you do.
The bus makes several stops, first in Bay Minette then in Atmore for lunch. I greedily devour half a loaf of homemade bread and several cookies. After stops in Evergreen and Greenville, where the green is greener because of all the rain, we hit Montgomery and are told that we have forty-five minutes until the bus leaves. I follow a white couple after the man says to the woman, “Let’s go see the Capitol.”
“Mind if I join you?” I ask. “I’m not familiar with Montgomery.”
The man turns. “Neither are we.” He holds out a little guidebook. “But if we’re here,” and he points at a spot on the map, “the Capitol should be a short walk away.”
So we take a walk together, the two of them chatting, me just following. Tangerine buses roll by us as do lots of folks with umbrellas. I offer my umbrella to them since they don’t have one, and the three of us share it until we get to the Capitol building.
While they take pictures of the building, each other, and even one of me, I look around. I look down and see a marker noting the very spot where Jefferson Davis stood when he was sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America. Across the street is the first White House of the Confederacy. A short walk later, I see the Civil Rights Museum and Court Square, where slaves were auctioned off. Everywhere I turn, I see things that don’t belong next to each other. This town celebrates its heritage in the strangest ways. Why are these all within spitting distance of each other?
All this history in one place. All the hate that flowed through this town, and they’re actually promoting it. If your town is falling apart, let it riot and go to hell with lots of fussing and fires, boycotts and strikes. Then declare each and every trouble spot historic and charge admission. History with a cover charge. The folks on the Hill could do this, but would anyone come? Maybe Freedom Corner is just the beginning. What do white folks do to save old buildings? They get them registered as historical sites, and no wrecking ball can touch them. Maybe that’s what we need to do.
I wander back toward the marker where Jefferson Davis stood. I hope the rain clears off soon and gets real hot, so hot someone will be able to fry an egg on this little star beneath my feet. Yeah. That’s a historic sight I’d like to see.
“You ready to get back?” the man asks.
“Yeah.”
We race-walk back to the bus station and catch it minutes before it pulls out and heads to Tuskegee … then to Auburn … and finally to Opelika. I doze most of the way, only waking when the bus stops to unload or load passengers.
It’s a little after five when I get off, and instead of starting right off on my long walk, I sit on a bench in the bus station and have a little feast. I eat everything, all the cookies and all the cakes, downing most of the canteen of water to lighten my load. Eventually, all I have in the backpack is a lighter, a nearly empty canteen, an African blanket, some toiletries, and some “draws.” I barely feel it on my shoulder. Now where’s my—
I watch the bus I was on rolling away into another wall of rain.
—umbrella.
I am going to have the softest hair on planet earth after this.
19: On the Road North of Opelika
After waiting out most of the deluge at the bus station, I spend the rest of the evening treading through the muddy side shoulders of 431 past used car lots, signs screaming “NO MONEY DOWN!!!” I wonder if they’d sell a car to me, who only has twenty-two bucks and some change to my name. I walk parallel to I-85 for a while before taking Highway 29 to search for shelter and maybe a place to rest for the night. I find a spot at a particularly sharp bend in a swollen creek, thick underbrush behind and above me giving me some camouflage and relief from most of the rain.
Always cool near de water, the little girl’s voice says.
You got that right.
Bugs near de water, too, The Voice says.
And The Voice is right. I have never seen so many gnats and mosquitoes in my life. They swarm me just as the clouds part and a sliver of the setting sun shines through. I can’t stay here. I’ll be eaten alive.
I cross a dirt road, climb a steep red dirt embankment, and maze my way through pine trees in a little forest, swatting at mosquitoes humming at my ears. Why didn’t they give me bug spray? Wait. I have a lighter. I can build a fire. But will anything light?
You’re a city boy, Manny. You never built a fire in your life.
I did at Camp Allequippa.
That was half a lifetime ago.
Let’s see what I can remember.
I collect bits of bark, small twigs, and old pinecones, most of them fairly dry. At the top of a little hill, I see decaying, charred stumps to my right and gnarled pines to my left. I can still hear the creek, though. It shouldn’t be too hard to find again if I get thirsty in the night.
They teach you to drink creek water at that camp, too?
Hmm. You’re right. Too risky.
This clearing, thickly carpeted with wet leaves, hasn’t been used recently, maybe never. Maybe I’m the first person in a hundred years to use it. Letting the backpack slide off my shoulders, I kick the leaves away from the center of the clearing to form a small circle on which to build the fire.
I sniff the air. A little metallic, a little pine. And more mosquitoes. Rain’s coming again, that’s for sure. Why do the mosquitoes have to bite so hard right before it rains?
I walk to the edge of the clearing. Finding a
yard-long dead branch, I crack it into four pieces and rest the pieces against each other in the circle, rearranging them slightly. I slide some of the drier leaves into the spaces between the sticks and add some notepad paper, lighting each leaf and wad of paper with the lighter. Adding the pinecones, I watch as my fire spreads to the branch pieces, hearing the faint hiss of the wet wood. And as the smoke rises and fills the little clearing, the bugs aren’t nearly as bad. The old ladies were indeed wise to give me this lighter.
My stick and pinecone fire gleaming, I settle my back against a moss-less fir trunk, my two-tone boots sinking into the decaying leaves, my hands stretched out over the glow to keep any stray bugs away from my knuckles. I flick the smaller of the branches into the fire, now blazing orange and red flames. Maybe I’ll do some writing. Yeah. Good time and place to write about the day. As I reach for a notepad in my back pocket, though, I hear something shuffling through the leaves down over the hill to my left.
Something’s coming.
I know.
Bet it’s big and hungry.
It’s too noisy to be a dog or a cat. Pushing with my legs, I inch up the tree, barely scraping my shirt against the scabrous bark. Then I tense as a solitary beam of light crisscrosses the woods. I can’t see who’s carrying the flashlight, but it has to be someone who knows the territory well. Maybe the landowner? Who would own this expanse of nothing? It’s just my luck. The light beam, now only a few dancing shadows away, stops moving suddenly then continues swaying to the edge of the clearing.
My fire, now burning intensely, illuminates a stocky, ancient gray-black man who nearly falls into the clearing. The man wears a green and black camouflaged hat and a blue windbreaker. A hunter? He clicks off his flashlight and steps next to my backpack. I stand my ground, even though it isn’t my ground, as the man checks me over.
“I’m Hughes, deputy sheriff Robert Hughes,” he heaves.
