Sugar

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

  Surprised, River Road folks murmur.

  I feel terrible. Billy’s going to be a boss and do nothing. Just like his pa. I’ll be working.

  Weee-aaa.

  A bird soars, its wings wide, fluttering against the blue sky. An eagle? When his beady eyes look down, I bet all he sees are specks. Specks of people stuck to dirt.

  Mister Tom cracks the whip.

  I put on my straw hat. The Chinamen have better ones—with wider brims and pointy tops.

  Two Chinamen start cutting. Their silver blades slicing, buzzing through cane.

  The rest of us make furrows.

  Some, like me, use hoes to bury the cane.

  Though the morning is chilly, sweat layers my neck and back, drips from my forehead, down and off my nose. Not working, my body got soft. Now my neck and shoulders are on fire.

  I try to work as hard as the Chinamen, but I can’t keep up.

  Mister Petey can’t keep up.

  Mister Beale can’t keep up.

  Mister Wills is smiling, happy, slapping the Overseer’s arm. “I told you. This is the future. Plenty of workers. Strong, hardworking men.”

  The Overseer frowns, stubborn like a mule.

  River Road folks grumble. Softly, so Mister Wills won’t hear.

  Billy proudly walks behind his pa.

  The Chinamen just keep working as the sun fries our backs.

  Missus Beale huffs and puffs. Mister Beale grunts. Mister Petey sweats like rain. Even Missus Thornton is working as hard as she can. Rubbing his lower back, Reverend Thornton gulps water.

  Chinamen say nothing. Just keep working. They start on a new row. Moving twice as fast as the old folks. They move calmly, their pointy hats and high-collared shirts bobbing, fluttering up, down, and forward. Cutting stalks, digging dirt, and burying cane. Row upon row. It’ll take a month to plant all the cane that needs to grow.

  I remember Missus Beale saying, “We may all lose our jobs. Our homes, too.” That’s why everyone is working so hard! Acting like today is the last day of harvest instead of the first day of planting. Maybe Mister Wills thinks he should only hire Chinamen?

  I think: River Road folks need me. But how can I help? Usually when work is hard, we sing, “Hoe, Emma, Hoe.”

  Today is new. The Chinamen are new. Maybe we need a new work song.

  I clear my throat and sing:

  Cane needs planting. Dig it deep.

  Grow, cane, grow. All day, all night.

  Hey, yah. Hey, yah.

  Cane-planting gal. I’m a sugarcane gal.

  Mister Beale, head tilted, looks at me, quizzical.

  I almost stop singing. But I raise my head, down-swipe the hoe, singing louder.

  Reverend yells, “Bless you.”

  Mister Petey hoots, “Go on, girl!”

  My spirit lifts. River Road folks are proud of me.

  Missus Beale adds her soprano; Mister Beale, his bass. Miss Thornton sings off-key, but everyone, except the Chinamen, sings my made-up song:

  Cane needs planting. Dig it deep.

  Grow, cane, grow. All day, all night.

  Hey, yah. Hey, yah.

  Cane-planting gal. I’m a sugarcane gal.

  Even the men say gal, and I’m so happy.

  Bodies are moving faster, plucking, burying, stomping down cane.

  The Chinamen keep working.

  My hat bobs as I bend and stand, bend and stand. I’m almost shouting my song.

  The “hello” Chinaman, a row across and in front of me, stops, watches, listens to my voice. I sing to him, my voice strong. But pleading, too. I’m trying to make him hear, understand the worries of River Road folks.

  He slowly smiles. I think he feels the rhythm of the song. Then he bows.

  I bow back.

  He whispers something to the Chinaman beside him, who whispers to the next and the next.

  Then, amazingly, they all slow down. Not a lot. Just a bit. The cutters slow first. Then the rest, digging, planting, bending up and down, hoeing earth, slow down, too.

  We River Road folks catch up, looking like a long rope. Straw hats, bobbing. Digging rows, planting stalks. Africans and Chinamen, working in time; us, singing. All of us moving, in the same rhythm—steady, strong.

  I start cutting, singing again.

  Mister Wills and the Overseer scratch their heads. They’re watching but aren’t seeing clear. River Road folks don’t really see, either. They just keep worrying, working.

  They don’t know the Chinamen are kind.

  Everyone hurts.

  I wish I could slip off my sore body like a shift. But old folks are worse; some don’t eat, just go to their shacks, lie down, and sleep; others rock on porches, grunting, moaning, “Can’t trust Wills. Can’t trust Chinamen. Can’t trust nobody.”

  I sit on the porch with Reverend, Mister Beale, and Mister Petey. (Missus Beale is sleeping.) Across the yard, we watch Chinamen eat warm rice from bowls.

  We’re too tired to cook—eat cold leftovers. I gulp meal cakes.

  “Next season, we won’t have jobs,” says Mister Petey. “Use me up as a slave, replace me when I’m old.”

  “That’s what Wills wants.” Mister Waters nods.

  “Chinamen, too,” growls Mister Petey.

  “I think the Chinamen are nice.”

  “I won’t have it, Sugar. I won’t have you near them,” scowls Mister Beale. “I won’t.”

  “You’re not my pa.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not my pa,” I say, louder. “How come I can’t decide who I can see? How come I can’t decide my friends?”

  “We don’t trust these men, Sugar.”

  “I like Chinamen. Reverend, don’t you preach ‘Treat folks like you want to be treated’?”

  “Well, now,” says Reverend, not looking at me, twiddling his thumbs.

  “Sugar,” says Mister Beale, “folks get along best with folks like them. Always been that way.”

  “Seems cowardly.”

  “Not cowardly.” Mister Beale stoops. “Careful. Safe. We don’t know these men, Sugar.” His brows crinkle.

  My head shakes before I speak. Mister Beale’s forgotten how it feels being young. “Didn’t you tell me to keep my spunk? Didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “Me and Billy keep separate. ’Cause he’s from the big house. But the Chinamen are here. In our yard. Not right to keep separate from everybody.”

  Mister Petey glares. Reverend murmurs prayers.

  “Caution never hurt nobody.”

  I almost ask, Did caution keep you from going north?

  I clutch Mister Beale’s big brown hands. “If you were a boy, not old… if you were young again, what would you do?”

  Mister Beale’s eyes glower, pushing out the day’s light. His face is tight, twisted. Then he sighs; his wrinkles smooth.

  His fingers squeeze mine. “If I were a boy, nothing could keep me away from Chinamen.”

  “You’re going to let her go?” asks Reverend.

  “I don’t think Chinamen are a match for Sugar,” answers Mister Beale.

  I hug him, then run across the yard, scuffing dirt, letting my shawl flap and fly. “Knee-how. Knee-how.”

  I run up to my first “Knee-how” friend. His forehead is broad; his silk hair blacker than the night. His hands are tucked inside his sleeves. His eyes, half moons, see me, making me feel special. Up close, I know I didn’t make a mistake. In the field, he understood me. He made his friends understand me, too.

  “Thank you,” I say, breathless. “You understood my song.”

  He bows. “Xie xie.”

  “ ‘Sheh-sheh.’ You’re saying ‘thank you,’ too?” I feel proud learning new words.

  “Yes. You sing good.”

  “You speak English. What’s your name?”

  “Bo.”

  “Oh, Beau,” I say. One of the sugar merchants is named Beauregard! Terrible name, and Mister Beauregard knew it, too. He sai
d to Mister Wills, ‘Just call me Beau.’ Poor Chinaman, he must be a Beauregard, I think, but don’t say. I’m trying hard for better manners.

  Beau leans forward and with a stick, scratches in the dirt:

  “ ‘Bo,’ my name.”

  Chinamen are talking softly, darning clothes, or smoking pipes.

  Beau writes again:

  “Liu—that says ‘Master Liu.’ ” He points to a man watching us from a porch rocker. Others, sitting on the steps, watch us, too. “Your name?”

  I wish I could make up a new name. “Sugar,” I say softly.

  “Sugar. Yes, we work hard. Picking sugar.”

  “No. I’m Sugar.”

  “Cane?”

  “No, Sugar. Just plain Sugar. That’s my name.”

  Master Liu says something. The men laugh. I think they’re making fun of me.

  Beau scratches:

  “Your name in Chinese. Can’t write English.” Beau shrugs sadly.

  It looks beautiful—a tiny picture; a perfect sign.

  I squat, my fingers floating above the blocks, the overlapping lines. Even in the dirt, the markings look pretty. Seeing my name is magic.

  “Master Liu says Sugar means ‘very sweet.’ A nice name for nice girl.”

  “Why you call him master? Aren’t you free?”

  “He’s our elder. Knows many things. Led us here. He’s teacher. We honor.”

  “Master Liu is like Mister Beale. He teaches me.”

  “Master. Sign of respect. Just like bow.” He bows. “For respect.”

  I look at Master Liu. He’s smiling, rocking back and forth. I like his kind of master.

  No Name, his black coat glistening, rubs against Beau’s leg. Master Liu speaks, in Chinese, his voice floating high and low.

  Beau looks at me. “Master Liu says you’re strong, too. Says you must be born Year of Monkey.”

  “What’s the Year of the Monkey?”

  “1860. Ten years ago.”

  “I’m ten!”

  “Master Liu is wise.”

  “Metal Monkey,” says Master Liu.

  He speaks English, too.

  “Metal Monkey,” says Master Liu, “is fighting monkey. Great spirit. Strong.”

  Master Liu speaks more Chinese. Beau grins; the other men chuckle.

  My feet start twitching. I think they’re making fun of me again.

  “Master Liu asks, ‘How many languages you speak?’ ”

  I think, Just one.

  Beau tilts his head. He’s watching me, his black eyes twinkling, looking deep inside me.

  My palms are sweating. Beau looks like Ma did, encouraging me. Like when she expected me to remember something, to know something that I didn’t think I knew. “Think, Sugar,” she’d say.

  “Two languages. ‘Sheh-sheh,’ ‘thank you,’ ” I say proudly.

  “Very smart girl,” says Beau.

  “Sheh-sheh, Mister Beau.”

  “Just Beau. I’m youngest. Student.”

  I like his face, round like the moon, and glowing like it, too. His eyes have spark.

  I decide to be even bolder. “Friends?” I ask, stretching out my hand, all scratched and pricked from cane.

  Beau stares at my hand. I’m scared he won’t take it. Maybe he doesn’t know about shaking hands, only bowing.

  I want to pull my hand back—it’s ugly, dirt beneath my nails, sticky cane on my thumb—and stuff it behind my back.

  Beau, his rough hand swallowing mine, grips and shakes.

  “First American friend,” he says.

  I say, “First Chinaman friend.”

  “Chinese. Chinese friend.”

  “Chinese.”

  Master Liu joins us, his arms crossed, his hands inside his sleeves. Smiling wrinkles etch the edges of his eyes, his mouth.

  Master Liu’s not nearly as tall as Mister Beale, but he looks at me like Mister Beale does. Like I’m important.

  “You, Mister Beale’s daughter?”

  “No. But I try to do what he says.”

  Across the yard, Mister Beale, Reverend, and Mister Petey are watching me like hawks.

  “You loyal.” Master Liu nods. “Metal monkeys always loyal.”

  “Do they get into trouble? I get into trouble all the time.”

  “Monkeys have energy. Many ideas.”

  That’s me, I think.

  No Name brushes against Beau, and he picks him up. “Cat’s name?”

  “No Name.”

  “His name?”

  “No Name. I mean, he doesn’t have a name.”

  “So sad,” says Beau. “Just like Cat in Chinese calendar.”

  “When one is born,” adds Master Liu, “depending upon year, you become connected to animal. Rat. Horse. Pig. Or Monkey, like you. You also become connected to elements. Like Wind, Earth, Water, Metal. You’re Metal Monkey. Strong, you won’t break.”

  I puff my chest.

  Master Liu says softly, “Cat, so sad.” He scratches No Name. “Long time ago, Emperor Jade, great Emperor of Heaven, called all animals, ‘Tomorrow, I assign a special year to each of you.’

  “Cat was so excited, he told Rat. ‘Promise, friend Rat, tomorrow we will go together.’

  “But next morning, Rat didn’t wake Cat. Rat tricked Ox to let him ride on his back. With Ox’s strong legs, they got to Emperor very fast. Quick, Rat jumped off Ox’s back, landed at Emperor’s feet.

  “So, in calendar, Year of the Rat, first. No Year of the Cat. Forever and ever, Cat hunts Rat. Enemies.”

  Everything inside me is tingling. All my tiredness is gone.

  Beau’s eyes are sparkling; he’s rubbing No Name’s neck. No Name is purring.

  “You told me a story.”

  “Chinese tale.”

  “About animals. Like Mister Beale. Like Br’er Rabbit and Hyena.”

  Beau stoops before me. “Master Liu tells stories all the time. Here,” he says, pouring No Name, black legs and white tummy, into my arms. “You should name.”

  No Name’s head bobs, his green eyes look at me. I never knew No Name was so soft. Much softer than chickens. His tiny, pointy ears flick.

  “Name?” Master Liu’s voice sounds like flowing water. “You name?”

  I think, quick. “Jade. Emperor Jade.”

  “Sugar!” hollers Mister Beale. “Time for bed.”

  Startled, Jade leaps and runs away.

  I bow low. Master Liu bows, too.

  I bow. Beau bows.

  We all bow again.

  Imagine. Chinese men telling me stories.

  I want to say something special. But all I say is, “You have pigtails like me.”

  I walk back to my shack thinking about Rat, Cat, and Monkey.

  Tricksters

  River Road folks stand quiet in the field, smelling of lard, cayenne. Everyone’s back, legs, and hands are aching. I ache, too. But I also feel like I can fly. Just lift my arms and rise. Or else float free down the Mississippi’s muddy water. It’s exciting meeting new people, making new friends.

  Tom, the Overseer, hollers, “Work! Get to work!” He cracks his whip.

  “Earn your pay,” says Mister Wills.

  Billy walks beside him. “Earn your pay,” he echoes.

  The Chinese form a line, facing the River Road folks. Dark across from light. Off to the side, Mister Wills, white and ruddy, stands. Billy’s much paler, and Mister Tom’s sun-browned. Almost as brown as me.

  I lift my hoe, then stop. Nobody’s moving. River Road and Chinese folks stare at each other.

  Reverend lifts his hand high. “Another trial. Slavery. War.” Reverend is testifying, praying in the field! “Lord, we’re grateful we’re free. But our bodies are old. Give us strength.”

  “Stop this nonsense. Get to work,” shouts Overseer Tom, snapping his whip, glancing nervously at Mister Wills.

  Something’s happening. River Road folks are talking to the Chinese with their bodies, not their mouths. All the grown folks are l
eaning forward, some with outstretched hands, some just still, their eyes questioning. Some, their hands clasped together, not pleading, but, instead, quietly asking, waiting.

  Mister Wills and Billy are bewildered. Overseer Tom is sputtering like a lame rooster.

  River Road folks look to Mister Beale, waiting for a signal, some sign. Mister Beale walks, stands right in front of Master Liu. He says, firm, “We all have to make a living. All God’s children have to live.”

  Master Liu bows deeply. Mister Beale nods. The two men look so different but the same, I think. Both lead. One by one, Missus Beale, Mister Petey, Reverend and Missus Thornton, Missus Celeste… all the River Road folks walk and stand beside a Chinese man. I stand beside Beau.

  Then, almost like a dance, we all start moving.

  River Road folks are digging, planting cane. Working hard.

  Chinese men are digging, covering cane. Keeping to our pace.

  My body feels it first—everyone working in unison.

  When the Chinese start to go faster, Master Liu says something only the Chinese can understand. Like pulling reins on horses carting cane, Master Liu is holding his men back. Keeping them from working faster.

  Overseer Tom is scowling; he always scowls. Mister Wills is just happy.

  The Chinese men won’t make us lose our jobs. I don’t know how I know, but I know. Master Liu’s words are holding his men back. Not a lot, just some. It’s like yesterday when I sang my work song. But now the grown folks are making sense. Figuring each other out.

  Nothing to worry about, I think. Like Br’er Rabbit, grown folks are tricking Mister Wills and Overseer Tom. They’re not being lazy, just making sure everyone—young and old, Chinese and African—work the same amount.

  I think, I’m special. I can keep up with grown folks. I’m strong. Just hoe, dig, bend, plant, cover cane with dirt. Over and over and over ’til sunset.

  After planting, the Chinese go to their side of the yard; we go to ours. I’m thinking, Grown folks are dumber than hyenas.

  Missus Beale pulls two cast-iron pans of corn bread from the hearth.

  I say, “The Chinese probably think Manon and Annie are River Road’s best cooks.”

  Missus Beale stiffens, her back ramrod straight.