Please just go hide behind the house. I’m sweaty and the thought of chasing one of ’em makes me hotter.
“What do you think they talk about in there?” Tempe asks somewhere between twenty-five and twenty-nine.
“Men.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Well, you heard the men, they just talk about the women.” I’ve been practicing my grown-up voice.
“The men only talk about the women when they want the women to know what they’re talking about.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve heard what men talk about when women ain’t around.”
“Are y’all even counting?” a little voice asks from behind the washbasin.
“Sixty-five!” Tempe yells.
Giggles, swishing grass, the curling and uncurling of little legs in tight places, and then silence: the silence of little children waiting for something good and terrible all at once. Gotcha makes little hearts beat faster.
“Well, what do they talk about?” I ask.
“Sex.”
“Told ya.”
“And politics and religion and war and freedom.”
“All that?”
“And more when they get riled up.”
“Is that what you do at night? Go down and listen to the hired hands talk?”
“Sometimes.”
The words fall out and I can’t do nothing to get them back. Tempe looks down when she answers. Tempe can’t hold her lies any more than Old Missus can hold her liquor. Flash of brown skin and dingy denim.
“Ready or not, here we come!” Tempe shouts.
Watson, long brown legs and thin bony arms flailing, is already halfway to the porch. He’s panting and sweating. His chest pumps hard. I just watch it, glistening.
Run.
Tempe’s long, shapely legs carry her to within inches of Watson. It don’t look like she’s hardly breathing. She cuts through the yard with hardly no effort at all. It don’t seem fair. Tempe can catch him anytime she wants. She knows the land and made the rules.
“Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.” I tap each little head quickly, dashing from one to the next so I can turn back to the race. There are no tears this time. The little hearts race along with Watson’s.
Run.
Watson is just a few strides ahead of Tempe. If she leans forward just a little more she’ll have him. If not, he’ll reach the porch, Sanctuary, seconds before her. He slows, and even from the back of his head I know he’s grinning. He zags sharply. You’re running the wrong way! I can’t get the words out fast enough. But then I see. He isn’t running the wrong way at all.
The women must have heard the commotion. Armed with broomsticks they take to the porch in synchronized annoyance. They stand guard. Around back, the men have already stopped talking about the war, escape, and freedom. They’re out front, gruff voices whispering: Run.
Tempe must have seen it then. We all do. Watson isn’t running for the porch. Tempe stops. She stands still whispering: Run, run, run, along with everybody else. Watson never stops running. I wish he had taken me with him.
5:07 p.m.
“What do you mean you changed your mind?” Jacob asks.
The sound is a low whisper. Only, Jacob ain’t here. His voice, his words, echo throughout the room. They come from Tempe’s lips, the mouths of the patients otherwise asleep, from my own. “These men ain’t playing. Don’t you know they’ll kill us?”
I hold my hand over my mouth but can’t stop the words, the anger, the fear from tumbling out.
Jacob is everywhere. His heart races inside my chest. It vibrates within the walls, the floor, the beds. The patients sit up, stare forward with blank eyes. I turn to Edward. He’s gone. Instead of lying in bed, Edward is at a workbench tinkering with a rusted tangle of metal. He is surrounded by cracked crates, busted boxes, soulless springs. The graveyard. We’re in Edward’s corner of the Yard. The place where he is expected to wring one more ride out of useless parts. His workshop. Drops of oil stain the floorboards. The space, cramped and dark, is otherwise tidy.
“What do you know about these people?” Edward asks.
“I know enough to know they do what they say they’ll do,” Jacob says.
“How do you know they won’t kill us either way?”
“They honor words, Edward. You got to do it.”
“The way I see it, hand me that,” Edward points to a hammer, “these men don’t have nothing to lose.” The banging is melodic. The sound is musical, precise. The part slowly straightens under Edward’s hands. “They don’t have a stake in it. That bothers me.”
“All they want is fair pay.”
“For them.”
“For us. After they get theirs, we get ours.” Jacob scatters rusted nails on the bench.
“That’s not right. If we all fight the same war, we should all win at the same time.”
“What’s right got to do with it? When do things work that way?”
Edward positions each of the nails along the metal. He carefully hammers them into place. When it’s ready, Jacob takes the piece and sands it down. As they whisper, the rust disappears.
“Why do they need us? They drive the cars. All we do is clean them and fix them.”
“We inside. Company’s firing folks for even talking about wanting more money let alone striking.”
“So all this, sabotaging the parts, is about them being mad because they can’t do what they want to do?”
“Right.”
“I want to be a driver.”
“Man, you know you can’t do that. The company don’t allow no Negro to steer no streetcar.”
“They know it too. Are they mad about that?”
“Man, one thing at a time.”
“They want me to fight their fight. Put in faulty parts so a streetcar loses control, to show the company they need to rehire the workers and pay them more, but not one of them wants to be the one to do it.”
“They’d be the first suspects. The company won’t hire them to fix something they broke.”
“And they don’t want to fight my fight.”
“It’s not just your fight. It’s ours, yours and mine. We fight together.”
“I don’t want to do it,” Edward says. “I don’t want to hurt innocent people for money.”
“You ain’t doing it for money.”
“Now they aren’t even going to pay us?”
“What difference does that make? You ain’t doing it for money no how. You doing it for the principle. Right?”
“Right,” Edward says.
“Principles have to eat,” Jacob says. “They can’t pay us right now. It would be suspicious. You and me walking around in new clothes, new shoes. Your mama, and Lord knows she can’t keep no secret, in new dresses, store-bought hats. Wouldn’t take long for two and two to equal four. What looked like an accident would look mighty intentional.”
“Then let them do it. Let them kill one another.”
“Nobody is going to die. We replace parts we already mended with broke-up parts. That’s it. It’s the 4:38 car. Nobody will be on it but the driver and conductor. Soon as they get the signal, they’ll jump off. The car will just bump into a curb and stop on its own. Any investigation will prove what we already know. Gum don’t hold nothing together for long. The company has to pay skilled drivers fair wages.”
“They came up with this all on their own? And you agreed.”
“That’s why we gotta do it. If we don’t they gonna say we did it. First thing out of their mouths will be we sabotaged the parts. We’ll get hung.”
“And if we sabotage the parts—”
“—We live.”
“What kind of life is that?”
Sparks of metal and coal light the sky. We are out back. Ja
cob hands Edward a set of tongs. Edward heats the metal until it drips. Together, the two add chunks and scraps of metal. They work silently, breathing new life into unused things.
Chapter 14
Things ain’t been the same since Dehaunting Day. The day ended well enough. The visitors ate, sang, celebrated. They knew it would take another miracle for them to step foot on Walker land and didn’t know what it would take for any of us to get off it. When the celebrating was over, they gathered their belongings and hugged Mama and us tight. The men went to the back door to gather the passes and be counted. According to James, between men coming up twice and women sending kids up that ain’t never been counted, some of them was counted two and three times. Wasn’t until Master Kirk come back late that night talking about you one short, that they noticed Watson was gone. Dogs been barking for three days straight.
“Don’t let on you sweet on him,” Mama says.
“What you mean, sweet on him?” I ask.
I ain’t never told nobody about Watson and me. I’m promised to him and nobody, including him, seem to know. Mama just looks at me and I know she knows exactly how I feel. She holds me. She smells like cinnamon, lilac, hyacinth, and jasmine. I breathe her in.
“I tried to tell you, you should be getting to know one of them hands,” Tempe says, “least they free.”
I wait for Mama to tell her it don’t make no difference what he do as long as he can take care of me.
“Loving a slave is hard work,” is all she says.
It seems like everything changes when Watson runs off. Walker starts sending for me or Tempe to come up to the house. Don’t matter which one he sends for, Mama sends us both. Whether we’re scrubbing floorboards, beating rugs, soaking drapes, or darning socks, it seems like he ain’t never too far off. Watching. Since Old Missus passed, Missus been visiting with her sister up north. She took Ivy with her. The more she’s away, the more Walker want me or Tempe around. As long as she can help it, Mama don’t let that happen. When she can, she goes in our place. The more Walker send for us, the more Mama sends us down to help the hired hands instead. She says we need to learn a skill so we can make money. She works it out so we make little trinkets and the hired hands sell them for us in town.
The first time I get a silver coin I about die. Tempe and I add it to our collection: newspaper clippings, teeth, feathers, shells, and then coins of all shapes and colors. We need to find someplace to keep our treasures. The bundles are fraying. There’s no telling how long they’ll keep. Since we’ve been doing more around the place, Mama lets Tempe and me sleep in the tiny shack by the river. The floorboards underneath start to sink in but we don’t mind. The dirt’s a good hiding place until the river coughs it up.
It’s been raining for weeks. The fields are flooding. The cabins are flooding. Even Walker House is flooding. Walker’s got hands from three towns helping the slaves pick soggy berries, bloated cabbages, and anything worth saving. Even Old James and Old Samantha are out there slipping in mud, wrestling with limp branches. The whole place is underwater. Can’t walk from one side to the next without being knee deep in it. That’s why I don’t notice the river swelling and spilling. It bleeds clear over the bank. It flows and flows like ain’t no stopping it. Swallows the shack, the path. The river, the rain, or both, fills up the ditch all the way on the other side of Walker. We collect bones and bundles long after the river seeps back and the mud dries. We make up stories for each one. Each piece is remembered. Out of sweet cherrywood, we carve our very own book. The hands bring us paper. We stitch them together. Stuff the newspapers, like bookmarks, in between. Though neither one of us can read or write, each page holds a story. We remember.
Thanks to the flooding, Walker hires hands to help fix the place up while me and Tempe seem to be doing twice as much. They don’t seem to be helping much. At least, not at first.
“Edward?” Buddy clears his throat, raises his voice and calls up to his friend’s sweating back. “Seems to me you done developed one of them afflictions,” he says. He wipes the sweat from his eyes with the back of one hand and holds the thick rope with the other. He lowers his voice. “What you think, Brother?”
“’Bout what?” Franklin asks.
I know he knows just what Buddy’s talking about cuz I know it too and I’m clear on the other side of the barn. Without looking up, Franklin bundles four planks of wood together, ties the thick rope around them and tugs. On his signal, Buddy pulls the rope to send the pile up to Edward. I sure wish Tempe would hurry up. All she has to do is bring supper from the house. I’ve been sweeping and piling, lugging and listening to them speculate on which one Edward should take for his wife.
“Seem like Edward done caught something from round here,” Buddy continues.
Every time we get there with supper, Buddy and Franklin get to teasing Edward about being sweet on Tempe.
“Don’t think it’s catching, do ya?” Franklin glances at his friend and back to his brother. “I don’t want nothing from here I can’t give back.”
Edward unties the planks, halves two-by-fours, and gets to knocking them together.
“You might like what he done caught.” Buddy unrigs the rope and throws it into a wheelbarrow stuffed with nails, debris, and rags. “’Cept it seem to make whoever catch it clumsier than a mule in a cane field.”
“That don’t make no kind of sense,” Edward calls down.
“Can’t seem to keep a shirt on neither,” Buddy continues.
“Always walking around bare-chested. It must be something fierce. Soon’s he step one foot on Walker land that shirt must get to itching and scratching cuz seem like he get to ripping it off, buttons popping everywhere.”
“Too much starch probably,” Franklin says. “Not saying nothing ’bout your mama, Edward.”
“If you ask me,” Buddy continues, “whatever he caught he got right here. Seems like the same thing you was trying to catch not too long ago, Brother.”
“Don’t seem likely,” Franklin replies. “Although now that you mention it, he has been a mite bit clumsy. Wasn’t you trying to catch the very same thing then too? That’s how I remember it. Edward, don’t you go bustin’ up nothing up there again.” Franklin runs inside the drafty barn and hoists himself up the repaired ladder.
“He break anything yet?”
“Nah, just fumbling with an old rickety piece of something he done made to look ’bout to fall apart, I swear before God.”
“It ain’t finished yet,” Edward says. “I’m planning.”
“Your planning got us mending and remending the same drafty holes for near two months since you been here,” Buddy yells up. “Done seen more fixed up, broke, and fixed again now than ever before. New roof, near about, new hatch, new beams, and a window with a ledge for mice.”
“It’s for birds, for watching and feeding birds,” Edward interrupts.
“Walker don’t seem like the bird-feeding type, you ask me,” Franklin says. “From here you can see clear cross the fields to the house. Man like Walker might like to come up here time and again to see what his people get up to. And what’s that? You done made him a little bed for—” he stops.
The air in the barn seems to pop. I don’t hear Edward’s answer and I don’t need to.
I been sweeping the same spot for the past hour. Still clutching the broom, I run to beneath the ladder. Mama will kill me if I go up there by myself. “Y’all need a broom up there?” I call.
Thankfully, they laugh.
“How long you hired here for?” Buddy asks.
Edward has more talent than anyone, white or black, this side of the Chesapeake. Master said it at least a hundred times. Since he’s been here he’s patched and fixed the slave cabins, plugged leaks, patched walls, stained floors, and rebuilt the barn from the beams up. Don’t seem to be anything that man can’t do, except talk to Tempe.
“Till the work run out,” he says.
“Sampson hired us out for two seasons before we go on home,” Franklin says.
“I hire my own self out,” Edward answers. “I says what I can do and what I can’t and someone like Walker says what they can pay and what they can’t and we strike up a sort of deal.”
“And he pay you your money just like that?” Buddy’s thick fingers snap.
“Don’t usually have no trouble ’bout getting paid. I heard ’bout some workers doing all sorts of work and when it comes time to get paid, the person say they ain’t gonna pay ’em.”
“I do believe Sampson would kill Walker if he don’t pay.”
“Ain’t that easy. I ain’t got no Sampson or such. I’m free. I’m my own man. I can say I done the work. White man say ‘I ain’t gonna pay.’ What can I do? If I take down all I put up the sheriff come around saying I destroyed something wasn’t mine. I can’t hardly take him to court. Alls I can do is wish real hard that something bad happen to him.”
“That work? Cuz it don’t work for me,” Buddy says.
“I didn’t say it works; just said that’s all I can do. I can get mad but don’t nobody care ’bout me getting mad. I got myself real good at a whole lot of things. Ain’t much I can’t do. People think twice before not paying me. Never know when they need me for something else.”
“What you gonna do when the work dry up here? Sooner or later Walker’s gonna realize on account of you he got more things that need doing than that’s getting fixed,” Buddy says.
“I been thinking on that.”
“He ain’t never gonna let Tempe go. It ain’t his way. I can’t think of no one that left this place that didn’t leave dead or end up that way.”
He can’t be talking about my Watson. Buddy’s just trying to rile me up.
“Maybe for enough money he’d have to,” Edward says. Edward buy Tempe? What about me and Mama?
“You know it don’t work like that,” Franklin says. “How long did it take you to buy yourself free?”
Remembered Page 14
