Antebellum (30 page)

If I was trash in the world I came from, I didn't know it. In this world, I couldn't run from that understanding.

The door opened again and roused me from my depression. My bladder tightened in anticipation of another ruthless white man. Instead, Aunt Sarah returned, Roka with her.

And I realized then the irony of my situation. Aunt Sarah and Roka had saved my life in a world that I didn't want to live in. I couldn't figure out how to repay them for that sort of favor.

Roka walked up to me as I sat on the floor, and kneeled down to face me. He looked deeply into my eyes, around my face, at my nose, ears, neck, and forehead. Then he looked into my eyes.

“You lost,” he said matter-of-factly.

There was no use in me responding. He wouldn't have understood it anyway.

“Them take you. Crush you. No same.”

The man of so few words made perfect sense. He got up and turned to Aunt Sarah.

“He come back from spirits?”

“If he ain't, he be dead and buried long time 'go.”

“Why he be broken?”

“Don't know exactly, Roka. Alls I can thinks—”

Roka cut her off with a panic in his voice. I saw his mouth move, but still had a hard time believing the words came from him. “Why he be broken, Sarah?”

“Breathe now, Roka...just calm down. Ain't no use gettin excited, now. Da spirit is funny sometimes. Listen now...a man could be
rich and have all money 'n da world, but still thinks he po'. Work all his life like a po' man. Don' never know he be rich till somebody takes all dat money out the bank and lies it in front of 'im. See? Dat boy would've never got outta dat spirit world without being strong as a rock! It's inside 'im, just as sures I'm standin' 'ere...”

Aunt Sarah shook her head in bewilderment. “He must don't know it be there...”

“But see how talk to Bradley and Talbert! When first we saw him! He...!”

Aunt Sarah spoke, but didn't seem to comprehend the words she was saying.

“It mus' not a been real...”

Aunt Sarah slowly walked up to me, keeping her eyes focused on my face. She spoke like she was interrogating me. “Kinda world you come from, where a man can have dat much power in 'is words, but 'is spirit ain't real...”

If I could've spoken, I still wouldn't have been able to give her an answer.

Roka looked at Aunt Sarah, who was still looking down at me.

“But spirit still there?”

“Yea, it's gotta be or he be dead.”

“So we fix him, like Elizabeth say.”

Aunt Sarah diverted her gaze from me and looked at Roka.

“Ain't no easy task what you talkin' 'bout. Changin' a man spirit ain't—”

Roka cut her off again, this time with the same strong voice I was used to. “We fix him.”

Aunt Sarah stared at him for a few seconds, and then nodded her head in acceptance. She motioned over to Bennie, Nessie, and Liza, who had been listening the entire time. “Get dis boy
cleaned up and back in 'is bed, y'all. Me and Roka's got some talkin' to do...”

The ladies hurried over to pick me off of the floor, while Aunt Sarah and Roka stepped outside. I didn't understand the decision that had just been made, but I felt a bit like Frankenstein as the ladies scrubbed me, redressed my bandages, and laid me back down.

When Roka and Aunt Sarah came back into the hut, their sounds woke me from a troublesome sleep. My caretakers were scattered around the room, no doubt doing some task for the benefit of the hut. Again my body and bladder grew tight with the unknown of who had just entered, and only began to relax when I saw the matriarch and patriarch standing over my bed. I wondered how long I'd been asleep as Aunt Sarah started talking. “I'm gon ask you some questions, hear? You nod yo head yea o' no to answer. Dat alright?”

I nodded my head. Roka stood beside Aunt Sarah, paying close attention to her words and my actions.

“We's knowed yo ain't from here since we's first seen you. You remember where you come from?”

I nodded my head.

“Good. You remember how you got here?”

I shook my head.

“You from anywheres nearby?”

I shook my head.

“Yea, we's all figured dat. You gots no kinfolk 'round 'ere?”

I shook my head.

“So you here all by yourself?”

I nodded my head.

“How far aways you from?”

I looked at Aunt Sarah for a few seconds before she realized I couldn't answer her question with a head movement.

“Ahh, so's if I says sorta kinda far, real far, of far liken someplace me and Roka ain't never heard before, which is you from? Sorta kinda far?”

I kept my head still.

“Real far?”

I kept my head still.

“Someplace that we ain't never seen or heard of before?”

I nodded my head. Roka and Aunt Sarah glanced at one another before she continued. When they finished, Aunt Sarah leaned down so that her face was closer to mine, and almost whispered as she spoke.

“You a important man wheres you from, huh?”

I closed my eyes and nodded my head.

“Yea, I figured as much. You had most everything you wanted?”

I nodded my head.

“But somethin' 'side ya ain't real.” She turned to face Roka, who was listening intently to the conversation, again.

“We thought he come 'ere wid somethin' in da insides and lose it, but ain't true. What he come 'ere wid wasn't never real. Shine high and bright like gold when you sees it first, but it's just a pretty rock.”

Roka couldn't hide the confusion in his wrinkled eyebrows, even though he didn't speak.

“We seen how he talk to da white folks at first, and we believe his spirit be gold. We's thinkin' he must have a heart strong's dat oak tree outside. But he don't.”

Had I had all my faculties about me, there's no telling what I
would've done. Maybe I would've jumped up and run out of the one-room hut I had been rehabilitated in. Maybe I would've cursed out the person who had saved my life. Maybe I'd have even hit her, cocked back my fist with all the power and rage that self-realization can muster and brought it across Aunt Sarah's face, hoping she didn't try the same thing in return. But I was lying in a bed with both my arms and legs incapacitated, and my mouth unable to form any words that made sense. No matter how stomach-turning and fingernail-scraping Aunt Sarah's analysis of me was, I had no other choice, but sit there and bear it.

“He don't,” Aunt Sarah continued. “S'all fake. All da heart and spirit he come here wid ain't real. It's good fo' show, but ain't da real thing. What stump me, though, is dat I gave 'im my roots, and he come back. Dem roots send you straight away to da spirit world. Ain't never seen nobody comes back save fo my daddy when I'se a girl. And da spirits don' lie. Dey cain't. So's gotta mean he jus' as strong's we thought in da beginning when we first seen 'im. He jus' ain't usin' it. Bet he don' even know its dere. You says you wants us to fix 'im?”

“Yes,” Roka answered matter-of-factly. “We fix him.”

“Den we's gots to show 'im da gold inside 'im. Da real gold.”

Roka nodded his head in agreement. I tried to pretend that my world hadn't just been compacted like trash by someone else's conversation.

Aunt Sarah looked back down at me, but I couldn't face her. I kept my eyes trained on the ceiling as she spoke. “Where you come from, it's your talkin' makes you 'portant, right?”

I kept my head still, giving what little protest I could. When she realized I was refusing to answer, Aunt Sarah began to bend down to speak to me again, but Roka stopped her. Instead he bent down, and squatted so that we were face to face.

“No be angry 'bout truth. Save for lies.”

He spoke as if he was giving me a life lesson, and I listened as if it was my first. When he finished, I exhaled my self-righteousness and looked back at Aunt Sarah. She repeated her question. “Where you come from, it's your talkin'...yo words makes you 'portant, right?”

I nodded my head.

“I figures. No matter what kinda heart you got, I know you got mo' words den all of us. It's yo words gonna save you here. Dem's da key to open ya true con'stution!

“What he do?” Roka wasn't sitting as close to me as before, but he was squatted down and his face was still level with mine.

“He gots to be talkin' 'gain. Can't waste no time. Every day, dis boy need to be talkin' 'is gibberish aloud tills it turn back into words 'gain. Every day, startin' now!”

Over the course of the next four days I ran my mouth like a marathon runner. Aunt Sarah and Roka would take shifts watching me. Aunt Sarah would take the daytime, since she didn't have to be out in the field. Whenever Roka finished, he'd come in and signal to Aunt Sarah, who would move from her spot to somewhere further away. Then Roka, sweaty and exhausted, would take over watching me. The deal was that I was not to allow the hut to fall silent, under any circumstance. I was to fill in all the blank spaces of silence with my gibberish until my gibberish turned itself back into coherent words. I was allowed a good night's sleep, but that was all. Any other time I was to be talking, or at least trying my best to. If the medicine woman was having a conversation in the hut, she would stop her conversation and come over to me if she ceased hearing my chatter in the background. Roka was always too tired to carry on any conversation with anyone. He just came, sat, nodded his head at me, and I knew to start my meaningless drawl.

Only, by halfway through day three, I realized that it wasn't
meaningless drawl anymore. Nessie had just changed the dressing on the bed I was on, and I could feel the difference. I was already mouthing off random trash, but when I lay back on the sheets and pillow I smiled and turned to her. “Tank koo! Isss ealy nice.”

All of us froze at the same time. I was so used to mouthing off gobbledy-gook just to make noise, I didn't realize my speech had gotten that much better. Nessie stood, shocked that she could now understand what it was that I was trying to say, and Aunt Sarah glanced at me with a quick smile before going back to her business.

For the rest of the time I had to talk nonstop, I did it eagerly. I put all my effort behind making my words clear. It was wearisome, and my jawbone locked up twice, but by the end of the fourth day, both Roka and Aunt Sarah paraded into the room in the evening. Nessie, Bennie, and Liza were behind them, and from the way things sounded, there was a crowd of people outside the door. I was still practicing my speech when they entered, and Aunt Sarah reached down and gently touched my lips, cutting my stream of words off altogether.

“I believes you c'stop now,” the first lady said and I stopped talking. I was so used to not responding to anyone that all of us sat there quietly for minutes before Roka allowed his impatience to come through.

“You talk?” He motioned toward me with his hands, like he was encouraging a schoolchild to recite something onstage. “You talk now? Yes, you do. You talk.”

This was my first conversation after learning how to speak again. I found myself nervous.

“I'ont know what to say,” I said as I looked back and forth between the two of them.

I hadn't seen Roka smile since I'd gotten to this godforsaken
world, but he held a smirk on his face that seemed as if it came from God tickling his sides.

“You sound almost same,” he said as he nodded.

“How it feel?” Aunt Sarah asked as she grinned as well.

“Feel like I gotta learn how to talk again.”

“Yea, but you work fo' dese words, chile. Da words you gots now, you gots to keep 'em close. Can't waste 'em. Y'hear?”

“Yes ma'am.”

A commotion outside turned everyone's attention on the front door. A large amount of footsteps could be heard moving away quickly, and the excited chatter outside the hut died so quickly that Roka ran to the door to see for himself what was going on. When he returned, his face had reset itself with cold seriousness.

“Reverend Lewis outside.”

Without warning, Nessie, Bennie, and Liza grabbed their things and ran out like the hut was on fire. Roka posted himself at the foot of my bed, poising himself for whatever might happen.

I broke into a cold sweat, began to see colored splotches, and hyperventilated without knowing it.

“Calm yourself, chile!” Aunt Sarah grabbed my chin and tilted my face upward so my eyes would meet hers. “Look at me! You jus' calm yourself down, alright?”

I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs wouldn't allow it. All I could do was try and hyperventilate quieter.

“He come 'round here an dere to checks on you. Had 'im gone fo' 'while...” Aunt Sarah smirked briefly. “He were mo' 'fraid of dat nigger disease den Massa Talbert and Bradley! He come 'round 'gain 'cause he heard you betta and I can't hides you no mo'. Massa Talbert and Bradley done seen you. You gon' have to talks wid 'im.”