Antebellum (31 page)

I shook my head vigorously.

“Listen!” the woman giving orders barked her one word at me, and I stopped doing everything except trembling and breathing.

“You gon' have to talk to 'im, and I'se glad! Dese white folk ain't leavin' to go nowheres, baby! Lotta folk go runnin' scared when they comes round, but you can't be of 'em.”

I shook as I stared at her.

“I be here wid you whole time, but you gots to find fire 'inside you. Gotta be stronger den us slaves...”

Reverend Lewis burst through the door as if he were backed by a royal court blowing trumpets and announcing his presence. He was clearly hesitant to be in the space, but saw me sitting upright and grinned. “There you are! Amazing grace, look at you! You don't look anything like when I first saw you in that cage!”

He began to make his way to the bed, likely assuming that Roka and Aunt Sarah would naturally move out of his way. When they did not, he stopped short.

“Leave this room at once!” he ordered with a touch of discomfort. “This nigger and I need to discuss business!”

If the two of them were to leave me, I would surely die. I begged Aunt Sarah with my eyes not to leave, and she nodded back ever so slightly before changing her demeanor like a shape-shifter.

“Oh, yassah! Yassah!” Her transformation was complete. “Yassah... 'cept we can't tell if da sickness all da ways gone yet, sah! He 'ave one mo' week fo' he clean completely, and we ain't want a good Christian man sufferin' da likes of a nigger plague, sah! If we stays, sah, we c'get you outta here soon's we see sum-thin'...”

Reverend Lewis looked more cynical than Master Talbert had, but he weighed his options.

“Alright, you can stay, but you go over there to the corner. I don't want you around us.”

The passive manipulator told me with her eyes that this was the best she could do, and she and Roka moved over to stand in the corner.

I sat on the bed with both my legs outstretched and in splints, both my shoulders in slings. The pastor sat down beside me and I could not look at him.

“Do you remember me?” he began in a soft tone, like meeting a dog for the first time. “I'm the one that got you out of your cage, nigger. I rescued you. Do you remember that?”

I nodded my head.

“I don't know if anyone has ever told you this, but you are a very special, God-given type of nigger. Fascinating, really! No one knows where you came from or how you got here.”

I continued to stare at the floor, daring not to move or make any sound. I could feel my hands begin to tremble again. I looked up at Aunt Sarah and Roka, but their hard stares made me drop my gaze to the dirt.

“These crazy people down here are so stupid. God save them all, but they are just plain dumb. Some of them think you fell from the sky. Some of them think you climbed up from the dirt. All of them believe you are some kind of half-ape nigger that can smash buildings and kill livestock with your bare fingers. They want you dead. And you know the only person who can save you?”

Reverend Lewis paused and waited for me to respond. He didn't know terror had frozen my lips shut, and his patience wore thin with each passing second. Aunt Sarah tried to interject for me.

“He c'talks with you, sah, he jus—”

“SHUT UP!” Reverend Lewis jumped to his feet and pointed a long finger at Aunt Sarah. “HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME! YOU SHUT UP!”

Startled, Aunt Sarah stepped back into the corner. Her face ran
through a series of emotions, displaying each for only a second before moving on to the next.

Reverend Lewis sat back down, cleared his throat, and looked at me.

“I'm sorry...I've been letting my Southern gentleman come out more since I got here.

“Let's get back on topic, shall we? I am the only one who can save you from a growing mob of people who intend, at some point soon, to kill you. I can save you, and I will save you, but I need to know some things first. Are you willing to tell me those things?”

I heard his question, but found it hard to respond. His outburst toward Aunt Sarah had awakened a hesitant sort of anger in me. It wouldn't dare come out, though.

In the meantime, Reverend Lewis' lack of patience was beginning to show itself again. He began mumbling under his breath as he waited for my reply, and his face darkened in shades of red as the seconds turned to minutes. Finally, when he couldn't hold his peace any longer, he reached up with his arm and slapped me across the face.

“Listen, I didn't come here to waste my time, and I certainly will not sit around waiting for a nigger to open up his filthy mouth! Now I asked you a question, goddammit! So help me, I'll call those heathens in here to kill you myself! Answer me!”

Suddenly, I knew what to do. I didn't have the courage to talk to Reverend Lewis directly, and looking him in his eyes would've made my blood run cold. I was weak, and I felt as if I'd learned so for the first time right then. But at least I could vindicate a person who had what I didn't.

Slowly, almost painstakingly so, I lifted up my head and looked directly to the back corner of the room. When Reverend Lewis
followed my gaze, he saw that I was looking directly at Aunt Sarah.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, on the verge of rage.

It took a willpower that I didn't know I had, but I opened up my mouth in the presence of that white man and said my first words. “I...I...I...I can talk to her.”

Even as she stood in the corner, I saw the candlelight reflect off of the tear in her eye. It was gone before it had the chance to sprint down her cheek. Roka nodded at me in approval, and took a seat on the floor.

“You—nigger wench.” Reverend Lewis stood again, but this time with less fire in his voice. “Come over here and talk to this nigger.”

“Yas...sah...” Aunt Sarah said with hate in her voice. She walked slow and steady up to the bed, and then pulled up one of the benches that she used to work on. She sat directly in front of me, and until Reverend Lewis opened his mouth, it seemed as though the only two people in the room were the two of us.

“Ask him where he's from,” commanded Reverend Lewis.

“Where you be from, chil?” Aunt Sarah said, soft and low, as if she was rocking me to sleep.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember a world gone by. “I'm from a place where there ain't no slaves.”

My words seemed to suck the breath out of everyone's lungs. My eyes were still closed, but the silence I heard made me think everyone was dead. I finally heard Aunt Sarah take in a deep breath after holding it as long as she could. The air trembled as it came from her chest into her throat and then out into the atmosphere. She had a million questions, but she knew she couldn't ask them.

I wasn't sure why Reverend Lewis' breath got caught, but when he released it, it came out as a laugh.

“No slaves, huh? So you're from up north, from my neck of the woods?”

I didn't answer. It took a few seconds for him to recognize why I was silent. When he did, he was forced to swallow his pride and nod at Aunt Sarah for help.

“You be from da north?”

I shook my head. “No. I ain't from here at all.”

Reverend Lewis narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean, you're not from here?”

Aunt Sarah began to repeat the question, but I stopped her. I had felt some of my fear melt away. I still couldn't look at Reverend Lewis, but I opened my eyes and looked at Aunt Sarah as if my conversation was with her. Slowly, I swelled my chest, set my face hard, and answered the reverend's question.

“Wherever this place is, I ain't from here.”

Again, everyone in the room ceased to breathe. Reverend Lewis broke the silence after some time. He spoke as if he had some sort of a secret to tell. “What year is it where you're from?”

“2010.”

Aunt Sarah seemed to be hiding so many emotions on her face, I thought it might burst. I could hear Roka hit his head on something in the back corner where he was sitting. The thud was a reaction to his shock.

“My God...” Reverend Lewis stared at nothing with a blank face. “Do you know what this...” He stopped suddenly. “Wait... how do I know that you're from where you say are? What proof do you have?”

I was still staring at Aunt Sarah as I spoke. “All I got is my memories.”

Reverend Lewis slammed his hand on the bed and stood up. He paced the room.

“Well, that is wonderful! All anybody is going to tell me is that I've gone down south and found a crazy nigger!” He paced the floor a few more steps, and then sat back down.

“Alright, let's hear some of these so-called memories.”

Aunt Sarah's eyes lit up and went wider than I'd ever seen. She looked like a little girl, sitting at her mother's feet, waiting for her fairy tale. I closed my eyes again, and this time the memories came rushing back. They pounded my brain so hard that I felt my body rock back and forth with the motion. I could feel the excitement of my previous life beginning to fill up in my ribcage, and I smiled as I let it out.

“I...I was a rapper. I was THE rapper! I got all the clothes, money, and jewelry I wanted. Two platinum records, baby. Couldn't nobody touch me! Aww...man...I had so many hoes, dogg! Chicks would line up. Had a different female every night. And all the money I could spend. Moved my family out the hood and everything. Well...I tried at least. 'Cause that's the first thing you gotta do when you get some real money where I'm from...you try and get your fam up out the hood! Niggas'll kill you in the hood, man!”

I had forgotten where I was. Either that, or I didn't care. This was the first time since I'd gotten to this horrible place that I felt connected to a life I had before, and that connection took me over. I felt all the pain and terror rise to the surface of my skin and drip off like sweat. I laughed out loud as I remembered my old self, and allowed it to emerge.

Though my eyes were open, I forgot about Aunt Sarah and Roka and Reverend Lewis. I wasn't talking to them anymore. I was talking to the American public, to the fans who had tuned in to MTV specials about me. I spoke as if I was back on a private plane with the world under my feet and a camera in my face.

“See, what you gotta realize, before you learn anything else, is that I'm the best. Period. Niggas can't see me! That's why I'm Da Nigga! 'Cause cain't no other niggas touch what I spit! Nobody else in the game right now is doin' what I'm doin', y'know? But don't get this whole rap thing twisted. I'll put a nigga in the ground quick! Youngins like P. Silenzas think 'cause they got a record deal, I won't make a phone call and get they head split open! But it's all good...I'm not trippin'. We got mo' bottles than we can count up in here, man! And we got trees in da back! You ever been high at 30,000 feet, nigga? Ha! Yeah, I bet you ain't! You rockin' wid Da Nigga right now, baby! I'ma get you high just 'cause I can! Grab a glass so we can toast to the fact that we don't love these hoes, my nigga! Hahahahaha!”

I let the laughter reverberate throughout my body. I was Da Nigga again, and it felt like cocaine in my bloodstream.

“Lemme tell you somethin', my nigga...if Pac was still here, I'd be the only nigga he messed with! Pac woulda destroyed all these fake niggas in the game right now! He woulda torn 'em all apart! But Pac ain't here, and Biggie ain't here, and now all these fake niggas wanna turn the game to a ringtone contest. But you best believe I'ma hold it down. See this real hip-hop right here. You cain't get thrown off by the platinum chains, baby! I'm an artist at the end of the day! I take everything that the hood gave me, and I turn it into my music! I make music for the ghetto, you feel me? I seen niggas shoot each other in the head, so I rap 'bout shootin' niggas in the head! 'Cause that's what the streets taught me, know what I'm sayin'? I seen hoes in the street trying to get over on niggas, so I rap 'bout stanky hoes 'cause that's all I seen! If you ain't no hoe, then don't take no offense to it, feel me? Look...look...real talk, man, this is my art. This is what I does, and I does it well! I make smash hits and I dick down chicks!
Hahahahaha! Deez Nutz Records for life, baby! New album,
Hoes In Da Attic,
in stores right now! Go grab that! In the meantime, I'ma go say yes to some drugs! Holla!”

I laughed so hard I began to cry. I lay back onto the bed and let the bellows lunge out of my chest and bounce around in the air. Somewhere inside, I knew that when I stopped, I'd be returned to a foreign land, and I laughed until I coughed uncontrollably and my chest became tight and my throat felt as though it was on fire.

When I opened my eyes, I hoped to God that I'd see the ceiling in a privately chartered jet, but the mud and straw brought me back to reality. Instantly depressed, I blinked away tears as the power I had felt dissipated, and I returned back to the place where the white man beside me made me want to devour my own flesh.

I slowly leaned forward, and everyone seemed to come back into my view in slow motion. Three blurry figures surrounding me, encasing me as I tried to accept the weight of this world. Roka must have moved while I was under my own spell, because he was now standing five steps away from me and to my left. Aunt Sarah still sat in front of me, and Reverend Lewis was still to my right. I didn't pay attention to either of them as I dropped my head. I was too engulfed in my own emotions to pay attention to anyone else's. Having to bear the cross of this new reality was bad enough, but having it removed, if only for a moment, and then placed back onto my back was nearly unbearable. Desperate, I did the only thing I could think to do for support. I reached out for my lifeline. I looked up at Aunt Sarah.

If having to return to this world was a cross that I could barely carry, then Aunt Sarah's face became the lash of the whip and the crown of thorns that made me long for death. She stared at me with a mixture of extreme rage and utter sorrow. Single tears
from both eyes came down her face, and I realized then that since I had come to this world, I had never seen her cry. I had never seen a break in the shell that allowed her to survive on Master Talbert's plantation. But she looked at me now like a loving daddy's girl who had just been told her father wasn't coming home anymore. She looked at me as if I had stolen something from her. As though I had taken her hopes and dreams and ground them up. She looked at me as if she hated me.