Antebellum (50 page)

“Baby, ain't no road block or none of these here men gon' stop these people if they decide to run in my house. Only one protectin' me is the Lawd! All these other folks jus' helpin'.”

SaTia couldn't argue if she wanted to. “Yes ma'am,” she said, and pushed back in her seat, making herself comfortable enough to ponder her elder's words.

“All these people are here for Moses?” Mama asked nervously.

“Yes, ma'am,” Henry said. “A lot of 'em been here since SaTia announced y'all were leaving today. They figured this'd be the only place he'd wanna go.”

“Maybe we should have gone somewhere else. This is crazy.”

“I know it seem like that, Ms. Jenkins, but these people love Moe...ahh...Moses. These people love Moses. I mean, a bunch of 'em was camped out last night, like this was a concert or somethin'. I ain't never seen so many people hyped up like this before.”

Henry's words made me think as I looked out the window. I saw one man press his arm up to the window, revealing a tattoo of my last album cover on his upper shoulder. I saw at least four or five different people in tears, screaming my name as if I'd turned water to wine. There were signs with my face plastered on them, welcoming me home, and everyone had on one of the shirts that SaTia had warned me about. The people who couldn't lay hands on the limo just pointed to their T-shirts and jumped up and down.

“I Am Da Nigga.” It was on everyone's chest, like a Superman mark.

Finally, the limo and SUVs were let past the blockade that the police put up, and the world was still again. I saw the house that
I'd grown up in, and my first instinct was to jump out through the sunroof and dive onto the front lawn.

One of the military contractors, the same one who had introduced himself and his team to us, began moving to exit the car. As he did, I was taken aback, realizing that I hadn't noticed him sitting in the limo with us. He'd faded into the background, like a man standing in distant shadows. Now that he moved, it was as if a ghost had reappeared. He motioned for me to stay put, and I easily followed the direction.

Spilling out from the two SUVs, the private security team came together as a group. The soldier who was in our limo gave orders for all of ten seconds, and then the team scattered like illuminated roaches. If they had been any other group of people, I'd be sure that they had all left and gone about their business. As it was, after ten minutes had passed, they all reappeared in the same thirty-second timeframe, checking in with their leader. After they'd all returned, the commander gave one last set of orders, and then most of them took positions around the house.

The one in charge came back and opened the door.

“You all are free to enter the house.”

First, Big Mama and Mama got out and made their way to the door. Next, SaTia emerged, and then Ray, Henry, and Brian. They each waited by the door after they'd gotten out.

When I stepped out of the limo, thunder filled the air. The crowd of people was far enough away so as to not pose a threat, but close enough that I felt as though their collective roar could knock me over.

At that moment, I wanted to go back to the old me. It would've been so easy. A crowd of people were putting themselves in physical harm just to be able to lay eyes on me. I lifted an arm in a half-wave, and the roar seemed to make the sidewalk shake.

Why not go back?
I thought to myself.
I'm a god here. Every woman in the crowd wants to screw me, and every guy wants to be me. I'm young, I'm rich, I'm black, and I got it all. Why does the old me have to die? Talbert's plantation was just a dream. Roka and Sarah and Bradley...that was all a dream. This is real.

And then the chanting began. It started low, one person in the crowd at first. A familiar song whistled from a distance that I couldn't quite put my finger on. As it grew louder, I began to recognize it, even though I didn't want to. It began as a song and turned into an alarm.

DA NIGGA! DA NIGGA! DA NIGGA! DA NIGGA!

And just like that, I knew I was fooling myself. There was no turning back now. I didn't have to make the decision whether or not to let the old me die—he was already dead.

Sad but reassured, I started to walk toward my home. The leader of the soldiers had waited for me before he entered the house himself, and I realized that he was studying my face. As I studied his in return, I saw his confusion at the situation. All these people cheering for me, and yet I probably appeared melancholy at best. We looked at each other like intricate pieces of art, until I got close enough to him that it felt uncomfortable, and we both had to divert our gaze as we walked into the house.

“Okay, we made it!” Mama and Big Mama, happy to be back in their home, headed upstairs to rest. The rest of us sat in the living room, watching SaTia as she attempted to chart our course. “Huge hurdle down,” she said. “But where do we go from here?”

“That's all up to Moe...Moses. Right now, everybody's waitin' on him.” Brian motioned over to me, putting me on the spot.

“That's real talk,” Henry said. “We can't do nothin' without 'im.”

Everyone looked at me. I was unable to respond, because I was enthralled with a house that I felt as though I hadn't seen in decades. I felt as if I was being taken back in time. I looked in the kitchen and remembered playing with a toy firetruck while I sat on the floor. I looked at the dining room table and remembered sitting on my father's lap, helping him eat a ham sandwich before he ran out of the house. Every inch of the wallpaper and carpeting brought back a separate memory that held my full attention.

My gaze darted across the room, and again, out of thin air, I saw the commander standing in the corner, silent. I wasn't so much taken aback this time, as I wondered how he continued to pull the same trick, and as my eyes moved past him to the house adornments around him, my mind quickly left the commander and returned to the memories of my youth.

“Moses?”

SaTia called me out of my trance, and I looked at her as if I wished she hadn't. “Moses, are you okay?”

I let my eyes wander away from her as I nodded my head. It was clear that something had me preoccupied, and my friends just sat looking at me in silence until they could figure out what it was. Eventually, I stood up from the couch and allowed myself to walk around my long lost house. I was eager to find new memories that didn't involve me being whipped. I explored every room on the floor. I crawled along the carpets and sat on the counters and let the mist from the refrigerator cool my frame. I knew this was my home, but it would never be my only one. It would never wipe out the memory of a plantation where I was broken and set free. Even in the house where I'd grown up, a part of me was still stuck back there, never to return.

I came back to the couch and sat down amongst my friends. SaTia took a look at my long face and stood to address everyone.

“Okay, guys. Let's do this. Let's everyone go home for the evening. We'll come back tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. and revisit everything.”

“Naw, that's not cool, SaTia,” Ray said. “There's people out there, they want Da Nigga! I mean, like they want 'im now! Hell, he could step off da front steps and probably make a million. I know my nigga, aight? Ain't no way he'd wanna jus' sleep till da mornin' when it's so much money to be made!”

I looked at Ray, and then at the rest of my squad. I could tell they were inclined to agree with him. SaTia calmly sat down on the sofa, and motioned her hand toward me. “Why don't you ask Moses?”

“Moses cain't talk, SaTia.”

“That doesn't mean he can't hear you. Ask him.”

Ray took a deep breath and then turned his head to meet my gaze. “Moses, do you—”

I decided not to let him finish. I stood up while he was talking and made my way over to the steps. After I'd gotten to the top, I walked to my room, opened the door, and fell down on my bed.

I could hear SaTia's voice faintly from downstairs.

“So,” she said. “like I said, let's all go home and meet up tomorrow morning.”

I heard them all stand up, but I was asleep before the front door announced their departure.

I knew where I was immediately. Even before my vision had the chance to focus itself, I could already recognize the difference.
The feeling of breathing fresh air, of sunlight that had already been filtered into its purest form, made the location clear to me. I stood and looked straight at the Talbert house, the bullet holes still decorating the walls and the front door. I could still see the legs of Ella's dead body poking around the corner, and when I looked down to avoid the vision, I was greeted by my own frame lying dead under my feet.

“AHHHH!”

I jumped high enough that I figured I'd land on the roof, but instead I came down just inches to the left of my own limp arm. I noticed, however, that it didn't move. My full body weight leaping off of it hadn't caused it to budge. As I tried to get over the shock of seeing my own dead body lying beside my feet, I noticed that my feet were in the same white Nikes I'd worn out of the hospital. The dead body beside me was dressed in the same hard cotton shirt and burlap-like pants that I'd worn most of the time on the plantation. But I stood there in fresh, custom-made white Nikes, True Religion jeans, and an Armani T-shirt.

“Was it worth it?”

I swung around, expecting to see a white man with a pistol aimed at my face. How stupid was I to not pick up the first gun I saw lying on the ground? I hadn't been back on the plantation sixty seconds and I already saw how soft Da Nigga's life had made me.

If he miss me, he's dead,
I thought to myself as my head swung around in slow motion. But there was no white man behind me. There was only my father.

“Dad?”

“How are you, son?”

He spoke, and it was as if all the emotion from everything I'd gone through, both on Talbert's plantation and back in the hospital, bubbled up to the surface of my skin at the same time. I swung my arms around his neck and squeezed him.

“It's okay, son. It'll be alright.”

“Dad...” I choked the word out. It was barely audible.

“I told you, son, it's okay.”

“No, no it's not, Dad. Look...”

I separated from him and pointed at the ground, where my dead body lay. He looked down at it, and then looked up at me calmly.

“You're not really here, son.”

“Wh...what? What are you talkin' about?”

“You're not really here. You're asleep in our house back home.”

“But I'm lying there dead on the ground!”

“Yes, and you're standing here talking to me. It mustn't be a surprise that you can be two places at once by now.”

I looked around again and realized that everything was frozen in place. The Talbert children and the Sheriff were stuck in the same position, and the dead bodies lying on the ground had ceased decomposing. My father and I moved freely in a world frozen in time.

“Why am I back here?” I looked my father in the eye as we began walking.

“You brought yourself back here.”

“I didn't bring myself back here, Dad. Why would I do that?”

“Because you needed to be reminded. It's easy to forget in a designer T-shirt.”

I wanted to respond, but looked down at myself and decided to shut up. A few steps later and I was eyeing my dad once again. I was at once grateful for his presence and eager for his answers.

“Again, why am I back here?”

“I told you, because you need to be reminded.”

“I don't need to be reminded. I never forgot.”

“Just because you didn't forget, doesn't mean you don't need reminding.”

“What? Why are you talking like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you're auditioning to play The Riddler.”

“It's the only way you'll understand me.”