Family (17 page)

Sun and Peach argued bout Soon and Apple and it ended up with Soon goin with Sun. Sun didn’t care what nobody thought, but he didn’t want to be found out to be black yet either. Soon was just as glad either way. His mama would look out for his things while he was gone to get a education to
be a vet … tin … nary. That’s what he had done decided while he was talkin and workin with Peach. See, Always put everybody to work. Now he knew he could visit in Scotland whenever he wanted to anyway.

Chile, I’m tellin you this FREEDOM was really somethin if you had any sense to work with it! My chile, Always, had planned when she didn’t even know she was plannin!

LORETTA HAD TO COME
to Always when Sun was home. Always treated her like the lady she was cause now she knew more bout how Sun had got away. Loretta was very polite. Her face just lit up when she saw Sun. After all these years! She, in the end, wanted him to take Apple, but Apple was settled. It was all alright.

She and Sun talked for such a long while. This time he did invite her up to his home as a relative from the South. When she left and went home
cross the road, her mind was full of dreams of the new men she would meet and perhaps marry. The clothes she would have, the places she could go. Looked like this life was just payin off for everybody.

Doak Jr. just wouldn’t let none of em over to his house and Loretta never could figure why. He didn’t like Always and he didn’t want nothin to do with none of em, don’t care how white and light their skin was! He didn’t want to be caught lookin like them, you see? Not be close to black, no way!

I was just gettin more tired and tired. I just began to drift off and drift off to places I didn’t even think of.

One day, in my driftin, I passed a ocean. Big ole thing. Strong winds blowin, beautiful sand glistenin in the sun. Birds flyin all over all round me. The trees bowin to the wind, even growin that way. I stopped to rest under one of them trees.

You know what I did? I fell into a deep, deep sleep. So peaceful, so restful I slept I don’t know how long, chile! When I finally woke, I blive it
was cause of the noise of war. It was so many years later. It was bout fifty years later!

I rushed, I flew to where I had last seen Always and Master. Things had changed so much, oh, how things had changed.

Always was dyin. Old, old and dyin. So I knew this was the end for me too. My children had grown and now their children was grown. Master had children of his own and he was dead already. He left two boys and two girls, grown.

Soon had come back and now he was dead. His white wife too. They had left one boy and one girl, Edward Soon and Edna, grown.

Apple never did come back cept for visits, quick visits. She lived in England with a English husband, her children, Alice and Gary, was grown too and she was gettin on old. She had money tho, she had learned well from Always.

I didn’t get up to see bout Peach cause she was still livin, old. I knew I had a little time to see her. Her children was everywhere, Ireland, France, Spain, everywhere, livin white. I knew Sun was dead just from thoughts floatin round.

I went to Always to be with her whilst she died. Wondered would we get to talk now since we both gonna be dead. Tim was long dead now, too. He left beautiful memories tho, cause Always never married again. He did see his grandchildren.

I must tell you this tho. Doak Jr. had got mos all that land back from Always, in one way or another. After Tim died she let down on her watchfulness. Even some of the slaves and their children she had taken on, had done unkind things to her. Stealin. White folks stealin too, once they found out that the land was hers and not Doak’s. Doak helped them cause he still held enmity cause she bested him. When Doak died he was ragin and ravin, confused. But he had had a good, full life with his sweet wife who died soon after he did. They left children.

A real white man, Jared, had come to Doak Jr. and his oldest son. Doak the third or fourth, I don’t know. He was tired of bein poor and seein black folks with things he couldn’t get. He hadn’t tried workin harder. He had thought of a way he had heard of where white folks rode in the night and killed black folk and took from them.
Changed records and stole from them. Now, all them white folks was not this way. Some would never have thought of this kind of thing, but poor white ignorant have-nothin folks thinks of anything. This man, Jared, did think of ways to rid blacks of all what they could. Even burn em out!

He needed somebody with some respect, tho, to get the main folks he needed to help this idea along. Doak Jr. had not done never thought of this, but if he refused it, he knew they would wonder why, cause he was always seeming to help that black woman, Always, crost the way. He didn’t want no reason, no way for nobody to think him no more than a nice white man helpin a nigga who had raised him, so he agreed. Only if they was not killed, he said. Don’t kill em, just take all they got. Burn houses down, that’s alright. Steal horses, cows, hogs, food, whatever you want, but don’t kill em.

It didn’t work out that way, cause it never does with somebody with a ugly, mean, jealous mind. Jared had that kind of mind. UGLY. He took to wearin them sheets he had done heard of, gettin other jealous whites to follow him. And the Ku
Klux Klan came to be in that region. Always suffered. In fact that is how Tim died. Fightin for his wife and life.

A lot of other blacks suffered too, cause what could you do? Everybody with some power was now joined into it, almost. Only a few with a conscience was not. And how many people you know got a conscience?

It grew, it done grown even up til now. Still goin, but let me get back to Always and all she tried to get and keep in the right way. Gold, silver and all, she worked for it. Didn’t ride no horses in the night under no cover-up sheet to steal. Worked on her son only. And you might say he owed her that. But he didn’t think so. He would sit up in church, even, and listen to that gospel music and think, with malice, what she had done to him. Ain’t some people fools? He was free on count of her. Maybe a whole lot of other white-lookin men and women are free that way too, and they don’t know it. Who knows? Maybe they do know it.

But his concentration was on Always. What she
had. Even if he didn’t need it. He didn’t want to see her with it. Chile, the man ended up ownin so much they named the town after him. Butlertown. It was his town, he was so rich! He had plenty to leave to his children. A whole town practcly. Still, he wanted back what he felt Always had taken from him.

They didn’t get it all, howsomever. She held on to the main parts. She even still had some gold buried, and now nobody knew where it was. She only woulda told Tim, which she did, and Master, and they was both gone. It was buried deep under the ground in Tim’s old wine cellar.

Her four grandchildren was there. Grown. Waitin for her to die, so they could get on bout their business. Well … two loved their gramma Always. One middle one, Peter, and the youngest, named after Peach.

Peter had been educated and he was followin his uncle Soon’s steps in the vet … tin … nary. Peach was a teacher and yet loved the South, so she planned to stay on in her grandmother’s house that the other two wanted to sell. She had done
fallen in love with one of them husky dark men behind a plow, Carl. She was gonna stay and get him. He seem to be glad bout that.

The other two, Rich and Rita, was back from some city they had done gone to after they was educated and they wanted to get on back to civilization, they said.

So that’s where I was. Still with my family. Blood so many places I couldn’t never more keep up with it. Wouldn’t know some pieces of my family if they stepped into my eyes.

When my beloved daughter Always closed her eyes and rested her soul, she didn’t come to me. She passed me by. Oh Lord.

Now … I figured I’d go somewhere and lay down and close my eyes and be gone too. I’m shame to tell you, but that ain’t what happened. I tried my best to get on way from here. Tired of livin without livin. But try as I might, I didn’t go nowhere. Just fell asleep again. Short nap. Woke up fifteen years later, bout 1933 or so. Didn’t know nowhere else to go, so went back to Always’s house.

You know what I found? Like to saw history
repeatin itself! I said to myself, things got to get better somehow! Everything looked so peaceful on the top. I happen to stay round just long nough to try to enjoy some of that peace, then when I saw what all was under that peace, I HAD to stay round to see what would happen again, to my blood. My blood. My family.

You all had had wars and famines, depressions and recessions, union fights, labor horrors, poverty worse, look like, then some slavery. For all colors this time! People was catchin hell and didn’t have to die to do it!

Them men up there in them high offices, all over the world, was still lyin to you all. You all was lettin em then. It ain’t changed too much now!

Time. Time and life. They moves on. History don’t repeat itself, people repeat themselves! History couldn’t do it if you all didn’t make it. Time don’t let you touch it tho. God was wise. He sure knew what he was doin! Cause you all is reachin for the moon! Done got there! If the sun wasn’t so hot … God knew what he was doin then too, cause, see, life depends on the sun.

They call Time a old man. But Time don’t age,
ain’t old. Every day is new. Don’t nothin age but us and what we make. Wonder why? Time and Life. Well … Time takes care of everything … and it will take care of you.

I was so tired in my soul. Tired of all I had lived and seen, now, I was tired from all I had stayed round to see. I saw my blood spread out all over into all such places I never dreamed of in my wildest dreams. Makes me know, if from one woman all these different colors and nationalities could come into bein, what must the whole world be full of?!

Yet I found more strangeness in the lives of my new blood through my children. Always there tho, was love and fear, and hate lurkin behind. Some happiness. Some pain. Finally I even found some peace. But I’m gettin ahead of my story again.

I’m gettin tired too. And weaker. I seem to be fadin on way from here.

I want to stay … and I don’t want to stay. To see what happens in this world so full of so many different colored people. But, I’m scared to see too much more. Such a wave of hate is being planted
up deeper in the world. The devil is the busiest thing I know.

Some kin have been known to marry each other, or make sex and love. Well, life done proved it’s some of everybody in this world, all colors.

It’s some who tries to spread love … and, I think Love will always win. Always. But … what a fight it must make.

I thank God for the people in this here world that tries to spread love to all kind of people. Cause, chile, can you imagine what this world would be like without em?

All my family, my blood, is mixed up now. They don’t even all know each other. I just hope they don’t never hate or fight each other, not knowin who they are.

Cause all these people livin are brothers and sisters and cousins. All these beautiful different colors! We! … We the human Family. God said so! FAMILY!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. C
ALIFORNIA
C
OOPER
is the author of three collections of stories,
Some Soul to Keep, Homemade Love
(a recipient of the 1989 American Book Award), and
A Piece of Mine
, as well as seventeen plays, many of which have been produced and performed on the stage, public television, radio, and college campuses. Her plays have also been anthologized, and in 1978 she was named Black Playwright of the Year for
Strangers
, which was performed at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. Among her numerous awards are the James Baldwin Writing Award (1988) and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association (1988). Ms. Cooper lives in a small town in Texas, and is the mother of a daughter, Paris Williams.