Flight of Fancy: Cora's Daughters (23 page)

Broc once more spoke up, bringing Asa forward. “The three of us could sure use a bath, and this one here, needs some clothing. You wouldn’t be able to help with that would you? I’ll pay for whatever extra you provide ma’am.”

Asiza watched the very well dressed black woman smile bright and wide. “Yes sir, I can help, first class ain’t you? Say no more.” 

They were shown to a room where the white young male named, Rory worked to fill two baths. The other two young ones, Asiza learned, were his nephews, their nicknames were Papo and Felix. He made sure they helped.

That night, the new small family of three had a long and wonderful soak with screens up around each of the brass tubs. Asiza was out first to give Asa a good bath and see to his scars. Clean clothes were given to Asiza and Asa. She received a fresh new gown and under things – while Asa got a pair of trousers; a shirt, jacket, hat and a pair of shoes. The things were a bit too big for him, but they rolled up on him just fine - to be clean and well-dressed again, made him rather proud. Unfortunately they didn’t have anything extra for Broc to fit into, but he didn’t mind. He donned his loin cloth and chaps so that his clothes could be washed and hung up to dry ready to wear the next day. Feeling refreshed and ready to face the new day, they put Asa to bed on the floor across the room from them.

Taking their bedrolls and the extra blankets Mrs. McNeil provided, they made him an extra comfortable mat. When his little head hit the pillow, he was out like a light.

He went to sleep warm, clean and full.

From their bunk, with Asiza between the wall and Broc, they watched him sleep, both stunned that already, they had a mouth to feed and a child to see about.

Lying on their sides - Broc faced the door – Asiza lay against his bare back. It still stunned her to know that this man beside her was her husband. She couldn’t help but touch his skin. He was warm, almost hot. His shoulders were wide, broad and thick, as well his muscled arms. She was a bit nervous, it was late and she knew that he was tired and so rubbed and massaged his shoulders to ease him.

“Emmm, that feels good.” He mumbled low.

“Broc?” She called his name whisper soft.

“Hm?”

“We get north, what we gone do?”

He knew what they were going to do - he’d already talked it over with the owner of the Lady Frances – Mr. McNeil. As for telling Asiza, he would hold off a bit, knowing she would not like his decision. There was something else he was keeping from her, something she might not like, but he would always be, a man of opportunity, that would never change, if anything, he was even more so now that he had Asiza and Asa to see to.

“Get our lives in order, that’s what.” He turned to his back, lifting his arm so she could lie within on his shoulder, “You know this boat we on, know who own it?” He asked. She thought about it a moment, then shook her head answering, “No.”

“That Mrs. McNeil, who cook for us - took care of getting’ those clothes for you, for Asa - she the Lady Frances.” He announced.

“Huh? Don’ know what you mean.”

“The name of this boat, is the Lady Frances. She, that pretty Negro woman, her name is Mrs. Frances McNeil. Her husband – a Negro too, own this boat, and two other ships.”

She glanced up to look at him closely, “You been drankin’?” She asked, doubting his sanity.

Broc chuckled, “No, I have not been drinkin’, tha’’s the God honest truth. The owner of this boat, a Negro man, I met’im. He pretty much stay in his office, speakin’ with the captain, who white. He don’t much come off his boat when they in the south, nor his wife. An’ that young man, Rory, he calls him, his little brother.”

“He white, that Rory.”

“Nope… jus’ look it - his mama, a Negro woman.”

That made Asiza lean up on her elbow to look down into his face, “His mama a Negro, like me?”

“Yes indeed. His daddy, a rich merchantman – he own a lot o’ships – an’ two o’these steamboats. But this one, Mr. McNeil’s, he named it after his wife, Lady Frances. Ain’t that somethin’?” He asked – that he was just as impressed, could be heard in his tone.

Asiza couldn’t believe her ears. As for Rory, there were many like him back at Clover Grove. It surprised her that there were so many more like the Negro children there, who could pass, born of dark skin Negro mothers.

“That’s why when they meet us, I introduce you, not one of them surprised.” Broc pointed out.

“I was wonderin’ why that is – well I’ah be - what this worl’ comin’ to? Black folks ownin’ thangs - I never would believe it.”

“That’s not all – they educated. Can read, write, know business, everythin’.” Broc added.

It took Asiza a few moments to digest that, finally whispering, “Oh my, I never meet no Negro that could read, not one.”

“Asiza, that’s why I figure, if they can do it, so can we. We gone do somethin’ good with our self. I’m gone take that gold, and I’m gone breed horses. I mean the bes’ horses from miles around. That Mr. McNeil told me, there are folks who collect horses and willing to pay a lot of money for a thoroughbred. That’s my dream.” He sighed in his fantasy of it, “Few men better than me when it come to horses, I can’nah wait.”

Lifting his arms up to fold and palm the back of his head, he turned his eyes to his wife’s dark silhouette, “Tell me you see it Asiza? Wouldn’t we be somthin’?”

She smiled, thinking about it, and nodded in agreement.

“That’s what I see, when I dream. What about you Asiza - what you dream o’doin’?”

She stared, lost in thought a few moments, trying to think of something, nothing came to her mind. “Dreamin’ fo’white men. So you go right on ahead.”

Broc felt the enormity of her words, the ugly way of things for Negroes and Indians – he was spared this curse by a hundred or more years. His grandfather had been the last of the Irish slaves. Yet, now – they were free.  “May be it’s so, but tell me anyway, please?”

Asiza lay over him thinking for a while, “Don’ know. I – I jus’ – I jus’ wanna live. I jus’ wanna long, happy life – where, folks look at me, an’ see – a real human bein’. A lady - not some nigga fancy, they can buy and do any – dirty, nasty thang they want t’me. Piss on me, shit on me if they feel, then - kill me if they can’t find what else to do wit’me. I jus’ wanna live the way people ‘spose t’live.” Her eyes met his dark gaze, sighing, “Jus’ wanna live wit’ you an’ be happy. Tha’s all I want… tha’s all – I get that ... it'ah be enough.”

She turned her back to him, because once more – thoughts of it were bringing her down. Tomorrow, a future was a scary place for someone convinced their life meant no tomorrows, just today.

Because of Broc, Asiza wanted all the tomorrows most saw coming – but all she saw, was doom. All she could see was that misty, grey, dark day when time would be up for her. It happened to most of them - having come from a mother who had come from a tribe that was almost no more, and a father whose entire existence was setup to serve the master or die. She knew what was to come – the reason she fought so hard to keep it at bay, it was her stubbornness that made her fight. However, she had been willing to accept when time came to lose the fight. Now, there was Broc and he made her fear that day, unlike before, where she had egged it on, taunting it to come on,
‘Come an’ get me’
. 

Broc turned to his side, his arm encircling her waist and pulling her against him. He leaned down and kissed her ear, squeezing her tight. “You gone get that Asiza – I’mo see to it, you get that. Ain’t nobody gonna ever, treat you that way… not even
me.
” He gave her another squeeze and a hug, then laid his head down, holding her close to him, deep in thought, he whispered once more, “No, not even me.”

He lay quiet and thinking, planning out carefully all the things on his mind. She was quiet – and he thought her asleep, when she suddenly asked, “Don’ you wan’me Broc, like a man wan’a’woman?”

He squeezed her again, affectionately holding her, “I do.”

“What you waitin’ on?”

He didn’t answer right away, and finally, “I want it to be right. I want it to be the way, you deserve. I’m not gone take you – just anywhere, like a paid for fancy. Like you common, not worth setting you up, the way a white man would, his white woman.” He swore, stroking her arm, squeezing her closer. “On my mind, is the day, when we in our own home - in our own room - in our own bed and on it, fresh, new, blindin’ white sheets.” He went silent, envisioning it, “I’m gone lay you down and love you Asiza, the way God had in mind, when he give Adam, his wife…Eve.”

He thought about it kissing her ear and neck.

“Yes, I want you – but more than that, I need you to be sure, that I love you Asiza – that I respect you. Tha’s what I’m waitin’ on. That day, that night - I swear to you,  ain’t gone be no holdin’ back…not even gone try – so when it come, I sho’ hope you can take it.”

New York City

From what Asiza could see, it was another large city, bigger than the last. Right before dawn, they’d been awakened by the sounds of the steamboat starting up and backing out of its dock.

Asa sat up, startled by the jarring movements of the big steamer, the rumbling shudder of the big wheel churning up the canal. As if a big kid himself, Broc sat up, wearing nothing still but his loin cloth - his eyes as big as Asa’s, who was sitting up as well, curious about the sound and movement of the large vessel.

Grinning at their little boy, he invited, “Let’s go see.”

Before Asa could nod yes or no, he found himself scooped up from the floor and carried out to stand at the railings in Broc’s strong arms. Watching as the large boat began moving. He held on tight, at first fearful, still not sure of his new owner – wondering would he throw him off?

Broc sensed his fear, and held him just as tight back. The sun hadn’t quite risen for the dawning of this new day, but there they stood, in rapt fascination and awe.

“Here we go lil’man, here we go. It all starts now, our new beginning. Yours, mine and the missus – we gone start anew.”

“You gone keep me with you, a long time Mr. Broc?” Asa asked – wanting so much to stay with him. So far as he could tell, Mr. Broc was a different kind of white man, he actually liked black folks. Broc turned his eyes from the moving shore, to the small child in his arms, “I’m gone keep you, ‘till you as big as me. You be a man then – and if you want, you’ll be free t’go.”

Asiza stood in the door of the passage way, watching them, watch the south glide by – and the north open its arms to them. That was the way she saw it, anytime a black man or woman could go somewhere that allowed them freedom from a master.

To work and get paid.

To buy land and dwell on it.

To have a business.

To be a teacher.

That’s what the north was, open arms welcoming you to opportunities. That very day, The Lady Frances pulled into a New York dock, it was still early afternoon when they disembarked to venture into what would become their new lives.

Asiza was afraid of getting separated from her mate in the vast crowds of people in the area of the docks. The diversity of the crowd amazed her – it was like being in an entirely new world. Mighty, majestic ships of various sizes; schooners, steamboats like the one they’d traveled on, lined up along the bay. In the midst of them all, ever so often, a few fishing vessels came in with their catches. 

Upon every one of them, there was a scene of people unloading or boarding. Cranes, crates, horses, buggies – shouts in greeting, orders barked, grunts from ship laborers and voices mingling.

And there they were, unloading from The Lady Frances right in the middle of it. Broc was fully dressed and clean once more, leading them and their horses to their first stops. She’d finally met Mr. McNeil – he’d given Broc some papers with information.

The boat owner, truly a black man - looked her way briefly, nodding his head with a smile, and then disappearing back into the depth of the riverboat. Those papers were the first thing Broc consulted as they and their five horses made way onto the docks.

Asa sat on the back of Nik-Nik, riding comfortably so they wouldn’t have to keep up with him.

It was slow moving, cutting through the throngs of people – some of them so dirty and unwashed, Asiza often fought the urge to pinch her nose – their odors hung and clung where she breathed - sometimes making her eyes sting from the power of musty bodies.

Up ahead, leading them on, Broc would look back to check her, look into her eyes and smile.

He was happy.

He was looking forward to their new lives.

She could see it in the way that he walked, the way that he led them forward. He carried himself like a man proud of his possessions… his wife, lil’man - the new addition to his family. He walked straight and tall, his eyes constantly moving – looking for land marks and streets that would lead him to where they were going.

Vendors were out, pushing their carts, calling out what cooked and ready food they had for those hungry.

The further they walked the more vendors they saw until they were deep within the market. Bakery stands, vegetable stands, fish and poultry hung waiting to be purchased.