Gloryland (4 page)

I
remember Daddy getting up before the sun, or the sound of him getting up, the sound of him breathing and speaking to himself or someone besides Mama, and I remember thinking, Who could that be? There’s just the four of us, and you couldn’t really have a conversation with Grandma Sara. You just nodded and listened to what she had to say, and then she’d say afterward, “I’m glad we had ourselves this little talk!” Like someone else had been talking besides her.

But now it was just Daddy breathing hard in the dark of the cabin, the cotton outside making a noise in the wind like a running creek. I could hear him getting his shoes, putting on the cold like it was overalls, and him saying under his breath, “Man got a right, got a right to . . .” He said it over and over, as if the room was big enough to have an echo, but it wasn’t so he made one up. Like that would give him some room for an idea of his that was too big for our little cabin. Freedom can’t fit in here, no room for it, but that’s what he wants. Only he couldn’t tell me about it cause he never had it.

Then in that blue cold he said, “Elijah, boy, you better get on up and get those mules ready, cause sure to God it won’t happen with you lyin there.”

And I moved in the warmth of my blankets like I was swimming in Big Creek after the sun been on it all day, and it was hard to pull up out of it and get my breath. I could see my breath coming up in the cabin, and I knew without asking that I had to make the fire in our raggedy old stove.

I swung my bare feet down onto the dirt that covered the wood
floor cause the walls didn’t come all the way down to the floor in some places. No matter how often Mama told me to sweep it up, it just kept coming back. I got up onto it naked and found my overalls. There was just the wind, the sound of my mama breathing, and now my daddy complaining how the dawn always come too quick. Daddy’s always saying something unkind about daylight. I think he got problems with the sun cause it showed him how much work was left to do. When it’s dark you can’t see nothing, which is all right when your fingers is raw and your back is telling you how poorly you treated it all day. I don’t know, I just gotta get up, get moving, get that wood.

I did and the fire got going good. The fire was the first nice thing that happened that morning and I wanted to stay a little longer inside the heat, but I wanted to live a little longer too, so I knew I better get on with the mules cause daddy wouldn’t find it funny, me standing over the stove like a mule at a trough. I opened the cabin door and stepped out into the morning, so black with just a bit of red through the trees, sunup having as hard a time as me getting out into the world.

I got the mules fed and watered and harnessed up to the wagon, which didn’t take much time. The cold made it longer, but by the time I finished it was lightening up good and a breeze with a little fire in it was starting to flow at my back, and when all was ready, I went back up the step into the warm room. Daddy was standing there, taller than his shadow, which was stooped against the wall like it was too tired to stand up alongside him. He was looking at me like I was supposed to say something, so I thought it best to start talking.

“Wagon’s ready, sir,” was all I said, but it must’ve been the right thing, cause he just nodded and then sat down in his chair for a bit, like this was one of those times you might need to sit and think about something before you did it. The way he was sitting there made me think of fog on a hill, how it covers up trees and ground but it ain’t really there at all, cause you can walk through it, breathe it in and out, nothing much in your way but cold damp air.

Mama said it’s God’s breath when you get that low fog on the ground. “God’s close now, so you better be thinkin good thoughts, boy, cause he can hear you now!”

“Daniel,” I heard Mama say from the back of the cabin. “Daniel, you still goin through with this?” Her voice seemed to be saying that Daddy was planning on setting himself on fire or walking stark naked through Spartanburg.

“Sure as this sunup, I’m goin to that courthouse,” he said, and his voice was hard as anger and coiled tighter than a rattler before it strikes.

“Then,” Mama went on, “you better take Elijah with you. A boy should be there to see his daddy when he’s so sure of himself, cause I ain’t so sure, you hear me, Daniel? I ain’t sure at all!”

“We talked bout this last night,” Daddy said, “and I told you I was goin round sunup, and it’s sunup and I’m goin.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” said Mama, “you goin all right, and here you are gettin ready all right, and you goin to get in that wagon all right, and you goin to head to that courthouse, and I guess that’s right. But I’m goin too, and Elijah’s goin, we all goin to see you make your mark on that piece of paper, for all the good it’ll do, yes, Lord!”

My daddy got up from his chair and walked back to the dark part of the cabin where Mama was, and I could hear him making whispering and soothing noises like a pigeon, but she wasn’t being soothed at all. She was crying, and I could feel her tears scalding my cheeks, running hot down my chin, yeah, it must’ve been her tears coming out of me.

“Why now, Daniel?” she asked soft. “Why now?” she said again.

“No better time, Lucy.” He called her Lucy instead of Lucinda when he was being sweet or “trying” to be sweet, Mama said.

“I know it’s been hard, Daniel,” she said, “so hard that hard don’t mean nothin no more, but at least you alive, with us, but you go on to that courthouse and maybe that goin to change!”

Daddy said nothing, but I could see him thinking. His eyelids always closed up when he did that, like they was trying to keep
something from getting in. He was going to go no matter what Mama said, I could feel it in the room and hear it when he talked.

“Lucy,” he told her, “even you can’t convince the sun to not get up this mornin, even you can’t do that. I’m tired of it. If I never do anythin else, I’m gonna do this, and this is the mornin, not tomorrow or the next day or next week, but right now, or it won’t happen at all. And then I’ll be dead, and you’ll be sleepin the rest of your life next to a dead man, cold through and through. Oh yeah, I’ll be gettin up same as usual, but it’ll be a dead man gettin up and workin those fields!”

There was quiet after he said that, and I was trying not to breathe cause I wanted to listen, but they kept speaking softer and softer, as if they were already on the wagon and I’m running along behind and can’t keep up, their voices getting faint. Then I heard Mama say, “You don’t think I get tired too? We all tired every day, every single day, and there’ll be plenty of rest by and by, but not now, Daniel. Not now when our boy’s still a boy, and you not here to teach him bout bein a man!”

And Daddy said, “Can’t teach Elijah nothin bout bein a man if I ain’t one myself. Lucy, that law say we got the right to vote, but no one’s votin cause they scared!”

That’s when I heard Mama get up off her bed sudden, and though she’s not a big woman, I could feel her feet hit the floor. “Daniel!” she said, and her voice was stronger now, “honey, colored people round here got a right to be scared, that’s the only right we do have. We got lots of fear and not much of anythin else. Fear of speakin up too much, fear of sayin the right thing or the wrong thing. Fear of wakin up and fear of goin to sleep. Fear’s the one thing we got plenty of, and I bustin up inside from my fear that you goin to die today, and maybe us right along with you, cause you got a fear of not bein a man!”

And again it got real quiet, a quiet that made you hold your breath cause you weren’t certain the air would still be there once you decided to open your mouth.

“Lucinda,” Daddy answered finally, “we ain’t walkin a road we
walked before. It’s done. I’m goin to that courthouse, and I’m goin to vote. And you say you comin, so tell me what you goin to do.” He spoke so soft, like maybe the walls would hear and tell the mules outside.

Mama said nothing more, but she got up from the dark back there, passed Daddy, and walked out into the stovelight. She opened the door, stepped down to the yard, and got up into the wagon. I saw she was wearing the dress she had on last night. She never even changed before going to bed.

Daddy walked slowly after her, turned a bit, and said to me, “Come on, boy!” I followed after him and climbed into the back of the wagon. All the way to town, Mama and Daddy didn’t look at each other at all, just sat there staring ahead. I can’t forget looking at the backs of their heads so straight and unmoving, but their bodies swaying with the motion of the wagon. No one spoke the whole way. I sat in the back watching them stare at nothing at all. After a while I looked down, cause it didn’t feel good to look at them.

It might’ve gotten better, but the wagon bouncing over that rutted road seemed to keep things just below boiling even though no one was talking. The road to town was always bad after the winter rains. It seemed like we spent as much time going from side to side as going forward.

Then we got to town, and right near the center of all those buildings and stores and houses was the courthouse where the white folks came to vote.

Standing in front of the courthouse was the sheriff. Sheriff Reynolds was a big man who always rolled up his sleeves no matter how cold it was. He had a wicked-looking pistol tucked into a leather belt, and he carried an oak walking stick though I never saw him limp. I think the stick was to make other people limp after he hit them with it. He never smiled, and if he had, it probably would’ve killed him, or at least cut up his face, making it move in a way nature never intended. He ain’t the meanest man in the world, but he’s probably kin to whoever that man is.

Daddy stopped the wagon in front of the courthouse, which meant
he stopped right in front of the sheriff. Sheriff Reynolds wasn’t paying any attention to us till then. Colored people had the right to ride a wagon and use the road, but we weren’t expected to stop in front of the courthouse. Ever.

“How do, Daniel,” said the sheriff softly, but only his voice was soft. His body stiffened up and his face got harder.

“Good mornin, Sheriff,” said my daddy.

“Well, Daniel, it was a mighty fine mornin till just a moment ago. Now maybe that was just an accident, maybe your mules are tired and they thought this might be a good place to rest. Maybe that explains why you’re blockin the courthouse, keepin the good people of this community from engagin in county business, at least I hope so. Well, you better explain to these mules of yours how they’re creatin a misunderstandin here, how some of those good people might start thinkin it was
you
stopped in front of this courthouse. And you wouldn’t want that, would you, boy?”

Daddy said nothing at first, but I could see his back straightening up like a tree at the first tug of a storm.

“I don’t want no one to get upset with me, Sheriff,” Daddy began. “I didn’t come here to cause no trouble, I just come to vote, like the law say I got a right to. And I’m goin to vote, sir, if that’s all right with you.”

I thought it had been quiet back in the cabin, but this was a quiet not used to air or sunlight, and it was out in the open for the first time, naked, cold, and pale as a bass gasping for breath.

Sheriff Reynolds did smile then. His teeth were yellow, stained with tobacco. It seemed to hurt him to smile. I hoped he would stop soon cause I was starting to feel bad, looking at something that was more like a wound gaping on his face than a grin.

“Daniel,” he finally said, slow as molasses easing out of an upturned bottle, “I always thought of you as a reasonable nigger, and now it appears you’re tryin to change my opinion. I’d rather pretend you didn’t say what you just said. So tell those mules of yours to move along and rest somewheres else. You hear me, boy?”

Sheriff Reynolds’ voice sounded easy and sincere, but it was like sleeping on a mattress full of razors and nails. No matter how carefully you move, the hard sharpness you can’t see on the inside of the bed keeps cutting through to the outside, and you can’t see clearly what’s tearing you up.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” said Daddy, “but there ain’t nothin wrong with my mules. I stopped them right here, and it wasn’t no mistake. I’m here to vote!”

By this time, other white folks had gathered. White and colored folks in town didn’t usually have long talks, and very few people had conversations with the sheriff. Those that did were probably going to jail or coming from jail. But I wouldn’t call them conversations cause the sheriff was usually the only one talking.

“No, no,” said Sheriff Reynolds, with a sour look on his face, and he cocked his head to one side like he was trying to get a better view of my daddy. “You most definitely are not here to vote. And I am gonna arrest you, Daniel, for bein intoxicated in public, cause it’s plainly obvious to everyone here that you’ve been drinkin, and I believe a night in my jail may do you some good. We can sit up all night and talk about your problems, cause I care about you, boy. Believe you me, I’m intent on takin care of you the best way I know how, and before the night is done we will surely come to an understandin.”