In Search of Satisfaction (5 page)

Joel and Ruth had been screaming admonitions to each other through the hours, always working close together. Now, Joel beckoned to Ruth and they fought their way against the pouring rain and wind to the side of the field where he had seen a shack just over the fence there. He used his cutting tool to wedge the door open then held the squealing door far enough open with his strong back as they went into the dilapidated shack once used for storing tools, cattle-birthing, slave-birthing or whatever necessary.

Ruth just fell stretched out on the dirt floor. Joel, ever the man, watched her. He liked what he saw. She was slim, not skinny, about five feet two inches or so, which put her at his shoulder; he was five foot eleven. They were both healthy. All these things he knew, just liked thinking of them again. Then his exhaustion made him fall to the ground right next to her, naturally. She turned her head to face him and just, naturally, looked right into his light brown eyes with her dark brown eyes. They didn’t say anything and didn’t look away this time. They just lay looking at each other, listening to the sound of the storm beating on the tin roof of the tool shack, trying to come in. Finally, he whispered to her, “You done good, girl.” She almost smiled, but was too tired. She didn’t worry about her mother, she felt safe with Joel. She closed her eyes and slept. Finally his exhaustion overcame him and he fell asleep, his crusty fingers holding one of her wet braids tightly.

Ruth awoke first, hungry. The storm sounded worse. She didn’t wake Joel, just sat and watched him. She liked his strong, muscled arms, the curve of his round face, strong chin, pretty, wide, short nose and the short, thick lips so well defined as though drawn. She was getting ready to sight-travel down his body when he opened his eyes and looked at her. She smiled through the dried mud and bits of weed or grass on her
face, and the sun came out for Joel. She did not look like a young girl anymore; she looked like a young, lush woman.

The rain was coming down hard, hard. The roof was holding up, but water was coming in under the loose floor boards. Ruth got up as quickly as her tired body allowed and shook out her wet dress. As Joel became more aware he moved quickly to push loose dirt to the wall with his hands, trying to stop the water. Ruth hastily searched and found the broken end of a shovel and handed it to him. They smiled together. He looked around for loose boards laying on the ground of the shack. Finding them, he dug a trench around the edge of the walls and set the boards in, shoring them with dirt. It worked. They rested, sitting close for warmth. As a place in the wall would weaken and let water through, Joel would dig dirt from the uphill side of the shack to strengthen the shoring. Ruth was happy being there with him even in all that mud and cold, but she was now very hungry. The only thing that kept her from being ugly-evil about it was being there with Joel. She had liked him before, mightily. Now, she loved him more. He knew how to do things! He was a man. And … best of all, he looked at her with such sweetness in his eyes. She didn’t know whether to thank God for the storm or not.

Between bouts with the water and dirt, they talked. She, shyly, which made Joel more bold. A potato-bug could tell they liked each other, a lot. When their stomachs growled, they laughed. Nothing was too hard to stand while they were together. A few hours passed, the storm hardly seemed to be letting up.

Time passed. There was now a deep hole where Joel had been digging for dirt. The storm seemed to slacken, but any light from the sun behind the dark clouds was really gone now, and it was dark, truly dark. As the time to go came closer, the hearts above the empty stomachs wanted to linger. They were holding hands for moments at a time now. They were sitting closer now, for warmth, yes, but mostly for the thrill of it. Joel didn’t want this time with Ruth to end, nor did she, so they decided to shore the wall one more time before they made a run for home. As he moved on his knees over to the dry-dirt hole, he smiled over his shoulder at her. He spoke, “You sure no fella have spoken for your heart in marriage? Your mama ain’t promised you to nobody?” His foot hit the bug’s new mudpile and the bug rushed out.

Ruth laughed softly, blushed, shook her head no. The bug, seeing no immediate harm coming, rushed back in to its toppled mudpile and began repair on it.

Joel laughed happily and bent deeper in the hole to break the dirt with the piece of shovel. Suddenly the shovel flew out of his hand as he hit something hard in the dirt. Ruth screamed, because you know there are all kinds of snakes and animals in the country. Joel started up, then, quick as a minute, he grabbed his piece’a shovel and began digging in the ground again. “Help me,” is all he said. Then there was silence except for the sound of heavy breaths and grunts, and they were covered again, with dirt clinging to their sweat. They pulled a long, narrow toolbox out of the ground. The water was rushing in again at the floor, but they did not see it now. Nor did they care. What wonder was this? was in both their minds. The bug’s new home was flooded. It fell on its back, legs scrambling wildly to right herself. She could not understand what was happening. She righted herself and began burrowing, seeking her place. She felt the birthing near.

Joel and Ruth looked at each other over the box, reading each other’s thoughts. Their future could be in that box! Or nothin! Why would anybody want to hide an old toolbox if wasn’t nothin in it?! Everythin or plain ole, useless, Confederate money!

Ruth started crying from nervous hope and a built-in, lifelong expectation of nothing but some man she hoped she would be able to love, who might someday get a piece of land of their own or … be a sharecropper forever. She had never known anyone who got ahead or got over. They got away. But then you didn’t know what happened to them, mail and transportation being what it was. Some of her mama’s sisters and brothers had “gotten away,” but were very seldom heard of and almost never from. Just there, there where she was born, lived and grew, was all she knew. But her mama worked for the Befoes, and Ruth knew there was “better” than what she had ever known or would ever live, don’t care how long she lived or how old she got! But … maybe? She looked at the box. Maybe … her own house, Lord? Please?

Joel stared at the box. His thoughts were like Ruth’s except in a man’s way, because their experience with life had been the same. He wanted a wife and children he could take care of. Would this box change his life? Could it be possible God had … No, God wouldn’t. For him? Why? He didn’t always live right. Joel, dreaming and praying,
looked into space beyond the walls of the shack. He looked back at the box. Maybe wasn’t nothin in the damn ole thing noway. Then hope and need beat out despair. Money? Gold? His own house and land and … Marry his woman he wanted? Or just plain ole Nothin? The bug, feeling secure within her scarcely finished mudhole, began to give birth.

Joel and Ruth looked at each other for several moments, not eager to lose a dream to just discover more of nothing in their lives. Then, without saying a word, Ruth grabbed the shovel and beat on the lock. Joel took the shovel away and hacked at the lock. It loosened … and fell off. He threw the lid back.

There were tools, old rusty tools: an old, old hammer, a chisel, some measuring sticks, nails, nails, nails. Joel turned the box over, dumped every thing out. Ruth put her hands on her face and burst into tears. It had all happened so quick! The nothing, the hope, the fear, the dream, the hope, then … nothing. Joel pushed the tools around, searching, even though he could see there was nothing. He looked at Ruth, sniffling now. He tried to smile. Said in a cracked, strained voice, “Nothin.” He shook his head sadly. The bug, burrowed in now, breathing hard, still patting the earth down to make a place safe to leave her young.

“Well,” he sat back on the now muddy floor. “Well, the shack kep us dry. And we kep warm …” He looked down at the box, “This ought to be good for somethin. I’ll clean up the tools can use em to work, make money maybe.” He slowly stood and reached for the box, but Ruth kicked it over and grabbed her hurt foot the same time the bottom fell out of the toolbox and the heavy black bag lay at their feet. They both reached for it, then Ruth said, “Go head” and held her hurt foot again. Joel cut the strings of the black bag and gold and silver coins fell to the ground along with a small jewelry box.

Ruth could count quicker than Joel. She did not know the value of the gold coins, but there were fifty-eight of them and about forty silver coins. She opened the jewelry box and the large one-and-a-half carat diamond ring flashed its brilliance for her. She pressed the ring to her breast and asked Joel, “Whose things is these?”

Serious, Joel answered, “I don’t know they name, but I know it was a white man.”

Ruth thought a moment. “Didn’t have to be.”

Joel smiled. “A Negro would’a done come back and got his gold already!”

Ruth thought some more. “Well, if’n we ask anybody, they gonna claim it!”

Joel started putting the coins back into the bag. “I knows it.”

Ruth held the ring tighter to her breast. “What ought we to do? Is it yours or mine?”

Joel smiled. “It’s ours. Somebody else gonna lie and take it, so we might as well lie and keep it.”

Ruth leaned forward. “How it gonna be ours?”

Now, Joel, back on his knees, was thoughtful, but he knew his answer already. “Well …” He leaned back, rubbed his chin like he remembered seeing his daddy do long ago. “Well … I don’t know if you blive me or no, but I was gonna ask you to marry up wit me, be my wife. I loves you. I knew that already.”

Ruth’s smile grew until her nose was at her hairline and her mouth covered her face and seemed like you could look in that smile and see her heart. “You was?!”

Joel smiled big, too! “I is askin you now!” He reached for her hand. “Well? C’n you see yourself a’marryin up wit me?” Ruth looked at him as if he was losing his mind and like he was her heart, all at the same time. He went on, “We c’n get our own land, our own farm. Our childrun c’n go to school. I c’n build you a big, good, nice house. I c’n buy a mule, naw, a horse! Two of em! A plow … tools. I’ll work hard for you! For my fam’ly!”

Ruth, still smiling, “I’ll make a good home for you, too, and give you beautiful babies what look just like you.” She blushed. “Joel, you so beautiful.” They reached for each other’s hands and held them.

Ruth spoke first, “Who must we tell?”

“Don’t tell nobody!”

“We can’t spend that gold like that!”

Joel nodded. “Let’s think bout it. Don’t tell nobody, even your mama. I’m a man now. I’m your man now. This is ’tween us’uns.”

Ruth nodded her head, yes, slowly. She looked down to the hole in the ground. Joel followed her gaze, and said, “Let’s fill it back, much as we c’n and set the toolbox back in it. Ain’t nobody looked out here in a whole lotta years, I bet.”

“Must’a didn’t.”

So they worked until the floor was uneven, but filled. They stamped the earth as they laughed and planned. Joel put the bag of money inside
his damp shirt; Ruth held the ring in its box in her hand. They were happy! Isn’t money something sometime? Then they held hands and, running lightly, laughing and bumping into each other, found their way back to the field and to home as they made plans for the marriage and how to change the gold into money they could spend without worrying who could notice them and think on it. They, now, had a life!

The mother bug had now cleared a circle of space she did not really like. Her other, first home she had prepared for the birth had been done slowly with care for her babies. Now this would have to do. Her little eyes blinked sadly. Finally all the babies were born. The rain was gone, the water stopped. The mother bug spread her arms and legs around her brood under her stomach and, blinking her eyes in the dark hole, she settled down softly to being a mother.

a
nd that is how Josephus Josephus’ other daughter, Ruth, got her inheritance from him. Yinyang got hers from the tree, Ruth got hers from the ground. The dead ex-slave had helped both his daughters.

h
aving finally reached New Orleans by train, Yinyang walked the streets of the beautiful, dirty, fun-filled, sin-swollen, rich-poor, parading, busy city filled with all kinds of smells of good food. Hungry, but afraid to take her money out, fearful of everything and everybody, she walked until she came upon a school building. She walked around it a few times. Finally she went in, asking to speak “to a KIND woman.”

“Is … is there a nice person here who likes … people? A kind woman?”

The lady behind the counter sniffed down at the dirty, little street urchin. “What do you want? Is this some sort of joke?” She stepped back from Yin.

“No mam. But … I need … to talk to a … nice person. Someone kind.”

“Are you registered here? Who are you? Who are your … parents?”

“They are … dead.” The face before her looking down at her with such disdain made her panic. “I … never mind. I’ll go.”

“Well, I should hope so, young … woman. We are busy here!”

A rather tall lady dressed neatly in black with a white lace collar,
stepped into the office, rushing, carrying papers, and heard the last remark. “What is the matter, Miss Wench? Who is this?”

“Nobody and nothing, if you ask me, Miss Able. I was …”

The woman turned to Yin. “Nobody and nothing?” She smiled, “What is the matter dear?”

Yin turned to go, almost whispered, “Nothin, I just wanted to … Nothin, mam, please.”

The woman reached for Yin’s arm, gently. “I have no business to attend to right this minute, why not come in and have a cup of coffee with me?”

Yin looked at the clerk behind the counter with fear. The woman, Miss Able, understood. “Come now, there is nothing to fear. We might even be able to help you. My name is Miss Able.” Yin slowly stopped pulling away, dropped the muddy carpetbag and started crying. “Oh, my.” Miss Able soothed. “Oh, my, I hope there is no need for tears. Come with me, dear. Let us talk.” In about ten minutes, Miss Able excused herself from school business that day and took Yin home with her. Yin still pouring out her story to the kind woman.