Nowhere Is a Place (15 page)

Goodbyes are for white folks and not for slaves, so Lou looks past the limp body of her dead child and toward the new day.

Route 40

When I finish I just look at Sherry, try to figure out what’s broken inside of her.

Why you looking at me like that? she says, then does that thing with her eyes that make you think you’re the strange and peculiar one, not her!

I say, A mother would not kill her child, and I toss the nasty red book into the backseat.

Really? she says, and looks out ahead of her for a while. Well, you didn’t seem to feel that way when Verna killed April.

That was different.

How?

White people do things like that, not us.

We do it too, now, and we did it then.

That’s what she say, but I feel like she want to say something else. Feel like we ain’t talking about this story anymore.

Women do it for a number of reasons. Verna did it out of shame, Lou did it to save one, I—

I hear the “I,” but then her voice stall and her eyes glaze and then she all of a sudden snaps the car to the right. I don’t have time to hang on or scream or shut my eyes when I see the nose of the tractor-trailer barely miss the tail end of our car.

When we climbing the ramp that say
REST STOP
, I finally find my voice again and scream, Have you lost your ever-loving mind?

She can barely put the car—I mean, SUV—in park before she out and puking up her lunch.

I grab my wipes from my bag, jump out, and run—best my stiff legs can carry me—around to her side, but she hold up a hand, keep me at bay.

She say, I’m okay, Dumpling. I must have eaten something bad.

I hand her the wipes.

Little Rock, Arkansas

We just sitting there, staring at the school.

I look at the clock; it’s been twenty minutes. She ain’t saying nothing, just staring.

Then she jerk, push the door open, and jump out.

I think she gonna throw up again. Think she might have some type of virus. Wonder how in the world I’m going to drive this SUV when I can barely handle my Pontiac.

But she don’t bend over and hurl, she move quick as lightning across the street and toward the building. I don’t know whether I should follow or stay. She walking fast, so I snatch the keys out of the ignition and start off after her.

People looking. Sherry’s face set, intent on doing something. I don’t know what. I call out to her, Sherry!

But she don’t slow up at all until she standing right in front of it.

I come up beside her, breathing heavy.

Sherry stretch out her arm; her fingers brush against the stone, then press into it. Then her eyes begin to water.

I don’t understand none of it. What? I say. It’s just a school, what’s wrong? I say, and put my hand on her shoulder.

She say, This is Central High School.

I look up at the building. Okay, I say.

She look at me, she say, Nine black students walked through these doors in 1957.

I think back to where I was and what I was doing in
’
57; I can’t remember. Then I look at her and say, Only nine?

Dumpling, don’t you know about the Little Rock Nine?

I press my hands against my ears. You sounding like your sister now! I scream back at her, and start toward the SUV.

Sherry follow.

* * *

I ain’t stupid, you know.

I know.

I’m older now; you think my mind quick like yours?

Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.

I know all about what happened down here, just couldn’t grab hold of it right quick.

I understand.

You got me telling you stories, dragging me up and down the highway, Madeline calling every hour like she crazy, ain’t heard from Sonny Boy, my legs swelling—I’m tired!

Dumpling, I apologized, what more do you want?

I look at her. What more do I want? I say, and slam my hand down on my knee. I want to do some of the listening for a while. I’m tired of talking. Ain’t you got something to say? You come out of me and I don’t even know you! You hardly ever call or come home. This time on the road is the longest I been around you since you were in high school. You like a stranger to me.

I feel myself shaking all over. Reach down in my bag, pull out some wet wipes, wipe at my hands, drag them across my face. I’m on fire.

Turn on the goddamn air-conditioning, I say, and pull at the collar of my T-shirt.

Sherry turn it on, roll up the windows, stare straight ahead.

Well? I say when I feel the sweat drying up on my face.

Sherry sigh and say, What you want to know?

I wanna know why the man on the other end of your cell-u-lar phone is such a secret. I wanna know his name, if you love him, what he look like, what he want from life. I wanna know if you’re happy with him, if y’all talking marriage or living together maybe—I know you young people like to shack up instead of walk down the aisle.

You want to know a lot, she say.

She so difficult, this middle child of mine.

I just want to know enough to make me feel like I got a middle child, I say.

Sherry look at me and her eyes dig deep into me before she take a breath and say, His name is Falcon; he sells umbrellas on the beach.

My eyes widen, and her hand go up.

She say, Don’t say nothing bad about that, Dumpling. Don’t jinx me the way you always do.

I wonder what she mean, but my mouth shut.

She goes on and say, He’s eight years younger than I am. Her face blush for a second. He’s one of three children too, she say, and her whole body seem to glow.

I don’t have to hear her say she love him, ’cause I see it all over her. Don’t have to ask if she happy, ’cause as soon as she said his name, happy start spilling out of her.

Falcon, huh? I say, and she beam and nod yes.

Route 40

Mama, that you? Sonny Boy say after Sherry hand the phone over to me. He the only one of my children call me Mama.

Hey, baby, where you been?

I been here and there, you know how I do.

I shake my head and smile. Yeah. You all right?

Uh-huh. How ’bout you?

I’m okay.

From what Sherry say, you all been a lot of places.

Sure have, seen a lot of things.

That’s good. Mama, where the emergency money at?

I sneak a peek at Sherry, turn my head toward the window, say, Where it always is.

I checked there, he say.

In the coffee can, behind the cornmeal? I whisper.

When you start putting it there? I thought it was in the coffee can in the freezer.

Oh, I moved it. Thought I told you that. What you need it for anyway?

Aw, Mama, he say like that suppose to answer my question. I miss you, he say.

He just like his daddy. He as slick as oil, know just what to say to make me melt.

I miss you too, Sonny Boy. You coming down?

Don’t know yet.

When you gonna know? It’s already Wednesday.

Soon, Mama.

Meet-and-greet happening on Friday.

I know.

Okay, now.

You heard from Madeline?

Now, boy, what kind of foolish question is that!

He laugh, say, Be safe. I love you, Mama.

* * *

Memphis coming up.

We gonna stay there? I ask.

Sherry look at the clock on the dashboard. It say just after one.

If you want to, but I’d rather head down to Birmingham and stay the night there.

I shrug. It don’t matter to me much. Okay, I say, whatever you wanna do.

She look out at the highway for some time, fiddle with radio buttons, adjusts the rearview mirror, and then say, Then Willie came?

What? I say.

Willie, Suce’s husband.

Oh, yeah.

What you know about that?

Some, I guess.

Was it Kentucky?

Some say Louisiana.

New Orleans?

I dunno.

Creole?

What?

Fair-skinned, nice hair?

Yeah, yellow nigger, I say, and laugh. Sherry make a face. She don’t like that word. I fold my bottom lip in and say sorry with my eyes.

Now, he was your uncle Vonnie’s father, right?

I cringe up when she say Vonnie’s name, go straight for my bag, my wet wipes.

Yeah, I say under my breath, and wipe at my hands.

Willie and Suce

___________________

By the time the Union army fell Savannah, Charlie Lessing’s land had shrunk, had borders—sold off for one thing or another: gambling debts and taxes.

So as far as the eye could see was no longer Lessing land. Beyond that, something so wonderful loomed that it felt too good to think about for long periods of time.

North.

North, where slaves were men and women, holding down jobs, making money, owning property. Children learning. New clothes and places to go and wear them.

The folks who listened to the old slave named Paps shuddered. Sometimes they held themselves and sometimes they held each other as they listened; hearts clamoring, feet planted, but souls already stealing away.

Paps had been there. Five years. Two babies—boys—walking and talking, learning their ABCs. He, Paps, tended the horses for a white family. His wife Margaret cooked their food, washed the clothes, and kept the house clean.

Happy?

“Every day of my life. Not a care. Not a worry, not slave, but a man,” Paps said.

“But you here now.”

That he was. Back in the devil’s clutches.

“How did it happen?”

Stolen, right off the street. Knocked in the head with a rock. Woke up in Virginia. Chained up, blood dried and crusted on his forehead. Shit in his drawers.

He had never been put up on a block. He had been born on Seymour land.

“Where that?”

“Kentucky.”

“How you get free?”

“White people bought me, said they were farming in Arkansas, then took me north with four others. Burned my sale papers right in front of me and said,
Paps, you’s a free man
.”

“What kind of white people are they?”

“Amish.”

“Am-a-who?”

“Fire burn the sale papers away, but your skin still black. Nothing can change that.”

“Yep, so there I was, thirty-two years old, stinking, shivering, head hurting like hammers banging inside. White man asked me,
What your name, nigger
?”

“What you say, Paps?”

“I just looked at him and said,
Free
.”

The women smile and clutch themselves tighter, while the men shake their heads in disbelief.

“That white man laughed. Gavel went up, numbers called, hands raised, shouting, gavel went down, and here I be,” Paps said with heavy resignation.

___________________

Jeff had heard the story told the same way for more than ten years. He thought about it—all of it. Dissected it the way he split logs—with precision. And so one morning he just ran. Barefoot and without food.

Ran until he could feel the land change under his feet, ran until his chest burned and his heart begged him to stop, ran until night fell and the woods came alive with sounds he’d never known on Lessing land. Ran so hard that he ran right into the paddy rollers.

His back told the tale. Nothing but bulging skin that had healed rocky and then on the second run was peeled open again and healed into molehills that shouted through the material of his shirt.

His face was still beautiful, though—beautiful enough to make the women still grieve over the one that swung.

How they wanted him, lusting behind him, using their eyes to tell him how much they wanted to scale his back, conquering every peak, before huddling themselves in the valleys beneath. But Jeff (now called Brother, so as to never forget the sacrifice made for his sake) had warm words only for Lou.

He bathed her feet and he was the one who attended to her meals. He had smiles only for her. The women milled around to see those strong white teeth and hear his laughter, like clapping thunder. They tried to prod Lou for the words she used to make the thunder roll out of Brother; maybe they could use it for themselves and be dampened by the tears that had to follow laughter that powerful.

But Lou just smirked at them.

The baby Lou had been carrying when they strung Jim up came a week later and she named her Suce.

Everyone came to see, expecting Jim’s face to be pressed into some part of that newborn. Anywhere—her leg, her stomach, the soft wrinkled cheeks of her behind—she had to be marked. God would not allow a woman—a mother—who had made a choice such as the one Lou had made to live the rest of her years and not be reminded of it every single day.

But that child was perfect. All ten fingers and ten toes, perfect.