Read They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel Online

Authors: Daniel Black

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Literary, #United States, #Women's Fiction, #Domestic Life, #Contemporary Fiction, #American, #Literary Fiction, #African American, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Psychological

They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel (25 page)

BOOK: They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel

11.58Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads

“When it come time to introduce de speaka, Wizerine walk to de podium like a proud-ass peacock and start readin’ off de man’s’complishments. When she get through wit’ dat, she realizes she don’t know how to pronounce de man’s name proper. His name is ‘Fuqua,’ pronounced wit’ dat guttural sound like most German folk have, but Wizerine didn’t know dis. She fumbles around a little bit and then says, ‘I would like to present to some and introduce to others Dr … um … uhru … Fucka.’”

That was it! The Meetin’ Tree vibrated from all the laughter underneath. David’s head fell backward as though it were going to drop to the ground as he lost composure and began to cry tears of ecstasy. His arms dropped limp to his side and he gave up the fight for self-control. Mr. Blue fell over on the pew once again, but this time the scream he emitted should have scared even the mosquitoes away. “Stop! Please, stop!” he kept begging, panting and holding his side.

“Don’t say nothin’ else to me long as you live, Somebody!”

The story was far from over. Mr. Somebody sat perfectly still like he didn’t know why everyone else was laughing. That’s what made the next part riotous.

“No, no. Dat ain’t de funny part. Shit. If she woulda stopped there, everythang mighta been all right. But no, no. She got to be high-and-mighty, so she whisper and ask de man who dem folks is wit
him and I guess he tell hu’’cause then she raise hu’ head proudly and say, ‘He has his three children with him today. The little Fuckas, will you stand and be recognized?’”

“Hahahaha! Hehehe!”

People were on the ground, some clutching their chests, while others simply hollered without shame and wiped tears from their eyes.

“Then, she introduces his wife and turns to go back to hu’ seat. Somebody whispers dat she fugot to introduce his momma, so she turns around and hollas, ‘Oh yes! And Mother Fucka, would you stand and be recognized!’”

Mr. Somebody couldn’t hold it any longer. He dropped his cane and fell onto the pew, vibrating freely. Everyone else was in their own fit of laughter. I had never seen people in Swamp Creek—or anywhere—more full of joy. They slapped one another’s leg or arm in disbelief, they leaned on one another like they simply couldn’t help it, and they grabbed one another’s hands and walked into the land of pleasure together.

I hadn’t laughed that hard in years. Either nothing funny ever came along or I never realized that my greatest joy was found in the life I was trying desperately to abandon.

“These are some characters here!” David said finally, huffing for breath. “Are they like this all the time?”

“As far as I know, they are,” I said, ashamed I hadn’t appreciated them earlier in life.

“I could listen to this stuff forever,” he announced.

“Yeah, me, too,” I murmured sadly.

“You shoulda seen de niggas in dat chuch fallin’ out laughin’ at Wizerine!” Mr. Somebody panted rapidly. “You woulda thought de Holy Ghost came ova everybody and knocked dem plumb out!”

The people’s laughter rang in the night. It was still hot, but the joy of storytelling cooled the sweat considerably. Folks fanned like they were in church and took deep breaths as they tried hard to recover. “Dat’s a clown sho’’nuff!” Ms. Polly offered. “Somebody Washington?
I wouldn’t fool wit’ him no kinda way! Not Polly McPheeters! Y’all might fool with Somebody, but I ain’t!” Her high-pitched laughter evoked even more from others.

The darkness erased the particulars of people’s expressions and made all of us seem like spirits gathered at a tree. Who was cute and who wasn’t and who had money and who didn’t proved absolutely meaningless. We were all contributors unto a communal joy that was enough to sustain everyone. There must have been at least thirty people gathered at the Meetin’ Tree, but together we created enough laughter to go round. As a child, I never noticed how wonderful it was to watch people abandon their daily roles and laugh out loud as they fashioned their own survival in a world prepared to kill them. This was one place and time where the power of white folks was of absolutely no consequence. It was great to see what Swamp Creek folks were like when whites were not our focus; indeed, it was blissful to see us being ourselves without any concern about them.

Truth be told, I fell in love with my home folks that night. The old, the young, the unsure, the desperate, the loud, the soft-spoken all put in their two cents as we constructed, if only temporarily, a world where everyone was free. The differences that disallow unity in America never interrupted our space as we listened to story after story, regardless of who was telling it. What a brilliant way to live, I thought. For the first time in my life, I was glad to be from Swamp Creek.

I told David my thoughts and he said, “Amen! Maybe one day we’ll have our own schools and then we can educate our children right. Until we teach ourselves, we will always hate ourselves.”

“I know dat’s right,” I affirmed. “What good is a degree if we can’t sit out here like this with our own people and enjoy ourselves? Everybody wants us to acquire education in order to move our people away from our own traditions. We are already in the land of milk and honey because we’re black and together!”

“You done said somethin’ now, boy,” Mr. Blue said and winked at me. I didn’t think he had heard the conversation. “If education don’ bring us closer together as a people, then it ain’t no good. Dat’s brainwashin’ and white folks is benefittin’ as our communities is fallin’ apart. You college-degree chil’ren can go to white schools and live in white neighborhoods, and y’all thankin’ y’all done progressed. Shit! You done gone straight backward! You know why? ‘Cause you love his shit more than you love yo’self. If you got God and yo’ own folks, you already got heaven. Ain’t nothin’ better’n dat! Ain’t nothin’ to rise to. Shit.”

“You teachin’ now, Blue,” Mr. Somebody chimed in. “Seem like to me education oughta make us love one another mo’, but it don’t. Dem black teachers and writers talk about each otha like a dog and marry white folks and feel good’bout knowin’ dey ain’t neva got to’sociate wit’ us no mo’ if dey don’t wont to. I wonted to go to school and all, but I’m sho’ glad I didn’t if dat’s how I was gon’ be.”

“It ain’t got to be like dat, though,” Mr. Blue countered. “Dat’s jes’ what happens lots o’ times. Learnin’ is a good thang when it’s done right, and black people could use a whole lot of it. Like take dis boy hyeah for’xample.” He nodded toward me. “He done gone off to school and got a whole buncha degrees, but he can still come home and laugh and talk wit’ de rest of us wit’out thankin’ he’s too good to swat mosquitoes and listen to old nigga stories. Most of’em don’t come out like dat, though. Dat’s because dem teachers tell them that dey come to school to better theyselves, which mean dat somethin’ was wrong wid them befo’ they got there. Yet dey don’t need to better theyselves ‘cause dey already de best. They jes’ need to gather some learnin’ in order to fill in what we don’t know’bout ourselves. That’ll help all us love one another better and know jes’ how good God done been to us. Now dat’s what education s’pose’ to be fu’. If it don’t do dat, you can throw it away,’cause it ain’t no good. Mark my word.”

Mr. Blue’s profundity commanded attention, causing all laughter
to cease. “I betcha dis boy hyeah could tell us a whole lot we don’t know’bout black folks.”

Everyone gazed at me expectantly, prepared to receive whatever I had to give. The elder had paved the way and I had no choice but to deliver.

“All right. Um … did y’all know that black folks owned slaves?” I stated a bit fearfully.

“Get outta hyeah, boy! Ain’t no black folks owned no slaves. Black folks was slaves theyselves!” Mr. Somebody posited.

“Not all of them. There were a few free ones who got rich enough to buy their own slaves.”

“Why would they do that?” Ms. Polly asked, genuinely confused.

“For different reasons. Some of them were actually buying their relatives into freedom. They posed as real buyers at the auction, but in actuality they were freeing their kinfolks. They would buy them, take them home, and let them go. It was a masterful way of helping black folks escape from slavery.”

“What you sayin’ is dat we was trickin’ white folks into believin’ dat we was really buyin’ our own people and treatin’ dem like slaves, but what we was really doin’ was buyin’’em and settin’em free?” Mr. Blue asked.

“Exactly,” I said confidently.

“I likes dat kinda shit,” he chuckled. “Dey always thankin’ dey outsmartin’ de black man. Shit, dey de stupid ones.”

“Uh-huh,” people mumbled.

“Some black owners kept their black slaves as slaves, though. I know it don’t sound good, but it’s certainly true.”

No one said anything. Mr. Blue examined my eyes disappointedly.

“Some black folks simply took advantage of the economic situation at the time. They bought slaves because they had the money, and they worked them in order to make a profit. A book called Black Masters highlights several black families that owned slaves whom they worked like any white master would have.”

“Now I know you lyin’!” said Mr. Blue disgustedly.

“No, sir, I’m not. I guess they saw slavery as a means by which they could make good money easily. They took advantage of the situation.”

“How does a black man own his own people?” Mr. Somebody asked, puzzled.

Before I could answer, Daddy said, “The same way a black man today pay another black man minimum wage ‘cause dat’s what white folks pay us. He don’t value his people no more than white folks do. It ain’t hard to understand. If a black boy can kill another black boy ova some goddamn crack, then we sho’ oughta understand how a black man can own another one. Same bullshit.”

Mr. Somebody tapped his cane on the earth in frustration. “I ain’t neva heard tell o’ no black man ownin’ no slaves. Dat’s’bout de wildest shit I ever heard of.”

“It’s the truth. South Carolina and Louisiana were the places it happened most.”

Mr. Blue shook his head and proclaimed, “See? Now dat’s what education s‘pose’ to do. You s’pose’ to learn somethin’ dat make you think.” He paused. “Well, I’ll be damn’, a black slave master. I neva woulda dreamed of such a thang.”

I couldn’t ascertain whether I had said enough or if I should continue. I chose the former because the rule of thumb in the black South is to be silent more than you speak. Various elders spoke simultaneously about what a black slave master might be like, comparing him to a black policeman or a black FBI agent, and then Mr. Somebody changed the subject abruptly.

“Hey, y’all heard dat the last of the Horseman boys died, didn’t ya?”

“The who?” people sang in unison.

“The Horseman boys. Y’all didn’t know dem?” One could tell by his tone he knew no one knew these individuals. He was simply preparing the groundwork for the ensuing tale.

“Dese folks ain’t old ‘nough to know’bout no Horseman boys, man!” said Mr. Blue.

“Well, it was ten of’em and de last one died last week.”

“What about’em?” somebody asked, taking the bait.

“Y’all don’t know’bout de Horseman brothers?”

Mr. Blue shouted, “I jes’ tole yo’ ass dat don’t nobody know nothin’’bout no Horseman boys but chu!”

“Who were they?” I asked in an effort not to let Mr. Blue distract Mr. Somebody from the story.

“Dere wuz a woman lived here’bout sixty years ago named Isabella Redfield. We called her Aunt Taint. She wuz kinda a strange woman, didn’t say murch to nobody, but she was nice. She had ten boys and neva did have sex wit’ no man.”

“Oh, shut up, fool!” Ms. Polly hollered.

“No, dis true! Ain’t it, Blue?”

“Dat’s what dey say,” Mr. Blue confirmed reluctantly.

“Sho’ it’s true. I was right here. I ain’t talkin’’bout what I heard; I’m talkin’’bout what I know. De boys did have a daddy, though.”

“Dat’s why I can’t stand a nigga! How dey gon’ have a daddy, but de momma ain’t neva have sex wit’ no man?” Ms. Polly said, feigning outrage.

“‘Cause dey daddy wunnit no man. See, looka hyeah,” and Mr. Somebody turned up the wine bottle as he got ready to make us believe the unbelievable. “When I was a boy, Momma baked a pie and told me to take it to Aunt Taint. I didn’t want to’cause I was scared o’ de woman, but Momma wouldn’t o’ understood dat, so I went on and took de pie. Momma said de boys’ daddy had passed and de least we could do was to take ‘em somethin’ to eat. I told her I didn’t know dey had no daddy, and she told me to mind my business and keep my mouth shut and dat’s what I did.

“When I got ova to de house, people wuz everywhere dressed in black. Dat’s how I knowed somebody had died. I spoke to everybody real nice, found Aunt Taint, and tole hu’ dat Momma had sunt hu’ a pie. She said, ‘Tell yo’ momma I thank hu’,’ and I turned to go. Jes’ then, Henry, the son that was my age, come and asked me if I wanted
to go walkin’ in de woods wit’ him. I didn’t’cause somethin’ didn’t seem right to me, but I felt sorry fu’ him’cause his daddy had jes’ died, so I tole him I’d go. As we wuz walkin’, I got up’nough nerve to ask him how come I ain’t neva seen his daddy.

“‘You have,’ Henry said.

“‘No, I ain’t. I ain’t neva seen no man come outta y’all’s house,’ I said.

BOOK: They Tell Me of a Home: A Novel

11.58Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads