Grace. Natashia Deon
Mae sits and holds Josey’s hand, wipes the sweat from her cheeks, hoping that Josey’s panting will fade.
But her whistles rise. “One day,” Josey say, “I’m gon’ marry me a black man . . . dark as blue. . . . Then there ain’t gon’ be no mistakin who I am.”
A whistle.
A whistle.
A whistle.
Conyers, Georgia, 1846
LAST NIGHT I took off running in the dark, escaping Cynthia.
HER CUSTOMERS LURK in dark corners here like shadows, except the whites of their eyes show and move when I move. Their voices call to me in whispers, hissing, one at a time and all together, “Hey! Pss . . . Gal. Come ’ere.” I made the mistake of turning toward the sound last night and saw a man with his trousers down, his hand at his crotch, rubbing and tugging there. That’s when I stole some shoes and ran. A month here’s been long enough.
I had my Bible and Hazel’s poker with me. Found the poker behind Cynthia’s dresser before I left to follow the North Star to Boston where negroes belong to themselves.
I started running from ’round back of this brothel where Cynthia never go, then on the road past Albert’s blacksmith shop. It was glowing orange from the furnace inside. The color traced every gap of the building. Grit from the road rolled under my soles and wet grass lapped my ankles. I was only five steps into the field when a sharp pain shot to my head and forced me to stop.
Blood shot out my nose in rhythm with my heartbeats. I pinched it and spat out what trickled in my throat, then staggered my final steps. I looked to the sky trying to find my North Star but there were so many. Their pinpricks of light grew to suns, blinding and burning. The world spun around me: Albert’s shop . . . black space . . . Albert’s shop . . . black space. I fell to my knees, needing to throw up. It was the last thing I remember.
I woke up late last night and found myself back at this brothel, laid out on the front steps with Cynthia’s foot in my ribs. “What’s wrong wit’cha?” she said, shaking me awake. “Still cain’t talk?”
She kicked my shoes off and said, “Next time you choose whose shoes to steal, don’t let it be Bernadette’s. She got the foot fungus.”
THIS MORNING, CYNTHIA woke me up before daybreak shouting, “If you well enough to go outside in the middle of the damn night, you well enough to cook breakfast.”
So I got up.
A line of blood had dried and cracked between my nose and top lip. She threw a wet rag at me, said, “And I don’t like the way you been taking certain liberties around this place. From now on, you keep to the side yard. And only in the day.” So that’s what I been doing since breakfast.
I keep to this patch of garden at the side of the house, and from here I can see most of everything east. And since we the last establishment on the east end, we must be double east. The rest of town is built west where I cain’t see. But I got these rolling hills to look at and that empty green field across the road where Albert’s workshop is.
Cynthia used to let me walk far back as the barn where I could get my tools. Now she keep my tools upside the house. Won’t even let me go to the shed across the road ’cause she cain’t see me good over there.
She watch me through her side window, always makes sure I’m working. But I don’t mind. I love this garden. It gives me a reason to come outside and breathe. Cain’t let her know that, though.
She’s watching me now so I gotta look busy. I bend over the garden with my hand on my back, pretending it hurt. I touch my knees like they sore, squint my eyes closed, hem and haw out loud so she can hear me miserable.
She still watching.
I’m still gon’ leave here and go north. But I got to get better first. Get all the way healed.
It ain’t been all bad here. I cook sometimes and clean for all the nice ladies and Sam, too. Sam’s the bartender. He always looks clean even though he got hair on his face—a beard trimmed short and square around his mouth. He keeps it closed most of the time—his mouth—only listening to customers tell him the same stories he’s heard a thousand times. Sam nods anyway, pretends it’s new, lets ’em keep him company while he wipes the insides of glasses and along his countertops, ready to ask the next would-be talker, “What can I git cha?”
Cynthia likes Sam ’cause he don’t talk much. Maybe that’s why she don’t mind me, don’t wanna hear too much lip from nobody and I don’t talk.
I look to the window, slow. Cynthia’s laughing at somebody but ain’t looking this way.
She owns this brothel.
Said she bought it with family money. I ain’t seen none of her family, though. Not even a husband. She told one of the girls that she too old for marrying, be thirty again next year. But that don’t keep men from asking for her hand ’cause she’s mostly pretty like my sister Hazel was. And if Hazel were here, she’d tell me she loves me, tell me she scared for me, tell me wait before I try running away again ’cause I coulda died last night.
I hear Cynthia’s voice loud behind the window. Her chair’s scooting like a duck honk across the floor. I sneak my eyes over to the window again.
She gone.
I put my hand on my back, lean back and forth trying to crack it and search that window while I do, just to make sure she gone. I hear my name gettin shouted. Again and again, “Naomi! Naomi!”
I run to the house, through the side door, toward Cynthia’s call. I find her after going to two other rooms first. She in Bernadette’s room, the old washroom. Sam followed me in.
Bernadette is screaming crazy in the corner and Cynthia’s trying to hold her down, talk to her. A man, a customer, is standing next to both of ’em with no shirt on.
“Didn’t you hear me call you!” Cynthia say to me. “Get me some towels.”
I go to the cupboard inside the room, can see Bernadette shaking now. She got throw-up on the front of her dress and in her brown hair. She ain’t much older than me. Cynthia found her at the train station with no money, no food. Been here two months working but she cain’t stand no man touching her if she ain’t had her medicine. Cynthia make it for her by mixing coca leaves in a shot of whiskey. Said Bernadette cain’t live without it. It’s the only thing that stops her from rubbing her arms and from being afraid of the dark, and men, and makes her yes come easier.
“What’d you do to her, Jessup!” Cynthia asks that man.
“I swear I ain’t touched her, Cynthia. I took my shirt off and she started screaming hysterical. I swear it!”
“I told you she wasn’t ready to come off it,” she tell Sam.
I hand her the towels.
“Damn if I don’t have to go back to that apothecary every month for you.”
Cynthia wipes Bernadette’s face. Her hair. Bernadette whispers something.
“I’m sorry,” is what I think she said.
“Oh, you will get off it!” Cynthia say. “This ain’t a drug den and you ain’t staying here free. Sam, watch her ’til I get back.”
Cynthia gets up and starts past me through the door. She stops. “And you don’t go nowhere but upside this house working ’til I’m back. You hear me?”
“Yes’m,” I say.
THIS MY GARDEN.
My piece of life.
When I’m in, I feel like it belongs to me.
That’s how I pretend. How I know I belong someplace.