Antebellum (39 page)

“Why? Ain't nothin' special about me.”

Roka looked at me as if he was tired of teaching me lessons. “You fool.”

The insult caught me by surprise.

“I'm a fool?”

“Yea.”

“Why I gotta be a fool?”

“Don't see inside heart. Inside brave.”

For the first and last time, I saw Roka drop his head and gaze at the floor.

“Now...wish was you. Wish was strong and brave.”

“Why you keep saying that? You the strongest man I ever met!
You see how much respect people give you 'round here? I ain't know what a real man was like till I seen you walk in a room.”

“But, still fear. Still scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“White people.”

I shrugged off his comment like a bad joke. “You ain't scared of no white folk, Roka. I seen you around white folk.”

“No see inside.”

I shook my head in arrogant refusal.

“Naw, you ain't scared of no white folk, and you definitely don't need to be like me. I need to be like you.”

Roka looked up from the floor and over at me. He had a pain and yearning in his eyes that made me want to hear my father's voice.

“First time came here, first day, I see you. I hear you. Talk white folk like dey ain't white. Talk da color outta dey skin.”

I looked at my role model intently, not wanting to miss any syllable of this exchange.

“But, when I first got here, I was...different. I wasn't the same as I am now. How could you have wanted to be like that?”

“You always you. When first come and now—always you. You ain't know you, but I knew. Saw strong and brave like I wished for. Mine never come.”

My understanding of his words made me want to weep. “And now?”

“Now you know you. Know self. Nothing same.”

“Why couldn't you just tell me who I was when I first got here?”

“No listen. Finding self be journey, not lesson.”

I took a breath and let all of his words sink in deeply. “So what do I do now?”

“What men do after dey find self.”

“And what's that?”

“Find destiny.”

I couldn't help but chuckle at the irony. “Well, that's a done deal. They gonna hang me tomorrow morning.”

Roka heard this news and almost dropped his gaze again, which wiped the smile completely off of my face. At the last moment, he stopped, paused for a moment, and then lifted his eyes back to me. The fire in them burned intensely, and I'd never forget his next words even before he said them.

“If you die tomorrow, die well.”

I nodded and sat there with my mentor for another half-hour. We didn't speak another word to each other, but seemed to be able to hear and understand each other's thoughts. When his pain began to overtake his will, I stood up as he was leaning over. He looked up at me and nodded once more, and then lay back on his stomach and closed his eyes. I stared at him for some minutes, wondering if this time would ever again repeat itself. After finding the courage to accept that is might not, I made my way out of the hut and into the cool night.

My thoughts were still in the space with Roka, so my instincts led my steps as I went trekking through the brush. Our conversation, both spoken and unspoken, echoed through my head, and I found myself mouthing some of the words he had said to me. “How...do you die well?”

The concept was a foreign one to me, and wouldn't have had a chance at making any sense on any other day but today. I couldn't help but imagine the heroes from many of the movies I'd seen who'd never made it to the final credits.

Had they died well?
I thought.
Or is there something wrong about dying when everyone else figures out a way to live? And how do you find your destiny? Do you scrounge around for it like a misplaced wallet? Or
do you wait for it to show up like a lost dog? And how do you tell your destiny from a random cause that you've decided to fight for arbitrarily?

These and other questions bounced around in my head as I walked the invisible paths around the slave quarters, not knowing exactly where I was going. When I finally stopped, it was because my foot had ran itself against a protruding rock coming out of the ground. The pain brought me out of my stupor, and as I jumped around on one foot cursing to myself, I realized that I was in the clearing I had come to before. I looked out into the distance and saw the big house, smiling back at me, with all the lights in the windows turned out.

My mind shifted so fast that one or two thoughts got lost in the process. My body felt a shock of electricity that literally caused me to jump off of the ground, and when I landed again, I shook my head in awe at the excitement I was feeling. Ella was waiting for me. Just the thought alone made my hands tremble. My conversation with Roka was pushed further and further back into the depths of my mind, and my hormones began to take over. I had to get to her. I had to get to her as soon as I possibly could.

I began walking quickly through the woods, following the same path I'd taken before, when a brand new set of worries began popping into my head. How long had I been walking around distracted, pondering my conversation with Roka? How long had I stayed in the hut with Roka? How long had the lights been off in the big house? Had Ella come outside already, waited for me, and I hadn't showed? Had she been outside for a long time, wondering where I was? Would she have to go back in because someone inside noticed she was missing? Would she have to come up with another excuse this time? Would they believe her? What if they didn't?

My quick walk turned into a sprint, and I found myself leaping
over logs and tree trunks so they wouldn't slow down my pace. By the time I was close enough to hear the stream, my acrobatics had become difficult. The sun was very much retired, and what had been the last traces of dusk had turned into pitch blackness. When I reached the stream, I thought about running right across it, but the splashing of the water would've been too risky. Instead I ran down to the far end of the stream, where I had been told there were large rocks, and prayed as I jumped onto the first one that I could feel around for the next ones. My prayers were not answered, and eventually I stepped quietly into the ankle-deep waters and began lightly stepping my way across. Once I had gotten to the other side, I took four running steps and then stopped abruptly, ducking and turning my head back to the sound of the stream. I'd heard a noise. It was slight, but in pitch blackness and dead quiet, a slight sound is heard through nature's microphone. I felt no fear, but disappointment instead, as I figured one of the overseers had followed me and I would now have to evade them rather than seeing Ella. But no one came. I waited for minutes, and the only sound I heard was one that had started far off in the distance that I had decided to be an animal that must have been trapped up ahead of me. I waited until I was satisfied that the sound from the stream was just another innocent animal, and I continued my sprinting.

There was a perimeter of tall grass that lay on the back side of the big house. I'd seen it on my earlier excursion into danger, and I knew that it was an extension of the cotton fields. I dove headlong into that grass, knowing that if I followed it, it would lead me straight to the person I was waiting for. I ducked down so that my head was only slightly below the blades that shielded me. I couldn't see in front of me, but I knew the house was up ahead, and that I was going in the right direction. I moved quicker and made more noise than I meant to, but by this time
the excitement of what was about to happen had tightly gripped me. I felt as though I had taken a drug, and the effects grew more pronounced with each step that closed the distance between Ella and myself. I barely noticed the trapped animal anymore, even though it must have been trapped either close to or on the back area of the house, because the closer I got to Ella, the closer I got to it. After another few steps, I found myself hoping that Ella was tending to the dying animal.

I heard another sound behind me, and I whipped my head around again expecting to see someone, but no one was there. I wondered what had caused me to be so paranoid as I turned around. I could make out the silhouette of the big house now, and the fire within my body began to kindle itself once again. I moved even quicker, once again aware of the dying animal sound, but not caring. All I wanted was my Ella.

Finally, I reached the edge of the perimeter. I was grinning despite myself, and did the best I could to keep my composure. I'd never known what it was to want someone with your entire being before. It was like ecstasy and torture at the same time. I began trying to fix up my clothes, oblivious to the fact that I was wearing the same rags as all the other slaves. Holding my breath, I pushed the grass that was in front of me to the side, and beheld my queen.

There was no dying animal...

There was no dying animal. There was no dying animal. There was only Ella. There was Ella, with her face shoved into the dirt, her skin grinding against the ground like sandpaper. Pieces of her underwear lay strewn under her, and her dress lay in shreds underneath that.

Talbert kneeled behind her, shoving his pelvis into her so hard I could see the path in the dirt showing where he had begun to rape her, and follow it some fifteen feet to where they were now.

There was no dying animal. The sounds escaping from Ella were so horrific, I would have never guessed they belonged to a human being. She choked and suffocated, screamed and cried, convulsed and seized all at the same time. She sounded like a possessed woman, like some demon had taken over her body.

He rode her as if she was some god-forsaken horse. He used her hair as the reigns, and yanked her head up so she stopped moving forward from the force of his thrusts. Then he forced himself up through the front of her body, and slammed her face back into the dirt and laughed as she tried her best to keep her balance.

I shook behind the blades of grass. I shook so hard that the world became one big vibrating picture. The watercolors of the rape bled and blotched over everything else, and soon everything was rape. The trees, the grass, the bighouse, everything.

I could feel my mind when it snapped again. It felt like a rubber band when it's held with one finger and pulled back with another and then let go. Or like a twig when it's stepped on at the right place and gives way under your feet. I felt it. And once the watercolors had run their course, and things settled after God finished picking up and shaking my world like an Etch-A-Sketch, all I could think about was murder.

I stood straight up from the grass. I had no gun. I had no knife. But Talbert was a dead man. And that's all there was to it.

Before I could take my first step, one hand wrapped around my waist, and another around my mouth, and both my assailant and I fell backward into the grass. As soon as we hit the ground, he took his legs and hooked them around mine. I fought for ten seconds, and when I realized I couldn't move, I stopped and resolved that two people would die.

For a while we lay there quietly, the sounds of persecution echoing all around us. I silently lost my mind.

“No go,” he whispered in my ear.

Roka! With renewed vigor I struggled against him, but to no avail.

“Shhhh! Massa hear us!”

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat while screaming out that I didn't give a damn. Talbert was going to die tonight. Him and Roka both. But my mouth was covered, and my body was locked up by Roka's, and I couldn't do anything but listen to the woman I loved as she was tortured.

“No go!” Roka whispered in my ear. “No, no now! Not right! She tell me! She tell me come! Please!”

Finally, the sounds stopped. I could hear Talbert standing up, putting his pants back on, and Ella writhing on the ground.

“Bra...Bradley!” Talbert called out with the little wind he had left, and footsteps came out of the far right corner.

“Yes, sir.”

The voices stopped for a moment, magnifying Ella's.

“Why...why do you...have your gun out?”

“Thought I heard a noise in the grass ova there, sir, but ain't nothin'. Probably jus' 'coons. Thought 'bout comin' over to check, but...”

“It's a good thing...you didn't...Bradley...” Talbert still hadn't gotten his wind back. He wheezed out his words. “You... might've...disturbed my party...”

“Naw, wouldn't do nothin' like that, sir.”

“Good.”

Again, seconds passed without words. His belt buckled and shoes shuffled across the dirt. And a woman moaned.

“What you want me to do with the wench, sir?”

Mr. Talbert stopped moving. I could tell he was looking at Bradley. “You want her, too; don't you, Bradley?”

“Well, sir, I...”

“Get that thought out of your head, Bradley.” Talbert quickly cut him off. “You can have any of the nigger wenches you want. You can even take Rosa from the kitchen if you like. But this one here...she's mine. Understood?”

“Yes, sir! I never even thought 'bout it.”

“Yes, you did.”

“So, umm, what you want me to do with the wench?”

“Leave her out here. She can make her way over to Sarah's when she's up for it. Those nigger roots will have her good as new in no time.”

“Yes, sir.”

I heard the door to the house open and shut, and everything was quiet.

Roka continued to hold me in place until he was sure Talbert and Bradley were squared away in the house, and then he loosened his grip. As soon as he did, I sprang up, turned around, wrapped my hands around his throat, and squeezed as hard as I could.

I can't imagine what my face must have looked like, but multicolored flashes went across my vision as I watched Roka's face go pale and his eyes go bloodshot. I squeezed so hard that I half-expected his throat to collapse in my hands. I could hear him choking and gurgling as I tried as hard as I could to squeeze the life out of him. But he never fought me back. He never raised his hands to push me away, or tried to move my fingers from his neck. He just lay there, staring at me as the life dripped from his body.