Black Boy (7 page)

Uncle Hoskins had a horse and buggy and sometimes he used to take me with him to Helena, where he traded. One day when I was riding with him he said:

“Richard, would you like to see this horse drink water out of the middle of the river?”

“Yes,” I said, laughing. “But this horse can’t do that.”

“Yes, he can,” Uncle Hoskins said. “Just wait and see.”

He lashed the horse and headed the buggy straight for the Mississippi River.

“Where’re you going?” I asked, alarm mounting in me.

“We’re going to the middle of the river so the horse can drink,” he said.

He drove over the levee and down the long slope of cobblestones to the river’s edge and the horse plunged wildly in. I looked at the mile stretch of water that lay ahead and leaped up in terror.

“Naw!” I screamed.

“This horse has to drink,” Uncle Hoskins said grimly.

“The river’s deep!” I shouted.

“The horse can’t drink here,” Uncle Hoskins said, lashing the back of the struggling animal.

The buggy went farther. The horse slowed a little and tossed his head above the current. I grabbed the sides of the buggy, ready to jump, even though I could not swim.

“Sit down or you’ll fall out!” Uncle Hoskins shouted.

“Let me out!” I screamed.

The water now came up to the hubs of the wheels of the buggy. I tried to leap into the river and he caught hold of my leg. We were now surrounded by water.

“Let me out!” I continued to scream.

The buggy rolled on and the water rose higher. The horse wagged his head, arched his neck, flung his tail about, walled his eyes, and snorted. I gripped the sides of the buggy with all the
strength I had, ready to wrench free and leap if the buggy slipped deeper into the river. Uncle Hoskins and I tussled.

“Whoa!” he yelled at last to the horse.

The horse stopped and neighed. The swirling yellow water was so close that I could have touched the surface of the river. Uncle Hoskins looked at me and laughed.

“Did you really think that I was going to drive this buggy into the middle of the river?” he asked.

I was too scared to answer; my muscles were so taut that they ached.

“It’s all right,” he said soothingly.

He turned the buggy around and started back toward the levee. I was still clutching the sides of the buggy so tightly that I could not turn them loose.

“We’re safe now,” he said.

The buggy rolled onto dry land and, as my fear ebbed, I felt that I was dropping from a great height. It seemed that I could smell a sharp, fresh odor. My forehead was damp and my heart thumped heavily.

“I want to get out,” I said.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I want to get out!”

“We’re back on land now, boy.”

“Naw! Stop! I want to get out!”

He did not stop the buggy; he did not even turn his head to look at me; he did not understand. I wrenched my leg free with a lunge and leaped headlong out of the buggy, landing in the dust of the road, unhurt. He stopped the buggy.

“Are you really that scared?” he asked softly.

I did not answer; I could not speak. My fear was gone now and he loomed before me like a stranger, like a man I had never seen before, a man with whom I could never share a moment of intimate living.

“Come on, Richard, and get back into the buggy,” he said. “I’ll take you home now.”

I shook my head and began to cry.

“Listen, son, don’t you trust me?” he asked. “I was born on that old river. I know that river. There’s stone and brick way down under that water. You could wade out for half a mile and it would not come over your head.”

His words meant nothing and I would not re-enter the buggy.

“I’d better take you home,” he said soberly.

I started down the dusty road. He got out of the buggy and walked beside me. He did not do his shopping that day and when he tried to explain to me what he had been trying to do in frightening me I would not listen or speak to him. I never trusted him after that. Whenever I saw his face the memory of my terror upon the river would come back, vivid and strong, and it stood as a barrier between us.

Each day Uncle Hoskins went to his saloon in the evening and did not return home until the early hours of the morning. Like my father, he slept in the daytime, but noise never seemed to bother Uncle Hoskins. My brother and I shouted and banged as much as we liked. Often I would creep into his room while he slept and stare at the big shining revolver that lay near his head, within quick reach of his hand. I asked Aunt Maggie why he kept the gun so close to him and she told me that men had threatened to kill him, white men…

One morning I awakened to learn that Uncle Hoskins had not come home from the saloon. Aunt Maggie fretted and worried. She wanted to visit the saloon and find out what had happened, but Uncle Hoskins had forbidden her to come to the place. The day wore on and dinnertime came.

“I’m going to find out if anything’s happened,” Aunt Maggie said.

“Maybe you oughtn’t,” my mother said. “Maybe it’s dangerous.”

The food was kept hot on the stove and Aunt Maggie stood on the front porch staring into the deepening dusk. Again she declared that she was going to the saloon, but my mother dissuaded her once more. It grew dark and still he had not come. Aunt Maggie was silent and restless.

“I hope to God the white people didn’t bother him,” she said.

Later she went into the bedroom and when she came out she whimpered:

“He didn’t take his gun. I wonder what could have happened?”

We ate in silence. An hour later there was the sound of heavy footsteps on the front porch and a loud knock came. Aunt Maggie ran to the door and flung it open. A tall black boy stood sweating, panting, and shaking his head. He pulled off his cap.

“Mr. Hoskins…he done been shot. Done been shot by a white man,” the boy gasped. “Mrs. Hoskins, he dead.”

Aunt Maggie screamed and rushed off the porch and down the dusty road into the night.

“Maggie!” my mother screamed.

“Don’t you-all go to that saloon,” the boy called.

“Maggie!” my mother called, running after Aunt Maggie.

“They’ll kill you if you go there!” the boy yelled. “White folks say they’ll kill all his kinfolks!”

My mother pulled Aunt Maggie back to the house. Fear drowned out grief and that night we packed clothes and dishes and loaded them into a farmer’s wagon. Before dawn we were rolling away, fleeing for our lives. I learned afterwards that Uncle Hoskins had been killed by whites who had long coveted his flourishing liquor business. He had been threatened with death and warned many times to leave, but he had wanted to hold on a while longer to amass more money. We got rooms in West Helena, and Aunt Maggie and my mother kept huddled in the house all day and night, afraid to be seen on the streets. Finally Aunt Maggie defied her fear and made frequent trips back to Elaine, but she went in secret and at night and would tell no one save my mother when she was going.

There was no funeral. There was no music. There was no period of mourning. There were no flowers. There were only silence, quiet weeping, whispers, and fear. I did not know when or where Uncle Hoskins was buried. Aunt Maggie was not even allowed to see his body nor was she able to claim any of his assets. Uncle Hoskins had simply been plucked from our midst and we,
figuratively, had fallen on our faces to avoid looking into that white-hot face of terror that we knew loomed somewhere above us. This was as close as white terror had ever come to me and my mind reeled. Why had we not fought back, I asked my mother, and the fear that was in her made her slap me into silence.

Shocked, frightened, alone without their husbands or friends, my mother and Aunt Maggie lost faith in themselves and, after much debate and hesitation, they decided to return home to Granny and rest, think, map out new plans for living. I had grown used to moving suddenly and the prospects of another trip did not excite me. I had learned to leave old places without regret and to accept new ones for what they looked like. Though I was nearly nine years of age, I had not had a single, unbroken year of school, and I was not conscious of it. I could read and count and that was about as much as most of the people I met could do, grownups or children. Again our household was torn apart; belongings were sold, given away, or simply left behind, and we were off for another long train ride.

A few days later—after we had arrived at Granny’s—I was playing alone in a wild field, digging in the ground with an old knife. Suddenly a strange rhythmic sound made me turn my head. Flowing threateningly toward me over the crest of a hill was a wave of black men draped in weird mustard-colored clothing. Unconsciously I jumped to my feet, my heart pounding. What was this? Were these men coming after me? Line by line, row by row, the fantastic men in their wild colors were descending straight at me, trotting, their feet pounding the earth like someone beating a vast drum. I wanted to fly home but, as in a dream, I could not move. I cast about wildly for a clue to tell me what this was, but I could find nothing. The wall of men was drawing closer. My heart was beating so strongly that it shook my body. Again I tried to run, but I could not budge. My mother’s name was on the tip of my tongue and I opened my mouth to scream, but no words came, for now the surging men, each looking exactly like the other, parted and poured around me, jarring the earth, their feet stomping in unison. As they flooded past I saw that their black faces were look
ing at me and that some of them were smiling. Then I noticed that each man was holding a long, dark, heavy, sticklike object upon his shoulder. One of the men yelled something at me which I did not understand. They were past me now, disappearing in a great cloud of brown dust that looked like a part of their clothing, that made them seem akin to the elemental earth itself. As soon as they were far enough away for me to conquer my fear, I dashed home and babbled to my mother what I had seen, asking her who the strange men were.

“Those were soldiers,” she said.

“What are soldiers?” I asked.

“Men who fight in wars.”

“Why do they fight?”

“Because their country tells them to.”

“And what are those long black sticks they have on their shoulders?”

“Rifles.”

“What’s a rifle?”

“It’s a gun that shoots a bullet.”

“Like a pistol?”

“Yes.”

“Would the bullet kill you?”

“Yes, if it hits you in the right place.”

“Who are they going to shoot?”

“Germans.”

“Who are Germans?”

“They are the enemy.”

“What’s an enemy?”

“The people who want to kill you and take your country away from you.”

“Where do they live?”

“’Way across the sea,” my mother explained. “Don’t you remember that I told you that war has been declared?”

I remembered; but when she had told me, it had not seemed at all important. I asked my mother what the war was about and she spoke of England, France, Russia, Germany, of men dying, but the
reality of it was too vast and alien for me to be moved or further interested.

Upon another day I was playing out of doors in front of the house and I accidentally looked down the road and saw what seemed to me to be a herd of elephants coming slowly toward me. There was in me this time none of that naked terror I had felt when I had seen the soldiers, for these strange creatures were moving slowly, silently, with no suggestion of threat. Yet I edged cautiously toward the steps of the house, holding myself ready to run if they should prove to be more violent than they appeared. The strange elephants were a few feet from me now and I saw that their faces were like the faces of men! I stared, my mind trying to adjust memory to reality. What kind of men were these? I saw that there were two lines of creatures that looked like men on either side of the road; that there were a few white faces and a great many black faces. I saw that the white faces were the faces of white men and they were dressed in ordinary clothing; but the black faces were men wearing what seemed to me to be elephant’s clothing. As the strange animals came abreast of me I saw that the legs of the black animals were held together by irons and that their arms were linked with heavy chains that clanked softly and musically as they moved. The black creatures were digging a shallow ditch on each side of the road, working silently, grunting as they lifted spades of earth and flung them into the middle of the roadway. One of the strange, striped animals turned a black face upon me.

“What are you doing?” I asked in a whisper, not knowing if one actually spoke to elephants.

He shook his head and cast his eyes guardedly back at a white man, then dug on again. Suddenly I noticed that the white men were holding the long, heavy black sticks—rifles!—on their shoulders. After they had passed I ran breathlessly into the house.

“Mama!” I yelled.

“What?” she answered from the kitchen.

“There are elephants in the street!”

She came to the kitchen door and stared at me.

“Elephants?” she asked.

“Yes. Come and see them. They’re digging in the street.”

My mother dried her hands on her apron and rushed to the front door. I followed, wanting her to interpret the baffling spectacle I had seen. She looked out of the door and shook her head.

“Those are not elephants,” she said.

“What are they?”

“That’s a chain gang.”

“What’s a chain gang?”

“It’s just what you see,” she said. “A gang of men chained together and made to work.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ve done something wrong and they’re being punished.”

“What did they do?”

“I don’t know.”

“But why do they look like that?”

“That’s to keep them from running away,” she said. “You see, everybody’ll know that they’re convicts because of their stripes.”

“Why don’t the white men wear stripes?”

“They’re the guards.”

“Do white men ever wear stripes?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did you ever see any?”

“No.”

“Why are there so many black men wearing stripes?”