Canaan's Tongue (32 page)

“Oliver D. Lamar.”

23 May 1863
Geburah Plantation

There are errors or (let us call them as the world calls them) sins of arroganceand pride that even I, wasting hourly as I am, will make no mention of
in this accounting. Let that be the measure of how far into the well of hubris I
have fallen: to give voice to the preening circus nigger I’ve become would plant
me squarely in my grave. That will be my legacy to the world, and I won’t
recount it here. Here I will testify, as best I can in this language that has come
to own me as a yeoman owns a sow, how I came to trade my existence for a
cinder.

I dreamt of grand estates, and made my lodging in an outhouse. I dreamt
of virtue, of genteel acts, and indentured myself to treachery. I dreamt of love
and poetry, and gave my body to a hussy. First she took it grudgingly, then she
took it slyly. She took it from me and she bottled it—a commodity like any
other.

The progress of the “grippe” that has claimed me is so ambitious that I’m
unable to rise unassisted from my bed, and this less than six hours after I was
stricken. A system of welts, in pattern not unlike a skirt of lace, has risen from
my ankles to my ribs—where these welts arise, I am a paralytic. That my sex
has thus far been spared strikes me as poetic. No better emblem to a history of
my follies could have been contrived.

I was born in Vidalia, Louisiana to a woman known as Margaret—; my
father was a well-heeled sugar-man from New Orleans. Margaret was too
old to bear children and died soon after my début. This I know from the wifey,
one Koko Hewitt, who had care of me for a time. Koko herself entertained her
share of callers (Mr. Hewitt having died in the Mexican War, leaving her his
debts) and as soon as I could button my pants I was hired out to all and sundry.
I was a poor worker, heavy-limbed and listless, but folk approved of me—: I
was pleasing to look at, and docile, and in time I discovered this was all it took.
I became popular in town, particularly among charitably minded ladies. They
took to me with what can only be described as a passion, and often fought
amongst themselves for the privilege of putting their sympathies on show—;
by the age of eight I was an accomplished gigolo.

It took Mrs. Anne Juvais Bradford, however—of Waterproof,
Louisiana—to turn me into a full and able whore.

At twelve I was hired out to “Mother Anne,” as Mrs. Bradford chose to be
called—; she and her husband, a porridge-faced consumptive who rarely left
his bed, ran a profitable still a half-day’s passage up the river. Koko referred to
this transaction as my “adoption,” by which I understood that I was never to
return. She wept great oily tears at our separation, the fee for which was seventydollars in silver. Seventy bits was quite a sum at that time, easily twice
my worth. I assumed that Mother Anne was buying herself a worker—; she
herself had other notions. Koko couldn’t have cared less. We had little Christiansentiment for one another.

The first time Mother Anne saw me she’d caught hold of me by
my britches. It was in Koko’s shabby parlor, late on a Sunday afternoon—; I’d
just come in bare-foot from the street. “You’re good and pale, for a half-and-half,” Anne had said. “What are you made of, little captain? Quadroon?
Octaroon?”

I’d answered matter-of-factly that my father was a Dumaine Street
gentleman, white as a winter lily.

“Sure of that, are you?” she’d said, grinning down at me. Her grip,
though temperate, was tenacious as a man’s.

I’d nodded sullenly. Her hand had remained curled round my belt-buckle.
“My mama were black as par-boiled pitch,” I’d said. “That’s how I’m sure.”

Her grin had widened. “You don’t care much for your mama’s sort, I see.”

“I’d like to burn her clean of me with fire.”

Her eyes had opened wide at this. “What’s your name, little niggerhater?”

“Oliver D. Lamar,” I’d replied, with all the gentility I could muster.

She’d nodded at this with an earnestness that thrilled me to my bones.
“Oliver Delamare,” she’d said. I’d seen no reason to correct her.

“Can you read, Oliver Delamare?”

My high spirits had vanished at once. I’d shaken my head forlornly.

“I’ll teach you,” she’d murmured, pursing her lips. “I was a teacher of
boys, before Mr. Bradford’s time. Back in Ohio, that was.” Her face had gone
blank for a moment. “Six years of my young life.”

“Oh, he’s a fine learner,” Koko had put in eagerly. “Quick as a cricket.
Many’s the occasion—”

“Has he any sweethearts?” Mother Anne had said, turning me about.
“Any little amours?”

Koko’s face had sti fened slightly. “The boy’s not yet twelve, Mrs. Bradford.”

“Ah! Mrs. Hewitt,” Mother Anne had said. “You can’t fool me about this
one.” She’d released me then, and brought out a scuff-cornered purse. “Boys
are but men in short pants, after all.”

For a year, perhaps longer, Mother Anne partook of my body without asking
more than its readiness. I was her plaything, pure and plain—; but the position
was not a thankless one. She was kind to me, and repaid my services with
genuine affection—; she taught me to read and to dress, and gave me countless
little presents. I suffered under her attentions, of course, but no more than I’d
suffered under Koko’s long indifference. After a parcel of time had passed
(enough for me to take leave of my former life, a thing I did without regret) I
came to think of Mother Anne’s house as my own.

Once her appetite had calmed, however, Anne’s face took on a dull-eyed
look whenever I was near. The gifts and indulgences continued unabated, but
there was an equivalence now between each trinket and the night that followed—: if I’d benefited from her largesse I could be sure that some particular
demand would be made of me. I began to fear her, and to escape the house
whenever I was able. The purpose of our evenings became less and less the
satisfaction of Mother Anne’s body than the degradation, the reduction to mud
and river-water, of my own.

Once a week, usually on a Sunday, she’d take me down to the cellar,
where the whiskey-still was housed, and pull aside an ancient, sodden curtain.
Behind it was a narrow alcove—: the walls had a sweet, rancid smell, as
though tallow had been rendered there. Anne would undo the silk bandanna
she’d taken to tying around my neck, bind my wrists together with it, then
attach them to a hook set high into the wall, so that the balls of my feet barely
touched the packed-earth floor. Then—cautiously at first, with great
affectation of shyness—she’d commence to undo my britches. Once I was stripped and
arranged to her satisfaction, she’d take a step backwards and mutter to herself
awhile. As she stood there (her lips and jaw working soundlessly, as though she
were a toothless beggar chewing on her tongue) she’d work her right hand up
under her skirts, then bring it out again, glistening with her sex, and run it
back and forth across my face. Within the space of a few breaths, no matter
how furiously I pleaded with my blood and bowels, my body would stir in
answer. All I could do then was to let my eyes fall closed. At such moments the
world contracted into a coal-black pellet, the merest flake of cinder, and I’d
watch dispassionately as my body fell away from Mother Anne, away from the
house, into an infinite, ghost-like Mississippi. I prayed to Heaven that I would
drown in it.

Whenever I could escape from the house (when Anne was tending to her husband, for example, or in the early morning, before she rose from bed) I’d walk
the half-mile out to the Mississippi and ease myself into the thick, brown
water, at times not even troubling to remove my clothes. My sole wish was to
blend in with the river whose color so precisely matched my own—: to vanish
into it irreversibly. I’d gulp down great mouthfuls as I swam, picturing the
silt passing into my muscles and my blood until my entire body was converted
into sediment. I would become as inhuman as the river was, as indifferent, as
life-giving, as adored. The river itself was a mulatto, after all—: a hybrid
born of the flowing together of three rivers to the north. It would consume my
body, given time, as it did the muddy banks that held it. I would carry the filth
of millennia inside me and remain pure.

Occasionally, as I lay on the sun-warmed pier, my river-dream would
give way before the image of a spectral, gray-faced stranger (sometimes a
man, but more commonly a woman) who would appear without warning, like
a bolt of stray lightning, and rescue me with one emphatic act of violence. This
vision grew more dear to me each time it arrived—: more comforting, more
life-like, more extreme. I began to wonder whether I might not carry this
faceless, sexless liberator inside of me, and began, painstakingly and cautiously, to conceive a plan of emancipation and escape. Providence, however,
had already decreed that my wish be granted to the letter. My liberator was a
man of flesh and blood, and he was bearing down on Mother Anne’s house
with all practicable force and speed.

It happened, as chance (or Providence) would have it, on a Sunday. Dusk
was falling, and still Anne hadn’t come for me—; I lay rigid and unmoving
on my cot. She had never waited so long before. I permitted myself, for the
briefest of spells, the luxury of imagining she’d forgotten me. Soon enough,
however, I heard her deliberate, heavy foot-falls on the stairs—; a moment
later she was guiding me down the hall. Her husband let out his customary
warble of despair as we passed his door, propped open, as usual, with an empty
mash-bucket. At the head of the stairs the idea came to me, fleetingly and
sweetly, of tipping her head-first over the banister—; but I kept passive as a
stone. I followed her mutely down the cellar steps, past the filthy, grease-markedcurtain, into that hateful alcove. I turned and raised my hands for
her to bind them.

“Not today, Oliver,” Anne said, her voice high and lilting. It was not a
tone I’d heard her use before. She held the bandanna at a distance, as though
it were the carcass of some small animal of the field. (Her eyes, too, were more
far-away than usual, her face more impassive.) Suddenly her eyes recovered
their sharpness, as though a veil had been pulled from them. Her voice fell
and roughened. “Turn your self round, boy. Lay your face against the brick.”
I hesitated, unsure of what she wanted—; the heel of her right hand struck me
hard across the chin. When my vision cleared I found myself positioned
as she’d directed, my hands held out behind me, my right cheek flush against
the wall.

“Cross your wrists above your head. There. Hold them up! Higher, boy.”

It had always been important to her to see my face. I shut my eyes and did
as I was told, trying to think of nothing but the river.

“Right,” Anne said morosely, binding my wrists together. “Right.” Her
work-chipped finger-nails slid across my brow, lingering there a while—; in
spite of myself I let out a sigh as she withdrew them. The world had already
begun dwindling away to nothing, to a grain of jet-black coal. Anne was
somewhere to my left, perhaps a half a pace behind me. She stripped herself
with a few coarse movements, then hurriedly undid my britches and pulled
them to my knees. Her right hand planted itself at the base of my spine. I sank
my teeth into my lower lip and waited.

Before Anne could act, however, a foot-fall sounded on the cellar steps.
After a pause it was followed by another, then a third. Anne stopped short and
dug her nails lightly into the small of my back—: a warning to me to hush. As
yet the curtain kept us hid.

Nothing happened for a time. Anne struggled to keep her breathing
steady, and I, for my part, kept as quiet as a mole. She could do nothing, however, to keep from shivering in her nakedness. The rings of the curtain rattled
tinklingly together.

“Annie Bradford? Am I right?” came a voice. (A thick voice, clumsy with
its consonants—: the voice of a drinker.)

“Missus Anne Bradford,” she answered, her voice steady and severe.
“Who the hell are you, sir, to come into my house?” She let go of my nape,
now, and crouched to gather up her clothes.

The man proceeded down the steps.

“Hold there! Hold!” Anne shrieked, stamping her bare foot against the
floor. “I’m entirely as nature made me, sir!”

“So are we all, Annie,” the man said sadly, stepping off the stairs. What
I’d mistaken for clumsiness was in fact some manner of dialect—; he wasn’t a
Dixie man at all, perhaps not even an American. He was no more than three
steps from the mash-kettle now, and eight or nine steps from the curtain.