Counternarratives (26 page)

—And Dandy woke me saying, “Red, Cuz, gather your stuff up, let's go.”
Soon as the door gaped, he said, “Make it,” and the two or three men stepping to
unload the crates and luggage glared at us as if they were seeing ghosts, but Dandy
said something so fast I didn't catch it, he winked and gestured to them with his
fingers, and they let us pass. As we scurried out I saw white men dressed in
different kinds of uniforms, probably all military, as well a lot of our people too.
I counted what appeared to be twice as many as at home. I asked Dandy, “Are they
slaves? “ and he said, “Probably free as we is in Philly,” then he added that we had
to get to Q and 9th Street before sundown. He asked one of the men for some water
and where we could relieve ourselves, then we exited the station.
Th
e city was nowhere as built up as Philadelphia and
unlike the initial perception the station offered appeared to have considerably
fewer people. Neither of us was sure what direction we were facing so Dandy said,
“Take out that watch.” He stood so close I could feel his hot, sweet breath on my
cheeks. He wrapped his arm around me as if cloaking us in invisibility and said,
“See, on the back you got a little compass, so whatever you do don't lose your
papers and don't lose this.” I swore to him I wouldn't. I also saw that we were
facing South and there, looming right in front of us, atop a hill ringed by
buildings, was a gigantic white building with an unfinished dome. Astonished, I
asked him, pointing to it, “Do you think that's the President's House or the
Capitol?” Dandy shrugged. “Cuz,” he said, “you got to act like you from here,” so I
dropped my arm, though it took me a minute or two to stop staring.

I glanced at the compass again. “Which way we sposed to go?” Dandy said,
“They say due north up New-Jersey.” We searched, as inconspicuously as we could,
until we found that street. We started walking, not really talking because I could
tell Dandy was striving hard to appear as ice as possible while also paying close
attention to everything around us. He was not listening to anything I was saying,
not about how much emptier and dirtier the capital was than Philadelphia, how there
were twice as many soldiers everywhere, how every other person appeared to be like
us. Most of them nodded in our direction and I made sure to nod back, but Dandy only
tipped his hat and pressed forward, though every so often he would ask how I was
feeling, if I needed any water or anything else.

All the while I was counting the street letters as we headed north, the
grid not unlike Philadelphia's, thirteen blocks we crossed, the buildings thinning
out eventually to meadows and pastures, dense thickets of alders and hawthorns,
stands of oaks and ailanthus broken intermittently by shacks and lean-tos, almost
like the far northeast or southwest parts of our own city. A strange thought struck
me and I asked Dandy, “How you know there ain't no Confederates hiding in these
bushes or trees,” and he answered, “Cuz, you know I like me a joke but not one like
that.” I consulted my watch-compass and told him we needed to walk in the direction
of the cluster of buildings to our west. Before I knew it we were there. As soon as
I saw the condition of the structures, crude edifices of wood and tin, and towards
the backs tarpaulin tented to extend some of the dwellings, I wondered were we
really going to stay
here
? though I trusted Dandy. He approached and spoke
with a couple of rough-looking men and a woman outside one of the buildings, a shack
that could only generously be labeled a house, but I remained where I was until he
called for me. “Here where we staying, Red,” Dandy said, and introduced me to a
short, dark walleyed man with a pointed beard named Cyrus, and a pretty woman in a
yellow headwrap and dress named Eliza, who invited us inside.
Th
ey seated us on stools around a stove and fed us, all the while
questions about how we were feeling, but nothing about Philadelphia or the trip
down. I remembered what Dandy had told me and let him talk, smiling but politely
maintaining my silence.

Since we didn't have a map we had no idea where Army headquarters or the
Balloon Corps might be, so I began creating a chart in my head of the streets we
walked that first week. Where we were staying was in the colored section, Uptown,
near the city's northern boundaries, but I walked down to Mt. Vernon Square, to the
President's House at Lafayette Square, to the Capitol Building near where we first
entered the city, to the Naval Observatory which perched on the edge of the Potomac.
I took care to avoid attracting the notice of the soldiers, on guard nearly
everywhere I wandered, same as I did the police, whose attention I crossed the
street to evade. I spoke at length with no one except our people unless I had to,
and none of them paid me any special mind. I remembered not to go beyond U Street
north of where we were staying, nor anywhere near the Navy Yard, which was, Dandy
warned, swimming and shooting distance from Virginia. He would come and go and
somehow also knew his way around, which at first I didn't understand since as far as
I knew he hadn't ever been beyond New-Jersey, but my father did used to say that
like his father Dandy's mind ran like the finest phaeton but he wasted it on
crisscrossing the sewers. I knew never to ask what he was up to, especially when he
returned one evening with papers saying he was “Anthony Smith,” and made me vow from
now on when we were around other people I should make sure to call him that.

End of our first week I was walking back from the mall that stood in
front of the Smithsonian castle—and not even Philadelphia had a building that could
match—and an local officer ordered me to stop and when I tried to slip away seized
my arm and demanded my documents. After he read through them the tiny blue eyes
pricking his pink face scanned me up and down, then he reviewed the documents again,
asking with a twang, “How do I know these papers are your'n?”

“Well, Sir,” I answered, “them is mine sure as Mr. Lincoln is the
president and Washington is the capital of the United States of America.”

“Where were you born?” As he asked he hid the papers behind his
back.

“Well, Sir, I was born free at my parents' lodgings at 701 Spruce Street
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

He brought them back before him and read them carefully then concealed
them again. “What date and year?”

“Well, Sir, I was born on December 18, 1842.”
Th
e officer again brought the certificate Dandy gave me from behind his
back to study it, and I was glad I had studied it before the train left the Philly
depot, since I actually was born in 1844, though in case I needed to be 18 to work
Dandy had gotten somebody to add two years.

“So why are you down here in the capital? Philadelphia ain't just
walking distance. Between the ones of you fleeing across that river over there and
the ones of you maybe sent up to spy, why in the Lord's name should I think you're
telling the truth?”

“Well, Sir, I came down because as that other letter say I am to be
employed down here by the scientist specified in it.”

He opened the other piece of paper and browsed it, and for a second I
thought about handing him Mr. Linde's carte de visite, but I decided to withhold
that until absolutely necessary. “How do I know you didn't memorize all this? Y'all
can be so crafty sometimes. If you're really free and from Pennsylvania and are
working for this ‘scientist,' read this paragraph aloud for me right now.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said, peering into the page, whose writing was swirling
before me. “As things stand in our con-con-tinuing contri-tri-butions to Science in
the De-fense of our
UNION
—this corps fortu-fortu-nately
does need
Hands
, though I can-not but cert-cert-ify my Good-Will and a
mini-scule Purse as guaran-tee. . . .”

“I'll be the devil,” he said, snatching the letter from me, and read it
again himself. “So why aren't you working with this scientist Linde and the Corps
now?”

“Well Sir,” I replied, seeing he was softening, “I been trying to figure
out where the Federal Army headquarters at so that I can find him. I had to pay my
way down here to Washington, and now I got to find where the Balloon Corps is
at.”

The officer turned on his heel and pointed in the direction of Lafayette
Square telling me, “The War Department is just east of the President's House, at
Pennsylvania and G. You should go there straightaway.”

“Yes Sir,” I said. “I'm going there right now.”

“You had better, and I don't want to see you wandering around here
again. These days nobody needs any added mischief.” I bolted up 13th, feeling his
eyes train a target on my back and turning every so often, real subtly, to check if
he was still watching me. I nearly stumbled into the street as a carriage was
approaching but righted myself and paused against a hitching post, looking back to
find him gone. Only a short while after that I reached War Department. All kinds of
people thronged out front, mostly guards and, to judge by the navy uniforms,
military men. I spoke to a white guard stationed near the base of the main portico,
then to another at the main door, spilling my story to each, mentioning Dr. Linde,
Professor Lowe, the Balloon Corp. After skimming my letter the second one called
over a young man my exact size and build who was a good three years older, whom I at
first thought was white until I got a good look at his nose, lips and hair. The
white guard said to him, “You heading to the Potomac office?” and the young man said
with a lilt, “Yessir,” and the guard said, “Take this boy up there with you, and see
that he speaks to someone about that letter.” The young man didn't speak at first,
he just reviewed me up and down as he was leading me to wherever we were going, but
finally he paused and asked my name and where I was from. I told him and when I
asked him the same question, he answered, “My name Nicholas, but they call me
Nimrod.” I added, “Well they call me Red. You from here?” He told me he was
originally from Annapolis, worked as a messenger, among other things, for the staff
of the Army of the Potomac and General McClelland, adding that he had never heard of
any Balloon Corps and wasn't at all sure I was searching in the right place.

On the top floor after a guard examined Nimrod's papers and I
displayed mine and the carte de visite, he guided me at an office where I eventually
spoke to several different people. No one had ever heard of Dr. Linde but when I
mentioned Professor Lowe and the balloons finally one official knew exactly who and
what I was talking about. He said the Corps was
not
part of the military,
but then, another official entering the office overheard him and told me it was,
under the aegis of the Topographical Engineers, or perhaps the Quartermaster
Department, no the Signal Corps, no the Engineers, then he interrogated me and
perused my papers, taking the letter and disappearing for a while, which made me
start to fidget in fear that he would not return with it. Finally he did and told me
I would have to wait two days to head down to where the Balloon Corps was stationed.
I would accompany Nimrod when he carried messages down that way. I thanked the
officer profusely, but he ordered me to get out of his office.

Nimrod was waiting for me out in the hallway. I relayed everything to
him and he told me I had to be here in two days, at 7 o'clock in morning sharp,
that's when he was heading down to the camp to bring the messages and other
information. I assured him I would be there. I beat the fastest path I could back up
to the shack where Dandy and I were staying, dallying only at the market at Mt.
Vernon Square to get some water, and buy a few provisions like bread ends, potatoes,
and a cabbage to give to the people we were lodging with.
Th
at night as Dandy and me were lying on the cot we shared, trying to
stay warm as the cool September air enfolded us, I told him my news and he told me
Anthony Smith
had a special opportunity in Baltimore. He urged me to be
as careful as possible, first chance I get write Jonathan a letter he could read to
the rest of the family, always guard my watch and money, don't spend a penny I
didn't have to, and above all don't tell these people here the date I was fixing to
leave. Finished with his litany he reminded me about all the fun we had had
together, including the train ride down. Before I fell off to sleep I hugged him
tight as if I might never see him again. When I woke up, Dandy and all his
belongings were gone.

I spent the day just walking around 7th Street, peering in the shop
windows, my head down and my ears perked, listening to every conversation I could
hear. Half the time in Philadelphia it hadn't felt at all like there was a war, but
here talk of it was constantly passing people's lips. Outside the market I even
overheard one man saying to another brother that a federal general had set all the
slaves free in Missouri. I make sure to stay circumspect as I eavesdropped, not walk
too fast since things were slower down here, not waste a single penny except to get
a drink of water, and avoid all trouble with white people. Finally as evening was
falling I left the Northern Liberty Market and returned to the shack. I told them I
wasn't feeling so good and went into the little area where me and Dandy were staying
and quietly gathered all my things. My pocket watch handy, I took little naps till I
glanced down and saw it read 5:35. I rose, silent as a shadow, everybody else was
still slumbering, washed up best I could and used what passed for an outhouse, and
grabbed everything of mine, including a new, well-fitting coat that someone had
folded up and placed in my bag. I left some coins on the table for them, then rushed
off to meet Nimrod.