Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (112 page)

I were still three years old, stationed at my Queenly mother’s perfect breast. Of a sudden, I won’t too alone there in my worship. From out the dark’s every which a way, I/her/it was being stroked/milked/squeezed by the hands of whose?

Now, Lady Place Cards, you get you forty-some folks carrying on like this, it bad. Our home tribe’s religion didn’t credit no Hell. We just expect one hammock limbo, plus a long long waiting list. But now we learning bout the Blanks’ idea of Hell. Because they made one. Put us in it.

Some my kin crying bout having been fumbled with. Others crying bout
not
. But worse sounds were the childrens’. Don’t know what happening here, they squeaking to their lovey-dovey parents for advice, parents’ hands on anybody round them, including children of other parents. None too pretty, for a royal group.

“No more!” King shout. “They gone
hear
us, gone think we copying they savage ways.” Then our regal clan sniffed a new smell, half old, part new, total scary. Were the scent of people worked up love-wise (forgive my French, Miss Prissy—but if you lived out in you own quarter with all that matrimony in one room, you’d of smelled it, too). But this time, honeymoon perfume took on a tangy edge. The more us smelled of us, the more we caught uprising whiffs off the heated metal binding us. Just now, the tribe’s wild flurry of feeling free caused a new mix: our scent and our bonds’. After
just twelve days in chains, us reconized the iron smell nearbout like we knowed our own. Us tried and name this deep stink of unfree. Something’d edged into every head with steel bent round the neck of that head.

A shaming quiet snared us in our chains. What if we someway deserved this? What if being royal caused us to be punished? Our language didn’t even hold no word for Sin. Closest one—maybe: “Fun” or “Necessary Hurt” or even “Too Much of a Good Thing.” But
Sin?
And yet, this sin idea? already it be working in us like undertow. A contagion so soon picked up off the bleachnesses above.

And where Reba been during such sad mess? She still embunched off yonder, wrapped in chains that she keep shifting over shoulders like some shawl that she done knit. Folks, slow, turn more Auntie’s way. We done tried all else already.

Ship’s upper deck had a few chink holes knockt betwixt planks. Sometimes one stray arrow of yellow day would fall and settle on our rocking under here. Sun—bobbed side to side by waterland’s false hills—Sun would find a brown hand flexing in its blue-iron hoop. Light might pick out a child’s cheek pressed gainst one dry breast and—for dear life—sucking Nothing. Just now the beam settled across one of Reba’s filmy eyes—brown/green/gray/amber/black—her pupil un-laxed wide, staring straight ahead like looking
at
something.

We can nearbout hear her map-plotting something. Such purr won’t like Reba’s usual jagged cut-yourself disposition. Back home, she been so quick to accuse you … and for next to nothing. Now, she keep so still, seem peaceful as somebody beautiful and kind stuck down on the far end. But how? How,
here?

Finally a sassy princess speak. Girl’s sharp clear voice coaxened Auntie, Why
didn’t
she care for our Put Home Together game? Reba finally grumble, We all been taking it from the wrong side, should be figuring where-all we headed, not feeling of each other, not trying to remember what we knowed already. Waste of time—recollecting a place probably not one of us would ever going to see no more. Hearing this, two girls commenced whimpering.

“Shut up,” Reba tells them but not not-kind. You could hear Aunt using all her spirit to mull on something way far off. Aunt’d already got past the appetite for petty messes that kept her so stirred up/mad back home.

“Us needs to recollect the
new
place. Us needs to remember the future.—That what a true King’d keep you busy with.”

The King heself, in a voice used to being listened at, axted right loud, How
does
you call back a spot you ain’t never seen once, hunh?

Reba giggle-coughed over this silliness, then give a marshy answering sigh, “Look, sir, we’d best get ready.”

Our tribe had right good drummers/storytellers, had even better drum and story
hearers
. So we noticed at this very second how Reba’s corner share of darkness now seem singed with something strange for Aunt back home, but truly odd for anybody clonked down here.

Happiness!

That right unusual since we talking a rake-bottom boat what stunk so bad of you not having no jungle to go use (a different willing spot each day) for personal toilet needs, we talking hands and feets and necks past feeling anything—irons what fit you like your total-turned tourniquets. We talking a slow leak someplace what let in salt water, not enough to sink the boat but plenty to wash over you, to baste you in leavings, to trick under them irons and sting you hurts way worse. We talking a place where roach bugs lived, bugs that our three semi-princess forced to race down the center plank. Bugs growed so big they sounded, when stomped on by a chained foot, like a walnut busting. We talking the fear of being in another storm and only hearing
sounds
of the storm.

“Know what done happen to us, folks?” Reba volunteer now. “Guess. Go on.” Ain’t like her, bothering to even axt what
you
thinks, but now? She say we got time. “Got nothing but,” Aunt say.

Her quextion make a target over chained heads. It hung up there in dark like a memory of moon. Drifting at Reba out of the pitch, ragtag answers come. “Our lives ain’t ours no more? Bleach-brains someway stole our souls?” Another party venture, “We all having one big dream, see? it from something bad we et. We bout to wake up, dog-sick but happy in home hammocks, right? Right.”

“Wrong.—
We been picked.”

Reba’s voice grind extra deep, layered. Her voice made all our warriors and ladies chained down here—ones that’d felt of one another earlier—tip closer, now hearing what they’d sought love-wise. Reba’s smoothened youngened voice now offered sufficient room so it’d hammock all desire. Nothing’d be too wild or strange for resting in there.
What
she’d got so ready for us, we couldn’t know. It hum. It drawed us.

Our language didn’t even have no word for “future.” Closest we got fell somewheres twixt “more of the same” or “Heaven Early” plus that handy jungle standby, “Too Much of a Good Thing.”

“They a pattern here.—You figure it by accident them sad beasts got windblown so far up river, up
our
river? Do it be a mistake that only just the King’s kinfolks be stuffed down here on this great tipping shell? Well, Reba, after considering a good bit, after trying and overlook you-all’s silly gabbling, Reba believe, No. Ain’t a bit of this by chance. Childrens, it have all been planned. I bout to tell you what gone happen next.”

US WAS
listening in metal, hearing big frisky fishes slam against the boards bowed under us, like fish saying, “We free, you ain’t.” We was floating in our own messes (nobody can tell you how
much
mess you makes per day till you gets forced to stay right with and in it, Lady Fair!). We won’t ready to
accept
nothing yet, but we felt willing—like always—to let Reba do first backbreaking thinking for us.

“All my life,” voice roll forth with right much energy, “my pet pleasure
(nigh onto my
only
one) been scheming and figuring the Hows and Whys of world mess. Your Reba’s fought to stay not nobody’s wife, nobody’s momma. That way she ain’t got to be running back home to check bout what’s true, what ain’t. The more heads you got adding onto this and hacking off of that, the less
so
a thing be. I kept myself aside and apart (and maybe even a wee bit above) the rest you folks. Still, I ain’t saying it done been without a cost.

“Not that I now looking no extra pity or nothing—because, mostly, it were worth it and a pleasure. But expecially on rainy bad nights with me hid off so far from out the village in my hut, me hating the damp like I do, well … let’s say it ain’t all been
pure
gift. I earnt what little seeing I done managed on my own. I got by on a few Whats at a time. That made me nearbout happy enough. Not quite (who ever is?), but close. Then the big Why done slipped up on me, done toted me off—raw reward—me, laughing all the way. Reba ain’t
never
had no fun that touches what she’s knowed since they done trapped us. This the ride home I been waiting for.”

Well, that drawed some right loud groans/grouching, you can bet.

“This time,” rolls the King, “you gone too far, dog-woman. If this be your idea of a fine time, you ain’t no fit blood of mine. And listen up, Miss Old, if you so smart, then why come you tied down here among the bugs with the rest of us, hunh?”

Reba just give a snort. Us heared her cross them bony scarred old arms (chains following). Aunt lets out a long huff that back cuts towards coughing. (It the damp.) First we figured she about to go off and hide inside sheself to tend the meaning of it there. Sassy princess (Reba’s favorite niece) begs, regretting a un-answer when we most needs telling. But soon Auntie’s chains start clinking. One by one, wound by wound, she begins testing her own signs. You hear her shifting. Medical fingers soon be finding every place she ever got scalded, bit, or stabbed. Long years
will
leave a history of marks on a person living wide open to this world of bruise. Soon we hear Auntie turning scars to she advantage, ouches pressed to being telling mouths.

“I believes Bleaches been sent to fetch back home a royal family whole. You all seen how pitiful them pale ones is. Why, they bodies missing so much. True, they do got a few dark spots on the shoulders, cross they spiky noses. But I calls that beginner’s luck. One them young ones have great egg-size blisters rising on he back and just from living in plain view of our holy sun. Don’t you reckon it bound to hurt? Why, just looking out through pinchy blue eyes must make the whole world throb like a palm-wine hangover. Fancy having a medcine tint locked in you eyeballs full-time, like stale water sealed rattling/crazy-making in you ear! Ain’t natural. But listen, ignorant though they is, they did have sense aplenty to come collect all
us
. Right? Wants us to go cross, be they guides, they medicine peoples, examples. To help teach them and other bleach-bodies how to do and be.

“Bleaches
gots
to hide us down under here. And why? My busted hip say (a ache-glinch drumming out the pulse) it to keep other white ones from
spying such prizes as been stole from out our land’s downriver. There’d be wars if other jealous Bleaches was to learn about us here.

“Someday, my snakebit left palm say by tingling like some third eye trying and rise up like a boil and look right out my bony wrist, this boat going to cease it wicked rocking. True. We gone quit smelling how they onetime hauled fish down in here. Finally our noses’ll tell us Land Again! Bleaches will toss open both them wide doors, gone sclump down, all sorry-acting. Yeah. I figures that, waiting on us up there—our honor guard and help—we gone find the selfsame holy sun. We the only ones knows how to use the sun proper. These un-colors, why them it mostly hurts. They dead to know why our women be so beautiful, our men so strong, how come our children act so smart and bold? They flat palpitating to understand. Poor things, gone needs a pile of help. I don’t likes to say they slow but I reckon that poor monkey up yonder would be better at sailing this thing. Sad part, how hard they try and look in charge. You notice? that’s what they seems to care about the most! Poor creatures so confused. That where us comes in. We gots to let them finally see the folly of this owning/grabbing mess. They figures that anything or anybody they likes (and has a boat big enough to tote away) be theirs.”

We all set here listening, Lady. We hear Miss Aunt’s chains clinking, ironbound hands prodding some ouch plowed deep into her left side: “My scar, bunchy far in, twining with a nerve wit all it own, say: Once us on they shores, we gone see other whitenesses bow down and smile. This proves they know what-all luck they had in finding us wizard ones come clear cross Tears to teach them right. Bleachnesses is bringing us to finish off they own missing gredients. They got a big tribe—be like a pot full of village food—I talking: mealy, pinky, blank.
They
knows it ain’t too tasty. They done zigzagged everywhere seeking spices/flavoring/hot stuff what’ll put some lively bite into they paste. We the dark and quickening herbals they sought.—Right now, blood kin, these chains do hurt, unh-uhnh, they smarts for old me, too, but the ones sailing up in daylight, they keeps dancing and singing cause they know how good they done by finding us. Oh, yes, they gone be rewarded mighty rich for turning
us
ones up. I mean, don’t we be famous? After all, childrens mine, ain’t we ‘The Tribe That Answers’?”

Everybody got pent all up so still. One person commenced crying in a ordered kind of gulp. Somebody that glad to finally know the reason for this pain we going through. A few bold aunts start axting Reba more, to clear things up. But right off we mostly blieved what Aunt just say. It help us to. Blieve.

Patient as anything, old Reba croak-spill answers. She never have acted more willing to prove she our blood own. Reba touch another tender underrib spot, “Say here, one reason them bird-beaks behave so lazy bout hurting us: so much hurts
them
. They figures the world’s
gots
to feel that bad. Won’t trust what fails to pain/bind/cut them some. Maybe they ashamed all the time, be why they hide theyselves in leg and arm hammocks? Might be part
of they religion, staying dammed all up with fears. Us got our healthy river gods, bird and fish and mud gods. (Like your King say, they probably just has sky ones.) They very eyes show it. Sky gods? Can’t nobody fly up to no sky. Be nothing to touch. No wonder they looks so miserable! Still, that why they sought us Answerers out, to show them how. They after some holy help.”

Somebody axted bout the food part. If us
was
such a find, why don’t they feed us proper? She say, “Bleaches soon gone prepare a long feast. They bout to let us up into the sun, they gone give us more real eatings than our whole hungry home tribe could down. I see this picture, starting like a spiderweb pult out my thumb joint and leading to the base part of my skull. We soon be sitting on thrones in a huge room. We all feel proudened on a high stage. I sees many Blanks come to study what it mean to be a person that ain’t ashame of knowing all bout color and the sun, facts of they own body. Spirit don’t dwell up in no cold sky but right much nearer, it right here bodily beating plain as the million drums them poor Blanks ain’t yet discovered.—We going to answer mist men with all us knows that’s solid, color. Just be our leading family duty to. They the un-world, the not-yets, pitiful spongy like shelled pink crayfish. Our best luck gone come this way: teaching through example. Secret is—they needs us and they leastways smart enough to know it.”