The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men (52 page)

Because she simple and touched. She be a big, tall girl, she got her daddy length, sure be. She work hard. Nobody else want to buy her with all the laughing, but it maybe ain’t too hard on Massa Green to keep her, cuz she do the work good enough.

Martha get to keep her daughter. And rest us slaves, maybe we get to keep Miss Missy’s laughter.

Even on the hottest days, the ones that kill a old-woman cotton picker where she be standing stooped over, even on these days, there be something about the laughter. It don’t make us spit. It give us the other kind of feeling.
A feeling we ain’t got no name for. But if we gonna call it something, maybe we call it joy. Though that ain’t the exact right word.

Come time, everybody like Miss Missy. Even the mamas that think she need a good slap. Even the overseer maybe, because he never use his whip to stop her laughing. Even though if there ever be anybody needing a whipping, it be Miss Missy needing a whipping, black as a cave at night, with a laugh so light and free. It felt like maybe you could float away on it. More than one slave be imagining riding that laugh into the sky, over the trees, across the big river, and then north, north till we cain’t see the plantation no more. North, north till we be free.

By time Miss Missy fifteen, the story come to be that the big Him God been take all the laugh supposed to be for us slaves and put it in simple Miss Missy, so we can be enjoying it without getting whipped for it.

“God be good,” one of the old slaves say to me when I tell her this story we done made up. “Oh yes, God be good.”

Saul be new on the plantation. Massa been traded him from a neighbor plantation that be needing a blacksmith for they horses. Our old blacksmith got sons that can be doing the blacksmithin’ at our place, and Massa say he be low on young bucks, so he make the trade. The blacksmith’s woman ain’t happy about it. His sons ain’t neither. Maybe they been thinking they daddy might get to die where he been learnt his trade.

But that ain’t the case. One morning the blacksmith get took away in chains. And by the nighttime, there be Saul, tall, hard of body, teeth gleaming in the moonlight.

Maybe he ain’t that smart either. Maybe Jesus done touched him, too, like Miss Missy. None us know what from what. But the main story be that he take one look at Miss Missy, and you can see him nose open up.

He be walking across that cotton field, like the overseer hadn’t bint already told him where to pick and he be asking a woman in the row next to Miss Missy if they mightn’t trade places.

Before any us can warn him Miss Missy ain’t quite right in the head, he be introducing hisself, like they at a white folks’ dance, telling her his name be Saul and she sho be a pretty sight on such a hot, miserable day.

Pretty, he call her.

She look up at him with her rag wrapped round her head and sweat pouring down her face and she fall in love with him right back.

We can hear her laughing clear cross the field when she introduce herself as Miss Missy.

He say that sho is a special name.

And she agree it sho is.

She be fifteen. He reckon he be maybe twenty or there about.

And before we can tell them that slaves ain’t know no romantic, Saul and Miss Missy be together. Always in the rows next to each other in the field. Always walking with they heads together in the nighttime. Always eating off the same metal plate when it come time to take supper.

They talk and they laugh and they ain’t be like no slaves suppose to be. The overseer got his lips stretched real thin and he be making them work on opposite sides of the field. Tell Miss Missy to “Shut up, wench” when she try to call over to Saul on the other side of the cotton.

She look at that overseer, eyes just as merry, and she shut her lips tight. But she still be smiling.

And that night, she move out her mama’s shack and go sleep near the fields on a stretch of grass. Nobody seen Saul and her talking that day, but they musta been, cuz Saul be moving out the men’s quarters and he be joining her on her little pallet near the fields. And they don’t be paying no mind to the grass that be damp and the mosquitas that be coming after them. They ain’t thinking about how when the summer stop, the air going to be turning cold.

It be warm right now. And they be together. And everybody can hear Miss Missy laughing in the middle of the night. It be like a storybook, them two. The other slaves be telling and retelling the story to each other.
They reckon Miss Missy gonna become big with baby any day now, and Massa gone be sell it, cuz he got enough slaves, but he ain’t ever got enough gold.

A few of the slaves wonder loud if Miss Missy still be laughing after her blood been sold off like the rest of us blood done been sold off. But a few of us be hoping quiet that nothing bad happen to those two with the moon in they eyes …

Saul and Miss Missy. A dreamer maybe call them real romantic except for two things. The first thing be they slaves. The second thing be the Massa’s son, who come back to the plantation some years after he bint sent away to boarding school up north.

The cost of buying a slave be rising every year, and that den created a new money pot for Massa Green. He start looking hard at the domestic flesh market. He ain’t much for running a plantation no-how. His daddy was, but he ain’t inherited none of that. So he leave dem fields to the overseer, and set about the business of breeding the slaves he done already got. He take dem big man slaves, and put them on top of the young girls. Sometime one man be put on top of three or four young girls a night. It get to be a system with the girls getting chose by who was how old and who was good about her monthlies.

But Massa didn’t want too many heifers pregnant, because a woman pick cotton and tobacco faster without a baby in her belly. And it just so happen that when Saul and Miss Missy got to romancin’, they was enough girls pregnant and they don’t got to worry about getting selected for another season or two.

Saul and Miss Missy fall in love during the planting season. Then Saul and Miss Missy jump the broom come Christmastime, when slaves in every corner of the country get the whole day off. Miss Missy wear thistles in her hair, and a very old dress that the Mistress gave to a yellow house slave name Rachel to tear into rags. But Rachel done give it to Martha to be
thanking her for delivering her a alive baby boy, whose daddy be the Massa. Rachel baby be so white, he and the Massa’s real son—the one that be inheriting the plantation next—look like full-blood.

But they ain’t that. The real son get sent to boarding school in the north when he be twelve. And the Slave Son get sent to the stables to help with the horses when he be twelve.

That winter and spring come and go, and Miss Missy’s stomach stay flat, even though Martha been moved in with another old woman slave and been give Saul and Miss Missy her cabin to be making a baby in. We be hearing Miss Missy giggling in the night when Saul lay on top of her. We hear her every night laughing, but no baby.

And maybe one dem field slaves meet a house slave at the well, and they get to talking. And that house slave tell the Massa. Or maybe a overseer just take note, but Saul ain’t one of the young bucks get chosen to breed that next summer. And Miss Missy ain’t given over to breed.

Not having babies ain’t tragic when you know they fixed to get sold, so maybe Miss Missy ain’t too broke up about it. And maybe she keep on going like that for awhiles, laughing in the fields and giggling in the night.

But Grady, the slave that they be sending to the train station to pick up the Young Massa, saw it happen from beginning to end.

Grady say he fair don’t recognize the real son when he go to get him. All pale skin and red hair and thin like a string, so you know he ain’t been nowhere near a hard day’s work in the important years.

“Young Massa Green?” Grady say. He ain’t believing this pale man could be no kind of kin to our Massa, who got a belly big as a ripe watermelon.

“Yes,” the man be saying back, according to Grady. Then he be pointing at his valise and get in the cart without saying another word.

Young Massa got them northern airs but good, he don’t be saying a second word to Grady until they be pulling into the plantation, and the Young Massa point and say, “Who is that girl there?”

Grady look. It be Miss Missy running, skipping, and cartwheeling her way from the cotton field to the tobacco field. The cotton field overseer been got sick of watching Miss Missy and Saul flirt day in and day out, so he been sent Saul over to the tobacco fields. By the time Young Massa come along, slave folk been got used to Miss Missy running from the cotton field to the tobacco field at the end of a working day. ’Cording to the tobacco field slaves, once she been got over there, she be on Saul like they ain’t seen each other in a score or two. Throwing herself in his arms, sometimes knocking him over if he ain’t seen her coming. That girl know she can step up her acting a fool when it come to her man, Saul.

“That be Miss Missy,” Grady say. He ain’t one of them slaves that get all happy inside just cuz Miss Missy and Saul done got together sweet like they was. But maybe he ain’t as grouchy as he supposed to be either, cuz just in case the Young Massa be offended by her happiness, he say, “She simple. And touched.”

The Young Massa nod. Grady tell us he be looking down his pointy nose as Miss Missy do one cartwheel after another. Six in a row by Grady’s count.

“Real simple,” Grady say. “Real touched.”

The Young Massa don’t say nothing else, and Grady be thinking that the end of it, but two days later the news come down on a Sunday after church.

They be sending the Slave Son to tell Miss Missy the news.

“You going to be working in the Big House starting tomorrow,” he say.

The Slave Son pretty of face and hard of body. But you cain’t notice either because he keep his face right angry. You can tell from the get he going to be one of dem forever bitter’bout him ain’t being darkie enough to be a true slave and him ain’t being white enough to be a true free. He tell Miss Missy the news like she done something wrong.

Miss Missy just laugh. She look up at Saul, who standing behind her in the door. “You hear that? I’s going to have to run all the way from the Big House to the fields from now on when I’m through with work.”

Another girl slave, Sarah May, happen to be passing by and when she see the Slave Son at Miss Missy’s and Saul’s door, she hide behind a nearby tree and eavesdrop, because as any white massa will tell you, eavesdropping be in the slave blood.

She tell us after that the Slave Son, who name be Jacob, but none us call him that, so the Slave Son ’cording to Sarah, he smile mean when he let Miss Missy know, “House slaves sleep in the house. Plus, the Young Massa ask for you specifically.”

“Specifically.” Miss Missy be confused. Her smile still on, but it be wobbling ’cording to Sarah May. Miss Missy look up at Saul again. “What ‘specifically’ mean?”

Saul, the happiest slave man any of us ever done had the grace to know, become the unhappiest one right before Sarah May’s eyes. And before anybody can figure what he fixing to do, he step past Miss Missy and punch the Slave Son right between the eyes.

Saul be getting ten lashes for that. And by the time they be cutting him down from the whipping tree, Miss Missy be in the Big House on a pallet in the basement with the other house slaves, most of who be the unclaimed daughters of the Massa or one of the overseers. They don’t talk about they daddies to each other or Miss Missy. They just be telling Miss Missy where everything be in the kitchen and let her know that she gone to be scrubbing all the Big House floors from now on.

Miss Missy sing a little song while she set to scrubbing them floors. Her singing ain’t as pretty as her laugh, though. About halfway through the day another house slave kick over the bucket, maybe on purpose, maybe because she don’t understand why Miss Missy, dark as night, no white in her, be in the place where only the most favorite slaves get to work. Or maybe she just don’t understand why Miss Missy got any reason to be singing so happy. But if she think Miss Missy’s singing be bad, you probably could have been knocked her over with a feather when Miss Missy laugh and say, “Time to get more water.” And then she be skipping with the empty
bucket through the house and out to the pump and smiling at the cold water tumbling into the bucket. “Hi, Water,” she be saying with another laugh. “You sho is pretty on a hot day.”

She say that to the water, just like she remember Saul saying it to her the first time they two meet.

Maybe Miss Missy got a plan that first day. Maybe she done already figure out how to see Saul on Sundays after church or during the dinner hour. But we ain’t never gonna know, because when the work be done that day, just when Miss Missy be putting the rag back in the bucket, the house slave that done kick it over before, come to her with a crystal glass of whiskey.

“Young Massa take a whiskey in he bath. Myra already done heated the water for you. But she ain’t going to do it again, so tomorrow night, that be your job.”

The house slave shove the glass of whiskey into Miss Missy’s soapy hands and walk out. I only know this because one the other house slaves tell me the whole story. She say she be the one that Miss Missy come up to after the kicking-bucket house slave walk away. She say Miss Missy say to her, “I’m supposed to take this whiskey to Young Massa, but I don’t reckon where his room be.”

Then she say Miss Missy laugh, like this be the funniest situation a slave girl ever be getting herself into.

I stand here ashamed, cuz I be one dem that sometime got to making fun of Miss Missy, cuz all she do is laugh and because she don’t have the sense God gave a donkey to take serious what you suppose to be taking serious.

But that be before she stop laughing. Three hours after she take that whiskey up to Young Massa, she come out his room and she ain’t laughing no more.

After a week of whiskey, she ain’t even smiling. Three weeks, and she go’on right on ahead and stop talking unless spoken to.

Innocent men done been hung on our plantation. Our girls be getting tied up to a bed, with a man they don’t want put on top of them. Children be getting took out they mama’s arms and sold to the highest bidder. But the end of Miss Missy’s laughter bring out us crazy. The womenfolk walk around sadder and they be screaming at the menfolk for the littlest things. The mens be getting in more fights over nothing. One slave get stabbed by another slave, we still don’t know why. Somebody say it might have been over a blanket. One of them said the other one done stole it, then the words, then the knife, then the death two weeks later from infection, then the whipping of the one that done did the stabbing.