The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (40 page)

I tell them mi visions. I tell about African warrior, going to battle in the skins ah leopards that he slew with only a knife and a brave heart. I tell them that as Africans we have the strength ah the lion, speed ah the leopard, the grace ah the panther, the power ah the rhinoceros. But mi people them forget the spirits ah these beasts, and the whiteman have guns. I tell them that Africans was walking the earth long long before the whitemen, and that it had great cities in Africa, like Ile Ife and Oyo and Benin and Yagba and Egypt, when the whiteman was still crawling naked in the grass. But they doan believe me, and I cant tell them how I know these things. Some a them even say that all men were once white, but Negroes were burned when God got vex with a whiteman named Ham. And I despair for mi people.

I cant tell them mi dreams. I cant tell them about the voices that speak so loud inside me. I see some ah the faces inside me: the man with flowing yellow hair and eyes like cold sea water; the woman with dark eyes and pale skin and painted smile; the girl with flirtatious eyes and styled hair and coquette's tilt ah the head. I can feel how dey bodies was different in shape and gesture when they was alive. I can feel how they felt, and still feel. They not truly dead. I know they not dead, because the strongest feeling is dey desire to control me, to become me. And that is mi hardest, most constant struggle. The whiteman already controls mi people: I shall not let him control mi spirit! The conquistador, who hate all people who skin not white; the white whore, who betray the Negro who take care a she when she was a baby and then buy slaves sheself with money she get from whoring; and the planter daughter, white like milk self, who let she own sister get whip to death to hide the fact that she half-nigger sheself.

He who want to conquer others have to first conquer heself. I conquer myself. He who leading others must win dey loyalty. I is only one, and I need allies. Always I have enjoyed sexing with mi beautiful African men. I love dey chest muscles, specially when it cover with small kinky hair. I love dey flat brick bellies. I love dey lips kissing mi lips, tongue like snake in mi mouth. And I love dey hard cocks slipping smooth smooth into mi wet hole when we make love in the grass under the hot sun or on the dirt floor in a dark shack.

But I know that sex cant command a man loyalty, especially when the men who loyalty worth commanding could get sex easy easy from plenty women. When woman cunt entered, man contented. But the ghost Sarah show me that it have more to sex than fucking. Any woman could lie back and spread she leg. She doan even have to really like it – the man go never know. But dey does know, you know, even when they doan know they know. But me, I love it! The whiteman take way everything else that does make people people. We doan have marriage – how you could have marriage without parents to gi permission, without nice ceremony with plenty food, without even a oje who looking like you? We cant mind we children – how you could mind children when you have to work in the field whole day, when if is a beautiful girl some whiteman go pluck she as soon as she ripe, when if is a strong boy the whiteman go break im or sell im or kill im? We doh even make real friend with one another – how you could have a real friend when im cant help you, when you doan speak im language, when getting a lil more must always mean taking way from somebody else? But in sexing we know each other, body and soul. The whiteman cant take away that. Ha! Im does want it so much heself im does even fuck with the same black people im say so ugly and savage. But mi African queens does only sex with the whiteman to get a lil advantage. When she sex with she strong black man is to know she a real woman and to tell the man im a real man. Every man who sleep with me know that. They like what I do, they does hear the true true breaths when the pleasure rush like a sea wave over me, over and over. Them is mi asafo, mi warriors. Every one always come back for more, because this spring does never run dry. True, the spring also bring forth no seed. But even if I could have chirrun, I mighta kill them inside me. I doan want to bring no chile into this world to be a slave. Better to never born. Worse yet, to bring a chile into the world who wouldn fight for freedom. Better to kill such a chile. So I doan mind being barren, for I have too much work to do to mind a chile. And mi warriors doan mind: dem could have chirrun with other women. Is because they never see me for too long that they doan forget me.

But the man who was most loyal to me was a man who never sex with me. Johnny. Strong and smart, willing to die for me. When, after a
adae
, I bring im into mi tent and let mi dress drop, im fall on im knees before me. Im say I is a goddess and im happy just to worship me. That was in Jamaica. Im was below tall, with a cocoa-brown complexion and laughing eyes. Even the planters did trust im, and I suppose that is why im was able to get away for so long. Johnny risk plenty, and when I leave the island I know he there keeping mi people aware until I come back. Im had plenty plenty skills – thatcher, wheelwright, boilerman. So the master was always lending im out to other planters. Johnny was a Ashanti, from a runway slave village, Me-No-Sen-You-No-Com, in the Cockpit Country. Im left there after im come to mi meeting. Im never keep im extra money for imself. Im get weapons, even some muskets, and went around telling slaves where to run if they decide to run, how to sabotage the mill or the boiler so the overseer wouldn know. Johnny was mi right hand, but after a uprising on three plantations, somebody tell the planters bout im and the soldiers track im down and kill im. I woulda prefer to lose mi real right hand, and not have it grow back. But it have too much grief round me for me to grieve. And I didn have to grieve for Johnny. Im dead fighting for the freedom ah im people and imself. I know that he go be a honoured
egungun
in Orun.

I know, too, that some nigger woulda also betray me. So I does never stay in one island too long. I have to do mi work everywhere. I hide in ships sailing between the islands. Sometimes the sailors find me and fling me overboard. Then I is be a fish again. My arms and legs doan get tired. Sometimes it have sharks, but Yemoja does protect me. Most times, though, I does hide good, or I does pretend to be a man slave who get sell from one island plantation to the next. So I does reach land, and once again I is only a Negro. But I is not a Negro, I is African. And I have to tell all mi people that they not Negro, they African.

Years pass and I doan age a day. Mi ancestors did know that time doan really pass. How time could pass when the world does last forever and when everyone does become a ancestor in time? This passing time is a whiteman invention. Im even have a metal egg to make it pass. Tick-tick tick-tick tick-tick. Is like the small beat of a cold heart. The whiteman does hear this heartbeat of a egg that go never hatch, that does only mark time tick-ticking away. So im think time does run out, because time is sand in a glass, so im does try to fill im belly now for now. But im belly will burst, time will gobble im up, and the African go once again be free! It must be so, because all the whiteman does do is destroy. Im doan create nothing, im doan live with the Mother Earth. Im only want to rape she, the mother who did bring im forth. Monster! Im inventions enslave mi people, im guns and ships and cloth and bells and clear glass, but is im inventions that go kill im. That is why I know that black man day coming soon soon.

That is why we does laugh and sing in we slavery. The whiteman cant understand that. So he say is because we like children, we cant understand we condition. Ha! Black man was old when the white man tremble in cave hiding from Shango storms. I remember the great city of Ile Ife, where Odudawa created dry land from water and the first men walked out of the sea. Black people know more in we bones than whiteman could ever know in im head. Im inventions just give im false knowledge. You think im could laugh if im was slave like we? Just having we as slave show how stupid whiteman is. Planter does pay overseer and book-keeper and trader and all other whitemen. If them whitemen doan do dey work good, dey doan get pay, if they doan get pay they doan eat. But slave have to get feed whether he work good or not. True, if he doan work hard he might get lashes. But slave is property and whiteman hate to damage he property too much. So slave working in the fields, look like working hard, massa, chopping fast, carrying heavy heavy load. But every slave expert in looking like they doing plenty but doing the least they could. Not one plantation on one island does produce what it should – I say so! That is why I know that black man day coming soon soon.

So you does hear the planter complain about lazy niggers. What he expect? People does work hard if they getting enough in return. People doan work hard just to avoid lash. But the planter doan think we's people; im think we's beast. Im wouldn pay im donkey, so im wouldn pay we. But that is only part a it. The whiteman is a devil, but im is a smart devil. Some of them, the people in England who make all them clocks and big ship and guns and stone castle and so on, them must be smart enough to know that making the African people slaves, having to feed and clothe we, doan make sense. Even some a the planters here, who know the plantation business inside out, must realize it. That is why I know that black man day coming soon soon.

But they still prefer to have we as slave. Why? Is not because the whiteman only like gold, although is that too. But it seem to me that the whitepeople just like having slaves. They greedy for gold and the fine fine things that gold does buy, but they more greedy for power. They like to feel they have power over other human, even if that mean they have less money for theyself. The whiteman like having one set a woman to fuck, even if they's African women –
especially
if they's African women, with we round round backsides for a man to squeeze, lips that a man could kiss forever, cunts that could squeeze a man's hard cock so hard that im scream for joy. The whitewoman like having slaves to serve she every whim, strong African men bowing before she, beautiful African women combing out she straight dead hair. But, most of all, I think whitepeople like knowing they have power a life and death over other human. They like knowing they could kill we any time they want, and having we know that they could do that. Love for things doan matter to them as much as that feeling a power. Because, more than anything else, the whitepeople want to feel like gods. They need to feel so because, in dey heart of hearts, they doan believe in dey own God. That is why I know that black man day coming soon soon.

The whiteman is the devil self. I know that from inside me. I know the pleasure the conquistador did take in torturing and murdering the Indians. I know the ambition of the slave captain who only see cargo when he packing Africans into im ship. I know the feather brain of the planter daughter. So, even though I African, I know the whiteman evil like evil self. I know, too, that evil could never prevail, because evil does only destroy. When it destroy everything around it, all evil have left to destroy is itself. But you cant have a world with nothing, and that is why good will always win over evil. That is why I know that black man day coming soon soon.

Even if I didn know the whiteman nature from the ghosts in me, mi own eyes woulda tell me the same thing. I see whitemen cuff down slaves just for watching them too hard. I see them shoot slaves for answering back; I see them punish slaves by shitting in dey mouth and putting on gag for hours; I see them put women in the stocks with honey smeared on dey cunts to bring biting flies; I see them cut off ear, nose, tongue, foot, hand, even penis; I see them shuk killer dogs on running slaves and watch laughing while the slave get bite nearly to death; and plenty times I see them tie slaves to the whipping post and beat them till they dead.

But the whiteman rage doan stop when the slave dead. Plenty time I pass through islands where it had revolts, and I see slaves' heads stuck on poles by the roadside, I see dey bodies hanging like butchers' wares in middle of the town square, while white chirrun pass and pelt stones at them.

But that is how I know that the whitepeople know, in dey heart of cold hearts, that Negroes human just like them. They wouldn do all them things if they didn feel we was human. Because whitepeople doan even treat dey dog or cat or bison the way they does treat niggers. And, because we human, is either we get free or they kill all a we. That is why I know that black man day coming soon soon!

We go dead before we remain slaves, I tell mi people. The Taino ghost inside me agonize at mi resolve. But im weak. I know all im people dead, and I could feel im grieving inside me. But I see too much grief too grieve. And im people wasn Africans, wasn warriors. When I done, all Negroes will be
asafo
. Is better to die like a man than live like a slave. Them niggers who buy dey freedom, them not free. Them just have a piece a paper saying they free. But they more slave than the lowest field slave, because they sell dey soul to get freedom. They work the whiteman work, instead a fighting. They souls trap here now, they not African no more. Better we dead than suffer that fate! At least then we soul go be free, flying back to the African homeland. If we din eat salt in this land, we coulda put two corn cob in we armpit and fly back just so. But we eat salt and now we bodies too heavy. But if I coulda dead, I woulda fly back aready. Cut mi throat so mi spirit could fly back home to mi ancestors! But for any great gift it always have a price. Orun close up to me till Ogun silver spike open the lock. I cant dead, so all I could do is teach mi people that they always have that choice that I doan have. When a people have nothing to lose, you cant resist them. They must triumph. That is why I know that black man day coming soon soon!

I could see it. I see it with mi Orun eye, I see it with mi Aye eye. A restlessness everywhere I go, every island, every plantation. A glint in mi people's gaze, a set to dey mouth. I see it in the whitemen's faces, the nervousness in dey darting eyes, how dey hands never far from dey guns, and the licking a dey thin thin lips. They always sweating now.
Cawn't take this damned heat
, they say. But we black skins doan mind heat. And it getting hotter. I feel it in mi bones, and I see it in mi bones. I cast them and I tell mi people, ‘Black man day coming soon!' And they doan turn dey head, they watch me and grin, a hard grin that have no laugh, a smile like a skull who know what im know.