Ring Shout(14)

I don’t make promises. But I plan to let him know just how much I missed him. He barely gets the door closed before I’m pulling off his vest, his shirt, trying not to break a button. Don’t recall how I end up on top the tiger oak tallboy, pressed against the mirror, marigold dress pushed to my waist. He unbuttoning his pants when I stop him.

“Been a long two weeks and a hell of a day. I need you to do that thing.”

He runs a precious tongue on his teeth. “You doh even have to ask.”

When he makes to bend down, I stop him again. “And talk that creole talk.”

That pretty smile again. “Wi. Chansè pou mwen, mwen enmen manjè èpi mwen enmen palè. Kitè mwen di’w on sigwè…”

I got no idea what he saying, but it make every bit of me tingle. I will my mind to go easy, listening to the music downstairs, whispering his name and telling him how bad I need this. When his lips start up that creole talk between my thighs, I arch my back and do my own set of singing.



* * *



I know I’m dreaming. Because I’m wearing fighting clothes—shirt, knickers, gaiters, and Oxfords. And standing in my old house. It’s always night here. All night forever. The house is a cabin outside Memphis. Year after the Civil War, white folk in Memphis went wild, lynching any colored man in blue for a soldier, burning colored houses and schools. My great-granddaddy escaped by leaving his Union uniform behind. Built a house way out here, fleeing that terror and white folks’ madness.

It just like I left it, seven years back, looking like a whirlwind passed through. Ain’t but one room, and I step over furniture and broken pots, kneeling down to lay my ear to the floor. Breathing comes, fast and deep. I trace fingers along the floorboards to catch fine grooves, lifting the almost unseen hatch.

The girl staring up at me got my eyes, though be a while before she grows into them. She shaking so hard under her nightshirt I can hear her teeth chattering, and the fear rolling off her stank enough I can taste its bitter. I push it back, studying her rounded lips, how the edges of her nose flares, the fat round her cheeks, and the way her plaited hair blends into the black of the small space. Like looking into a mirror of yesterdays.

“Not enough you bothering me when I gotta fight, now you in my dreams too?”

She just whimpers. I grit my teeth, disgusted.

“You ain’t got to be scared. You got that sword.”

Her little knuckles tighten around the silver hilt at her side. But she don’t even try to lift it. That makes me madder still.

“Get on up outta here! You too grown for all this!”

A squeak escapes her lips and she stammers. “What if they come back?”

“They not coming back!” I’m shouting now. “You just gon’ sit here! Getting filthy! You coulda done something with that sword! You coulda tried to stop them! Damn you, why won’t you get out of here! Why don’t you leave me alone!”

Something in her face changes, chasing the fright away, and her voice goes smooth as water.

“Same reason you won’t go into the barn out back. We know what scare us. Don’t we, Maryse?”

I suck in breath, and some of her fear slides down my throat.

She looks herself over. “Why you always imagine me as a girl? We wasn’t so. You thinking this put more distance between us?”

“What do you want?” I plead.

“To tell you they watching. They like the places where we hurt. They use it against us.”

They? “Who you talking about?”

The fear reappears like a mask, and her voice drops to a whisper. “They coming!”

In a blink, the world is swallowed in blackness. I panic, thinking I’m back in the hideaway place under the floors, raw fright threatening to take hold. But no, this not my house. I turn in a circle, searching that impenetrable darkness, when something catches my ear. Is that singing?

A faint light appears ahead I know wasn’t there before. But it’s where the noise is coming from. I walk toward it and as I do, the light takes shape into something. Or someone. A man. I can see him from the back—wide and broad like a motor truck, with a melon for a head topped in red hair. He wearing a white shirt and black pants held up by suspenders, with something tied about him I think is an apron. Can’t make out what he’s doing, but he’s bent over, swinging one arm, and each time it come down there’s a wet THUNK! Then a little squeal! He the one singing—or trying to. Making the most godawful racket, all off pitch and off beat. Take me a while to recognize the words.

“And when she roll that jelly!”

He chuckles. THUNK! Squeal!

“We like that one,” he says in a deep Georgia drawl. “But don’t understand.” THUNK! Squeal! “What does she roll like jelly? Is it made of real jelly? Sticky and sweet?” THUNK! Squeal! “Here, we know another one.” He clears his throat and starts to caterwauling:

Oh, the grand old Duke of York,

He had ten thousand men!

He marched them up to the top of the hill,

And he marched them down again.

And when they’re up, they’re up,

And when they’re down, they’re down.

And when they’re only halfway up,

They’re neither up nor down!

He chuckles again, and I catch a whiff of something rancid.