The Book of Lost Friends(3)

The man’s groan comes old and tired. “Can’t do nothin’. Can’t nobody do nothin’ ’bout it all. You just make it go hard on the child. You just make it go hard. Two gotta go today. In two dif’ernt lots. One at a time.”

“No.” Mama’s eyes close hard, then open again. She looks up at the man, coughs out words and tears and spit all together. “Tell my marse William Gossett—when he comes here seeking after us—at least give word of where we gone to. Name who carries us away and where they strikes off for. Old Marse Gossett’s gonna find us, take us to refugee in Texas, all us together.”

The man don’t answer, and Mama turns to Mary Angel, slips out a scrap of brown homespun cut from the hem of Aunt Jenny Angel’s heavy winter petticoat while we camped with the wagon. By their own hands, Mama and Aunt Jenny Angel made fifteen tiny poke sacks, hung with jute strings they stole out of the wagon.

Inside each bag went three blue glass beads off the string Grandmama always kept special. Them beads was her most precious thing, come all the way from Africa. That where my grandmama and grandpoppy’s cotched from. She’d tell that tale by the tallow candle on winter nights, all us gathered round her lap in that ring of light. Then she’d share about Africa, where our people been before here. Where they was queens and princes.

Blue mean all us walk in the true way. The fam’ly be loyal, each to the other, always and ever, she’d say, and then her eyes would gather at the corners and she’d take out that string of beads and let all us pass it in the circle, hold its weight in our hands. Feel a tiny piece of that far-off place…and the meanin’ of blue.

Three beads been made ready to go with my li’l cousin, now.

Mama holds tight to Mary Angel’s chin. “This a promise.” Mama tucks that pouch down Mary Angel’s dress and ties the strings round a skinny little baby neck that’s still too small for the head on it. “You hold it close by, li’l pea. If that’s the only thing you do, you keep it. This the sign of your people. We lay our eyes on each other again in this life, no matter how long it be from now, this how we, each of us, knows the other one. If long time pass, and you get up big, by the beads we still gonna know you. Listen at me. You hear Aunt Mittie, now?” She makes a motion with her hands. A needle and thread. Beads on a string. “We put this string back together someday, all us. In this world, God willing, or in the next.”

Li’l Mary Angel don’t nod nor blink nor speak. Used to, she’d chatter the ears off your head, but not no more. A big ol’ tear spills down her brown skin as the man carries her out the door, her arms and legs stiff as a carved wood doll’s.

Time jumps round then. Don’t know how, but I’m back at the wall, watching betwixt the logs while Mary Angel gets brung ’cross the yard. Her little brown shoes dangle in the air, same brogans all us got in our Christmas boxes just two month ago, special made right there on Goswood by Uncle Ira, who kept the tanner shop, and mended the harness, and sewed up all them new Christmas shoes.

I think of him and home while I watch Mary Angel’s little shoes up on the auction block. Cold wind snakes over her skinny legs when her dress gets pulled up and the man says she’s got good, straight knees. Mama just weeps. But somebody’s got to listen for who takes Mary Angel. Somebody’s got to add her to the chant.

So, I do.

Seems like just a minute goes by before a big hand circles my arm, and it’s me getting dragged ’cross the floor. My shoulder wrenches loose with a pop. The heels of my Christmas shoes furrow the dirt like plow blades.

“No! Mama! Help me!” My blood runs wild. I fight and scream, catch Mama’s arm, and she catches mine.

Don’t let go, my eyes tell hers. Of a sudden, I understand the big man’s words and how come they broke Mama down. Two gotta go today. In two dif’ernt lots. One at a time.

This is the day the worse happens. Last day for me and Mama. Two gets sold here and one goes on with Jep Loach, to get sold at the next place down the road. My stomach heaves and burns in my throat, but ain’t nothing there to retch up. I make water down my leg, and it fills up my shoe and soaks over to the dirt.

“Please! Please! Us two, together!” Mama begs.

The man kicks her hard, and our hands rip apart at the weave. Mama’s head hits the logs, and she crumples in the little dents from all them other feet, her face quiet like she’s gone asleep. A tiny brown poke dangles in her hand. Three blue beads roll loose in the dust.

“You give me any trouble, and I’ll shoot her dead where she lies.” The voice runs over me on spider legs. Ain’t the trader’s man that’s got me. It’s Jep Loach. I ain’t being carried to the block. I’m being took to the devil wagon. I’m the one he means to sell at the someplace farther on.

I tear loose, try to run back to Mama, but my knees go soft as wet grass. I topple and stretch my fingers toward the beads, toward my mother.

“Mama! Mama!” I scream and scream and scream….



* * *



—

It’s my own voice that wakes me from the dream of that terrible day, just like always. I hear the sound of the scream, feel the raw of it in my throat. I come to, fighting off Jep Loach’s big hands and crying out for the mother I ain’t laid eyes on in twelve years now, since I was a six-year-old child.