The Book of Lost Friends(55)

The woman twirls a piece of feather grass at him, tickles his ear when he’s dancing by. He laughs hard.

“D-don’t come no closer!” I holler out. My voice is weak and won’t carry far, but they stop sudden, look my way. The boy drops his flowers. The woman snakes an arm out and, quick, tucks him behind her.

“Who you be?” She stretches to get a better look at me.

“We got fever!” I yell across. “Keep away. We got sickness.”

Woman backs up a little, pushes the boy with her. He hangs on to her skirt, peeks from it. “Who you be?” she asks again. “How you come in dat place? I don’ know who you is.”

“We travelin’,” I answer. “Been struck with fever, all us. Don’t come no closer. Don’t nobody come here, catch the sickness.”

“How many you is?” She lifts her apron, wads it over her mouth.

“Three. Other two’s worse off.” It ain’t a lie, but I sink against the post to look weaker. “Need help. Need food. Got money to give. You carryin’ mercy in your soul today, sister? We travelers, come in need a’ mercy.”





CHAPTER 14


BENNY SILVA—AUGUSTINE, LOUISIANA, 1987

“See,” LaJuna says as she pushes aside stacks of National Geographic magazines. She lays an Encyclopaedia Britannica on the billiard table, then flips up the cover, which has no pages or binding attached. It’s been used to house—or hide—a package wrapped in a worn scrap of wallpaper, gold-and-white flocked at some time in the past, but the remaining stripes are more of a glue stain than anything else. Jute string holds the whole thing together.

“Miss Robin didn’t even know about these, I don’t think.” LaJuna taps a finger to the bundle. “One time when I came in here—that was toward the end part, when the judge had good days and bad days with his mind—he says to me, ‘LaJuna, climb on up there to that top shelf for me. I need something, but somebody took the ladder.’ Now, that ladder’d been gone since the track broke, so I knew the judge wasn’t having a good day with his mind. Anyhow, I did like he wanted, and he showed me what’s in here. Then he looked at me and said, ‘I shouldn’t have let you see that. There’s nothing good to come of it and no way I can set it right. I want you to put this back where it was. We won’t touch it again unless I decide to burn it, which I quite likely should. Don’t ever tell anybody it’s here. If you do that for me, LaJuna, you can come take any other book anytime and keep it to read, as long as you like.’ Then he had me get him one of the encyclopedias, and he cut the encyclopedia cover right off the pages and wrapped it around this whole thing, and then we put it away.”

LaJuna picks at the knotted jute with chipped-up candy apple red fingernails, but the twine is stiff and tightly tied. “See if there’s some scissors in that top drawer. Judge always kept a pair in there.”

A pang of conscience forces me to hesitate. Whatever is inside that bundle must have been very private. It’s none of my business. None. Period.

“Never mind.” LaJuna’s fingernails do the trick. “I got it.”

“I don’t think you should. If the judge didn’t…”

But she’s already laying open the wallpaper wrapping. Inside, there are two books, which she places side by side. Both leather bound, one black, one red. One thin, one thick. The black one is easy enough to recognize. It’s a family Bible, the old-fashioned kind, large and heavy. The red leather book is much thinner and bound along the top like a notepad. Faded gold letters on the cover read

Goswood Grove Plantation

William P. Gossett

Items of Significant Record



“Now that little skinny book…” LaJuna’s still talking. “That’s stuff they bought and sold. Sugar, molasses, cotton seed, plows, a piano, land, lumber, horses and mules, dresses and dishes…all kinds of stuff. And, sometimes, people.”

My mind goes numb. It can’t quite register what I’m looking at, what this is. “LaJuna, it’s not…we shouldn’t…The judge was right. You need to put this back where it was.”

“It’s history, isn’t it?” She’s as casual as if we were talking about what year the Liberty Bell was cast or when the Magna Carta was written. “You’re always telling us that books and stories matter.”

“Of course, but…” Something so old should be handled with only freshly washed hands or white cotton gloves, for one thing. But if I’m honest with myself, I know it’s not the archival concerns that bother me; it’s the contents.

“Well, these are stories.” She skims a fingernail along the edge of the Bible and opens it before I can stop her.

The Family Record pages at the front of the Bible, perhaps a dozen or more, are filled with the artful script of old dip pens like the ones I’ve collected for years. Names occupy the left column: Letty, Tati, Azek, Boney, Jason, Mars, John, Percy, Jenny, Clem, Azelle, Louisa, Mary, Caroline, Ollie, Mittie, Hardy…Epheme, Hannie…Ike…Rose…

The remaining columns list birthdates, death dates for some, and odd notations, D, L, F, S, plus numbers. Names are sometimes listed with dollar amounts beside them.

LaJuna’s half-red fingernail hovers over one, not quite touching it. “See, this is all about the slaves. When they were born, and when they died and what number grave they were buried in. If they ran away or got lost in the war, they got an L beside their name and the date. If they got freed after the war, they got an F, and 1865, and if they stayed on the place to be sharecroppers, they got an S / 1865.” Her hands flip palms up, as matter-of-factly as if we’re discussing the school lunch menu. “After that, I guess people kept their own notes.”