The Prophets(100)

They were of raggedy dress (his anger was fueled by the similarity of their attire and his) and little intelligence. They lived on top of one another, packed into dwellings by their own will as much as Paul’s. They were belligerent and smelled of a toil that couldn’t be washed away. They ate refuse and their skin bore the curse of wild. It was easier to think of them as animals, not so different from cows and horses, apes of great mimicry that managed to speak the language of humans. That they could sometimes inspire erections was no ill reflection on the bearer of such hardness. The fact of the matter was that they could pass for human and, therefore, trick the loins, if not always the mind.

After a long while, Zeke returned to the fold. “Everything looks all right. Niggers accounted for,” he said.

“All right, then. You three can wait for the next shift and then go,” James said.

“Oh. You might wanna go see ’bout Miss Ruth,” Zeke said. “She out there. Wandering for no good reason.”

James scratched his chin.

“What she doing out there?”

Zeke shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, where is she?”

“Over by the river, just past the barn.”

James shook his head. “Goddamnit. Keep watch. I’ll see to Ruth.”

She was the one woman on the entire plantation worth her salt and that would make things difficult. Her pale skin, red hair, and tight bosom hurt his feelings so deeply that masturbation only picked at the wound. She did nothing to hide her offense, not even the decency of a shawl on cool evenings in autumn.

He remembered how it was back then. It was a year of debilitating heat that emanated from everywhere, of him crossing his legs or squatting to contain it or keep it away. He pulled his hat down low over his eyes whenever Ruth would pass. He stuffed his face with any food that was near so as to occupy his tongue. He was barely able to resist smearing manure under his nose to prevent the smell of verbena from reaching him. He thought he would collapse from longing if he didn’t do something.

One sticky twilight, a nigger was bathing down by the edge of the swamp when she should have been in the kitchen. She stood in the path of the setting sun as it reflected off the water’s skin and caused a bright beam of light to obscure her body. She thus appeared not-nigger, was revealed as a figure he was able to hold in his mind until the deed was done. In that crimson light, her nigger tangles became golden locks, her black face, a coy blush—just like the women back home in Merry Old.

And she proved just as feisty. She bit him. She scratched his neck, leaving a mark that was still raised there. For that, he punched her timid face repeatedly until the blood ran down her mouth and covered the lower part of her face like a veil.

When he pushed himself inside of her—when he pumped and twisted and jabbed, bringing to already scarred spaces new contusions—he discovered that what he heard about these wenches wasn’t true after all: there were no teeth on the inside of their cunts, no hooks that would hold the cock inside, bleeding it dry while the man hooted and howled in pain. He didn’t feel his soul being sucked from him. No, sir. It was just as smooth and proper as all the prim white pussies that escaped England just like he did.

But she was spirited, and not even his massive slugs to her top lip or to the edge of her chin could stop her stark raving. So, after he released his thick spray, he, with his pants trapped around his ankles, clutched her throat and smashed her head under the water. And she kicked and kicked, bruising his jewels and darkening his inner thigh. She kicked for what seemed longer than any human being could feasibly hold her breath. Then he remembered that he wasn’t dealing with a human being and that perhaps those things—her hell-fury and her gumption, her animated arms and legs—were the teeth and hooks of which they spoke. One final blow to her hip to keep her legs at bay and he heard something snap. He let her go.

Drenched, he stumbled back to drier shore. And up she rose: bent to the side from where he struck her, soaked in blood and river water, staring at him with black, glowing eyes. Then suddenly, she looked past him and he swore that he felt a razor slice his shoulder as her eyes moved over it toward the distance. He felt himself loosening. It started in the pit of his stomach and worked itself outward. He lost control of his bowels. Urine trickled down his legs, to the ground, and toward the river; shit dropped into his pants. His breathing slowed. He felt light and empty. It was as if his body was turning to air. Was he dead? He looked at his feet and he seemed to be floating, like a haint. It made him laugh. The one magical nigger in the whole place and he had the misfortune of choosing her.

Ain’t that just dandy?

The next thing he remembered, he was back in his shack, facedown on his bed. For a moment, he felt well rested. Afterward, however, he could sleep only in fits, and his walk was suddenly bowlegged. There wasn’t a nigger on the plantation who didn’t make him want to vomit—especially the females. The resolve it took for him to overcome the sudden bout of nausea he would experience when one of them came near and, perhaps, stood too close, or when one of them would speak his name and drag it out a few seconds too long as the slow-witted were wont to do. And if James tried to say her name, the name of the one had he desecrated, tried to pronounce even the first letter, M . . . mm . . . mm, he found himself, again, coming undone, like at the river. So he kept his mouth closed and avoided her. No more dinners at Paul’s, not even when a place was set for him. No, I’ll eat in my cabin. It’s fine. I can keep my eye on the niggers better from there. Just in case. His rifle became a crucial border. And from the safety of that demarcation, he learned a great deal more about them than those who ignored the line.