The Prophets(63)

Timothy had sat in classrooms with those other boys, who talked and talked, and whose talking revealed nothing except that their pasts were invented, no matter how fervently they believed them. But Timothy widened his eyes at their tales anyway, gasped during the dramatic pauses, and applauded vigorously at the conclusions.

Those other boys liked the way Timothy spoke, the slow certainty of his voice, and the drawl that inevitably led into a smile. His dimples, pressed snugly into each cheek, were excess; he had already won them over with his disposition. If the South had taught him anything, it taught him how to hide his flaws, flatter his audience, feign deference even when he was clearly superior in every conceivable way, and be quintessential in the art of courtesy. This while holding vile and impure thoughts, while even suppressing the girth of his manhood behind britches that threatened to burst at the seams. A raindrop at the tip of his being that would never reach fertile ground. Yes, he was a gentleman’s gentleman, and they were completely taken with him.

In the North, he was told that Negroes were free, but he hadn’t seen any during his entire time there. He imagined that the number must have been small and, therefore, sightings rare. He did, however, meet people who called themselves abolitionists. Curious folk, he thought; wanted to free Negroes from the drudgery of slavery, they said, but what to do after was always murky, always shapeless, always an exercise in inadequacy.

“Maybe send them back to Africa,” one of them said at an informal gathering at a tavern in town.

“After so many years?” Timothy retorted. “It would be as foreign to them as it would be to us, I reckon. You wish to solve what you call an act of cruelty by perpetrating another?”

“Well, do you propose that they stay here, walk among us, and lie with us in our beds?”

“Why would their presence here lead to our bedrooms?”

“Their lust would make it inevitable.”

Their lust or ours? Timothy thought. After all, he knew what lurked in the loins of men, had witnessed it up close. All it took to unleash it was a paintbrush and a skilled hand. He struggled to determine the difference between North and South and concluded that they were more alike than not, the only discernible difference being that the South had thought all of their options through to their conclusions. The North, meanwhile, still couldn’t answer the questions of who would do the work freed slaves would necessarily leave behind and how those unfortunate souls would be paid once the position of slave was abolished. These men were bad at business, though there was every indication that they were just as greedy.

Timothy looked in the direction of the Big House, then back at Isaiah and Samuel.

“Well, I must be going. Isaiah, come to the house in the morning. I’ll let Maggie know to let you in. I want to get back to work on your portrait as soon as possible.”

“Yessuh. Do you need for one of us to light your way?”

“No. I’ll be just fine. Thank you. Good night.”

He walked down the dark path toward the house with the feeling that he had not seen all he needed to see of them. He wondered what they were like when he wasn’t around. Were they as shy, as quiet? What kind of wobbly, imperfect world did they create out there in the barn? He was determined to see.

It was about three in the morning and even the faint lights from the cabins in the distance were extinguished when he climbed out of bed. He went downstairs and sat in a rocker on the front porch, hoping the night would produce a merciful breeze. He was like his mother in this. Absent all light but moonglow, the plantation was a festival of shadows. Black against black, and yet things managed to distinguish themselves from one another: the curly black of the trees from the pointy black of the cabins; the silky black of the river from the massive black of the barn. Somehow, he had not noticed that before.

He wiped the sweat from his brow. No breeze would bless him. He leaned forward. The searing, sticky night was infecting him with wanderlust. He needed to cool himself off, wash the clamminess from his skin. Perhaps a short splash in the river. He got up and the rocker continued to rock without him. He walked down the steps and walked around the side of the house, toward the Yazoo.

He began unbuttoning his shirt. He had completely removed it by the time he was near the back of the barn. He noticed a faint light emanating from within. He did now what he didn’t do earlier: he climbed the gate and hoped he didn’t step in any more manure. He crept over to the barn. He walked along the back, the side closest to the river. There was a knothole big enough to fit his fist through. He pressed his head against the wall and peeped in. He tried to make out the figures. Horses? Yes. He was on the end where the horses’ pens were. But beyond them, where the lamplight flickered, glimpses. Breathtaking.

Their heat seemed to blur everything in close proximity. Hay stuck to Samuel’s back, or maybe it was Isaiah’s. He couldn’t tell who was holding whom. That’s how close together they were, and the light offered no assistance. Nevertheless, the hay was darted against him like sewing needles, as though some unseen hand were stitching them both into existence, right there, together, in that tight embrace, slumbering, joined. Timothy began to tremble. He didn’t imagine that Negroes were this way, could be this way: What, to them, was snuggling with no bed in which to share it? Did toil not prevent the contemplation or even the time for a softer nature? Thomas Jefferson had done extensive research, Timothy learned, and the science made it clear. Yet, without any wind to chill the air, they clung to each other as though it were winter and not summer. The witnessing confused him, but also made him stiff inside his britches.