The Prophets(66)

What they didn’t know was that the system had been mapped out, mostly in stars, but also in owl hoot and iris scent, and placed over and under everything long before Samuel had the decency to bring the sweet water and Isaiah the thirst to drink it.

Gone all day! Sweat ran down Isaiah’s back. He wondered if Samuel would be worried, might think him hurt, dead, or worse. More likely, he might simply be angry. As children, they took to each other—at first, like the best of friends, until both of them got the scent under their arms and the little goat hairs at the southernmost edges of their chins. They went from looking as plain as soil to each other to something that could nourish. Not something, someone. And one Sunday, sixteen seasons ago, one hand not so accidentally placed on top of the other while at the riverbank—neither of them looking the other in the eyes, but gazing off to something on that other side, where the trees formed a wall that only a curious deer could penetrate—was all it took for their evening shadows to later dance.

As he crossed the fence, Isaiah realized that this was the first time he had been away from Samuel this long since memory, which discomforted him. It felt like a small yet jagged piece of flesh hanging from the finger, ripped off too quickly, pulling down the whole side of the digit, leaving a trail of raw burning, blood oozing out of it the same way mushrooms do from the earth: a pain that can’t be soothed but can only be coaxed into subsiding with promises.

This is what it would be like?

Isaiah imagined Samuel chained up in the bed of the wagon as Adam, the lightest-skinned person Isaiah ever did see who could still be considered a person, covered his long Halifax-but-not-Halifax face so as not to see the crumble of bones that Isaiah had become because they had used a hammer and chisel to split a rock from its base. When the image left him and he saw the barn come back into view, just like that, the danger Amos spoke of found its menacing shape. His heart punched his chest from the inside.

He quickened his pace. His breath came in slow, shallow huffs. His legs buzzed with impatience. The day’s stench was still on him. He briefly contemplated jumping in the river real quick before the sun dipped, before going into the barn and having to return Samuel’s gaze with his own altered one, but Samuel didn’t deserve to wait another second.

When he reached the doors, he was afraid to open them. How could he explain leaving his seed where he left it and that, in some small, irresponsible way, it felt like an act of liberation? He tugged at the door, but it was a halfhearted attempt. Samuel heard the noise and got up. He pushed the door open a little too hard and nearly knocked Isaiah down.

“What happened to you?” Samuel whispered as he helped Isaiah regain his balance.

Isaiah placed an arm around Samuel’s neck and leaned into him. Side by side, they walked into the barn. Isaiah fell limp into a haystack.

Samuel stood over him.

“Man, talk! What’s wrong with you? Where you been?”

Isaiah looked off toward the horse pens.

“We should open up those pens, Sam,” he said slowly. “Let the horses out. They look cooped up.”

“What?” Samuel walked over to the lamp that sat on the ground by the pens and lit it. He brought it back to where Isaiah lay and then sat down next to it.

“It can’t be comfortable, you know? Locked up in such a small space,” Isaiah continued.

“Heh. That toubab had you cramped up all day, huh? He paint you, what, sitting on some stool, not even letting you get a break for something cool to drink? Maggie couldn’t even sneak you some lemonade, could she? You gotta be meaner, man!” Samuel laughed. He looked at Isaiah to return the laughter, tried to find if the lamplight reflected in his eyes, but couldn’t.

“Yessuh. I tired. All-the-way-to-the-bones tired.” Isaiah attempted a smile.

Samuel’s eyes squinted. “You always asking me to talk. Usually, I can’t shut you up. Now you only telling me some of it,” Samuel said, louder than he intended.

Isaiah got up and walked toward the water bucket they kept against the front wall. He tripped over a shovel left lying in the middle of the barn and landed on his hands. He jumped up, dusted himself off, and felt around for the bucket. He grabbed it and walked back over to Samuel and sat down. He drank from the ladle in large gulps.

“You gon’ talk?”

Isaiah took another big swig of water and swallowed it all at once. It went down hard.

“I ain’t a animal, but I know. I know that when you trapped in a small space, you start getting used to being small. And people, they know, too, and they start treating you like a small thing. Even if you big like you are, Sam. They still treat you like something small.” Isaiah took a breath. “And at the same time they want you small, they want your thang big. You hear what I telling you?”

“I don’t understand all that,” Samuel said in a huff. “What you saying?”

“I here, Sam. They don’t know it, but I am.”

“I know it.”

“Do you?” Isaiah looked down.

“Did he . . . ?” Samuel moved closer to him.

“They say funny things.” Isaiah’s brow furrowed and he looked off into the past that had just materialized before him, but faded so that he could still see now. “Feel goodness in the most hateful things, Sam. Nigger, do this to me. Nigger, do that to me. They want you to treat them like an outhouse. And always, always talk about how big. Stretch me, they say. And I can’t stand to hear it or to watch them writhe. Giving them pleasure while all they give in return is grief.” Isaiah put the ladle back into the bucket. He scooped up another serving of water. “But still . . .”