The Prophets(96)

Samuel didn’t want to be anywhere where the white fell out of the sky cold and frozen, laying its claim over everything.

“When my father dies, I inherit all of this.” Timothy looked around the room and seemed disappointed. “All of it. The house, the land, the Negroes, everything.” He stared at Samuel as if expecting a response. Samuel stood unmoved. “You know the first thing I’m going to do when it’s all mine? I’m going to set every single slave free. Well, maybe not every single. I will still need some to do the housework and harvest cotton, but I know I don’t need as many as my father has now. He’s overcautious.”

Samuel made no gesture.

“Manumission, Sam. That means I’ll set you and Isaiah free—that is, if you want to leave. I imagine it will be much harder out there than it will be on the plantation with me in charge. I don’t want the responsibility, to tell you the truth. I’d much rather be somewhere earning a commission for my artwork. But my father is depending on me, you understand.”

Man-u-mission. The word echoed in Samuel’s head, rang bells, and made him vibrate within. In the tolling, Samuel allowed himself to think about how weeds feel between the toes of a free man. He might rip them up out of the ground or leave them be on a whim, all without having to worry about whether his choice would disturb the already tenuous balance and incite some fool to violence for something as simple as consideration. Color would be different, too, mainly because he would finally have a chance at figuring it out, detecting the tiny differences in shades moving one into the other. He would have the gumption to pick a favorite since there would be a reason to, might walk into a tailor’s store and buy a pair of britches for his trouble. Pardon me, kind sir, I take this pair right here. Nah, I won’t need no box for them. Do you mind if I wore them right now? And those shoes—yes, I take those, too.

Shoes on his feet!

Freedom, he imagined, could be some fancy thing if done correctly, papers in hand, watching, quietly, in deference, the disappointment on the faces of the catchers after he told them that his massa had let him be a person, finally. Joy was never meant to be boxed in. It was supposed to stretch out all over creation, like the snow Timothy had just finished talking about. Just like that.

A burning sensation shot through him. He was unsure how the word let had slipped its way into his most private of places, places even Isaiah had only glimpsed. He was too close; that was the problem. For too long, the edge had rubbed right up against him, grabbed his stuff, and licked his cheek for salt. These were the channels for contamination, and he wasn’t sure that a split could reverse the ailment. He had already been exposed. There was no one to tell him how to cleanse the body or gather the right herbs for a healing ritual, no one to show him how not to be a danger to himself or those he loved. It wasn’t his fault, though. He didn’t choose this. It chose his mother, so his selection was umbilical. And he didn’t even have the pleasure of knowing her name. So he gave her one, too: Olivia.

Yes.

He liked that.

Timothy kissed his neck and, for a moment, Samuel thought it was Isaiah. He almost allowed his head to fall back and his eyes to roll to the whites. At the corner of his mouth, dribble had just begun to glisten, his arms nearly ready to embrace. Isaiah would do that very thing: start softly, coaxing. Maybe that’s who Timothy learned it from.

Everything was similar except the smell. No matter how long Isaiah shoveled manure or turned hay or lugged pails of slop, beneath all of that, he always smelled like a coming rain, the kind that would make you lift your head in anticipation. Open your mouth and wait. Because of that, Samuel could roam free in those meanwhiles, touch the veins of leaves, build pillows out of moss, drink dew from the palms of his hands. This, too, was a kind of freedom, for it sought to nourish rather than make the act of living a crime. Who built this? Samuel asked Isaiah as they flew through the woods and smiled at robins as they passed by. We did, Isaiah said. Then the sunset let loose purple and hummed its way into the ground.

Isaiah’s breath smelled like milk and his body curled snugly into Samuel’s. Moonlight did all the talking. It just happened. Neither of them chased the other and yet each was surrounded by the other. Samuel liked Isaiah’s company, which had its own space and form. Samuel knew for sure because he had touched its face and smiled, licked every bit of calm from its fingers and giggled. Then, without either of them realizing what had happened, it snuck up on them—the pain. They could be broken at any time. They had seen it happen so often. A woman carted off. Tied to a wagon screaming at the top of her lungs and her One risking the whip to chase after her, knowing damn well she couldn’t save him, but if she could just stay near him for a few more seconds, his image wouldn’t fade as quickly as it would have had she not challenged death.

No one was the same after the Snap. Some sat in corners smiling at voices. Others pulled out their eyelashes one by one, making their eyes seem to open wider. The rest worked until they collapsed, not just collapsed in the field, but collapsed in on themselves until there was nothing left but a pile of dust waiting to be blown away by the wind.

This is why Isaiah and Samuel didn’t care, why they clung to each other even when it was offensive to the people who had once shown them a kindness: it had to be known. And why would this be offensive? How could they hate the tiny bursts of light that shot through Isaiah’s body every time he saw Samuel? Didn’t everybody want somebody to glow like that? Even if it could only last for never, it had to be known. That way, it could be mourned by somebody, thus remembered—and maybe, someday, repeated.