The Missing Generations
By Aisha Rickford and Rowan Staley
Preface
For our collaborative project, we decided to further explore the stories of characters featured in the texts we read. Whether main or secondary characters, we felt that there were elements to them that had not been explored adequately enough in the text and we wanted to add color and context to their stories. We chose to write our own narratives in the form of short stories, both because we were inspired by the form of Uncle Tom’s Children and because we wanted to take the opportunity to challenge ourselves through creative writing. We also felt that in continuing the narratives of certain characters we were exploring modes of response to literature and immersing ourselves more fully with the content of the course.
We wrote our early drafts of the first two stories together at first, bouncing ideas off of each other and offering advice. Then we separated to write the remainder of the stories. We met five times between beginning the stories and submitting them to read over each other’s, offering input and making edits to unify the narrative voice and the themes. We both knew that we wanted to focus on the themes of childhood and family, and loss and trauma, and how racism both informs those things and is informed by them, and so we drew specifically upon The Third Generation and Uncle Tom’s Children. We were both inspired by particular passages in these texts and used specific quotes to frame our stories, similar to Richard Wright’s epigraph at the beginning of Uncle Tom’s Children.
Once we had completed all four stories, we decided on the final order: beginning with Mrs. Taylor from The Third Generation, then Will from The Third Generation, then Peewee from Down by the Riverside, and then Sarah from Long Black Song. This was not a random order; Mrs. Taylor is the only story that flashes back, while Will and Peewee flash forward, and then Sarah’s story continues immediately after the end of Long Black Song. We wanted to create a narrative arc of moving from past to future, and then to present again. Sarah’s story is about moving forward from trauma yet remaining in the present moment; it is imbued with the idea that life goes on, and so it felt appropriate as the final story.
(1) A Childish Game
“She had added to the story, enlarging and changing the parts she didn’t like. The resulting story was that her father was the son of Dr. Manning and a beautiful octoroon, the most beautiful woman in all the state, whose own father had been an English nobleman. Her mother was the daughter of the song of a United States President and an octoroon who was the daughter of a Confederate Army general. At first it had been a childish game of fantasy. After having received several whippings for recounting it to her wide-eyed schoolmates she had kept it to herself, and in time had outgrown it. As a young woman she had felt a real sense of superiority which, in her home environment, had needed no support” (Himes 18).
Lin had started the flower garden in February, on the weekend after officially moving in. It was the first time that Lin had ever felt that she’d had something of her own. The garden, and the house as well. It was a tiny house, really, with peeling paint and gutters that hung halfway off the side of the roof. But by May, it was more alive somehow, the sun brightening the white exterior, which Lin’s husband Charles had given a new coat of paint on the first day of spring. Now the children could run about in the yard, and the sounds of their cackling and the sight of them tumbling about in the grass gave Lin a warm feeling of contentedness each time that she looked out at them through the kitchen window, like she did now.
Tom and Charlie, her two older boys, were kicking a ball around the yard, while their younger sister Ella, only four, tottered about in their wake. Lin’s hand found their way to her stomach; she was heavily pregnant, and due any day. Charles was hoping for another boy, but Lin felt for certain that this time, it was another girl. There was something soft about this pregnancy, light. The baby had hardly kicked, and her belly was significantly smaller than it had been with her boys or even with her youngest daughter.
The sound of glass shattering punctured the moment. She rushed outside to find Tom and Charlie standing in a patch of wildflowers a little ways out the backyard. The bottle they’d been kicking around was in pieces – it had broken, evidently, from being kicked at a pipe that ran up alongside the exterior walls of the house. Lin scanned her children quickly; they all seemed to be alright, if not stunned. The shards of glass were scattered in the patch of bluebells that, back in February, Lin had slaved over on her hands and knees, digging deep in the ground to plant the bulbs. Her mouth set in a hard line.
Ella looked between her terrified brothers and her furious mother and started to cry.
“Mama, we didn’t mean to -” began Tom.
“Get a switch,” said Lin. Now Charlie started crying. “I said get the switch!”
Tom ran off to obey, Charlie crying in his wake.
Lin sank to her knees, her stomach swelling before her. It was a conscious effort not to let the weight of it pull her forward onto the dark, glass-strewn earth. She began the work of picking up the pieces of glass, placing those that she could into the front pocket of her apron. She then rose to her full height again.
Ella watched her, her chest heaving with little sobs too big for her body, the breath hitching in her throat and coming out of her mouth in labored intervals. “Mama, please don’t hit them,” she begged. “Mama, it wasn’t on purpose -”
“Be quiet now, Ella,” Lin warned.
“Mama, please -”
“I said be quiet now Ella, or you’ll be getting the switch too.”
Ella let out one last frightened sob, then fell silent.
“It shouldn’t be taking them this long,” said Lin, scanning the grassy horizon for her sons. Surrounding the little house were green hills and fields, framed in the crisp and cloudless blue of a Georgia day in May. In the distance, Lin could see the tall sycamore tree that marked the edge of the property, branches swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. Past that was the railroad, the wind whipping up dust from it under the hot sun. She couldn’t see the boys anywhere.
And then – two brown heads emerged from a dip in the hill, running with fervor. Towards the sycamore tree they moved, desperation in each stride.
“Tom! Charlie! Y’all get back here this minute!” bellowed Lin, even more enraged now that the boys had tried to escape from her.
They said nothing but kept running, and Lin felt her heart race with anger, for she knew they could hear her.
“I’ll get you! I swear it, I’m coming after you!” she cried, and she took off after them, barefoot in the hot sun.
Tom turned back and saw his mother, running after him with extraordinary speed for a woman nine months pregnant. Terror filled his lungs; he could feel it all the way through his body, prickly and threatening to rob him off his ability to stay upright.
The sight of Tom looking back and seeing her running after him, but not stopping, filled Lin with an uncontrollable rage, and she picked up speed.
At last, Tom and Charlie reached the tree, and just as Tom began to scramble his way up, his mother reached them. She picked up a branch from the ground with one hand and wrenched Tom down by the collar of his shirt with the other.
“Pull your pants down,” she ordered.
“Mama, please -” he begged.
“I said pull your pants down, Tom,” said Lin.
“Mama, please, we’re sorry – ” Charlie tried.
“Don’t you start with me!” Lin yelled. They fell silent.
Tom obeyed, sniffling pathetically, and Charlie followed suit. The sun fell on them through the canopy of the leaves of the sycamore tree, and then a cloud covered it, bathing the three figures in shadow.
Lin picked up the switch and grabbed her sons by the shoulders. Slowly, methodically, she beat them. With each hit, each boy would let out a cry of pain that would reverberate in Lin in days to come, when she recounted this story of her most unbridled rage. She would tell the story as though the boys deserved it, as though she couldn’t control her emotions at the time due to her pregnancy, but secretly she felt ashamed. What she remembered most of all – the part she never told – was the baby thrashing away in her stomach, kicking and moving her fists against the walls of her womb, as if awakened by the rage, hot and unrestrained, that had began to run through her mother’s veins.
***
Soon after that, baby Lillian was born. But within a few years, Charles and Lin could no longer afford their Georgia railroad home. Lillian remembered the day her father turned to her mother and told her that they had to sell the house. She was only five years old, but she understood that this meant leaving the home she had only ever known.
So the newly-named Mannings picked up from rural Georgia and moved to Atlanta. After struggling to make ends meet there as well, they wound up back in the town of the plantation where Lin and Charles had lived before they were freed, in South Carolina. During their time in Atlanta Charles had fallen sick with tuberculosis, and upon his recovery he and Lin realized the best thing for them to do was return home and bring the children up in the church.
At first, the new home felt wrong and unfamiliar to Lillian, who, even at this early age, tired of the constant movement. From place to place they moved, never settling, no sense of permanence ever existing in this family that birthed a new baby what seemed like every year and was dealt difficult card one after the other. But something about returning to the place of their youth brought a new energy to Charles and Lin, and soon it was clear that the adversity they’d survived in the years after being freed was going to remain in the past.
The difficulty of her early life had never seemed further away to Lillian than on the morning of her tenth birthday. It was still quite early – none of her brothers and sisters were awake, and if she listened closely enough, she could hear distantly the quiet breathing of her parents, the snoring of her father. She stood in the hallway bathroom, examining herself in the mirror. Her hair was wispy and reddish, wild with sleep, framing her face and neck. Her skin, a light, creamy brown, was almost translucent in the weak light that poured in through the curtains. Lillian stood there, only the top half of her face visible in the mirror that was high on the wall, and watched herself. She placed her hands on either side of her face and pursed her lips. She didn’t feel any older, and she didn’t look much older either, it seemed. Maybe it took time before you could tell the difference, she thought. After all, she’d only been ten for a few hours – perhaps her body didn’t realize it was older yet. It was still small and thin, and she still had to stand on tiptoe if she wanted to see herself while she brushed her teeth.
A little disenchanted with the lack of physical proof of her entry into the double-digits, Lillian turned off the bathroom light, went back to her bedroom which she shared with her sisters and brothers, and clambered back into bed. She was comforted by the fact that in a few hours, the rest of her family would be awake, and for once, she could be the center of attention.
It felt that she had only been asleep for minutes when she was awoken by the sound of muffled voices. Lillian opened her eyes to see her mother and father and her brothers and sisters surrounding her. Closest to her was her mother, holding a pancake on a plate with a candle sticking out of it.
“Happy birthday, Lillian!” they all shouted, and then began to sing. A huge smile flooded Lillian’s face, and she soaked in each moment of the song, relishing in the moments that were just for her.
***
Lillian’s birthday was a Sunday, and so after breakfast the whole family made the journey down to church, wearing their Sunday best. “You look just beautiful,” said her father just before they left, straightening the collar of her dress. Lillian beamed at him, and gave him a kiss, feeling his wispy beard, so like her own hair, against the skin of her cheek.
Lillian was especially excited for the end of the church service because Mrs. Jones, the Mannings’ neighbor, had promised to take her to get ice cream in Greenville. Mr. Jones had permitted his wife to take their car for the occasion, a particularly nice one that they rarely used. Lillian was popular with much of the community, adored for her beautiful face and high self-esteem so rare in young black girls. Though she would never admit it, it gave Mrs. Jones such pride that a family that could easily not have to stay in their community, could pass for white, chose to remain and raise their children as black.
Mrs. Jones was a striking woman, tall, dark, and lean, and she kept her hair cropped short. She leaned against her blue car in the lot, finishing off a cigarette, and watched as the church doors burst open and out came a flurry of people. Lillian was one of the first out, eager for her trip into town, and hurried off to meet Mrs. Jones. Behind her, Bonnie Johnson, another little girl in Lillian’s Sunday school, followed. She had heard Lillian going on about going to Greenville with Mrs. Jones, and was eager to join. She was a skinny girl, taller than Lillian, with lots of thick curly hair twisted into bunches.
“Good morning!” said Lillian brightly, reaching Mrs. Jones.
“Happy birthday,” said Mrs. Jones, dropping a cigarette on the ground and putting it out with the toe of her shoe. “Are you ready?”
“Oh yes,” Lillian said. “I’m so, so excited -”
“Wait just a minute,” said Lin, walking over with the rest of the Manning children. Bonnie was with her.
“Lillian, Bonnie is going to come with you this afternoon,” said Lin.
“But, Mama,” Lillian began. “I thought it was just going to be me and Mrs. Jones – ”
“Don’t be rude, Lillian, or you won’t be going into town at all,” Lin warned.
Lillian swallowed the rest of her words and crossed her arms. Her mouth set in a hard line.
“Bonnie has had you over her house after church a lot,” said Charles. “She should come with you on your birthday.”
Bonnie smiled at Lillian, but Lillian looked away.
“Yes, Pa,” said Lillian, and she turned to get into Mrs. Jones’s car. Bonnie followed after her.
The three adults watched the two children sitting side by side, Lillian with her head turned, face propped on an arm against the window. Lin pursed her lips.
“We should be back well before dinner,” said Mrs. Jones.
***
On the way to Greenville, Lillian was mostly silent, cursing her mother in her head. This was supposed to be her special day, and Bonnie had ruined it. Lillian loved Mrs. Jones – she thought she was a beautiful, poised woman. Something about the way she walked and talked made Lillian think about who and what she wanted to be when she was a grown woman. She wanted to spend time alone with her, soak in what she could.
The ice cream place was a fairly new one, that Mrs. Jones had taken her nephews to a few weeks prior. She found a place to park and the three women, two girls and one grown, walked around the black part of town, wandering into shops. She bought Lillian a new dress, and Bonnie a cheap little notebook.
“Mrs. Jones, when are we going to get the ice cream?” asked Bonnie, after they had been walking around town for about an hour.
Mrs. Jones had not forgotten, but had simply been planning how best to go about it. The ice cream place, called Tom’s, was located in the heart of the white section of town. At a glance, they did not serve Negroes, but Mrs. Jones had been a nanny for one of the white woman who worked there, and if she went to the back of the building she could be served. She would need at least three hands to carry all the ice cream, but did not want to ask either of the children to come with her and then have them asking questions about why they couldn’t go in through the front way. It made more sense, though, to take Bonnie, as she was not anywhere near as passing as Lillian.
They came to a stop in front of a bench on a street corner a few blocks from the ice cream store. “Lillian,” said Mrs. Jones, you sit here, since it’s your birthday, and Bonnie and I will come back with ice cream for all of us.”
“But I want to come with you – ” began Lillian.
“No,” said Mrs. Jones. “A birthday girl shouldn’t have to get her own ice cream.”
She and Bonnie walked off, and Lillian sat on the bench, pulling her new dress out of its bag that held her brand new dress. It was green with a white trim, and looked beautiful on her fair skin. She thumbed the fabric, and swung her legs over the side of the bench, taking in the sight of the quiet city street and the sun pouring down on her face.
A white man who looked like he was in thirties walked by, and paused at the site of the fair-skinned girl with reddish hair.
“That’s a pretty dress, there,” said the man, removing his hat from his head.
Lillian said nothing at first, a bit afraid. She was taught not to speak to strangers, and rarely if ever did she come into contact with white people, let alone speak to them.
“It’s alright, miss,” he said. “I have a daughter just about your age, I think she’d love that dress. She looks just like you.”
Lillian was puzzled. How could a white girl look just like her?
“I got it for my birthday,” she said shyly, at length.
“Well it’s just lovely,” said the man. “And it brings out the red in your hair.”
“Thank you,” said Lillian, feeling a rush of color to her cheeks.
The man looked at her for a moment and, seeming to assess that she didn’t see him as a threat, sat down next to her. “Now what is a little girl like you doing here all by yourself? Where’s your mama?”
Lillian was not sure why, but she was struck with the notion that telling the truth of where she lived would be very unsafe, and not just because of what her parents had always said about not talking to strangers. Something inside of her told her that if she told this man where she really lived, the way he was speaking to her would change.
“My mama’s at home,” said Lillian at once. “She’s making a surprise for me and she told me to go and buy myself a dress.”
“That’s lovely,” said the man. “Do you have any guess what the surprise is?”
“No,” said Lillian, “But I know that my mother is preparing for my grandfather to visit for dinner tonight. He is from England, you know.”
“Was he now?” said the man. He removed his glasses and looked closely at her. “Well, now! I suppose he was. I see it in you.”
Lillian beamed.
“And my pa – he’s the son of Dr. Jessie Manning, he was born south of here.”
“Well, isn’t that nice,” said the man. “It’s nice to know where you come from, isn’t it? And how nice is it that everyone’s coming together to celebrate your birthday?”
“Oh, it’s so nice,” said Lillian. She sat up a bit straighter. “Oh, it’s my favorite day of the year.”
Just then, a couple of boys and a girl rounded the corner, kicking a ball.
“Papa,” said the older boy. “Papa, who’s this?”
“This is a nice little girl I just met,” said the man. “And her name is – ?”
“Lillian.”
“Lillian. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” The man smiled, wiping his glasses on his shirt. He took her hand and shook it. “Now, Lillian, you said you lived around here? What’s your father’s name? I’m sure we must see you in church now and then.”
“Lillian!” called Bonnie’s voice. “Lillian, we got you strawberry!”
Lillian whipped around to see Mrs. Jones and Bonnie approaching, holding three cones of ice cream.
The man turned too, and stood up straight in surprise. “What are you doing, girl, leaving Lillian all by herself?” he said roughly, talking to Mrs. Jones. “I’m sure her mama told you to watch her.”
Mrs. Jones was without words, watching the scene unfold in front of her. It made no sense, seeing Lillian there on a bench surrounded by white people. She looked too comfortable. She looked like she was one of them.
“Come on, Lillian,” said Mrs. Jones, outstretching her hand.
“Oh come, Mrs. Jones, say hello! He’s a very nice man -”
“Lillian, I said come here now,” snapped Mrs. Jones. Lillian obeyed, and when she reached Mrs. Jones and Bonnie, she took their hands.
The three white people said nothing as Mrs. Jones rushed them away, but as they began to round the corner, the man called out,
“Well, have a nice birthday now, Lillian!”
The sound of his voice sent fear through Mrs. Jones’s heart, and once they reached her car she loaded up the kids and drove them home in silence. Lillian sat in the front seat, and she saw that Mrs. Jones’s knuckles were almost white from how hard they were gripping the steering wheel.
***
Mrs. Jones dropped off Bonnie first. By this time, twilight had fallen, bathing the streets of the small South Carolina town in gray light. Lillian was not sure what she had done wrong, besides talking to strangers, and talking to white people – but she didn’t understand why she’d never been allowed to before. After all, those people had been perfectly nice, and they didn’t look very different from her either. The idea of the man having a little daughter who looked “just like” her was one that she couldn’t let go of, couldn’t make sense of. What did that mean, if Lillian was Negro and that little girl was white?
They pulled up to Lillian’s home. Mrs. Jones turned off the engine and turned to Lillian.
“Now, Lillian, I need you to be honest with me,” said Mrs. Jones. “What did you say to that white man?”
Lillian told her. Mrs. Jones took in a deep breath. It seemed to rattle in her throat.
“Stay in the car a moment,” said Mrs. Jones.
Lin was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. Mrs. Jones walked up to them, and Lillian watched from the car as they engaged in quiet, yet vehement conversation. They glanced back at Lillian a great deal. Lin stood up with her hands in the pocket of the apron, gave one grave nod, and beckoned with one hand.
“Come here, Lillian,” she said.
Mrs. Jones came back to the car and opened the door for her. “Happy birthday, Lil,” she said, coaxing the ten-year-old out of the car. “Have a good night now, I’ll see you soon.”
Lillian walked over to her mother, feeling even smaller than she did this morning, which felt like a lifetime away. She walked over to her mother, who towered over her. Lin’s eyes were glassy, full of concern, and her mouth was set. Her brow was furrowed in a deep worried line across her forehead.
“Let’s go for a walk, child,” said Lin, taking her daughter’s hand. They walked through the back gate of their house, out into the wildflowers and under the sycamore and magnolia trees.
As they walked further and further from the house, Lin’s grip on Lillian’s hand grew tighter until it was almost uncomfortable. Lillian looked up at her mother. She looked lost in thought.
Suddenly, Lin stopped and squatted down, so that she and her daughter were eye-to-eye.
“Tell me, child,” said Lin urgently. “Just who do you think you are?”
***
A Mind at Ease
“Practically overnight he’d grown into a charming young man, quite different from his younger brother. He was poised in social contacts and talked with ease. No furtive compulsions harassed him in his associations with young women. He was gay and witty and quite frankly liked them all” (Himes 195).
Will idly tapped the blunt end of his fountain pen against the mahogany of his desk, further chipping its already worn edge. This office had belonged to Mr. Danahy before him, and Mr. Lovell before that, and although the furniture wore its previous owners well nothing could completely halt the ravages of time and long days spent grading papers and conferencing with students. In fact, Samantha was still sitting across from him and interrupted his fidgeting with another question.
“Professor Taylor?” she asked.
“Yeah?” He replied, his thoughts still drifting. Although he didn’t know what Samantha looked like, he could hear a Southern drawl in her voice and knew from her frequent visits during office hours that she had come to college in Cleveland from a predominantly black town in Alabama. She was bright, and they got along well. Will knew he could connect with all of his students in one way or another, but he most liked working with students who had followed a path similar to his. For them, academia offered an escape from a constricted family life and a future of working menial jobs in hotels or department stores. Being here, at the most prominent school for the blind east of the Mississippi — not that there were many to choose from — was a privilege, and students like Samantha rarely forgot that.
“What do you think is the driving motivation of Achilles in the Iliad? Is he guided by his honor or his hubris?” The Iliad was the next reading for their class on Homer and the Greek epics.
“Well, what do you think Samantha? Could it be both?” He queried in response. He’d been teaching for three years now and had learned that it was typically best to answer a question with a question, putting the burden of analysis back on the student themselves. After all, how were they supposed to learn if all of the answers were given to them?
Samantha launched into a response, and he could hear the fervor in her voice as an argument came to her, could hear the rustling of paper as her reader, a young man named Mark who was new to the institution, relayed relevant passages of the Iliad. Truth be told, Greek epics weren’t really his thing. He found the propensity for grandiose description and exaggerated emotional arcs exhausting and obtuse. Besides, he could never quite bring himself to emotionally engage with mythology anymore, although he certainly had loved the fantasy of it when he was young. Now he preferred the realism of more current literature, but Samantha wouldn’t read contemporary works for at least another quarter or two.
Bringgggggg!!!! The sharp sound of the bell permeated the air and stopped Samantha mid-sentence. The bell marked the time as 3:15pm, the end of the school day during summer session. He heard the scrape of the chairs against the stone floor as Samantha and Mark stood, and breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a long day of teaching and he was grateful for the day’s close.
“Let’s finish this conversation tomorrow Sammy. Perhaps focusing in on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus might provide new insight into Achilles’s character and motivations.”
“Thanks Professor!” Samantha chirped.
“Good night, Mr. Taylor,” contributed Mark, before shuffling out behind Samantha.
***
On his way home, Will stopped at the Jackal, his favorite bar on the corner of Maine and Washington St., only a block or two away from the dingy but well-maintained apartment he shared with his fiancé Annie. He used his cane to edge open the glass door at the entrance, and gingerly eased himself through the opening. He’d injured his knee playing football with a few of the other professors and readers after school on Tuesday. He’d tripped on a rock that had been covered by the newly cut grass and banged his knee forcefully on the ground. The others had swarmed around him immediately, offering sounds of concern and offers to take him to the local hospital. He’d vehemently refused – hospitals left a bad taste in his mouth, and had since the accident that blinded him, despite the ridiculous amount of time he had spent in and out of waiting rooms over the past ten years as his mother took him from specialist to specialist. He had never complained because his mother’s love could turn from comforting to terrifying without warning, but also because he too had hoped something, someone, might miraculously restore his vision. But he had long given up on that dream, and besides, his sight had been partially restored over the last five years or so. He could see in shades of gray now, could make out larger shapes and found he had an increasingly sensitive response to variations in light.
In fact, a large gray shape passed in front of him as he entered the bar and made his way over to his usual spot, a stool along the windows facing the bustling street. Although the dim lighting of the bar rendered his vision completely obsolete, he recognized the voice of his most devoted friend, Ramsey Douglas, immediately.
“Professor Taylor!” Ramsey joked. “What are you going to teach me about today? The inner life of Poseidon, that watery fucker? The sordid affairs of your highbrow colleagues? How about you teach me how to get a girl like Annie?”
“Not sure anyone can teach you that Ram, women like a man with intelligence and sensitivity and you’re about as sharp as you are handsome.”
“Ah, so very!”
“Sure, Ram, whatever gets you through the day,” Will said. As they slipped into their familiar pattern of conversation, Will felt the tension of the day ebb from his limbs. He met Ramsey at the Jackal every day after school let out and Ramsey’s shift at the bank ended, where they mulled over the intricacies of the day and relaxed before heading home for the night. Right now, Ramsey was nursing a dark ale while Will sipped only tonic and lime, the cold glass soothing against the sweat of his palm. Will had never really been one for alcohol; he didn’t like feeling out of control and besides, adding poor motor functioning to impaired vision was clearly a bad combination. Plus he didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of his father or brother, Charles. Although he had been off at school, Will distinctly remembered his father in the weeks before his death, remembered his whiskey-muted gaze, the half-smoked cigars. He had visited for an afternoon two weeks before he died and had been deeply shocked by the man he had seen before him. His father was a shell of his former self, so embroiled in his own tragedies and diminished by his mother’s perpetual insults and biting criticisms that he had turned to alcohol and cigars to dull the emotion of daily life. And if that wasn’t enough to stop Will from partaking in the casual drinking of his companion, the alcoholism had already passed from father to son.
Will had last visited Charles three years ago in Missouri – he’d gone down for Charles’s birthday, hoping for a brief reconciliation of their childhood bond brought on by a day of bar-hopping and an evening spent walking along the river or driving through the countryside. Instead, he’d been sorely disappointed by Charles becoming blind drunk after their first bar stop, throwing back ten whiskey shots in the space of an hour. He’d spent the rest of the day in the hotel room he’d rented gently propping Charles on his side as he slept fitfully, vomiting on the sheets and crying about their mother’s failure to acknowledged Charles’s birthday that year. He’d held Charles in his arms for five hours, worried he might choke on his own vomit and add to the Taylor family body count. When Charles had finally passed into a more peaceful slumber, Will had been left to pay the bar tab and slip the housekeeper something extra to clean up the mess. He’d been disappointed, sure, but certainly not surprised by his brother’s behavior. Finally, he’d decided around midnight to slip away and catch the last train back to Cleveland. They hadn’t spoken since.
“Hey, Will, you in there buddy? Where’d you go?” Ramsey’s voice saying his name brought Will back to the present, and he guiltily looked at his friend, realizing he’d completely forgotten the course of the conversation.
“Sorry, Ram. I guess it’s been a longer day than I thought – what were you saying?”
“How’s Annie? You said yesterday she’d been feeling kinda sick.”
“Oh yeah, no, we haven’t figured that out yet – she threw up again this morning. Maybe one of those weeklong illness things? That’s a thing, isn’t it?”
“Sure? I don’t know man. I work at a bank and you get all clammy and quiet around hospitals, I’m not sure we know jack-shit about women or sickness.”
“Hey! Watch it. I only get quiet because you get all loud and pretend to know doctor shit!” Will said, re-entering the conversation with a new vigor. “And I definitely know more than you do about women. Annie and I are working on four years now, and she hasn’t gotten rid of my ass yet.”
Ramsey’s silence conceded the point, and the conversation moved on to other things.
***
Annie had dinner waiting when Will got home, a full chicken taking up the center half of their tiny two-person dining table. The apartment was toasty from the fire, and the light appeared to Will as a flickering orange tint. He made his way over to their lumpy sofa, a holdover from Annie’s mother’s sister who lived down the street. He sank into the cushion and motioned for Annie to join him. She curled up next to him, nestling her feet under his leg and placing her head on his shoulder and softly kissing his neck. His hand worked its way through the tangles of her soft, fine hair as he thought back on when they first met.
She had been his reader in his last year of college, and he had fallen in love with her voice first, the gentle cadences of William Blake’s poetry worming deep into his heart. Her voice was angelic, pitched low and expressive, warm in its empathy. They’d soon moved past talk of fiction and he had shared memories with her he had almost forgotten himself. She’d grown up in New York City to a middle-class white family, but had pursued a passion of literature that led her to the paying job in Cleveland where they’d met. He liked that they were so different: she was quiet around new people, he could engage a crowd no matter the venue. She was introspective, he was charismatic but closed-off. She asked all the right questions – about his mother, his father, his brother. He’d taken her to his father’s funeral only a month after they’d first met.
“You’re late,” Annie said, her voice a mild chastisement. “Did Ramsey keep you again?”
“Yeah, he’s still trying to steal you away from me,” Will grinned.
“He’s going to have to try a lot harder,” Annie joked, “Maybe promise me a new collection of poems or something.”
“You’d trade me for a book?” Will said indignantly. “What can poetry provide that I cannot?”
“Romance,” Annie proclaimed dramatically.
Will laughed as he got up, walking over to the counter to pour himself a glass of water. He didn’t need a cane inside the apartment – after a year of living here he had memorized the layout and could have found the counter in his sleep. Annie had only moved in a month ago, and it was still a few weeks until the wedding. His mother had frowned on the propriety of it all, but he ignored her wishes as usual, and he knew his mother was secretly pleased he was marrying a white woman. She hadn’t changed much from their childhood, and his love was forever intertwined with discomfort at her presence and a deeper worry that she found Annie threatening to their mother-son relationship. He wanted to be with Annie forever, he knew this, but part of him was dreading the wedding and the familial reunion the ceremony promised.
“Will?” Annie said. The tone of her voice had shifted; the pitch was lower and more tentative. He turned towards and her voice and his face shifted quizzically.
“I have something I wanted to tell you,” she said.
“Okay? You know you can tell me anything,” Will replied, now worried about what she might say. Did she want to call the wedding off? Had she finally decided his family was too much to handle? That he wasn’t worth it?
“I think I might be… don’t get mad,” she cautioned.
“Mad? Annie what is going on,” Will said, his voice becoming more urgent.
“I know you never really wanted… I mean, I know your childhood had its problems… but I think this would be different… I mean, I think it could be better, you know?”
“Annie, I have no idea what you are talking about. What does my childhood have to do with anything?”
“I think I’m pregnant,” Annie finally blurted out in a muffled voice. Will heard her flop onto the couch pillow, and wondered if she had covered her face with her hands.
He didn’t know what to think, and he could hear the pounding of his heart, loud and furious in his ears. Thoughts rushed through his head, and images from his youth flashed back in series. Playing with Charles in the fields outside of his father’s classroom. Running through the woods at night – silently, so mother wouldn’t hear them. The feel of the switch on his back. The sounds of his parents screaming at each other. The vacancy of Charles’ expression whenever he overheard. Reading in the living room, Charles and Tom by his side, mother knitting in the corner and father reading a newspaper. The memories, good and bad, flashed faster and faster and he realized Annie was waiting for him to speak. He couldn’t see her face but knew from experience that she was biting her bottom lip, her forehead slightly crinkled with anxiety, her nose scrunched up.
“Well I guess that means we’ve got to start thinking about names,” he started. “I’m happy with anything other than Charles, Tom, or something stupid like Achilles.”
By the River’s Edge
“Look, Pa!”
“Whut?”
“Hush, Peewee!” said Grannie.
“Theres lights, see?”
“Where?”
“See? Right there over yonder!”
Mann looked, his chin over his shoulder. There were two squares of dim, yellow light…their soft, yellow glow was in his mind. They helped him, those lights” (Wright 77).
When Peewee Mann woke up, his face was wet. He opened his eyes, and saw that he had been salivating in his sleep again, his head lying in a puddle of his own drool. He groaned, and extended an arm to cover his eyes. The light that was pouring in was all wrong – not morning light, but moonlight. Across the room, the lavender curtains undulated with the cool night air coming in through the cracked window.
Waking up with the moon. This was how Peewee generally found himself. He worked odd jobs in bars and jazz clubs, sleeping in the day and staying awake all night. He checked the clock. His shift at the club had started two hours ago.
“Goddammit,” he said aloud. He jumped to his feet, pulling on his pants and throwing on a sweater. “Goddammit,” he said again, as his foot got caught in the pant leg. He scrambled over to the other side of the room to pick up his glasses. He wouldn’t bother calling the bar to apologize and let them know he was coming, that would take too long, and so he decided just to try to make it over there as quickly as he could. He already had a couple strikes against him and – Goddammit – he wasn’t sure if his boss would give him another chance.
Peewee raced outside into the night, straightening the collar of his shirt as he went, his eyes still heavy from sleep. But the cool night air shook him awake. It had rained today, it appeared, and Harlem’s streets were decorated with puddles. An icy wind blew off the East River, cooling Peewee’s hands and making his eyes water. The streets around his apartment were quiet, no sounds but the hum of the garbage truck and the distant sounds of traffic. He hurried into the subway, his throat full.
He emerged further uptown, the street bathed in light from the buildings and the streetlamps. The sidewalk outside of the bar was swarming with bodies as Peewee approached, and he pushed through them, into the doorway. The bouncer, Jimmy, gave him an indecipherable look as he approached.
“How’s it looking?” said Peewee, breathless.
“Not good, Mann,” said Jimmy, taking the cigarette from his mouth to exhale a cloud of smoke. “Harry is pissed.”
“Alright, I’m going in.”
Peewee pushed his way through the people into the bar. It was dimly lit, and there was a young woman singing on the stage. Harry liked to get a new jazz act every Saturday night, and Peewee had never seen this woman before tonight. She wore a sparkly black gown with a slit up to her thigh, and under the lights, Peewee could see a sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead, the roots of her blowout becoming curly with the moisture. He headed to the door off to the side of the bar, where his boss Harry’s office was, and shouldered his way in.
Harry was a stout, broad-shouldered man, who seemed to be perpetually sweating and continually wore button-down shirts that were too small for him. He swung around in his chair as Peewee entered.
“I don’t want to hear it, Mann. You’re done.”
“Harry, please -”
“Late at least three times every week, and this time you show up two hours into your shift? Unacceptable, kid.”
“Harry, you know how much I need this job – ”
“I don’t think I do, kid, because if you needed it, you would treat it like a goddamn job.” Harry glared at him, taking the cigarette from his mouth and putting it out on the ashtray on his desk. “Get out of here, or I’ll make security do it.” By “security” he meant Jimmy, so Peewee wasn’t deterred.
“Harry, do you want me to beg? Because I will.” Peewee sunk to his knees, his hands folded together as if in prayer.
Harry stood up from his chair. “Get up, Mann,” he said, so sternly that Peewee obeyed. At his full height, Harry was still at least six inches shorter than Peewee, but something about the way he filled a space intimidated him all the same.
“I’ve given you chance after chance, kid,” said Harry. “Do you think I’m playing? Get the fuck out.”
***
After leaving Harry’s bar, Peewee wandered the streets, eventually settling in at a club on 126th street. There, he drank himself silly, snorted cocaine with a few people from a circle he frequently ran around with, and danced. There, Peewee found for himself a comfortable degree of anonymity, moving among other writhing bodies, catching only flashes of movement and of faces.
The lights, the dancing, the struggling bodies – it all conflated in his head, and the music stopped – now he could hear the thunder clapping, the water rushing around him, spinning the boat, the gunshots – No – It was Ma, cold and dead on the hospital table – It was Pa, saying “Good-bye!” – It was the small disk of light, searching, searching, never finding – It was the gunshots –
Peewee found himself waking up in bed again. This time, morning light poured in through the curtains. His head was heavy and swimming, the bed damp.
He opened his eyes. In front of him was a worried face, and hands holding a cup of hot coffee. Through the haze of his hangover, Peewee recognized the face behind the glasses and the shock of curly dark hair.
“Hey there,” said Allen.
Peewee moved to sit up, only to sink back down again, his head spinning too much to sit up properly. Allen placed the back of his hand to his forehead.
“Hey,” he said. “Take it easy. Drink some coffee.”
Peewee took the coffee gratefully. Allen watched him.
“So how did you find me this time?” asked Peewee.
Allen looked at him. Then he stood up, turning his back, and put his hands in his pockets. “I just had a feeling,” he said. “You weren’t at Harry’s.”
“Did he tell you?”
“That he fired you? Yeah,” said Allen.
“Bet he was happy to tell you that,” muttered Peewee.
“Not really, actually,” said Allen, turning to meet Peewee’s eyes again. “He was pretty cut up about it actually. Said it was hard to do, but you gave him no choice. You know, he really does care about you.”
“Obviously not enough.”
“You don’t make it easy.”
“Oh, don’t you start with that shit again. The old, you-don’t-make-it-easy-for-people-to-care-about-you-thing. The old, why-don’t-you-just-let-me-in tirade. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
Allen glared at him.
“I’m here, aren’t I? Obviously I’m on your side.”
Peewee softened. “I know. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He reached out a hand. Begrudgingly, Allen took it.
“You got a letter this morning,” said Allen. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. Peewee took it from him. The handwriting was unfamiliar, boxy, but the address was impossible to mistake. The town where Grannie lived, back home in Mississippi.
“No,” said Peewee.
**
Peewee couldn’t believe it. Grannie, dead. Just like Ma, just like Pa. The letter was from a distant cousin, a girl a little bit younger than Peewee who had been living with Grannie and taking care of her during the last few years of her life. Two years prior, the frequency of letters from Grannie had slowed considerably, until eventually they’d ceased altogether. Peewee had known that Grannie was dying. So why did this come as such a blow?
He felt as if the last thread holding him here had been snipped, and he hadn’t even known it had been holding him. It was a terrible feeling, of placelessness, of homelessness even though he had a home.
“Are you going to go down there?” Allen had asked, and Peewee couldn’t bring himself to decide.
“I don’t know,” said Peewee, staring at the bedcovers. He looked up and locked eyes with Allen. “Should I?”
Allen said nothing, but what he thought was clear. “I can hold the fort up here, as long as you need,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up just slightly. And Peewee knew he could: Allen’s wealth was something they never spoke of, though it came up between them often, invisible and visible at the same time, like Allen’s whiteness.
“I love you,” said Allen.
Peewee took his hand, used his eyes to say what he couldn’t. “I know.”
Allen booked the flight. The last and only time Peewee had been on a plane was when he’d first left Mississippi for New York, the summer after high school graduation. He had been planning it for months, but never told Grannie. He broke her heart that summer, leaving his bedroom bare of anything that belonged to him. He had never been back.
The Mississippi ground was foreign under his feet – soft, green, and always retaining some kind of dampness. The air was wet too, humid. Peewee couldn’t stand it, it didn’t feel natural, moisture like this in November. He hated the harshness of it, the lack of cycles. The earth itself was unpredictable here, hot and uninhabitable, the ground always threatening to open up. It brought it all back, unprecedentedly vivid. The gunshots, his mother’s body heavy against them in the back of the boat, dead but none of them knowing yet. Grannie’s horrified cries when the doctor told them that Ma was gone. It rendered him speechless, unable to move.
But he had to move. He had to go home, at last. When he got to the airport in Natchez, he called Allen.
“Hello?” said Allen, after the first ring.
Peewee said nothing for a moment, just listened to Allen’s breath from the other line of the phone. “I want to come back,” he said. “I can’t do this.”
A breath.
“You can,” said Allen. Again, with conviction: “You can. You have to.”
***
The night after he arrived in Natchez, Peewee took the bus to his grandmother’s house. After the flood, they’d been lucky enough to move in with Grannie’s older sister, a widow who lived outside of the areas in danger of flooding. She’d died a few years after they moved in, and they were able to live there in the house. Grannie’s nieces and nephews were grown and, like Peewee, had chosen to leave Mississippi.
The house didn’t look the same. The rose bushes had grown wild, thorny and making the path up to the front door hazardous. The wooden exterior walls were patchy from peeling paint. The gate made a loud screeching noise when Peewee pushed it open. The noise evidently startled whoever was inside, because a woman swung open the front door. She was about Peewee’s age – maybe a few years younger – plump, with a kind face. She held a small child in her arms.
“You must be Peewee,” she said. “I’m your cousin Mae. Well, just don’t stand there,” she added, when Peewee did not move from his place on the path. “Come on in.”
“You must already know this,” said Mae, leading Peewee inside, “But your Grannie was just a wonderful woman. So loving. She must have told you this, but she took me in a few years ago after I got pregnant. My folks kicked me out, but she couldn’t bear to see me on the street. I used to come keep her company after…” she caught Peewee’s eye. “Anyway, she liked me a lot. And I loved her.”
She shuffled into the kitchen, placing her child at a seat at the table. “Come sit,” she said. “This is my boy, Henry.”
Henry was quiet. He gazed at the unfamiliar intruder without looking away. Peewee couldn’t stand the feeling of the little eyes on his skin. Asking him, who are you? Why did you come back?
***
Mae took him to the grave in the morning. It was three miles from the house – Mae left Henry with a neighbor when they set off. The walk was mostly uphill, and the graveyard overlooked the Mississippi River.
It didn’t take long to find Grannie’s gravestone. The earth was still wet and soft, still raised a bit off the ground.
“Did she want to be buried here?” asked Peewee.
“Oh, yes,” said Mae. “Your Grannie loved this part of town.”
“But by the river?” said Peewee, bristling. “I have a hard time believing she’d want to be buried here.” Peewee was uncomfortable on the riverbank, the ground soft beneath him. He wanted to leave. He hated the idea of Grannie staying here, next to the river that had claimed his parents. The river that any time could burst open and swallow her grave, taking her body down in a flood –
“Peewee, your grannie wasn’t afraid -”
“Obviously you don’t understand,” Peewee interrupted. “Of course she was afraid.”
Mae hesitated. “Maybe she used to be,” she said. “But she wasn’t when I knew her.” When Peewee said nothing, she spoke with new fervor. “Don’t you understand? She was tired of being afraid. And she didn’t want you to be afraid anymore either. You’ve lost so much. Don’t rob yourself of what you still have.”
Peewee looked at the gravestone, his grandmother’s name etched in with a permanence he had not prepared himself for. There she was, dead in the ground. She had left him, like he’d left her, like Ma and Pa had left both of them, and he was still standing. The only remaining member of his family, the only one who had seen, had borne witness – the only one who could carry the burden, remember that dark, dark night, and that cold, empty, lonely morning on the hills. Good-bye.
***
Peewee’s tired eyes could hardly stay open, but he was comforted by the lights that filled the streets. He could not stand to be swallowed in darkness. The city held him by both arms, lifted him up, helped him walk. With that many lights, he would never be lost. He walked down to the park by the edge of the East River. Here, the concrete kept the water out. Here, there was no threat of being swept away. Here, light led him to safety, and not into danger.
He walked to the bench where he and Allen always sat, and he found Allen there, staring out on the water. This was the only way they could be out in the city alone together, in darkness.
When Peewee sat beside him, Allen did not ask him how he was, or how it went, or how he was feeling. He just said, “I love you.”
A broken streetlight near them flickered and turned on, bathing them in warm light. There, the two looked at each other, their clear faces exposed to each other on the empty footpath.
And Peewee said, “I love you, too.”
Red River’s End
“White men killed the black men and black men killed the white. White men killed the black men because they could, and the black men killed the white men to keep from being killed. And killing was blood” (Wright 147).
Blood may be red but ashes were grey, and ashes were all that remained. The smoke plumed up from the blackened and singed floor, spiraling and curving into ghostly facades, haunting Sarah as she slowly made her way through the wreckage. The weight of each step disturbed the mottled gray and black ash underfoot, creating a charcoal-filled haze that obscured the earth below. Part of her mind, disjointed, scattered, and filled to the brim with a dull ringing, felt as if she were walking on a cloud, hovering over the ruins of her house with Tom’s comforting presence by her side. Was Tom still alive somewhere? He could’ve saved her but he left her. Was alive but gone better than here and dead? The ashen clouds offered her no answer. The gritty dirt scraping beneath her bare feet and the heavy weight of the child asleep in her arms snapped her out of her reverie and back to the destruction before her. The particle-filled air stung her eyes, but through the stars she could see the charred debris: the already-shattered gramophone scattered in opposing corners, a partially blackened and overturned tabletop, a scrap of cloth pinned to the pine beam from the hat of the white man who’d lit the match. Silas would have hated the sight of the white men’s flames shrouding the results of his own rage-filled carnage. The silence was so loud it hurt, the ashes softening the crunch of her exploration and padding the walls with quiet. Even the crickets, with their perpetual background melodies, were suffocating in the smoke-laden air. White men killed the black men and black men killed the white, and the crickets were dead too. Tom was gone, Silas was gone, gone-gone-gone. Sarah was the witness. Sarah had seen, was seeing, would see.
A sharp putrid scent wafted towards her, and her nose instinctively crinkled up as she turned towards its source. The scorched shape of a body lay in the back corner of the cottage, covered in a thick layer of ash and rubbish, clothes darkened by soot and peeling off the curled figure. Silas. A wail tore from her chest, guttural and thick, it filled up the silence of the room and Sarah felt Ruth stir against her side. She felt her body begin to seize, the cries pouring from her without control like a dam that once broken cannot be repaired. Her mind, partially detached from the scene, was a spectator to her own suffering, and she felt both at once entirely present and chillingly far away. She knew death. Everyone around here knew death of one kind or another. She’d grown up on a nearby farm, known not to get attached to the creatures they raised with love and care once spring came. She knew human death too, her father passing away too young after his heart gave out from days working the land until the land could give no more, until he could give no more. She knew pain. Everyone around here knew pain. The memories of the hands of the white man fumbling around her hips came flooding back. Had they ever left? Would they ever leave? She felt again the warmth moistness of his breath on her neck as he moved on top of her, and the bruises from fingers gripping her upper arm began to ache as her breath quickened into short gasps, as if the air was stopping just short of entering her lungs. As if God had decided he would no longer save her.
Still trembling, Sarah placed the newly awakened Ruth gently on the ground before kneeling to cover the body with her shawl. The dull purple of the woven fabric looked out of place with the solemnity of his figure, and the lower half his body stuck out from underneath the material in what felt like a perverse reminder of their mismatched relationship. A laugh ripped from her lips, punctuating the cries with a hiccupy whoop that sounded foreign to her ears. Have I gone mad? Death made him look so small, child-like almost, as if the years of barely contained rage and the fear of never measuring up had melted away along with the top layers of flesh. Sarah rested her head next to his, shrouded in her last possession, and felt the weight of her body on the floor. What was she going to do? She had nothing, she had been left again with nothing. Why had she invited the salesman in? Why had she not spoken up and told him to leave? He might’ve listened. She might’ve avoided all of this, prevented Silas from entering one of his rages. The thoughts raced into her mind, unbidden. What was she going to do? What could possibly be done? Everything always went wrong. Tom left, Silas died, and she was alone among the bodies that remained. The stars in her eyes flashed red and the fear and sadness and hopelessness and rage and rage and rage finally swept her away into a sleep that had been escaping her for far too long.
Sarah woke to the piercing cries of her child and guilt swept through her at her inability to comfort the only family she had left. Her arm and cheek ached where they had touched the hard floor and when she stood she saw that her entire side was blackened with ash. Dusting herself off as best she could, she felt the nausea rising again at the sight of Silas, the bile in her throat threatening to release down her front. Darkness washed over as she shut her eyes once more, and she breathed deeply. The air was still heavy with fire and the stink of charred flesh but the crickets were back, and she focused in on the sounds of their soft chirps coming in through the window.
She must have slept for at least an hour, because twilight had come unbidden with its lavender and orange hues permeating the room with an apricot glow. The chill of the evening breeze raised bumps along her skin, and without her shawl she felt vulnerable to the waiting dangers of night. She couldn’t stay here much longer, what if the white men came back? What if they wanted more, what if Silas’s death hadn’t been enough? What if the score still seemed uneven, the insult not yet revenged? Who knew what logic guided their actions, but she felt the urgency in her veins as she turned over the options she had left. She could go into town? The walk was over two hours and she would arrive with the darkness, but she had a childhood friend who lived on the outskirts near the post office. Would they take her in? They had to. They had to. They would. Her mind made up, she began to gather the few items that had been, miraculously, relatively untarnished by the inferno. Sifting through Silas’s jar of coins and pocketing the most valuable change, she spotted the broken clock that kept Ruth quiet and placed it in her infant’s hands. The baby gurgled and spat, a smile stretching her chapped lips wide. Sarah lifted the baby, broken clock and all, into her arms and shifted the bulk of her weight onto one hip. Amidst the dimming sunlight, Sarah began to walk. Bang! Bang! Bang! Ruth hit the broken clock with a charred stick she must’ve found on the floor of the house while Sarah slept. The Bang! Bang! Bang! echoed against the gone-gone-gone still ricocheting in Sarah’s head, and her feet fell into rhythm with the words as she moved farther and farther away from the plumes of smoke behind her.