“He wouldn’t go without me.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ada Mae tell Everett, smiling full of teeth.
Josey don’t wait for them to leave before she does. She darts between trees, using ’em for shelter from the new pouring rain. She steps out of the hollow near her front door and gets a running start to slide herself across the muddied way to the door with her arms held out to her sides to keep from falling over. “Daddy!” she yells.
No answer.
“Daddy!”
Charles ain’t inside.
Just as Josey pushes the door open, something catches her eye in the woods behind her. She touches her bracelet, whispers, “Jackson.”
I wait at the door when she goes back to the place she first met him.
She walks inside the hollow and I hear her calling to the boy, “Jackson?” I go with her.
A bright green frog hops across her path and she shoos it. I wish I could shoo it, too, chase it with her, hold her hand, enjoy this rumored freedom ’cause there’s hope in it right now even if its meaning is lost.
If I could talk to Josey, I’d tell her to always enjoy the present. To live in it. I’d tell her about love, too. I’d tell her the love she has for this boy, she’ll feel again. I’d tell her about real love. Tell her to not be fooled by what feels real. Tell her to get married like I never could. Tell her to marry someone who’s kind. I’d tell her to make herself kinder by learning to care for people with bad attitudes and nothing to offer ’cause the kindness she measures to others will be measured back to her. I’d tell her that in the end, we’ll all need somebody to take care of us, if we live long enough. If we get old. That’s when it’ll matter most. When we’re living the consequence of our old yeses and nos. And if you’re lucky, I’d tell her, your caregiver will be your own spouse because you’d have paid for that privilege with your commitment. And if not your husband, let it be someone you love and loves you.
I take a look around and share this present with her.
“Massa George?” I hear Josey say. “Somethin I can do for you, suh?” I hear her muddled scream before I can reach her.
His hand is at her throat and her eyes are wide. She grabs his hand and a squeak like a quick-blown whistle shoots from her mouth but cain’t nobody hear her but me. She swings her hands, her feet, at his body but he sends his fist to her cheek. She’s limp.
Jesus! I don’t know what to do! Tell me what to do!
He grabs her by her blouse and drags her moaning along the ground. Her headscarf unravels, her blouse rips away. He holds her under the armpits, pulling her deeper into the woods, then drops her in a patch of dirt he already prepared for this. George straddles her, pulls his belt from his loops one-handed and wraps it around her throat, pulls it tight, then loosens it.
Josey wakes and flails wild on the ground, tugging at the belt, her nails break against the leather, the sharp broken bits scratch down his arm, slicing thin lines. The belt strap slips from his hand. She screams hoarse, out of breath. He finds the strap again, pulls harder, like reins.
A smirk grows on his face as her fight weakens. He double loops the strap around his whole fist.
Josey stops. Her eyes roll back. He loosens the leather and moments pass. She takes a life-saving breath. Coughs. He say, “You scream again, I swear I’ll kill you.”
Something nearby in the bushes moves and George looks over his shoulder. Just for a second. Enough for Josey to kick him square in the jaw. She leaps up, confused and running in the wrong direction. He dives on her back, puts his full weight on her, anchors her down ’til she shrinks to her knees. He puts his hand on the back of her neck, pushes her face down in the ground, presses her cheek in the dirt. He bites her shoulder through the skin. She screams. He rolls her over, puts his knee in her stomach. She reaches for his face. Too short’s her arms. She only huffs beneath him now. A whistle joins her exhales.
“Please,” she say. He reaches for a low branch and runs his hand down it to rip the leafs off. He shoves the leafs in her mouth, turns her over, face down in the mud, sits on her spine, both his hands pressed down on her shoulder blades. Tree roots, like dead fingers, have risen from the wet ground and press against her throat, crushing her windpipe.
He shifts her head and she breathes.
“Please, God,” I say. “Please kill this man right now. Burn him up. Stab him through the heart. Please!”
Josey cries loud and hollow. He pushes her back on the root ’til she cain’t make a sound.
I kick up the wind, make tornadoes of leaves and dirt, send it to his face. He only brushes them away. “God, have mercy. Please kill this man! Please, God? Please?”
Josey stops moving.
Only he’s moving now. Grunting.
The only thing I can do: I lay down on the forest floor with her. See her breathing. Just enough. We lay together. Stay still together. I imagine I kiss her tears. I imagine I stroke her forehead. Whisper, “You ain’t alone.”
Part III
18 / FLASH, Conyers, Georgia, 1847
THE HOT GEORGIA sun is beating down on all of us, ’fectin me most ’cause I’m the only one that got to walk in it. Cynthia sent me to the apothecary to get some medicine for Bernadette. I forgot the sheet of paper with the medicine’s name written on it but I already know. It’s the same as always. Coca leafs.
The heat is keeping the streets mostly clear except for the white children playing in ’em, a few shades darker than usual, their winter skins brown. White women are posed under the shade of storefronts with their pink and blue dresses on, fanning themselves softly like it ain’t that hot. But in the shack far behind the shops, black women are sitting side-by-side across the porch, wide-legged and perched back on their hands, welcoming a breeze. Their skirts are scrunched up to their waists showing their hand-washed britches.
White men roll by on horse-drawn wagons crumbling rocks beneath ’em and spraying out dirt, stinging my arm. Some old bits of grass get caught on my face and stick to the sweat. And other men are walking around with no shirts on, or thin garments with their nipples and nuts showing through their clothes. It ain’t fair they tell women to wear something like a baggie sleeve from neck to ankle even in a heat wave. The religious ones tell her it’s what God wants. To honor her body. When really it’s to make women servants to those men’s sin because they cain’t see women the way God intended — not everybody’s a possible lover — sisters and brothers, maybe. But those men blame her instead of asking God to cleanse and fix them. Around women, those men are always halfway in hell. Double-minded.
I stagger up the porch steps and into the brothel. Inside’s as hot as out and Cynthia’s complaining in the corner like it’s gon’ make God turn off the heat.
“It’s about time,” she say to me. “Put it on the counter and go wash your hands out back.”
I love the way Jeremy play piano.
He looks like a stray cat sitting over there all spit-cleaned and skinny. He’s playing a slow and easy melody, erasing the stains of this place. Even though Cynthia hired him to play for the house, I think he only plays for me.
He’s real good with his fingers.
Cynthia told him she gon’ cut ’em off if she catch him touching my hand again when I pass him by to serve drinks. So I don’t go near him this time. Instead, I pass Bobby Lee and another man sitting at the side table near the mouth of the hallway. It’s the first time I’ve seen Bobby Lee this close without his hat pulled all the way down and his arms crossed high on his chest.