“Come on, Squiggy,” Rachel say. “Momma’s waitin for us.”
“Squiggy? That’s a strange name for a boy. I’m George.”
Rachel pulls Squiggy along.
“You’re Josey’s children, aren’t you?” he say. He lifts his flask to his face and circles the space around it. “I can see it all in here.” He walks over to Rachel, bends down to her and sweeps her sandy blonde hair behind her ear. “Just like yer momma.”
Rachel backs away.
“Hold on now,” he say, kneeling and holding the back of her head to keep her still. “I’m just looking.”
A loud-talking woman passes the mouth of the road a few steps away and a pear falls from her basket. She follows its roll down the short mound and meets eyes with George there. She pauses at what I see, too: George leaning too close to Rachel.
He flips a silver coin from behind Rachel’s ear and shows it to her. Rachel gasps in delight. “Magic!”
The pear woman smiles, too, and George winks at her.
“Show me again, Mr. George! Show me how!” Rachel say.
“A good magician never tells his secrets.”
“You can tell me, suh!” she say, holding his arm, begging. He stares at the place where Rachel is touching him and she lets go directly. “I’m sorry,” she say.
“Naw. .” George say. “You can touch me wherever you want.”
“George?” Annie calls from the main road. “You saw him in here?” she says to somebody up on the road with her — the pear woman.
“Please tell me, Mr. George,” Rachel say. “I won’t tell nobody. Promise. Please.”
“Another time,” he say, and gives her the coin. “I’ll see you again. And only because you’re special.”
40 / FLASH, Conyers, Georgia, 1848
ALBERT’S BEEN LOOKING different around the face since he got burnt up twelve weeks ago. Thick scars have risen from under his skin like it’s been burrowed through. Other skin is yanked back in some places, slanting his eyes and spreading his bottom lip wider than it should be. The hairs left on his head are long and in thin bunches while the rest of his head’s got shiny bald spots, like flat rocks in high grass.
Albert got his name from iron even before the fire. Before he was born. Iron is black metal. Smith, a craftsman. A blacksmith. But right now, Albert is just iron. I been doing the smithing. “Don’t be afraid of the metal,” he said. “It won’t hit you back.” But metal is not what I’m afraid of. I suspect he know that, too. He’s been asking me to start the coal fire in the forge for him and it amazes me how forges can hold the greatest heat inside ’em. Like brick ovens, they are, turning the blackest iron orange-hot. Inside it, wild fire can be controlled. Bellows send large flames lapping and can send the same fire to a low burn. But if you get it wrong, there’s only a bucket of water nearby.
Albert asks me to place the iron evenly in the fire pot, not on the coal. Asks me to give him his hammers, but some of ’em three pounds. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. But fire’s already changed everything.
Albert made me give him a piece of mirror the other day. He stared at hisself, turned his head slowly from side to side, raised his hand to touch his face. He told me, “No use in crying.”
And that time, I didn’t stop myself crying for him.
I cried because I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have the face I was born to make.
I cried because being negro is hard enough.
I cried because I wished I had his courage. And because, in that moment, I was certain that even if he didn’t want for me to be his family, I wanted him to be my friend.
Cynthia once told me that a man and woman could never be friends. Said, “Sex’ll always get in the way ’cause men are lazy. A woman friend is what you call convenient.”
But Albert ain’t lazy.
And me and him rely on each other now. Every day and in most ways, we do. For things most men and women not related or married would never have the pleasure to share.
There ain’t many secrets between us now.
That’s my fault because I thought he was a dying man when I spoke to him honest and open about my regrets. And I figure his secrets are gone now, too, since I spent the first three weeks working on his toileting. “Life is funny,” he said. “When the shame goes, what’s left to do?”
I sneak up on Albert and slowly reach for a bunch of his hair with my scissor blades open. Before I can snip it, he spins me around, holds both my wrists in one of his hands, laughing. He say, “You trying to take away my power, Delilah?”
He crisscrosses my arms in front of me, making me hug my own seven-months-pregnant belly and he scratches in my armpit. “What you gon’ do now, Delilah?”
“Let me cut it,” I say. “Just a little off the top. Even it up.” He keeps flicking his finger in my pit. We laughing. We take care of each other.
And this morning, he took care of me.
I had lost my voice in the night and had gone to bed speechless. I don’t know if it was my talking too much that done it, or being out in the cold, or the coughing, but I lost it and Albert wanted to heal me.
I pretended to be ’sleep while I watched him tiptoe around our new living area. His back was against the stone wall he just built floor to ceiling to separate our new space from his shop. Ours is ten feet by ten feet, the ceiling is eight feet high to match his shop. “Mostly fireproof,” he said, except for the doorway in the wall that leads to his work.
We both sleep on the same side of the door even though we ain’t married. I sleep on my bed mat on the floor, and Albert sleeps across the room in a padded chair next to the oven. We eat and sleep on this side now.
And this morning, I was watching him go across the floor on the balls of his quiet feet. He started bothering his “secret” stash of liquor behind the box where he keeps his spare tools. This hiding place wasn’t his best kept secret since all the bottle necks of his liquor stick up and over the box — a line of sight from my pillow — so I cain’t say (and be honest) that I’ve never took my liberties with ’em. That’s why when he woke me up this morning and only gave me a stingy swallow of his expensive Talisker whisky, I had to gag on it a little to pretend it was new to me.
“It’s strong, isn’t it?” he said. “Burns. But it’s the best around. Tastes a little woodsy?”
“A bonfire in a glass,” I said.
“And I already know I’m gon’ regret giving you a taste.”
“’Cause now I know where you hide your costly whiskey?”
“Naw, ’cause now I gotta hear you talk.”
I LIKE THE way we think of each other — sister and brother. Adopted, maybe. It’s like I can read his mind and know what he wants to eat or drink before he’s hungry or thirsty. And he thinks of things I need before I even want ’em. Like the bag of candy he brought back from town this morning. He came in the door popping a piece of it in his mouth. The smell was clean lemon. He didn’t even ask if I wanted some ’cause that’s the difference between us — I give it freely and he wants me to ask. Teases me. “Sure is good,” he said.
I wasn’t gon’ ask.
I tried not to pay him no mind. Instead, I focused on greasing my feet. Took the grease jar from under the bench and twisted it open. I scooped two fingers in it like a spoon, pulled back a clear wad, smooth as jelly, then warmed it by rubbing my hands together. That’s when he got louder with his sweets, clicking that rock candy against his teeth, slurping sugar slobber.
I laughed, “Let me rub some of this grease on your face. It’ll loosen your scars.”
“Can’t you see I’m working my mouth to enjoy this tasty treat?”