The World Doesn't Require You Page 15

  Can’t drive no more, James-my-man said. Late as shit. Got a safe spot we can rest at. Get some food too.

  Rick nodded, hunger and sleepiness nipping at him minute by minute.

  The needle hovered around fifty, sometimes sixty. After some time, Rick recognized a dilapidated red-brick schoolhouse with cracked windows. It bore a dingy sign that read FREDERICK DOUGLAS MIDDLE SCHOOL. That it was missing the second s in Douglass caused the place to stick in his head. They had passed it twice before.

  We lost? Rick asked.

  Naw, man, James-my-man replied. Look up, chief. There go the North Star. I’m following that.

  Rick couldn’t see any stars. The black sky glowed radiant with the shine of streetlights, but no stars.

  So watch, James-my-man said—his voice deep and resonant. We gon’ pass through this part of town here in Port Yooga, uh, this tiny little neighborhood we used to call the Dustlands—where this black man used to stand on the side of the street with his face slathered in black shoe polish or what I thought was shoe polish at the time. All around his mouth was fire-truck red like he was wearing bright-ass lipstick. So even when he was frowning he looked like he was cheesing, like . . . like . . . like a painful cheesing and shit.

  James-my-man’s voice pitched low and serious; Rick leaned in to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. There was something about this story, something about the voice, Rick forgot that they were driving in circles.

  So this guy, James-my-man said, would wear white gloves and a top hat and when he removed his hat, he had beads in his head so knotty it was as if he had never passed a comb through them. He was out there every damn day no matter what the weather was like. Cold, hot. And the man had this big-ass boom box and he’d be dancing by the side of the streets singing “Zip Coon” and swiveling his hips and shit. Everybody loved dude. Kids would be clapping and he’d do a jig and then make balloon animals for them when he was done. This guy made hundreds of dollars a day.

  James-my-man stopped talking to crunch some more pills between his teeth. He became silent, gazing up to the empty sky for direction. He drove like that for a few seconds, staring vacantly with his mouth slightly ajar, a trickle of clear saliva inching away from the corner of his lips, until Rick’s voice brought him back into the moment.

  Yo, James-my-man, you ai’ight?

  Yeah, yeah, man, James-my-man replied. Wade in the water, baby. Wade in the water. Keep your eye out for them slave-catchers.

  Uh, yeah . . . So what happened with the coon nigga and his little minstrel show?

  Don’t be so quick to judge, my nig-nig. Anyway, he went on dancing for months, entertaining people and shit. It was fun, but then the newspaper started writing about it. They had pictures on the front page, Coon W. Calhoun—that was his name—eating a big-ass slice of watermelon, that was one of his favorite gags, just chomping down on that fruit, watermelon juice all on his face. Headline said: “This Is Entertainment?”

  Coon W. Calhoun? That nigga would get lynched where I’m from.

  Shit, that’s nearly ’bout what did happen to him.

  Just then James-my-man stopped nearly in the middle of the street. He turned off the engine and got out of the car. You coming? he asked. They were in a manicured suburban neighborhood. James-my-man knocked on the door of a plain white house with bushes on each side of the walkway and dirt caked on the siding. It looked to Rick, if he didn’t know any better, that in its blandness the house was trying to be inconspicuous.

  It’s after midnight, Rick whispered. You sure it’s okay to be knocking here?

  Man, you gotta start thinking like a runaway, James-my-man replied. He was nearly shouting. Nighttime is when we travel. Slave-catchers be out during the day. Besides, can’t no one see our black asses in the dark.

  As if in response, a police car sped by, sirens blazing. Rick flinched and moved closer to the house.

  See? James-my-man said. Fucking slave-catchers. Say, what should I call you?

  Rick.

  Rick?

  James-my-man paused and looked upward as if contemplating a deep truth.

  That’s no good, man.

  What you mean? That’s my name.

  Don’t nobody use their real name on the Underground Railroad. I didn’t want to know that your name is Rick. You think my mama named me James-my-man? How do you know when them slave-catchers get me I’m not gonna give you up by name?

  I never really thought about it like that.

  That’s right, you didn’t think.

  Well, you can call me Freebird.

  Freebird, huh? No. I don’t like that one. From now on you’re Ricks.

  But that’s—

  Let’s keep it down, Ricks. Not too much noise. Slave-catchers and shit.

  James-my-man knocked again, this time harder. The house remained dark. He stepped back and started whispering loudly, calling out a woman’s name. An old woman’s voice responded.

  Cut out all that noise, she replied in a whisper that wasn’t a whisper. You’ll get us lynched. Who’s out there?

  James-my-man and Ricks. Aunt Harriet, we tired and need to rest our hollow bones.

  There was a moment of quiet followed by the muffled beeping of an alarm system and then the sound of several locks turning. The door opened a crack. Light bounced off the gold chain as it stretched in the doorway. A dark, wrinkled face peeked out.

  Aunt Harriet, James-my-man pleaded, can these dry bones live? Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.

  Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live, Aunt Harriet said, and then she closed the door with a heavy thud.

  A jangling of sliding chains sounded and then the door opened up and the small woman stood with the darkness of her house radiating outward.

  O my people, she said. I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them.

  The next morning James-my-man and Rick awoke to a dining room table lined with fluffy waffles and golden brown fried chicken. Rick took a bite from the salty, spicy flesh. It shot a pleasant, and mercifully small, spot of grease into the corner of his mouth. It was the first thing he’d eaten since he’d walked off from his ol’ Virginny life (as his father called it) and headed to the highway; a moment into his meal, and Rick felt he was sitting on the verge of the peace he sought.

  While they ate, Aunt Harriet hovered, plying her visitors with food and telling stories of running through the South, clutching a baby to her chest. But she didn’t do that anymore; too old for running now. She spoke slowly, deliberately, but the tales seemed to come at a rapid pace. They couldn’t possibly be true, Rick thought, but they all felt true, it felt as if he had lived them with her. She’d tell a tale and then she’d cackle.

  Aunt Harriet cleared the table and was on, probably, her twelfth story, when she stopped and peered into Rick’s face.

  Boy, you look like somebody I used to know, she said. You from Cross River?

  Rick nodded. Trying to get back, he said. Ain’t been there in a while.

  Me neither. I was there when they founded the town, you know. I was a teenager fresh from the boat, but I remember those as some hellafied times. I done forgot a lot of things, but I won’t never forget them ol’ days. I was crouching behind a barrel when them crazy niggers on the plantation was swinging them cutlasses—big things this long. She held her arms far apart. They took old-white-man-what’s-his-name’s head clean off. That’s where they get the saying from, you know the one I’m talking about: Cross River niggers are the craziest! Rick repeated the last part of the phrase with the old woman. I came up with it, you know, she said. Plenty folks take credit for it, but I made it up. I used to argue with folks over it, but all them folks is dead now. Aunt Harriet cackled. Ain’t no one to argue with me about it no more. It’s the truth, though.

  A man grabbed me by the hand, she continued, and led me off that plantation and we followed the Cross River and like that we was free and we sett
led the town. I was the one who said we should name it Cross River. That damn river looked powerful, strong. It was angry, like it was ready to rise up and reclaim the town. It still like that?

  Rick shrugged. I don’t know, he replied. I’m trying to see it again one of these days. Soon, I hope.

  Well, Godspeed to you, son. Some stupid clown, I think I see his goofy face now, wanted to name the town Heart City or some simple foolishness like that. He was one crazy boy; always talking a bunch of nonsense. Thought he could fly, jumped out a tree and broke his neck and died one day.

  She cackled again, her music shrill and amusing, causing her guests to chuckle along. Aunt Harriet’s cackle went on for a long time and was punctuated by short gasps. Light sparkled off the gold that covered a few of her front teeth. That was the first time Rick had noticed the jewelry. She briefly lost control of herself, luxuriating in laughter.

  But anyway, you remind me of the cutlass-swinging nigger who took me by the hand that crazy night. You move like him, smile like him. It’s like he still walking the earth so long as you here. Coulda been your great-great-great-granddaddy.

  Her story resembled tales Rick’s father used to tell, which were in turn passed down from his father and went all the way back to the ancestor who took part in the Great Insurrection that led to the founding of Cross River. Rick had heard them, or different versions of them, so many times before. Still, he sat there staring at Aunt Harriet as if her stories were brand-new to him.

  Aunt Harriet, you’re just making all this up, Rick replied. For that to be true, you’d have to be over two hundred years old.

  She flashed her yellowish brown teeth and went into the kitchen to wash the dishes and toss their chicken bones in the trash.

  When the sun went down and the three of them sat in the living room, reading the newspaper and watching television, a series of thumps sounded at the door. A shadow passed over Aunt Harriet’s face and her smile disappeared. She turned out all the lights and removed a black pistol from the hallway closet. As the banging became louder, Rick felt his scrotum tighten. A wave of fear passed up through his stomach and chest, resting finally at the base of his skull.

  Aunt Harriet, I’m tired and need to rest my hollow bones, a voice called. Can these dry bones live? My bones are dried up and my hope is gone; I am cut off.

  Stop all that damn hollering! Aunt Harriet called.

  She opened the door and yanked him inside.

  You Nigger Jim? The man nodded. You’re late.

  He wore ragged burlap pants, a tattered blue polyester shirt, and a straw hat. On his feet, Nigger Jim wore nothing, and as a result, his feet bled and were covered in the road’s dirt.

  You gon’ say the rest? he asked.

  She waved her hand, sucked her teeth, and walked away.

  Oh Lord, James-my-man mumbled toward Rick. Here come one of these crazy niggas who think you gotta keep everything one hundred percent accurate to re-create the Underground Railroad. These fools are like Civil War reenactors or some shit; no understanding that the past is the present. Watch this nigga; I bet he do the Forgotten Tunnel too.

  Rick only half listened. He stared at the bleeding feet of the walking absurdity before him.

  Sometime after midnight Aunt Harriet went off to bed. May the spirit of the Great Insurrection always be with you, she said as she walked off. The three men climbed the stairs into the cramped attic. Each man claimed a patch of insulation as his bed. Rick felt the cold nipping at his fingertips and he buried them between his head and the fluffy pink padding.

  Fellas, James-my-man said, that cotton field party is gonna be some big shit this year.

  This party—think the Lizard can get me some brains? Nigger Jim asked. I’d fight a whole box of matches for a chance to get some brains.

  There’ll be head for everyone, James-my-man replied. The Lizard of God will see to it. Head and love. The Lizard of God got an army of women to give us head and love. Our cold hearts gonna start beating again. Watch.

  You know what I like about the Lizard? James-my-man continued. Don’t shit scare him. The nigga’s unflappable. Got a lot of courage. I wish I could get like that. I asked him how I could be like him. You know what this nigga said? Get a gun. Dude said he gonna sell me one at the party. Ain’t that something?

  The comment was so strange that both Rick and Nigger Jim embraced silence.

  Rick felt the urge to talk to his new roommate so as not to appear rude. He called out: Say, Nigga Jim—

  Excuse me, Ricks, this is a small thing, but it’s Nigg-er with an er, not with an a, Nigger Jim replied. Nigg-er, Nigg-er, Nigg-er . . .

  And that’s how Rick drifted off to sleep that night.

  Some hours passed—Rick was not sure how many—and he was woken from his sleep by heavy feet stamping up the stairs. He sprang from the depths of his slumber, gasping deeply as he sat up. The door swung open and slammed against the floor. A shadowy head peeked up through the entrance.

  Y’all gotta go! A voice shouted. Y’all gotta go now!

  It was Aunt Harriet, her head in the attic’s entrance floating there like a dark balloon.

  Wha-what’s going on? Rick asked.

  James-my-man gathered his clothes, scurrying about in the tiny attic.

  Look alive, guys, he said. We gotta bounce.

  Nigger Jim snatched his straw hat from the floor and slapped it onto his head. Rick slipped his red boots onto his feet. Before long the three men were in James-my-man’s Impala as it zig-zag-zigged through the neighborhood. James-my-man crunched pills like peanuts. He jiggled the bottle about as an offering and both Nigger Jim and Rick shook their heads.

  Relaxation escaped Rick, as they drove on backstreets and through remote neighborhoods (to shake any slave-catchers who might be following, James-my-man, said). Rick’s blood churned like angry German shepherds were on his heels. James-my-man shook the bottle of pills at him again, but Rick refused. Suit yourself, James-my-man replied.

  Sometime during the ride Rick asked if they were heading to Cross River now, just to be sure, and James-my-man told him that the next stop was the big party in the cotton field at the edge of Cross River. Rick breathed deeply in relief. Soon he’d be home. He turned around to speak to Nigger Jim, but found him gently snoring in the backseat.

  When Rick faced toward the front, he heard Nigger Jim say, Well, nigga, what you want?

  I thought you were ’sleep.

  You want something or not?

  Rick looked again at Nigger Jim. His eyes remained closed, and his chest rose and fell in the manner that looked to Rick like sleep breathing.

  Uh, Rick said. So you a big Mark Twain fan, huh?

  What? Nigger Jim said. Who’s Mark Twain?

  He’s an auth— I mean, your name—

  My name? Lotsa niggas named Nigger Jim. It’s a common name!

  Oh. That makes sense, I guess. Isn’t it weird that you and James-my-man have similar names?

  James-my-man, what’s this nigga, Ricks, talking about? Nigger Jim didn’t open his eyes, but he turned to the side and used his hands as a pillow. Though his eyes were shaded by his eyelids, Rick could tell he rolled them in disgust. My name is Nigger Jim, his is James-my-man. The names don’t even hardly got nothing in common.

  You know, James, Jim?

  Uh, yeah? They’re different names. Where did you find this dude, James-my-man? You can be weird up there, Ricks, I’m ’sleep.

  I’m not following either, Ricks. I guess it’s okay. We need weird, psychopathic thinkers if we’re going to outsmart whitey. I survived out here on all these trips by my wit and with a little help from some friendly race-traitors.

  Nigger Jim snored loudly now while James-my-man went into a story about the Quakers who put him up for a month one trip through the Underground Railroad when his planning went awry and he ran out of money. Those Quakers were always the last stop before Canada, James-my-man said.

  This story led to one about a Quaker he went to
high school with.

  He was a cool dude, James-my-man said. The Quakers always been helping us out on the Underground Railroad since way, way back. We used to have a saying in high school: Quakers ain’t crackers—

  James-my-man, Rick said. This is a really shitty story.

  They’re all shitty stories, James-my-man replied, but they’re all true. He paused. It’s not like you have any stories to tell. Oh yeah, I never finished the one about Coon W. Calhoun. Where was I?

  One of Nigger Jim’s snores turned seamlessly into a set of words: You telling him about Coon W. Calhoun? That was some fucked-up shit.

  So the newspapers started writing about him all the time, James-my-man said. They had essays and editorials calling for his head. Then there was one, I’ll never forget it, the headline was: “Coon Calhoun Needs to Be Lynched.” It was in big bold letters! Man, I couldn’t believe the newspaper would be so blatant.

  Nigger Jim farted as if to comment on James-my-man’s story and then he started to snore again.

  So anyway, James-my-man continued, he go out there one morning, a Thursday morning. Dancing like usual; a big-ass smile on his niggerlips, singing some little kiddie song or something, and all the children and their mothers are standing around. People putting money in his hat and his greasy blackface is sweating and shit, his chest is moving fast up and down because he’s out of breath. Then there’s some commotion. Somebody’s yelling some shit. There’s a guy in a blue denim robe and a blue pointy denim hood with two eyeholes cut out. Those were the meanest, most soulless eyes I ever had the misfortune of seeing. He walks right up to Coon Calhoun, and blaow! Pops a hole right in the man’s chest.

  Damn, Rick said.

  Yeah, they never caught the dude neither. I’ll never forget his ashy brown hand wrapped around that big black gun. And Coon Calhoun lying there in this big-ass pool of blood. And then the gang war started right after that.

  Gang war?

  Yeah, man. Well, obviously the dude that shot him was from the Krip Klux Klan, but that’s Dustland Willie Lynch Mob territory. You can’t roll up on another gang’s turf and start popping niggas. Plenty people got lynched over the death of Coon W. Calhoun. Plenty people. They was cutting Krip Klux and Willie Lynch Mob niggas down from trees for weeks. It wasn’t safe around there for a real long time. I thought I was a tough guy, but you ain’t see me out there a lot during that time. Some niggas like lynching, but I just watch ’em hang. You know what I’m saying? I wasn’t scared or nothing, mind you, but I kept my head down. But the same newspaper that was saying Coon W. Calhoun need to be lynched then turned around and was like, Stop the violence. It was absurd, man. They ain’t even miss a beat; ain’t acknowledge that they was the main ones calling for Coon W. Calhoun’s head, inciting violence and shit. They called that nigga a beloved street entertainer. Crazy.