down. But I don't want to.
"What did she say when she found out they sold me?"
"She didin know."
"She didin know." Those three words mean more to me than "I love you." And they just as hard to believe. Garlic would lie for Mammy. Love. Ignorance. Lying. How you supposed to know anything? God? Springs of faith? Weed patches of blindness with pretty little dandelions growing in them? I like to think, I would like to think, she didn't know. I see into this thing too deeply. Maybe she sent me away, for me. Once I was gone, she had to forget me, or she, Pallas, would a died of pain. I know all about it. Didn't I do the same? Forget or die of pain. Die of pain while I learned to forget?
Miss Priss came back to the kitchen for her cup of coffee. Miss Priss looked at me hard. She asked if she could read my palm.
"What do you see?" There's something sly and intelligent about Miss Priss, but the whites don't see it.
"Not'ing, I see not'ing."
"Why you shivering?"
"It gives me the heebie-jeebies to stand out in that graveyard. It's strange, all those little boys buried right next to your Mama."
"Why strange?"
Garlic tried to silence Miss Priss with a look, but she kept carrying forward, and he just banged out of the room, taking a cup of coffee out to his wife in the parlor. Miss Priss let her voice drop real low, low in pitch and low in loudness. She kind of hissed into my ear. "Your Mama killed those boys soon as they were born."
"Why would she do that?"
"What would we a done with a sober white man on this place?"
30
Me gone to sleep and got up again. The house, Garlic's house, is cold, silent, dark. It feels so different to know this was Garlic's dream and not Planter's. Not my father's.
Garlic pulled the string, and Planter danced like a bandy-legged Irish marionette. Everything but the horseback riding. That was his. There was always something African about Planter, and Garlic was it. Even Planter's love of the land had something African in it. Black people are ancestor worshippers. And they have the sense of sacred places. Me heard the stories. My heart is still crick-crack-breaking. There's a bright bitter feeling snaking down my chest. I don't feel my heart beat, but I want to.
My forehead sweats hot beads, my hands sweat cold. My nose is beige and my mother's black. I look at my fingers and sometimes I think the tips of them are purple. I look at my face and see a faint redness on the cheeks, as if a scarlet butterfly landed on my face while I was sleeping and left its rouging flying-dust.
Now what has Garlic told me? That he helped Planter win him in a card game by poisoning his old master, Planter's opponent. That he chose to work for Planter because Planter was an impotent man. Oh, God! What God do I now imagine in heaven? Where are his hair of gold and eyes of blue? My Daddy's eyes. The only God I knew built Cotton Farm, ran the slaves on this place. Now that ain't Planter. Ain't Daddy. Now what? Now Planter was a man without position or land who Garlic manipulated with his black hands into winning our land from another white man in a card game. Garlic the poisoner. I would laugh if it were not so sad. I would laugh if every laugh didn't jostle loose bitter burps of knowing, leaving vinegar vapor on my tongue, the only vestige of the illusion of my father's power.
31
I am leaving here today. The place where I was born. I wish I had not come back. The three little graves, the boys' graves, the heirs' graves. It's like thisâMama kill those children? Or not. Ain't sure which way I want it to be. I think I don't want her to have done it. And then I feel, if she did it, I know for sure she loved me. Loved me enough to kill. And it hard for someone who ain't a killer to kill.
Miss Priss told me long time ago of how Other and Mealy Mouth killed the soldier. Knifed him to death, on the steps, with his own sword. They pretended like they hadn't. But dark eyes see everything on a place like this. Or do they see
"What did she say when she found out they sold me?"
"She didin know."
"She didin know." Those three words mean more to me than "I love you." And they just as hard to believe. Garlic would lie for Mammy. Love. Ignorance. Lying. How you supposed to know anything? God? Springs of faith? Weed patches of blindness with pretty little dandelions growing in them? I like to think, I would like to think, she didn't know. I see into this thing too deeply. Maybe she sent me away, for me. Once I was gone, she had to forget me, or she, Pallas, would a died of pain. I know all about it. Didn't I do the same? Forget or die of pain. Die of pain while I learned to forget?
Miss Priss came back to the kitchen for her cup of coffee. Miss Priss looked at me hard. She asked if she could read my palm.
"What do you see?" There's something sly and intelligent about Miss Priss, but the whites don't see it.
"Not'ing, I see not'ing."
"Why you shivering?"
"It gives me the heebie-jeebies to stand out in that graveyard. It's strange, all those little boys buried right next to your Mama."
"Why strange?"
Garlic tried to silence Miss Priss with a look, but she kept carrying forward, and he just banged out of the room, taking a cup of coffee out to his wife in the parlor. Miss Priss let her voice drop real low, low in pitch and low in loudness. She kind of hissed into my ear. "Your Mama killed those boys soon as they were born."
"Why would she do that?"
"What would we a done with a sober white man on this place?"
30
Me gone to sleep and got up again. The house, Garlic's house, is cold, silent, dark. It feels so different to know this was Garlic's dream and not Planter's. Not my father's.
Garlic pulled the string, and Planter danced like a bandy-legged Irish marionette. Everything but the horseback riding. That was his. There was always something African about Planter, and Garlic was it. Even Planter's love of the land had something African in it. Black people are ancestor worshippers. And they have the sense of sacred places. Me heard the stories. My heart is still crick-crack-breaking. There's a bright bitter feeling snaking down my chest. I don't feel my heart beat, but I want to.
My forehead sweats hot beads, my hands sweat cold. My nose is beige and my mother's black. I look at my fingers and sometimes I think the tips of them are purple. I look at my face and see a faint redness on the cheeks, as if a scarlet butterfly landed on my face while I was sleeping and left its rouging flying-dust.
Now what has Garlic told me? That he helped Planter win him in a card game by poisoning his old master, Planter's opponent. That he chose to work for Planter because Planter was an impotent man. Oh, God! What God do I now imagine in heaven? Where are his hair of gold and eyes of blue? My Daddy's eyes. The only God I knew built Cotton Farm, ran the slaves on this place. Now that ain't Planter. Ain't Daddy. Now what? Now Planter was a man without position or land who Garlic manipulated with his black hands into winning our land from another white man in a card game. Garlic the poisoner. I would laugh if it were not so sad. I would laugh if every laugh didn't jostle loose bitter burps of knowing, leaving vinegar vapor on my tongue, the only vestige of the illusion of my father's power.
31
I am leaving here today. The place where I was born. I wish I had not come back. The three little graves, the boys' graves, the heirs' graves. It's like thisâMama kill those children? Or not. Ain't sure which way I want it to be. I think I don't want her to have done it. And then I feel, if she did it, I know for sure she loved me. Loved me enough to kill. And it hard for someone who ain't a killer to kill.
Miss Priss told me long time ago of how Other and Mealy Mouth killed the soldier. Knifed him to death, on the steps, with his own sword. They pretended like they hadn't. But dark eyes see everything on a place like this. Or do they see
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