Walter Mosley - 47

"Watch your mouth," Fred Chocolate said as he slapped the top of John's head.

But my friend didn't cower or wince. He kept Flore's eye and she looked at him in wonder and maybe even with a little fear.

"It was nice to meet you, young man," she said then. "I'm afraid you'll be seein' more of him than you want to," Fred said. "Mastuh seems to think that this copper-colored piece'a trash can help Miss Eloise." "He has the touch?" Flore asked. "Mastuh think so." "Do you?" Flore asked John.

"My people know a great deal about herbs and healing," he said. "We've been curing disease for longer than even we can remember."

"That's the lies he tole Mastuh," Chocolate said. "Now we have to smell his field stink all over our house."

I heard all the words but I didn't really care about anything but the insinuation that Miss Eloise was sick.

Back then in my s/avemind, as John called it, I thought that Eloise was the closest thing you could come to an angel here on Earth. She was to me the most beautiful girl in all the world. I loved her in my heart as Brother Bob told us we had to love the Lord. Every night when I remembered to say my prayers I asked Him to keep her safe. I felt that if anything happened to Miss Eloise that I would die too.

Eloise was a beautiful child, that's for sure. And I learned later that she was a good person too. But now I realize that I loved her whiteness when I was still a slave because that whiteness meant freedom, and freedom was what I wanted more than anything in the world even though I didn't know it.

As soon as John and I were away from the back door of the mansion I asked him, "Did you see Miss Eloise?"

He didn't answer me right off. Instead he walked with me in silence until we got to a fence behind the chicken coop. We climbed up and over the few rungs and went maybe a dozen paces into the bushes. There, behind a big bramble bush, was a downed cottonwood tree that made a perfect seat for someone who needed to take a load off without being seen. I had never known about that resting place and I wondered how John knew to walk right to it. But I was too upset about Miss Eloise to question him about it.

"Did you see her?" I asked again.

John sat back on the cottonwood trunk and pulled his knee up to his skinny chest.

"Yes, I did," he said after a moment's thought. "Tobias asked me if I knew anything about healing. He said that Andrew Pike said that his wife thought that the runaway slave was a healer. I told him that I wasn't Pike's runaway, even though I am, and he said that I didn't have to worry about Pike, that Pike owed him two slaves and so that I was safe with him. All he cared about was if I was a healer."

"And what did you say?" I said, trying to move the story along.

"I told him that my people knew about healing."

"And so? Did you see Miss Eloise?" I asked for the third time.

"Yes. Tobias brought me to her. Her room is filled with sunlight. It was brightly painted and the windows were open. But she had bad color and was sleeping badly. She had fever."

"What's wrong with her?" I cried.

"I was only allowed to take her pulse," John said. "But I'm pretty sure that she has a blood infection. It seems to have gone to her brain."

"Naw it ain't," I cried, putting my hands to my head. "I just saw her last week swinging on the swing in the garden with her girlfriends."

"She was probably already sick but it was only since then that the infection entered her brain."

"Don't say that!" I yelled. I didn't want to hear something that might cause the beautiful Miss Eloise to die.

"We have to go looking for herbs," John said, not seeming to be very concerned. "Tobias gave us permission to wander around the woods here gathering the medicines they think we'll need to save her life."

With that John got up and strode off into the woods. I followed him, somehow realizing that these were the first steps to an education that would take me I knew not where.

As soon as we were off the path John took me by the wrist and again we ran on the wind over boulders and through thick bushes, past trees that were ancient giants looming over dark forest undergrowth.

At one point we came to a field of wild strawberries. John stopped there and took off his new/old work shirt to gather the berries for our lunch. It was then that I remembered the molasses cookies Flore pinned to my shirt. We sat down on the grass and ate for a while. I was worried about Eloise but I was hungry too. Ever since I had been working in the fields I was hungry all the time, nearly starving. I wanted to help Eloise but I couldn't turn down a meal.

John told me that the forest we were in was very old and filled with spices and fungi that were wonderful for the human anatomy.

"What do gnats got to do wit' men?" I asked, trying to put together the strange sounds he uttered.

"Not gnat man" he said. "Human anatomy. That is the study of the parts of the human body."

"Who told you about gnat man meV

Tall John smiled and put a hand on my shoulder.

"I am not what I appear to be," he said. "I come from far, far away as I have already told you. This body of mine, though completely human, was created by what my people call science. Because of this I have a great deal of knowledge about the human body. I know all of the mechanics it is only the human heart that I fail to understand."

"And do you know what mushrooms will get the bugs outta Miss Eloise's brain?" I asked, unconcerned with his silly notions.

"Yes," he said. "There are a few herbs that will assist her healing. And also you need proper rest and nutrition after that infection in your hand and the burn on your shoulder. You need sustenance."

"I don' care about me," I said. "I just wanna make sure that Miss Eloise gets bettah. An' you shouldn't lie to the Master "

John held up a finger and I knew that he wanted me to remember his admonition.

"It don't mattah if you call'im Master or Tobias," I continued. "If he figures out that you jes' wanna run around an' eat strawberries he'll put you in the killin' shack and that will be all she spoke about you."

John smiled and said, "You love that little child Eloise don't you, Forty-seven?"

"She's like the angels that Brother Bob talks on and on about at his sermons."

"She's just a person."

"No," I complained. "She's the most beautiful girl in the world."

"Eighty-four is just as beautiful in her own way," my new friend argued.

"How can you say somethin' like that, boy?" I said. "Eighty-four's black and ugly with nappy hair and liver lips. She couldn't even hold a candle to Miss Eloise."

"Come with me," Tall John said.

He jumped up from where we were and led me a short way down an animal path to a wide, still pond.

"Look," he said. "Look at yourself in the water."

The water was absolutely motionless and reflective like a polished mirror. I could see my whole image from head to toe.

"Take off that shirt, Forty-seven."

I did as he told me, standing naked at the pond's edge.

When I looked down into the reflective pool I could see that my skin was very dark and that my body was like a man's but smaller. My hair was wild and every which way, but I looked like I imagined myself.

"You have a perfect face and body and the strength to run all day without aches and pains," John said. "You have big, inquisitive eyes and a heart that's open to the pain of others. You love Eloise and so she is beautiful to you, but Eighty-four needs your love too. And if you gave it to her you would see her beauty even as you see it in the white child."

"But beauty just is," I said. "I can't make somethin' lovely jes' by savin' so."