Rebecca Ore: Scarey Rose in Deep History

“Rose, we can’t identify this man.”

“I don’t know your slaves,” Sarey Rose said.

“He’s not acting like a slave,” Peter said.

“Maybe your ancestor wasn’t interested in taking unruly slaves?” Martha said.

“Did you watch last night?” Sarey Rose said.

“We did,” Peter said. “We’d appreciate it if you didn’t review the recordings.”

Sarey Rose looked at them both. Whatever the sex had been like, both of these people couldn’t get to sleep after what they saw. She decided to leave them and the recordings alone for a while. “So what did you learn?”

Peter said, “He sure didn’t force her.”

Martha said, “I think he loves her.”

“Then, who is the guy in the parlor?” Sarey Rose asked. “Her dad?”

“We didn’t sell anyone after we sold Esau,” Martha said. “Ann brought the slaves to the marriage, but they like Flint better than they like her.”

Sarey Rose realized that they’d been slipping into talking about the ancestors in contemporary terms: your people, we, you. “Esau got sold over 180 years ago. Don’t you think we ought to have gotten over it by now?”

Peter said, “I always wondered how he felt about being sold, rejected by his own people.”

“Hell, Peter, if he got lucky, he ended up owned by a guy in Tenneesee who collected rascally niggers. He’d buy rascally ones because they were bright, let them teach each other how to read because he thought blacks were apter than whites at that, and then turn them loose to run his farm while he took a percentage.”

Martha said, “I’ve read that passage in Frederick Law Olmsted, too. It’s unlikely a slave sold in this part of Virginia would end up in Tennessee.”

“I said if he got lucky.” Sarey Rose found Olmsted’s account fascinating. She’d rather be investigating that farm than this one. What was it like to have been a bright slave with such a master? You take what you can get, her grandfather said from his cane rocking chair back in her memories. Psychologically, the South trapped one in a Klein bottle, some topological psychological distortion that flung everyone, including those who’d merely moved South, back into the past just when they felt they’d finally moved into the future.

Was the South still looking, as Olmsted had described it over a hundred years ago, for the right highway, the newest relocated factory with imported management? Bring in outsiders rather than surrender power to the uppity white trash or the blacks.

In 1853, the black man left Ann in the parlor, went out, came back with a white man who took off his hat and looked at Ann. You okay? I’m sorry you’ve got such a sorry husband. Sarey Rose said, “ My ancestor. Old Joe. We didn’t get any photos of him until the 1870s, but it looks pretty much like him.”

The black man looked from Ann to Joe, said, perhaps, I’ll tell the master the overseer is here. Can’t do to stay in here with the lady, Mr. Overseer.

Joe bobbed his head and stayed, holding his hat in both hands in front of him, covering his groin. Sarey wondered if the pose was arbitrary or by design, to hide an erection.

Ann got up from the sofa. Joe spoke, You’ve been crying, Miss Ann.

He can fuck her, but if I even speak to a man, the slaves tattle on me.

Was that really what she said? Sarey Rose looked at Martha and Peter.

Joe put his right hand on her shoulder. She flinched, turned her head toward the door.

The black man showed Flint in. Flint spoke. The overseer cringed, looked at the black man. The black man seemed unusually calm and didn’t lower his eyes to the overseer.

The overseer might have said, Who were your people back to the east? Who were your people before you came here?

Then they turned slightly, nodding at each other, Joe nodding at the black man who nodded back, just not as deep a nod as Joe’d given him. Ann went to the bedroom, crawled back into the bed, and began to masturbate under the covers, her face muscles clenched in a grimace.

“Can you blank the screen, for God’s sake!” Martha said.

Sarey Rose said, “Didn’t know those lily-white slaver women did such things.” But she blanked the screen.

Peter said, “Always heard that the mistress made old Flint mean. Shit.”

Sarey Rose said, “She seems fond of the overseer.”

“At the end of the year, she dies, you know. Brain congestion.”

Sarey Rose said, “After she had your great-grandfather, right?”

Martha said, “He was raised on a black woman’s tit. Took care of her after the war.”

Peter said, “We don’t recall that. After the war, Flint’s son sold us land enough to farm. We paid him for it in work and cash. Maybe that was ‘doing for us,’ but the deal cost us same as he charged other folks. Man needed help, niggers needed land.”

Sarey Rose said, “We can skip forward in time unless you want to watch the whole fucking year.”

“It’s the story of us all,” Martha said.

“Not my story,” Sarey Rose told her. “I didn’t have a history before 1937, when my daddy got to go to college thanks to Mr. Roosevelt.”

Two months later in 1853, and a day later in the present, Sarey Rose watched her ancestor on a poster bed with Ann. Daytime—all the blacks should be in the fields or working in the kitchen.

“Well, who said they didn’t lie?” Sarey Rose said. Martha and Peter walked out of the room. Sarey sat watching the now-dead woman sobbing in the overseer’s arms. He doesn’t understand me. He loves that bitch he owns, not me.

The overseer seemed nervous. Sarey knew he didn’t get killed for this. He ran off, joined some rag-tail deserters’ camp in Floyd County, came slinking back after Flint was dead and his son in charge of things.

“Are they quite through?” Martha asked from the other room.

“Jeez, he’s my ancestor. Is getting fucked by the overseer so shameful? After all, your great-whatever-removed-granddaddy liked black meat.”

Peter said, “Are they dressed yet?”

“No, she’s having a hissy fit in his arms. Those times weren’t fair for white women and black men.”

“White women like Ann didn’t have to lift a finger.”

“Dumber than their cooks and weavers, the poor stupid bitches,” Sarey said. “Taught, maybe, how to play the piano and draw some, but never well enough to work.” Her ancestresses back in 1853 worked on looms and sewed, just as her cousins did these days, only these days, they programmed computers to lift the threads and cut the cloth.

“Look, just tell me when they’re dressed,” Martha said.

The black slave woman wasn’t in her gaudy cabin, gone with the master on business, but the old male slave came in with another young black woman, carrying cooked food from the outdoor kitchen to Miz Ann at dinner time. The old slave looked at Ann and the unmade bed, turned and went away. The second young black woman put a tray on Ann’s bedside table, sniffed the air, and stood waiting.

“Could you add the dining room?” Peter asked.

“Yes, they’ll be eating in the dining room when Flint comes back,” Martha said. “The interactions would be interesting.”

Sarey Rose wondered if they’d decided to forget what had just happened, what had happened in 1853. The two families, owners and owned, had managed to forget it the first time, why not the second time? Southern women never minded that their menfolk kept black mistresses, because those women weren’t a real threat to the marriage. Southern men did this because they lived in a matriarchial society. Right? As though any matriarchial society let its men believe that not having orgasms would make males sick.