Charles Johnson - Middle Passage

And let it be known that I hated that cramped low-ceilinged room. Nor was I eager to look into Chandler’s face as the light there flimmered, then failed. His chin hung like a turkey wattle. His mouth was fishlike, all collops and pleats, caved in, his dry lips sunk inward as if his gums had grown together. Seeing him, Jackson breathed a deep sigh. Half irritation, half fellow feeling. He went to his bedside, then poured water for him from a hobnail pitcher. Though my brother spent hours in this sickroom (Chandler had a bell on his night table, which he jangled to call Jackson, and to this very day the tang of every bell reminds me of the one in his bedroom), all I felt then was its oppressiveness. There were no windows. The air inside was yellow, the floor damp. It smelled violently of medicaments, lotions, and disinfectants. Outside the wind howled, shaking the latch and hinges on doors downstairs. Timbers in the room shook.

“Sir.” Jackson leaned toward Chandler’s iron bed, then turned his head away from the smell. “Do you know me?” He sat on a painted fiddle-back chair, his dark hands folded. Weakly, the old man took a deep-chested breath. He seemed touchingly glad to see my brother, who said, “Rutherford is here too.”

Reverend Chandler frowned at that, thinking perhaps of how I’d disappointed him, that I was and would always be pretty light timber. The look he gave me was severe. I stayed a respectful distance from his bed, watching them from one side.

“Did you want to see us?”

“Bring me the Bible. And something to write with. .” He coughed miserably. His breathing was noisy. Jackson came back from a trestle table in the corner, carrying the book and a goosefeather pen, which he handed to our master. Slowly Chandler began scrawling our names along-side those of Maggie and Adeline on the riffled pages of the book.

“I should have done this years ago, seeing how you’ve kept things going here for me and the others when I couldn’t. .”

Jackson bowed his head formally, his eyes on his spit-shined shoe buckles. “As the oldest, it was my duty.”

(For Christ’s sake, I thought, get on with the goddamn will! That very next morning I figured on starting off the day with a breakfast of egg bread; of sleeping until noon, hunting until dark, wearing a pair of skilts and a stylish cap, then dining on potted salmon from England and preserved meats from France.)

Master Chandler lay back. Jackson readjusted the old man’s nightcap on a skull that looked thin as eggshell. I shivered, the chill of the room taking hold of me. After several moments, Chandler’s breath rolled out again; “As of today, I release you both, if you wish to go.” I stepped closer, listening with every nerve as Jackson lifted our master’s head a little to adjust his pillow. “But Jackson — good Jackson — dear Jackson,” he whispered, “let us come down to cases. You are the oldest, and I daresay I am in your debt. Whatever you want for you and Rutherford is yours. Tell me how you wish to be rewarded and I shall see that you have it.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, believing all our burdens had lifted. But my brother looked pained. Never before had anyone asked him what he wanted. He hesitated. A knot gathered in my throat; I wanted to speak, but Chandler cut the air with the side of his hand to silence me.

“You have no requests, then, Jackson?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Jackson. “I’ve thought about it, sir. There’s so much my people need.”

“There’s a lot I need,” I said.

Jackson sent a scowl my way, then closed his eyes to help his words along. “I know Rutherford has thought about this too. But it don’t seem right to ask for myself. I could ask for land, but how can any man, even you, sir, own something like those trees outside? Or take that pitcher there. It’s a fine thing, sure it is now, but it kinda favors the quilts the womenfolk make, you know, the ones where everybody in the quarters adds a stitch or knits a flower, so the finished thing is greater’n any of them. Well, I been thinking on this, sir, and I wonder: What ain’t like that? Nothing can stand by itself. Took a million years, I figure, for the copper and tin in that pitcher to come together as pewter. Took the sun, the seasons, the metalworker, his family and forebears, and the whole of Creation, seems to me, sir, to make that one pitcher. How can I say I own something like that?” He scowled to stop me from interrupting. “I’m sure I speak for both of us, sir, when I say the property and profits of this farm should be divided equally among all your servants and hired hands, presently and formerly employed, for their labor helped create it — isn’t that so? — the fixed capital spread among bondmen throughout the county — I can give you their names — and whatever remains donated to that college in Oberlin what helps Negroes on their way north.”

“There’ll be less for you and Rutherford then,” said Chandler.

My brother nodded. “Our needs are small, sir, or should be.”

“Jackson!” My voice jumped. “You fool!”

“That’ll be enough, Rutherford.” A deep crease split Master Chandler’s wrinkle-grooved face. He patted Jackson’s hand, then twisted out a dour, disapproving look at me. “You’d do well, you young reprobate, to end this light-minded life you’ve been leading and improve yourself by listening to your brother’s counsel. He is wise for his years. Wealth, you know, isn’t what a man has, but what he is, Rutherford. Your brother, I daresay, has been an inspiration for me—”

“As you have been for me, sir,” said Jackson.

The floor beneath my feet seemed to fall away. Do what I would, I could not move. They sat there for the longest time, complimenting and smiling at each other. I could have strangled them both. I felt like smashing things. Instead, I shrank from the room, feeling sacked and empty, wondering if I would ever get on in this world. It took me five days to stop shaking. For the rest of my short stay on Chandler’s farm before I struck south for New Orleans, I felt angry at anything that moved.

It was nearly daybreak. Josiah Squibb sat staring, his eyebrows raised. “Great day!” He sucked his teeth. “Give it all away, did he?”

“Would I be here serving hardtack if he hadn’t?”

“What’d yer share come to, Illinois?”

“About forty dollars. Also, I got the family Bible and his bedpan.”

The cook snorted, one of those sounds impossible to decipher, then lay back on his table. Two or three breaths later he was asleep, somnambulized by my life’s story (I never knew it was that dull) and playing dueling snores — so they sounded — with Baleka. I reached to touch her hair, then drew back my hand from the heat enveloping her like an aura. I could not let her die, a dark pawn, caught between Falcon and the ship’s proletariat. I knew that now. I rose stiffly, stretched out the stiffness in my spine, and climbed back on deck where all slept except Ngonyama.

Leaning against the rough-tree rail, parts of him rubbed out by morning mist (his left arm, his legs), he stared back toward Bangalang. There was something in this, and the way he canted his head, that reminded me so of how my brother sometimes stood alone on the road leading to Chandler’s farm after our father left, looking. Just looking. Seeing me, Ngonyama turned and smiled.

“You couldn’t sleep, Rutherford?”

I shook my head. “Can I ask you a question?”

He waited.

“If you were captain of this ship, what would you do?”

“Me?” he laughed. “If I were master?”

“I mean, if your tribe could take the helm.”