Excerpts of My Work

Rootbound

I was going to faint. I breathed in and tried to calm myself before I walked back into the kitchen, being extra careful not to wrinkle my uniform. If I did, I would be stuck listening to the manager lecture about how all of us Negro heifers were filthy enough without letting it show on our bodies. Nevermind that her own cheeks were burned dark orange which made her face look permanently stained, or that her hair, which always seemed to look too oily, was a constant draw for the horseflies that lived in this humid Florida weather.

I crumpled the letter in my hand into a wad and threw it on the ground. 

The familiar pulling in the pit of my stomach made me drop to my knees. I waited for a moment before I stood back up, trying to catch my breath. The woman across the street would appear to turn the sign in the window soon: No Negroes Allowed. Dogs Ok.  I would give myself until then to be ok.

Lord, help me, please. Please.

The urge washed over my body making me feel hot, cold, lightheaded, and heavy at the same time. My bowels loosened. The wave of nausea made me gag, but because I hadn’t eaten for a couple of days all that came was salty thick droplets.  I allowed my knees to rest on the ground, and I breathed in deeply watching the window. 

Finally, the woman appeared, her thinning stringy white-blond hair forced into a meager ponytail on top of her head. I stood up, took a deep breath, and spit salt drops angrily at the letter, crumpled on the ground. I mashed it down with my foot.

She was dead, and there was nothing I could do about it.  Not a doggone thing. The letter was brief. Big Mama is dead, it read. That was it. Nothing else. Plain envelope. No return address. No date. No goodbye, no explanation.  Just that one sentence. I stood in the hall staring at the piece of paper in my hand.

“You ok, Eunice?” My shift mate was walking past me and stopped to get in my business as usual. “Your face is pure dee white.” She eyed me up and down, fanning herself and trying not to sweat.

I was numb. I breathed in and tried to steady myself on the wall.

Please, Big Mama. Don’t let this be true.

Bothered

Celia wasn’t sure who would be knocking on her door at this hour, so when she first heard the knocking, she ignored it. 

Maybe it was the wind.  Maybe it was a group of errant children, upon hearing that Celia was a witch, a hoodoo woman, and a heathen, knocking on the door and running away in horror-tinged glee. Maybe it was a dead limb from the peach tree in the front yard. Though it was once thriving and fertile, now it stood rotting, sticky knots of black sap stuck to its trunk. 

No, Celia thought to herself, I’ll just sit here and wait for the noise to pass. But the sound of the knock came again, and this time it was so deliberate and so loud, that she could no longer sit and will it into the background.

“Who dat out there playin’?” Her voice trembled. “Why you knockin' on my door like that?”

In response, there were three more hard knocks, each one punctuated with the sound of hard knuckles on old wood. 

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Y’all go home and stop messing ‘round my door!” Celia tried to sound angry, but in reality, she knew she sounded exactly like what she was, a lonely old woman, long forgotten by the rest of the town, and rarely ever visited. Written off by the townfolk, she was a topic of disgust or threats to young children who misbehaved. 

Celia’s husband Roosevelt was long dead. Three years ago he was hanged from the peach tree in the front yard as a show of power to the entire town that uppity negroes - even those who owned a little bit of land and who could read - would NOT be allowed to register to vote or to dispute a white cashier over the cost of a can of RC cola. The other Black people left town that same day.

She and Roosevelt never had any children. Roosevelt’s family didn’t like Celia much because they said she thought she was more than she was. When the white folks got him, they said it was her fault. He was just fine working the land, they said. He didn’t need to get involved in mess tryna vote or talk back to the white folks on the town council. They wouldn’t even let her come to the repass, even though he was her man. Celia just sat outside on the steps, crying and praying for him to forgive her until his little nephew came outside and told her that his mama said she had to leave.

Her family lived on the other side of the river with the other Black people who left the town until last year when the river flooded. Everybody except her brother survived the deluge, but he died of the croup soon after, wheezing and coughing mucus into cups on the side of his bed. When Celia found him ashy and limp one morning, she said some prayers and gently rolled his body into the river.