Monice Mitchell Simms's Blog, page 7

Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part 4)

Mr. Sammy and his old horse scuttled off, the horse leaving behind a stinking present on the road.  Merry wrinkled up her nose from the stench and watched them kick up dirt down the dusty trail.

"Come on out now.  He gone."

"Whut you go and tell him that fo'?  Momma ain't sick."

"So."

"So?  Mistah Sammy gone find out!"

"Not if you go back home and finish pickin'."

"Aw, Merry!"

"You heard what Mistah Sammy said.  He ain't gone have no mercy on us if we short again.  You want us tuh lose duh farm?"

"No.  But why you goin'…"

"Boy!  Jus' go home!  Dag!  Gone!"

Merry glared at Johnson and balled up her little fist like she was going to hit him.  And Johnson, convinced he was about to get a licking, bolted away from her, back down the road for home.

Merry looked up at the sun.  She could tell it was half past the hour just by the way the sun hung in the sky.  At nine, Merry may not have known many things, but the one thing she was smarter at calculating than most grown folks was time.  Before she even knew how to count or spell, her momma had taught her how to tell time by the sun and moon.  That's the way the slaves had to keep track of precious hours and minutes when they were out in the fields picking cotton or other crops.  If they didn't pick enough at a certain time every day, Massa's foreman would bring the whip down on their backs or worse.

To this day, even though the scars were healed, Merry's momma's back looked like someone had played an old game of tic- tac-toe on it.  Dora told Merry that she had been forced to learn the lesson about the white man's time the hard way, but she made sure that Merry and Johnson would never have to.  Yes, her babies were Colored and the way of the world made sure that they would always have to depend on the white man for his money and his land.  But his time?  Never.

Merry walked faster.  She had to hurry.

Fooling with Johnson had made her lose too much time.

TO BE CONTINUED….

*

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Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part

Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part 3) – Merry tied, then retied her shoes, thinking fast about what she was goin… http://ow.ly/1bY5qT

Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part 3)

Merry tied, then retied her shoes, thinking fast about what she was going to say to Mr. Sammy.

Mr. Sammy, a gray eyed cracker with dirty blonde hair and a mean streak, was the head deacon of the white folks church in town and the owner of most of the farms in Locust Grove, including theirs.  Merry was too young to figure it out, but somehow she knew that something wasn't right about Mr. Sammy.

It wasn't just the fact that he kept the Colored sharecroppers in debt to him, robbing them blind every week and barely giving them a slave's share of the profits from the bags of cotton and other crops they broke their backs picking.  That, and Mr. Sammy being a Southern white man in 1944 would have been enough for Merry not to like or trust him.

But it was more than that.  Something deeper.

"Merry?  Merry Paine, is that you, gal?"

Automatically, Merry lowered her eyes to the ground, then slightly peeked up at Mr. Sammy sitting high in the wagon seat to flash him her best smile.  He was wearing his true and tried straw hat and chomping on tobacco.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Except that Merry couldn't tell if he was smiling back or not, because of how the sun was hitting him.  It was hanging at an angle in the sky behind him, and the way Mr. Sammy stopped on the road made him look like a hillbilly Jesus with a halo over his head, his face in shadow.

"Yes, suh."

"What you doin' this far away from home?  Dora know you gone from the farm?"

"Yes, suh, she sent me into town tuh fetch some medicine.  She ain't been feelin' good."

"That ain't gone 'fect how much you pick, now is it?  Dora owes me the same number of sacks 'gardless and I ain't gone have no mercy when you fall short tomorrow just 'cuz Teenie and everybody's gone and you say Dora's sick again."

"Don't worry, suh.  We gone have our sacks and den some.  Me and Johnson takin' up the slack.  Johnson mostly."

Mr. Sammy nodded, lifting the brim of his hat.  One look at his money-grubbing face told Merry all she needed to know. She had succeeding in assuring him that he would get his money by using the magic word – Johnson.

"You and Dora takin' care of my boy, Johnson?  Feedin' him good?"

"Yes, suh.  He growin' like a weed."

"Good.  Good.  Alright now, hurry on to town, so you can get back to pickin'."

"Yes, suh.  I'ma hurry."

TO BE CONTINUED….

*

EXPERIENCE ADDRESS: HOUSE OF CORRECTIONS YOUR WAY!

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUDIO MINI SERIES — ADDRESS: HOUSE OF CORRECTIONS – EPISODE FOUR

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Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part

Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part 2) – "John John, stop cryin'.  I want you tuh come, but you sho' to git us bo… http://ow.ly/1bVTkF

Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part 2)

"John John, stop cryin'.  I want you tuh come, but you sho' to git us both in a heap of trouble if you come wit' me dis time.   Momma already gone be lookin' fo' me, 'cuz I only picked half a bag dis morning, but if you gone, too, she gone send duh hounds out afta' us."

"I'll go back and finish pickin' fo' me and you…if you tell me where you goin'."

Merry thought about it.  Johnson's slight hands and long fingers made cotton picking easy for him.  Every day, he picked three bags to Merry's one.  It was a game to her brother.  He would squat low to the wet ground and be so quick snatching the soggy bulbs, that the thorns didn't have time to stick him.  But Merry, short, stubby fingers and all, knew cotton picking wasn't a game.  It was work.  And every morning, she nearly bled to death just so she could fill up one bag.

"Merry, you hear whut I say?"

"I ain't deaf, boy.  I heard you."

"Den why you ain't talkin'?"

Johnson stood in her face, demanding an answer.  Merry heard the familiar sound of Mr. Sammy's old horse and wagon trotting up the road and quickly decided he didn't need one.  She shoved Johnson, sending him flailing into a neighbor's tobacco field, then knelt down to tie her frayed shoelaces.

"Merry!  Why you…"

"Stay down, boy.  Don't move."

TO BE CONTINUED….

*

EXPERIENCE ADDRESS: HOUSE OF CORRECTIONS YOUR WAY!

PLAY OR SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUDIO MINI SERIES — ADDRESS: HOUSE OF CORRECTIONS EPISODE THREE

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Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part

Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part 1) – "WHERE we goin'?" "We ain't goin' nowhere." Merry looked straight ahead … http://ow.ly/1bUlfD

Stay Down, Boy. Don't Move, 1944 (Part 1)

"WHERE we goin'?"

"We ain't goin' nowhere."

Merry looked straight ahead and picked up her pace.  Her baby brother Johnson, buzzing in her ear like a honeybee, beat her stride for stride, though.  She was nine, a petite chocolate brown Colored gal with ballerina sized flat feet, but Johnson was eight, the color of sweet molasses with pearly white teeth and a whole foot taller.

Both had oily black good hair.  And it glistened with sweat under the sweltering Locust Grove sun.  Their momma told them they got their hair from their daddy, who got killed, liquored up on the town's railroad tracks before Merry was two.  Rumor had it, he was part Blackfoot.  Merry took pride in that.  She and Johnson were Indian and Colored.  Special.  Not just some regular old sharecropping niggers like everybody else.

"Oooh, you goin' tuh town.  Momma said we ain't 'sposed tuh go tuh town."

"You gotta do everythin' Momma say?"

"Naw, but she said…"

"Well, gone home den, Momma's boy.  Gone hide back under her skirt and let me 'lone!"

Johnson stopped, hurt, his eyes already starting to tear.

"You really don't want me to go wit' you, Merry?"

Merry sighed and turned around to look at her baby brother.  Johnson just wasn't cut like the other boys she knew.  Every since he was born, Johnson never strayed too far from their momma's tit.  And he was always clinging to Merry, following her around like a frightened piglet.

Merry tried more than once to get Johnson to play with the other sharecropping boys, but Johnson didn't like playing the stupid games they played and he always ended up running home, crying, because some boy had hit him and called him a sissy.  Merry got tired of beating up every boy and girl who knew what she knew. To keep the peace, she just let Johnson follow her around.  But today, Merry needed him to go back home.

TO BE CONTINUED….

*

EXPERIENCE ADDRESS: HOUSE OF CORRECTIONS YOUR WAY!

PLAY OR SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUDIO MINI SERIES –  EPISODE 2, PART 1

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