James

by Percival Everett

THE NOTEBOOK OF DANIEL DECATUR EMMETT I come to town de udder night, I hear de noise, den saw de sight, De watchmen dey be runnin’ roun’ Cryin’ Ole Dan Tucker come to town. Git outen de way, Git outen de way, Git outen de way, Ole Dan Tucker, You’s too late to come yo supper.

Jay bird in de martin’s nest, To sabe his soul, he got no rest, Ole Tucker in de fox’s den, Out come de young ones nine or ten. Git outen de way, Git outen de way, Git outen de way, Ole Dan Tucker, You’s too late to come yo supper.

I went down to Sandy Hook to-der ar-ter noon; I went down to Sandy Hook to-der ar-ter noon; I went down to Sandy Hook to-der ar-ter noon; And de fust man I met dere was old Zip Koon. Old Zip Koon is a very larned scholar, Old Zip Koon is a very larned scholar, He plays on the Banjo Konney in de hollar.

If I was president of dese United States; If I was president of dese United States; If I was president of dese United States, I ’d suck ’lasses candy and swing open de gates; And dose I didn’t like I ’d block ’em off de docket, And de way I ’d block um wou’d be a sin to Crockett.

Turkey in the straw, turkey in the hay; Dance all nighty and work all day; Roll ’em up and twist ’em up a-high tuck-a-haw, And hit ’em up a tune call’d Turkey in de Straw.

Jimmie crack corn and I don’t care, Jimmie crack corn and I don’t care, Jimmie crack corn and I don’t care, My massa’s gone away.

One day he ride around de farm, De flies so num’rous they did swarm, One chanc’d to bite him in de thigh, De devil take de blue-tail fly.

De pony run, he jump, he pitch, He threw my massa in de ditch; He died and de jury wonder’d why, De verdict was de blue-tail fly.

Waiting is a big part of a slave’s life, waiting and waiting to wait some more. Waiting for demands. Waiting for food. Waiting for the ends of days. Waiting for the just and deserved Christian reward at the end of it all. Those white boys, Huck and Tom, watched me. They were always playing some kind of pretending game where I was either a villain or prey, but certainly their toy.

“Who dat dere in da dark lak dat?” They rustled clumsily about, giggled.

I would rather have been wasting time counting lightning bugs than bothering with them.

“I ain’t gonna wake nobody. Thunder can’t even wake a sleepin’ nigger. Don’t you know nuffin? Thunder, nor lightning, nor roarin’ lions. I hear tell of one that slept right through an earthquake.”

“What you doin’?” Huck asked. “I’m gonna play a little joke on ol’ Jim.” “You gonna wake him up is what you gonna do.” “Hush up.”

“What’s that s’posed to do?” Huck asked. “When he wakes up he’s gonna think a witch done it. I jest wish we could be round to see it.” “Okay, it be on the nail, now let’s git,” Huck said. Someone stirred inside the house and the boys took off running, turned the corner in a full gallop and kicked up dust.

“You seen Huck about?” she asked. “I seen him earlier.” “How long ago?” “A spell,” I said. “Jim, I’m gonna ask you a question now. Have you been in Judge Thatcher’s library room?” “In his what?” “His library.” “You mean dat room wif all dem books?” “Yes.” “No, missums. I seen dem books, but I ain’t been in da room. Why fo you be askin’ me dat?” “Oh, he found some book off the shelves.” I laughed. “What I gone do wif a book?” She laughed, too.

“What’s that I smell?” she asked. “I imagine that would be this corn bread,” I said. “Miss Watson used your mama’s special recipe and it certainly does smell good. She did inform me that she made a couple of alterations.” Sadie came to me and gave me a kiss on the mouth. She stroked my face. She was soft and her lips were soft, but her hands were as rough as mine from work in the fields, though still gentle.

“Do I have to eat it?” Lizzie asked. “No, you don’t,” Sadie said. “But what are you going to say when she asks you about it?” I asked. Lizzie cleared her throat. “Miss Watson, dat sum conebread lak I neva before et.” “Try ‘dat be,’ ” I said. “That would be the correct incorrect grammar.” “Dat be sum of conebread lak neva I et,” she said. “Very good,” I said.

“It seem sumtimes you jest gotta put up wif your friends. Dey gonna do what dey gonna do.” “Jim, you work the mules and you fix the wagon wheels and now you fixin’ this here porch. Who taught you to do all them things?” I stopped and looked at the hammer in my hand, flipped it. “Dat be a good question, Huck.” “So, who did?” “Necessity.” “What?” “ ’Cessity,” I corrected myself. “ ’Cessity is when you gots to do sumptin’ or else.” “Or else what?” “Else’n they takes you to the post and whips ya or they drags ya down to the river and sells ya. Nuffin you gots to worry ’bout.”

I studied on Miss Watson’s words. That Tom Sawyer wasn’t really a danger to Huck, just a kind of little fellow sitting on his shoulder whispering nonsense. But his father being back, that was a different story. That man might have been sober or he might have been drunk, but in either of those conditions he consistently threw beatings onto the poor boy.

THAT EVENING I sat down with Lizzie and six other children in our cabin and gave a language lesson. These were indispensable. Safe movement through the world depended on mastery of language, fluency. The young ones sat on the packed-dirt floor and I was on one of our two homemade stools. The hole in the roof pulled the smoke from the fire that burned in the middle of the shack. “Papa, why do we have to learn this?” “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” I said. “The only ones who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us. Perhaps I should say ‘when they don’t feel superior.’ So, let’s pause to review some of the basics.”

“Let’s try some situational translations. Something extreme first. You’re walking down the street and you see that Mrs. Holiday’s kitchen is on fire. She’s standing in her yard, her back to her house, unaware. How do you tell her?” “Fire, fire,” January said. “Direct. And that’s almost correct,” I said. The youngest of them, lean and tall five-year-old Rachel, said, “Lawdy, missum! Looky dere.”

“Missums, that water gone make it wurs!” “Of course, that’s true, but what’s the problem with that?” Virgil said, “You’re telling her she’s doing the wrong thing.” I nodded. “So, what should you say?” Lizzie looked at the ceiling and spoke while thinking it through. “Would you like for me to get some sand?” “Correct approach, but you didn’t translate it.” She nodded. “Oh, Lawd, missums ma’am, you wan fo me to gets some sand?” “Good.” “ ‘Gets some’ is hard to say.” This from Glory, the oldest child. “The s’s.” “That’s true,” I said. “And it’s okay to trip over it. In fact, it’s good. You wan fo me to ge-gets s-s-some s-sand, Missum Holiday?”

“That’s okay. Let them work to understand you. Mumble sometimes so they can have the satisfaction of telling you not to mumble. They enjoy the correction and thinking you’re stupid. Remember, the more they choose to not want to listen, the more we can say to one another around them.”

“I’m sorry, Virgil. You might be right. There might be some higher power, children, but it’s not their white God. However, the more you talk about God and Jesus and heaven and hell, the better they feel.” The children said together, “And the better they feel, the safer we are.” “February, translate that.” “Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.”

“Let me try this,” I said. “You have a notion, like Raynal, of natural liberties, and we all have them by virtue of our being human. But when those liberties are put under societal and cultural pressure, they become civil liberties, and those are contingent on hierarchy and situation. Am I close?” Voltaire was scribbling on paper. “That was good, that was good. Say all of that again.”

Entertaining such discussions in character was exhausting, but I had thought about such a thing many times before and, just like a story I’d read in the judge’s library, I could see that anything I thought was good could entail some bad consequences. For example, living forever would mean you’d have to watch everybody you loved die. The question I played with, but certainly couldn’t share with Huck, was what would Kierkegaard wish for. “I dunno, Huck. I reckon I’d be scared to wish fer anything.”

The boy and I fell silent. We lay back on the wet carpet of leaves. I could sense exhaustion overtaking Huck. He was snoring softly in a short time. I stared up through the canopy of sycamore branches. I’d always liked how the bark of the tree curled and peeled away. I really wanted to read. Though Huck was asleep, I could not chance his waking and discovering me with my face in an open book. Then I thought, How could he know that I was actually reading? I could simply claim to be staring dumbly at the letters and words, wondering what in the world they meant. How could he know? At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.

I chose the word enemy, and still do, as oppressor necessarily supposes a victim.

MY NAME IS JAMES. I wish I could tell my story with a sense of history as much as industry. I was sold when I was born and then sold again. My mother’s mother was from someplace on the continent of Africa, I had been told or perhaps simply assumed. I cannot claim to any knowledge of that world or those people, whether my people were kings or beggars. I admire those who, at five years of age, like Venture Smith, can remember the clans of their ancestors, their names and the movements of their families through the wrinkles, trenches and chasms of the slave trade. I can tell you that I am a man who is cognizant of his world, a man who has a family, who loves a family, who has been torn from his family, a man who can read and write, a man who will not let his story be self-related, but self-written. With my pencil, I wrote myself into being. I wrote myself to here.

“Jim,” Huck said. “What?” “Why you talking so funny?” “Whatchu be meanin’?” I was panicking inside. “You were talkin’—I don’t know—you didn’t sound like no slave.” “How do a slave sound?” He stared at me. “I only knows one way to talk, Huck. Naw you got me scared. What you mean, I sounds funny?” “You don’t now, but I could have sworn you did.” “How ’bout naw, Huck? How does I sound naw?” “You sound okay now.” “Lawdy, that’s good.” Huck cut me another suspicious look.

I helped him shove off. I could see that the business with the warring families had troubled him. Killing is hard to see up close. Especially for a child. To tell the truth, I hadn’t seen much killing myself, except that I lived with it daily, the threat, the promise of it. Seeing one lynching was to see ten. Seeing ten was to see a hundred, with that signature posture of death, the angle of the head, the crossing of the feet.

“If it isn’t John Locke,” I said. “James.” I knew I was dead asleep and dreaming, but I didn’t know whether John Locke knew that. “I’ve been thinking about you,” I said. “I’ve been pondering hypocrisy.” “Don’t start up with that now,” he said. “It was a job. After I wrote the constitution for Barbados, the Carolinians asked me to write them one, too, and I wrote it.” “What you’re saying is that if someone pays you enough, it’s okay to abandon what you have claimed to understand as moral and right.” “When you put it that way,” he said. “When I put it that way what?” “They wanted a constitution that would justify their behavior. If I hadn’t written it for them, someone else would have. What in the world would be different if that had happened?” I looked at him. “You tell me,” I said.

“You got yerself a slave, eh?” the young man said. “Jim ain’t my slave, he’s my friend,” Huck said, sternly. “I see. What’s yer name, boy?” “Huckleberry, but folks calls me Huck. And this here is Jim.” “Yes, I know,” he said. “Your friend.” I was afraid of the men, but I was considerably more afraid of the dogs I’d heard coming our way. I could only imagine that they were after me, and so I was left confused by the presence of these two white men in our boat. Adding to the absurdity was the fact that they were opposite in nearly every way. The older man was very tall and gaunt, while the younger was nearly as short as Huck and fat. The younger had a head full of dark hair. The older was completely bald. Older, bearded. Younger, clean-shaven. Blue-eyed, brown-eyed. They had in common that they were white and shifty-eyed. The old one carried a ripped and soiled carpetbag.

“I was runnin’ a little meetin’ about the evils of the devil’s juice. The revival business is a reliable one and if’n you tap into the disgruntled womenfolk you kin raise a pretty penny.” “So, what happened?” The older man cleared his throat. He was a talker. “Well, I was rakin’ in five or six dollars a night, a dime a head, children and niggers got in free. Then one night, ironically—her name was Penny and she was pretty—she caught me partakin’ from my private jug. Then all hell busted loose. They asked of me the impossible.”

“Least you kept yer take,” the younger man said. “Yep, I’ve got it right here.” That was when the older man discovered the big rip in the bottom of his bag. His head dropped. “I reckon the Lord done seen fit to punish this old sinner.”

“I’m a journeyman printer and none too good at it, possibly because, though I knows my letters, I cain’t connect them in such a way that I kin read. Of late I have done a little in patent medicines. I been a actor, though, again, the readin’ reared its head. And I done stabbed at mesmerism and some head-bump readin’.” “Ah, phrenology,” the old man said. “That a good ’un.” “What about you, old-timer?”

As evidenced by Huck’s reaction. He said, “You fellers are amazin’.”

“My great-grandfather, the oldest offspring of the Duke of Bridgewater, escaped to this country so that he could be free. He took a wife here and died here. He died about the same time as his daddy and so his younger brother seized the estate and the title. The real duke was forgotten, run over by history, but I am his descendant, and therefore”—he paused—“I am the rightful heir to that title. I am the Duke of Bridgewater.” “Lawdy,” Huck said. “A duke. A real duke. Right here on our little raft. You hear that, Jim?” “I heard it, Huck. Lawdy, Lawd, Lawd.”

“Listen, Bilgewater,” the older man said. “Bridgewater.” “You ain’t heard my story yet. You ain’t the only one what was birthed with a secret. Mine is even sadder than yourn.” The old man looked at each of us in turn. “What’s yer secret, mister?” Huck asked. “Bilgewater, I know I kin trust the child and the nigger, but kin I trust you with my secret?” “It’s Bridgewater, and yes, you kin.” “To the bitter death?” “Yes.” The old man held his breath for a second, then said, “Child, gentleman, nigger, I am the former Dauphin.”

“Lordy,” Huck said. “You hear that, Jim?” “Yes, my friends, I is the rightful King of France.” “Jim?” from Huck. “I done heard,” I said to the boy. The Dauphin tossed his face into his palms and wept. “Here I is,” he said. “So dreadfully far away from my home and don’t nobody even call me ‘Yer Majesty’ or ‘Yer Highness.’ ” “Don’t be too sad, Yer Highness,” Huck said. “At least them dogs and temperance people didn’t catch up to you.”

I shared a look with Huck. I suspected he suspected that the Duke and the King were liars, but he was transfixed by the adventure of it all. Regardless, they were with us and we could not easily shed them.

“Pa was drunk, like he was always drunk, and I lost sight of him right off. I tried to swim for my little brother, but I got swept under. Last thing I seen before the world went dark was Jim here swimmin’ like crazy for lil’ Ike.” The Duke looked at me and nodded. “Good nigger,” he said. “But you couldn’t save the boy, huh?” “Lawd knows I tried,” I said. “Paddle hit me in da head.” Huck cleared his throat. “Jim and I come up clingin’ to what was left of our raft. I lost my pa and my baby brother in a flash.” He contorted his face and offered what I thought was an unconvincing cry. It turned out that con men are the easiest people to con. As soon as Huck started into weeping, the two men joined him.

“Nobody will believe you own a slave,” the King said. “You don’t carry yerself like you rich enough to own a human being.” “And you do?” the Duke asked. “Why, son, I’m the King of France.” “Well, okay, King, the next time we come to town, we’ll set ashore and you kin put on a show fer the people and make us some money. What kin you do?” “I know the lines of some plays. I kin string somethin’ together and you pick up a few things, if’n you catch my drift.” Huck inserted himself into the conversation. “You cain’t be telling folks that Jim belongs to you.” “And why not?” “Causin’ he don’t. How do I know that once you start sayin’ that, you won’t try to sell him to somebody?” The King and the Duke looked at each other.

“We’ll get south of this little hamlet, then tie up. We’ll walk into it and start some business. Sound good, Yer Highness?” “Indeed, Yer Majesty,” said the King. “We’ll wait with the raft,” Huck said. Both men laughed. “And that will surely be the last we see of you and this nigger,” the Duke said. “No, boy, I reckon you two will stay with us.” “He’s right,” the King said. “You two would be down that ol’ Mississip faster than a minnow can swim a dipper.”

“Tie it good and tight there, nigger,” the King said. “Ya, suh.” “You wouldn’t study on escapin’, would you, Jim?” the King asked. “Na, suh.” “Anybody ask, who you belong to?” “You, suh.” “Very good.” “Are we ready?” the Duke asked. “Let’s go,” the King said. “Boy, you and my slave lead the way.”

Jeanette Booth walked, short step, long step away from the preacher, then turned to come back. Her right foot reached out and her left foot followed. People clapped. Some women sang. One man made unintelligible sounds with his mouth and strangely long, flapping tongue. A fat woman fainted. The smaller, white-clad soldiers of the preacher moved through the crowd with baskets and, just like the old man on the street had described, people parted with their money like they didn’t like it. “Lawdy, this is a gold mine,” the Duke said. “Watch me, old man.”

“I am reminded of the revival what saved my life. It turnt me around, it did.” The Duke stood at the front with the preacher, and now the stage was his. “You see, my friends, I used to be the worst of men. I was a pirate.” The crowd gasped. “A pirate on the high seas, where I stole and killed and did all sorts of other nefarious deeds that decent folks don’t talk about.” “Where’s yer eyepatch and yer parrot?” someone yelled out, and there was a smattering of laughter. “Oh, I had me one, brothers and sisters. I had one, right on this here eye, but the Lord, just like He done today fer some of ya’ll, He put the sight back in my dead eye.” That hushed them all up. “I was a bad, bad man. Then I landed in a revival meeting, just like this one here, exceptin’ it was under an enormous tent, a white tent, like a cloud, and I found the Lord God Almighty Jesus Christ, our savior.” “Oh, he’s good,” Huck whispered. “Ya gots to give it to him,” I whispered back.

The Duke continued. “While you dig deep for whatever you can give, I will have my missionary partner entertain you with a bit of theater from that English feller Shakespeare. I know you heard of him, that songwriter from the old country what writes poems, plays and such like. Mr. Bilgewater?” The King cut the Duke a hard glance. He stood in front of the crowd and filled his chest with air. The bright light bounced off his bald head. “I reckon I will use it as fish bait,” he said, his voice deeper than before. “If it will feed nothin’ else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at me, mocked my gains, scorned my country, messed up my bargains, cooled my friends and heated up my enemies, and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?” The Duke made a face, leaned in close to the King. “Jew? What are you doin’?” he whispered. “It’s the only speech I got memorized,” he whispered back.

Someone shouted out, “Did he say he’s a Jew?” “I reckon that’s what I heard,” said another. “You must understand,” the Duke said. “Those were lines from a play meant to loose the ropes of your minds.” The big white-dressed preacher stepped back into the front, obviously irritated by the fact that his enterprise had been usurped. He saw his chance to regain control. “But he said quite clearly that he’s a Jew.” “No, that’s what Shakespeare said,” the King said. “Shakespeare was a Jew?” “No, Shylock was a Jew.” “Who the hell is Shylock?” the preacher asked. “He’s the fella what says that speech in the play,” the King said.

“Hey,” a broad-shouldered man shouted. “That nigger of yourn don’t look like he’s from Borneo.” “Do you know where Borneo is?” the Duke asked. “Why, no.” “Neither do I,” the Duke said. “This poor nigger does, because that’s where he comes from. Ain’t that right, Octavius?” “I thought you said his name was Caesar.” This from a woman in the front. “It is customary for niggers in Borneo to have two, sometimes three names,” the King said. “I don’t believe a word of it,” the broad-shouldered man said. “I want to have my money back.” Huck sidled up close to me. A strange reaction, because I was the one person who could offer him no protection. “Liars!” the crowd shouted. “Charlatans!”