All God's Dangers (62 page)

“Yes sir, Captain.”

“Go ahead out and go down there to some of them shrubberies below the door and stop a minute or two. I want to talk with you this mornin.”

Told him, “Yes sir.”

Walked on out the door with the new bucket in my hand, wonderin what did Captain Carter want with me. But I knowed it weren't nothin about me because I hadn't done shit. Come to find out he wanted to speak to me bout a old man named Jube who was sentenced up there from Eufala.

So I walked out there and stopped at a high shrubbery bush a little higher than my head. After a while, Captain Carter come to the doorstep and stepped down, turned and come right to me. He said, “Nate, what I want to talk with you about is that old man Jube that works out there in the squad. You out there with him every
day and you know what's goin on out there, or ought to know.” I said, “Yes sir, Captain, I'm out there every day, right with em.”

Workin at that time in what they called the body labor field.

He said, “What I want to know: what sort of man is that old man Jube that works out in the squad?” He appeared to be a older man than I was, and I was surprised, really, that they kept him there at all. “What do he do out there wrong all the time enough to be reported to the office? The boss man in the field done reported him three times for a whippin. I aint whipped him yet. Now I decided I'd ask you—”

I looked at him, said, “Captain Carter, you right, I'm out there all the time and see and hear what goes on. And I aint seed no disorderly acts out of old man Jube, not a bit. I know he's dutiful to what the boss man out there tells him to do. And I'm totin water to him every day, every time he wants it, like I do to the other boys. Yes, sir, quite natural, I should know and I do know the ins and outs out there.”

He said, “Nate, I know you know, that's the reason I asked you.”

I said, “Captain, I can't tell you nothin against old man Jube; it's just a sham business, these complaints. Captain, he's a good man. Whenever the boss man tells him anything, he's up and gone doin it. There's no stubbornness in old man Jube. But Captain, old man Jube's a old man. He can't jump and squat like them young boys out there, but he do get up and move when the boss man tell him. I don't see nothin he do, at all, to be reported for a whippin.”

He said, “Well, Nate, there's some folks goes around here talkin, he wears his clothes slouchy, in a slouchy way, all hangin down, and he uses cloth strings over his shoulders for galluses.”

I said, “Captain, there's a cause for that and I can tell it to you. I heard old man Jube ask Captain Evans one evenin, right recently, at the clothes department, for a pair of used suspenders”—call em galluses in this country—“Captain Evans told him—I was listenin right at him when he told him—they was out of suspenders and he couldn't give him none. That's how come he's wearin them strings across his shoulders. I don't believe it calls for a whippin.”

Captain Carter considered all that. He said, “But they talks about him wearin his clothes too big and hangin under his feet.”

I said, “Well, Captain, they're hangin down on account of he don't have nothin but strings up there.”

It went against prison rulins to wear your clothes slouchy. You had to have your clothes upon you correct; of course, it had no bearin on makin a ugly person pretty, but it was a way of showin respect and they demanded it.

I said, “Well, Captain, old man Jube can't help it. When he goes to the clothes house and comes back, them clothes hangin down on him too long for him, or somethin of the kind, too short for him, they just aint his clothes. Sometimes the boys runs out of a suit of clothes of their own wear. And the wash house people will give him anything they have around, just for him to have somethin to wear. It's the other fellows' clothes he's wearin.”

Captain Carter considered that.

I told him, “Captain, I do know the circumstances and I know that old man Jube is innocent of any kind of misdemeanor, innocent of disrespectin the boss man, he's innocent. But Captain—” I knowed how to talk in the defense of a man and how to swing a outcome in his favor. I said, “Captain, if you see fit to whip old man Jube, whip him, there's no help for it; if you don't see fit to whip him, please sir, don't whip him.”

He said, “Nate, I aint whipped old man Jube yet and I aint goin to whip him.”

My word went straight. I didn't have to tell em no big lies and I didn't never disagree with em exactly, tell em, “It weren't like you say.” I just applied their words in a little different direction and they'd believe it, like they'd said it themselves.

I'd learnt about old man Jube before I ever talked with the warden. One mornin I was totin water—I'd water the boys, sometimes I'd stand in one place, if there was enough of em to stand for, two or three or four come along in the same breadth plowin, I'd stop and water em all. Weren't no rule that one drinks at a time and the others had to stand and wait, just keep a drivin until I could get to em. Three or four or five could stop right together. Then if another little few is plowin, not comin in the same direction as the others, I'd go over in that crowd and water them. That's what I had to do. So, in that, I walked up to old man Jube one mornin, poor old fellow. I called him Brother Jube; he called me Brother Nate. He was a settle-aged colored man and he claimed to be a Christian. So, Jube stood there drinkin water, didn't drink much. He said,
“Brother Nate, I got a question to ask you and somethin to do for me, if you'll do it.” I didn't know nothin bout the field boss reportin him for a whippin. He told me, “They have got me reported for a whippin; now this makes the third time that I been reported.”

He didn't know what they'd reported him for. That was the first time I come in the knowledge of it.

He said, “I want you to talk to the warden for me—”

I had quickly learnt that I didn't have to run and report things to the warden for myself, much less anybody else. But he would ask me questions bout a thing when the time come for him to ask me. I wanted to talk to the warden in defense of the prisoners, but I'd just better not do it less'n the warden asked me. I was liable to get a blessin out, talk about whippin me, might have. I told old man Jube that mornin, “Brother Jube, I can't do that. I can talk to the warden and the deputy, but I have to let them call my attention to a thing.” That's the truth, too, state of Alabama, that's the rulin when you're in prison here. I said, “Brother Jube, I aint got no authority to carry no reports in to the wardens in your favor or against you. That's somethin I can't do; I aint that heavy here.”

He said, “O, Brother Nate, don't tell me that. I know these folks will believe anything you tell em.”

I said, “I aint heavy with em at all, Brother Jube, and don't book it thataway.”

He said, “Well, I know how heavy you is. They believe what you tell em. You the only man in this squad they'll believe what you say.”

I hated he'd found out all that, I hated it. He shook his head. I said, “Brother Jube, I'll tell you, Captain Carter aint goin to whip you. Go ahead and do just like you been doin, you'll come out clear.”

I headed him off and tried to pacify him. The next mornin—this thing run three mornins—when I got out to the field with that water, I walked right up to him and said, “Brother Jube, did they whip you last night?”

He said, “No, Brother Nate, they said though they goin to whip me.”

I said, “Yeah, you told me yesterday mornin they goin to whip you and you scared about it. But what happened? They didn't whip you and they aint goin to whip you.”

Third mornin, I needed a new bucket and I went to see the deputy warden about it. And when I did that the warden called me in question about old man Jube. I told him the facts about this thing and begged him almost with tears in my eyes—I knowed it was definitely wrong to whip that old man. It'd been definitely wrong to whip a white man, if he was clear as old man Jube was. Some smart dude just meddled him and put somethin on him.

I just rejoiced over the outcome. I went right on to the field, uplifted in my mind. I walked up to old man Jube that mornin, stopped to give him a drink. “Well, Brother Jube,” I said, “I got good news for you this mornin. Captain Carter tackled me a while ago concernin your troubles out here and I talked to him in your favor.”

Whooooooo, that old man like to shouted, he was so glad.

I said, “Captain Carter told me to my head that he hadn't whipped you yet and he weren't goin to do it.” Lord, that old man never did have a minute more trouble.

I'd waved, and in bein wavy I taken care of old man Jube; what I told on him didn't hurt him and also, Warden Carter was satisfied. The way I worked it, I kept the bucket balanced.

S
EE
, I was a water boy, I'd hit the highways—and the state had a field way down on the Coosa River, called it the river bottom farm. They planted corn down there, strictly corn. One day I left out from that field, took my buckets and headed to the spring. This spring was way down on the river, but close to the highway, between Wetumpka and Montgomery. And there was a trail comin from that highway to that spring, and that spring was under a gulf. I walked up to that spring and I was surprised to find two white gentlemen—travelin people can find most anything they want. They looked like Jews or of the Irish nation of people; they wasn't like
this
nation of people. I knowed them men done come from a long way; each of em had a big luggage on his back bound with a protection from the rain.

I hadn't seen a footman—when I was a boy, comin up, durin of my mother's lifetime and after, I'd see and meet travelers comin through this country, white people. And they'd sit down at the table and eat with us. Spring of the year, poor white people travelin
through this country and they'd stop at my daddy's house, politely ask my daddy if he could spare a bit of food, and my daddy would give em what he had. Done it so many times. He'd have my mother fix em as nice a meal—sometimes it'd be fish, my daddy caught fish; they'd sit there and they'd enjoy that fish. Sometimes it was fried ham, chicken; sometimes they'd like fried eggs. Heap of em couldn't pay and my daddy didn't ask em for money. And some of em was raggedy, too. I remember once, a settle-aged white gentleman come through there, taken dinner with us, my mother fed him; and he had a young woman with him. He never did make no alarm bout who she was and my parents didn't ask because it was none of their business; didn't know whether she was his wife or daughter, or neither. He was travelin with her, and walkin, at that—all of these people would be walkin, all of em. They'd tell my daddy sometimes they was headed for Florida, or might be they was headed to the northern states.

So, there was two of em standin at the spring that mornin, eatin and talkin to one another. I walked up and spoke to em, they spoke to me. And that was President election time, the election had just passed, and they got to talkin—I reckon they had some hot coffee; they had a thermos and a small cup, talkin and enjoyin theirselves around that spring. I walked up and spoke to em—they didn't offer me nothin to eat. I never did tell em I was a prisoner and they couldn't tell from my clothes that I was. In fact of the business, you take travelin people out of the northern states, they don't know how the state dresses prisoners here.

They looked at me as though I'd understand the subject of their talk and what it was all about; but I was a man with no education and a prisoner at that. I've always held myself in a position though, tried to, to catch on to things, and lots I've caught on to in this life. So they got to talkin about the President and one said, “Well, President Roosevelt got it, President Roosevelt got it. The people didn't want him but they had to go back and get him.” President Roosevelt, if I aint wrong, he served three or four terms; he was in there and they couldn't get him out. And them was the words the white gentlemen spoke: “The people didn't want him”—they talked as though
they
wanted him—“but they had to go back and get him.” And was laughin and tellin me that with a smile.

I didn't say nothin, I just looked at em; but I showed em that
I admired em for tellin me that. I liked the quotations I had heard of him, President Roosevelt; that was one President I liked—of course, I didn't vote, never voted in my life. But I felt that President Roosevelt, he was different to a heap of Presidents that I have watched along through life. The government stepped into this farm business under his administration more than they ever had before. And that was better for the poor colored man than anything that had been done for him until then.

That NR and A, that was Roosevelt's, they had just then begin to operate in this country. I heard a white man say one day—he was a prisoner too, there at Wetumpka—when the news reached out—see, I couldn't read; if I could I'd a knowed for myself, if they hadn't a kept such books as reveals these words out of my hands, if I coulda read em I coulda found out. But they had a knack of keepin certain books out of some of them colored readers' hands, wouldn't show em up, only for whites, looked like, even a old book to read. So, I couldn't read and I wouldn't a knowed if I'd seed the book—but there was a movement in this country went in the name of the NR and A. And I heard a white man say—pretty heavy-built white man, walkin around there in the prison yard—“That NR and A is out now, and I'm so glad I don't know what to do.”

I looked at him. He had little enough sense to think they was whippin em down. I walked up and told him this and he hushed his mouth: I said, “Well, maybe there won't be no more NR and A, but it'll be something else.” I didn't tell him who and what and how, though—I didn't know.

Right there at Wetumpka prison I was wide open as a goober hull to several things. But I had to back off my rights, didn't make no difference how it went; I was a poor colored man, I had to abide by the consequences, I had to accept what went on and what was done. I had long since come in the knowledge of right from wrong and how certain classes and certain colors was mugged down—