Cion (41 page)

“Don’t you hurt my baby now,” he said. “These hands have killed hogs. They can kill you just the same.”

I assured him he had nothing to worry about.

“What route are you gonna take?” asked Ruth.

“We gonna cross at Pomeroy, Ruth. Route 33. Then we gonna drive through West Virginia to Virginia.”

“Oh, shoot!” said Ruth. “I thought you was gonna take Route 50. I’ve always wanted to take Route 50. You know at Mount Zion and the Armory in Athens? That used to be called ‘The Crossroads of America.’ That’s where Route 33 and Route 50 met. And Route 50 ran right up to Washington, D.C., in the east and to the end of America in the west. They don’t call it that no more.”

“Well, we ain’t gonna take Route 50 no ways, Ruth,” said Orpah.

“I was just saying,” said a deflated Ruth.

We were walking down the steps to our RV when Ruth called us back. She went into the house. While we waited Obed told us that the Church of the Healing Path had opened his eyes to many things he did not see before. He had discovered animal and plant energies that were linked to lineages. And the services were so much fun. The people chanted and played drums and other percussive instruments.

Ruth came back with two canning jars and gave one each to Orpah and me. It was the sweetest coleslaw we would ever taste, she said. Autumn cabbage was very sweet and tender, much better than the stuff picked in the summer. She added grated carrots, also from her garden. When we ate that coleslaw we would remember her.

“Todoloo! It’s time to get your picture took,” she said.

Mahlon whipped out a disposable camera—obviously purchased for this occasion—from the pocket of his shirt, and clicked as Orpah and I posed with the coleslaw.

When we were walking away to the RV Obed tried to steal away to Beth Eddy’s car.

“I ain’t finished with you, mister,” said Ruth.

He went back to his mama. There was more upbraiding to be done. The three of them waved at us as we drove away. Mahlon was sporting his regular smile. Ruth’s teeth were like blood from the red slate.

The swing swayed gently and Obed waited uneasily.

We had left early because we wanted to reach Virginia the same day. But when we got to Athens Orpah wanted to attend the Halloween parade.

“But that’s only in the evening,” I said. “And from what I saw last year there is nothing exciting about it. Just walking up and down the street.”

“We’ll get to Virginia, baby,” she said. “We ain’t in no hurry for nothing. We gotta lifetime of mourning.”

“Let’s go back to Kilvert then and leave tomorrow.”

She was horrified at the suggestion.

“There’s no going back,” she said. “You dare not change your mind about leaving.”

As if I would.

She assured me that she would be able to drive at night.

We killed time walking among the stalls at the farmer’s market. When some of the stallholders saw Orpah they asked where Ruth was. They had not seen her peddling her quilts for quite some time. Was she well?

“Nothing wrong with her so far as I know,” said Orpah.

We transformed Orpah into a nun at the Halloween costume store at the East State Street Mall. Later I got into my own professional mourning costume after we had found a spot to park our RV.

We cross the Ohio River at Pomeroy. Exactly where Nicodemus and Abednego crossed, according to Orpah.

“Look down there,” she says. “You can see them gliding on ice in the opposite direction.”

I can only see the long barges laden with coal, sailing on the river so early in the morning. Orpah cannot contain her excitement. She almost hits a deer as soon as we cross the bridge. It is breeding season and the deer become blinded with lust. Although I am pretending to be calm I am excited too. I am looking forward to our search for mourning, and to the performances and exhibitions with which we’ll dazzle the bereaved. I know already that skeptics will dismiss us as New Age hustlers. To the true believers, however, we are enlightenment personified.

Before I came to Kilvert I lived only in the past and in the future. I therefore found the present a very lonely place to be. A very boring place. Orpah is a kindred spirit in this respect. Hopefully together we’ll discover how to live in the present. And we’ll do so without the aid of the sciolist. We have left him and his rambling narratives in Athens.

The sciolist is in the God business. And like all Gods he lives his life vicariously through his creations. Like all Gods he demands love from his creations. That’s why he creates them in the first place…so that they can shower him with love…so that they can worship him and praise him…so that they can bribe him with offerings. Creation is therefore a self-centered act.

I need my independence from him.

My gratitude to my friends: Jim Shirey, Spree MacDonald, Nakedi Ribane, Letsatsi Ribane, Elly Williams and my wife, Gugu Nkosi. Their invaluable feedback enriched my story. I am also grateful to my dearest friends and fellow writers Sello K. Duiker, Phaswane Mpe and Yvonne Vera, who continue to transmit to me buckets of inspiration from the world of the ancestors. More inspiration comes from all my children, old and new: Nduku, Thandi, Dini, Zukile, Zenzile, Luthando, Gcinile, Simphiwe and Nonkululeko.

Thanks also to Barbara Parsons and Irene Flowers of the Kilvert Community Center for the oral history; to Jean Cunningham for introducing me to these formidable women; to Terry Gilkey, who meticulously keeps cemetery records in Athens, Ohio; to the ghost hunter John Kachuba who took me to the Court Street Halloween block party in his ghostmobile; and to writers and historians: Keith P. Griffler (
Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley,
University Press of Kentucky, Lexington: 2004), Jacqueline I. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard (
Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad,
Anchor Books, New York: 2001) and J. A. Rogers (
Sex and Race: A History of White, Negro, and Indian Miscegenation in the Two Americas,
J. A. Rogers Historical Researches, New York: 1942).