“Okay.”
Circles, over and over again. Sailing over her head, around the finger she holds up. Another swig and more smoky circles and his lap is getting hot beneath her bottom.
More circles and he thinks the cigar is making his head spin and so outs it on the leg of the chair and lays it to rest on the table beside him.
Dumpling’s eyes are growing heavy, and her shoulder is pushing into his chest, her head resting in the crook of his neck while his hand lays still and innocent on her knee.
Vonnie’s eyes flutter and close.
He was dreaming about Lillie or maybe Lovey—he didn’t know which. They were one and the same. Teasing him, tossing stones at his face, calling him ugly, shaking their asses and baring their breasts.
He got hold of her or them, hands around their necks, squeezing, squeezing until they cried out, “Stop, stop, please!”
But he wouldn’t, and he just kept squeezing and then the blood started to eke from their skin and that’s when Vonnie woke up and found Dumpling looking at him, her eyes crying, her mouth uttering the words from his dream: “Stop, stop, please!”
He shook his head, started to ask:
Stop what?
And then felt the wetness on his hand and remembered the blood from the dream and looked down, his eyes falling on his forearm and wrist but his hand is missing, hidden beneath the blue dress material and white crinoline; beneath that, his fingers are clinging to virgin flesh, wet with urine.
Birmingham, Alabama
The sun is up now.
We all holding hands. Ms. Meadow’s arms stretched out across the table, blue veins long and telling.
My eyes wet. All of our eyes wet.
I thought it was the blue dress, I say. That and me.
Yes, Sherry say, and squeeze my hand.
Or the crinoline beneath it.
Oh, Dumpling, Ms. Meadow cry.
I never put you in blue. Did you ever realize that? I say to Sherry.
Yes.
It’s such a beautiful color. But I hated to have to see it after that day. Do you know what it’s like to look at the sky and want to cry? To see the ocean and feel afraid? He made blue ugly for me after that.
He was the ugly one. Ugly on the inside. Sick, Ms. Meadow say.
He took blue away from me and made me feel dirty. Helen saved us, you know.
Yes. Ms. Meadow bows her head.
She came down to visit not too long after that.
Yes, yes.
I think she saw the look in my eyes and knew.
Hmmmm.
And I took the blue dress off the white doll she brought down for me.
I remember that story.
I ripped it to shreds and burned it in the fireplace.
Yes, yes.
Then Lovey came up pregnant.
Viola.
Yes, her first one. His.
Yes.
Helen sent for all of us after that.
Your first trip on a plane, right?
I was so afraid!
Of flying.
No, the seats. I was afraid of the seats; the seats were blue.
Oh.
Too afraid to move, even after the plane had landed. We just sat there.
Ahh.
Helen had to come on the plane and get us. She saved us. Raised us like we were her own children.
I know.
But I still felt dirty. I would wash four or fives times a day. For years. I thinks I got it off most of my body. But it’s still on my hands. You can’t see it, but I know it’s there.
Yes, yes.
Lovey was doing it too, washing herself, but she was just doing it different.
Sherry say, Uh-huh.
Laying down with all them men and telling them: My papa named me Love because he had love for God and creation. My papa named me Love because I was created with love in mind. My mama the one that put the “y” after the “e,” when I was just five months old, Lovey told the mens and they just a-grin and touch her face and then get to swaying. Something in her made them sway.
She’d bring them home and run all them children she had out of the room.
Shoes come off, socks discarded, tie and pantyhose tossed aside. She’d bring them beer, dance for them. Smoke cigarettes and blow smoky circles in their faces.
Lovey would give herself over to them if they told her what she wanted them to hear.
What was that?
She told them: Tell me I got a gorgeous ass.
They said, Yeah, baby, you got some kind of ass.
She say, No, tell me it’s gorgeous.
You got a gorgeous ass, they said.
She say then, Say my name.
They say, What is it again?
Love, nigger. Love.
Sandersville, Georgia
July 1995
Dumpling
Sandersville right down the road. Ms. Meadow, that house, and Birmingham like a dream behind us, floating in my mind, clinging to me.
I look at Sherry and she move into the right lane and slow down to a snail’s pace. Here we are, I think. And then she say, Here we are.
Yeah, I say. Here we is.
You ready?
Ready as I’m ever going to be.
You nervous?
A little.
Yeah. Me too.
I’m sorry.
For what?
For everything, I say. And the slap. I touch her face then.
Oh, Mama, I understand now.
Mama? I like it when you call me that.
You do?
Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama.
* * *
She sing it all the way to Sandersville and I don’t even think about my hands or if they clean. My heart is clean, that’s all that matters, and anyway, my mind is wrapped all around Sherry’s voice and the song she singing to me.
Mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama . . .
I can see the saltbox from where we stop, and my heart flutters. At least twenty cars and SUVs lined up on the road. Doors swung open, music streaming out of some of them, little children’s legs dangling out of others. Faces look over at us, faces in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Hands come up and wave, beckon; lips break into smiles, shout out, and say, That there look like Dumpling!
My heart flutter again. Them my people, my folks, have mercy!
I turn to Sherry, say, Hurry up, let’s get out!
She say, Wait a minute, Dumpling. I want you to talk to someone first. She pick up her phone, press some numbers, listen, smile, and say, Baby, we’re here. Yes, safe and sound. Uh-huh, I got somebody special here that wants to meet you.
And she pass the phone over to me. I look at it, not sure what I should say, and then start the only way I know how: Hello?
He say, Mrs. Jackson, how are you? How was your trip?
I say, Fine, good, thank you for asking. How you?
He say, Well, missing my Sherry and looking forward to meeting you.
I say, Let me ask you something.
Anything, he say.
You know my baby’s heart?
He say, Know it like I know my own.
I say, Good answer, look forward to meeting you. Now, I got family waiting on me. And I jump out the car, run toward the first familiar face I see, my arms spread wide like wings.
Sherry
Something like I thought it would be, but then like something else.
The big house is gone, but I feel it there.
Family faces look at me, hug me, kiss my cheek, offer me food, grab me by the hand, and drag me here and there. “This your cousin,” they say. “This your kin. This your family!”
Some of them look like me or they tell me I look like someone else and take me to the person and say, “See, y’all two look just alike!”
Madeline, her husband, and the kids are there. Madeline can’t even get a hello out before the questions come.
Sonny Boy is there with some pretty girl on his arm. He introduces us and she hugs me hello and it feels good. I look at her and think that they will make babies together who are beautiful inside and out.
Uncle Beanie Moe and his second wife are there with two of their sons and three of their grandchildren. Beanie Moe sputters through the spaces in his teeth and hugs me tight. He’s getting older, I think. And thinner too.
Wella, baby-faced, stout, looking like Dumpling but younger and always smiling, shows me the latest picture of her Nellie. “She flying in from Paris this evening,” she says proudly.
“And the children?”
“Oh, they daddy driving in from DC. Should be here soon. You look good, girl. Filling out in all the right places.” She laughs.
“I feel good, Auntie, now that I’m here.” Wella gives me another hug and a smile and then waves and walks away when she sees someone who hasn’t been seen in years.
* * *
I move away from the crowd and down behind the house, where the first ones are buried.
I spot red. It’s laid out and shocking against the dark green grass. A little closer, pale skin comes into view.
Old lady with a shock of silver hair stretched out on her back and draped in red from head to toe.
Sherry, the lips whisper.
Aunt Lovey, I say, and lay myself down beside her. Our hands lock.
Ain’t that sky beautiful?
Sure is.
Your mama used to love blue as much as I love red.
She loves it again.
That’s good. It’s been too long.
You like being back here?
Yes. My people are here. The North was too hard on me.
You should have come out west with us.
Nah. Your daddy, God rest his soul, didn’t like me.
I laugh at the truth.
You talking about God now?
Well, you gotta make peace, you know?
Yeah.
I suppose.
So how you doing?
Fine.
You in love?
Why you ask?
I see it all in your face. Something else too.
What?
You expectin’?
What?
Silence. Then: Don’t try and deny it, I can see it.
Really?
You young people always thinking you putting something over on the old folks. I guess that mean you ain’t tell your mama yet?
No.
Well, don’t make her wait too long.
She roll over on her side and I roll over on mine so that we’re facing each other.
Not a crease in her face. Her gray eyes are stormy, but the white around them is as bright as snow.
You look beautiful; pregnancy agrees with you, she says.
You look beautiful; life agrees with you, I say, and reach out and touch her face. We smile at each other and she reaches over and touches my shoulder. The blue eagle peeks out from beneath the cuff of her blouse.
There it is, I coo.
Her eyes follow mine. If you want it, it’s yours, she says.
Really?
She slips it off her wrist and says, My baby-shower gift to you, and presses it into my palm before turning onto her back.
I do the same.
Who are we lying on?
Lou.
Hmmmmm.
Can you feel her?
Yes, I think I can.
—The End—
Are We Related?
Nowhere Is a Place
was first published in 2006. The story was inspired by my own genealogical research, which I started back in 1995. I’ve had a lot of help along the way and so would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Antoinette McFadden, Valerie Beaudrault, and the members of AfriGeneas.com—without their kind assistance, I would be years behind in my research.
I believe in “six degrees of separation”—so it’s not unlikely that many of you out there may be familiar with some of the names listed below. Maybe still, you and I will discover that we are kin!
Great-great-grandpa:
Reverend Tenant M. Robinson
was pastor and founder of the First Baptist Church of Macon, Georgia (the cornerstone bears his name). Tenant Robinson was born on the Edisto River, near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1839. His mother was sold when he was five years old and carried to Aiken, South Carolina. She was again sold to a man by the name of Nat Black and carried to Graniteville, South Carolina. In Augusta, Georgia, Robinson embraced the religion of Christ, was baptized by Reverend Henry Johnson, and was united with the Thankful Baptist Church. Soon after becoming a member he was united in marriage with
Miss Louisa White
of Hamburg, South Carolina, in 1866. They had four children:
James, John, Emma,
and
Chappo.