(This sudden boat from noplace felt to us like one big typical dream, on a scale with such dreams as folks only dreams in Africa. I ain’t talking the weedy paltry chicken-scratch hot flashes what pass for a dream in this land. No, ma’am, I speaking big-scale—the kind us Africans only seemed to have while still in Africa. Dreams of living wrapped in perfect pelts. Dreams so rich and huge was just one the things we lost on our long trip over. Back home, in our greener country, a dream it slaved hard to outdo the jungle’s lushness. Some dreams could run you so river-deep, could twist your mind so many viny ways at once, you’d lose you footing, you’d drowned and tangle, both. Come morning, family’d find only a ashy one-eighth of you left in you straw hammock. The white milky self-part of who you truly been—like the sweetness you hears locked slopping round inside a coconut—why, that choice part stayed sealed in a dream too good to let anybody leave it alive. American dreams, compared to my home/monkey/orchid/jungle trances? why they just little windbreak stands of poplars. American dreams, they bout money. African ones—majority of nights won’t only bout magic, they was the rawbone magic its own slippery fish-snake self.) Right then, with Reba cackling out there, grinning welcome—the boat stirred. From one slot underneath—some force slid a walkway towards us. Seeing this, folks that’d stole inches free of hiding was right far back in. Reba mashed one eye shut, waited. Down boards did plunk on shore, planks tinted a red as harsh and fancy as the pretty rest.
Seeing how Aunt could pose within touching distance of such rougeness and still live, some our bolder royal children sneaked out, run right up onboard. King’s kids is brats, Mrs.! No news. Then dogs commenced usual bothersome barking. Next, mommas could scream for children to come back here this instant. Was then that all our banked-up jungle sounds—bird and monkey ones, the barely-there hum of The Sound You Could Never Name—all it start to life again but richer with a million thousand fears built up inside ten minutes’ silence. With noise helping make us all feel someway safer and more us, we come inching into full safe sun. Talk about pretty, ooh that boat! If the thing itself look good, river reflections flat outdid it.
Red coat each rope. Even the sails had got pure-soaked in your most beautiful of bloody dyes. Still, it took our King and the rest of he court (cautious because they Kings, Kings because they cautious) round three hours to find gumption sufficient for drawing right up near it. Aunt Reba, though about as you-can’t-hurt-me as any of them snakes she’d skinned—Aunt didn’t plan to risk no royal life—expecially Miss Reba’s own.
She stub up to King, showing no particular respect, she huff something towards tall Poppa’s ear. Nodding, he quick orders six guards, Go force some common fellow to sidle over, touch that ship’s probably poison side—a test. Guards had to jab umpteen-ten spears against the spine of one poor handpicked commoner. Royal Guards push him towards that gangplank where, to stay alive, the fellow would have to feel of red. Not expecting to be around real long, he call Goodbye at his kinfolks and, shaking, whimpered so. But once he close eyes and do it and find he yet alive, man laugh so hard, he got to slapping bright boards, showing off. When we seen how that nobody-special done managed to keep living, our royal crew of a sudden felt right brave. Full of leadership, don’t you know.
Soon three giggling baby semi-princes scampered all the way to the ship’s far side, proud of being so wild, so first. Scolding mommas run to fetch them, and once these court ladies was up there on it, they stand blinking, shocked as how they breathing yet. Myself, I were then carried up the gangplank by the Queen, my mother—at the breast of which I done happen to be a-suckling at the time.
Reba scurvle on board fast as her tall walking staff could rudder her. She muttering bitter, like mad she didn’t rush on earliest. Ship’s shiny paint yet be so sticky-new, it gum off onto court folks’ feet. Pushy younger princes hoist they soles, shown their big royal feets to eager folks on shore. Ooh, but them others was flat dying to climb up where us high-ranking ones now sure primped and strutted.
We a-crawl all over it, nodding greetings at lower-downs on land. Not acting too nice, now I thinks back on it. Say fifty-one the King’s toppest-ranking peoples all stands clumped on high, milling round like at one of you fine Lilacs boating parties back before war ended such silliness. We chuckling, touching sides of stuff, teasing, double-daring one another, leaning over the rail and taunting, but all in a right royal way, of course. We busy describing what do it feel like; being stationed here in ruby shiny glory. Ship start moving. Walkway draws right up. People on the shore, they screams. People on the ship, they screams way worse. People on the bank runs same way ship be headed. People on the deck trots back to where they left the land and wants to be. Screamers off the bank wades fast towards a boat all moving. Screamers throw they spears.
My second-oldest uncle dive off, splash, try and swim to where it safe and dry. A great sound make us all to yell, to flinch, to cover up our mouths then ears. Smoke hang in the middle air, my old dark uncle gone so still, be just a face-down arms-out spot in brown river. Next we seeing how that rare color done commenced to leaving him. Red, like this, us didn’t want. One tribe elder holler, “We on a Blood Canoe, sure. We being took someplace to die. Oh, tell me it a dream. Please somebody tell me I be dreaming!”
Reba hunched most scythe-shaped over railing, she just squint at eye-level coconuts, vines, weed orchids whipping by so quick. She say, mostly at sheself, like half admiring whatever just snagged us way too easy, “Ain’t no dream. Be bout the truest thing what’s gone on round here in my time.” And Reba just rest there—acting proud like she on some ride she paid to take. Us trots away from Auntie’s talking crazy. “Witch,” folks spits. We be dashing, wildness, all round that open deck. She watching, cool, right disgusted. “You can’t run but so far. Keep still and see what-all do Red got in mind for us. One achy knee tell Reba, this mess ain’t what it seem.”
Right then, loud, from underneath, all that boat’s doors, ports, plugs of floor wood slam wide open. Next, slithering into plain daylight—like they deserves the holy healing of our African sun—paste creatures lunge. Paste! Such shrieking you never heared. Even Reba cough, “Yikk,” she join us in quivering at the boat’s back end. She didn’t run, just walked—but with that stick rowing her mighty quick out the way them see-through monsters.
(You like how Castalia’s dusting here? Oh, I done had so many years’ practice. Notice how Cassie’s fluffing ostrich feathers round this shepherd-lady figurine with six plaid bows on her crook. A working gal! Watch how I cleans the marble mantel with soap and lemon oil to make it shine good, like so. Remember this. You gone have lots of time for practice.)
All them holes and trapdoors unhitch quick and—pushing up into plain day, alive on this runaway canoe—more monsters unhatch. This boat they termite egg nest. Men-shaped but huger, they got too little color in them anywheres. Whole faces be stitched up only out of lacks. Instead of hair, they have grasses, straight blades, sprigging forks off seamed scalps. Some faces let brown moss cling everywhere but eyes. Some noses have silver metal water bugs of wire settled cross them, knots of clear dead river armoring each eye. Twelve my old kinfolks—seeing these creatures pale as yanked-up plant root—vomits on the deck, down into our river. I toss my arms round Momma’s neck, I tries and crawl clear past her shoulders. The whole court sprints lickedy-split to the dugout’s back and waits here, panting, hand in hand, faces hid.
These ones wear cloth tied in tubes over arms and legs and chests—like hiding even worse sights. They stalks all round and, no-nonsense, just sails they ship. One he wearing a log for a leg! They got no nostrils you can see, just sneaking slits hid underneath long birdish bills. Faces butter yellow or milk white—pored like sponge or sleek as suet. And they eyes!—the worst yet—eyes burn about the blue of sky but feel like you looking clear through eyeholes, far in as the brain and—since they don’t seems to have one—right out past it. Us would sure have a mess of trouble fighting these trickers—they appears t
o be mist ghosts. If you drawed near one and went to hit it, your hand’d freeze right into him. Whitenesses seem carved only from columns of river mist, a core plug of cold wind. Ain’t nothing to these monsters. That make them seem more monsters yet.
All my family gasping theyselves hoarse. Everbody cept Reba. First she cowering at the boat’s hindside with the rest of us mashed in one clump: darksome gooseflesh, quiverish parrot-feather anklets, faces so scared, lips drawed back. But then Reba just step out of us. She soon hobbling free in the open. Air on all sides, she alone. Aunt following two wiry Bleaches. We calls at her. King done give a direct order in he lionest King bass voice. Reba busy acting deaf, trying and stare into such faces as got the rest of us so spooked. Them ones stands so much taller than her (she short for us and on them be no more than thigh-high), she nearbout tries climbing her walking stick to get a better view. Reba so bent up with age, so turned in on sheself, she look like a fishhooking black question mark—one using the stick, strong exclamation point, to keep Miss Question propped up, axting. (Oh, the truth be out. Yeah, I done studied some reading, ma’am, illegal though it be. Listen, you know how all these years you kept sending me with letters and love notes to other plantations, how you’d hand any private thing to me, sure you was safe as with somebody blind? Well, truth’s had its coming-out at last—Castalia’s read every word, or, leastways, most!—Yeah, I figures that: naming/spelling/owning can comes to the same thing. I—C-a-s-t-a-l-i-a.)
Two my old kinfolks was already dead on boat floorboards. First sight of blade-faces done kilt cousins that quick. Two pink monsters—busy ignoring Miss Reba’s trailing them—bent down and listened at my kins’ chests. Then whitenesses just chucked our old ones over ship’s rail, three swings, gone. We run to the red boat’s back. Man cousin and lady cousin float on off. Out past them, we can yet spy a wide dark spot of river where our hurt uncle he still bobs.
Past him, the village—already looking like something sharpened and shrunk down by distance into being just a learning toy of its own self. You feels you know, of a sudden, how to go back right. You thinks extra clear, “So that where I been being all my life.”
We can see each known dog running circles cross the mud, barking, going crazy over losing our King scent. We sees our subjects crying, some stands with arms vined round they loved ones. Some waving hard at us, other old-timers holding on to they heads. Folks keeps crying out our names, not knowing who gone order them to do what tomorrow. Half our people has waded nipple-deep into the bright river. Some still throwing spears at where this boat just been. Others now pulling big leaves off shore. They rip a hole into greeneries’ middle and—heads poked out—stand wearing these like shawls over they shoulders. Were our funeral custom. You wear the leaf till use and rot lets it drop off, natural. That mean you rightful time of mourning done started ending. And—us? Us waves back, trying one last time to look in some part royal.
Then, with dead kin drifting further and farther behind (our lady relative washing face-up, the men turned face-in), were right then that this big boat just ease round one bend, ma’am. How simple. How quiet do it happen. River curves the once. Green ease out from water’s right side. Green now hides you from everything you ever knowed. All you thought was so, all that made you be the lifelong king/queen of something fine, why every bit of that can’t see you no more. The home what held you up as so high placed/big shot, that home just ain’t there. You? You, now only this—you head/you hands/you feet. Now you are however strong and useful such a head/hands/feets might be to others.
Oh, fine Lady what bought me for next to nothing, how lonely a body did feel then in her total bones. I held on to Momma. We’d already got all the red we ever wanted. You just standing there high in the breeze, wind go by—whistling you earholes—moving faster than you can credit. Feel like flying with red cloud sails for wings but pulling you the opposite of where you longs to be. You can still hear—riding out cross river the way sounds carry—our whole home village wailing, shouting, wailing our full names, like we was already dead.
And, Lady Migraines/Musicales? most ways, we was, we was.
3
IF WE standing on some rope that air ghosts needs, they just pulls it out from under us but didn’t hurt us, no, not yet. One young wide-walking bleachness act real nice towards us children but we feeling way too scared for opening eyes. He squat near us. From out a flap in cloth over hips, he pulls a yellow metal heart, it ticking like magic at the end one yellow chain. Its front were filmed across like fish eye. He snap the lid open, a frog mouth upglomping—out juts music sounds so sweet so sharp, they cuts into you tear holes/nostril linings, like do wickedest eel gills. When us childrens, hearing, hides our faces, this smooth bleachness give out hacking sounds, a copied type of human laugh.
Bleach sailors got this boat well along our river. They look out for the sandbars/shallows. Seemed they done managed this before. Us stands and shakes while studying the shore uncurling, be so much of it. Finally, the haze of first panic starts letting in small things round our edges: we notice a pet monkey. Pale-heads keep it chained to one big pole that carry the most sail. This olive-greenish monkey have on a little blue tunic, yellow cloth tubes trap he legs (a hole to let the tail wave loose). Gloomy under a mud-pie cap, the ape sits a-picking at heself, staring down on us. Looks right pitiful, like he don’t wants to be a monkey—not even no monkey what’s free to live up trees, but specially not no creature forced to wear all this hot mess, to set around in chains and pass for some Bleach boss’s idea of funny.
That monkey give us a look like advice. Advice run: “Go drowned youself. End it while they ain’t yet got no leash winched round you neck.” Monkey’s chittery sounds—sad though they be—give us the only comfort we could come by. Us called him “our” monkey. He were the single thing on this giants’ dugout that we knew one fact about. From now on, Mrs. Keeper of the Keys, we would reconize Nature this way:
Be whatever had the chains around it.
STRANGE THING: how soon strangeness left off feeling full out strange for us, the Kingly children. You spend forty minutes beating fists gainst the wood of this canoe, you soon hollered youself most sick. Children got flat bored of being scared. A young one can’t concentrate too long, even on something like fearing getting kilt! Soon, little ones commenced finding seed husks and banana peels near our monkey’s perch. Us kids scurried over and watched such bits fritter-spin to water twenty feet below. Elders watch youngsters being frisky, acting usual. Elders grown the most scared yet, all glazed/quiet. Some snatched sons and daughters, shook them good, nodded toward the boat’s sick ghosts. Tribe olders point, “Look what’s happening here. And you off fooling all round. What do you all see when you gazes on such devils as has grabbed us here, what?”
And us childrens? pinched by ears? we answered, “Don’t know. But them poor things sure is some kind of ugly!” Then, too pleased by the ride for staying scolded long, we skipt off. Regular mischief let us fool with ropes, turn knobs, try all kinds new gear. This busyness left grown folks puzzling in a knot. What seem to scare them most?—How fast us all gets used to, gets used most anything, Missy.
Is it fair that a orchid can’t live if you move it four feet from where it been used to growing—but us humans? We can be tricked and captured and dragged halfway round the muddy stacked-deck world.
You gone learn youself. Red fire’s coming here.
“In my Father’s house be many matches.” Right now you believe you can’t live through losing these twenty-foot ceilings, Queen Anne furniture, them chinchillas, Frenchy gowns, maybe even you one son.
But, Lady, I believes you gone surprise yourself. You about to live, and live, and live. Through any/every/thing. You don’t know yet but: You a bunch like me. Secret sister, I warning you: You can hold on. However hurt or poor you get, you gone pull through. And can you even guess, Silly Butterfly, the very saddest part? You gone feel so glad you did—live. That’s your punishment. Yeah, my pretty tired
old gal, you own true Coming-Out it just about to bust you free. But where’d I leave us? Crouching on the open deck? Had no more plans nor weapons than might a herd of snared gazelles. Felt dizzy from moving so fast so long.—If you ain’t ever skimmed no quicker than you can paddle with you own strong arms, to now be twenty-some feet over river water, up along the middle of the thinning trees, to be moving where we used to only see the red birds fly, it nearbout make you ill, how nice it feel while zipping past all good help. Usual mud and river stink be gone. Up this tall?—we catches smells of flowers, ones growing big as you white lace-edged parasol but set there blooming, ten thousand high and vain in treetops.
We floats right by the village of our most enemy tribe. They been killing us forever. And us has been know to stab them back. This the outfit what named us “The Tribe That Answers.” Today, here we is—getting rustled off nobody knows where. Our hated ones come right down to the water’s edge. Seeing these fearful flesh eaters, we naturally runs to the boat’s safe side. Us hides behind such little huts and boxes as been built onto this dugout’s lid. You expect warriors on shore to point/laugh/dance at seeing the Kingly cream of they river’s smartest tribe get grabbed. But then, well hid, we notice how they stand so stark-faced, watching.