When we got finished being felt of, us were led back out to stand again together, which been nicer. Then we seen a mess of other black people lockstep in at the great room’s back. New tribe yet chained. They ain’t been lucky enough to have a vision-filled Auntie knowing how to read she aches and make—of old days’ hurts—a new world be. These folks never was told why they got brought unto this teaching temple. Oh, the wails they making, a sound to wash you eyes with tears you ain’t expected. Poor things was being sick and some kept tearing at they faces with fingernails and two boy bleachnesses with terrible whips was keeping them in strict strict line.
Reba now stare hard towards them, eyes narrowing. She shade she face with one hand, trying and make out the shapes of poor folks shivering back there. The pawed-over sassy young princess (yet looking struck half dead) bend down, whisper bout what going on. Weak as Auntie’d got, you felt her mind flat buzzing to fit this part in. Right off, Reba tell us, “That tribe, I believes, be our court substitutes. I afraid that they somewhat inferior to us, manners-wise. Wouldn’t nobody consider them a royal clan, now would they? Such screeching. Ain’t seemly.—But the Land of White Unfilledness done brought these ones over, courteous-like, so, on days when us be feeling somewhat tired, these ones’ll go on out. They gone meet the weak-minded pale questioners for us. Is probly who these ones be.”
Our substitutes, seeing us, growed quietened. And right off. Them stared so. Our heads lifted, we kept lined up here, sleek and willing—we already seem this pale, chain-loving Lost Tribe’s very favorites. We models. And just the sight of our true royalty worked on black others quick as any lixir. Our substitutes stood straighter and more calm. They now known that everybody on the shore of this dry unjungled Nother-world won’t a body-shamed blankness. Soon as they got soothed by seeing us, we felt again—our tribe’s potent answering magic be steadily at work. No stopping its ruddering strength on all what meets it.
Then a loud loud bell chimed. And into this huge room stacked high round a stage where we waits, hundreds of whitenesses swarms, jawing mong theyselves. It such humid weather, and each was dressed in pale cloth sacking bandaged round he arms and legs and chests. Each had one fine-colored cloth piece knot—gathered at he throat. Another white bit flop and billow out a patch stitched to he tunic’s left-side front. Equipment, but—what for?
Entering our court, Blanks took off they hats, a superstition we appreciated, pure respect. Following them, scampering black children dressed in cloth as white as any whitenesses’. Some these young ones was wearing turbans, single earbobs, such fine trappings. They each carrying a big peacock-feather fan for keeping flies and heat from ever settling onto our subject bleachnesses running towards seats, that eager to hear first lessons bout living a more natural human life.
(In so short a time, our own tribe had already learnt to look right into the faces of these white ghost totems and not to throw up. Now here sat two hundred or more of them and nobody mong my relatives got sick even onct. Hard to believe what-all a royal group can complish when it put its mind to something, ain’t it, though, Mrs. Mine Own Owner?)
Stout deep-voiced Bleach man stroll up behind a box. He hold papers covered with snake lines bout who-all royalty we be. He hit the box’s top with a fancy wood hammer. Everybody hush down. Then, one at a time, us got pulled forward. Headman hold up he fingers, him lift our strong arms, him point to a good face or to one particular fat high-riding breast, its nipple wide across yet prim as any of you teacups.
“Childrens, the worship have begun,” Reba grinning so from under blankets, face hid down underneath, mouse gray while nodding only Yes. Water-bodies soon admire all handsome folks in our Kingly group. Blanks out on benches, real young to real old, be every one a male. They would start to maybe pull on one ear or lift a eyebrow. (Almost like they was admiring us but shamed to let they brothers know.) When the hammer man seen some such sly high sign (he looking round right hard), him call out one word loud, make a quacky happy rattle song, strike one serious blow to wood.
Course, us stare towards Reba, needing help. Two more young princesses have stoop down to hold Miss Auntie’s hands and help her know things Reba eyes can’t find. She quits coughing long enough to try and give a mild grin. “I believes they making up a name for every last one of us. Yeah. Bleach trying and guess … our true titles, home ranks, and what-all we each gone teach the best. Maybe you men gone talk bout fishing traps and … like that. This stubby one keep helping them … decide … which name suit us best, see? True respeck, first questions, Children of the Blood Royal, just about to start. Prepare you basic lessons. But Reba gone be straight with you, from the look of this here group, you’d best keep first talks full … of examples. I talking simple.” Then her lapsen, worn, back into the waiting hands of worried princesses.
Hammer rapper chant a loud notched row of names. He yodeling so. It the best Bleach music us done heard, full of passion bout something. It excites all what’s listening. First hint: maybe they is a winion of Drum locked in these mealy selfs somewhere. Hammer man holds a hand over the head of my relatives, one by one by one. He singing bout them. Praise.
Blanks lead forward my shy momma the Queen, me hanging on to her for dear life, me, three, small for my age. I taking everything in, scared so bad. Out among the seats high above us, broad rocking peacock fans looked to me most like our home palms, waving bowing. I stare round for anything what’s like I knowed before. Plump head fellow, making a big face towards he crowd, smiles approving noises bout my momma’s looks and station. Next, the man took slow hold of her left breast. He cause a drop to pearl out its end, then—squeezing hard—he shoot one thread of holy royal lady milk angling down towards the school’s front row. Bleachnesses sure did move they shoes out the way right quick. Laughing, all them pink sponge faces split wide open. Out roll hard hard sound. “Hard, hard, hard,” they say. Many fought to guess my momma’s name.
Then we was being prodded off in smallish side groups. Whatever pale one chose our names the best, seem like he got to take us off with him. Whichever name got sing-sayed last and loudest and three times—that become our winning title. (Just by the repeated sound of it, so scared that everything done stuck, I remembered my momma the Queen’s new one. Only later did white language make a shelf for me to put that name up on. Our Most Royal River Village Queen’s new bleachland title be: “Four Hundred.”)
The Blank what’d thought this up, what’d rubbed both hands together so, he seemed right frisky bout naming Momma, me, and three my kin. (He titled one the semi-princes, plus our two older cousins.) This gent I describing be nobody but you own late scholar-bossman-husband, Mistress. Does you reconize the hand-rubbing, or was that saved only for he special “nap” chamber out yonder in the quarter? All right, do keep quiet, then. I gone live.
One fan-carrying black child under a glittery turban hurry over, smiling clucking at us. He could talk the Bleaches’ own bird language, be just chattering away in it, giggling, shaking his head bout us. Acted like we hopeless ugly things and not the royal family long waited for, sought after halfway round this mud-wad earth. Some my older kinfolk yet stand out front—bare to all them pinch-blue eyes—still being named. Maybe to honor our old ones, the head bleachness had saved them back for last.
Momma and me was already being hurried off by that young yellowhead what’d felt hardest of her behind the curtain. We turn back and tries studying what gone happen to the last of us.
We seed the hammer man posing over Reba now. He set he shoe tip gainst her ribs to prove Reba should stand and let the namers look her over good. Then the chief Blank changed, nudged her somewhat easier (easy as any shoe toe can nudge one old naked lady’s onstage ribs), seem like of a sudden he recollected being the son of some old Bleach-bag root-pale mother somewheres. Reba just shrug, proving she feel too poorly for moving very far.
Auntie rested there, panting under blankets, but grinning round at every subject in this huge white room. With her body s
haking so, Aunt’s teeth would’ve been chattering if all three hadn’t of been lowers. The most Reba could do was ease onto elbows and blink out at all them pale admirers with so much yet to learn. Not seeing too good, she still seemed right interested in the feel of being surrounded with this much blankness. Didn’t scare Miss Aunt—how much space so much white makes. All here for her filling, for our filling up. Reba woman yet believed, ma’am, that Ignorance were just the lack of smarts. ‘Tain’t so. Us soon found out. Ignorance be a whole force unto itself. Trust you Castalia in this.
Reba grin out them mist men’s way, her narrow slotted face opened to its widest beaming.
“I plans and go slow at first,” her cried, crackly yet loud as she could. “Starting off, might seem real hard. But then, one day, just like things done dawned on Reba here, you gone see what-all we come to teach … Tribe’s lessons bout to break over you heads like so many rare red birds’ eggs full of light. You going to say, ‘So, it that!’ Then you sure will laugh. Even took your old Reba here a day or six to see you reasons for toting us on over here. Did. Oh, I slow sometimes. I winded just now … It hard but, boys? it possible. And, listen, even fore I gets rolling on your first lesson, I wants to let you know (here, has to catch my breath a second) yeah … let you know: where I been? Yeah, you was right. You already took the first sure step towards a wiseness sufficient—saying what you needs to understand. Now …” Round in here, somebody starts to clapping, grumblish. Aunt took this as encouragement. Naming went right on, plump man going bout he chores, axting Blanks to title others. He keep casting side looks at the old one, yet unnamed, jammering away her loudest. “Maybe you Blank boys been wondering why you all been axted here. Well, that cause you Reba wants to tell: We feels for you. Pities you. And you sure is lucky. Why? Cause, well, don’t like to brag none, but you done found The Tribe What Answers.
“For my starting lesson, I gone speak” (hollering got worse) “bout the need for Tribal Kindness. I put it frank … Don’t test us too much, please, not at first. We still partway homesick. Remember, Blanks, under … everything runs this need to treat each other right, to try and …”
Most bleachnesses now slapping hands together, like they knowed Auntie were trying and make a speech, like they found that right comical at first but only for round about one minute.
Water-bodies clangored to finish naming. But Reba, bad eyes working this room, she act most sated. She yet took clapping to show how some of these heathens had already understood, and first thing! She just lay there, peeking round (bashful but pleased like some old sunning turtle), grinning so’s her three brown tooths’ nub ends showed. Well, her students just loved that, sure. Oh, you never did hear such hooting, whistling, kicking on seats. Paste-faces in back, grinning, talking mong theyselves, stood for a better view of her down there on the floor.
Chief singer man come closer, held his hammer down onto addled head of our good King’s greater great-aunt. Reba shuddering, eyes unblinking mong blankets’ stains, been waiting to hear what-all they gone title her, smiling with a edge of fun, vain to the end. Reba use the hammerhead to scratch some stray itch on her scalp. Water-bodies laughs. Man cup one free palm behind he ear. Hammer man lean clear across Reba and nearer to her hundreds pupils. Didn’t one crag-face try naming her. Probably not one soul in the big white room felt worthy of guessing Aunt Reba’s full title nor her rank. So the headman snort out a name of he own for our most holiest of all. This, too, me and my cousins would remember later just by how it sound. Seemed that important. Head whiteness named my answering aunt “No Takers.”
Man just pull a face, roll his eyes, pass on to our next-oldest person—a body young enough to yet be standing, waiting, looking not at hammer man but, like all us kin been doing, down at her, down at Auntie in last trouble.
Reba yet wear that spiny necklace made out pods. Acting confused, staring all bout, Auntie yank it off. Only then did us notice how her whole head, all along, been mostly a skull with six tanned crisscross strips of hide and one million earned old crinkles covering it, cooperating in hiding bone. Someway, that necklace—forever tied in place below—always made your eyes go there to it instead. Now you seen only the answering skull bulking there a eighth-inch beneath. You seen how Reba’s eyes was testing in they sockets, pulling deeper, going back to where and home to what?
First Auntie, fuddled, reach down, start a spastic feeling of her shiny scars, grabbing one old handful of snakebit thigh skin, prying, twisting it for news bout what-all this mean, fighting to understand she own new name. By now, Auntie’d lost even her deepest wounds’ true voices. Still, even so confused, Reba considered her hurt spots the only things worth trusting.
(Lady About to Maybe Meet Her First Slap, much as anything on earth, your scars is yours.)
Auntie dangled the seed choker for Momma to come fetch. Guards finally let our Queen stoop and take it, me going down with her. Queen then press necklace to she mouth, kissing it good while looking right at Reba. Flat on the floor of our first great stage, Aunt, addlepated, were yet grinning out at multitudes what lacked skin tint and any kindly mind for others. But, while nodding towards them, Reba still joked quiet up at my mother, “Us flat got us a task all right. What Festival Dance Day do … this be? Seem like I were trying and remember something.”
(Necklace’s seeds would be the start of you plantation’s only okra, plus the first peanut plants in this whole northeast end of Carolina … foods you-all never would of tasted or knowed about without they being saved from holy Africa in this Tear-crossing witch jewelry.)
Our King heself were getting pushed off by some dough-head what’d named him best. Momma—watching—start shaking the worst yet, got shuddering nigh as bad as Auntie. Reba turn our way. Not seeing nothing clear, but feeling all what’s going on in her every crook and bone, her final strength cried to us (bove the loudness of our lasts being named), “We soon gone meet in the Court of Our New Whitenesses. We just … being led off to go get dressed up fine, to sleep some. Oh, a nap! Where my good stick? Had that thing a long while. Hard to find the perfeck one. Good sticks don’t grow on trees, well … yeah, but … I trying saying we is soon to … Meet … glory … in a room what makes this one look like my little shack … back home … built to hold our dead red birds. Remember, young ones? So, go on off with them. Trust.” She coughed bad. “Do. Us’ll see each other directly. Remember: act kinder than them does. That our best lesson. They always gone be … watching. In a land so bleach, black skin bound to show up plain. The un-ones knows you started off as kings—gone expect you to be forever better at everything than them—and just to break even. Anybody seed a fine stick staff? Round here someplace. Can’t go far without.—Look, royalty, try.”
Two young straw-hairs lift Reba’s pallet, starts toting her wherever they takes the extra ones. Where do bleachnesses store they leftovers? They had to lug our Reba by the unchained group of us. When her stretcher drawed close near, Auntie been set high onto sky-eyes’ shoulders, us couldn’t see up that far, we only spied one edge her blanket, one dry Reba wrist dangling down. The other hand still tested her mute hurts. Then us all broken line. We tried and touch her while us could. Great-aunt Reba goes bouncing past on a bed of sticks, two long, two short crossed at either end. Us press forward to feel one hand’s rough knuckles. Our fingertips quick traced Reba’s broken blue nails, quick felt a snakebit knot set—one great bulb jewel—in the middle of her ivory palm, us reach to squeeze them stiff old horny fingers what’d finished off so many snakes, what forever pointed out things to us, what pointed so at us, accusing, schooling, teasing. Then two boy Bleaches and one old shrunk unmarried woman—they was quick gone round one corner. Gone.
Black child in the shiny turban set aside he fan. Acting bored official, he yanked cloth tubes out a sack. Then he shown us how to pull these over heads, round our limbs. Our coverings looked like the namers’ own, just darker in color, coarser in weave. You felt smothered cross you shoulders, tugged at under arm
s, expecially clamped twixt legs. Clothes be a softer kind of shackle. Black tar meant to hide our hurts—like how you’d wax away a scratch on furniture—it rubbed off, spoiling cloth. Was then—from far at the end of one long hall—us heared something, a sound, the cavedin leaf-mold voice.
Us perkened so, staring at each other, not rightly knowing one the other—such a goodly percentage of familiar skin now been quenched back of hiding cloth. Her cough reached us as a warning and a promise. Then something else done rivered up underneath it, calmed us so. Be her snaggle laugh. Us stood, mouths open, eyes salt, listening harder than us ever had. By now Auntie’s laugh and cough done braided into being one turn-taking sound. We love to hear it working in her still.
Out from under such rasping—she trying/saying something. But couldn’t none of us understand. We look to each other, worried what-all we missing. Something good, we bet, something to remember. King draw hisself up to he full tall, lift he chin, go, “I believe Reba probly mean, ‘Closest things I gots to childrens, go on out. They can’t hurt us now. We kings. Go make the world over. But, this time, get it right. Show them how. We royalty. We they royalty. Why we answer? Cause they axted.’”
But a long stillness stretch clear from down them arched brick halls. On the floor, back yonder, under blankets, in the Chamber of the Leftover, “No Takers” hush herself.
Blinking, sun’s favorites, we now squinting on a street. Port town’s market day swelled so, buy and peddle. Like a storm on Tears, such haggling and push, hurrying bout, outdoing one the other. Close by the slammed back door of our strange temple house, three open wagons.
Chain-hitched to them was roomy black-brown creatures bent low under the biggest whips we done seen. After us got pushed up into carts, we noticed how—in a fancier leather wagon at the very back—our first female-type whiteness be setting, quiet and nervous as a bird. Seem like, if you bothered her, she could sputter straight up into the air, all wings and spur, sliced wind. For now, she perched there, not so sure, not so not sure, sparrow-sized but face set in a high-strung manner big as bossy life. (Like the Bleach men, she steadily pretending to be human!) Bout her neck, and left wrist, in finest gold, dainty as possible, two narrow chains showned—ornament for proving who be boss.