It ain’t no real sign that I’m a fra-gile boy, but now I was sitting like all the other children. My hands were gripping on tight to the side of my desk, my breathing was coming raggedy, and my eyes were locked on Mr. Travis wondering how long ’twas gonna be afore he got back in his right mind. And if his mind didn’t come back to him, I was wondering whose soul he was gonna grab next!
Mr. Travis said, “They are treated like animals! And though a very few fortunate ones of us know the sweetness of freedom, unfortunately, another very, very …”
Each time Mr. Travis said “very” he gave Cooter’s ear a good little twist!
“… very …”
Cooter’s ear was getting wound up so tight that he started dancing on one leg trying to get some of the pressure off it. But he was still smiling!
“… very …”
I couldn’t stand it no more. Why, if Mr. Travis kept on twisting Cooter’s ear like that, when he did turn it a-loose it’d be spinning and unwinding itself on the side of Cooter’s head for a whole week!
I didn’t care if it drawed attention to me or not, Cooter’s my best friend and I knowed he’d do the same for me. I took in a deep breath to buck up my courage and finally raised my hand and yelled out, “Mr. Travis, sir, please forgive me for talking out in class, but I just gotta let Cooter know if he don’t quit smiling, sir, he’s gonna end up getting that ear ripped right off from the side of his head!”
Cooter heard me through his other ear and catched on to what a bad spot he was in. Finally he stopped smiling and started in howling. But Mr. Travis gave him a couple of more verys anyway.
“… very, very few of us don’t have an appreciation of whence we have come.”
Cooter yelled, “I ’preciate it! I ’preciate it!”
Mr. Travis said, “Oh, you do?”
Cooter screamed, “Oh, sir, you caint know how much I do!”
Mr. Travis said, “And where, may I ask, was your appreciation of that fact this Saturday past at the sawmill?”
You could tell Cooter didn’t have no kind of answer, but something ’bout getting your ear twisted must make your mind work real clear. Cooter said, “I’m sorry! I don’t know what I done, but I’m powerful sorry, sir!”
Mr. Travis eased back a notch on Cooter’s ear and tells him, “Read what’s on the blackboard, Mr. Bixby.”
Cooter didn’t even look, he called out, “It say, ‘family breeding contest,’ sir.”
He couldn’t help but notice the surprised look on Mr. Travis’s face so he decided he’d best add some more. He said, “And I don’t care what happens, sir, I ain’t gonna breathe a word to no one if you teaches us ’bout that. But look at them there girls, you know Emma Collins is gonna snitch!”
Mr. Travis commenced twisting on Cooter’s ear some more. He told Emma, “Miss Collins, read what I’ve written on that blackboard!”
Emma jumped up like she sat on a tack and said, “Sir, it says, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt,’ sir.” Then Emma started in with her bawling.
Me and Cooter both were surprised at this. Not ’bout Emma bawling, that girl’ll cry if you ask her what’s two and two. We were surprised that Emma Collins, being as smart and fra-gile as she is, would be brave enough to call them words out right in front of everyone!
“Miss Collins, you may be seated. Mr. Bixby, do you understand what that means?”
Cooter thought on it for a second then said, “Well, sir, I thought I did. But now I’m thinking that maybe Elijah give me some bad information!”
I couldn’t believe it! Here I’d helped save Cooter’s ear, and the first chance he got to throw me to the wolfs he did it!
Mr. Travis said, “It’s quite obvious you have no idea. It means once a person, let’s say a person like you …” Mr. Travis went back at the ear twisting. “Once a person feels too comfortable around someone who is his elder, or his superior, or his teacher …”
Cooter went back to howling.
“… that person has a tendency to not treat his better with the respect that’s due!”
Cooter got it now. “What did I do, sir? I didn’t do nothing!”
Mr. Travis said, “That’s exactly it, Mr. Bixby! You did nothing! When you met me at the sawmill, you did not remove your hat when you walked up to me and spoke, you did not wait until I was finished talking to Mr. Polite, you did not address me in the proper manner.…”
Cooter said, “But, sir, I was surprised and happy to see you! I didn’t say nothing but ‘Hey, Mr. Travis!’”
Mr. Travis’s mind left him again and he started winding Cooter’s ear back up.
“That’s it! Hey? Hey? Hey!”
Now hey was the word Mr. Travis used every time he gave Cooter’s ear a crank.
“Hey? Last time I checked, Mr. Bixby, hay was for horses, not for one’s instructor! I’ve grown angrier and angrier. You are so fortunate to be freed from the yoke of slavery, you have this wonderful opportunity to improve who you are, and instead you choose to behave toward me in a manner one would expect of a poor ignorant soul who has lived his entire life in bondage!”
It was ’bout this time that the door flewed open and Mr. Chase came busting in toting a broadaxe and dragging a screaming, kicking Johnny Wells behind him.
Johnny was yelling, “Please, sir, don’t make me go back in there! He already killed Cooter Bixby!”
Mr. Chase looked ’round the classroom, saw Mr. Travis, brung his axe down, then said to Johnny Wells, “If you ever drag me out the fields over some nonsense like this again, boy, I’m gunn hide you, then give you to your pa so he can do the same! Do you see any haints in here? Do you see anyone what’s dead in here?”
Mr. Chase pulled off his cap and looked back at Mr. Travis twisting and Cooter dancing and said, “I give you my regrets for coming in here like this, sir. You can carry on with your lesson.”
Things got pretty bad after that. We didn’t learn nothing ’bout no family breeding contests, and Mr. Travis commenced handing out lines as punishment and licks as reminders. I got three swats and had to write Familiarity Breeds Contempt twenty-five times for speaking out in class and for providing Cooter with bad information on what it meant. Johnny Wells got five swats and had to write it fifty times for running off and snitching on the teacher. Cooter got ten licks and had to write it one hundred and twenty-five times for being what Mr. Travis called “riddled with disrespect for his superiors.”
Unfairest of all, since Cooter was my best friend I knowed I was gonna have to help him out, so I’d probably end up writing fifty of his doggone lines myself.
I knowed the reason why Mr. Travis went and made us write all them lines and passed out all them swats, it was ’cause he was trying to make the “familiarity breeds contempt” lesson stick. But classroom learning just don’t work the same as when something happens to you personal.
That ain’t to say that the lesson ain’t gonna be with me for the rest of my life. But it don’t have a thing to do with Mr. Travis, ’cause it waren’t but a few days later that the lesson got taught to me in a way that caint help but last forever.
The on-again-and-off-again clouds got to be always on and they ended up blacking out the moon two nights later. Since it’s dangerous to work with a axe when there ain’t no light atall, Mr. Leroy figured he had to lay off his work early. It ain’t our usual custom. Most nights he kept on working till long after I was home and sleeping, but this night we started walking together out of Mrs. Holton’s field.
I don’t work nowhere near as hard as Mr. Leroy, but that don’t matter, I was good and tuckered out. Betwixt schooling and studying and choring ’round the Settlement and working till past dark with him for most of the last couple weeks, I’ll own up that I was lagging that night and my mind might not’ve been quite right. That ain’t to make no excuses ’bout what happened, it’s just telling the truth.
Most times me and Mr. Leroy don’t say much whilst we work, not only ’cause it’s hard to talk to someon
e that’s knocking away at trees and swinging a heavy axe, but also ’cause Mr. Leroy don’t seem partial to running his mouth nohow. To my way of thinking, that meant us walking home together was a good time to get a whole lot of the conversating done that we’d been missing out on.
Most every other night I gotta walk home by myself, and I ain’t complaining, but sometimes it does seem like the walking would be a lot easier if I had someone to do it with.
It ain’t no sign of being a fra-gile boy, but if you have to walk home on a night where the moon’s got blacked out, you just might get surprised and find yourself jumping at noises coming from the side of the road or from out the woods and then running all the way home screaming.
Anybody that has some sense would be a little afeared that one of those bears or snakes or wolfs might’ve wandered out of their regular area and come over here, so maybe twixt the being real tired from all my work, and the being real happy ’bout having some company, my mind didn’t have no chance at being right that night when the moon was covered and Mr. Leroy and me walked home together.
Since he waren’t much of a talker, I figured he had plenty of practice on being a listener, and I was jawing at him pretty regular and fast. Even though it happened two whole days ago, I was still mighty worked up ’bout Mr. Travis near snatching Cooter’s ear off and not teaching us ’bout family breeding contests. So after I talked for a while ’bout fishing and animals in the woods and Ma’s scratchy sweaters and how many first-place ribbons Champion and Jingle Boy got at the fair, I started in on what happened when I got all those lines forced at me.
Whilst we were walking for the first mile or so, Mr. Leroy would grunt and nod his head every once in the while, like he was paying some mind to what I was saying. But by the time I started in on talking ’bout Mr. Travis, we’d covered us two miles easy and Mr. Leroy waren’t showing no kind of interest in nothing I was having to say. He just tromped on ahead looking like he was wishing I’d be quiet. But like I already owned up to, lots of things were coming together to make me want to talk and not pay too much mind to who it was I was talking to.
I said, “And Mr. Travis went berserk and afore you can blink he jumps clean ’cross the room and I caint say how he did it but he must’ve been flying ’cause to get at Cooter Bixby he had to go over three rows of children and didn’t one n’em desks get knocked aside nor toppled over nor didn’t one n’em children have no footprints on ’em nor bruises from where he must’ve stepped …”
I could tell Mr. Leroy didn’t particular want to hear all this. He didn’t tell me to be still, but he did pick up the pace of his walking like he was rushing to get home. I warent ’bout to miss the chance to get this off my chest so I started halfway running and halfway walking to keep up with him.
I told him, “So Mr. Travis has got Cooter’s ear wound up so tight that it’s starting to look like somebody’s finger ’stead of somebody’s ear and it’s ’bout the most awful thing you ever seen in all your days.…”
Then I said ’em, I said those words that made it so the lesson ’bout familiarity and contempt’ll be fixed in my mind for’s long as I live, even if that’s to fifty. I said, “And me and all ’em other little nigg —”
I knowed better. Ma and Pa didn’t tolerate no one saying that word ’round ’em. They say it’s a sign of hatred when a white person says it and a sign of bad upbringing and ignorance when one our own calls it out, so there ain’t no good excuses.
I knowed better.
I didn’t think Mr. Leroy was paying me no mind. I didn’t even get the chance to get the whole word out. I never even saw it coming.
It felt like whatever rope it was that was holding up the moon gave out all the sudden and the moon slipped free and busted through the clouds and came crashing down to earth afore it exploded square on top of me!
All I saw at first was a bright light. Which I figured was Mr. Leroy backhanding me ’cross my mouth. Then I felt my senses flying away. Which must’ve been me falling toward the ground. Then I felt like I’d been chunked by the moon. Which would’ve been me knocking my head ’gainst the ground.
I don’t think I was out for more’n a second, but when I came to, I wished I’d been out for a whole lot longer ’cause Mr. Leroy was standing over top of me with his hand drawed back, fixing to crack me all over again.
He made up for all the not talking he’d been doing whilst we walked. Now he commenced jawing at me just as hard as I’d been jawing at him.
He shouted, “Is you out your mind?”
I was ’bout to say, “No, sir,” but I figured this was one n’em questions people ask just for the sake of asking it, they don’t really want no answer. I probably couldn’t’ve said nothing no way, my tongue was too busy roaming ’round my mouth, checking to see if any of my teeth had got set a-loose by Mr. Leroy’s slap.
He said, “What you think they call me whilst they was doing this?”
He opened the front of his shirt and showed me where a big square with a letter T in the middle of it was branded into him. The scar was raised up and shiny and was real plain to see even if there waren’t no moonlight atall.
“What you think they call me?”
Mr. Leroy was screaming like it was him that lost his mind.
“What you think they call my girl when they sold her? What kind of baby they call her from up on the block?”
Mr. Leroy was spitting and looking mad as a hatter. I sure was glad he’d gone and dropped his axe when he’d first busted me ’cross the mouth.
I said, “Mr. Leroy, sir, I’m sorry …”
“What name you think they call my wife when they take her to another man for his own? What?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m sorry …”
“How you gunn call them children in that school and you’self that name them white folks down home calls us? Has you lost your natural mind? You wants to be like one n’em? You wants to be keeping they hate alive?”
I saw that Mr. Leroy really was out of his mind! He must’ve thought I was a white person that said that word.
I begged him, “Mr. Leroy, sir, please! I ain’t white! Please don’t hit me no more!”
He raised his left hand and I closed my eyes and tried to mash myself down into the dirt.
He said, “White person? You thinking this here’s ’bout some white person? Look at this. Look!”
I opened my eyes and saw he waren’t gonna slap me again. He was showing me where his littlest finger on his left hand use to be. He was pointing at all that was left there, a little stump.
He said, “Who you think it was cut my finger off? Who?”
I didn’t know if I should answer him or just keep quiet and let him have his say. I shrugged my shoulders.
He said, “A slave, that’s who. And the whole time he slashing and stabbing at me trying to cut my throat, what name he calling me? What name?”
I said, “I know, sir, but I ain’t gonna say it no more.”
He said, “You thinks just ’cause that word come out from twixt your black lips it mean anything different? You think it ain’t choke up with the same kind of hate and disrespect it has when they say it? You caint see it be even worst when you call it out?”
I told him, “Sir, I only said it ’cause I hear lots of children say it.”
“What difference it make who you hear say it? I can understand a little if one of y’all freeborn use it, y’all’s ignorant in a whole slew of ways. Y’all ain’t been told your whole life that’s what you is. But someone what was a slave, or someone whose ma and pa was a slave and raised them good like your’n done, that just shows you believing that what we be. That just shows you done swallowed they poison. And swallowed it whole.”
There waren’t gonna be no more hitting, I could tell Mr. Leroy was calming down. He commenced rubbing on his left arm then reached his hand down to help me up.
Once I got up I quick wiped away the tears that were trying to get in my eyes. It ain’t being fra-gi
le, but don’t nothing in the world make you want to bawl more than getting a good backhand slap when you ain’t expecting it.
Mr. Leroy said, “Now belting you like that probably waren’t the right thing to do, ’Lijah, but I ain’t sorry I done it. If my boy, ’Zekial, was to call someone out they name like that, I prays to God someone would bust him up too. Y’all young folks gotta understand that’s a name what ain’t never called with nothing but hate. That ain’t nothing but a word them slavers done chained us with and if God’s just, like I know he is, one day it gunn be buried right ’long with the last one of ’em. That ain’t one the things we need to be carrying to Canada with us.
“Now if you and me’s gunn do any more working together, you know what you gotta say.”
I did. I told him, “I’m sorry, Mr. Leroy, I ain’t never gonna use that word again.”
He said, “You got to always keep in mind, Elijah, that I’m growned and you ain’t. You got to always ’member that we gets ’long just fine but I ain’t your friend. I cares ’bout you like you’s my own boy, but you always got to give me my respect. You saying that word ain’t showing no respect for me, it ain’t showing no respect for your folks, it ain’t showing no respect for you’self, and it ain’t showing no respect for no one what’s had that word spit on ’em whilst they’s getting beat on like a animal.”
Mr. Leroy used his hat to brush the back of my shirt and pants off and reached his hand out for me to shake it, then said, “Elijah, it’s my hope that there ain’t no hard feelings twixt you and me. I likes the way you owned up to what you done.”
I shooked his hand and said, “No, sir, ain’t no hard feelings atall.”
Some of the time when a growned person asks you a question, you’re smart to tell ’em what it is they want to hear, but that waren’t what I was doing.
I said there waren’t no hard feelings ’cause I meant it.
Pa’s always telling me that people that use to be slaves are toting things ’round with ’em that caint be seen with your regular eyes. He says once someone was a slave there’s always gonna be a something in ’em that knows parts ’bout life that freeborn folks caint never know, mostly horrorific parts.