How Sukie Come Free

FICTION How Sukie Come Free SHEREE RENÉE THOMAS She has many names. Aunt Nancy, Sukie Diamond, Diamond Free, but her navel name was Stella or Dinah, depending on who tell the tale. I'm telling this, and on my end of the river bottom, we called her Stella because no matterwho come afterher, she always managed to steal away. Now, some folk say Stella mama was a real bad seed, contrary kind of soul, always running. Say the last time she run, herwhitefolks dug a hole in the ground and put her in there, belly baby-swole and all, and beat her til she couldn't do nothing but grunt. Saywhen she come out ofthat hole that night, she was spirit talking, whispering words ain't no body live long enough to know the meaning to. Saying, stee Ia dee nah nah dee la stee stee la dee nah nah dee la stee steeeela! deenah! Steela! Steela! Whispering then shouting and yelling them words, part African, part Indian, til folk turn a pot over to hold in the song, whispering and shouting til she didn'tspeakno more and herbodycome still. Buther baby, that baby Stellajusta kicking in the belly. Folk saytheycould see herlittle arms and legs just a waving under the cold dead flesh ofher mama. Say Stella birth herselfin her own time, say she come on out kicking and swinging, too and been swinging ever since. Say when she was born her eyes was wide open, not shuteye like most babies but bright as two harvest moons. Say she leaned back, took in her world, saw her mama tree-stump dead—the spirit still fresh on her [Meridians:jêminism, race, transnationalism 2002, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 185-7]©2002 by Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved. 185 breath—and didn'tdrop no tears. No, Stella didn't cry. Stella leaned back, smacked the old granny that held her, and snatched back her navel string. Say she'd bury it her own damned self. Say she'd rather carry her destiny in her own hands than trust it to some strange bloodtree, cut down 'fore its roots can grow like her mama and all her kin that come before. And some folk say she been carrying that string in a mojo band round her waist ever since. But that night, the night Stella birthed herself, they say she looked round and saw the others' faces and said just as loud for anybody to hear, "I'll eat the clay ofmy own grave for I'll slave a day in this life or the next for anyman, woman, child or spirit, white, negra, or other." She say this and then she was gone. Stella walked right down the path to massa's house, spitand set the Big House afire. Then the fields, then the tool shack that held every hoe. She kept walking til she come 'cross overseer, running crook-legged and buck-toe from all them burning fields. Now, overseerwas looking mighty 'fraid til he see Stella standing up in the row, bucknaked with the backside ofa smile on her face. When he saw Stella frowning down at him, he dug his rusty heels into the ground and puffup his chest til his black muscles gleamed 'neath all the sweat and dust. "Where you think you headed, gal?" he asked, like the aim ofStella's long toes wasn't cuss clear. "Who yo' people?" Now, overseer didn't recognize Stella, buthe look her up and down like he thirsty and wanta taste. At first sight, Stella didn't say nothing, but her eyes walked all over his face. Seem like she knowed he was the one puther mama in the belly hole and beat her til she spoke in spirit tongue. (What overseer didn't know was that Stella remembered what most forget, on the trip to this world from the next. She knew why she'd been sent, just not how or when orwhere. She reckoned she'd just put one foot 'fore the next til they carried her to a place that felt like home. Butwhen she come out that night, she knew that belly...