Becoming Ebony

We’ve Done It All

41 We’ve Done It All In my family, all the wars have been fought, battles, won. All the losers have long settled their losses in cattle or goats and sheep, in women or farmlands or out of town. Like Bai packing up, a tiny bundle under now failing arms, leaving us even though his eyes cannot see beyond a gaze. He’s been here so long, the Old Man no longer needs eyes, no longer needs feet, no longer needs us. Today, we watch him walk out to Borbor Naapoh’s farm when Borbor Tugba says something he will not take; then again, packing for Borbor Tugba’s farm when Borbor Naapoh says something he will not take. In the dark night, just before bed when in the rubber bush, you can hear crickets chipping the evening into bits of darkness, fireflies rush to bring him their own portable flashlights as Bai stumbles out to leave, walking miles of darkness to his younger son; or as we look in the dark and see him hobble into the house, out of the cold. As a child, I wondered how old one gets before one loses all fear of darkness, all fear of family feuds or reasoning? How one sets one son loose just to bind another. A distant cousin is sent away for incest—whipped, peppered, and sent away from Tugbakeh, where it is home to him, and never again will be seen by family or friends or that cousin he had raped. ...