Blue-Tail Fly

The White Immensities

69 The White Immensities The Recollections of Jemison Jackson: Slave, Runaway, Freedman, Lecturer, Retired—Colored Infantry Union Army 1. Tatters 1863 The clothes weren’t the worst of it— old nanny took up the white thread and patched as best she could. But there weren’t much thread so she would take some out of the hem, and my pantaloons wound up just under my knee— not near the ankle at all. So it was, that I was mostly in patches, covered just enough for a field hand. Zachariah made a gris-gris of field-mice teeth. My wife kept it wrapped in corn husks, tucked under a palette of straw. I couldn’t get to her or it—’fore joining up. The sign came too quick—a blue cap waving the all-clear at the tree line—I ran until all of my patches gave way and I stood before men in nothing but my shame. 70 2. Cold Remembrance 1864 That final winter it snowed in Tennessee enough to stiff a man’s feet to cowhide. Sun didn’t make a difference— it didn’t seem to be the same sun. No heat. For days nothing melted. We walked in a powder whisper, and our hearts caught in the crack of snow and fallen icicles. An endless trample of boots over frozen streams, the cold so sharp it razored our coarse cloth. To the ice-encrusted trees I said, Wife come walk with me, but my dear had been chained to a white pine in Mississippi. To the blanched sky I called out, Lord I am but a man in your great, gelid hands, come cure this chill— but God’s ear was taken up by the masters of severance. 71 3. Take Me to the Water The first thing we did with the reward of an early evening free after chow was to trot some upstream, strip down to pantaloons and step into the river. The one of us who had some reading we called Preacher. He put his right hand atop our heads In the name of the Father and one by one pushed us down In the name of the Son under the water and we rose up In the name of the Holy Ghost clean as a new day. 72 4. Manumission —Sometime after having learned to read The book left the feel of its spine on my fingertips, its turned edges— flushed my lips, brow, and cheek. Bereft until I found the means to secret it away with the others gathered in my small room (every shelf weighted, every drawer spilling its contents). In bed, I lie shamelessly among them—countless women, men— tasting the eggshell pages, courting the heavier sheets with their stenciled illustrations— a library I press to my breastbone and thighs. I blanket them as if to halt a draft. Is this excess? Culled from their bindings— life upon life—delivered by the sweeping eye. 73 5. summer whiting 1877 not smooth nor downy—though fair enough to frighten. my right hand shook upon that foreign cheek— pale hillock my fingers moved over like the padding feet of a bear, which was what she expected—to be mauled in some manner—but I was gentle—fur where she imagined claw and writhed so beneath me that I wanted to silence her ecstasy she bit my palm, her hips bucked as if swimming or drowning she groaned ye es ye es in so guttural a fashion I lost my appetite for pleasure— but curiosity held me up— a lake of flax the fish compulsively swallowing the water rising just past my brow 74 6. Wife We jumped the broom at sixteen. Of course marriage wasn’t allowed between us that were slaves so we did it in secret, in Zachariah’s cabin. Being the oldest at God’s Bounty he knew the right words to speak. Everyone laid hands on us, kissed us, but no one clapped. No one sang. She wore her one dress. Her hair had been let loose from its strings and sat in oiled waves on her head. I planted a nose to her cheek and she came to my cabin that night. At dawn the bell rang, but she was already headed toward the field.  I meant to go back. That was...