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24 DEM Never called a white man massa, never called no white woman missus, just plain old sir and m’am, like i would for any soul whose got age enough to make me feel like a child. and just how daddy is like sir, how when you speak it you think of God staring down hard at your body minding its own business and growing all them hairs and letting things flow inside of you making you feel things you never should and your mouth muttering sin all the while. Just like that, every time i would stare at the scraggly grass, dry summer bush on the edge of the cotton rows, eye-balling a pebble sitting lonely there in the sun, just waiting for me to find it leaning soft against my toes, under the ragged shadow of our home looming cool and dark, eating up the shape of a man on a horse whose eyes i can’t see, ’cause i’m staring at the way the earth grows dark at dusk. 25 Just like that, every time i spoke the word Mister to bossman Creech, was like my soul tensing for a crack of his tongue, like my body saying, yes suh, massa, no suh, massa I will jus‘ step over yonder and fetch it, massa; and i could feel his eyes on my head; could tell he knew the shame of me, feeling naked there before him and all. i don’t call them nothing no more; they is just man, woman, dem, that’s all they is, that’s all. ...

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