Caleb's Wars (4 page)

"Nathan Rodney Washington, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," Brother Johnson declared, and then he dunked him under. It seemed like he held Nathan down a good long moment. Anyway, he came out of the water sputtering and some folks in the crowd laughed, but not in a mean way.

"Bear fruit that benefits repentance," Brother Johnson said to him. "Welcome to the family of faith."

"Yes, sir," Nathan said in his most polite voice.

"Are you saved, son?" someone in the crowd shouted.

"I sure do hope so. Mama say if I ain't, she gon' make me do this till I am!" Everyone laughed.

"Caleb?" Brother Johnson asked. "You ready?"

Yes, sir.

"Come on, then, and get your sins washed away."

The bottom of the pond felt squishy under my bare feet, and the water was cool on my legs.

"Caleb Thomas Brown, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Brother Johnson put his hand over my nose, and I closed my eyes and mouth. Then I was pushed backward under the water.

For some reason, I opened my eyes. Everything was green and murky.

A strong, deep voice called, "Caleb!"

Then I felt myself being lifted from the water.

A voice said, "Behold my servant." The words were pretty loud, just not real clear.

"I beg your pardon, Brother Johnson. What'd you say?" I wiped the water out of my eyes and waited for him to repeat his blessing.

He looked at me, puzzled.

"What did you say to me?"

"Nothin'."

"Yes, you did. You called my name while I was underwater and said something else as I came up."

"I didn't say nothin', Caleb. You mistaken."

I wanted to tell him not to joke with me, but I could see he wasn't.

"Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life," Brother Johnson pronounced over me. "Welcome to the family, son."

I came out of the water, and there was Ma. She gave me a towel and helped me get out of my robe. I wanted to say something to her, ask her something—but what?

I sat on the grass and pulled my shoes on.

"Run on home and change," Ma told me. "We'll see you in a minute."

I started to go.

"Caleb?"

"Ma'am?"

"You are saved, aren't you?"

I wasn't sure if I was or wasn't. I had to figure out where that voice had come from.

Yes, ma am. I am.

"You've made me so happy!"

At home, I took off my wet clothes and began to dry myself. I was standing beside my bed when a voice said, "Behold my servant"—the same thing I heard when I was under the water.

I put the towel over my privates. Who was looking at me without a stitch on?

"Very funny, Nathan," I said. "You can come out from under the bed. You got me, all right? Joke's over."

Nothing.

I looked under the bed. He wasn't there. Then I looked out the window. Not there, either.

I wrapped the towel around myself and looked in the hall, the sitting room, and the kitchen. Even my folks' bedroom. There was no one in the house but me.

Back in my room, I sat on my bed, feeling all shaky. "Who is it?" I asked out loud. "What's going on?"

"Behold my servant," the voice said for the third time. This time I didn't hear it with my ears. It came from inside me, from deep in my belly.

"Stop!" I cried. "Stop it!"

It did. Everything was quiet. Suddenly I wanted air. I took a long, deep breath and held it. Then I listened to the sound of it coming back out—slow and soft.

I was still sitting on the bed, naked, when someone knocked on my door.

"Caleb? It's Ma. You in there?"

"Yes, ma'am. Let me finish putting on my clothes."

"Brother Johnson already asked the blessing. Come on while there's still something left."

"I will. Don't wait for me."

The sound of her steps faded, and then the back door closed.

I put on my new pants and shirt. In the hall, my face in the mirror looked just like always: dark brown skin, brown eyes, flat nose, and black hair cut short against my head.

But something new was going on inside me. Something I didn't understand.

A
LL THE WOMEN
in the church cooed over me during dinner. All the men shook my hand. People paid me a lot of compliments, too, like how I'd grown up to be such a fine young man, and no wonder Ma was so proud of me. They reckoned I'd be a credit to the colored race, and who could say how Jesus would use me, now that I was saved and a responsible adult member of his church. I let myself be kissed by old ladies with whiskery chins and nodded and said thank you to all the usual polite things folks told me. I ate, but the food didn't taste good, not even Ma's blackberry pie. I
had
to talk to Nathan and make him tell me how he'd tricked me. How'd he get into the little attic where Ma kept boxes of Randall's and my baby clothes? That had to be it. He got up there and put his mouth down on the attic floor to mess with me.

But when I accused him, Nathan looked at me funny and I had to pretend I'd made the whole thing up. That made me feel like a fool.

***

Later that afternoon Pop said he was worn out from cutting wood and went to nap in his room. Ma went visiting. I went over to Nathan's place, but his mama told me he'd gone fishing with his daddy.

Back home, I napped, too, and dreamed strange things. When I woke up, I sat on the porch and tried to make sense of it all. A voice
had
called my name; then it spoke to me when I came up from the water and twice in my room. It sounded like a Bible verse, but I wasn't sure. And voices don't come out of nowhere. I'd just imagined everything—or dreamed it. In my bedroom I'd fallen asleep for a moment and dreamed someone was speaking to me.

You fell asleep
standing up naked?
I thought. Sure you did. And mules can fly.

There was one other explanation—the one I'd been trying not to think about. As crazy as it sounded, it might be true:
God
had called me by name, and then said, "Behold my servant." I wanted to tell Ma about it—I would, when she got home. And then she'd make me tell Pop, and we'd all talk about it. Maybe that would help change his mind about God and religion. And me.

Like a fast answer to prayer, Pop came through the front door. There was no reason to wait for Ma. I could tell him right now. But Pop's face told me he was in one of his moods. All my brave ideas disappeared faster than drops of water on a hot skillet.

"Hey, Pop. I was just going to feed the chickens." I started to get up, but he pushed me back.

"You got time. Your ma say I owe you a explanation."

"About what?"

"Why I can't stand religion or anythin' to do with it."

Pop had been telling me all his reasons my whole life. "You don't owe me anything."

"That how
I
feel, but your ma ain't gonna be satisfied until she get her way."

Pop was the one who always got his way, not Ma.

"You know I was raised up in church," Pop began, "and by the time I was your age, I had it all figured out. It's all part of the white man plan to keep us down. Preacher never talked about nothin' except 'bearin' our burdens with patience' and 'the trials of this world can't hold a candle to the glories of heaven.' It warn't nothin' but propaganda, and it's the same thing today. Then I got drafted into the army and saw how we was treated. And the Negro chaplains took the same old line."

Please don't let Pop get going on
that,
I thought.

"But I told you about that before, right?"

Yes, sir.

"Then, after the war was over and I come home, my brother got killed."

"In the sugar mill accident," I recalled. This was another of Pop's favorite stories.

"Because the rich white men what owned the mill didn't care two cent about the safety of they workers. Then they was that explosion—"

I knew the rest. It had been so bad that they never found anything of my uncle Ronnie to bury.

"And of course they warn't no insurance to help his wife and kids. Owners give Esther fifty dollars—like
that
could help! But that warn't the worst. We was at home, re-ceivin' visitors. There warn't no coffin—no need for one. I think that hurt Esther most of all. She didn't even have Ronnie's dead body to grieve over, and the kids couldn't understand where they daddy had gone. How do you explain to a child that one minute a man is there—big, strong man like Ronnie—and the next second he ain't nothing but a mess on the floor?"

Pop looked sad, and I felt sorry for him. I knew how bad I'd feel if it were Randall.

"Worst part was when the preacher come by the house. He sat down next to Esther and told her it was all part o' God's plan, and since God needed Ronnie to be with him in heaven, we had to accept his will and let him go. I never heard such a load of shit in my life! And Esther sittin' there, takin' it all in like it was gospel truth! Made me so sick, I had to leave the room. That was the last straw."

I could see Pop's point, but the preacher had only been trying to help. Was it his fault if Pop took it the wrong way? Suddenly I wanted to defend myself for getting baptized. "I only did it for Ma!"

"I know it. That the only reason I
let
you do it. Give her a little comfort when she need it so bad. When it come to religion, she a typical woman: don't want to ask no hard questions, just want it to help her feel good. I ain't interested in tearin' down her faith. They might not be too much harm in you joinin' the church to please her, long as you keep you head on straight and don't let nobody do your thinkin' for you. Promise me that."

I promise.

"Now you can go feed the chickens."

W
HEN MA CAME HOME
from her visiting, I was ready to tell her everything, but there was no chance. She had a headache, and Pop wanted his supper, and after the meal was served and cleaned up, Ma went on to bed.

Sleep wouldn't come that night, and I got worn out turning one way and another. Finally I pulled on my clothes and slipped out the window. But when I got to Nathan's, I didn't feel like waking him. I went over to Hale's Pond and sat at the end of the dock. The baptizing place was nearby—where it had all started. Uncle Hiram had said it would be a big day for me, but this was more than I had figured on.

I could allow that God had spoken to me. But there was a question I couldn't answer: Why?

I was only...

To all the white people I knew, I was just another nigger, and what use were nigger boys to God?

A colored boy? No, a
Negro
boy, the respectable term for people like us. Or was I more grown up now? The folks at church had called me "a fine young man." But I felt more like a punk kid who'd drunk too much whiskey the night before his baptism and peed it out on perfectly good food just to get even with some white folks. Like
that
would make any difference to the world.

So what could God want with someone like me?

"Nothing," a cruel voice inside me said. "Not one thing."

"Behold my servant." What was that about? Plenty of colored folks—Negroes—were servants, like the women who cooked, cleaned house, and did laundry for white ladies. Like the men who did yard work and answered the door in rich folks' houses. First we were slaves, then we were servants, and from what I could tell, we'd never had a choice. I didn't want to be anybody's servant, especially not a white person's.

"What do you want from me?" I asked God.

Above me, the sky was black, with lots of stars.

"What do you
want?
"

I lay down and looked up into that darkness, hoping for an answer.

The next thing I knew, it was dawn, and I had to run home before the folks missed me. There had been no dreams, no voice—nothing.

As I got undressed, I thought again about telling Ma what had happened. Then I decided not to. Not when I felt so confused. But if I asked God again...

I got on my knees by my bed, bowed my head, and prayed.

For an answer there was only the ticking of the clock in our sitting room.

***

Next afternoon, when my chores were done, Ma told me I could go hang around with Nathan and Henry. It had been a long day with nothing much to do. School would have kept my mind busy—studying my books or, more likely, the pretty girls in my classroom—but school had been done for a few weeks already. At least for colored kids, it had. We had a short school year so we could help with plowing in the spring and with harvesting tobacco, peanuts, and cotton in the fall.

I found Nathan and Henry chopping wood for Miss Annie Ruth, a widow lady with no one to help her do hard work. She paid them what little she could, although Henry liked to brag that he'd do it for free, seeing how it was an act of Christian charity. I watched until they finished, and then we went off, Henry and Nathan each with a dime in his pocket. Henry suggested we go to town and buy some Cokes, but Nathan didn't want to go that far. Instead, he suggested we visit the prison camp and see what was going on. We started down Brinson's Mill Road.

I wanted to tell my friends that God had spoken to me. Henry would be impressed—that much I knew. But Nathan, he'd think I was crazy and would say so, too.

As we walked, I found myself listening, waiting, in case God spoke to me again.

"What you so quiet about?" Nathan asked me. "You ain't sayin' nothin'."

"I don't have anything to say. Not everybody has to run their mouth all the time."

"You mean like I do?"

"You're the one who said it."

"What y'all think about yesterday?" Henry asked.

"Food was mighty good," Nathan said. "I had the bellyache last night. Too much pie."

"That ain't what I mean. What about gettin' baptized?"

Here was my chance. I could come right out with it, casual-like, and see how they reacted.

Nathan didn't give me that chance, though. "I thought your daddy was gonna drown me. Seem like he held me under a long time."