Good Fortune (9781416998631) (43 page)

Finally, we arrived at a small house hidden in between two larger, nicer-looking ones. Even in broad daylight, my eyes probably would have skipped over this building.

Instead of entering through the front of the house, Daniel led me around to the back and tapped lightly on
the door. I saw two eyes appear and stare suspiciously out from the cracked window to the left of the door. I took two steps back.

“Anna, it's all right. C'mon.”

The door creaked open, and we squeezed through. As I entered the dark room, I saw a young man standing in front of me. He was almost completely covered by a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat. Consumed by the darkness of the space, it was hard to see him well, but he seemed, as best as I could tell, to be most likely closer to my age than Daniel's.

“Smithson,” Daniel whispered, clasping the man's hand and engulfing him in a quick hug, “This my sister, Anna. Anna, this is Rodney's brother.” I shook hands with the man, who returned my gaze with a small smile.

“Go on down there,” Smithson said, pointing to an empty wall on the opposite side of the small home, if you could even call it that. Daniel walked forward, yanked a carpet from the floor, and pulled open a trapdoor.

I gasped and whispered, “Why do we have to hide?”

“To be safe, of course. Don't worry, though. Ain't nothin' gonna happen, Anna.”

Daniel helped me down the five or six steps and into a larger room, which was lit only by a single candlelight and filled with people talking among themselves. As soon as we stepped through the door, every face turned to us. The quiet that fell could have made the sound of a scurrying mouse seem loud.

“Sebastian,” one person said, breaking the silence. The
first greeting was followed by many others. Daniel nodded his own greeting as we made our way among the seated guests.

“Brought wit me a good friend've mine. She came to listen, that's all.”

People greeted me, and I shook their hands. There were many people in the room, most of whom I probably knew, but there was no way for me to tell. Most of them were clothed in a way that shielded their identities, as though this was a necessary precaution for being part of the gathering. One man stood up as I walked by.

“Anna,” he said, kindly offering me his seat and kissing my hand. I thanked him and sat, noting how respect seemed to come so naturally to these townsfolk of Hadson.

I noticed that the conversation had erupted once more, as if there had been no disturbance. My mind turned to what people were saying.

“Naw, Alik, working in Dayton ain't the same as working here. If, somehow, we all got jobs here among each other, we wouldn't even have to deal with them white folks.”

“How can you say that, Abram? How can you? You talking about work, something that provides what is needed for our families. We barely got any money down here. The only way to keep from starving and dying is by working in the city and getting some of that money.”

“The white folks will kill us quicker than starving would any day, and you expect us to work for them?”

“Well, my folks are white. You work for us just like we work for you, sometimes, an' you know we wouldn't kill ya.” Soft laughter broke out. Mr. Walker was a white citizen
who lived on the outskirts of Hadson and kept himself well immersed in the black community.

The conversation rolled on, and I glanced around again, amused by the figures about me. I'd find myself staring at a pile of rags thrown over what I thought was a male body, when suddenly the sound of a woman's voice would ring out. No children were present, but there was a great contrast between the young folk and the old, and more often than not, people within the same age group had the same opinions. I had expected a couple of flasks of liquor to be floating around, but I saw none. An old woman sitting with her hair wrapped and her arms outstretched at the head of the room seemed like she might be getting ready to direct the whole affair.

As my eyes roamed a bit more, they fell on a curious figure crouching patiently in the shadows. He wore a tall, thin black hat that covered nearly his entire face. He had on black gloves, and the collar of his frock coat was pulled up around his neck. His demeanor made it appear that he might be asleep, but I had a feeling he was listening with an intensity greater than that of the rest. Something about him struck me as being out of place, but no one seemed to notice or care. He seemed familiar to me, but soon enough, my attention was swept back to the conversation as I heard a voice I recognized put forward an opinion.

“What about those of us who ain't got families yet? What you propose we do? Them jobs in Dayton is our best bet until we do settle down, because all these family businesses in Hadson ain't gonna do us no good.”

I looked up to my left to see Henry crouched low in the corner of the room. I nodded to him as he turned his eyes to meet mine. I was a bit surprised to see Henry here. He didn't strike me as the kind of man to really take things seriously. He seemed so carefree.

“That's exactly what I'm sayin'!” Mr. Sandford interjected. “You all expectin' us to just up and quit our jobs fo' them folk, although we been workin' for them for years, ever since we came here! How you reckon with that?”

“Mr. Sandford, I done had two children killed in confrontations with those men they worked for. We need to split apart from them folks! Set up our own world in the larger community so we can get so strong together that they won't bother us no longer.” I heard another woman laugh in a sarcastic manner in response.

“We cain't beat them by making our own little separate community! We strike with our so-called strong community, and then what happens? I'll tell you what happens. They strike back with twice as much force, as well as having the law on their side. If we don't interact with them, they'll just send folks here to Hadson to make sure we ain't starting no mess against them. They always gonna be in charge of us. That's just how life here goes.”

At that, the room exploded with heated talk coming from both sides of the debate. I sat in awe as the woman who had said those words now got to her feet, trying to make her case while others pitched fits back at her, asking how in the world she could accept the fact that someone else was in charge of her life.

“Where's our freedom gonna come in, Bella, huh? If we accept them as superior, when are we ever gonna have our true freedom?” a voice rang out.

“Freedom? What's freedom if you're dead?” another asked.

“I'm sure the freedom of death is better than this bondage we in now, with no rights as if we not people at all,” said a quiet man sitting with his chin on his knee.

“So, are you suggesting we all get killed? You suggesting we go fight back, raise torches, and burn Dayton down by candlelight? Every single one of us would get killed,” one of Bella's allies responded.

A feeble voice broke through. “Ain't no need to raise your voice, we just discussin'.”

“This ain't no discussion,” another person added. “You got people sayin' we better off livin' as half men, inferior to them. Who in their right mind would believe that? How else are we supposed to get anywhere without fightin' back?”

“You mean how Rodney fought back?” the woman named Bella added, still on her feet.

“Rodney?” Daniel started, looking troubled by this. “Rodney was right to do what he done. Problem was, there wa'an't nobody there to stand up wit him. It would've bin a lot harda to kill fifty men standin' up 'gainst what they b'lieved in 'stead of one. But no one did; no one 'cept Rodney. 'Stead of talkin've how we need to understand our place underneath them, we need to start plannin' ways of bein' mo' like Rodney.”

After Daniel's words, a dozen other voices followed. Then I heard humming, a soft sound at first that grew louder as the seconds ticked on. Soon enough, the room was completely quiet, save the persistent humming the old woman in the front of the room brought forth from her tired throat. For a while everyone sat in silence, shrinking back into their positions, listening with saddened hearts as the woman hummed to her heart's decree. Finally, all was silent as we waited for her to say her piece. I listened intently as she began to speak.

“Bondage … sufferin' … pain … heartache … slaughterin' … My eyes done seen it all. Where we stand among it all? You got them white folks and you got these black folks, and you got some red folks ova yonda. But it don't stop there. We say ‘white folks' like it's some kinda poison, and they say ‘black folks' like we vicious dogs. That ain't what defines us. There are white folks I know, kindest folks I done ever seen in my long life. It's all in here.” She paused to bring her wrinkled hand slowly to her chest to tap her heart.

“Now, seems like to me we got folks of this here community claimin' we is lower and less smarter than them white folks. Let me tell you what. You wrong. Still, we got folks sayin' that freedom will only come if we take up our knives and guns and kill every single one of them in Dayton. Let me tell you what. You wrong. But that don't mean we ain't got to fight. And by fight, I don't mean killin' every white man you see. Fightin', for us, is understandin' that we is just as smart. Fightin' for us is
holdin' our heads up high, showin' them we already know that all them ‘niggas' an' ‘apes' you hear comin' from they mouths ain't the truth. Fightin' for us is doin' the things we must to get somewhere an' to make some better place for the younguns here. Now, that's my word; y'all go on wit whats you want to say 'bout it.” She paused, looking around the room, but she had lost my attention for the moment. An idea had struck me when I heard her speak her last few words.

“I got a question.” I nervously forced my voice through the mumbling that had started back up.

“You—you say we have to make a better place for the younguns. How we gonna do that?”

A woman behind me lifted her voice in agreement. “Ya, what about the children?”

“Teach 'em the ways of livin' here without messin' wit the white folks,” one voice spoke up.

“No!” another person called out. “We gotta teach 'em how to stand up fo' themselves an' fo' they community.”

“I don't be raisin' my children those ways. Teach 'em to do whatever they gotta to raise all the money they can….” They continued, and I leaned back, lost in the obscurity of my own thoughts.

Teach 'em, teach 'em, teach 'em,
they said.

What if … what if I could teach them their letters and numbers?

But no, the idea was silly. I let it wash away with the rain that I could hear pouring down outside. Once again, I brought my mind back to the conversation and my
eyes back to the gathered group. My eyes ran across the folks hidden in the shadows and stopped with surprise as they met the gaze of two eyes sparkling at me. I knew right away who the man was. The hat on his head tipped forward slightly, and after an exaggerated pause, he turned his eyes away.

He nodded at me!

I eyed him closely as he rose silently, an invisible man to the debating crowd, and brushed past some people to exit the room. Even as he walked out, he kept every feature of his body hidden with some piece of clothing. It took all of a few seconds for my curiosity to bubble over, leaving me tracing the man's steps out the door.

“Anna?” Daniel said, breaking off his participation in the conversation.

“Need some air,” I whispered. I don't know what drove me after the man, the man who had called himself Caldwell, but I followed my spirit out the trapdoor and into the night. The disappointment hit me harder than the cold I felt when I stepped outside.

The man was nowhere in sight.

Heading quickly back home with my brother, I breathed in the cool, damp air.

“So, what you think?” Daniel asked me after a while.

“'Bout what, Sebastian?”

“Those meetins, of course.”

“Figure they're a pretty good idea for the community.”

“Ah, see there? Told you so. We need everyone's opinion,” he said, looking at me with a smile.

“Maybe so, Sebastian, but …”

“But what?”

“I feel as if there's something else that needs to be done for Hadson, and I'm the one to do it.”

“Something else like what?”

“Something … I don't know.” I shrugged, letting my thoughts disperse themselves on the breeze.

“With all that talk of fighting back and working for them and all that, I just find myself wondering what else I could do. Something … different.”

What was that something different? I knew the answer, but I kept coming upon the doubt that rumbled through my mind.

How silly, Anna, you're no schoolteacher!

I shrugged off the idea and walked on in silence alongside Daniel, the two of us allowing our own thoughts of Hadson to carry our minds on different paths.