it was a tiny church no bigger than a rich man's parlor. the pews had no backs, and since thecongregation was also the choir, it didn't need a stall. certain members had been assigned theconstruction of a platform to raise the preacher a few inches above his congregation, but it was aless than urgent task, since the major elevation, a white oak cross, had already taken place. beforeit was the church of the holy redeemer, it was a dry-goods shop that had no use for sidewindows, just front ones for display. these were papered over while members considered whetherto paint or curtain them — how to have privacy without losing the little light that might want toshine on them. in the summer the doors were left open for ventilation. in winter an iron stove inthe aisle did what it could. at the front of the church was a sturdy porch where customers used tosit, and children laughed at the boy who got his head stuck between the railings. on a sunny andwindless day in january it was actually warmer out there than inside, if the iron stove was cold.
the damp cellar was fairly warm, but there was no light lighting the pallet or the washbasin or thenail from which a man's clothes could be hung. and a oil lamp in a cellar was sad, so paul d sat onthe porch steps and got additional warmth from a bottle of liquor jammed in his coat pocket.
warmth and red eyes. he held his wrist between his knees, not to keep his hands still but becausehe had nothing else to hold on to. his tobacco tin, blown open, spilled contents that floated freelyand made him their play and prey.
he couldn't figure out why it took so long. he may as well have jumped in the fire with sixo andthey both could have had a good laugh. surrender was bound to come anyway, why not meet itwith a laugh, shouting seven-o! why not? why the delay? he had already seen his brother wavegoodbye from the back of a dray, fried chicken in his pocket, tears in his eyes. mother. father.
didn't remember the one. never saw the other. he was the youngest of three half-brothers (samemother — different fathers) sold to garner and kept there, forbidden to leave the farm, for twentyyears. once, in maryland, he met four families of slaves who had all been together for a hundredyears: great-grands, grands, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, children. half white, partwhite, all black, mixed with indian. he watched them with awe and envy, and each time hediscovered large families of black people he made them identify over and over who each was, whatrelation, who, in fact, belonged to who.
"that there's my auntie. this here's her boy. yonder is my pap's cousin. my ma'am was marriedtwice — this my half-sister and these her two children. now, my wife..."nothing like that had ever been his and growing up at sweet home he didn't miss it. he had hisbrothers, two friends, baby suggs in the kitchen, a boss who showed them how to shoot andlistened to what they had to say. a mistress who made their soap and never raised her voice. fortwenty years they had all lived in that cradle, until baby left, sethe came, and halle took her. hemade a family with her, and sixo was hell-bent to make one with the thirty-mile woman. whenpaul d waved goodbye to his oldest brother, the boss was dead, the mistress nervous and the cradle already split. sixo said the doctor made mrs. garner sick. said he was giving her to drink whatstallions got when they broke a leg and no gunpowder could be spared, and had it not been forschoolteacher's new rules, he would have told her so. they laughed at him. sixo had a knowingtale about everything. including mr. garner's stroke, which he said was a shot in his ear put thereby a jealous neighbor.
"where's the blood?" they asked him.
there was no blood. mr. garner came home bent over his mare's neck, sweating and blue-white.
not a drop of blood. sixo grunted, the only one of them not sorry to see him go. later, however, hewas mighty sorry; they all were.
"why she call on him?" paul d asked. "why she need the schoolteacher?""she need somebody can figure," said halle.
"you can do figures.""not like that.""no, man," said sixo. "she need another white on the place.""what for?""what you think? what you think?"well, that's the way it was. nobody counted on garner dying. nobody thought he could. how'bout that? everything rested on garner being alive. without his life each of theirs fell to pieces.
now ain't that slavery or what is it? at the peak of his strength, taller than tall men, and strongerthan most, they clipped him, paul d. first his shotgun, then his thoughts, for schoolteacher didn'ttake advice from negroes. the information they offered he called backtalk and developed a varietyof corrections (which he recorded in his notebook) to reeducate them. he complained they ate toomuch, rested too much, talked too much, which was certainly true compared to him, becauseschoolteacher ate little, spoke less and rested not at all. once he saw them playing — a pitchinggame — and his look of deeply felt hurt was enough to make paul d blink. he was as hard on hispupils as he was on them — except for the corrections. for years paul d believed schoolteacherbroke into children what garner had raised into men. and it was that that made them run off. now,plagued by the contents of his tobacco tin, he wondered how much difference there really wasbetween before schoolteacher and after. garner called and announced them men — but only onsweet home, and by his leave. was he naming what he saw or creating what he did not? that wasthe wonder of sixo, and even halle; it was always clear to paul d that those two were menwhether garner said so or not. it troubled him that, concerning his own manhood, he could notsatisfy himself on that point. oh, he did manly things, but was that garner's gift or his own will?
what would he have been anyway — before sweet home — without garner? in sixo's country, or his mother's? or, god help him, on the boat? did a whiteman saying it make it so? suppose garnerwoke up one morning and changed his mind? took the word away. would they have run then?
and if he didn't, would the pauls have stayed there all their lives? why did the brothers need theone whole night to decide? to discuss whether they would join sixo and halle. because they hadbeen isolated in a wonderful lie, dismissing halle's and baby suggs' life before sweet home asbad luck. ignorant of or amused by sixo's dark stories. protected and convinced they were special.
never suspecting the problem of alfred, georgia; being so in love with the look of the world,putting up with anything and everything, just to stay alive in a place where a moon he had no rightto was nevertheless there. loving small and in secret. his little love was a tree, of course, but notlike brother — old, wide and beckoning.
in alfred, georgia, there was an aspen too young to call sapling.
