Gumbo: A Celebration of African American Writing Part 79

"Ah." Arrow could imagine the baccha.n.a.l that was probably in progress. He hoped that he'd be able to rea.s.semble his crew when the time came. "Nothin like one of our heathens loose in the world with his pockets full of gold. Nothin's safe, Bill. Not a farthing or a silk slip."

"Aye, that's for sure." He paused, Arrow could feel him trying to decide whether or not to say something. And then, before Arrow could command him to do so, Dirty Bill continued. "Ah . . . Cap'n, there's some men that's a little worried about what you said last night before we got our shares. . . . about going to St. Domingo to help those nig . . . ah. . . . to . . . well . . . just about going there."

Arrow was motionless. He'd known when he'd told them of his intentions there might be disagreement. He held his rigid pose for a bit, then leaned his chair back against the wall. Most of what it meant to be captain of a pirate ship was the ability to keep the crew together. They did nearly everything by majority decision. He was captain when there was a battle. He was captain when it came time to chose leeward or windward approach or when it came to the decision to spare someone's life or not. But for the decisions concerning the actual business of the ship, everyone wanted to have their say. It was his ch.o.r.e to listen and make his case. The proof that he had their ears and their hearts was in the fact that they always agreed to do what he wanted. Now he wanted to go to Haiti to help the black people there in their fight for freedom. He wanted to go because he could see the beginning of the end of slavery there. There, in Santo Domingo, was a powerful force just coming together under the leadership of Jean Jacques Desalines. There were stories floating about that black sailors were making their way there, especially runaways, because a liberated Haiti would probably provide legal relief from slavery.

"So, they's worried are they?" Arrow asked finally.

"We are white men, Cap'n. What in the world we want to go there for? We're out for the loot. If we wanted to fight for the sake of fightin' we'd have stayed in Her Majesty's Royal Navy, prison though it is. No we come out for ourselves. For the gold and the chance to get some fortune in this paradise."

Arrow looked up at him. "Sit down, Bill." He watched the hulking man as he labored into the chair. "Now you know I'd cut off my arms for my men. You know that."

"I do, Cap'n. I know that. But . . ."

"And I ain't white, Bill."

"Aye, that's a fact."

"But I am the captain, unless something's happened I don't know about."

"No Cap'n, you still Captain."

"That's good Bill. That's real good. Because when we weigh anchor I'm bound for Haiti."

"But Cap'n, it's just gonna make . . ."

"Worried? Scared?"

"Not scared, Cap'n. Not scared. We ain't scared of nothin'. It's just . . . well . . . as you said, you as sure as G.o.d is black and they don't hold that against you because you served our former captain well and you've shown your true colors to us on many occasions. But that don't make us blind. These islands is full of blacks. You the only one I ever met on the open water.

"You know yourself, Bill, that there are many black pilots."

"Port pilots, yes, but ship captains?" He sucked his teeth. "I been all over the Caribbean and I ain't never seen no other black man but you at the helm of a ship."

"Well, seein' as how I have this great distinction, Bill, as your captain I order you to tell me what the devil this is all about."

"You see, Cap'n, up to now, the fact that you're a . . . ah . . . black wasn't a concern. You did good by us and you're one of the best sailors I know. Able. Very able. But now, you're askin' us to give comfort to those n.i.g.g.e.rs in Haiti and that don't sit well." He paused again, relieved to have said it. "It don't sit well at all. Where's the profit in that?"

"When we took the Drury, loaded with slaves, and I say let them go or let them join us . . ."

"We ain't slavers, Cap'n. We didn't want nothin' to do with that. That was fine by us. Let 'em go. Some white man would kill or claim them, anyway. That's just the way the world is. That's not our business. We're"-again he paused, searching for a word when he knew all the time what he had to say-"we're pirates."

"Mind you." Arrow put an edge in voice.

"But we are, Cap'n. I know you don't like that word, but that's what we are. We're pirates, not mercenaries. Besides our fellow brothers are starting to laugh at us. There were two fights over at the Flyin' Fish before I left."

"Laughing? Why?"

"They say we're being led by a monkey. 'Captain Monkey' they called you, and the one who said it paid dearly. But the laughter was still there."

"I see." Arrow sighed. "And the crew is affected by this talk?"

"Aye."

"Bill, that ship out there is mine. Those men are mine. You," he righted his chair and now leaned into Dirty Bill's face, "You are mine." Their eyes locked. In Bill's he saw, for the first time a fear. At first he wasn't sure what the fear was, but as he stared into those eyes, Arrow could feel the meaning. Dirty Bill was afraid that they were approaching a parting of the way. And then the fear loosened and Dirty Bill smiled.

"I am Cap'n Arrow. I am yours for the time. And I don't want that to change."

Arrow slowly brought his strong right arm up to Dirty Bill's neck, his charcoal fingers encircling the thick throated man. "I can squeeze the life right out of your empty head." Dirty Bill tried to say something, but Arrow, swiftly brought his other hand up and put in it in front of Dirty Bill's mouth. "You needn't utter one more word, Bill. Not one more or you won't ever say momma. Or Jesus or anything. I have not killed and plundered this small world, nor served our fine Captain Threatcher 'til his untimely death with every breath I had to be bullied by you or any man. White or whatever. Now, I love you Bill, like a brother. And I will die for you. But I demand the same. Or I'll kill you right here. Right now. Do we see eye to eye?"

Dirty Bill, trying to keep from gasping, nodded his head. Arrow loosened his grip. "I weren't talkin mutiny Cap'n. I am yours . . ."

At that moment a crowd of men burst through the doors bringing, it seemed, a thundercloud of noise and tension with them. It was then that Arrow realized that many in the room had been watching him and Bill the entire time. They'd seen his black hands around Bill's white throat. But before he could fully consider the meaning in all this, Dockson stood before him with many of his crew and some sundry others crowding up behind.

"Cap'n, we ain't interested in goin to Haiti. That's not our fight."

Arrow leaned back again. He waited a moment and then asked very softly, "Am I your captain?"

Dockson was taken off guard. The talk at the Flyin' Fish had pumped him and he'd forgotten who Arrow really was. "Yes, you are my captain. But we . . ."

"Don't want to follow a n.i.g.g.e.r? Do you mean to say that you will not be led by a n.i.g.g.e.r? A black man?"

"No! Cap'n . . . I mean yes. . . . I ahhh . . . I . . . We have followed you this far. But . . ."

"This Captain Monkey has gotten too far ahead of himself, taking us into the grip of more monkeys who have forgotten their place? Is this what you mean to say?"

Dockson had broken out in a profuse sweat. He looked around. The red faces behind him flashed all manner of expressions. Some, obviously up for the fight. Some, in full retreat. Seeing this unhinged Dockson even more. He fell silent.

"Monkey talk." Someone in the back shouted. "It ain't right. No white man should take that from that animal." All eyes went in that direction. Standing at the bar were four from the notorious pirate Captain Flagg's crew. To the side of them, maybe ten more of their crew.

"This is private crew business," Dockson shouted to him.

"Aye. I'd believe you if I didn't see a monkey at the helm." Dockson moved in the man's direction. Arrow remained motionless. Dirty Bill stood. It was as if a bell had rung, immediately cutla.s.ses were openly displayed.

"You owe me an apology, brother," Dockson said approaching the man.

"There will be none, my brother. You have lost my respect and someone must put these things aright." He advanced on Dockson. Their steel clashed. Everyone around them located their closest adversary and prepared their defense or offense as the case warranted.

In truth there were two Arrows. One was the Black Arrow, who in a moment or two would kill two men in an instant. The other was the man who was filled with dismay. His struggles were meaningless in a world where other men had to fight for his own right to be a man. And yet, that was precisely why he was bound for Haiti. To fight for other men to be free. At this moment he even loved Dockson. But he was also intensely sad. This was his fight. It was about him. Simply because he was.

Dockson and his opponent had only touched cutla.s.s a few times before Arrow stood and, let fly three knives, felling two of the original four men, including the one who was about to take advantage of Dockson's slow reflexes. They stumbled once and hit the floor. The third knife lodged in another man's thigh. Everyone stopped and looked at Arrow.

"If I had known a name like Captain Monkey, would excite you so I might have taken such a name. Especially if it caused you to fear me. For fear me you should. But, alas, I was limited by my experience. I could only contrive this name, Arrow. So I am Captain Arrow, and if you are lucky and will live to tell of what you've seen and you may say to the lucky hearer of your tale that you once saw the Black Arrow stick this man or that. And that then you saw him sail off under the black flag that is his true color. Off into the horizon with his crew of men who will take no quarter and who will do to their advantage without regard to this primate's heritage."

And with that he walked slowly toward the door, his men forming a wall at his back. "To h.e.l.l with this," he shouted, "To Haiti or to h.e.l.l!"

Mirror Image.

BY AMY DU BOIS BARNETT.

Six stops. White people got on, then black, some Latinos, a sprinkling of Asians-in the six stops between Brooklyn and Manhattan, the racial composition of my subway train changed six times. Every morning for the past five years, I'd watched this underground metamorphosis, feeling something of a traitor when I got off the train with all the white people at the first stop in Manhattan-Wall Street.

Men with hair slicked stiff and wet-looking from too much gel, in dark suits and ties with tiny symbols of power printed hundreds of times on them, jostled against one another. Expensive silk scarves were knotted at the necks of the few suited women, most of whom looked very driven and very tired. I emerged from the station with them and entered the sweep of people pushed along the financial district's ancient narrow streets. A clear division of power was visible; the men, Wall Street Journals tucked under arms weighted by leather briefcases, strode down the sidewalks, cleaving paths through the gaggles of female secretaries wearing floral dresses, white pantyhose, and sneakers, gossiping and delaying the beginning of another dreary day. There were almost no black men to be seen, even fewer black women.

I was one of the suited women. I tied silk scarves at my neck, pulled my hair back into a neat bun to expose dainty gold hoops, wore nude pantyhose and business suits in neutral colors, skirts no more than two inches above my knee. Briefcase, trench coat, New York Times-I blended in.

My mother taught me how important this is-the art of blending in. I would watch her getting dressed in the morning in designer suits, silk blouses, gold brooches, pearl earrings. In this outfit she would cease to be my mother, instead becoming the Radcliffe B.A., President and CEO of Rose Advertising. It was only when she came home, kicked off the heels, changed into some pants, and put on some old jazz record that she became more accessible. From college on, Mom was always one of a few, the only, or the first black woman; she told me that it wasn't as if no one noticed her, but she'd simply figured out how to dress, speak, and carry herself as if there could be no doubt as to whether or not she actually belonged. I never questioned her-never thought about the consequences of blending in-because she made it seem as if I had no choice.

During my senior year of college, Mom tried her best to convince me to join her at Rose Advertising after I graduated. "It'll be the greatest opportunity in the world. It's your birthright," she insisted. After several months of fruitless visits to the career services office, I almost agreed. But the thought of returning to St. Louis made me keep trying, until I finally convinced a large commercial bank that four years of last minute papers and barely-studied-for exams qualified me to be a research coordinator in their corporate finance division. Eventually Mom agreed that I'd actually found a good job on my own and bought me five suits, ten shirts, three pairs of shoes, and a jewelry box full of appropriately conservative necklaces, earrings, and pins. I added a few of my own touches over the years but never strayed from the basics, and every morning I put on a well-cut, tastefully accessorized suit of armor. At night I came home, took down my hair, turned on the stereo and felt like me again. No one at the office ever saw my toenails painted black, my pierced navel, the circular tattoo in the small of my back depicting the sun in six stages of eclipse.

I arrived at work over half an hour late, soaked with sweat and fl.u.s.tered. After trotting through the streets to the bank, I paused for breath at the ma.s.sive doors to my building before pushing them open to feel the initial sting of frigid air. The lobby was quiet-9:07am-everyone was already at their desks. I hurried to the Media and Communications department on the 38th floor, furtively walked to my cubicle, and turned on my computer so its dark screen wouldn't betray the fact that I'd just arrived. No such luck. Marie, the only other black senior a.n.a.lyst on the floor, emerged from the ladies room.

"Linda's been looking for you," she said, leaning against my desk. I could smell the strong perfume she had on and hoped it would wear off as the day progressed. Marie reached up, adjusted the scarf tied securely under her chin and ran a hand over her short, careful hair. As usual, not a strand was out of place.

"You know what she wanted?" I asked.

"No idea," Marie bent forward to examine what files I was opening on my hard drive. "I had to tell her that I hadn't seen you all morning."

"Thanks Marie." She must have loved that, I thought as she shrugged and sauntered off. I'd been promoted to senior a.n.a.lyst a few months before her and she'd decided that it was because I'd made sure to befriend the right people, which was only one of the reasons she didn't like me.

I walked down the long hallway, wondering what had convinced the decorator to use only shades of gray: ash-colored carpeting, pearl and taupe cubicles, steel accents. Under the long rows of fluorescent lights humming along the ceiling, the large s.p.a.ce looked cold and stony as a mausoleum. On the right, the row of gla.s.s-enclosed offices was full, the vice presidents on their phones, bent over their desks or staring at their computers. I'd never caught any of them procrastinating-reading a magazine, staring out of the window. On the left, the secretaries all had coffee on their desks and were talking loudly to one another. As I pa.s.sed they called out, "What's doing, Dana?" "Cheer up, hump day's the worst." "Hot as s.h.i.t outside, eh?" "How's that fine man of yours?"

In her gla.s.s office, Linda was on the phone but she waved me in and ended her conversation. Her skin was even more sun-tanned than usual, probably from another evening at the tanning salon, and her hair was a bra.s.sier shade of blond. She seemed to spend a lot of time and money on her appearance-exercising every day, constantly changing her hairstyle, buying new clothing-but this only accentuated the coa.r.s.eness of her features, her large pores, her thick, short limbs. She c.o.c.ked her head and frowned as if reading my mind. I smiled brightly to dispel any doubt that I was thinking anything that wasn't work-related.

"I missed you this morning," she said, now smiling but with slightly raised eyebrows.

"Train trouble."

"Oh that's right. You come in from Brooklyn." To Linda Whitelaw, Brooklyn was too far from the Upper East Side to be considered a part of New York City even though I'd explained to her that my commute rarely took longer than 20 minutes. "Anyway," Linda went on, "I just wanted to check on the Southstar report."

"I'll have it to you before lunch," I said.

"Excellent, Dana. Very good, then." She dismissed me with a wave of her manicured hand.

Back at my desk I flipped the page on my desk calendar to August 28th and, as I had the past three days, made a small red X on the page to indicate the heat wave. Then I picked up a blue pen and wrote 44, then a green 289, and a black 1548. I was often asked what the color coding was but refused to tell. Not that it would have been particularly interesting to anyone other than myself, but it was private, to protect from strangers who would have thought me odd for choosing to make a careful and deliberate record of the weather, days until my birthday, days until my mother's birthday, and days since she died. Why would anyone understand why the calendar was such a minefield for me? The beginning of the year was horrible because the holidays in November and December, which I spent by myself or with somebody else's family, depressed me well into January. Valentine's Day was usually anti-climactic. Then I'd get a respite of a few months until Mother's Day in May. The summer would crawl by, my mother's birthday and the anniversary of her death having started it off in June. A few months until my birthday at the beginning of October, then the holidays would start all over again. I'd simply given in to this cycle and written in the painful events as official holidays.

I slowly turned the pages of the calendar to June 3rd. Four years ago on this date I went to my mother's funeral in St. Louis, and this was the last time I'd seen the house that I'd lived in from kindergarten through high school-first with my mother and father, then Mom alone, and finally Mom and Gerald. After the funeral I'd flown back to New York and tried to forget what I'd left behind. Now I had thirteen years of belongings to sort out and I couldn't put it off any longer. I bought a plane ticket to St. Louis for that weekend, then called Gerald and left a message on his answering machine. "Hi, it's Dana. Sorry about yesterday. I can't ever seem to be normal talking about Mom. I'm coming in Friday night but I'll just take a cab from the airport."

Just before lunch I gave Linda my credit report, which she handed back with only a few minor changes to my five year projections. The figures were a little too low and she complained that I was always too harsh with my future predictions. "Even for a bank there's no need to be quite this severe. Although I applaud your research," she told me.

Linda had a point; I was absolutely thorough and I cut no slack, even for longtime clients. I picked over annual reports looking for signs of deception. I studied Moody's and Value Line a.n.a.lyses for any perceivable weaknesses. I looked for potential causes of industry fluctuation, indicators that the company could lose compet.i.tive advantage, character flaws in the princ.i.p.al officers. I was relentless; this was the most enjoyable part of my job. I'm a Libra, the balancer, which, when you look at life away from the office, makes sense. But when I did a credit report, I felt my astrological sign was a fluke, an accident of my having been born two weeks late. I was meant to be a Virgo, the a.n.a.lyzer, and if not for my pre-natal stubbornness, my desire to stay put inside my mother's safe womb, I would have been.

It had taken me all afternoon to spread the balance sheet and income statement numbers again and I'd just given Linda the new projections when Will called me. "We still on?" he asked.

"Yup. I'm psyched to try this place."

"So you still want Vietnamese?" he asked.

I sighed, "I said I was psyched."

"You have been known to change your mind lately."

"What are you talking about?"

"Remember last Thursday? We left the first bar because the crowd was too conservative, the next because the people were too young, and the last because you saw that woman you hated from college."

"That was different. We're just talking about dinner, here. Besides, it was fun."

"That night was supposed to be just drinks. And Leo and Maya didn't seem to like schlepping all over the City."

"That's my word. You're copying again."

"As long as we don't get to the restaurant and have you decide you feel like pizza."

"Okay, fine. But Will, you always talk like me. Schlep sounds so weird coming out of your mouth." I could hear him light a cigarette, exhale with a faint whistle. "And you smoke every time we talk on the phone," I said.

"Now that bugs you too?" I could hear him blowing more smoke although I could tell he'd turned his head away from the phone to do it.

"So what time?" Will continued, ignoring my lack of response.

"Seven, out front."

"Cool."

I replaced the phone and reached a hand up to press my fingers against my rigid neck muscles, closed my eyes for a moment when the phone rang again. I figured it was Will since he'd often call me back immediately after I'd hung up the phone, saying, "Hey, Dana. Forgot to mention . . . ," and proceeded to tell me something that definitely could have waited.

I picked up.

"Dana. Sean. Guess what?"

It was exciting, still exciting, to hear his voice. "How could I, Sean. I never know what you're going to say these days," I said carefully.

"Oh come on. You underestimate yourself, as usual."

"Underestimate?" I asked incredulously.

"No matter. Anyway I had to call you with the big news."

"All right. What is it?"

"Okay, so Pace came by this morning. Pace, you recall, is the Director of Research."

"I recall."