My Jim by Nancy Rawles

Author:Nancy Rawles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307421340
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

Bowl

See this mark. You can feel it with your fingers. Fore this bowl broke thats the Congo cross. Not a Christian cross. A Congo cross. One line up to the gods one line down to the ancestors in the spirit world. One line over for this life right now and this death too. A circle tying it all together.

My mamas mama a healer. She the first doctor in the family this side the water. When my grandmama give my mama this bowl she know the power in it.

Time they find Jims hat I still gots my bowl. I goes to the woods for some bloodroot. I makes the children eat the seeds. Then I eats whats left. Now that Jim gone Lizbeth and Jonnie all I owns in the world. Something happen to them aint no reason to go on. I scared Mas split us up as punishment. I waits till they finds the body. Then I knows what to do.

Body never come. Not Jims body or the white boys. White folks say Jim must of killed that boy since they both gone missing at the same time. But I knows Jim aint kill no boy less he got good cause. Jim fond of them boys. They pay him in coins and marbles when he tell them what he see.

Nigger under a spell. Thats what the white folks say. That doctoring witch put that nigger under a spell. He a good nigger fore he met up with her. I scared what they gonna do to me.

When Mas hear tell of Jims drowning he come looking for me. He gonna whip me hisself. He call all the slaves in from the fields to watch. He tell Banes to strip me down to my waist. Then they tie my arms to a tree. Not round the tree like usual but over my head. He want me to face him.

Some the womens start to making noises. Mas say they better stop clicking they tongues if they know whats good for them.

He want me to beg him for mercy. He can kill me right there. I just aint wants my children to see it. So after awhile I says please Mas believe me. I tells Jim not to run off. I tries to keep him.

That afternoon Emma tend to me. I tells her to make me a balm from the inside bark of a sycamore. Dress my wounds and lay some tobacco leaves cross my chest. Boil me a blackberry tonic. Emma do everything I says.

Fortune over in the corner moaning. Her pains got her scared this time. I tells Emma to give Fortune some milkweed to make her breathing right. I tells Lizbeth bring my bowl and crush me up some mint.

I wants none of your cure Fortune say. Folks aint want to touch nothing you touch.

None of Mas Stevens slaves trust us come from Mas Watsons. But if we can helps them they work it out of us Now they scared. Just like the white folks.

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