“Of course not.”
“Nobody?”
“Of course, nobody.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Death is as natural as life.”
“Ain’t nothin natural about death. It’s the most unnatural thing they is.”
“You think people should live forever?”
“Some people. Yeah.”
“Who’s to decide? Which ones should live and which ones shouldn’t?”
“The people themselves. Some folks want to live forever. Some don’t. I believe they decide on it anyway. People die when they want to and if they want to. Don’t nobody have to die if they don’t want to.”
Ruth felt a chill. She’d always believed that her father wanted to die. “I wish I could count on your faith as far as my son was concerned. But I think I’d be a really foolish woman if I did that. You saw your own father die, just like I did; you saw him killed. Do you think he wanted to die?”
“I saw Papa shot. Blown off a fence five feet into the air. I saw him wigglin on the ground, but not only did I not see him die, I seen him since he was shot.”
“Pilate. You all buried him yourselves.” Ruth spoke as if she were talking to a child.
“Macon did.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Macon seen him too. After he buried him, after he was blown off that fence. We both seen him. I see him still. He’s helpful to me, real helpful. Tells me things I need to know.”
“What things?”
“All kinds of things. It’s a good feelin to know he’s around. I tell you he’s a person I can always rely on. I tell you somethin else. He’s the
“She died and the next minute I was born. But she was dead by the time I drew air. I never saw her face. I don’t even know what her name was. But I do remember thinkin she come from Virginia. Anyways, that’s where I struck out for. I looked around for somebody to take me in, give me a little work for a while so I could earn some money to get on down there. I walked for seven days before I found a place with a preacher’s family. A nice place except they made me wear shoes. They sent me to school, though. A one-room place, where everybody sat. I was twelve, but since this was my first school I had to sit over there with the little bitty children. I didn’t mind it too much; matter of fact, I liked a lot of it. I loved the geography part. Learning about that made me want to read. And the teacher was tickled at how much I liked geography. She let me have the book and I took it home with me to look at. But then the preacher started pattin on me. I was so dumb I didn’t know enough to stop him. But his wife caught him at it, thumbin my breasts, and put me out. I took my geography book off with me. I could of stayed in that town cause they was plenty of colored people to take me in. In them days, anybody too old to work kept the children. Grown folks worked and left their kids in other people’s houses. But him being the preacher and all like that, I figured I ought to make tracks. I was broke as a haint cause the place didn’t carry no wages. Just room and board. So I just took my geography book and a rock I picked up for a souvenir and lit out.
“It was a Sunday when I met up with some pickers. Folks call ’em migrants nowadays; then they was just called pickers. They took me in and treated me fine. I worked up in New York State pickin beans, then we’d move to another place and pick a different crop. Everyplace I went I got me a rock. They was about four or five families all together in the crew. All of them related one way or another. But they was good people and treated me fine. I stayed with them for three years, I believe, and the main reason I stayed on was a woman there I took to. A root worker. She taught me a lot and kept me from missin my own family, Macon and Papa. I didn’t have a thought in my head of ever leavin them, but I did. I had to. After a while they didn’t want me around no more.” Pilate sucked a peach stone and her face was dark and still with the memory of how she was “cut off” so early from other people.
The boy. The nephew, or was it the cousin, of the woman who worked roots. When she was fifteen, and the rain was so heavy they had to stay in the shacks (those who had them—the others had tents) because nothing could be harvested in that pouring rain, the boy and Pilate lay down together. He was no older than she was and while everything about her delighted him, nothing about her surprised him. So it was with no malice whatsoever that one evening after supper he mentioned to some of the men (but within listening distance of the women) that he didn’t know that some folks had navels and some didn’t. The men and the women raised their eyes at his remark, and asked him to explain what he meant. He got it out, finally, after many false starts—he thought they were alarmed because he had taken the pretty girl with the single earring to bed—but he soon discovered that the navel thing was what bothered them.
The root woman was assigned the job of finding out if what he said was true or not. She called Pilate into her shack one day later. “Lay down,” she said. “I want to check on something.” Pilate lay down on the straw pallet. “Now lift up your dress,” the woman said. “More. All the way up. Higher.” And then her eyes flew open wide and she put her hand over her mouth. Pilate leaped up. “What? What is it?” She looked down at herself, thinking a snake or a poisonous spider had crawled over her legs.
“Nothin,” the woman said. Then, “Child, where’s your navel?”
Pilate had never heard the word “navel” and didn’t know what the woman was talking about. She looked down at her legs, parted on the rough ticking. “Navel?” she asked.
“You know. This.” And the woman pulled up her own dress and slipped the elastic of her bloomers down over her fat stomach. Pilate saw the little corkscrew thing right in the middle, the little piece of skin that looked like it was made for water to drain down into, like the little whirlpools along the edges of a creek. It was just like the thing her brother had on his stomach. He had one. She did not. He peed standing up. She squatting down. He had a
