'Forty-seven!' he cried. 'Numbah Twelve!'
I cocked my head as if listening for more and, in doing so, I was able to avoid Eighty-four's angry question.
'Got to go,' I said to John.
'Bye, Tweenie,' John said. He dropped the burlap sack and smiled.
She grabbed onto his arm and looked into his eyes beseechingly.
'You come on back, heah?' she said.
And there again was the power of my new friend. We had only been in the fields with Eighty-four for a few days
but she was already heartbroken at the prospect of his departure.
I understood her pain. I would feel the same way when John was gone from the Corinthian Plantation. And I was sure that he would be gone one day. I knew in my heart that a person as beautiful and smart as John was not destined to remain a slave on some backwater farm.
But John wasn't gone yet. He and I ran down a rough path through the cotton bushes. Along the way we saw dozens of slaves bent over in half toting giant sacks of cotton. Flies zipped around them and the sun beat down like Satan's hammer on their backs.
About half the way to where Mud Albert was John stopped and looked out at the slaves.
'We cain't waste time, John,' I said. 'Albert expect us ta hump it.'
'I'm just looking,' John said.
'Slave ain't s'posed t'be lookin',' I told him. 'Slave s'posed to be doin' sumpin so that the mastuh don't have t'beat him.'
'I have no master, Forty-seven. No master but the power that keeps my feet on the ground.'
'Come on,' I said, grabbing him by the arm.
I yanked but he wouldn't budge.
'Do you think that it's fair for those people to be forced to work day in and day out for their entire lives?' John asked.
'We gotta go,' I replied.
'Answer my question and we can go.'
I could tell that John wasn't going to move until I responded.
' 'Course I hate it that we slaves but what else we gonna do? Who would take care of us an' feed us if'n we didn't have no mastuh?'
'You could take care of yourselves,' he said. 'Buy your own farms, raise your own food.'
Nobody had ever said anything like this to me before. The idea scared me. How could I do all the things that white people did? All I knew was how to be lazy and how to work like a dog.
'Let's go,' I whispered.
On the way Tall John changed moods again. He made silly faces and did cartwheels as we ran. I got out of my serious mood and even laughed.
When we got to the open field that Mud Albert called his office we found the aged slave sitting on an empty molasses barrel as if it were a throne.
'What you grinnin' about, boy?' he asked me.
'Am I grinnin', Mud Albert, suh?'
'You sure is, niggah,' he said. 'You an' this red-eyed joker heah.'
I thought that Tall John might try to correct Albert's use of the word nigger but all my friend did was smile.
'I's sorry,' I said.
'Don't be sorry for laughin', boy. There sure is little enough of it in a nigger's lifetime.'
I bowed my head because a tear came to my eye. For the first time I truly knew the sadness of Mud Albert's life. Slaving from the time he could walk until the day we wrap him in burlap and slap the dust from our hands.
I loved Mud Albert and I regretted his unfair lot.
'I got word from the house that Mastuh Tobias wanna see this new boy right away,' Albert said. 'You ready to go up there, Laughin' John?'
'Yessuh,' John shouted.
'Go on then. Forty-seven'll show you the way. He'll wait for you too so that you don't get lost comin' back.'
As we ran between the bright green leaves I asked John, 'Why'd you give Eighty-four a name and you still call me Forty-seven?'
Up until then we'd been making our way quickstep through the bushes. But then John stopped and looked at me. His big eyes were filled with sorrow so deep that I felt my heart wrench.
