The Sound of Building Coffins

The woman’s skin done turned orangey, one of her eyes closed, the other half-open and froze, looking at the little baby in her lap. Her lips stretched in a thin line across her face, smiling at one side, dead flat at the other. This was not a terribly unusual scene during plague times-exceptin’ for one little thing.

The baby at her breast was not yet dead.

Bony and lean, the tiny thing clung on for dear life, trine to suck something out its mama’s yella teat, the lower half of his little body soaked in chamber lye and tatlin’. I put a hand on his little shoulder, but that child a strong ’un; just tighten his grip on that dead mother of his’n. So I yank him back hard, pick him into my arms. Little fella lets out a yell. High pitched yell. Scared and sad sounding. Lost sounding. I can see the blood on his lips, blood oozing from his dead mama’s breast, dark red with streaks of black. That sweet little man crying so hard, the smell of his mama’s death come out strong from his soft little toothless mouth. Something about his eyes tuggin’ at my heart. Strange eyes. Des yeaux goueres-pale and sad. I looked around and notice a tiny white blanket wrapped around the dead man’s feet. A little perfect blanket, soft and clean-looking strange in this filthy place of death and dyin’. That blanket looked just like a miracle.

I pull it from the Mulatto’s feet and wrap that baby up tight, cover him all up, and make a straight line for the Charity Hospital on foot. Run faster’n I ever run. When I get there a white nurse lady, looking dead tired and dressed in yella, motion me over so’s she can take a peek at that little’un. The lady look down, unwrap the child’s face from the blanket, say; “This one’s dead, boy.”

I say; “But ma’am, he was hot to the touch not ten minny ago.” She look at me warm, but her words is cold:

“Baby ain’t dead from fever. You smothered him with that blanket. Dumb nigger.” Walked away.

Like I said, you may consider this an omen of sorts.

I walked that little baby on back to his mama so’s they could get buried together. Looking at the dead Mulatto on the bed, I felt a kind of anger. Why he on the bed but not the mother and child? Why that blanket around his feet and not around that baby? I piled that Mulatto on the cart first. Then went around the neighborhood, piling other bodies over top him. Load it up good. Finally, I come back around to the dead mother and child.

So’s they could ride on top.

Felt a twitch of guilt separating the Mulatto from his kin in such a way, but at the time it felt like justice. Funny how justice can make the just feel guilt. Lotsa irony like that in this world, sonny.

***

The sky’d been merciful dry for a week or two. Back at the potter’s field, the boys were making good progress on the biggest dern hole I seen there yet. Nice deep hole, wide too. Ol’ Jake holding that rifle, making sure them ornery chain gang boys workin’ hard. That nasty Girton stop just to give me a mean lookin’ smile-like he know a dirty secret. Start my skin to crawling, that smile.

Jake offer me the rifle expecting I’ll wanna take over supervising and put him to work down in the hole with them other fellas. I just wave the gun away and let him keep her, though. I can’t bear to watch that little baby being buried like that. That baby I kilt with the perfect white blanket. Nope, ol’ Marcus Nobody Special was feelin’ extra blue that morning, and when I feel that way I go see Mama.

Mama’s grave the cleanest in the potter’s field. I put her down right next to my little shack, put a nice layer of brick and mortar right o’er top. Every brick is lined up just right, pretty and perfect. Those perfect bricks’ll make sure she stay down no matter how hard it rain. So I put my knees right down on the bricks closest mama’s heart, hang my head down and make a little tear for that poor dead baby. The one I kilt.

After a spell, I look up at mama’s stone, wiping my eye. Right off I see something different about that stone. There’s writing on it. In pencil. Says this:

Marcus-come to 601 Dauphine. Hurry please. Maria

My little Coffee Maria. Needin’ me.

So now I’m wondering how long that bit of writing been on Mama’s stone. Wondering what kinda trouble my baby in. If it too late. I’m wondering all that as I’m running. Running to see my pretty gal. Hoping she all right. Knowing she ain’t.

Soon as I make it to the front door of Auntie Jin’s I get a powerful bad feeling. Something telling me to turn tail. But I can’t. I can’t just leave without knowing. Gotta see what the matter is with my baby.

A pile of yella fever dead on the roadside near the door. I poke through a-looking-but Maria ain’t one of ’em. Glad of that-but still, something terrible wrong. I feel it in my bones.

I walk in the door.

Ain’t no Coffee Maria in that place. But there’s that mean lookin’ woman Malvina Latour- sitting in a rocking chair, creaking back and forth. She just look me up and down, smiling and looking mad. Rocking and a-creaking. Holding something in her arms. That little something wrapped in a perfect white blanket. That blanket look just like a miracle to me.

I should run. But I walk right in. Door slams closed behind me. My arms get grabbed by strong hands, holding firm and twisting hard. Hounsi-two big fellas from Malvina’s houmfour, her hoodoo temple-holding me tight. Malvina stand up, take a step toward me. Unwrap that little something in the blanket. Blanket falls to the floor, in a mess of dust and grime. Malvina hold a little baby up-skin yella and orange, nekkid as a jaybird in the whistlin’ time. Little manchild. Eyes open. Dead, dead, dead.

At first, I’m thinking this the same baby I kilt-though I know that ain’t rightly possible. The eyes look the same-but the child is different. Pretty little child, deader’n dirt. Malvina got a tear in her eye, but still smiling. She say:

“Meet your son, gravedigger.” And looking in those tiny, pale eyes, I know.

I know my little Maria kept this from me. Being Maria’s a whore, I guess I could have let myself believe the child warn’t mine. But I’m lookin’ into those sweet, dead eyes and I know. That little fella my son. My boy. The fruit of my Coffee Maria. My eyes turn to water and my head dizzy. I want to die right then and there. But there’s something I gotta know. I look at that evil Malvina square in the eye, shakin’ like a goat’s ass, trine to find words:

“Where my Maria?”

Her words bite my ears like a cottonmouth sprung from its coil:

“As if I would tell you where she is. How she is. Whether she alive or dead. I won’t tell you nothin’, gravedigger. I ain’t here to ease your mind. I’m here to put right what you wronged.” She pause. Smile gone. That snake in her throat comin’ up slow and even this time:

“Put things right, gravedigger. Kiss this child. Be a good father.”

She hold that little fella tight around the ribs, bring him up level with my face. My knees go wobbly-it a good thing those hounsi got me by the arms or’ I’da took a tumble over backwards. That little boy’s face an inch from mine now, his little death-smell sweet and soft. Snake’s a-comin’ out Malvina’s mouth at a dead crawl:

“A kiss. Just a kiss.”

My lips part to speak-

Alla sudden, Malvina push her hands together hard on that baby’s ribs. I hear those ribs cracklin’-a sickly noise, that. A puff of white dust come out that baby’s mouth and into mine. Into my mouth, my eyes, my nose. Hoodoo dust. Poison. I know this’ll be bad right off.

Feel the effect straight away, me. This a punishment I heard of-I’m to be dead, but not dead. My muscles go rigid and hard. My breath slowing. Stopping. My heartbeat gone terrible slow. My skin feelin’ cold. I ain’t never been this scared. I just wanna cry.

“You’ll die slow, gravedigger. Piled into a hole with the rest. You’ll hear and see and feel it all. And you’ll wonder about Maria. And you’ll never know. You’ll die wondering… Take your questions with you,