“You hungry, huh?” Isaiah said to the quieting baby, who touched his nose as he looked at it, transfixed, before he slid his tiny hand down to Isaiah’s lips and tugged on the bottom one. “We eat together then, I reckon.” Isaiah looked at Essie. “How you?”
“Here in this body. You know how it be,” she said, frowning first before gradually allowing the corners of her mouth to curl into a smile.
“Surely,” Isaiah said, looking at her, then back at Solomon, whose nose he rubbed with his own.
“How old is he now?”
“Almost two.”
“And ain’t walking yet?”
She shrugged.
“You wanna come inside? Sit for a spell?”
“Kindly,” Essie said as she followed him into the barn.
She was always surprised at how clean Isaiah was given how close he lay to animals. He smelled like juniper at the height of May, glistening in pitch blackness. She was there when Samuel first brought him the water. Too young herself, but still knowing a shining when she saw one; it was almost if the water had become silver, catching every light in the pouring, rainbows in drop formation, dripping from the concerns of Isaiah’s mouth while he attempted to take in too much at once. Ain’t that a shame—for someone to have been wasting colors like that, no matter what their age? Still, hovering over them was something unseen because it was unseeable, but its vibration could be felt. That was why her hands trembled then and why her hands trembled still whenever these two were around.
Inside, Samuel had his arms raised. His back was facing Essie, Isaiah, and Solomon as they entered. Essie couldn’t tell if he was paying tribute to creation, holding court with degenerate beasts, or merely stretching out of himself. Sometimes, the space inside the body could get to be cramped and it was necessary to extend the limbs to give the spirit more room or, maybe, an opening to fly from. He wore no shirt, so every bit of sweat on his skin was visible, racing from top to bottom. His flesh evinced no natural blemishes, but the moisture highlighted the ones marked there by cowards. She hated to admit to herself that she found beauty in the way those scars snaked across the broadness of his back with delicate curves.
“You got room for pie?” she said to Samuel’s behind, which was raised up like heaven.
He came down hard but turned slowly. He had no grin on his face, but one suddenly appeared after he looked at Isaiah and Isaiah nodded. Essie could tell then it was manufactured, but she revealed her teeth in a wide smile in return anyway, didn’t even try to hide the space of the missing one.
She had known Isaiah longer than she did Samuel. She appreciated his gentle nature and how—when Paul holed them up for what seemed like days, in that rotten old shack they called The Fucking Place—Isaiah held her hand first. He tried, awkwardly, to put his limp self into her in-between that in no ways welcomed it, but they pretended that they were full-scale rocking anyway. Hurt hard when somebody make you fuck your friend, they both thought later.
Paul set James about the business of watching them, and sometimes, James would pull out his thing, leaving, for anyone to see, the puddle that Isaiah faked. Afterward, pulling up their clothes as though they had actually done something, she and Isaiah shared squinted eyes, quiet giggles, a song where their harmonies blended and echoed, and the first everything-hotcake she ever made, which they gobbled up together sitting side by side. But it was still doughy on the inside, so it gave them both cramps—and squatting among rocks and trees to share as well.
Amos didn’t have Isaiah’s decency, but that was no special mark against him because neither did most men. Most men followed their impulses without considering where they might lead, perhaps in spite of considering where they might lead. It was hard to blame a turd for smelling the way it did. Best to just make the most of it and let it fertilize the soil so something could grow. There was never any guarantee, however, that there would be anything worth harvesting.
Out of all those unprivate moments in the dank of it, under James’s steady gaze, Essie and Isaiah created a friendship—that was it. Displeased, Paul lashed Isaiah three times and sent him hollering back to the barn. It wasn’t even five minutes after Essie had fastened her dress to the neck that Paul had James line up a group of nine men. Essie looked at them as intently as Paul did. Did he mean to give each of them a turn in succession? Would she be left so numb that afterward, her walk back to her shack would have to be done with legs far apart and clutching the agony at the pit of her stomach?
Paul surprised her. He chose one: the one who looked at her in her face and didn’t look away or dissect her by wondering the shape of her breasts or what contours might be hidden behind her clothing. It was Amos who was told to come forward and when he did, he took Essie’s hand and rubbed it against his cheek.
For months, Essie was astonished by Amos. She didn’t realize she could feel such tenderness toward a man. She didn’t know that body union could feel like something interesting and not just labored. She thought the tingling that shocked her body was only possible through the use of her fingers. When Amos held her tightly after it all, adding his spasms to hers, she allowed herself to go limp in his arms.
But those months hadn’t put her in the way Paul imagined it might. Rather than have James form another line, Paul interfered himself.
Being forced to do their own work only made toubab doubly vicious, made them feel unsteady and revealed them as . . . regular, which was another way of saying it killed them. Therefore, they wanted everything else to be dead, too.
Essie felt like that now: dead, but somehow, walking—playing, smiling, cooking, picking, clapping, shouting, singing, and, in the nighttime, lying down—just like a living person, so all were fooled. Or maybe none were because the dead recognized one another, in scent if not in sight. She wondered then what Isaiah might see, if the reason they were no longer friend-friends wasn’t because Amos occupied all her time and kept her fastened to the clearing, but because the living and the dead could never mix without some grave omen coming to pass.
“I brought a peace,” Essie said to Samuel, holding up the cloth-wrapped pie.
Samuel closed his eyes and smelled the air.
“Hope it ain’t raw in the middle,” Isaiah said with a laugh, holding Solomon close to his chest and rocking him.
Essie cut her eyes and kissed her remaining teeth before sticking her arm out and handing Samuel the pie.
Isaiah pointed. “You can sit over on that there stool if you feel like it. You want the baby back?”
Essie signaled her indifference by flipping her hand in the air. She turned knowingly to the side and plopped down on the stool. Isaiah sat on the ground in front of her.
“So what Amos want?” Samuel said while looking down at the baby in Isaiah’s lap.
Essie smirked because she appreciated the way Samuel called the truth forth from its hiding places. She smoothed her dress and swiveled her behind firmly on the stool. “Peace, he say.”