I’ve never been with a man, what that I didn’t come to know him. You don’t lose a man over years. Not the way a man loses a woman. The good and the not so good. You remember a man. And so I know what I knew, and who he and the other was. But it ain’t hardly worth telling now. Not now that they way on up and respected like. But my memory is good and hard, and to me in my youth, back there in that day, why, I broke those men. The way a woman breaks a man. But not like you think. Not if you’s a man anyway. Cause you wouldn’t know about being broken no way. And that’s yo privilege like. But deep down, those two knew. And they could take it. They was special see. But I ain’t know that cause I was sort of a girl. But I do know it good now. I do indeed.

In those days, way before the War, nobody knew what I was. My daddy used to call me a phantasm on account of I could go anywhere. Be real quiet and fit right beside you like a ghost. You don’t always know what you talking to. I was an up-from Negro. Meaning I came up from New Orleans but I wasn’t really free. That Ohio River blocked me dead. I escaped but not far enough. That’s a terror if you only knew. But men in those days, I was a thing to them. Like so many sweets to a child they had wanted to grab me, but they had a respect for what I was. Like I was too strong; so they took me all how they liked – white linen and glass and pretty things on the table would just crash on down. And they candy would be no more. So they would make love to me afraid – afraid of themselves. So strange they’d say; so strange my beauty. I wasn’t nothing but one of them old creole-light girls. The one what spoke French, he said maybe I was Quadroon. I never talked that talk. To me I was always Renee. But he was sure scared, cause in his mind, my womanliness was most strong. They classify me now as Negro. No one can hardly tell. And I ain’t met not a man who ever cared. And I was no ghost when they felt for something sweet. No, Mister, not at all.

We was near Cincinnati in those days. Not a shack, but a good ole house, lived in. My House Man, he was schooled in the art of providing for men. I ain’t hate him, nor did I love him. He was what he was. I had enough religion to know he was a man. Such was his sum. He acted accordingly. I worked for him – there was 6 of us and account of my brightness, I was enough out of white to be worth so much; and account of my being so near white, I had what he called salesmanship. He’d say, “Renee, you got salesmanship.” His words. The men I saw in those days, well they ain’t know from salesmanship. Like I said, they was born men, and beyond all judgment.

So, these three nights in the year of the Eclipse, I remember like yesterday. There was hardly no business. We was going into a bad stretch of weather – gray streaked the sky like buckets of paint – no God woulda painted his sky like that. So I felt a thing out of sorts. Like the world and me was no longer together. Like that Heaven was divided from me. Neither in my body and not outside it. Could be memory, like a dream. But I remember it and so it must be so. My eldest daughter, Beatrice, she says, if you remember a thing, it may as well be true. Even if it ain’t happened.

No business. But round 6:30 I heard the carriage pull up under all that gray sky. They was two. He and the one I called Mr. Bo. He was quiet but real aflame. He wanted me like water, but you can tell a white man who’s hungry and a white man ready to eat. My being he wasn’t ready to come over to. Not that he couldn’t, but I suspect he was more sordid than Mr. Ville. The hungriest man is always the most awkward in his desires. Mr. Ville – what I call the Frenchman – as I ain’t good with long names – he had what you call passion. He wa’nt starved. He had longing. Not sad, but longing as like to break me open. So when I got his bags and Miss Trudy directed him to his room, I knew he’d be the one. And my knowing, why that made us equals. That avalanche in a man, there is his signature. It begins before, see. And every man is a walking sign if you can read him. That avalanche is before, not after. I could see that pure cascade of falling, heaping snow come off him in his eyes. And we ain’t even say hello yet.

Now my man had made the arrangements for the two before and it weren’t no surprise the night was to be a gift – Mr. Ville was to get his hospitality. But you come to learn on the bottom looking up, that there is no good way to be shy to your fate. So when he told me, “Renee, these here guests be special,” well I ain’t like to die. I been gave up on money. Not that I was a slave, cause I weren’t. But my condition weren’t a sight better. But I had my own consolations, my own peacefulness. So my game was to draw out a man what he ain’t expect. My game was that power they didn’t know I had.

He took a right good long bath. On his own. I ain’t in the business at that time of insulting nobody. Truth is – you learn fast how to make your own scent, your own – what they call it? – aromatics. I was lost on the smell of a man by then. Wasn’t nothing but blood and muscle under it all and my measure was too democratic to notice a pretty smell.

He knocked that first night – Mr. Ville did. He said a French kinda greeting and he started to sit by the old chair by the bed. I ain’t let him.

“Come on near me, Mr. Ville,” I told him.

“Do you not mind to go unpaid?” He knew some English for sure.

“I mind, but that’s no mind.”

“I must make you right,” and then he pulled out a small locket – what looked like real gold and put it in my hand.

“Mr. Ville, how you going to make me right? With your gold. No sir, no such a thing possible, sir. Imma make you right.”

Well, he forgot everything except his name and kissed me like frostbite in January. I mean hard. Then the room got smaller the way it does in the manner of love, and the chair, and the bed, and they posts, and the saliva, and sweat, it all was tight of one thing. You could no more tell where the straw in the bed and my back was different. I won’t call it a thing “good” but like I said, it was an accounting of a man in longing, and I was not displeased with the way it all got small in that room. Even as we grew. He ain’t hurry much but he gave himself over before too long and then I asked him.

“Mr. Ville, why you here?”

He waited and then we both screamed a laughing.

“No, here in America?”

“To study your people.”

“But people don’t need studying, don’t they got people in France?”

“No, but yes, Renee, but I mean your people’s government.”

“I suppose that’s a sight different.”

“Yes it is. I wish to learn of your freedom, as you call it, your way of life, here. Why you are a people well-regarded in your affections and temperament.”

“Freedom? You are kinda funny Mr. Ville. Do you feel more free now?”

He right looked at me like I was standing over him, like he was the man prone, and we then had a guilty talk about it all. It was the talk that came up outta me that first night that made me proud to be what I am. Not what I did. But what I am, see?

“Freedom…Miss Renee, you must know. I was told you are as free as any Negro woman, and a sharing participant in your democracy.”

He ain’t talk to me as I was stupid, but he was long from right.

“Mr. Ville who you go to to ask about freedom? You ask old Mr. Chambers – my man? What he know? I ain’t no slave but I ain’t free. What, you felt my freedom, is that what you was searching for? You imagine to taste it and wipe it from your lips? It goes way deeper than what to be filled, now, so that makes you the one short on freedom, Mr. Ville – and that ain’t no insult.”

He then grabbed a shawl, or something, and right covered himself up.

“Yes of course, but no, tell me, do you feel you will ever be free? Would you not rather be like unto that Native woman, proud in your North American forest – roaming as such? I mean to say, with no insult, how then, if you will not identify with America in this cursed state with slavery, how then, shall you progress?”

“I ain’t clear, Mr. Ville, on no forest, on no Injun woman. I knows peoples, Mr. Ville. What did you alight on some Injun woman lately – did you make snow heaps of democracy for her? Is you a ‘leveling’ man, one to make all the races equal? Can your cock crow open the dawn for sinners and saints alike? See, this here ‘freedom’ ain’t but a half state. You is plunging into a short pool, see? Not your fault. Not that you and your democracy is so big and masculine; this here pool is tiny and weak. You in shallow water, Mr. Ville, on this question.”

I could talk to white men as I liked in that year of the Eclipse. I weren’t no Turner. I milked men not bled them. I think they just were not sure of me one way or the other. That little bit of uncertainty, it was something.

“Renee, are you not of the mulattos? Or still, the Quadroons?”

“Nobody care either way. I’m black as Pharoah in the bed, Mr. Ville. Black as Pharoah, that’s what I been told. I ain’t but a taskmaster and when the chariot wheels stop, I ain’t but Renee.”

Bout then, Trudy knocked to see what all is going on. I wanted more, more to say, but back then, niggers had they cues. Was time to let that night go.

“Mr. Ville, how you like your breakfast? I’ll make you a good Quad- how you call it?”

“Quadroon.”

“Quadroon breakfast. Before you leave.”

And I shut the door on him and the sounds what was coming from the icy rain falling outside.

I could hear thru the night. His outside self was wrestling with his inside self.

I like to thought I heard him cry.

Shallow water.

The Second Night

Mr. Bo took his bath early. He ain’t had his energy and was all in a deplorable state. Mr. Ville that next morning came out right late and went in his half state of dress to the kitchen what was bright with creamy orange sunlight.

“Would you like my biscuits for you, Mr. Ville. They ready,” I said.

“Why yes, but we must promptly be on our way. Most directly thereafter.”

He ain’t look outside.

“You ain’t duty-bound, Mr. Ville, but this ground is so muddy what from last night…you best stay another day,” I told him.

“But I must be on to your Kentucky,” he said. But he started to the window.

“Heavens!” he exclaimed.

“I told you.”

“I suspect you are right,” he said and before long I was serving he and Mr. Bo biscuits and molasses and some fresh eggs apiece.

They was at the table talking of maps and surveying and such. Some was in English but mostly French. I gave them what map we had and there they was like little boys peering over that Ohio River. They’d go in and out of they room all day it seemed, and before long they was arguing in the high pitch way they do.

“Renee,” Mr. Ville asked, “will you settle a question for us, please,” Mr. Ville asked.

“Sure.”

“Is it not so that here in your America, God is more sovereign – that He guides your private sentiments and associations unlike other matters?”

“Well Mr. Ville, I am hardly one to talk of The Lord on authority other than I’s a sinner. Some love him most solemnly, like that Nat Turner. But he done bled a trail. Others like Him mildly like them Northern types. But they core rotten I hear, in they vainglory. Me, I just leave the Lord to his own paces. He knows my prayer on my back and on my feet. He knows me through and through. But it ain’t no matter to indulge Mr. Ville. I approach it all in a fearsome way.”

“You speak of your guilt as a prostitute?”

Mr. Bo even had the decency to tisk between his lips at that.

“I is what I is, Mr. Ville,” I said. “But who can judge what pulls the rope and where it wants to go? It ain’t no more than all manner of avarice. All our members are corruptible, but I see no greater sin in whoredom than in lust, Mr. Ville. Least I earn bread from the sweat of my brow. Even accounting love less than strong mighty in the realm of my mind. I fools my thighs for your men’s sake, which makes me a benevolent creature in the world if not in heaven.”

“Meaning no disrespect…”

“None taken,” I said. That orange creamy sun done hit it’s afternoon color. Reddish. At that time we all seemed to stop as one choir on its fatal note as ugly thumps pulled up to the house. A carriage. I ran to the front door. A day like this.

Impossible.

But outside, I could see. I done swung the door far open and was chilled to see a wretched thorn-stricken head with a top hat black as night peering out the rear.

It approached us full on like in a dreamy trance.

When it reached the stable the horse liked to drop.

And out he came. A high, high man, white, but dark like one of us. He ain’t come for a usual man’s purpose, but I could tell, something in him was begging for redemption only a woman could give.

Startled, I approached the carriage.

This here man, you ain’t ever seen one so alone and so full at once. He seemed happy and broken in the same look.

“A room? Might I get a room?”

His jacket – he had no coat – hung tight and slick round his frame. You could see his muscles. So lean like but a working man, really a boy.

“We do sir, but is you interested,” I asked in that curvaceous way I did, “in more than lodging?”

“Perhaps a meal?”

I tended to his coat and he on his own quickly took off his boots and went straight to the fire. He stretched out his long self, unfolding himself like a carnival thing. Then he started to talk in that creamy red room, nearing dusk. I recall his silhouette, back to me, it was like a ghost of a man and I just heard his voice float up, up, over the crackling of the fire and what bacon I had put on the stove.

“The Spanish say if a Nigger and a mulatto meet, it is called El Lobo – a wolf. But what I want to know is what do you call that right bitch of a dog that is born of a Virginia cracker?”

He done waited and waited.

“Mr. President!” he howled, like he spat in Mr. Andrew Jackson’s face.

Out come Mr. Ville and Mr. Bo on account of this. I sort of shushed them to stay silent and let the hat-man in front of my whorish fire continue his speech.

He was wantin more to say. But he was a laughin at himself. But I swear to look in close, you could see a tear roll down on each cheek. Roll down like they knew their way.

“What you call yourself, Mr.?” I asked.

And he told me, pure as I’m telling you. He gave me both names as God’s my witness.

I done joked with him.

“Well let’s see if you really are the father of many nations.”

And he laughed and laughed. Kind of wheezy like.

Mr. Ville took an instant shine to him and they asked if after dinner they could intrude and show the map to the stranger. You know before he and I went to his room.

You know not much happens when you just a living. I ain’t know who all was around me so I ain’t paid no mind to they conversation. The great and the small we all passing through and we all is mocked by time. So I served dinner and cleaned myself up and round early dark went in to see him.

He was fumbling right after he opened the door.

A look of horror had turned his face gray ash.

“A mirror, do you have a mirror?”

He was now on the floor looking round like a sad dog.

“I beg you, a mirror.”

He explained he was looking for his ring. He was to try to give it again to some woman who had turned him down. He ain’t been but blue since. Why a man in that place takes off his ring is beyond all understanding. But I promised him we’d find it.

After.

I set him down with his legs all folded over the bed like some marble bridge and I went after him.

He was tender and strong and he liked to laugh a lot.

“Am I funny to you Young Prophet?” I said.

And he smiled wide even as he dug deep like he was mining for something. This was a man young and old all in one. He won’t satisfied once. Til I reminded him, of the ring.

Finally we pushed off each other and I went to get him a drink and he said, “Right there!”

And down by the book case it lay. Plain.

I grabbed it off the floor and walked over to him.

“She better have a lot of energy for you, Mister,” I said and put it on his finger.

He looked up at me from his bed and his eyes grew watery. You ain’t ever seen more pitiful eyes.

I walked out and closed the door softly.

And then I heard the most horrible sobbing you ever did hear.

Somebody must’ve died I thought – and so I let him be.

This here was a keep-away cry.

And so I did.

The Third Day

That next morning the stranger, he came out his room all aglow like he was a different man. “Well, Lady, how do I look?” he said with a moonbeam smile.

“You look mighty good, Sir,” I told him and he pitched up his bag and strode over to the kitchen table like a prize stallion. He dropped on down besides Mr. Ville and Bo what was eating they biscuits and molasses.

“Gentleman, this appears to be the day to get out,” he said and they looked up at him and then out through the window at the pale blue sky. It was to be a fine day. And the three, they ate like men who left some of themselves in bed the night before. I mean growling men.

“You gentleman should sound out in the Cincinatta symphony you is so loud,” I laughed out at them.

“Madame,” Mr. Ville began, “won’t you join us?”

“I don’t mix bread and bread, Mr. Ville, though I am right tempted. You men enjoy yourself.”

And then Mr. Bo up and excused himself to get he and Mr. Ville’s things.

People always ask is it awkward to feed a man and another man what had need of you each the night before. But that is a man’s question. Then, that be a white one atop of that. Like you can separate the wheat from the chaff in the doings of life. No wisdom in that, that’s just how it be. “Ain’t no such thing as awkward in Adam Smith’s economics” is what my house man used to say. Awkward is a privilege.

Then they started to talk like men departing.

“I reckon I won’t get to France, Alex, but the pleasure is mine. Know this as the cock crows, as it’s said, this country is good country. As you continue, you will see. But it is a good country, made of men. That makes it mixed. Ain’t nothing all in all as you know, but we are a mostly good people and if the eating of a peach ain’t besmirched on account of its dark color, than freedom can’t be no less either. Press for that, Alex, as you go. As for me, I’m too fucking tired and must go back and start anew.”

They held hands after pushing out they chairs to stand and soon, Mr. Ville spoke words I ain’t soon forget.

“That I shall,” he said, “as I know all your liberties are for naught without singular attention to brotherhood among all. And yet I fear it. Alas, good sir, my work is to chronicle and learn. What shall you do?”

That weepy look came back to the stranger and he looked over at me before going on.

“I will push off to start in the law, Alex. What else is there for an American boy to do? I shall win many cases from the sympathy for my face and general poverty of education. I fear there are no good alternatives. Love is a mystery and after that is free labor. Such as it is, as I have one, but not the other. Democracy is the right to make do, Alex. The right to make do.”

And with that a hard embrace and I saw Mr. Bo and Mr. Ville out, bags and all.

And the Stranger?

“I will be seeing you Miss Renee, and I will recall our acquaintance most fondly.”

I ain’t keep the guest list long but on my word you know what it said. I wished there was more. But men always have you wish for more, so why should they be anything else now?

I know who they were and I don’t need no lawyer and no document to verify nothing. You can go on as you please. I’m too old in this year now 1891. 82 years is long but sometimes a year is a bright year in a memory. And some nights shine better than others.

Like Mr. Lincoln said, I done made do. And I suspect that makes me a real live American, don’t it?

So you keep looking for your records. I can remember the things that ain’t happened. Especially those. And the ones that weren’t supposed to happen even better.

Even better.