The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [18]
In the second following John's question, the air held quiet, free of chatter. Then voices rose.
“All black people ought to support Castro.”
“Cuba is all right. Castro is all right.”
“Castro acts like he grew up in Harlem.”
“He speaks Spanish, but it could be niggerese.”
John waited until the voices fell.
“There's no time like right now. You know about the slave who decided to buy his freedom?” Small smiles began to grow on the black, brown and yellow faces. Grace chuckled and bit into her cigarette holder.
“Well, this negero was a slave, but his owner allowed him to take jobs off the plantation at night, on weekends and holidays. He worked. Now, mind you, I mean, he would work on the plantation and then walk fifteen miles to town and work there, then walk back, get two hours' sleep and get up at daybreak and work again. He saved every penny. Wouldn't marry, wouldn't even take advantage of the ladies around him. Afraid he'd have to spend some of his hard-earned money. Finally, he saved up a thousand dollars. Lot of money. He went to his master and asked how much he was worth. The white man asked why the question. The negero said he just wanted to know how much slaves cost. The white man said he usually paid eight hundred to twelve hundred dollars for a good slave, but in the case of Tom, because he was getting old and couldn't father any children, if he wanted to buy himself, the master would let him go for six hundred dollars.
“Tom thanked the slave owner and went back to his cabin. He dug up his money and counted it. He fondled and caressed the coins and then put them back in their hiding place. He returned to the white man and said, ‘Boss, freedom is a little too high right now. I'm going to wait till the price come down.’”
We all laughed, but the laughter was acrid with embarrassment. Most of us had been Toms at different times of our lives. There had been occasions when the price of freedom was more than I wanted to pay. Around the room faces showed others also were remembering.
“There is a Fair Play for Cuba organization. An ad is going to be taken out in the daily newspapers. The ad will cost money. Anyone who wants to sign it can find the form in the living room. Put your name down and if you can afford to, leave some money in the bowl on the cocktail table.”
A few people began to move hurriedly toward the front room, but John stopped them.
“Just a minute. I just want to remind you all that if your name appears in the ad this afternoon, you can bet ten thousand dollars and a sucker that by nightfall it'll be in the FBI files. You'll be suspect. Just remember that.”
John Clarke coughed his laugh again. “Hell, if you're born black in the United States, you're suspect of being everything, except white, of course.” We laughed, relieved at the truth told in our own bitter wit. I thought of lines in Sterling Brown's poem “Strong Men”:
We followed away, and laughed as usual.
They heard the laugh and wondered.
Just before I left the house, I signed the already-filled application form.
Paule Marshall stopped me at the door. “I really want to hear your rewrite. You know, lots of people have more talent than you or I. Hard work makes the difference. Hard, hard unrelenting work.”
The meeting was over. Members were embraced, kissed lips or cheeks and patted each other. John Killens offered to drive me home.
Grace hugged me and whispered. “Ya did good, kid, and I know you were scared witless.”
When John parked in front of my house, I gathered my papers and asked, “What's the hardest literary form, John?”
“Each one is the hardest. Fiction is impossible. Ask me. Poetry is impossible. Ask Langston or Countee. Baldwin will say essays are impossible. But everyone agrees, short stories are so impossible, they almost can't be written at all.”
I opened the car door, “John, put me down for a reading in two months. I'll be reading a new short story. Good night.”
I thought about my statement as I walked up the stairs. I had gathered from the evening's meeting that making a