The year is 1809, on a plantation in southern Mississippi is where the tale of Sty and Polly takes place. He's a house slave and the illegitimate child of a plantation owner. She's a field slave brought in by shackles and wishful thinking. Together...
"I's gonna kill him!" Mike promised when he got back from building in town.
"Nigger, are you crazy?" One of the white overseers asked him but that didn't stop Mike from walking up on Curtis. And beating him inside of the big house.
All of the other enslaved folks went over and watched. Those who couldn't fit inside looked on from the porch and even the windows. Cheering whenever Mike's solid fist connected to Curtis's face which was a lot. Curtis screamed like a frightened girl and I should've enjoyed it as payback but it only sickened me because Mike was getting himself in trouble because of me.
The white overseers tried to get towards the 2 fighting men but the area was too crowded so they had to force themselves inside.
Curtis was already down when they came over. Mike lunged at one of them which only deepened the foul trouble he got himself in. They forcibly dragged him out to the yard as he fought away.
"We are about to teach you a lesson." They told him.
The enslaved folks around got rowdy but neither dared to actually do something about it. Meanwhile, Olivia and her mom helped a bloody Curtis from the hallway floor.
The white man quickly got his cruel whip and swung furiously at Mike not caring how or where he'd hit him.
Tears leaked from my eyes.
"Stoppit! He was only defending me." Lulu shrilled as she ran from inside and towards them like a madwoman because no other slave dared, not even the biggest or the baddest.
My mama always said Lulu was hell in a dress while the other women on the plantation blamed it on her being dropped on the head too many times as an infant. But I liked Lulu, she was everything at one point in time that I inspired to be.
She convinced them to stop as I sped over and helped Mike.
"All of you nigger fuckers better take this as a lesson even you Lulu!" The man with the whip yelled.
"My father will be hearing about this." She challenged him, "he doesn't like it when nobody speaks down on me."
The white man gripped her thin arm and pulled her inside as they walked through the anxious crowd on the porch.
"Help me!" I cried while holding Mike's bloody body as some other enslaved folks ran over.
"You did good, Mike." One of them said to him.
"That's what he deserved all along for disrespectin' us." Another one voiced.
"Thank you, Mike!"
He peeked from one of his swollen eyes as I couldn't keep from smiling. "How did I do?"
"Magnificent!" I answered.
Sty said nothing when I met up with him in the attic a week later. I wondered if he heard or at least saw what went down from the window. A book rested on my legs as I flipped through each dull page silently reading while Sty sat at a desk with his head in a book also.
My stomach started growling, so I closed the book before standing from the rocking chair.
"Sty..." I spoke softly "I's don't know if you've noticed or even care but we hungry out there. They never feed us. Little Black children have died off from starvation too. So I's was kinda hoping you'd help fix this problem?"
He looked up from the book confused.
"How?"
"You can sneak us out food every other day."
He stared into the unknown distance probably debating with himself. I knew it was risky to ask and even riskier to do. But I had come to believe that Miss Elaine genuinely liked Sty more than Lulu.
Why? I had no idea maybe because the girl reminded her of her mother and wasn't confused at all when it came down to where she stood with these people, unlike Sty who I felt was very confused.
"I don't know i—"
"Pleaseeee!!!"
"I'll try."
And that he did. I became nervous for him. But so far the folks back in the slave quarters were enjoying it even if the food they got wasn't much. Everybody but my ma saw it as a good idea. She'd often come to me complaining about how I would be causing trouble if any of the Williamson clan found out what Sty was doing for us.
"That boy has been through enough he doesn't need to be dragged into anything else especially something dangerous like this that could ultimately cost him his life." She said.
What she said made me laugh on the inside because only if she knew him as I did she'd know he broke the rules all the time.
She pulled me close as we sat out in front of the slave quarters. "Did he tell you their mother was killed?"
"No, but I's heard."
"Well, she was and you'll end up just like her if you keep being so stiffed neck and not taking my word." She responded.
"Why'd they only kill her and not Olivia's mom or the other women like her?" I was curious about what made their mom so different from the rest of the enslaved women that he impregnated.
Olivia was always fighting for his attention. I was sure she'd do anything for that man's love even take on his prejudice views.
"Zo never wanted him he forced himself on her and forced her to love him, but ion think she ever truly did. She may have loved her children, but she hated that man." Ma recalled.
"And Olivia's mother?"
"Zo's younger sister."
My mouth fell open at this news. "That doesn't make no sense."
"Nothing on this plantation does," She leaned forward looking at her shoes. "Women like Olivia's mother are weak they submit because they don't want to fight."
"Do you think she loves Larry?"
Ma chuckled. "Her and that daughter of hers love anybody that could better their situation they ain't never been worried bout nobody but themselves."
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