Smudges

Butter

   You ever have a feeling you shouldn't continue to do something but you can't stop yourself, at my age back so many years ago how on earth was I suppose to know? I was young and I hadn't seen the world or the hurt that laid within the lands that spread all around me. When you peer out the window of yours as I did on so many evenings before I drift asleep you can see so much beauty. I remember the way the grass blades grew straight up in that yard with a distinctive small fold in the middle of it as it grew toward the sky it would narrow towards the end. Grass reminds me of coolness of the skin. I remember one morning not many days after the rose incident laying with my cheek on the soft cool grass one morning as the sun warmed the air. The way it made my skin feel cool and clean.

   I could hear in the distance the low chanting . I knew the slaves often sung to pass the long hours. I heard my mom sing but nothing like the smooth deep rhythm you can hear from the fields on a hot day. Did they sing to pass the time I wonder or was it  to communicate with each other when talking was prohibited on production days. I glance in the direction the song is coming from. Its about a river winding north, I can't point out anyone in particular singing. I knew a lot of them by name but some just by faces. My favorite 2 people on this plantation is Mrs. Janet and the main cook slave, we just call her Mama J. She is a tall big woman. I often wonder if she ate food all day as she cooked. She smells of bacon and eggs and flour and sugar.

The brick to the steps leading up to the old wooden floor were as natural without paint as they could be. The door painted white with 6 vertical boards nailed with a diagonal board to make a makeshift door for the kitchen, I noticed the paint chipped and peeled here and there.

The kitchen house was separate from the main house, behind it, separated by a small vegetable garden. The appeal of it was simple and practical. Always the smoke that rolled out of the chimney to it made my stomach growl.

I ran through that painted white door the bricks felt cool and rough to my bare feet. It smelled of butter and sugar, warm butter. Mama J turned halfway around as if she was ready to chastise someone. Her forehead wrinkled and cleared her throat. She turned back around and tapped on the pantry door she stood beside.

"Come on out boy" Mama J said in a voice of relief.

The door creaked open, I watched as a figure emerged from out of the darkness of the small pantry. I felt my eyes go completely wide open. Malachi stepped out I felt my face turn the color of the very blood that runs through me. Malachi stood there completely shirtless. His pants stained with mud and what looked to be blood. I ran in there almost giggling only a minute ago... now I stood there horrified.

"Sparrow hand me the butter" Mama J demanded, I reached for the bowl of melted butter, my hands felt shaky, " no girl the cold butter right over by the apples" Confused and mostly fluster I grabbed it and handed it to her while keeping my eyes on the floor. It felt inappropriate to look at a boy shirtless that close to me.

I felt her hands grab the butter from my hand, she told Malachi to turn around. I quickly glanced up I didn't mean to, it was almost involuntarily my eye's looked up. I saw something so disturbing it will always be burnt into my mind. I saw a M on his back bigger than my hand. His brown skin burnt, melted, blistered, and bleeding, Mama J rubbed the cool butter over it while his knuckles turned almost white holding onto the counter table. I felt faint, I felt sick, everything faded and I went black.