A Free State (19 page)

“Here,” I said, producing the cigars. “These are made in Havana. Do you know where that is?”

“Cuba! That's where Spanish Pete was from.”

“Spanish Pete,” I said. “Tell me who he was.”

“He used to sort the crops for market. Or he'd divide them into house vegetables, market vegetables.” He held the cigar to his nose. “That smells good,” he said.

I was mulling what he'd said, since so many bondsmen were from the West Indies and spoke French, or variants thereof, rather than Spanish.

“Do you know how Pete happened to come to where you lived? It was a farm, of course?”

He nodded and said, “In Virginia. I don't know how he got there. He was just there. He taught me how to speak Spanish.”

“You can speak Spanish!” I said. “Say something to me in Spanish!”

“Mariposa la basura de quanto varieades de supuesto!
”

“That is not Spanish!” I said. But he was laughing at the expression on my face. His accent, be it said, was perfect, although the words were utter nonsense. I found myself laughing along with him. “I hope you didn't pay him for lessons!”

“No,” he said. “It was all out in the barn.”

I refilled our glasses and gestured to him to direct the smoke toward the window I had opened. “Addie—Mrs. Seward—does not encourage me to smoke in the house.”

We smoked our cigars and drank our brandy and talked easily, without a fixed direction or agenda, and I won't be overstating if I say that it was one of the most enjoyable hours I had spent in recent memory. He spoke of seeing and hearing traveling musicians when he was a boy—he was yet little more than a boy, for that—and of being shown the secrets of the banjar by an older man who worked in the wood shop at the farm. He spoke of playing for dances at the farm, and of the river that ran alongside the property, the boats that
came and went. The smell of food cooking, and the tasks at the wood shop. When he spoke of the farm, an odd quality of melancholy, or nostalgia, seemed to reveal itself. He spoke of the afternoon sun as it came in through the wood shop door and illuminated the wood shavings on the floor. He spoke of the fellow, Enoch, who came back from being hired out in the city, wearing a red silk scarf, and the wonder this engendered in him, and of hearing the banjar for the first time. The world was a simple one as he rendered it—a place with a wood shop, a dairy, a mansion house. I had the oddest feeling that he, or some part of him, yearned for that relative simplicity, and I asked him about that. “You sound almost as if you miss the place,” is what I said.

He reacted as if I had suggested the most preposterous idea imaginable.“Miss it!” he said. “I would not go back there for anything.” But on his face was the saddest expression I think I have ever seen. We went on to other things, but my mind stayed with that paradox which had presented itself. How would one manage to live in the world, carrying that peculiar burden of nostalgia for an intolerable situation? What were the costs of leaving a place whose familiarity both sustained you and threatened to extinguish you?

He told me he had performed onstage, with a minstrel troupe for which he needed to black his own face, although he was evasive on the topic of where this was. I asked him if he had ever tried to compose a song of his own.

He demurred at first, but at length he agreed to deliver it for me.

“Just not at full voice,” I said. “Let's not bring Addie's wrath down upon us.”

He set his glass down rather deliberately—I sensed that he was feeling the brandy's effects—and, cigar clenched in his teeth, reached to the bed and picked up his banjar and set it in his lap, strummed down softly and did his usual string adjustments as I poured myself another small shot of the brandy. I gestured an offer to him but he declined.

The banjar in tune, he began a jaunty rhythm on the strings and in short order commenced singing. I later wrote down the words as well as I could remember them:

Hoe cakes in the mornin'

Chicken at dinnertime

Whiskey when I'm thirsty

Heaven when I'm dyin'.

It's a fine old world for some folks

And I take it as I can

Today I'm just a Darky

Someday I'll be a man.

I went down South to see my gal

I did not go to stay

Patateroller caught me

And I could not get away.

It's a fine old world for some folks

And I take it as I can

Today I'm just a poor old slave

Someday I'll be a man.

They beat me and they cursed me

They tore off all my clothes

They put me in that cotton field

And called me Little Mose

They had a man to watch us

He sat astride a horse

I never did find out his name

We had to call him “Boss.”

It's a fine old world for some folks

And I take it as I can

Today they call me nigger

Someday I'll be a man.

At night I dream of Freedom

By day I dream the same

Someday I'll go to Canaan's land

And have a brand-new name.

It's a fine old world for some folks

And I take it as I can

I'll head up North where folks are free

And stand up like a man.

When he had finished, he avoided my eyes, made a few adjustments to the strings, reached for his cigar on the table, as I sat, groping for words. I was quite undone by the song, despite, or perhaps because of, the happy rhythm that accompanied the sad tale and set it into sharp and painful relief. What manner of person would be able to sing of such difficulties with such a mixture of mockery and rue? Of humor and resolve? Who could contain such contradictions within himself without going mad?

“Well,” I said. “Well, indeed.” I cleared my throat.

Not long afterward, we said our good nights. I headed upstairs with the bottle and the glasses, set them in the kitchen, and tried to tease out some scenario by which this brilliant and unusual young man could be induced to stay. I would get a message to Rochester, and I would think of a few other options.

In bed I drifted off on a lake, asleep, and found myself in a forest of straw, with the sense that a fire was consuming some distant tract and I needed to make my way quickly. As I did so I was compelled to discard my effects, and I jettisoned a series of indistinct objects, which were then spirited away by unrecognizable creatures. Sometime in the night I was awakened from this dream, or vision, by a sound, a scraping sound of some sort, coming from outside the house. It seemed to persist, and I shook off the residue of sleep, put on my robe, and went downstairs to see the cause, taking a good oil lamp with me.

I stood under our
porte cochère
, padded about some, and could discover no cause. Likely some animal, I thought, rummaging for food. Raccoons and possums ruled the nighttime hours. Sometimes the mornings as well. Or perhaps it was one of my dream creatures come to life. As there seemed nothing discoverable I went back inside, paused to listen at the door to the basement, heard nothing there, and went back to bed.

The next morning's skies were the color of gypsum dust; snowflakes swept past the window as I took my breakfast and drank my coffee. Nicholas had brought the paper in, as usual, and I perused it until I heard, once again, the scraping noise that had awakened me in the night, along with some indis
tinct voices. I stood to investigate. Something—I cannot say quite what—impelled me to walk to our second pantry and open a door, behind which I kept two rifles and a pistol. I picked up one of the rifles and made sure it was loaded; then, satisfied, I went back to the side door and opened it onto the chill air.

Just down the driveway I saw a man I did not recognize and, past him a way farther down our drive toward the street, two useless characters whom I did recognize from the town.

“Who are you?” I said.

The one nearer me seemed to laugh slightly, and said, “Oh, hi. You're Mr. Seward?”

He was a singularly unattractive piece of work, with a turned eye and a greasy-looking hat and coat, and his manner of address could hardly have been more rude.

“I am Senator Seward,” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “Sorry to disturb you, Senator. We heard that somebody we're looking for is hiding in your house.” He smiled after he said this, as if he had delivered some piece of witty news. “I'll bet you know who I'm talking about.”

Addie would tell you that I do have a temper. It does not flare up often, but when it is aroused it is frightening even to myself. Insolence, injustice, disrespect, will summon it from its shallow slumber, and it came upon me then with a force that demanded all my willpower to control. My grip had tightened around the rifle barrel, which I held by my side. I consciously relaxed it as much as I could.

“You,” I hollered to the two men who stood uneasily at the end of the drive, under the elms. “Collins and Shea. Get on your way. Now.” Without any further word they walked off
at a good pace. I turned my focus to the figure in front of me. “You are trespassing upon my property,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “I'm hired to find stolen goods, Senator. Those men are my deputies . . .”

“Deputies!” I said. “As well deputize horse manure. Leave my property now and do not come back.”

The smile again. “Well, not so fast, there, Mr. Seward. The law says you have to help me, and anybody who doesn't can get . . .”

“I am a United States senator,” I told him. “I
write
the law. And the law is not intended to give free rein to vigilantes. I'm telling you a final time that you are on my property, and if you remain here, or return, I promise you an unhappy ending.” I leveled my rifle at him. “Get going.”

Behind me I heard Ella call my name, asking if everything were all right. I told her to go back to the kitchen.

“You're not going to shoot me in the back, are you, Senator?” the figure said, with an ugly smile.

I was, I believe, angrier than I had ever been in my life. “Sir, I will shoot you in your head and claim self-defense if you are not gone by my count of ten.”

With a couple of steps backward he started moving off, and then he turned and headed down the drive without a backward glance. I stood there and watched him until he walked out of our gate and headed to the left, toward town. When I was satisfied that he was gone, I walked back inside and sat at the table, leaned the rifle against a chair, and tried to steady myself. Nicholas appeared, and I told him I was all right, and to replace the rifle in its rack, which he did. When I had control of myself, I rang and requested more coffee.

I composed a note to the Friend who had conducted our guest, to apprise him of the development, and then it occurred to me to wonder whether William had heard these goings-on. I rose, walked to the basement door, and went down the stairs, calling William's name. I heard no answer.

He was not in the room. The bed had been made, and the banjar was gone, along with his few other effects.

“William,” I called out, again.

On the table where our glasses had set the night before were the Dickens volumes I had lent him, and on top of them a small sheet of paper with some handwriting, which read:

thank you, senator. I will be all rite, don't worry. Please say thank you to Missus Senator and to Fanny for me. I'll show her the trick next time I see you all.—Wm.

I sat down on the bed. I looked around our basement, which had given temporary shelter to many others, and would again. To live at the grace of others' goodwill. To live life without ever having a place of your own. To hide in basements. That the law should sanction the hunting of men! That any man dare call another property!

That evening we ate our dinner silently, as if in mourning. What was there to say? Fanny was, of course, heartbroken. After we had put her to bed, Addie and I sat up in the parlor, quietly. She was knitting, and I tried to read but had little success. In our warm parlor, by lamplight, I felt the cold outside. I feel it still, and I fear for my country.

T
hanks to my editor, and friend, Cal Morgan, his invaluable assistant, Laura Brown, and my brilliant and loyal agent Amy Williams. Thanks to the MacDowell Colony, where this book was begun, and Sheila Pleasants and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where much of it was written. Thanks to Elvis Costello, Jeff Rosen, David Gates, and Ry Cooder for encouragement and friendship along the way, and to the banjo brain trust—Jim Bollman, Pete Ross, Cece Conway, Tony Thomas, Bob Smakula, Greg Adams, Kevin Enoch, Paul Brown, Bob Carlin, Tony Trischka, Bob Winans, Dom Flemons, Peter Szego, and Adam Hurt—for much insight and for favors large and small.

To the memory of Mike Seeger, and to Alexia Smith, who did me the honor of inviting me to choose a couple of Mike's instruments for my own, one of which was the banjo that started me thinking about the scenes, themes, and meanings that came together in this book.

To my mother, Lillian Piazza, who has always encouraged me with her spirit and love.

And, always, to Mary Howell, my much, much better half.

TOM PIAZZA
is the author of the novels
City of Refuge
and
My Cold War
, the post-Katrina manifesto
Why New Orleans Matters
, the essay collection
Devil Sent the Rain
, and many other works. He was a principal writer for the HBO drama series
Treme
, and the winner of a Grammy Award for his album notes to
Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues: A Musical Journey
. He lives in New Orleans.

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