Excerpt: The Glow

The sun began to dip beneath the horizon and the crickets sang their evening lullaby as Fran watched the sunset. It wasn’t often that she had the opportunity to sit and appreciate such beauty like the sun lying down to rest for the evening. Her eyes darting here and there, she felt like she was doing something wrong, preventing her from fully enjoying the scene. It seemed like every time a slave found a bit of happiness, white folk made it a priority to take it away.
Well, that was how it was for most of her days. She’d been on at the Sheehan plantation for some time now, and it wasn’t as bad as where she came from, but when you’re used to nothing but despair then you don’t expect anything better. So she was always careful about miniscule praises that she would let seep into her thoughts when it came to the Sheehan land because she knew in the back of her mind that it was only a matter of time when comfortable would become good living…that is, good living by a slave’s standards. Then good living would become hell on earth because a good thing never lasts.
Twenty-one now and she’d had her share of heartache. She figured she was about twenty-one. Never knew when her birthday was. Just knew that when she was put up on the block for the second time, that she could remember, the dirty man with blackened teeth announced to the crowd.
“Here we have a nineteen year old wench, birthed only one, still fresh, and bound to produce more healthy bucks. We’ll start the bidding at $450.”
After that, Fran didn’t hear anything else. She could see the sea of white and pink faces thrusting their hands or their hats high in the air, competing for her hide, but their voices were muted, drowned out by her own thoughts. The man had said that she was nineteen. What a delightful piece of information.
Fran could count a little. The slaves had to in order to work the fields. They had to know how many cutlings had to go in each row. So as soon as she found out how old she was, she made it a point to keep track. Now she was twenty-one give or take a few months. Three summers had gone by since she came to the Sheehan plantation.
Even she had to admit to herself that it was a better life…not necessarily a happy one, but better. She had her ups and downs. Downs being that the other slaves and the Missus didn’t care for her too much. The slaves were pleasant enough, but never went out of their way to share a piece of corn cake, invite her over to one of their cabins for a visit, or never offered her a handful to save her from the overseer’s whip when her sack was light after a day out in the field.
Even though she was rarely in the presence of the missus, Sarah Sheehan, it was made known that there was nothing but hate for Fran whenever their paths cross.
“Fran!” She called out to her one day.
Eyes down, hands clasped in front of her, Fran rushed over to Sarah. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“I just stepped in some dog shit. Now you clean it off my boot. You smell like dog shit anyway, and these are new.” She lifted her skirt and presented her boot to Fran. If Fran didn’t know any better, she would have thought that Sarah had stepped in the feces on purpose. There was no reason for that woman to be traipsing around with the dogs.
Fran looked around searching for a pail so that she could fetch some water from the well. Sarah eyes followed Fran’s.
“Now I aint got time for all that, use the bottom of your dress.” There wasn’t anything to do but obey. So, Fran dropped to her knees and scrubbed the soiled boot with the bottom of her dress. Satisfied for the time being, Sarah retreated back into the coolness and shade of the house while Fran stood out in the hot sun baking with dog shit drying on her garment. Sarah always found little things like that to torment Fran with, so Fran tried her best to keep her distance.
On the brighter side, she had her own cabin—the best cabin at that. Usually, four to five slaves had to share a space. Ten to a cabin at one point and time, but when things started looking up and George Sheehan’s land produced a nice lining for his pockets; he was able to expand the slave’s quarters.
Fran was one of the only two slaves with her own cabin, so of course that didn’t go unnoticed by the others.
“Why she get her own space? We’s laying on top of each other!”
“She the massa’s whore. That’s all that is.”
“I laid up with him for years before she came, and I aint never got me no cabin to myself. It even got a new stove.”
“It aint got no new stove,” Mama Ruby spoke up. “Ya’ll leave her be. What you spec her to do? Say No? I gots my own place…the biggest place, and aint none of you had nothin’ to say about it fars I know. Aint says nothin’ to my face.” She glared out at the small gossiping group one at a time challenging them with her eyes.
“You take care of all the suckers. You can have that big ol’ cabin if it mean I aint gotta stay up all night with hollering babies.”
“Hmmph. Well if you stop having them, maybe I could get me a little peace.” Mamma Ruby eyed Sissy with contempt. “Stop acting ill towards that gal. She nice enough. She just doing what she gotta do.”
“Act like she like it to me.” One rambunctious youngin’ stated as he picked at the calluses on his hands. He’d had his eye on Fran every since she’d arrived, and was disappointed when she became the master’s bedmate. “Surprised the missus aint had massa sell her down river by now.”
“Massa aint gettin’ rid of Fran. He got a taste for her, and aint no one—not even the missus gwan get him to get rid of her.”
That was one thing all the slaves agreed on. George Sheehan had it bad for Fran. Like there was gold between her legs. They were surprised that he hadn’t moved her into the big house by now and made her into a house slave. There wouldn’t be one slave who wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall when she walked into the dining room and served Missus Sarah her soup. All pristine would fly right on out the window following Fran’s battered body.
The sun continued sinking below the horizon and Fran sat on the small stoop in front of her door rubbing her sore feet. She could smell the fat seasoned beans and okra being heated in the other cabins and her stomach began to growl. She had plenty of her own portions, but for some reason the food from yonder seemed more appetizing. She didn’t know if it was because it was accompanied with laughter and good company or if there was some other secret ingredient causing it to smell more appealing.
She didn’t have an appetite for her own food and decided to let it sit in the cooler box as is and continued rubbing her feet letting the shadows fall upon her. She could hear faint thumping of horse hoofs hitting the dirt and she looked up to see George Sheehan and his boys returning from town.
George rode high astride his favorite mare, Beanie. His tired mature face was pleasant and even when he wasn’t smiling, you could still see traces of one threatening to escape from the corners of his mouth. He was firm, but fair and treated his slaves better than most if not all slave owners in Molina. Often ridiculed by his neighbors, he ignored the comments and taunts about how he babied his niggers. The comments never bothered him. His slaves were good and obedient, and he believed in keeping them content.
Flanked on both sides were his sons, George Jr. and Ryan. Junior, eighteen was the spitting image of his father. He was a tall and lean man with light brown hair and thick eyebrows. The sides of his mouth had the same permanent curl, but his smile was evil, not pleasant like his father’s. Junior was lazy and spoiled. He hated working and didn’t see the point of it when they had more slaves than they actually needed.
Many times George would try to explain to Junior that he would one day own the land and it was important for him to know how to work it, hands on. He needed to know how the soil felt running between his fingers and toes. He needed to recognize the look, smell, and feel of the tobacco and be able to tell if it was ready or not, if it was good or bad.
Other than smoking it, Junior had no interest in tobacco. His sport leaned more towards the flesh. He was the main one responsible for keeping Mamma Ruby’s cabin full of babies, even at his young age. Nothing pleased him more than breaking a young nigger bitch; the younger the better.
Fifteen year old Ryan favored his mother. He was short for his age. Very abnormal, hardly ever uttered a word. Most of the slaves had never ever heard him speak. He pretty much did everything his father told him to do. He worked the land alongside the slaves when commanded. Never complained…never showed any emotion at all while out in the hot sun picking tobacco.
The slaves actually feared Ryan more than Junior. At least with Junior they knew what they were getting. Ryan was a mystery to them. There was something odd—something evil within him. There would be times that he would just sit in the gazebo with his mother just staring at her for hours, not saying anything, just staring like an idiot who’d been kicked in the head by a mule.
George paid little to no attention to Ryan. Fifteen years of having the boy and he could barely even look at him; could be because he was raising another man’s child. He knew that he couldn’t possibly be Ryan’s father. He hadn’t known Sarah in that way for a very long time, way before Ryan was ever conceived.
Their marriage was an arranged marriage, an agreement over money. Sarah was supposed to be an added bonus. More of a penalty than a bonus, George had never grown to love Sarah like he promised her he would when they first met. She was pretty enough, long golden wavy blond hair and pouty pink lips. It was her heart. It was a cold barren place, and George couldn’t seem to warm it, instead catching a little coldness himself when he was around her.
One winter, they hosted a party and her family came to stay for the Christmas holidays, Sarah’s parents, two sisters, uncle from her father’s side, and his wife and son, Phillip. George soon grew tired of Sarah’s rambling about how she and Phillip grew up so close like brother and sister, and he’d retired early. Didn’t recall when Sarah came to bed and really didn’t care, but a month and a half later she announced that she was with child swearing that George didn’t remember them being together one night when he was drunk. George Sheehan was no stranger to moonshine, but knew better. Still, he decided to let her live in her lie and claim Ryan as his own. He never again returned to her bed.
George and his sons slowed their horses to a trot as they neared the slave cabins on their way to the barn. He neared the edge where Fran’s cabin stood. Fran looked up at the approaching men and stood to her feet.
“Massa, Massa Junior, Massa Ryan, welcome back.” She mumbled staring down at her bare feet. Junior continued on, ignoring Fran’s greeting.
“Oh, hey there Fran.” George tipped his hat at her and then removed it. Fran looked up and into his face. George gave her a long hard gaze, his eyes relaying a secret message. The corners of his mouth curled ever so slightly, just enough for Fran to see it and he rode on. A smile threatened to escape her own lips but was halted when she glimpsed Ryan’s face. He had caught their exchange.
His eyes blazed like the inferno of hell. His upper lip curled, not into a smile, but a sneer. Fran could see a wild unrecognizable animal in his face. She looked back down at her feet and waited for him to pass.
When the men were a ways away and resembled little dolls on toy horses, Fran turned and rushed into her small cabin. She knew it would be a few hours, but she had to be ready for Massa. She ran her hand down between her legs and then brought it to her nose. It wasn’t bad, but could be better. She reached for her water bucket and made her way outside and to the well the slaves got their water from.
Because of a stupid miscalculation on the temperament of one of the mules, George could no longer perform sexually, but that didn’t stop him from coming to Fran’s cabin just to lie with her, touch her, and even talk. He would go on for hours about everything. Some of the things he talked about, Fran didn’t understand, but she always proved to be a good listener.
After returning to her cabin, Fran took a rag and began to try to wash away the scent of the day’s work from her skin…just in case. She always wanted to be ready just in case Massa wanted more than conversation. She took some mutton suet off the single shelf in the corner of her cabin and rubbed the grease into her hair flattening it out as much as possible, and then tied the scarf over her head. After doing the best she could with what she had, Fran sat on her mattress and waited.

“Dear Lord, thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your grace and the many blessings you’ve bestowed upon us. Please lead us in the path of the righteousness. Teach us how to appreciate and respect one another, son to mother, son to father, and husband to wife, for you have deemed it so. There is nothing more precious, nothing more sacred, nothing more pure than the bond between husband and wife. Please cleanse the sins of the wicked deeds done in the name of Satan and let us repent and pray you’ll have mercy.”
George lifted his head slightly, opened one eye, and looked over at his wife as she blessed their supper. He couldn’t help but wonder if she thought about the purity of that bond while Philip was ramming his dick in her.
Sarah went on with her mini sermon. Whether it was to awaken knowledge, sympathy, or guilt, she always took advantage of grace, seeing it as the only time George would sit still long enough to hear her rant. She took the opportunity to try and call up something in him. Tonight, it sounded like she was going for shame.
Let those without sin cast the first stone. George wanted to say. He had had enough. “Finish already, Sarah, before the damn food gets cold.” He growled.
With a sigh of annoyance, Sarah winded down to an end. “In your almighty name, Amen.”
Junior cleared his throat stifling a laugh as Ryan mumbled a weak amen.
“It would have been nice for you to mention the food in that lovely blessing.” George said sarcastically as he picked at his plate.
“Well some things are more important than food, dear.” Sarah cut her eyes over at George. “Anyway, I was getting to it. It was your stomach that couldn’t wait.”
Cee Cee stood off to the side waiting to be summoned in case anyone needed anything. Eyes straight ahead, she had Missus O’Hara in her peripheral. Cee Cee was so glad her emotions didn’t display on her face like an open book because every time she was around Missus and the younger boy, Ryan, her stomach twisted into knots. There was something about those two that just wasn’t right, something unnatural.
“Now this is a downright shame,” Sarah began. “You just wouldn’t believe what I saw with my very own eyes this afternoon.” She waited for someone to bite and inquire. George and Junior continued on with their meal as if they didn’t hear her, but Ryan paused mid bite and looked over at his mother with curiosity.
“I saw that nigger, James, a few feet from our porch.” She paused for dramatic effect. “He was just staring up at the sky! Just staring! My God!”
“So.” George looked at her wondering what her point was. “Maybe he was trying to see if he could tell if rain was coming.”
“Well, why wasn’t he in the field, George? Are we so rich? Do we have way too many slaves, and we can afford to have field hands daydreaming and trying to find shapes in the clouds?” Sarah stopped and grabbed her wine glass and took a sip, lost for words.
“She has a point, Pa.” Junior spoke up. “We really do have more than we need. We’re paying more to feed and clothe them than the work they putting in. Theys been finishing the harvest early for the last two seasons and don’t have nothing to do but make more darkies.”
George knew for a fact that the four high-yellow sandy-haired colored children running around belonged to his son. He looked over at Junior and considered what he was saying. He never thought of it that way. He was a packrat. Once he bought something, he took care of it and kept it until it gave out on him.
“We should sell some of them, George.” Sarah gave him a desperate look. “We have the most slaves in the county and some of these other plantations are struggling. We can sell dirt cheap and still come out on top. We’ll get money from the sale and save money on the care we would have had to give them. There’s talk all over the place of war and you don’t want a ton of nigras with nothing to do if that happen. It’ll be a mess. They’ll try to kill us in our sleep.”
“There aint gon’ be no war. Why don’t you leave the running of this place to the men, Sarah?” George replied without looking up at her.
“Well excuse me! There was a time that a nigger would have been strung up for breathing the same air as a white woman, but now a husband don’t blink an eye when she gone and tell him that there was a field hand prancing around their front door.” Sarah waved her hand whimsically in the air. “Maybe next time, I’ll invite him up on the porch for a cool drink, and we could watch the clouds together.”
“Damn it all to hell!” Ryan slammed his fork on the table and then threw his glass towards Cee Cee just missing her head and shattering it on the wall behind her. Everyone jumped and turned their attention towards him. The boy had fury in his eyes and his top lip quivered. George began to yell out, but caught his tongue. He didn’t care what insanity the boy had in his head. He had things to do. Junior leaned back in his chair and grinned amused at his peculiar little brother. It was obvious that he needed some direction from his older sibling. It wasn’t nothing that some black poontang couldn’t cure.
George tossed his napkin down on his plate and pushed his chair back.
“George, you haven’t finished your dinner.” Sarah said with a pleading voice. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” He stood up and walked out of the dining room.
“Out where?” Sarah followed him, but she knew. He was going to see his nigger whore.

Fran began to doze off when she heard a light tap at her door. She always thought it was silly for Massa to knock. She stood to her feet and went to let in the person who she knew to be on the other side.
“Good evening, Fran.”
Fran bowed her head slightly as George entered her cabin with his arms full of gifts. He walked over to the small table in the corner and sat his offerings down. Fran followed close behind curious of what George had brought. Every time he came to visit Fran, he always had something for her. It could be something as simple as few more food rations, but every once in awhile he would have something new and exciting for her to experience.
“What ya got there, Massa?”
“George,” he corrected her.
“What ya done brung this time…George?” Every time George came to visit Fran, he insisted that she call him by his first name. Of course outside of the cabin she was to address him as all slaves would address their owner, Master, eyes downcast, never to make eye contact. That simple mistake would be a sign of disrespect, resulting in punishment.
Even though he turned a blind eye to the way the overseer managed things, George was a kind enough man to his servants that he wouldn’t sentence any type of corporal punishment. Still, the slaves never crossed that line no matter what they knew they could get away with.
Fran observed, excited as George laid items out on the table. He sat out material for her to tie her hair down with, a nice size hunk of pork wrapped up in a cheese cloth, and a chipped clay pitcher full of butter milk. Last, he sat an abstract clump of something brown down on the table. To Fran it looked like a hunk of mud that the wagon wheel kicked up and she frowned.
“What’s that, Massa?”
“George.”
“What that be, George?” She said his name cautious and delicately.
He chuckled at the look of disgust on her face. He reached into the pocket of his trousers and took out a pocket knife. George cut off a small piece of the mud hunk.
“Open your mouth up, Fran.” She looked horrified but obeyed. George sat the piece on her tongue and watched as Fran closed her mouth and tasted the substance. He chuckled as the grimace brightened at the bitter sweetness.
“It’s chocolate. I brought some in from town. I’m gon’ have a big chocolate cake made. Do you like it?”
“Yes, Massa. I do.”
“George, Fran. In your house, you call me by my first name.”
“My house?” Fran covered her mouth to stifle her giggles. She had never thought of her old cabin as her house.
“Yes, your house!” George reached down, picked Fran up by her waist and swung her around. He looked into her eyes. “Oh my sweet, dear, beautiful Fran.”
Fran looked back into his face unable to keep the stare for more than a few seconds. Instead she looked past him and at the table behind his back. George set her down and turned to look at where her eyes had fallen. He laughed at what she was staring at, and Fran turned her head away in embarrassment.
“Want some more?” He went back over to the chocolate. Fran nodded and shyly looked down at her bare feet with a slight smile on her face. He cut another piece of chocolate and popped it into her mouth.
“Come Fran.” He took her by her hand. “Come and lie with me. I’ve had a long tiring day.” They walked over to her small straw cot. It was barely enough room for her, but they always seemed to manage ok with their bodies entwined. George turned to Fran and she began to undress him. When he stood there in nothing but his bare skin, she removed her dress and started towards the cot.
George stopped her. He sat upon the cot, held her away at arm’s length and took in the sight of her. She stood before him with her perfect body, muscular from working in the field, but still feminine and delicate. He took her hand and caressed the dark ebony skin on her arm. There was sadness in his eyes. He longed to be with Fran just one more time. He wanted to be buried inside of her, but that would never ever be, never again.
He put out the fire in the oil lamp and pulled her unto the cot with him where she lay upon his chest playing with the mass of curls there. The straw cot was stiff and murder on the back, but he always seemed to find more comfort there with Fran than anywhere else he’d laid his head.
“What troubles you Massa? I mean, George, Massa George.” Fran giggled.
George laughed. “I’m just tired, Fran. Tired and worried. I love this land with all my heart, and I just fear its future. These boys have no love for it.” He sighed. “I’ve tried to make them see it the way I do—to make them love it, but I guess you can’t force love on someone.
“Junior don’t care about nothing but women and booze. He’s just about the laziest boy I’ve ever known. That other one, I wouldn’t trust him to tend to my piss pot. If I’m murdered in my sleep, he would be the one who done it. He is a strange boy. Don’t hardly ever talk, and when he do, he say the most peculiar things. I just don’t know about Ryan.”
Fran grimaced at the sound of his name.
“What you think about him, Fran?”
“Oh, Young Massa Ryan is a fine boy. He gone be a good Massa when he all growed up.” She lied through her teeth. Fran hoped she wouldn’t be around the day Ryan had control. Go ahead and sell her down river to one of the back breaking plantations further south.
“Fran, now you know better. I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t want the truth. So, be honest. Something aint right with him, is it?”
“Well, he is different, but so is you, Massa. You be different in a good way. He different in another kind of way.” Fran looked up at George making sure it was ok to go on.
“Different how, Fran?”
“Well, I hear things, Massa. The other slaves talk ‘bout things they sees him do when he think no one else looking. It be like he’s taking a liking to hurting things, animals and…”
“And what, Fran?” George’s body stiffened.
“Well, Cee Cee’s youngin’ was by the barn just playing around in the dirt, and Young Massa Ryan kicked him…in the face…for no reason at all.” Fran paused. “He was just on the same path as Young Massa Ryan, I spect, and Young Massa Ryan just got it in his head to kick him. I’s sorry I have to tell you these thangs, Massa, but you wanted to know.”
George sighed. “I know Fran. You done right. I need to know about it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with that boy, Fran. He’s got something evil in him.”
George shivered, squeezed Fran closer to him, and changed the subject. “Now Fran, I been here all this time and you have yet to give me any sugar.” Fran giggled and lifted her head to George’s and their lips met. She reached her hand up and cupped his prickly cheek.
“Fran, you had a youngin once, didn’t you?”
“I did, Massa. Just fo a spell. When I was at that other plantation before I be here.”
“What happened?” But George already knew. It was what happened to many mothers in slavery.
“They took ‘im from me, right from my bosom while I’s was nursing him. They just took ‘im.” A hint of sadness was in her voice. “I don’t know where he be now.”
“It’s a terrible thing to take a baby from its Momma. I don’t care if you a slave or not. A child needs its Momma.” George caressed Fran’s head and they sat in silence for awhile. “I wish I could give you a baby Fran, and I’d promise on a stack of bibles that no one would ever take that child from you.”
“It’s okay, Massa. I have you. You good to me.”
“George, Fran. I like it when you say my name.” George caressed her breast and reached down between her legs pressing his finger into the soft, wet, warmness he longed for. “Say my name, Fran. Please.”
“George.” Fran whispered to him in the dark. “George?”
“Yes, Fran.” He whispered back, her name as sweet as honey.
“You think I can have me a little bit mo of that choclat?”