Grace by Natashia Deon Page B

some land, build a house, find a strong, feisty woman there and make her my wife.”
    â€œI’ll help you find her so long as you take me north with you when you go.”
    â€œNaw, the woman who’d marry me ain’t north,” he say, closing his glue pot. “I reckon she’s south already. Over the border in Mexico.”
    â€œA Mexican?”
    â€œA negro. Runaways and freed men been escaping south of Texas for years. Even the ones that go into Mexico as slaves is finding their freedom there. It ain’t like here.”
    â€œYou mean negroes ain’t slaves everywhere?”
    â€œNot in Mexico. We got a kinship with Mexicans in Texas. They like us. A captive people, too, but on their own land. This country’s their homeland. They didn’t migrate here or been stolen and brought here like us. They been moved out, off their land, piece by piece. So they don’t allow slavery.”
    â€œFreedom’s north. Everybody know that. You said Mexico’s south.”
    â€œFreedom is wherever you find it.”
    â€œThen mine’s north. Always been north. Always be north.”
    â€œYou don’t know everything,” he say. “There are men. Good men. Quakers from out east. God-fearing. Risking their lives to get negroes to Mexico. Got the burning in their hearts to do so, and the fearlessness of a child who’d defy his own hunger to free an animal being led to slaughter. They’re what you call zealous men. Doing God’s work.”
    â€œAnd taking slaves to Mexico?”
    Albert packs his stuff. “Like I said, you don’t know everything.”
    The door shuts soft when he go. I sneak over to his fixed chair and sit in it. I go easy on it at first so I don’t mess up his work. I lean back in the chair to see if it’s still lame but it don’t clunk no more.
    I bring my Bible back to me and start reading from it, catch my reflection in the mirror again, see my top lip disappear when I read the word “thee” or when I smile big.
    I’m still flat-chested.
    Hazel promised they was gon’ grow but they never did. If I knew back then that they never would, I woulda been stuffing my dress with stockings so Hazel wouldn’t feel bad that I weren’t a woman.
    I still pretend that Hazel is sitting with me sometimes, talking to me, reading with me. I slide my Bible to myself again, imagine Hazel saying, “Now you read.”
    â€œThe Lord is my Shep . . . Shep . . . hard. Shep . . .”
    â€œShepherd,” Cynthia say coming in, slamming the door. She throws her money down next to me. “So you can speak.”
    I get up quick and grab my Bible on the way back to my trunk. Cynthia pulls her bra straps down from her shoulders. She rolls down her britches and steps out of ’em, then throws ’em across the room to her pile of soiled things.
    I clear my throat. “Thank you for what you did yesterday.”
    â€œUm hum,” she say, taking off her dress. She slips her silky gown over her head. Lights a cigarette.
    â€œYou weren’t scared?” I say.
    â€œScared? They was the one’s who needed to be scared. Jonas was glad he wore his tight pants so his shit didn’t fall out near his ankles.”
    She folds her dress and with her shoes makes a stack. I take ’em, when she finish. Carry her dress to the basket for washing and her shoes I put with the others. I say, “The way you used them guns . . .”
    â€œAsshole charmers,” she say. “You heard of snake charmers? Snake charmers hypnotize snakes with flutes and shit. My guns do the same to assholes.”
    She blows a stream of white.
    â€œAnd they’re a good distraction,” she say. “Keeps ’em in a trance long enough for my girls to pick a pocket, shop, and be back with empty wallets by the time the game is through.”
    â€œBut you could kill yourself.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œYou