Three Loves Seven, Chapter 23, Part 1 - "The Dreadful Narrative of the Boy Named Wool"

Dear Gentle Readers,

Today's portion tells you a little something about this island that the good professor finds himself on, but more particularly, what these Islanders think about themselves.

If you haven't noticed, this story is a collection stories written within it. It will not be explicitly stated, but you can figure it out for yourself that this little digression happens sometime in the late 18th century. If you start to overthink details that such a story does could not be from then, I would respond that family stories get redacted through retelling throughout the generations.

I won't say much more than that as it should speak for itself,

as the story continues ...

Personal Journal Entry

U.S. Time:             Monday, August 20, 2012
Island Time:        Dragon, Month 7, Day 4, Xingqi 1

Week 9, Day 2

After work was done this evening I spent some time with Eve and Eight doing some time trials on their swimming. I had set a buoy out in the harbor 400 meters away from my place on the landing. I had earlier taught them the competitive butterfly stroke and they were taking to it fast. Angel and Faye were also training with them as well, but Eve and Eight were the fastest in the water by far.

All four of them complained that I was forcing them to swim with clothes on thereby causing them to have extra drag. They all wanted to swim in true Olympic style—unclothed. I was told they would cover up when males were present, so obviously I did NOT count as a “real man” in their eyes. I don’t know if I was honored or insulted by that stance, but no matter. NCAA competition requires swimsuits, so I told them they needed to train clothed.

Just as I finished clocking a set with them I heard Na’s voice call out to me:

      “Yo mah niggah!”

It turns out that while I was in the slammer, after dinner Eve and Eight would take their mothers over to The Classroom, power up a laptop and they’d all watch hip hop videos on YouTube until the power went off. The Princesses Da Mei and Na had now apparently graduated from parroting the Irish working-class profanity from the videos they had memorized and now moved onto ghetto slang. Yay me for broadening their cultural horizons.

     “Wassup!” I threw back.

It was both Da Mei and Na who had come to collect the girls.

     “Dance practice?” I asked.

     “Nailed it!” said Na. “Fist bumps!”

I obliged, putting out my clenched hand, feeling silly all the time doing so.

     “Head bump for me,” said Da Mei.

Again I obliged. I touched my forehead gently to hers. These girls when together always were about games.

     “’s’all fucked up. Gimme a goo’ one!”

She grabbed my head and slammed it into hers. I’m telling you, I saw stars. My inner ear took a minute to recover, but recover I did as Mei gleefully held me up straight to keep me from falling. I resumed my “swim coach” role.

     “Out of the water girls. Times are improved.” I turned to Na and Mei, “I’m telling you ladies, these two are shoo-in’s for athletic swimming scholarships. These times are going to save a quarter of a million bucks.”

     “That again?” said Mei. “Clete, I appreciate your good will, but that simply is not going to happen. No way we got enough dead presidents to make that happen.”

     “Little brown Pacific Island girls out-swimming tall white girls at their own sport? They are going to take college athletics by storm. Trust me. What do you think Na?”

     “I say nothing.”

     “I’m going to interpret that as tacit approval. Hey before you all head off for your rehearsal, I want to tell you that you should not use the term ‘niggah.’”

     “Why?” said Na. “The performers we watch on your computer use it all the time.”

     “It’s a highly offensive word to people from Africa, used to demean and dehumanize them when …”

     “Clete!” Mei scolded. “Don’t patronize us.”

     “I’m just saying that certain people feel proprietary about  ...”

     “And it’s beautiful, that in your country they have turned it into a term of endearment,” said Na.

     “Yeah, I agree, but the use is limited …”

     “You need to hear a story, got a few minutes?” said Da Mei.

     “You’re the ones who’ve got somewhere else to be.”

     “Our grandfather on our fathers’ side told us this story that his grandfather told him,” said Mei. “Girls? Y’all lissenup too. I don’t think I’ve told it in years.”

The Dreadful Narrative of the Boy Named Wool

The name I had when I was small was Cut. I think I was told by one of my older sisters it was so because mother had died and my father had thought to cut me from her womb hoping to save my life.

As most men were, I was told Father was pleased to have a son. I was the youngest of five children but the only boy. But as I later learned, my being a son saddened him as well.

I grew as boys did in my village, learning to fish, to hunt, to build fires, to build houses, to fight. I think because of my name I liked to make things with wood and stone and metal. I always have and I still do.

One day my father took me with him on a trip to the large town in our area. I had never been there before. We lived in a very small village and so it seemed like this place was full of people. We went to a yard where there were many old men. They were actually much younger than I am now, but they seemed like ancients to me then. Nobody lived to the age I am now in my village.

The old men asked my father on what day I was born. He told them. The old men talked among themselves eventually nodding in agreement. Then my father spoke to me.

     “You will now go with the man on the far right. His name is Yellow Earth.”

     “Why Father?”

     “You will never see me again.”

     “But why?”

     “Your grandfather, my father, unjustly killed a boy from Yellow Earth’s clan some time ago. The boy was aged 12 years, 3 months, 17 days. The age that you will be …”

     “Tomorrow.”

He did not tell me anything more other than to follow Yellow Earth’s instructions as if he were my father. He simply turned his back on me and walked away. In the law of my ancestors, and they are your ancestors too, a family was allowed retribution against a life taken, but only an equivalent life was deemed proper. My father’s generation had not produced an equivalent life. In my generation, I had become equivalent. I had an older cousin who had been expected to become worthy of payment before me, but he died from a disease a couple of years earlier.

A man standing next to Yellow Earth came up to me. He had strapped onto his belt a very long knife, a short knife, and a very long leather strap affixed to a braided handle, a whip. He examined me as if I were a goat for sale.

He told me to sit down, then to stand up, then to jump, then to push against his hands. I did all of these, but I did it slowly and I did it warily.

     “Son-of-My-Younger-Sister, you have four sons. Your younger brother has three. Your household already has two slave boys, very diligent and complacent ones at that. This one is slow to obey. Though he is young, I do not think this will change. I do not recommend taking him into your household. At your word I will dispatch him and the debt will be truly repaid.”

     “We have a day,” said Yellow Earth.

     “You have as many days as you please, Son-of-My-Younger-Sister. It is your choice.”

     “I suppose we must take him with us while we decide, Mother’s Brother. We could make him the animal boy. He need not even be with … ”

     “I do not recommend even that. To bring him into your household will create bias and contention.” He looked at my face very closely. “He has the promise of being very fair. I say no.”

     “Elder, does this town have a common house?” asked Yellow Earth.

     “He can be in the Stone House, sir,” answered the Elder.

I was put into a building the like I had never seen before. It was a house built two levels high made out of blocks of cut stone. I was put into a room where there were only the tiniest of windows and the door locked. There were several others in that room, mostly boys my age and a few years older. The only thing I thought to do was study how that marvelous building was made. The other boys made sounds as if they were sneering at me, but that was all. Nobody had been fed for some time so I think we were all rather weak and tired.

The next morning we were roused to awaken. The keeper put his key into the door, but it broke off in the lock.

     “If you give me a sturdy twig,” I said, “I will push out the broken part.”

I heard some mumbling, but instead of a twig I was passed some tweezers. I extracted the broken part of the key through to my end. Studying its shape I knew what it was to push within, so I angled the tweezers into the keyhole, pushed, and felt the lock release. I pushed the door ajar and pushed the tweezers back under the door. After a while, we were asked to assemble outside in the yard.

There were about six men there. Two I recognized from the day previous. The rest were men of very light skin, whom I later would learn were Englishmen. I had never seen their like before.

     “Who is the one who opened the door?” asked one of the Elders. I stepped forward and the other boys pointed at me.

     “Tha’s the one?” asked one of the Englishmen.

     “Yes. You spoke to the owner last night.”

     “Debt payment, you say. Not a war orphan? Nor a spoil of war?”

     “Yes.”

     “’e’s good with his hands.”

     “He will need watching then.”

     “I shall not be troubled. Escape will only mean being food for sharks. Brother? You take all the rest to Georgia. I think I could use this one on my way to the Indies. I think I’ll buy this one for myself.”

And on that day Cut died and Wool was born. He called me “Wool” because he said my hair made me like the animal whose hair is called wool. I worked on that captain’s ship for a year and I was never allowed to leave the boat. The captain died after about a year, I don’t even remember his name because no one used it. I just call him “Captain English.” I was sold with the boat to another captain, Captain Rush.

I learned to do every hard, dirty, and dangerous task on that sailing boat. And after learning all that, I did all the other chores that must be done. But my special gift was to make repairs of any kind. Even so, Captain Rush never trusted me. When we were in port, he always would have me chained in the hold. I started to have a great fear of fire because if the ship were to burn, I could not get away—and we had several fires. After one of the fires scared me so, so when we were out at sea for weeks, and I had full run of the ship, I began to fashion my own metal tools and hide them where I was usually chained, just so I could unlock myself when I needed to.

Captain Rush was cruel man. You would think they would beat me if I did a job poorly. It did not matter to Rush. He would beat me every at chance to show me that he was the boss. But then he also required me to sleep in his quarters with him in his bed, pressing himself up against me all night, as if I were his woman there to give him comfort. I think his body was cold at night when we were at sea especially. He especially preferred having me lie face down and he would lay on top of me. He was SO heavy. And he would rub his face in the hair on the back of my head. I thought I would suffocate some nights. I grew to find the smell of rum on his breath quite nauseating after a while. I found him disgusting even though I had to endure his closeness every night.

One time after a port stop he brought back on board two terrier puppies for me. He asked me to train them to find and kill rats. I came to love those little dogs. I thought it was the only kindness he ever showed me, but it was not so. They were as much locks on me as where the iron shackles. We harbored in a port city that I only remember having the name Watkins or something like that. The crew went into the city to drink and I was left on board as usual, but they forgot to chain me up in the hold. I left the ship and wandered into the port city to find a place to hide until they would eventually set sail. I knew that I could not rely on anyone local to hide me because I was darker than anyone there and would stand out among any group of people in that city.

My escape failed. When it was discovered I had jumped ship, the captain simply took the dogs to a part of the city where he assumed I would be hiding and let them loose. The damn dogs came right to me. I was taken back to the ship and punished near to death, but he did not kill me because he still wanted me working for him and keeping him warm at night. I hated dogs from that day on. I would not make that mistake ever again should the opportunity to flee come to me.

Years passed, but they were all the same as one another. I’d lost track of how old I was, perhaps 22 or 23? But a year came Captain Rush decided he could make more money raiding other ships whose captains had been just paid for delivering cargo than delivering and picking up cargo himself. He was especially adept at reading how ships sat in the water and had kept detailed journals on which ships tended to go to which ports. He used the experience he had gained from years of sailing to great advantage as a pirate. And he was ruthless. Because he was well-known among sailors, when he raided a ship, he slew all on board to avoid detection. So intent was he on collecting gold and silver that he even cut down two of his own friends who captained sailing vessels.

He told me one night that after he had completed that seasons’ raids, he would soon have enough to give up the sailing life and that he intended to settle down and become a plantation owner.

     “What will become of the ship?”

     “My darling, I will sell it just as I bought it myself.”

     “So then I am to go to a new master when you sell the ship?”

     “You need not fret about that. You will of course remain with me always. I will keep you in a nice big house all to myself. There is an island in the West Indies that would be the perfect place. I shall get you all kinds of nice clothing and things. How about a uniform? Isn’t that lovely?”

     “Will I continue to be chained then?”

     “Only when you’re not with me, of course. You are so valuable because of your skill and craft, and you are so fair. You have nothing to worry about because you are my nigger. I will take care of you.”

I became very weary in my heart after hearing that. I was to be with this man forever? I watched as that year went on how he executed one successful raid after another. He amassed a king’s ransom in his quarters. I knew it because I saw it and watch him play with his money constantly at night.

I tried to imagine what life would be like as his bitch on some island plantation. The one or two times when I saw such places when we were in port for repair, the workers there all had the same vacant look as me. I knew they were angry inside. And he kept me on a leash like a dog whenever we were on land. That had been his pattern, since I had run once. As he approached his goal of settling down I only became more and more cast down.

I remember a repair master offering to buy me once. He offered a LOT. He liked the things I did to keep the boat afloat with meager supplies. But Rush would have none of it. I had become more to him than just equipment.

One evening toward sunset, I went up to where the old pilot stood tending the wheel and watched with him a bit. He was an old salt and seen many people do many things.

     “You been in a bad sort lately, Cabin Bitch.” The others called me that because of where I bunked. It was that or Niggabitch, or just Bitch. I was smaller and slight of build from all of the crew. I still look like a large boy don’t I?

     “I am who I am,” I said.

     “That island to the south.”

     “What of it?”

     “It is a refuge island.”

     “From who?”

     “Anything. Anyone.”

     “How do you get there?”

     “That’s the story and that’s the thing. If you can get there you will do fine. But you have to get there.” There are many hidden seamounts waiting to sink even the finest sailors. And then there’s the great whites what guard it. The Island only lets on those who it wants.”

     “Sounds like a fairy tale.”

     “Being in a fairy tale might be better than being where we are.”

     “You ever been there? Does it truly exist?”

     “Yes. Many, many years ago.”

     “But you left?”

     “I was not able to be loyal enough at the time.”

     “Loyal?”

     “And you need to speak Chinese though.”

     “Chinese? I speak some.”

     “Good.”

     “Would you ever want to go back?”

     “Wouldn’t mind trying. What gods do you know to worship?”

     “I forgot all of them that my father taught me.”

     “Pray to the Island’s god the Great Ten then.”

     “Great Ten?”

     “He may hear you. If your will coincides with the Mage Witch of Power what serves the Great Ten it may go well for you. We been sailing a treacherous path all year. I keep thinking the next ship we encounter will have more skillful men than us. I don’t want to be here anymore, but what choice do I have now?”

     “We are the menace on the seas that we always feared.”

     “I always wondered what it like to be the crew that was so feared.”

     “And?”

     “It be many times over the fear and anxiety, don’t you think? For every encounter is now a deadly one. If yer game, come back in an hour or so and relieve me at the wheel. After it’s dark and it’s hard to see we’re off course. I’d like to rest a bit and prepare myself. The trick ’ud be get as close as possible, jump, and pray the sea wolves don’t find you between there and landfall.”

It was true that I had forgotten all of the gods of my ancestors. So I prayed with all my might to that local god, the Great Ten for my deliverance. Not that any such god would have any reason to favor me, but whether you know their names or not, the gods do give openings to amuse themselves.

But the Old Salt said that the Great Ten was a god of justice and that my plight was more unjust than his own, so an opening I might get could possibly include him as well. And so I prayed for that old pilot. And for the souls who would next be so unfortunate to meet Captain Rush in his campaign to riches. It seemed almost immediately that a storm churned up from nowhere. We were blown onto the rocks of a tremendous seamount and began to sink quickly. It all happened so fast.

I heard Captain Rush calling for me in the dark. “My little black boy! My little black nigger! Let us die together on these rocks! Let it be a glorious end together!” I saw him. He did not see me. He had his pistol in his hand and the terriers were at his heels. The deck tilted and then righted itself. The terriers smelled me and came running my way, breaking away from Rush. Before they could get out a signal, my knife came out and silenced them. One did get out a slight yelp. Because of that I think the Captain saw me, but it was too late. I would take my chances in the water and went over the side.

I swam as hard and as fast as I could. Hoping that I was going to the Island and not away from it. I felt sharks bumping me from below. When bumped me on the left, I worked furiously to escape to the right. When they bumped right, I went left. It was almost as if they were guiding me. I knew I would be fine when I heard a surf breaking in front of me. I pulled myself onto the beach and then collapsed.

I awoke with the dawn. My head was in the lap of a beautiful brown angel. It was the girl who would become my wife, your grandmother.

     “Am I dead?”

     “Oh good! You speak a language I know. You are not dead.”

     “Is this the refuge island?”

     “This is Dog Island.”

     “NO dogs! I hate dogs!”

She stroked my hair to calm me down.

     “There are no dogs here. They cannot live here.”

     “Why is it called Dog Island then?”

     “Nobody knows.”

     “My ship. It sank. Did anyone else survive?”

     “Ships always sink off this beach. No one ever survives.”

I thought of the old pilot. My heart sank in my chest for him. The Island didnuh want him from that life.

     “No one has survived, except you. So you are an answer to my prayer.”

     “Your prayer?”

     “I asked for my true mate to be brought to me. The one that I can be loyal to forever.”

     “You think that’s me?”

     “I cannot force you to be that man. But it is a start that you are so beautiful. It makes fidelity that much easier.”

     “I was about to say the same thing about you. You are so beautiful.”

I could see some of the ship’s sails had washed up on shore. I even saw the mending I had done on them.

     “I belonged to that boat. For many years.”

     “Was it exciting to always be at sea?”

     “It was a very hard life.”

     “It is hard here as well. Are you sad that your ship is no longer?”

     “I was a slave for that bastard. That ship was my prison.”

     “There are no slaves on this Island. And if he somehow survives, you are no longer his. You own your own life. That is our way here.”

A breeze came up.

     “I smell melon flowers!”

     “You have a good nose. They are very quiet plants that way. We have a patch.”

     “My sisters kept a patch.”

I started to bawl like a newborn baby.  She pulled me up and held me close to her.

     “Out there. It smells like nothing.”

     “But you are here now.”

     “Now I smell the animals! No dogs you say? May I stay here then?”

     “As long as you wish. Tell me your name handsome stranger.”

     “I do not like my name.”

     “May I give you one?”

     “What say you?”

     “I say ‘Bao.’ Because you are a treasure. A treasure given to me by the Great God.”

© Copyright 2015 by Vincent Way, all rights reserved.