Shell Carolina Red

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-0983-5080-2
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 455 Seiten

My friends and I have been referred to as the Baby Boomers, the Hippie Kids, and the unthinkable has happened to us...we've got old...we've become our parents...and our parents are dying. Carolina Red is my reaction to this new state of public and personal American affairs. A few questions? Do you still believe in God? And if you do, what is your knowledge of God? Do you still perceive IT (God is meant to be a spirit...spirit has no gender) through medieval eyes? Do you believe we've found ALL the scriptures containing God's words? If we were to discover a history of America written by God...what would it say about US? Ray Shell

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shell, Ray

Leseproben

Part 1: The Mother Flow…

‘Red...for the blood...Red for ‘Carolina mud...Red for the Native American skin...Red for the Republican state we live in...’ Tobias Antonio Madison...July 4, 1962.

GENESIS: Sugar Hill Plantation, Nashville North Carolina, USA.

Surah 1: The Green Place.

My land was rich, verdant, fertile and belonged to no one in the beginning; the Native Americans as you call them had the right idea…you can’t own what doesn’t belong to you and the earth is mine; your Real Estate industry is bogus and operates under FALSE PRETENCES.

According to your history books, Nashville North Carolina was established in 1780 and named after one of your Revolutionary War heroes, Francis Nash; I won’t elaborate on Francis, this story isn’t about him. You won’t find any of what I’m about to tell you in a history book, my secrets are my own and there is truth in your saying…’Only God knows…’

The original people of Nashville called their area ‘The Green Place’ because of the way my sun painted up and illuminated the flora and fauna adorning this meeting point; the original people always found their way back to the ‘Green Place’ because of the giant Grandmother oak tree sitting on the east side of a winding stream that separated Nashville from what is now Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

The original people called the stream Mother Flow because it supplied food and sustenance to them and the creatures they shared the land. Don’t bother looking for this stream, it has long been cemented over by your modernists who believed they knew better than me, but the Green Place and the Grandmother Tree remain and are important to our Nashville tale.

Inside the Grandmother Tree is a woody cavern, wide enough to comfortably shelter several scores of burly men and for centuries of winters my original people sheltered there from the cold and snow until my warm sun returned.

Time is very important to you.

You try to mark out time, but like a river, time flows, markings are washed away in the flow and one day you will realise that. Your precious, Nashville time mark of note is March 14, 1867, almost two years to the day your President Lincoln was murdered, almost two years after the end of the American Civil war, two years after the slaves should have celebrated their emancipation, but Elijah Beauregard, Master slave owner of Sugar Hill, the largest plantation in Nashville North Carolina, cursed that war’s bloody outcome; he clinched both his hairy fists and shook them up at me in the sky screaming,

’I’LL NEVER GIVE THEM UP!!! I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THEM BLACKS THEY BELONG TO ME!!!’

I laughed sooo hard! I’m not up in any sky! You mentally challenged juveniles have put your God in the sky above and outside yourself, when my true I AM home has always been INSIDE your hearts!

Sugar Hill’s 500 acres was bordered on each side by thick, thorny, impenetrable rose bushes planted 50 years before by James Lee Lancaster, Mistress Aelda’s father, making it impossible to gain access to the homestead, unless you were invited and led in.

The 200 slaves working the Sugar Hill land knew Elijah was holding them against their will and the will of the new United States of America. The slaves culled the unbelievable news, first, from far away echoing drums passing pale face news on the wind from the Raleigh capital, then, from travellers and traders who sold Elijah’s goods in the Carolina market towns.

•The house slaves heard it first; the news spread like a plague to the field slaves, live stock workers and the lowly unfortunates who ferried lavatory muck from the 12 big house shit rooms to the fragrant, spider ditches bordering the thorny rose bushes...I created language so I CAN be profane if need be.

On that Thursday, March 14, 1867, Soldier Johnson, a sturdy, 43 year old, West Virginian trader travelled south to Sugar Hill plantation to barter cotton prices for the coming season with stingy Master Elijah; Boy Sanders, a dusky, 15 year old slave, in Elijah’s bedroom scooping out the stinking sewage of he and his Mistress’ ‘shit pot’, stood on the stairs overlooking the parlour; he heard all of his Master’s conversation.

‘Whatcha gonna do when they gits free ‘n yu gots to pay fer labour?’

Elijah scratched his nether regions, spat gobs of tobacco juice into a gold cistern, held by 9-year-old Nuncie, one of his fair skinned children he swore on his life to Mistress Aelda was not his; I am the Father of all secrets.

‘Ain’t gonna do nothin’ ‘cause they ain’t neva gonna be free! I paid good money fer my black stock! They mine ‘n will always be mine!’

‘You best be careful Elijah…been two years since divestment was meant to start…them Yankees already in our county makin’ sure it happens.’

Soldier Johnson sipped the sweet, cold tea Althea, Elijah’s current concubine had laid out on the dining table with smoked bacon and corn meal biscuits; Mistress Aelda was visiting her mother in Tar City so the men were alone in the parlour dining room, but Boy Sanders heard it all.

‘Most of yo’ county already done deals with the blacks…they lettin’ the niggas stay on the land…livin’ in their shacks…they done worked out a price for them workin’ the land ‘n fetchin in the harvest…’

Master Elijah looked at Soldier like he was speaking fluent Russian.

‘They can pay niggas if they want to!!! I ain’t! I don’t pay my dog to bark ‘n I ain’t payin’ no niggas to work ‘n that’s the end of that!!!’ And it was.

Soldier finished his tea.

Teek, a 17-year-old, copper skinned beauty with silky Cherokee hair, led the stocky trader, (whose burnt skin patches looked like speckled egg markings), to the South gate where Gunner, Elijah’s head Watcher, let him out, locking the iron gate behind him. Gunner couldn’t help notice Teek’s meaty buttocks; he shook his head, knowing that was one piece of ass he’d never get to poke. Teek lived in the Big House with his Ma Althea and everybody, except Mistress Aelda, knew Althea was Elijah’s favourite.

Boy Sanders quickly cleaned all the shit pots in every bedroom, he sprinkled crushed rose petals in the bottom of the pots then poured vinegar on top of the petals to dampen the stink, he then ran down the stairs of the Big House (before Ma Sooky, the housekeeper could find more work for him), across the front gardens to the back fields, then over to the blood stock barns to find his father Henry; he had important news to tell.

‘You hear him say dat?’

Henry, Boy Sanders’ Pa, was tall, sturdy, 32 years old and lived for the day when he could take his wife Prunella and their family away from Master Elijah’s homestead, buy his own land and start his own free life that was now his due. Henry whispered quietly to his eldest son; he didn’t want anyone else to hear this black news.

My dark children aren’t stupid, they knew the war was over; they knew what their Saint, President Lincoln, had promised them, they knew about the many millions of kindred slaves who were already living as free men! They knew this and too many of Elijah’s ‘stock’ were dangerously angry.

Their continued enslavement was ‘THE’ main daily topic discussed, continuously, by Henry’s community. Whispered meetings were held nightly after Willy Time, the overseer went to bed, plans of action had been discussed, Spirit Book, the chaplain of the community had called for restraint…invoking my name…in vain…to justify that restraint, but I created justice; I will never be a conduit for injustice…no matter how many ‘Hail Mary’s’ one chants.

‘Massa say…he don’t pay his dogs to bark ‘n he ain’t payin’ no nigga’s to work fer him…he say ‘I pay good money fer my black stock…they mine ‘n will always be mine…’

Henry gently pulled his eldest Son close to him, kissed him on the forehead, combed his soft hair with his fingers. ‘Go on home…yo’ Ma done fixed neck bones…you best git in there befo’ yo’ brothers yam ‘em all down...tell ya Ma I be there directly.’

Henry Lee Sanders was Elijah’s blacksmith, a very necessary and able unit of the plantation team. The slave community chose him to approach the Master and open negotiations on behalf of them; the reasoning was, Henry kept his Master mobile. Not only did he keep Elijah’s blood stock shod, groomed, fed, exercised and ready for the racing season, Henry looked after all the horses and mules on the plantation, so, the reasoning was, Elijah would listen to Henry and wouldn’t be as likely to bleed him as he would anyone else the community sent to have this delicate conversation with their tyrant Master.

The community wanted Henry to speak to Elijah before the week was out, they’d waited for two years, the slaves weren’t willing to wait any longer. I whispered to Henry’s heart, told him to forget Master Elijah...pushed him to go home, have dinner with his Prunella, their three sons: Eldrid, Scotsboro and Boy whose birth name was Henry Lee Jr. but, Henry’s practical mind told him Master Elijah was finishing up his evening meal, was about to have a good drink and looking forward to a penetrating visit with Althea. Henry’s practical mind insisted: ‘Master is in the best mood of the day! NOW would be a good time to talk to him.’

It’s always good to follow your instincts.

Instincts are ANGEL POKES. My little messengers sent to you to stop you from going one way and think about...