The Book of David McDonogh
Martin Marprelate
Womb Doom
Open Source since 1588
David goes north.
Billy Ireland is slumped in his wheeled chair, wrapped in blankets. David pushes him up the plank ahead of the preacher with the silver watch and behind the crates of sugar.
The gangplank lifts. Smoke coils from the stack. Fire hisses below.
The steamboat goes forward.
North.
David is on his way to college.
David stands at the rail, dressed like a gentleman.
Confident like a man.
And black like an African.
Nice-looking boy.
Look at that hat. I’d like his hat.
Only in New Orleans would you see a boy dressed like that!
Be a little scary in Mississippi.
Who’s he with? Must be someone with big money.
The river is wide here.
Plenty of room for mistakes. The crew is watching for shifts in the river. Unexpected ripples.
The paddlewheel churns. The wood groans. The river narrows.
Just past Vicksburg, Mississippi, a man in a sweat-stained shirt watches the riverboat from the shade.
That coat’s worth a year’s wage.
Some folks forget what side of the river they’re on.
How’s come he has more than me?
Just thievin’ lying vermin.
Somebody oughta teach him different.
Billy Ireland, the old man huddles in his wheeled chair, wrapped in a blanket.
David stands at the rail, dressed like a gentleman.
Confident like a man.
And black like an African.
From the deck of a passing boat, a young lady pulls off her gloves and peers across.
They’re getting too uppity with all that abolitionist talk.
Look how he’s looking at me. Like he has the right to look. Like he don’t fear the Lord no more.
They’re quick to pride, that kind. That’s when the trouble starts.
It’s getting dangerous being white.
The paddlewheel turns, the river churns, and the boat moves forward.
Low banks. Slow bend. Cattle barges ahead.
Men talking.
Slaves backed by Northern credit—just signed a note in Louisville– slaves as collateral for the loan.
The courts upheld the lien last week. Even runaways can’t void a contract. The seller is protected.
You house them, you feed them, you own the yield.
Sugar’s down. Debt’s up. No manumission till the books are clean.
Slavery’s the only collateral left that breathes.
The boiler hisses.
They dock in Cairo, Illinois.
On one side of the river, a man is free.
On the other side of the river, a man is a slave.
One leg free
The other in chains.
Prowled by men with chains, guns, and knives.
Searching the boats, the containers, crevasses, alleys and wagons.
Bounty hunters.
David stands at the rail, dressed like a gentleman.
Confident like a man.
And black like an African.
A constable requests papers of Billy Ireland, who motions to David, who produces them.
The constable glances at the papers.
“These are no good. He’s to come with me.”
“No, Sir.” Billy sits up straight. Puts his feet to the ground. “These are perfectly good. David will stay with me. He is the property of John McDonogh, as the papers say. You will bring only trouble upon yourself should you challenge these papers. I assure you.”
“I need further warrantee.”
“How much further warrantee?”
“The fine is $100.”
“So be it. With that we are guaranteed free passage?”
“Yes.”
An exchange is made.
Billy in his wheeled chair and David, as his slave, are led up the plank.
This will be the last slave-infested state David ever sets foot in.
The bell clangs.
The whistle blows.
The boat pulls off.
The river widens again.
And it turns north.
David arrives in Pittsburgh.
Secure northern soil is first reached in Pittsburgh.
The packet boat eases in at dusk, steam hissing against the stone quay.
David descends the gangplank ahead of Billy Ireland, stepping carefully onto the landing—boots polished, coat pressed, gloves folded neatly in one hand, and a beaver felt hat firmly on his head. On reaching the dock, he turns and waits.
Behind him, Billy Ireland follows, cane tapping like a drumbeat, open overcoat flapping in the wind, spine as straight as David’s.
“A miracle,” David says with a smile.
“That free Presbyterian air!” Billy says. “Best cure ever!”
They face each other at the bottom of the gangplank.
“Thank you,” David says, his eyes filled with tears.
“God bless you,” Billy says. “Just remember: cornbread and the Bible.”
David nods and turns away.
Billy watches as David strides forth into the north
confident as any man.
Black as any African.
Almost immediately a constable beelines to David, badge glinting, increasing his stride to intercept the free man.
“Papers,” he says, blocking David’s path.
David reaches under his vest to the pouch. He pulls out the folded certificate — signed and sealed in New Orleans establishing him as “David McDonogh, FMC.”
The constable looks at the paper. Looks at David. From his shoes to his hat.
“What’s your business here, David McDonogh, F.M.C.?”
“Trade,” David says. “I’m a sugar broker. From New Orleans.”
“What planter?”
“John McDonogh.”
“He send his slave to sell sugar?”
“No, Sir. He sent me.”
The constable’s eyes narrowed and his fist clenched. There is a long moment. Billy holds his breath.
“Register at the Coffee House,” he says. “Don’t be on the wharf after sundown. I don’t care whose boy you are.”
The constable hands the papers back to David.
“We don’t put up with any trouble around here.”
The constable walks away.
With a sigh of relief, Billy Ireland mounts the gangplank again.
The gangplank lifts. Smoke coils from the stack. Fire hisses below.
The boat goes forward.
South.
David walks away.
Slowly at first, eyes straight ahead.
The street is clean, the buildings orderly.
He can still feel the echo of the constable’s fingers brushing the wax seal like it might smudge off.
Every passerby looks twice.
He doesn’t belong.
He takes the ferry and stay with other black people.
David arrives at college.
The ferry scrapes against the Easton dock.
David steps off, boots thudding against the planks, the smell of river water lifting behind him.
A packet of letters is pressed flat against his chest.
He finds a drayman to take him to the college. The white drivers ignored him. They motioned him to the side street where a black drayman has a rickety wagon and charges twice the fee.
“College Hill?” the man asks. “You working there?”
“A student,” says David. He does not deny himself the surge of pride.
The man looks sideways at David and says no more.
They set off with a soft click to his horse.
The road curves.
David is in the middle of a sugarcane field turned into torches of cold flame. A canopy of gold and red above him.
To the side, the trees climb with the hill, one rising behind another, each higher than the last—an army of fire marching up to the horizon.
He feels small.
The air is empty, wrung out. Dry. Too easy to breathe.
The road climbs.
The trees climb with it.
One behind another, each higher than the last, rising in tiers like steps cut into the mountain.
David is in awe.
A new world.
A magical world.
Where a slave from New Orleans could become a doctor in Manhattan.
The drayman stopped the horse at the iron arch which boldly announces: LAFAYETTE COLLEGE.
He peers down at David. “You sure you’re supposed to be here?”
David looks at the sign, transfixed, then turns, meet the man’s gaze, and says: “Yes!”
Decisively.
He looked back up—LaFayette. Like the French general. A little bit of New Orleans even in the name.
“Yes, indeed!” he said again.
The drayman clicks at the horse and the wagon rolls through the arch and down the road.
David can only stare.
At the top of the hill, LaFayette college was three stories of red stone, square-edged and flat-faced. White trim framed the tall windows in strict repetition. A chimney marked each end.
This is his college.
David approaches the heavy wooden door and enters.
The man at the desk has black hair, a round face, and wide, pale blue eyes. The man squints and scans him head to toe. Then: “Oh! Pardon me! You must be McDonogh.”
David nods. “David McDonogh.”
From now on, he would need both names. He was a whole person. Not just John McDonogh’s David.
“You’ve arrived already,” says the steward.
Obviously, David thinks. He stopped himself. Minerva would’ve hushed him. Godfather always said impatience would be his undoing.
But people move so slowly. They think so slowly.
Behind the steward, a wall of mailbox cubbies is marked with numbers.
David spotted a slip of paper on the table. It is upside down but he reads: “For the black boy.”
He wants to reach for it but exercises patience.
The man’s finger traces the mail boxes, lips moving.
He starts at the beginning again, when he says: “Oh yes! The tackroom! Of course!”
Under the note is a brass key.
The man looks up, then sideways, avoiding eye contact.
“Come, come, come with me,” he says. Awkward, arms jerking slightly, posture too upright. Puppet-like.
“We made a room just for you,” he said. “It was a tackroom before, but you’d never know it.”
He keeps talking. David hears none of it.
Some people build fences with speech.
They leave the college, pass around the main dormitory to a low stone outbuilding. The roof is shallow. The trim whitewashed. A narrow chimney seeps faint smoke.
The steward opens the door. “This is yours.”
He hands David the key.
“I’m at the school if you need anything. Welcome to Lafayette!”
Then he turns and disappears.
David stepped into the room.
It smells of plaster and beeswax. The walls has been limewashed. The floorboards creak. The bed is iron-framed but the mattress, firm straw. A washbasin sits on a table. A stove glows low.
David closes the door.
Hangs up his coat on the hook.
Pulls off his gloves.
And stands in the center of the room.
It looked like a slave cabin.
Less than a slave cabin in Donoghville.
No family table. No folded linens. No lantern hook by the door. No notch on the wall where a child’s height had been marked.
It smells of fresh paint.
This is freedom.
From a mansion as a slave to a slave’s cabin in freedom.
He would tell that to Godfather.
David takes a deep slow breath of the thin northern air and sat on the cot.
He has done what no man before him had done.
Every step now will be taking him forward.
He breathes in through his nose.
Stone dust. Fresh wood. Dry air. Paint.
He unbuttons his vest.
This is the threshold.
Only the beginning.
Tomorrow, the work would begin.
But tonight—he had already won.
He was a free man in the north in a slave’s cabin in college.
David eats supper at Lafayette.
David enters the dimly lit dining hall first and takes his place in the corner on a stool at a small table salvaged from the kitchen.
The servant’s door next to David opens and he is swathed in the smell of cornbread.
It stabs him like a promise broken.
The other boys, a noisy mass, fill in the long narrow tables and sit beside one another on benches.
A room full of white boys. Loud. Confident. They walk like they own the place—like doors will open for them, chairs will wait for them, and food will be bountiful.
No hesitation.
They don’t pause to look around. They don’t measure space. They don’t defer. They move, sit, speak, laugh, joke…
It is frightening, the way they carry their certainty.
He hadn’t realized how thoroughly he had absorbed the rules of the city—to step aside for white men, to lower his gaze, to agree by instinct, to brace for blame.
The room becomes quiet as Rudy rises.
He walks to the front, opens the Bible and reads from Lamentations in no intonation.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’
The northern accent is harsh and the words lose their music.
At home, these words would sing with a French lilt and be followed by a joyous song.
Rudy closes the Bible, returns it to the shelf and announces: “The old has gone, the new is here… Let’s eat!”
Cornbread and the Bible. Just like Godfather said.
That’s all he could bring with him. And it’s all he has.
David sits while the other boys get their food. They jostle and argue and laugh as they heap their pewter plates with beans, salt pork and stewed fruit.
When the last boy sits, David scrapes the gooey dried remainder onto his plate.
If he closes his eyes, he can imagine red beans and rice with hamhock. Shrimp etouffee. Okra gumbo.
But he can’t fool his brain. It smells like stewed beans and salt pork.
Every bite will be an effort.
At least: There is cornbread.
But not the southern variety.
A soft cake. More sugar than corn. It doesn’t taste or feel like the crumbly gritty love of Minerva.
Nothing is like home.
Even he smells different.
The dark soft smell of southern lavender he would lather on his body at home has been replaced by soap flakes of hard pale ashes. Like the air itself, it leaches the moisture from him. Better for cleaning a jug than a man. He feels itchy and foreign in his own body.
But he made it through the first week.
Now, there is only the rest of his life to look forward to.
The other boys have finished eating.
Alexander, mail-clerk for the day, steps to the front of the room with a large leather satchel. He reads out names and the boys come forward to pick up their letters amidst clapping and hooting. Then Alexander pulls out a tiny pouch, shakes it and coins jingle.
A ripple of hoots: “Wooo—some body’s getting money!”
“We’ve got a sugar daddy tonight!” one of the boys says.
Laughter crackles down the line.
With a flourish, Alexander pulls the pouch towards him to read the tag.
“And, our sugar daddy tonight is Master …” He turns the card around and says “… Master…”
He freezes, staring at the card.
He looks up and looks across the room at David. “I didn’t mean… Not master… I mean…”
He looks at everyone and shrugs. “It’s for David,” he says.
Alexander holds out the pouch like he had just brought back a dead squirrel.
David stands.
All necks twist to watch him.
This is his moment. He was bred for show.
He can feel the power in his eyes and his chest and his hands. Filling the void around him. Sucking from the earth itself. He is lighter. He is invincible.
His tread is even and relaxed.
The boys twisted necks are untwisting with every step.
His head is firmly mounted forward, his smile broad and wide, David’s arms are wide open and friendly.
“Lucky me!” he says brightly. “I will bring sugar candy to chapel on Sunday!”
He thanks Alexander and turns to return to the stool in the back of the room next to the servant’s quarters.
As David passes, Jonathan calls out clearly and confidently, loud enough for the whole room to hear: “Make sure it’s peppermint sticks, David—Fiske will riot if we get licorice again!”
David sits down, takes out his handkerchief and carefully wipes off his plate and fork, slipping the dishes into a satchel that hangs on a hook attached to the table. White servants won’t clean the dishes of a black boy.
There are no black servants in the kitchen.
White servant refuse to work with black servants.
After prayers had been recited, David waits to leave the room last.
Lamentations.
The sun is an obscured disk. Brick buildings darken beneath low clouds. The grass is brown and stiff. A vulture circles overhead.
Even the trees are subdued.
When he first arrived, the hills were ablaze in red and gold. He wrote to John McDonogh: “Mother Nature herself welcomes me north! She set the trees aflame!”
But now, Mother Nature has turned to ice. Dark. Cold. Dull.
It has only been a week.
Long enough to erase the magic of autumn and bring on the gloom of winter.
David pulls his overcoat tighter, lifts the collar, and clutches the little pouch in his pocket like a lifeline.
This would be the bitterest cold of winter in New Orleans.
In Easton, it is only autumn’s beginning.
He walks toward the tackroom converted for his quarters—not far from the boys’ dormitory. It was not in bad spirit. A black boy could not share a room with a white boy.
David doesn’t belong.
He knows he doesn’t belong.
Not that he is ostracized. Quite the contrary.
True: Some men look at him like an escaped African tiger. But the abolitionists offer to shine his shoes and bow to him.
In parlors, people clamor to speak with him. They want to tell him what they know of his people.
He has become the local expert on all things black in Pennsylvania.
For example: Few know there are still 39 people legally enslaved in the state. The best catfish is at Moses’ market. Andy is a good barber—he’s Black. They love Lucy, who does their laundry. Her children are adorable. And nearly everyone is kind enough to refer him to the First Colored Evangelical Lutheran Church.
People in the north see only his skin.
In New Orleans, more than half the people were his color.
Here, there are less than a handful. And they are all kept to the edges—picking up trash, cleaning roads, feeding hogs, cutting wheat. Except Andy. And Lucy. He’s a barber. She cleans clothes.
He veers off the quad toward the woods that surround the campus—a path well worn by boys seeking shelter from the schoolmaster’s eyes. The evidence remains: a blanket snagged on a branch, a broken cork, a bottle, a scrap of folded paper. David walks the trail, slipping once on brittle maple leaves, steadying himself against a gust of icy wind. A squirrel scolds him and vanishes up a tree.
He finds a clearing and brushes dried leaves from a stone bench.
He sits.
The stone is cold.
In Louisiana, stone is always warm.
The town is quiet. The harbor comfortable. The woods are beautiful.
But they had not warned him that stones were cold.
They had not warned him that the cornbread was sweet cake.
Or that the Bible doesn’t sing in northern staccato.
No music. No clapping. No call and response.
They did not tell him these things.
They had told him that the North was crueler than the South. Northern blacks are sick, abandoned, and helpless.
That did not discourage him. The opposite. Each reiteration made his resolve stronger.
He was ready for hard.
He braced for harsh.
“I am not like them,” he had told McDonogh. ”I will never be helpless. I am a hard worker. Smarter than anyone else I know. I am strong. I am healthy.”
Frederick Douglass did it.
“If not me, then who?” David asked.
David promised Godfather, over and over, that he understood. He would be utterly alone—isolated by race, background, expectations, and cornbread.
Not just because he is black – though that makes him a singularity.
Even among whites, less than one percent of the boys attend college.
Not even Godfather went to college.
Yet here he stands: a former slave from Louisiana in college.
Not that anyone knows he was a slave.
God forbid: They would want to see his whip marks.
David is now, officially, a Free Man of Color from Louisiana —like Andrew Durnford.
Unless captured by a bounty hunter.
If discovered, he would be returned in chains to Louisiana and sold at a public slave auction by the sheriff to the highest bidder as an escaped slave.
The fate of escaped slaves was never pleasant.
David can’t go back.
Ever.
Exiled by law.
It twists him inside. He gasps and chokes, swings his head, and then bends his head to his knees and convulses.
If he could crawl home tonight, he would do it.
He would bargain away his soul to see the old man one more time.
He had been prepared for difficult.
He knew it would be difficult.
But not this difficult.
Not like this.
Not so very very much alone.
The bench is absorbing his heat and he is becoming colder.
This he understands.
The science of vibratory motion.
David first heard about it when Godfather showed him a violin. When he drew his bow across the strings, there was a hive of soft buzzing.
David asked if the notes were hidden inside the wood and Godfather laughed.
He told David then that sound is only vibration moving through air.
Just as grief moves through the soul.
It always fades away.
The bench will be warming beneath him.
Scientifically, the fast particles hit slow particles causing the slow particles to move faster and the faster particles to move slower, until equilibrium is reached and they are all at the same speed.
And, then, if nothing more happens, they all become quiet and fall to the ground like autumn leaves.
It is the nature of things, Minerva said. Mother nature likes to rest. She don’t much like agitation. She waits it out with patience. And that is what you must do.
That’s what David came prepared for: Agitation. As difficult as any could be.
He would experience it and it would go away.
That’s the way nature works. Everyone said.
The variable no one considered, including himself, was: there is only one person agitated. And it is he.
This is not the cream in the coffee but the drop of African blood in New Orleans.
A boiling teaspoon of agitation hardly ripples in a pot.
He hadn’t realized he would disappear.
A single agitated drop in a pot of placid people.
Everyone is satisfied with the way things are.
The people at the First Colored Evangelical Lutheran Church tell him that he should learn his place, mind his manners, stop making trouble, not be so uppity, don’t tell people what you know… When he says he’s going to college they say: Why are you doin’ that? Some said he would get himself killed.
Go back to Louisiana, they said. You don’t belong here. You’re going to make trouble for everyone.
At school, he’s welcome. As long as he sits back and says nothing. Does nothing. Has no opinions. Is not seen in the front of the class. Makes no demands. Asks no questions.
The cold seeping from the bench makes him shiver. He pulls his jacket closer but dares not move from the spot that is, at least, warming.
“Life can be understood by science,” he had announced to John McDonogh who had laughed at him, gently.
“Life cannot be understood by man; science is even more limited than man; and, therefore, life cannot be understood by science,” John McDonogh said.
David tests his theories.
And, so far, this one has held up.
Heat is agitation. Cold is stillness. Hot particles bump into cold ones, until all move together at the same speed – somewhere warm, between hot and cold.
There were a few things, however, he had not considered.
For example, if a cold particle only gets hit once or twice, the temperature never changes.
Why hadn’t he considered that?
Even worse, one hot drop disappears.
He didn’t understand, then.
He’d had it all wrong in his mind.
He came to Pennsylvania knowing he’d be agitated.
Change is energy. Energy is agitation.
Nature seeks calmness. Familiarity and comfort and predictability.
A balance.
Equilibrium.
It is a promise of science.
The highest mountains get shorter and the deepest valleys become more shallow. Air fills bellows because voids are abhorred. Even the most violent storm eventually ends.
Everything moves towards the mean and away again — like a wave on the lake.
It just takes time, like Minerva says.
That’s how nature does its work.
But what if you’re the only hot particle?
He’d thought it would be difficult and get easier. But, instead, it is easy. As long as he does nothing, says nothing, and remains invisible, there’s no problem at all. He’s welcome.
It is the details..
Science and religion – both consider global terms.
Not individual. God helps the Israelites but let’s 40,000 die before he steps in.
Hot particles cease to be hot. They stop. And become like everyone else if overwhelmed with cold.
The whole construct of his survival has crumbled.
He’s the only hot particle in Easton, Pennsylvania.
David smiles through his tears and chokes again. He wished he could share that one with Father.
Father would laugh and tell him he’s one hot particle. He’d tell him that he can’t be anything but a hot particle. So be the best hot particle he could be.
The pain is unbearable.
How will David live a lifetime without seeing him again?
Fallen leaves swirl around him in the chilly breeze. Sunlight blinks as the clouds move by. A bird hops from branch to branch.
He will survive because he must.
It is exactly what he will do.
Because it is what Father expects.
And it is what he promised.
He signed the contract.
And Father does not allow amendments or excuses.
“Succeed, or do not sign,” he said to David – as David has heard him say in negotiations a hundred times.
If, in response a man should say: “I plan to succeed” or “I will try to succeed,” then John McDonogh withdraws the contract. “I accept your lack of confidence and withdraw from the contract,” Godfather would say to the sputtering broker.
David understood. If you promise, you commit yourself to the outcome with all your heart and all your money and all your time. It defines you.
You put your promise before your life.
David signed.
“You made your bed. Now lie in it,” Minerva would say.
Donoghville was never for the weak.
And David is the best of Donoghville.
He is the best of Donoghville.
But he will never see it again.
Survival is not enough.
It cannot justify this price.
This suffering must bear fruit. It cannot be for naught.
David will be a doctor. Earn a diploma. Heal people with real science.
He has sacrificed everything he loves for this education.
Yet…
He has remained silent all week.
The black boy at the back of the classroom.
Silent.
Watching but not participating. Reading along, but not aloud.
In the school but not of the school.
A student with no teacher.
An observer.
That’s all. Like a fly on the window.
It has not been easy.
It was a struggle. Every minute.
He squirmed in his seat. He battered down his questions. He swallowed his answers. He choked on his retorts and his debates and his disagreements and his insights.
Even now he feels the twist in his stomach. Holding himself in like that.
What value is this sacrifice if he is deprived of a real education?
Why not apprentice with an old doctor like all the slave doctors do?
Carry around his Pharmacopiea with ridiculous advice such as drinking blood and avoiding baths.
Ignorance is deadly. Ignorance is criminal.
He has broken every limit society has given him to reach this point.
Will he then allow them to fence him now? Replace one corral for another?
The unopened pouch feels heavy with failure.
Godfather would ask: “Did you speak? You cannot condemn a man who accepts your silence.”
And that is enough.
He refuses silence.
Tomorrow, they will learn who sits among them.
They will teach him, because he will demand it.
The bench beneath him is now warm.
The trees still hold some lingering memory of yesterday’s promise.
After all, what can he possibly lose?
He was born a slave in Louisiana.
He’s in college in Pennsylvania.
David pulls out the little pouch from McDonogh. On one side it says: David McDonogh. On the other: “Cornbread, the Bible, and a watch. Home is always with you.”
David demands his education.
The next day David sits in the middle of the classroom. Eight desks flanking him on all sides and corners. He pulls out his Bible and begins reading.
He does not look away from his Bible as the door first opens and a cluster of boys enter, stop, shuffle, scuffle, shuffle and then sit down at the desks along the edge of the room.
The classroom fills like water around a stone. From the outside in. Those students who tarried fill the center around David.
David is still reading the Bible when Professor Caldwell enters.
The door opens. The man pauses. Then he steps forward, clears his throat, steps forward again, and then places his book on the podium.
“Salvete, discipuli,” says Professor Caldwell.
David looks up. Closes his Bible. Recites with the others: “Salve, magister.”
David takes no notes during the lecture.
Then Professor Caldwell writes on the slate: If he had come, I would have seen him. “Render this correctly into Latin, gentlemen.”
Jonathan Fiske raises his hand immediately. “Professor, would it be: Si venerat, eum videram?”
Professor Caldwell smiles gently, shaking his head. “Almost, Mr. Fiske. Remember, this is a condition contrary to fact.”
David’s hand shoots up.
Professor Caldwell pauses briefly, turning calmly. “Yes, Mr. McDonogh?”
“Professor Caldwell,” David says, “it should be Si venisset, eum vidissem. The pluperfect subjunctive is necessary.”
Professor Caldwell smiles and nods, twisting his head a little as if surprised. “Indeed,” he agrees.
And the entire room seems to exhale.
David leaves the room after the other students had left, but Jonathan was waiting for him, comfortably leaning against the brick wall beside the path leading toward the dining hall.
“Good work, McDonogh,” he says easily as David approaches.
“It wasn’t personal.”
Jonathan chuckles. “No offense taken at all. I appreciate the challenge.”
He gestures to David to walk with him toward the dining hall. They walk together.
Jonathan asks, “I assume you are the one who wrote that Cicero translation posted on the bulletin board?”
David hesitates. “Perhaps.”
Jonathan smiles. “You should sign your work. It’s excellent.”
At the dining hall doorway, students pass around them, naturally flowing toward familiar seats, tables established by habit and subtle expectations.
Jonathan pauses, glancing toward his usual table, then back at David.
“You know, McDonogh,” he says, voice gentle but firm, “no one’s stopping you from sitting closer.”
“Habit is difficult to change,” David replies softly.
Jonathan smiles warmly, his voice firmer now, gently insistent. “Well, then consider this the first step. Sit with me today. Good habits have to start somewhere.”
David takes a deep breath and smiles broadly. “Indeed,” he agrees.
Jonathan leads the way easily, confidently toward his usual table.
David follows quietly.
The boys glance up at them.
Jonathan motions one of the boys to move over a little and gestures David to an open spot on the bench beside him.
David hesitates, then sits down, aware of a faint, unfamiliar warmth rising within him.
Alexander glances at David and slides a dish of stew towards him. “Watch yourself,” he says lightly, without looking up. “Jonathan will talk Latin all night if you let him.”
Jonathan chuckles easily. “At least there will be someone at this table who appreciates the beauty of Cicero.”
Alexander snorts good-naturedly. “Appreciate him all you want. Just do it in English.”
When the food was served, David joins the others in line and the food tastes much better.
David plans to buy a watch
Later, David sits alone in the soft quiet of his room, the tackroom walls feeling less confined, less cold tonight.
He carefully holds the pouch, feeling the cool silver coins shift beneath his fingers.
He pulls out his journal and writes:
In the mornings, I hid by his bed;
Placed the watch near the crown of his head;
I turned the stem and heard him groan;
He snored, twisted, and gave a great moan.
I jumped with a hoot and a startled leap!
“Oh, sorry,” I said.
“Were you asleep?”
My godfather’s watch was the start of the day,
It would tick when the morning began.
It was heavy and round as the truths he would weigh,
And it fit in the palm of my hand.
He would open its lid when judgment was near,
when virtue hung in debate.
The tick never faltered—the meaning was clear:
A promise is broken by showing up late.
He would lift up the watch when I paused at a thought,
He would glance when I found the right word.
It would echo his nod when I answered with care,
Like silence where truth has been heard.
He would say to speak when my conscience is clear;
be silent when my heart is unsure—
And the watch would respond with a rhythm sincere,
Like a teacher whose trust would endure.
He taught me to speak with a purpose and grace,
To weigh every word that I said.
He taught me to stand with a calm, steady face,
And to honor the living and dead.
He would press on its stem when the moment was right,
Not a prize that was given for free—
And, in his palm, it carried the weight
Of the man he believed I would be.
A thousand ticks away:
Love wafts in cornbread’s grace.
Power burns in the Bible’s embrace.
Time holds firm in its rightful place
The fire he fed now sets my pace.
Tomorrow David would buy his watch.
And it would be just like Godfather’s.
Jonathan and David walk to town.
Jonathan walked with his hands in his coat pockets, shoulders relaxed, stride even. Beside him, David kept pace easily. Beneath his tailored, dark wool frock coat with wide lapels and a high collar, his silk vest is barely visible.
The steward had collared Jonathan after giving David his pass to go to town.
“I could not say no simply because….” the steward said.
Jonathan understood. “I’ll go with him,” he said.
He caught up with David at the tall iron gate that marked the entrance of the school. As he fell into step, he said: “I’ll walk your way, if you’ve no quarrel with it.”
David said: “Then let’s make a parade of it, and scandalize the square.”
“Lead on, then,” said Jonathan: “Let’s give the fiddler something worth fiddling for.”
But both of them were new to Easton and neither knew it was market day.
Ten minutes from College Hill, they could hear the market in the heart of Easton’s Great Square. Established in 1752, the Easton Farmers’ Market was already nearly a century old by 1840, making it one of the oldest continuous open-air markets in the country.
And very busy.
Farmers and peddlers lined up in wagons full of produce, dairy, and cured meats. Women in bonnets bartered over the price of eggs or molasses. Children darted between stalls, clutching penny sweets or tugging at apron strings. Chickens clucked in crates, piglets squealed in tiny corrals, dogs barked, and cats fought. There were candles, soap, woolen mitts, and iron tools. Rye loaves, shoofly pie, and soft pretzels.
Boys were clustered in circles playing ringer with marbles; girls were gathered in gossipy flocks; men were playing loo or whist; while the women were shopping.
Another five minutes and Jonathan began to sense the people’s eyes on them.
The two boys – one white and one black – strode with a jaunt of freshman out for their first trip to the city. Still flush with the success for the first week of college – discovering they would survive, and, maybe, beginning to believe they would thrive. Looking at each other side by side, faces turned to one another, matching their stride. Dressed like gentleman with the air of youthful superiority.
Had they been white, everyone would have noticed them.
One white and one black: everyone gaped at them.
Even though he’d only known David a little over a week, he had forgotten that he was not just a black man – he was black.
Jonathan never really forgot David’s race. He was always a little of a curiosity. Even normalcy was curious. (“Oh, they feel that, too.) So, it wasn’t that he had forgotten that David was black.
It was that he hadn’t realized what that meant.
As one, Jonathan and David shifted strides. Slowed down a little. Stopped laughing. Stopped talking. Stopped looking at one another.
Still, every head turned like they were a bride and groom walking down the aisle.
They pretended not to notice with as much concentration as they could.
“Why don’t you step into the first shop,” David said, his voice tight and controlled, “and let me go to the watchmaker alone. That will be better. I don’t think they don’t like us together.”
Jonathan nodded.
And when they reached the boardwalk: “I need to stop here,” Jonathan said, opening the first door, the bell ringing.
It was a fabric store.
Jonathan had never been in one before. He had never bought cloth. It smelled of starch, beeswax and wool. Lined with wooden shelves of calico prints, blue and white striped ticking for mattresses, muslin, broadcloth, and one spool of silk brocade.
Jonathan had time to notice this because he had no idea what else to do but look as though it mattered what he saw.
The apprentice sweeping the floor asked, “What are you seeking?”
“Refuge,” Jonathan quipped automatically. Then he shrugged. “Just a moment quiet.”
“We don’t like loiterers,” the boy said, but without much force, looking at Jonathan’s clothing.
“Nor do I like loitering,” Jonathan said. “And now I will cease and desist and leave your fine premises.”
Jonathan hears the shouts before he turns the corner.
A crowd is forming fast. David is there—surrounded. The sheriff has him by the collar. “Where’s your pass?” “Where’d you get the money?” Someone says he was with a white boy. “Where’s the accomplice?”
Jonathan is close enough to speak, but he doesn’t.
Automatically, without thinking, he crouches behind a barrel.
David turns to say something to the sheriff and the man takes the back of his hand and whips against David’s face. Blood immediately comes from David’s mouth and nose.
Jonathan stands up.
He’s going to run to David but the sheriff turns and pushes David forward.
David and Jonathan lock eyes before the people separate them – the crowd pushing him back to make a path for the sheriff and his prisoner.
Jonathan stands behind the barrel pressed against the wall of the bakery, its bell ringing as the door opens and closes
He can’t move.
His ears are ringing.
What did David do?
What did David do?
He killed a man and stole his clothes.
He tried to kill the watchmaker.
He’s a wild escaped slave from Louisiana. They send their criminals to us. We need to outlaw them.
We don’t allow strange coloreds in this city. Where’d he come from?
I know almost everybody in Sotheast and he ain’t one of ‘em.
Did you see how he walked?
I hear he had an accomplice.
He must have stolen that coat; no Black man owns shoes like that unless he took them off a body; that’s a white boy’s vest, no mistake—look at the stitching; probably slit a throat for it, probably dragged the body to a ditch and walked off smiling; they don’t come up here unless they’re running from something—he’s got the look of a killer, all clean and careful like he planned it; that’s how they come from the South now—taught to read, taught to lie, trained to pass for decent until they get too close; Louisiana’s full of them, mixed blood and no master, walking like they’ve earned the street; he’s not free, he’s pretending—bet the papers are forged, bet the name ain’t even his; they ship the worst ones north now, the murderers, the rebellious ones, the ones they can’t whip quiet; we’re the dumping ground, every colored bastard with blood on his hands ends up in a Pennsylvania church; I heard he killed the man he’s dressed like; I heard he was sold twice and still ran; I heard he sweet-talked a girl in York and had to flee before her brothers caught him; you give them a suit and they think they’re citizens; you give them words and they talk like lawyers; look at how he walks—like he’s not afraid, like he belongs—that’s not natural; that’s criminal;
As the crowd follows the sheriff, Jonathan remains standing.
He’s afraid to move.
If he moves someone might notice him.
Wasn’t he with another boy?
Someone said he was a college student.
They say he’s from Louisiana. They ship the worst ones north now, the murderers, the rebellious ones, the ones they can’t whip quiet;
Someone said he’s from the college. What are they teaching at that college? I knew that college was nothin’ but trouble.
There was another one, wasn’t there?
We’re the dumping ground, every colored bastard with blood on his hands ends up in a Pennsylvania church; I heard he killed the man he’s dressed like; I heard he was sold twice and still ran;
Someone said he wasn’t alone.
Jonathan doesn’t move.
Jonathan: The witness
When the parade has passed — following David to the jail — Jonathan steps out from the corner behind the barrel.
He strips off his frock coat and swing it over one arm.
He turns toward the school, walking directly with a stride he hopes looks innocent and not guilty.
At the college, he reports the incident to the steward who orders him to tell all the students to lockdown in their rooms without explaining why.
Tell them it is precautionary, he says. Do not mention David.
Afterwards, returning to his room, the silence is as heavy as his chest.
Jonathan lays on the bed – not lighting a candle nor the lamp.
In his mind, he is haunted by the vision. David, bleeding from the nose and the mouth, looking at him hiding behind a barrel. Eyes locked forever in his brain.
He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t stepped forward.
He had stayed behind the barrel.
He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t stepped forward.
He had hardly even stood up.
A thousand excuses.
But he hadn’t moved.
Jonathan had always believed he would be the first to jump in and protect a friend. Wasn’t it he who invited David join them at the table? He was a good man. A strong man. He would always choose the moral path. The ethical path. The brave path. The heroic path.
He had never failed to rise to the challenges he faced.
Until today.
He had frozen.
Frozen.
He hadn’t moved.
Like a deer — Not a panther.
Like a rabbit — Not a badger.
He was an opossum.
A fly and not a wasp.
His shame buries him in disappointment.
In his mind, every time he leaps to David’s defense, he ends up in the middle of an angry mob that tears away his clothing. He would not have been arrested. He would have been attacked.
He won’t lean on consequence as absolution.
His presence beside David would not have soften the crowd’s fury, but fed upon it. They’d see Jonathan as a traitor to blood and station — one of their own who dared cross the line. A white boy siding with a black thief.
They would claim betrayal.
He would be lucky to be in jail right now had he stood up.
More likely he’d have been beaten or killed and his clothes taken.
All that is true.
But: he hadn’t stepped forward to protect his friend.
Hamlet of indecision. Not Peter walking on faith.
His opportunity to be a hero had rotted in place.
Truth insists: What good would that have done?
But, virtue asks: Is that the question?
Jonathan says to himself:
I knew he was innocent of all of their claims.
Yet: I said nothing.
I watched him fall.
And I did not move.
He saw me.
And I turned away.
I will carry that look like a brand for the rest of my life: Coward.
I will not lie to God about it.
Let this be written.
So I can never pretend again.
So I can never call myself clean.
Let the record say:
I stood.
I heard.
I watched.
I did nothing.
And let this be the last time that is true.
David in jail.
David doesn’t remember exactly how it happened.
One moment he was pointing at the hunter-case watch—the one with the fox and the hounds—and the next moment, a hand was grabbing his collar, and another was reaching for something beneath the counter.
A bell was ringing.
Voices shouting.
Someone yelled “Thief!”
Someone else said “Kill him!”
There was a pistol.
Or maybe just a shadow shaped like one.
Then the sheriff was there.
David tried to tell him that he was a student.
The blow came fast.
Back of the hand. The ring hit his lip and loosened his tooth.
Someone said, “Where’s his accomplice?”
Someone else said, “He came to kill the watchmaker.”
No one asked what he was trying to buy.
Now he’s here.
In the jail.
Easton.
Pennsylvania.
The free North.
He sits on the cold northern concrete and does not move.
They took everything.
His coat. His waistcoat. His shoes. His name.
He wears a coarse muslin shift that smells of someone else’s vomit, and pants tied with rope. His feet are bare. His lips are swollen. Unable to close his mouth, he drools. Dried blood is still on his face and hands.
There’s a concrete bench. A bucket. A barred window too high to reach.
He’s alone. He is the only black man in Easton’s jail.
He might be the only black man in Easton.
He sits on the hard northern concrete, unmoving.
Someone always peering through staring at the black boy.
Some run away laughing.
Some stare.
They all talk.
“A runaway.”
“A killer.”
“A thief from New Orleans who cut a man’s throat for a coat.”
“He’s branded. He belongs to the W-ranch.”
David sits on the hard northern concrete, unmoving.
He stays silent.
Here, speech does not clarify.
It convicts.
In New Orleans, he was unique and special – John McDonogh’s golden boy. He was trotted out to quote Aristotle and the Bible and to discuss erudite ideas with the scholars John McDonogh invited to Donoghville.
In New Orleans, he did rounds with the doctors and assisted in procedures.
In New Orleans, merchants greeted him by name and gave him sweets, along with the packages destined for Donoghville.
He was black there too.
But it wasn’t the first thing they saw.
Sometimes, it wasn’t even the second.
Here—it’s the only thing.
Blackness.
He can’t take it off.
His skin is with him wherever he goes.
It erases the subjunctive.
Nullifies the pouch.
Discredits the contract.
Closes the door before he reaches for the knob.
David has been in chains before.
From the chains came Minerva.
From Minerva came John McDonogh.
From this will come something useful –
If he survives.
David sits on the cold northern concrete and does not move.
How can he change them if they don’t doubt their fears?
He sees his own hand on his knee—the filthy torn pants tied by a rope.
The black hand. The coarse fabric.
He is different.
He thought that would be enough.
He thought he was safe because he had Aristotle, Latin, Virgil, anatomy, fencing, debate to protect him.
He had thought excellence was an armor.
But none of it matters.
David sits on the cold northern concrete and does not move.
He is dressed like a prisoner.
Seen like a threat.
All that he has put inside his head is useless.
He is one of them now.
Am I only this, after all?
He doesn’t even know how to be what they want him to be.
He doesn’t know how to walk like a black man.
He only knows how to walk like a man.
He doesn’t know how to lower his eyes.
How to disappear.
He sits on the cold northern concrete and does not move.
There is no home.
In one world, he is black.
In the other, he is a college student.
But never both.
And in neither, is he safe.
He remembers the first time his sister, Wainie, saw field slaves. “Mommy, are they slaves?” she asked.
Now he whispers to himself: “Mommy, am I really free?”
He sits on the cold northern concrete and does not move.
You are nothing here.
Not a scholar.
Not a prodigy.
Another dark pair of eyes with woolly hair.
You are nothing here.
He sits on the cold northern concrete and does not move.
What if they don’t come for him?
What if no one remembers?
Would they even find him?
What if the cell is the final act?
He looks at his hands.
Still dark.
Still his.
Still here.
And he holds still.
Because stillness is survival.
Because motion is risk.
Because this—this—is what it means to be known only by what they fear.
Jonathan returns to Easton.
Jonathan’s head is ringing from a night without sleep, without peace. Words have twisted inside his chest for hours, too loud for rest and too tangled to say. His eyes are swollen. The sun hurts. Every step pounds on his forehead.
He is summoned. The steward gives him a satchel to take to the courthouse. Professor Caldwell is standing at the top of the stairs looking down at the square.
“Thank you,” he says, taking the satchel from Jonathan. He also hands Jonathan a sealed envelope. “Please hurry with this to the steward.”
The professor turns towards the door to enter the courtoom again but then turns back to peer over the railing to the square below. He shakes his head with amused pride. “She’s not mine to manage,” he confesses. “I just hold on for the ride.”
Jonathan doesn’t understand until he hears: “They are just like us.”
The voice of Sally Caldwell, the professor’s daughter. Standing by the flagpole, with the flag snapping overhead, bonnet slipping, hair loose, and holding her skirt with one hand.
A prickly heat rises beneath his coat and his face blushes red.
“I know David McDonogh,” she is saying. “He is my father’s student. And smarter than all the other boys in class. My father said he’s the smartest boy he’s ever taught.”
She is still talking. Earnestly.
The market was over yesterday and now most of the wagons are loaded and some are creaking away. But a crowd of idle men fan out around Sally in unconnected spokes ending in knots of two or three: Elbows slung over crates, shoulders pressed to posts, leaning against walls, sitting on the edge of the boardwalk, chewing tobacco, and sucking on straws.
Jonathan begins descending the courthouse steps.
They are all watching her.
But no one is listening.
She says: “He can answer any question asked. He translates Biblical phrases from English to Latin to Greek to Hebrew on the chalkboard.”
Jonathan had met her only once.
The professor’s daughter. She’d spent the orientation tea party shadowing David: asking if his skin was dry; if it was true black people couldn’t swim; and how wonderful it was to be able to be outside in the fields all day without sunburning. She gushed when she provoked him to quote Cicero, marveled that he spoke French, was amazed at his amazing vocabulary, and swooned at his Latin. “No one would believe you were black,” she told him.
David repeated it later with a bemused shake of his head. “Can you believe anyone would say that?”
Jonathan remembers everyone at the table looking a little embarrassed. They’d all thought it.
Now she is shouting to the world for David McDonogh. A white girl.
He hadn’t even stood up. His stomach clenches and he gags.
Jonathan now hurries down the stairs.
He hears:
Bet she’d moan sweeter than she talks.
Prettiest little preacher I ever saw.
She looks like she needs help down.
Wonder what she dreams about.
They laugh and go silent, all eyes on Sally.
Jonathan turns towards Lafayette with the important packet Dr. Caldwell had given him.
But he stops.
“Someone oughta take her down.”
They all are looking at her with their mouths open. She is oblivious.
That man you have in the jail right now —David McDonogh—reads Greek and Latin. And he can translate the Bible from Hebrew. He also tutors other students!
In fact, my father says he’s the best student he ever had!
Does she think this will help? Is she crazy?
She pauses, looking around for eyes that would meet hers.
No one is looking at her eyes.
She smiles tightly, nods, lifts her shoulder, takes a breath and says:
“And everyone likes him! Just last night he taught the boys in the dining hall how to sing their prayers! Arm in arm singing and dancing to the Lord’s glory.”
There is a moment of silence as when the ocean reclaims its wave.
No one laughs. No one jeers.
Sally lifts her chin and smiles. She nods and says: “Yes, really! Isn’t that amazing? Spinning for the Lord, we said. One big circle. Even got the cook to join us!”
The ocean pulls in the water to increase the size of the wave.
The crowd erupts.
“What’s that damn school teaching!”
“Dining? Are they eating together?”
“Dancing?”
Smoothing and then crashing the shock waves become smaller until there is only a little foam and someone yells: “Bet he eats her too!”
The wave slowly recedes into a rumble of laughter.
Sally’s proud smile turns to horror. She scans the knots of men slowly, as if seeing them for the first time. Then she looks around desperately, as if seeking escape and then she takes a deep breath, her shoulders rising and her bodice stretching. Head wobbling on her neck, she lifts her chin, and says:
“If color mattered—if it meant something—anything at all – then it would predict something. For example, if you don’t have a tongue, you can’t speak. Someone whose tongue is injured could speak to the extent the tongue is uninjured.”
“I’d like to injure her tongue!”
“That’s not what I would do with it!”
“For there to be an effect, there must be a relationship between two things that is consistent.
“I’d like a consistent relationship!”
“I’d be happy with an inconsistent relationship!”
A relationship means that the two variables function together. That means someone lighter would be smarter. But no one is smarter than David. My father’s been a professor for twenty years and he has never had a student smarter than David.
That means: there’s no relationship between intelligence and skin color. Some smart people are white, some brown, and some black.
No relationship between merit and color!
You see?
If skin mattered, it would matter everywhere.
But it doesn’t! It doesn’t.”
She looks around with wide open eyes from one leering face to another.
“I’ve heard some good things about black bitches.”
“That one’s not black.”
So: If there is no real correlation between brains and color, then why is there such a division? It seems all the smart professionals are white. The scientists are white. The judges are white. And so, that should prove that there is a relationship between color and intelligence, right?
But not if the reason for the fence is color.
If a black man can’t go to college, then he won’t be a judge. If a black man gets an inferior education, then he won’t go to college. If a black man can only live on certain streets and do certain jobs and if a white man refuses to work beside a black man: there is a fence.
That fence is not merit but bigotry. A division made on an arbitrary trait in order to make two parts out of one. A neighborhood of blacks and a neighborhood of whites. And if the blacks get too big, the whites will make them small again.
That’s a fence.
And this fence—this division—it isn’t natural. We built it. Drew it between shades and pretended the line was always there. But where is it? Where does fair end and dark begin? One tone? Two?
In every steady gradient, the difference between two shades is the same – no matter where the difference is measured.
So – at the fence – there is no difference. It’s the same difference. So it is no difference at all. Do you see?”
She pauses, looking around as if hopeful someone will nod. No one does.
“God didn’t make just black and white. God made grey. Just like God made a rainbow. God likes different colors.”
Jonathan looks around. The men aren’t lounging anymore. Some lean in. Some stand straight. All of them watch her. Even the jesters are silent.
The hairs on his arm rise. Something cold slides down his back.
She isn’t wrong. But she isn’t safe.
The packet weighs in his hand.
She climbs down from the flagpole and the men part but reluctantly with full body looks as she passes.
Jonatha fights the impulse to step forward. It would probably just make the other men move towards her.
Besides, her father wasn’t worried. Jonathan shouldn’t be either.
He shouldn’t assume Sally couldn’t handle herself—when clearly, she believed she could. And she was doing a great job of it. A pro, for sure.
Jonathan doesn’t know her well enough to step forward. He hadn’t really even talked to her. She isn’t asked for help. It doesn’t really seem like she actually needs help.
And it wasn’t like the men are actually doing anything.
She is already on the courthouse steps to join her father before Jonathan turns.
Envelope pressed firmly to his chest, he hurries toward College Hill.
Sally heads home.
Sally is heading for home.
She does not look at the reeking men with missing teeth, who bow and remove their greasy hats when she passes. Their eyes raised just at a level of her chest.
She steps carefully.
Don’t trip.
Don’t stumble.
Don’t run.
Someone laughs. She tries not to speed up.
The square is colder now. The wind has changed.
She presses one hand flat against her skirt.
She walks.
One step, then another. Not too fast.
She can’t shake the voices.
She doesn’t want to cry.
The market is thinning.
The crates are half-stacked.
The bread that didn’t sell is left on cloth to dry in the cold.
Sally walks with purpose but without speed.
Her gloves are in her pocket. She forgot to put them on.
Her hands are red. Her knuckles burn.
She passes the newspaper office. The door is closed. The window holds a headline from two days ago. She passes the tailor’s. The gas lamp is lit inside, but the man at the counter doesn’t look up.
She passes a boy with a bundle of kindling. He stops and stares. She meets his eyes and smiles. He does not smile back.
She passes the post. The one with the flaking paint. The one she always counts.
It’s still there.
Everything is still here.
This is normal. Nothing has changed.
The shop windows are lit now. Bread cooling behind glass. Candles in the iron rack. A seamstress folding muslin with hands that don’t tremble.
They don’t look at her.
Her hands are red. The wind has stripped them raw. She had gloves—where did she put them?
Someone closes a door. Not loudly. Just closed.
Still, she flinches.
Her boots ache where they bend. The right one pinches. She remembers thinking, when she bought them, that they looked brave. Now she remembers they’ve been hurting all this time.
She’s at the church now. The steps are empty. The bell is silent.
Her dress is too dirty to enter.
But she should pray. Maybe that will make her feel clean again.
Her house glows from inside. Her father leaves a lantern by the window when he knows she is out. Even in the daytime. She knows he’s in his library. She opens the closet and slips the limp coat from her shoulders.
She hangs it carefully.
Every success is proof that she’s alright.
Her father will hear the doors open and close – the front door and the closet. He will lower his book, and wait for her.
But if she doesn’t enter, he’ll return to his book.
Upstairs, the washbasin is cold.
She scrubs her hands.
Once.
Again.
A third time.
They still feel dirty.
At her desk, she takes out paper.
Then the pen.
Then the ink.
She opens the bottle. Dips the nib.
Lays the tip to the paper.
Nothing comes.
She sets it down.
She has already said too much.
Made a fool out of herself in front of everyone.
She wishes she could disappear and never leave her room again.
Jonathan speaks up.
That afternoon, Jonathan is keeping up with Dr. Caldwell as they approach the courthouse for David’s release.
Though the market is over, a scattered number of stalls are still standing and wagons are lined up with donkey’s tails switching as they wait under the trees. The men lean against their wagons. Straws in mouths, boys perch on wagon wheels. Women cluster in doorways and children kick rocks in the street.
Everyone is waiting.
Everyone is watching the courthouse.
Jonathan and Caldwell are silent. Walking side-by-side with even hurried steps.
When they reach the top of the courthouse steps, Caldwell turns to Jonathan. “Stay here,” he says. He pulls open the heavy carved wooden door and disappears inside.
Jonathan stands in front of the door.
The men who had been leaning on wagons are now standing below the courthouse steps.
The children who were playing on the streets are now sitting on the courthouse steps.
The women are now gathered in clusters around the square, children in hand and under skirt.
From the underlying growling, Jonathan hears: “That’s the boy who was with him!”
Jonathan’s knees stiffens his knees. His entire body is shaking. His hands are shaking. His head is shaking.
The pounding of his headache is now exploding inside him.
This time, though, he steps forward. Wobbling knees or not.
He speaks:
“David,” he says. “His name is David.”
The sound of his own voice surprises him.
“We go to school together. He’s in school with me. The pouch. The money. He got it in the college mail. We all saw it. His Godfather. It came from his Godfather.”
He sounds like a child. He tries to think but he can’t organize his thoughts. So he speaks rather than be silent again.
“Have you heard of John McDonogh? That’s his Godfather.
Richest man in the world.
His Godfather pays for his college and for his clothes. He isn’t a thief.”
Now Jonathan feels his eyes opening again. His head steadying on his neck. Only his fingers still dancing in his pocket. Somewhere in his mind, there is a shift to the rhetoric classroom and he feels his body strengthen and fill with resolve.
He looks out at the crowd for the first time.
They are no longer leaning forward as if to attack him.
No one is calling him a liar.
Yet, they do not retreat. They do not disperse. Or step back.
Knowing David is innocent does not impact them?
He scans their faces.
He doesn’t understand.
He shakes his head slightly and scans again.
Then, he says:
What is it that you afraid of?”
He is not a thief. I guarantee you that.
So what are you afraid of?
If not that he is a thief, then what?
He is not a killer. I guarantee you that?
So what are you afraid of?
If not that he is a killer, then what?
Jonathan feels the authority in his chest and knows he has projected it. He takes a slow deep breath and even his fingers are still, though the eyes are still focused on him.
From the silent crowd below, a man shouts:
“Because we don’t want his kind here.”
The crowd ripples with agreement.
Now Jonathan nods.
Ah, that I understand…
We admit, then, that the man is not a criminal.
But he is of a kind that is not welcome.
You are saying that David’s crime is not behavior.
It is the color of his skin.
An admirable acknowledgement: To focus on an irrelevant trait to knowingly deprive a man of liberty.
But I confess.
When I first saw him at school, I thought: He doesn’t belong here.
And then he proved he knew more than any of us. I know. Because I’m the second best student. So far. He’s going to have a challenge. I intend to be best before the year’s end.
Did I expect that of a black man? Of course, not.
I thought they all lived in alleys and ate from trashcans like rats.
I knew, intellectually, that this was not true.
I knew it.
But if I looked in my heart – my first picture would be the rats in the alley.
Where did that come from?
Not from any interaction with anyone black.
I’d never seen anyone black before.
Trained in logic, I had to ask the obvious question: If you form a judgment with no personal experience, how valid is that judgment?
And, if that judgment is not valid: why do you retain the punishment?
Because you are afraid “his kind” will be substantially dangerous to “your kind.”
But we have just proven that there is no danger in David.
So: Why don’t we challenge our fears?
Fears are like electricity. They seek a rod on which to light.
The first rod. The biggest. Most obvious. Like a flag to attract fear.
All eyes stay on it.
While everything else happens from behind.
We are afraid of truth.
We cannot bear to open a door lest there be the panther there.
We hold the door closed, hands flat against its fence, toes dug in the sand.
While everything else happens from behind.
I can prove that your fear is a false fear.
You say he doesn’t belong here.
We have eliminated behavioral issues. He was arrested for trying to pay for a watch. He had money legally begotten and clothes he bore as a Godson.
But we acknowledge he belongs here in jail
Because of what he is.
And would not acknowledge.
He walked into a shop without looking down.
He wore a tailored coat that would cost your monthly rent.
He speaks with the tongue of a learned man.
None of which could possibly be
If he acknowledge he was black.
He is different.
I am first to say.
His skin is very black.
And he has funny ways of thinking about things.
And he learns in a second what takes me ten seconds – no, five seconds!
His jokes are always bad. He interrupts too much. And his hair looks like a sheared lamb.
He’s different in many ways.
But if liberty belongs only to the familiar: it is not liberty at all.
If the rules only protect those who don’t need protecting, then what value are they?
I’ve been taught that all men are created equal. You’ve said it too. We teach it to children. We print it on documents. We say it on the Fourth of July.
You believed it when the king stepped on your rights.
But not when you are about to step on David’s rights.
You believe it when it applies to you but not to those who are different from you. Does that mean I should have the right to apply a law just to you because we are different?
Aren’t all laws supposed to apply equally to all people?
Don’t you see?
This isn’t about David.
You don’t care about who he is. You don’t care about what he does.
You believe that skin is guilt enough.
As if it is some stigma given by God instead of a fence created by law.
Doesn’t one black genius destroy the whole theory that there is a difference related to color?
And then—all eyes shift.
They’re no longer watching Jonathan.
They’re watching the courthouse door behind him.
Jonathan turns.
David stands framed in the doorway.
A muslin shirt hangs loose from one shoulder, stained with dried blood. The trousers are tied at the waist with a rope. His feet are bare, cracked and raw. The frock coat—creased, dirtied, no longer proud—has been slung over one arm, barely clinging to its shape. The pouch is gone.
He is thinner than he was yesterday.
Smaller somehow.
But he stands upright.
Next to him, Professor Caldwell nods once and gently taps David’s arm.
Jonathan hurries forward. He moves up the stairs, takes David’s other arm, and steadies him.
David does not speak.
Their eyes meet. David nods almost imperceptibly.
Jonathan flushes with relief and gratitude.
The crowd parts slowly—shoulders shifting, heads turning—as the three of them descend the courthouse steps and walk across the square. No one touches them. No one speaks. They make a corridor of bodies. Eyes follow.
Like a wedding procession.
Like a funeral.
Like a moment no one will forget.
Jonathan, David, and Dr. Caldwell walk back toward the college.
David in the middle, with each white man at his side supporting him as they returned home.
David returns to school.
David’s lip throbs.
Alexander passes the heavy earthenware bowl toward him. Stew—thick, hot. Smells like rabbit.
David sees the carrots, the potatoes, the dark sliver of meat sliding under the oil. His stomach growls.
The salt on his lip will burn like the dickens.
He takes a scoop anyway, ladling it into his cup carefully, slowly, looking straight at it and cup.
Jonathan jostles him, passing the bread the wrong way.
David knows this is an invitation to tease.
He says nothing.
Hands the bread to Alexander in silence.
Alexander looks back and forth and then takes a piece and hands it to Josh who continues the counter-clockwise rotation.
David focuses on his plate, on the rough table, on the door…
He sees white skin all around him.
Surrounded by white.
He’d known they saw him as black.
But, now, he sees that they are white.
And that is all he sees.
White, everywhere.
The air feels thick again. Like New Orleans.
A sorrow so sudden it clogs his chest.
The corn arrives. Yellow cobs shining with freshly churned butter.
The cook knew about his lip.
He passes the plate to Jonathan without taking one.
He is thirsty but he dare not drink.
He would feel like the Mongoloid boy in New Orleans who drooled.
Something splits deeper than the cut.
The room presses inward.
The noise dims, even though the voices rise.
He wants to leave.
To vanish.
To step outside and keep walking until the road forgets him.
But he stays.
He does not rise.
He breathes.
And waits.
Jonathan surprises David.
Jonathan feels like he’s performing to a room full of ghosts.
He pulls the satchel from under the bench and pretends it’s any other night.
He stands at the head of the table, opens the bag with exaggerated care, and calls the first name with mock ceremony:
“McAllister! From your aunt. Or your undertaker. Either way, the handwriting’s feminine.”
A few boys laugh—just enough to keep him upright.
He continues.
“Price. Parcel. Lumpy and probably edible. But you first.”
He keeps the rhythm going. His voice is steady, but it takes effort.
Behind every sentence, he hears it: the silence David carries. The silence he created.
He doesn’t look at David. Not directly.
But he feels him—sitting halfway down the bench, eating nothing, speaking to no one, present like a bruise.
The others try.
Price jumps in with a joke.
Alexander leans forward to make a loud complaint about cherries.
It all falls a little short.
They want to help him. They want to help both of them.
But no one knows how to puncture the quiet.
Jonathan reaches deeper into the bag, keeps calling names, keeps the rhythm alive.
“Caldwell. Two sheets. One torn. One folded. Both probably nonsense.”
The bag is almost empty.
He shakes it once, hears the hollow slap of leather.
Then he touches the box in his coat pocket.
Feels the edge of it, smooth and square.
Feels the boys watching him now.
Not just David.
All of them.
Waiting.
And he knows—this is the part that matters.
He pulls it out.
The redemption
And it came to pass in the days of November, when the air was brittle and the light uncertain, that the boy who had been taken was seated among them again.
Wounded, he sat upright.
Silent, he did not hide.
The stew stung him; and the bread sucked at his broken tooth.
Yet, still, he drank and ate
… as he must.
Yeah, though the boys, like ghosts, wavered around him —
northern vowels and pale skin —
he stayed.
Yeah, though they danced the slow dance of friendship
it was lost in a cloud of black.
Then Jonathan, friend and failure, rose
From beside him at the table.
Jonathan stood and the others stood.
All turned to the boy at the table.
And thus spoke Jonathan:
Yesterday cannot be changed.
Yet we promise for today
and for tomorrow:
One for all and all for one.
Voices of boys becoming men, those already deep, and those still but a squeak shouted in unison:
One for all and all for one.
I will stand with you!
Then, Jonathan, friend who froze and friend who rose, handed the boy a box.
A moment’s hesitation too long, the length of a strand of a tearful song, the boy took the tiny wood box and opened the delicate lid.
Inside the box lay the silver hunter’s case.
Inside the lid, engraved in careful letters: We stand beside you.
And Jonathan places his own watch in front of the boy.
“I will stand with you,” he says.
Almost instantly, the boy, slurred: ”And I with you.”
Alexander places his batter brass watch before the boy.
“I will stand with you,” he says.
“And I with you.”
One by one, each pledged unity
His salty tears trickled past swollen lips.
And cleared his sight.
The boys were not just white.
But, also, his friends.
David at Church
He didn’t want to come.
It was warm outside and cooler in the chapel, but not by much. The fans were slow. The sermon had been slow. The songs were too sweet. Everyone’s voice too careful.
David sat near the back. He always did. Not quite hiding, but not standing in the front row either. He kept his books under the pew, spine up.
Afterward, someone asked him to stay.
A circle of elders had gathered—three women, one man. The woman in the green hat was the one who spoke first.
“We’re grateful for what you’re doing,” she said. “You’ve gone far. You’ve made us proud.”
David nodded.
She smiled. “But pride can be a sin, you know.”
He stayed quiet.
Another woman added, “You’ve had some… run-ins. People are watching. The young ones listen to you. And not always in the right way.”
He looked at her. “What’s the wrong way?”
The man said, “It’s not what you say, son. It’s how you say it. You carry yourself like you’re already somebody.”
“I am,” David said.
Silence.
The woman in the green hat leaned forward. Her voice was kind, and it made it worse.
“You should be grateful,” she said. “To be where you are. To do what you do.”
“I am,” David replied. “I am grateful. But that doesn’t mean I have to bow for it.”
She flinched slightly. “Nobody’s asking you to bow.”
David looked at all of them now. He felt his hands trembling, and he folded them to stop it.
“You’re asking me to be less,” he said. “To sit quiet. To speak soft. To remember that freedom means not getting too loud.”
“We’re asking you to be wise,” she said.
“No,” David said. “You’re asking me to behave like someone still waiting to be told he’s a man.”
The room had stilled.
“You’re not in danger, David,” said the man. “You have opportunities others only dream of. But you make trouble.”
David stood.
His voice was calm.
“I make trouble because you won’t. Because you say you want freedom, but you’re scared to act like you’re free. Because you treat ambition like a crime and obedience like a virtue.”
He looked down at the woman in the green hat.
“I’m not your son,” he said.
Then, louder:
“You keep saying the white man will call me a nigger if I step out of line—
but the truth is, people like you are the reason he never has to stop.”
No one breathed.
And David walked out.
Part of the Martin Marprelate Returns collection