Shades of Right Excerpt

This is an excerpt from Shades of Right:

I was five years old when Master Meadows bought me.

Master Meadows said he had not meant to buy a slave that day. He had gone to the auction with his old friend, Samuel Taylor, who was in need of a household slave for his daughter’s wedding gift. Master Meadows said he spotted me up on the block and felt his heart stir in a grand way.

There I was, five years old, all alone, with the biggest brown eyes and a determined expression. That was what Master Meadows said often over the years when people asked him whyever did he buy a little boy. I stood with my shoulders straight and faced the crowd of buyers with the expression of a condemned man facing his execution with bravery and honor.

I don’t remember much of anything before going home with Master Meadows. I guess that means my life started up on that auction block.

My memories of my mother were vague even before the day Master Meadows bought me. I was separated from her long before finding myself standing on that auction block surrounded by a sea of white faces. I didn’t know if it was weeks or months when last I saw my mother. It seemed like forever by the time I found myself climbing up on the platform with the auctioneer waiting for me.

It was hot that day. Sweat dripped down the faces of the men gathered to buy workers for their plantations, factories, and households. There were women holding parasols over their heads, fluttering paper fans in front of their faces to stir up a breeze. They needed to create a breeze because there was not a drop of stale, baked air circulating on its own.

My mother became but a compilation of senses. Sometimes when the lavender was in bloom I would get a bit of memory of a smiling woman cutting bunches of lavender and putting the stems laden with their purple flower into a flat woven basket. For years the smell of lavender made me think of sunshine and laughter. Even that faded.

I didn’t even really know for sure if the fuzzy image of the smiling woman was an image of my mother or some other woman. I liked to think it was my mother. I had so little memory of her that I wanted to hold onto the few that images that remained.

There were other memories as well, though not so pleasing as the memories stirred by the scent of lavender. Sometimes, when it would rain hard at night, even if I was bone tired and needed to sleep before morning came so early, the sound of a woman crying would haunt my thoughts. They were not gentle sobs but great wracking sobs full of grief and pain. The memory would keep me from falling asleep until late many a rainy night.

Standing up there on the wooden stage in front of all those hot, sweaty faces was a horrible thing to experience. Master Meadows always liked to say that I looked so brave, that I was facing what came with a stoic determination. I don’t remember feeling any of that.

All I remembered was missing the feeling of my mama holding me in her strong arms and knowing that I would never see her again. Mr. Hobbs had told me I would never see Mama again as he took my hand and led me out onto that stage.

“I miss my mama,” I had said to Mr. Hobbs while we were standing down at the foot of the stairs leading up onto the auction block.

“You ain’t never gonna see yo mama again, boy,” Mr. Hobbs had said. “No bawling now. You keep that brave face on and do what yo new owner tells ya without quibble and it’ll go all right wid ya.”

“But I miss my mama,” I said in a low whisper.

Mr. Hobbs was staring at my feet. “Didn’t ya get shoes, boy?” he said, frowning.

They had given me a pair of shoes that morning to wear up on the auction block. They were worn and scuffed but had no holes in the soles. They also pinched my feet and hurt my toes so I had taken them off and left them in the holding area behind the auction block. I remembered wearing shoes before but mostly being barefoot most of the time.

I was thinking about never seeing my mama again as I climbed those wide wood planks up and up until we were standing above the crowd. The wood had been worn smooth and polished by many feet climbing to the raised platform. There wasn’t much interest in me. People wanted to buy a slave old enough to work a full day, not a child.

All those eyes in those faces filling the area below the platform were scary. I clutched Mr. Hobbs’ leg. He pried my fingers loose and gave me a small push on my back. I took two stumbling steps forward and stopped. The sun was hot on my freshly shaved head.

A lot of people in the crowd below the auction block looked away, chatting with each other and studying the sales bill for what was coming up next. I needed to keep a brave face on so that was what I focused on, looking brave instead of crying for my mama.

There was some talking going on between the auctioneer and some people standing about in front of the platform but I wasn’t really paying mind to what was being said. Those people standing about, asking the auctioneer questions wanted to know something about me.

The auctioneer was the man standing by the podium with a pile of papers containing information on each slave being presented for purchase that day. The day before he had walked through the holding area, asking questions, writing stuff down. I don’t know what they had written down about me.

A man raised a white handkerchief in his hand, fluttering the bit of cloth to get the auctioneer’s attention. “Did you say Summerset Plantation?” he asked the auctioneer.

The man was almost right in front of me. He wore a white straw hat over pale hair and his jet black beard was trimmed so that the sides of his jaw were bare. He had blue eyes and wore wire-rimmed spectacles that made his eyes look even larger. I never did see another man with skin so white as that man’s skin.