A Jazz Segment

Their reflective distance dulls the shrieks and squeals of mothers and children. The men talk in muted voices about the day’s events.
“The cotton certainly is yielding high returns this year.”
“Yes, it is quite profitable. These niggers sure make it easier on all of us.”
The conversing ceases when two men begin to ascend the staircase. The faces in the crowd are focused intensely on the first man who is being led by a second man in uniform. The first man wears white cotton long underwear that has been cut in the front and back. The bloodstains are dried and crusted. His bottoms are torn completely at the groin and his penis slips in and out as he ascends each step. Some recent wound has left fresh blood dripping from the head of his penis. His movements are soft and slow.
Physically, he is strong and his toned muscles show through the rags that now drape over his torso. His chocolate skin is covered in sweat and glistens in the afternoon sun. The hair on his head has been recently shaved ruthlessly with a razorblade. Pieces of scalp dangle from his skull. The peaceful crowd is silent.
The man has been accused of senselessly raping a young white woman. She has recently become pregnant and says that it was the young, chocolate-skinned slave that had raped her and made her with child. Her face is shrouded in black. The material disguises her tears of sorrow, love and regret. The man at the top of the staircase told the young woman of his dreams that they would escape together. They would go north and utilize the more understanding laws to begin their family together. She was scared though. Scared of what people would think, scared of never seeing any of her friends or family again.


Her mother was the first to notice. The baggy clothing and overalls were unable to hide the growth any longer. The young white woman made her choice. She did not want to face the shame and scorn of the community.
She told the young man of her decision. She told him to run. She told him that it would not be safe for him. She loved him too much to watch him die. He said he would not go anywhere. He had done nothing wrong. The world would just have to understand or he would have to face the consequences of his love. She pleaded with him. She begged him to go north or west or anywhere. He looked at her, touched her face gently and told her to that the world was not fit for perfect love.
The next day, the white men heard. They ran, with belts and picks and whips. The young man was praying in the slave chapel on the south side of the plantation. The men broke into the church, turned over the pews, grabbed the young man and began beating him. The men’s shadows fell onto the crudely sculpted Christ figure at the front of the church. There, on the church floor, the young man was stripped naked, beaten with hoes and picks. He was whipped. His flesh was torn from his bones. The young man’s brave mother and his brother later cleaned the blood and decaying flesh; he cursed the name of every white man he had ever known as he scrubbed the blood-soaked wooden floors. The white men took pliers and held the man's penis tightly as they branded it with a cattle iron. His screams could barely be heard over the cries of the white men. The wailing, defeated animal and the shouts of victory sounded like the end of a foxhunt. The rich men took the young brown man to the horse’s stable and rubbed animal excrement into his cuts and his genital wounds. They filled his mouth with pig filth. One white man shoved the feces of a goat into the man’s eyes. All the while, the young man screamed and pleaded that the young girl was in love with him, that he had not done as they were saying he did. This only made the men’s eyes more intense, focused and determined to make the lying, disgusting animal pay the price. They told him he would be an example.


As the man in uniform slides the rope around the young man’s tight, muscular neck, his eyes rise to meet the crowd for the first time. Immediately, he sees his lover, his child’s mother, and focuses all that is left in his brain, all that he can bring up from his soul, into his stare. She bursts into tears, and covers her face with her laced gloves. Her mother puts her arm around the young woman, and tells her not to shed tears over this animal. Her mother says that he was only worth what her father had paid for him, and not to worry. The young girl begins sobbing uncontrollably.
The young girl looks up from her hands and moves out of her mother’s warm embrace. She stares into the man, and he stares back into her. His eyes are full of tears, and as he blinks, two tears roll down each side of his face. The pain of the beating, and the branding, and the shaving, and the whipping are all met with intense pride and courage. This brave, beautiful, brown man is now crying tears of joy. He sees the beauty of his unborn child reflected in the flawless, fair skin of his lover.
As he notices her skin, and the soft reflection from the afternoon sun, her face changes. She has a look of determination. She looks purposeful. Her mouth begins to open. In an instant the young man realizes what she is about to do.
He envisions the crowd erupting. He can see them carrying her to the front and leading her up the stairs. He can see another rope. He can imagine his lover, and his unborn child hanging next to his limp body.
As the words accelerate from her mind, through her tongue and onto her lips, the young man with the glistening chocolate skin turns his head to the man with his hand on the lever and screams like fire,
“I’ll rape a hundred more if you don’t get on with it!”

The young woman’s thoughts stopped at her lips at the instant the lever was pulled, the gate dropped and the young man fell through the hole. Her words turned to silence. In that moment, the sound of bone sliding on bone could be heard as the man’s neck popped twice. His body popped back up once and then swayed slowly back and forth. He was completely limp. The young woman fell onto the muddy ground below. On her knees, she placed her hands together and began to pray. At the very same moment, her child moved inside of her.