by Daniel Davis Clayton

When Sue returned to the group, she tightly clamped her legs so no one could smell the sperm incubating inside her uterus. He hadn't even let her wash. Jack, her husband, brushed her knee with the back of his hand. This was a far cry from holding her, but he could no longer bring himself to embrace her so soon afterward. He would hold her tonight when he felt the two were no longer being watched.

She had already bore two children who were not his. The first died of botulism. And when the second gurgled up blood instead of saliva, bowels running red, Jack was punished with the removal of his testicles. Maybe now he wouldn't be so quick to kill children if he could no longer bear his own. He sat beside her in impotent silence. They were strange bedfellows, the two. Husband and wife. The unable and the abused. Zeus could do no worse perhaps. He patted her on the knee.

Her name was Sue and his was Jack. Typical names. Jolly negro names. Good nigger names if you'd ask anyone. Most slavers would give a nigger baby a good name like Jack any day of the week. Niggers didn't care what their names were anyway. Hell, half the time they didn't use names. They'd just look at each other and talk. Names were for proper folk. Jack's owner preferred to give an entire family the same name. "If a nigger has a baby," he reasoned, "I just name the baby after the wench or the buck. Keeps things simple. And when I say, 'Come here Jack,' see I got three or four of 'em that come to running. I get things done quick that way."

The fire died low in the camp, and the chill air began to reclaim its territory. There usually was to be no communication between the slaves, but on nights where the treasures of Sue and a few choice others there rummaged and laid to waist, there came a relaxation of the rules. A consolation gift of sorts. On these nights, the captives would share stories of their native shores, tales passed down from their ancestors, and those newly acquired in this foreign world; and Jack would brush his hand against Sue's knee. Tonight would be no different.

The crew was traveling to the new southern region of America that was acquired with the Louisiana Purchase, the war on Native Americans, and other such ventures. Since the invention of the cotton engine or "gin" in 1793 and the boom of the cotton industry itself, the price of negro slaves had skyrocketed. Some states such as Virginia and Maryland, whose own tobacco crops were beginning to fail, became primary slave producing states, shipping bodies into the deep southern areas such as Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. By 1860, more than 800,000 slaves had been migrated; long harsh migrations sometimes softened with stories of legends and mythos.

One of the slave men, Titus, was from the Jersey territories. His voice grew eerie as he looked at each of the faces half-zombied in the flickering darkness. "Have you heard of the Jersey Devil?" And with that, his wide eyes began the story.

Pippin spoke of the Gods of his homeland and taught short phrases passed down in his native tongue.

Clairece told of her kidnapping from Philadelphia.

Jack chose silence.

The night grew deep as exhaustion began to spread into their consciousness. Several turned to the ground, falling asleep immediately and making the shackles taunt. Slowly a dominoes effect began as one-by-one the audience submitted themselves to the night. No one made mention of the approaching day's travels. Things would be no different tomorrow.

Sue and Jack spooned as best they could. Jack was thankful the slavers hadn't realized the two were husband and wife or just didn't care for the time being. A bittersweet thing. The hand on Sue's knee had become a hand on Sue's waist as Jack kissed her dusty back until she too slept from exhaustion. He always waited for her to sleep before he could release his embrace and allow himself to grow comfortable on the uncaring ground. He would hear the footsteps of his captors cracking twigs back and forth during the night, but no one would disturb his wife as she slept. No one.

The child born of her uterus several months later was sold deep into central Texas. And that child's seeds speckle Austin today. Despite their lack of knowledge concerning the plight of Sue and Jack, they all celebrate Juneteenth in honor. Sue, the survivor. Jack, the would be ancestor.

The slaves shared their stories that night, encircled and chained.

Just as we are doing right now: true or false, the circle no different, our father impotent, our mother a survivor, both choosing silence so their tales go untold.