Occasionally a kneeling man chose gunshot in his head as the price, maybe, of taking a bit offoreskin with him to Jesus. Paul D did not know that then. He was looking at his palsied hands,smelling the guard, listening to his soft grunts so like the doves', as he stood before the mankneeling in mist on his right. Convinced he was next, Paul D retched — vomiting up nothing at all. An observing guard smashed his shoulder with the rifle and the engaged one decided to skip thenew man for the time being lest his pants and shoes got soiled by nigger puke.
"Hiiii"
It was the first sound, other than "Yes, sir" a blackman was allowed to speak each morning, andthe lead chain gave it everything he had. "Hiiii!" It was never clear to Paul D how he knew whento shout that mercy. They called him Hi Man and Paul D thought at first the guards told him whento give the signal that let the prisoners rise up off their knees and dance two-step to the music ofhand forged iron. Later he doubted it. He believed to this day that the "Hiiii!" at dawn and the"Hoooo!" when evening came were the responsibility Hi Man assumed because he alone knewwhat was enough, what was too much, when things were over, when the time had come.
They chain-danced over the fields, through the woods to a trail that ended in the astonishing beautyof feldspar, and there Paul D's hands disobeyed the furious rippling of his blood and paid attention. With a sledge hammer in his hands and Hi Man's lead, the men got through. They sang it out andbeat it up, garbling the words so they could not be understood; tricking the words so their syllablesyielded up other meanings. They sang the women they knew; the children they had been; theanimals they had tamed themselves or seen others tame. They sang of bosses and masters andmisses; of mules and dogs and the shamelessness of life. They sang lovingly of graveyards andsisters long gone. Of pork in the woods; meal in the pan; fish on the line; cane, rain and rockingchairs.
And they beat. The women for having known them and no more,no more; the children for having been them but never again. They killed a boss so often and socompletely they had to bring him back to life to pulp him one more time. Tasting hot mealcakeamong pine trees, they beat it away. Singing love songs to Mr. Death, they smashed his head. More than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on. Making themthink the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only whenshe was dead would they be safe. The successful ones — the ones who had been there enoughyears to have maimed, mutilated, maybe even buried her — kept watch over the others who werestill in her cock-teasing hug, caring and looking forward, remembering and looking back. Theywere the ones whose eyes said, "Help me, 's bad"; or "Look out," meaning this might be the day Ibay or eat my own mess or run, and it was this last that had to be guarded against, for if onepitched and ran — all, all forty-six, would be yanked by the chain that bound them and no tellingwho or how many would be killed. A man could risk his own life, but not his brother's. So the eyessaid, "Steady now," and "Hang by me."Eighty-six days and done. Life was dead. Paul D beat her butt all day every day till there was not awhimper in her. Eighty-six days and his hands were still, waiting serenely each rat-rustling nightfor "Hiiii!" at dawn and the eager clench on the hammer's shaft. Life rolled over dead. Or so hethought.
It rained.