Written by the Victors

Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.

It was all little Dorcas could think as her poor tiny palms and fingers burned while chopping weeds with a hand tool that was too big for her. She bent over to get a better swing, the skin on her tiny back stretching, burning, hurting.

Orpah, Dorcas’ mother, watches helplessly as her daughter struggles to keep up beside her. You see, Dorcas is her oldest daughter, middle child. She has to work in the fields with Orpah and her father Zeke. Yeah, she came out looking just like Zeke. Carbon copy. Skin the same color as her parents. So she in the field.

But Orpah’s two youngest daughters are not Zeke’s. They belong to Master Jefferson, and because their skin color is a lil closer to his, he took them to the big house after they was weaned. Mm hmm. No fields for the cafe au lait. Orpah prays to the god she is told looks nothing like her that her girls are safe. Cause she believe in that one drop rule. One drop, and you ain’t ever safe. She can’t dwell on them tho. She got to look after Dorcas. She catches Zeke’s eye. Look back to Dorcas. He know what he gotta do. For this baby. His baby.

Zeke can barely look Orpah in the eye, after she become Master favorite. She was so scared to go to the big house, asking Zeke what she gone do. Zeke tell her she gone go when she called up and do what they tell her to do. No use getting em all killed. But it was different after that. After the two babies. That ain’t his. Now they lay down, and that’s all Orpah do. Don’t move, just wait til Zeke finish. He wonder if she like that with Master. He want to throw up.

He look at Dorcas. She mine, he think. The two older boys are his too, but he can’t let hisself get too close to them. Soon as they get big enough, strong enough, Master gone sell em. Same thing happen to Zeke. He ain’t seen his people since he was twelve years old, some 30 years ago. He think about his pappy a lot. Pappy was real old when Zeke was born, Zeke wonder if he still alive. Doubt it. They took him away right before Zeke got out in the block. He glad Pappy didn’t see him get sold. But still…

Pappy was a healer. He knew plants and remedies like nobody else. Could soothe a colicky baby or a gouty old man in two days time. He was also a storyteller. But some of the old folks didn’t like his stories. The ol Master sure didn’t. Said his stories made the slaves uppity, made em think more of theyself than they should. Said Pappy should read em the Good Book. Pappy hated the Good Book.

See, Pappy said that a six hundred years ago, people that looked liked the slaves ruled everything . They was sooooo smart, and everybody wanted to be them. They made the rules, and shaped the land in they image. They had made everybody else work for them. But Pappy said they took it too far. And the people they was ruling over, got together, and took over. They undid everything our ancestors did, and redid it, in they image.

That’s why Pappy hate the Good Book. He say now they use it to brainwash slaves, keep em docile. Otherwise, Pappy say, why all the good folks in the Bible is Colored, and all the evil folks is white?

Well, some slave went and told old master what Pappy was saying, and they came and got him in the middle of the night. Zeke and his brothers was sold off to different plantations a week later. Zeke always wondered why they never wanted Pappy to tell his stor-

Zeke is interrupted by Orpah, by the weight of her stare. Do something, it say.

Zeke slowly approaches Señor Saucedo, one of the overseers of Tableturn Plantation. Keeps his eyes down. Asks him if he can ask Master Jefferson for a little sunscreen for his daughter, her pale skin is burned and cracked under the sun, and it will help so much.

Señor Saucedo is outraged that this pale slave would dare interrupt his lunch. He backhands Zeke to the dirt, so angry that spittle flies everywhere. Zeke cowers as Saucedo taunts him, saying that gringos are so lazy, so weak, that the sun hurts their delicate skin. Hurts their light eyes. Bah! Not only will he not bother Master Jefferson for sunscreen, he wants Zeke’s family to pick double the collards and turnip greens today. New Independence Day is in 2 days, and the Master wants a big ol pot of greens and hocks at the International Feast. (Saucedo’s family is taking carnitas, if y’all care.) He tells Zeke to go cover the gal in mud, and get back to work.

Zeke walks back to Orpah and Dorcas. Orpah has seen everything, and is already getting mud ready, resignation etched across her own sunburned face. Her green eyes are dull, emotionless. Her red hair in a messy bun. Dorcas stands in front of her, staring into her father’s blue eyes, the left one starting to swell, his long blond hair disheveled.

“Daddy, what’s New Independence Day?”

“Hell if I know, baby. It ain’t got nothing to do with us.”