“Uh-huh . . . white brothers, and you best remember that.”
I was hardly about to forget it, what with my mama always reminding me of the fact, though in those early days it didn’t seem important to me. Hammond, George, and Robert were simply my brothers, and my daddy was my daddy, and I got tired of my mama always reminding me different; but still I had to admit that there was something to what she said about me asking Hammond and George to talk to Mitchell, something that wasn’t right. Mitchell had been born a slave on my daddy’s land, and so had I. We had that much in common. My mama was right. I shouldn’t have sent Hammond and George. I needed to settle this thing with Mitchell myself.
Once I came to that conclusion, to handle things myself, even when Hammond and George offered to help again, I said no. They had taken one look at me after Mitchell’s last beating, and George said, “Looks like that talk we had with Mitchell didn’t do much good.”
“You want us to go talk to him again?” Hammond asked.
“Better still,” said Robert, “this time we’ll beat him up good for ya!”
“No,” I replied. “You talk to him again or you whip him, he’ll still come after me. I’ll handle it my own self.”
“Then least we’d better teach you how to fight better,” said George.
“No,” I said. “I’ve got it figured now. I’ll be all right.”
George laughed. “Hope you’re right. We don’t want to have to bury you.”
Well, I didn’t want them to have to bury me either. I had a plan, and all I could do was pray that it worked. That same day I went looking for Mitchell. When I found him, he seemed surprised to see me. He looked around. “Well, where they at?” he said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Your brothers. Ain’t ’spected you to be out walkin’ round without ’em.”
“Well, I am. I come looking for you.”
“What for? To get yo’self another whippin’?”
“To ask you something.”
“And what’s that?”
“I wanna know exactly how come you don’t like me. I mean, I got some of your reasons figured, but far as I can tell, I never done anything to you.”
Mitchell shrugged. “Just don’t like you.”
“Just don’t?” I questioned.
He looked at me square and said matter-of-factly, “I got no use for white niggers.”
I thought on that for a moment. I hated that word nigger, but I wasn’t about to lecture Mitchell concerning it right now. Instead, I said, “I wasn’t so white-looking, would you like me?”
“No.”
“Why not?
“’Cause you think you way better’n everybody else.”
“Now, what makes you think I think that? You inside my head?”
“You know how come,” Mitchell retorted.
“Just ’cause my daddy’s white and he owns this place?” I asked. “Well, I didn’t have a say about who my daddy is, and I didn’t have a say about my looking white. It’s just who I am.” I dismissed all that with a shrug and hoped Mitchell would do the same. “What else makes you think I feel like I’m better?”
“You so smart, you go on figure it out,” said Mitchell, having now said more to me than ever before without having started to pound on me.
I thought on what he said before I spoke again. “You know, Mitchell, you way stronger’n me, and ’cause you are, there’re a whole lotta things you can do I can’t. But there’re some things I can do and you can’t, like read and write and figure. Maybe you think I feel better’n everybody else ’cause I can do those things and you can’t, so I was thinking: What if I taught you to read and write and figure? Then you’d pretty much know what I know and there wouldn’t be any reason for you to think I’m thinking I’m so smart.”
Mitchell scowled. “What I want t’ read and write and figure for?”
“’Cause it’s something worth knowing,” I reasoned, “and ’cause most white folks don’t want us knowing how, ’cause once we do know, we can learn all sorts of things white folks know. You ever think why it is most white folks don’t want us to know how to read and write and figure? My daddy says it’s ’cause they need us as workers and so they don’t want us knowing much as they do. Long as they figure they know something we don’t, they can figure they’re smarter than us.”
Mitchell thought on that. “Ain’t you afraid of them night riders comin’ to get you, you go tryin’ to teach me how to do them things?” he asked dryly.