They gonna have some more the way Caesar keep evicting people. He put out two more families yesterday. He charging by the week. They get one week behind and he put them out. He don’t ask no questions. He just gather up what little bit of stuff they got and sit it out on the street. Then he arrest them for being out there.
They had a man down in Kentucky was accused of stealing a horse. He said he didn’t do it. Turned him into an outlaw. Made him the biggest horse thief in Kentucky. He lived to steal horses. He must of stole five hundred horses. And every one he sent back word: I stole that one but I didn’t steal the first one. I stole that one but I didn’t steal the first one. They never did catch him. He died and the horse thieving stopped.
CITIZEN: He could have come out the river.
AUNT ESTER: That’s the only way he had to say he was innocent. It must have meant an awful lot for him to say that. He was willing to die to say that.
CITIZEN: I was standing there. I seen him. I thought he was gonna come out. I told myself he was gonna come out. […]
AUNT ESTER: Jesus Christ was falsely accused. He died a bitter death on the cross. This man was like Jesus. He say he would rather die innocent than to live guilty.
They say they was paying two dollars a day but when we got there they say a dollar fifty. Then they say we got to pay two dollars room and board. They sent us over to a place the man say we got to put two dollars on top of that. Then he put two men to a room with one bed. […] I asked one fellow what board meant. He say they supposed to give you something to eat. They ain’t give us nothing. I say okay. I can’t make them give me nothing. What I’m gonna do? I got to eat. I bought a loaf of bread for a dime. A bowl of soup cost ten cents around the corner. I wasn’t desperate. I had sixty-five cents to make it payday. I ate half the bread and say I would get a bowl of soup tomorrow. Come payday they give me three dollars say the rest go on my bill. I had to give the man what own the house two dollars. What I’m gonna do, Miss Tyler? I told the people at the mill I was gonna get another job. They said I couldn’t do that ’cause I still owed them money and they was gonna get the police on me. I was gonna go to another city but then before I had a chance I killed a man.
ELI: Freedom is what you make it.
SOLLY: That’s what I’m saying. You got to fight to make it mean something. All it mean is you got a long row to hoe and ain’t got no plow. Ain’t got no seed. Ain’t got no mule. What good is freedom if you can’t do nothing with it? I seen many a man die for freedom but he didn’t know what he was getting. If he had known he might have thought twice about it.
CAESAR: Are you a troublemaker, Citizen Barlow? You ever been in jail?
CITIZEN: I ain’t never been in jail.
CAESAR: That’s where you heading. You got to have visible means of support around here. If I see you standing around looking to steal something and you ain’t got two dollars in your pocket you going to jail. You understand? Get you a job and stay out of trouble. Stay off the streets.
It wasn’t much but it was twenty-five cents more than he had. He took and threw it away. He can’t see past his nose. He can’t see it’s all set up for him to do anything he want. See, he could have took and bought him a can of shoe polish and got him a rag. If he could see that far he’d look up and find twenty-five dollars in his pocket. Twenty-five dollars buys you an opportunity.
I’ll tell you whose fault it is. It’s Abraham Lincoln’s fault. He ain’t had no idea what he was doing. He didn’t know like I know. Some of these niggers was better off in slavery. They don’t know how to act otherwise. You try and do something nice for niggers and it’ll backfire on you every time. You try and give them an opportunity by giving them a job and they take and throw it away. Talking about they ain’t going to work.
You don’t understand I give the people hope when they ain’t got nothing else. They take that loaf of bread and make it last twice as long. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t pay one and a half times for it. I’m helping people.
Went down to the bank to borrow some money. They told me I needed some collateral. Say you need something to borrow money against. I say all right, I’ll get me some collateral. I opened me up a gambling joint in the back of the barbershop. Sold whiskey. The police closed it down. I had to put some bullet holes in a couple of niggers and the police arrested me. Put me on the county farm.
I got memories go way back. I’m carrying them for a lot of folk. All the old-timey folks. I’m carrying their memories and I’m carrying my own. If you don’t want it I got to find somebody else. I’m getting old. Going on three hundred years now. That’s what Miss Tyler told me. Two hundred eighty-five by my count.
He didn’t care if anybody else knew if he did it or not. He knew. He didn’t do it for the people standing around watching. He did it for himself. He say I’d rather die in truth than to live a lie. That way he can say that his life is worth more than a bucket of nails. What is your life worth, Mr. Citizen? That’s what you got to find out. You got to find a way to live in truth.
BLACK MARY: What’s the two pennies for? Why he got to find two pennies?
AUNT ESTER: That’s only to give him something to do. He think there a power in them two pennies. He think when he find them all his trouble will be over. But he need to think that before he can come face to face with himself. Ain’t nothing special about the two pennies. Only thing special about them is he think they special. He find them two pennies then he think he done something. But, he ain’t done nothing but find two pennies.
They talking about keeping the colored out of Pennsylvania. Say, “What do we need them for?” One man say they ought to send them back down South. I come on past the general store in Rankin and they was talking about, “Why can’t we have slavery again?” One man said ’cause of the law. And somebody said change the law. The man asked him, “Would you fight another war?” And he said, “Hell yeah.”
I was in Canada in 1857. I stood right there in Freedomland. That’s what they called it. Freedomland. I asked myself, “What I’m gonna do?” I looked around. I didn’t see nothing for me, I tried to feel different but I couldn’t. I started crying. I hadn’t cried since my daddy knocked me down for crying when I was ten years old. I breathed in real deep to taste the air. It didn’t taste no different. The man what brought us over the border tried to talk with me. I just sat right down on the ground and started crying. I told him say, “I don’t feel right.” It didn’t feel right being in freedom and my mama and all the other people still in bondage. Told him, “I’m going back with you.” I stopped crying soon as I said that. I joined the Underground Railroad.
If you gonna do it…do it right! They wave the law on one end and hit you with a billy club with the other. I told myself I can’t just sit around and collect dog shit while the people drowning. The people drowning in sorrow and grief. That’s a mighty big ocean. They got the law tied to their toe. Every time they try and swim the law pull them under.
SOLLY: […] It’s dangerous out here. People walking around hunting each other. If you ain’t careful you could lose your eye or your arm. I seen that. I seen a man grab hold to a fellow and cut off his arm. Cut it off at the shoulder. He had to work at it a while…but he cut it clean off. The man looked down saw his arm gone and started crying. After that he more dangerous with that one arm than the other man is with two. He got less to lose. There’s a lot of one-arm men walking around.
ELI: That’s what Caesar can’t understand. He can’t see the people ain’t got nothing to lose.
SOLLY: […] I knew all them guns wasn’t on account of me. I figured they was fighting for themselves. And if that would help them that would help us.
ELI: They never said they was gonna help us. They said the war was gonna help us. After that it be every man for himself.
SOLLY: I told them you get what’s in it for you and I’ll get what’s in it for me. You get yours and I’ll get mine and we’ll settle the difference later. We still settling it.
CITIZEN: I don’t know. Sometimes I lay awake at night when I be lonely and ask myself what I would say to her. Sometimes I tell her to stop being lonely. I tell her it’s something she doing to herself. But then I’m laying there lonely too and I have to ask myself was it something I was doing to myself? I don’t know. I ain’t lonely now. I ain’t got no woman but I still don’t feel lonely. I feel all filled up inside. That’s something I done to myself. So maybe I did make myself lonely.
BLACK MARY: You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.
Yeah, I burned it down! The people might get mad but freedom got a high price. You got to pay. No matter what it cost. You got to pay. I didn’t mind settling up the difference after the war. But I didn’t know they was gonna settle like this. I got older I see where I’m gonna die and everything gonna be the same. I say well at least goddamn it they gonna know I was here! The people gonna know about Solly Two Kings!
You see, Mr. Caesar, you can put the law on the paper but that don’t make it right. That piece of paper say I was property. Say anybody could buy or sell me. The law say I needed a piece of paper to say I was a free woman. But I didn’t need no piece of paper to tell me that. Do you need a piece of paper, Mr. Caesar?
These ain’t slavery times no more, Miss Tyler. You living in the past. All that done changed. The law done changed and I’m a custodian of the law. Now you know, Miss Tyler, you got to have rule of law otherwise there’d be chaos. Nobody wants to live in chaos.
They laid him low. Put him in the cold ground. David and Solomon. Two kings in the cold ground. Solly never did find his freedom. He always believed he was gonna find it. The battlefield is always bloody. Blood here. Blood there. Blood over yonder. Everybody bleeding. Everybody been cut and most of them don’t even know it. But they bleeding just the same. It’s all you can do sometime just to stand up. Solly stood up and walked.
He lived in truth and he died in truth. He died on the battlefield. You live right you die right.
Caesar, I gave you everything. Even when I didn’t have to give you. I made every way for you. I turned my eyes away. I figured if I didn’t see it I couldn’t hold fault. If I held fault I couldn’t hold on to my love for you. But now you standing in the light and I can’t turn away no more. I remember you when you was on the other side of the law. That’s my brother. The one who used to get out of bed to take me to school. The one who believed everybody had the same right to life…the same right to whatever there was in life they could find useful. That’s my brother. I don’t know who you are. But you not my brother. You hear me, Caesar? You not my brother.
