Promise

by Lucinda McDermott

At Rise: A black woman, aged 97 is woven into the tendrils of scuppernong Mother Vine and  Drift Wood on the bleeding sands of Roanoke Island, NC.  

Present day. 

The sun is rising on her. She seems dead, but as the light warms and intensifies, she stirs.

Time and tide. Time and lies. Time and tide and lies, lies, lies. “We’ll give you forty acres and a  mule”. The hell they will. “We’ll educate you, give you lumber to build a home.” The hell.  What. Lies. Mother fuckers. “We’ll give you freedom”. Freedom. Yeah. That’s right. 

Rouses and looks at audience. 

What are you looking at?  

“Cross the creek to Roanoke Island and you will find safe haven”. That’s what the told great  granny Edith when Burnside landed on Ashby’s Farm, 1862. 

That’s right, Skippy. The Civil War.  

“Cross the creek to Roanoke Island and you will find safe haven.” 

Edith loved Sara and Sara loved Lila and Lila, Sweet Lila loved me. A Promise. I am Promise.  Grandchild of slaves, yes, I am. Born of the blood and sand of this Island, yes I am. I am . . .  Lost in brain fog 

. . . they said Dr. King died. That true?  

They say a black man was President. That can’t be true. 

They say you can talk on a phone with no wire and send mail through the air.  Laughs.  

Ya’ll thought I was just a crazy old black woman, didn’t ya? 

I am. 

Old as dirt. Seen a lot. Know a lot. 

I know about The Lost Colony. But which colony? The Freedman’s Colony? The Indians? Or  those dumb ass white folk from England that had no business coming here in the first place!  Thought they could conquer, control this land, this island, kill the Algonquin. Tame this.  Addressing the vine. 

Our Mother. Scuppernong oh Scuppernong oh Ascopo. Grape of life. They made a pageant  about those dumb English people and some say they brought the vine. No, no, no, child. The  Algonquin did. They tamed this wild bitch.  

They built the scaffolding that protected the grapes.  

The Bible say you don’t let the grape touch the ground. Glean. Glean. 

Those colonies, the Algonquin, the English, the Freedmen. . . lost to time and tide.  Tide and Time. 

I am descended from all that. 

I am this Vine. I am the Mother. My roots are her roots. They promised my grandmother at eight  years uh-age, “Sara, you will be free. Educated.” And she was. Until the end of the war. Then the  Union Army left. The missionaries left. The jobs and rations left. The land they gave my great  grandparents was confiscated. But they stayed while others slinked back to the mainland, tails  between their legs. 

Freedom?  

Huh. 

The hell. America. Rebuilt on the backs of blacks but Edith loved Sara and Sara loved Lila and  Lila, Sweet Lila loved me. A Promise for sure. I am all that’s left.  

They keep me locked away. They hide me from the children. Ninety-seven years old I can do so  much damage you know. I am danger. I know things. My knowledge could muddy the water of  the Roanoke AND the Albemarle Sounds.  

I know where the bodies be buried.  

Time and tide. 

My father would say, Time will pass, tide will flow. When we die, to time and tide we go.  I am the last of the line. Following Lila and Sara and Edith and Papa Joe. Lila knew I knew Joe.  Shhh. He took her. She was 35 and done having babies. He was drunk and hooooweeee good  lookin’. Gave her whisky and she gave him poontang. Her husband Thomas never knew. He  knew my nose and cheekbones didn’t look like no Meekins but Thomas was not the sharpest  arrow in the quiver. Joe followed me as I grew. Had been the town drunk, the joke, but Jesus got  to him ‘long about my fourth birthday and from then on, it was like having a fairy godfather as  my shadow.  

No ill befell me.  

I was pulled from danger unseen so many times, I started to flirt with death for the fun of it. No  one knew. Mama suspected. Folks in town called me enchanted after so many close scrapes in  which I miraculously survived. They made up stories to make sense of the situation. Maybe she’s  a h’ant! Wild thing! Ghost child! I played along. Learned some magic. Made up stories. I  charmed the children and many a sailor and preacher and whore. All the time, though, I’m  learnin’, reading history, learnin’ ‘bout the Civil War, the Freedman’s Colony, those dumb  English, the Algonquin. I learned from the books but learned more listenin’ to the old folks,  Mother Vine and the drifty wood, the sand and sound, time and tide, tide and time.  They are all in my blood; the Algonquin, the English, the slave.  

I carry all the claims to this island in me. I drink the wine of the Scuppernong which is the blood  of my ancestors, and when I piss I water their graves returning their blood right on back over and  over. In this way, we reclaim this land. 

But the blight is winning. The White Blight. It’s always threatened my people and the Mother, and yet the White Blight is in my blood, too. Those colonists, Raleigh’s Folly, those supposedly  lost souls were merely absorbed into the local tribes and so the blood again feeds the grape, is  pissed into the soil over and over and over. Life. Death.  

We die. 

I will die. I am dying.  

So Skippy, when the White Blight arrives with their bulldozers, rolls of blueprints, pick ax and  chainsaws, they will find me, tangled and twisted and wrapped and knotted into the twists of vine  and driftedwood, sand and sound, time and tide. My bones will become the arbor for the Mother.  A cage of time and tide. 

Time will pass, tide will flow. When we die, to time and tide we go. 

She dies.

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