Leaving: A Novel Read Online Free

it ain’t.
    You are an individual, but you are on a raft. The limits of that raft are the limits of who you think you are and how you think you have to be. That’s true if you’re Black, White, Red, Brown, or Yellow. Right now you don’t even see that you’re on a raft. You don’t know that your raft is floating down a river, the River of History, and that the events of the past have surrounded you and brought you to this place, and that unless you get off of this raft, you are going to stay in the course the River has been pushing you. But first you’ve got to recognize that you’re on a raft, and to see how the River has surrounded you to make you believe in your limitations. You must know rivers.
    I’m calling you from the shore.
    I’m telling you to dive into your history. It’s your job to learn about that River, how wide it is, how strong the current is. Without the knowledge of the past, you’re likely to drown in it by making the same mistakes as those who came before you, or jump right back onto that raft, and worse yet, pace back and forth on that raft forever, like a beast in this jail-cage, until it takes you right over the edge.

CHAPTER 2A
    1959   •   CORBET 49, RUBY 21, LOVE E 13
    TO RUBY, THE inside of GI Bill on Cranston Avenue was like a church. Not a church she had been in, but the way she believed a church should be, beautiful and frightening, with polished wood floors and high ceilings. The front windows arched across most of the living room wall facing the street, and the burgundy lace curtains blossomed in an intricate pattern of roses and thorny stems.
    “I told your mother she should come on out with you,” Corbet said, as he took them on a tour of their new home. “If you were in so much danger, why was she so safe? I asked her. But she said she wouldn’t be herself if she left the South. I said, ‘Elise, I don’t think that would be such a bad thing,’ but she didn’t take to that.” Behind the living room was a large kitchen with wooden cabinets and a fancy refrigerator that made its own ice cubes.
    “I sure hope your mother taught you to cook,” he said to Ruby. “I miss pork chops with mustard and onions, and fried chitlins. All Saul knows how to fix is spaghetti and soup.” He stood up straight and looked directly at her. “Besides, there are a lot of people who’ll hire a woman who can cook and clean.”
    “She’s not a maid,” Easton spat out. “She’s a seamstress.”
    “Hush,” Ruby whispered. “I do all the cookin an cleanin you want. An I serve up some fancy corn fritters when I put my mine to it.”
    “Très bien, car je suis affamé.”
    Easton raised his eyebrows and laughed, not a sincere laugh but forced, like he was trying to insult Corbet and make something happen. He covered his mouth and waited. Ruby watched Corbet to see what he would do. There was no question what Papa Samuel would have done if Easton had laughed at him: he would have picked up the iron that sat on the counter and thrashed him across the face with the cord.
    Corbet walked to Easton slowly. He raised his hand in the air and Easton closed his eyes.
    “Est-ce que j’ai l’air stupide?”
    Easton opened his eyes.
    “Repeat after me,” Corbet said. “Raise your hand and repeat.”
    Easton raised his hand.
    “Je suis un nègre et j’en suis fier.”
    Easton laughed again, then tried it.
    “Well, listen to you, a regular man of the underground. A man of the Resistance.”
    *   *   *
    THE UPSTAIRS HAD three bedrooms. Corbet told them to drop their trunk in the front room to the left and said that Easton could have the room across the hall. They were not to go into the back room because that was Saul’s. But he knew better than to tempt curiosity, so he opened the door and showed them. In the corner was a rolltop desk next to a bookcase and, on the far side, a dresser with black slacks folded on it. The room had all the fixings of a bedroom, without a