The Underground Railroad

Caesar worked in the machine factory outside town and his changing schedule rarely overlapped with hers. He liked the work. Every week the factory assembled a different machine, determined by the volume of orders. The men arranged themselves before the conveyor belt and each was responsible for attaching his assigned component to the shape moving down the line. At the start of the belt there was nothing, a pile of waiting parts, and when the last man was finished, the result lay before them, whole. It was unexpectedly fulfilling, Caesar said, to witness the complete product, in contrast to the disembodied toil on Randall.

The work was monotonous but not taxing; the changing products helped with the tedium. The lengthy rest breaks were well distributed throughout the shift, arranged according to a labor theorist often quoted by the foremen and managers. The other men were fine fellows. Some still bore the marks of plantation behavior, eager to redress perceived slights and acting as if they still lived under the yoke of reduced resources, but these men improved every week, fortified by the possibilities of their new lives.

The former fugitives traded news. Maisie lost a tooth. This week the factory manufactured locomotive engines-Caesar wondered whether they would one day be used by the underground railroad. The prices at the emporium had gone up again, he observed. This was not news to Cora.

“How is Sam?” Cora asked. It was easier for Caesar to meet with the station agent.

“In his usual temper-cheerful for no reason you can tell. One of the louts at the tavern gave him a black eye. He’s proud of it. Says he’d always wanted one.”

“And the other?”

He crossed his hands on his thighs. “There’s a train in a few days. If we want to take it.” He said that last part as if he knew her attitude.

“Perhaps the next one.”

“Yes, maybe the next one.”

Three trains had passed through since the pair arrived. The first time they talked for hours over whether it was wiser to depart the dark south immediately or see what else South Carolina had to offer. By then they had gained a few pounds, earned wages, and begun to forget the daily sting of the plantation. But there had been real debate, with Cora agitating for the train and Caesar arguing for the local potential. Sam was no help-he was fond of his birthplace and an advocate of South Carolina’s evolution on matters of race. He didn’t know how the experiment would turn out, and he came from a long line of rabble-rousers distrustful of the government, but Sam was hopeful. They stayed. Maybe the next one.

The next one came and went with a shorter discussion. Cora had just finished a splendid meal in her dormitory. Caesar had bought a new shirt. The thought of starving again on the run was not attractive, nor was the prospect of leaving behind the things they had purchased with their toil. The third train came and went, and now this fourth one would, too.

“Maybe we should stay for good,” Cora said.

Caesar was silent. It was a beautiful night. As he promised, the musicians were very talented and played the rags that had made everyone happy at previous socials. The fiddler came from this or that plantation, the banjo man from another state: Every day the musicians in the dormitories shared the melodies from their regions and the body of music grew. The audience contributed dances from their own plantations and copied each other in the circles. The breeze cooled them when they broke away to rest and flirt. Then they started in again, laughing and clapping hands.

“Maybe we should stay,” Caesar repeated. It was decided.

The social ended at midnight. The musicians put out a hat for donations, but most people were deep in scrip by Saturday night so it remained empty. Cora said good night to Caesar and was on her way home when she witnessed an incident.

The woman ran through the green near the schoolhouse. She was in her twenties, of slender build, and her hair stuck up wildly. Her blouse was open to her navel, revealing her breasts. For an instant, Cora was back on Randall and about to be educated in another atrocity.

Two men grabbed the woman and, as gently as they could, stopped her flailing. A crowd gathered. One girl went to fetch the proctors from over by the schoolhouse. Cora shouldered her way in. The woman blubbered incoherently and then said suddenly, “My babies, they’re taking away my babies!”

The onlookers sighed at the familiar refrain. They had heard it so many times in plantation life, the lament of the mother over her tormented offspring. Cora remembered Caesar’s words about the men at the factory who were haunted by the plantation, carrying it here despite the miles. It lived in them. It still lived in all of them, waiting to abuse and taunt when chance presented itself.