Mrs. Kingsley called Joseph to bring the tea.
“Boy, bring the fine ladies and me our tea.”
The reason Joseph was always more nervous when Mrs. Kingsley had guests was because he was expected not to embarrass the family with childlike mistakes. What ten-year-old makes childish mistakes? He slowly walked the serving tray, balanced with the teakettle and the cups on their little saucers, to the small table situated in the middle of the ladies’ “prayer” (gossip) circle. The whole time he was walking over, you could hear the tea sloshing in the kettle. The shaking of his nervous little hands was creating a rattling sound from the cups and the kettle top clanging against each other.
Joseph finally reached the table and set down the tray. He carefully poured the tea to ensure its evenness in each cup. As he handed out the teacups to the ladies with his unsure and shaky hand, one lady did not properly secure the cup in her hand. Down went the good china, as Mrs. Kingsley called it. It was as if everything happened in slow motion, the teacup plummeting while Joseph just froze, petrified of what “he” had just done. Before anyone knew what had happened, the tiny teacup was in a hundred pieces all over the floor. Steam rose from the ground, created by the tea’s heat against the cold hardwood floor.
Mrs. Kingsley jumped up, reared her bony knuckles back, and swiftly struck the back of her hand solidly against Joseph’s little face, right across his cheek, knocking him backward. Just before he was sure to fall to the ground, Joseph caught himself on the arm of a chair occupied by one of the ladies.
Mrs. Kingsley had scanned the room, ensuring that Berta was nowhere to be found, before she slapped Joseph. She could still remember that cold, firm grip on her arm. She was not going to make that mistake again. No, Berta was nowhere to be found because she was bedridden in the little house out back. She had been feeling ill lately and was forbidden to come into the main house out of fear she would infect the others. It was no matter to the Kingsleys that Berta was not ill with something contagious. It was just their excuse so that they would not have to deal with it.
After Joseph caught his balance on the arm of that chair, he ran from the room, trying his best to hold back the tears. All the while, Mrs. Kingsley was profusely apologizing for Joseph’s poor behavior. “I am so embarrassed. You can’t find good help anymore, and it is so difficult to train them just right. Don’t y’all agree?”
All the ladies nodded in agreement as they resumed their conversation about training the help like they were circus animals.
The incident had passed, and the ladies continued with their “prayer” meeting while another member of the help cleaned up the shattered china and hot tea. One lady, Mrs. Sheryl Barnett, said, “Did you see the Smiths in church on Sunday? I cannot believe they are not too ashamed to show their face after they lost their farm. If I lost all my money, I would not show my face to a soul.”
“Oh, Sheryl, really? How unfortunate,” Mrs. Walton replied, trying to mimic sympathy.
“It’s true,” Mrs. Barnett said. “Gerald and I watched the bank men come and take it all. How embarrassed they must feel; just a shame.”
Mrs. Henryson chimed in:
“Well, did you hear about the Johnsons, who lost their baby this month? They were due in just a few months. Bless their hearts. I wonder what they did wrong for God to want to take their baby. It’s just sad to me that people can’t follow in Jesus’s footsteps. If they did, maybe these horrible things would not have happened to them, and they could be fortunate enough to still have their baby.”
“Amen!” the others exclaimed, as if there were the slightest bit of care or actual praise behind the word.
Mrs. Walton asked, “Have you spoken to them since they lost the baby?”
“Oh, Lord, no, but I will put them on the prayer list for this week. Maybe the church can send them a card, and we could all sign it,” Mrs. Kingsley said.
The ladies all agreed that a “heartfelt” card was a grand idea. They could keep their distance while giving the illusion they gave a damn. Fakeness at its finest. They were doing God’s work after all, right? The grotesque gossip and self-delusions of grandeur continued like this for more than an hour. This was their specialty: to belittle people while leading them to believe that they held actual concern and that everything they did was done in His (God’s) image. In actuality, they were like a tornado to his image, shattering it like a windowpane.
While the gossiping in Jesus’s name continued inside, Joseph was outside in his favorite spot. It was under a grand, majestic live oak tree with wide-spanning and winding branches that reached out on all sides as if trying to touch the corners of the earth. Joseph wished he could stretch out and touch all the corners of the world. Besides being an inspiration to Joseph, this oak also gave him great shade and comfort when he went there to think or to cry. This was where he solved all his boyhood problems, even though most of them were issues no one should ever have to deal with, especially a child. The tree protected and embraced him when he most needed it.
Joseph would always go to this spot to think. He constantly wondered what else life had to offer. He just knew there was more. His purpose on this earth was not serving the Kingsleys—it was something much greater.
Joseph always felt a great sense of injustice. As he sat under that regal oak tree, he thought about an unjust world. This should not be a recurring thought pattern in the mind of a ten-year-old child, but that was all little Joseph could think about. He felt destined for a different life.
Joseph touched his cheek to wipe the warm tears as they rolled down his face. His cheek was still hot and red from Mrs. Kingsley’s bony knuckles. Joseph had been slapped many times in his short life, but this time, it was different. It changed him forever. It sparked uncharted thoughts—dangerous thoughts for people in the Kingsleys’ position, because these types of thoughts were ones that could spark a revolution of change.
“Why would I be raised by parents like them? Why me?”
Joseph was talking to that voice inside of him, or maybe to God; at that age, it was all one and the same. He had questions—hard ones. God had better answer up. He wanted to know why Berta could not be his mama. Why couldn’t he and Berta live in a big, pretty house like the Kingsleys’? He’d always had a sense that how he was treated was wrong even though he did not know anything different. He felt deep inside that this type of treatment was not right, and a feeling deep inside is where the truth always starts.
Even though Joseph was not sure what he thought about God at the moment, God was to be thanked for Joseph’s depth. He was very perceptive and spiritually deep for a ten-year-old. He always thought of a better life and changing how things were. This slap had been almost like a slap of awakening into reality. A slap of courage; a slap to create change in this world as he knew it.
6
Berta and the Little House
Joseph had been lonely lately without Berta around. She had been ill for almost a week now, still banished to the little house out back. The little house was an overly endearing term for a place lacking just that—endearment. Joseph had called it that since he was much younger, but in actuality, it was the slave quarters. Nowadays, it was called the quarters for the help, but everyone knew what it was even if they didn’t want to admit it.
Little boys need constant entertainment. Without Berta, Joseph would quickly get bored. He had no one he could talk to or with whom to observe the goings-on of the house. He was a very mature ten-year-old, mostly because he was forced to be, but Berta had also started to deteriorate mentally, as many elderly people do. This allowed him and Berta to develop a friendship-type bond. It was strange to see an eighty-three-year-old and a ten-year-old getting along as best friends, but that’s what they had become. The human condition requires companionship, and it can adapt to those needs. These two even developed their own language so they could laugh at all the antics that would happen in the house, especially when the