Berta always made Joseph laugh. She would tell him stories of the past and encouraged him to dream his own future. Whenever he questioned Berta about why things were the way they were, why they were treated differently, and why they couldn’t live in a nice big house and have people do things for them, Berta would tell him: “Boy, you always do for yourself, be strong, and don’t depend on dem others to give you a leg up in your life or to do your work for you. You can have what evuh you want, but no great man was built on laziness—and you will be a great man. The future is your dream. It can be what evuh you want it to be. You can change what evuh you set your mind to. Don’t listen to dem Kingsleys’ rubbish.”
These words of wisdom stuck with Joseph. They made his questions and the anger of his situation grow stronger. His sense of injustice was fueled by these words of empowerment. This kind of talking and thinking was forbidden at the Kingsley home, as well as in most of the Deep South, for African Americans or anyone not of pure Caucasian descent. They did not take a liking to free thinking or dreaming of a different society, because the Kingsleys and those of a like mind were quite happy with the way things were. If people like Joseph started thinking for themselves, they would see how weak-minded and ignorant people like the Kingsleys were, and they would change their entire universe. Why would the Kingsleys want change when what they had was, to them, an almost perfect society? If the “workers” dared to dream, it could shatter the perfectly deluded reality they lived in every day. Joseph was a dreamer, and no one would stop his dreams. He would start to pull at the strings of an already unraveling societal structure very soon, but for now, he was missing his only friend.
Joseph decided to get up from the ground beneath that oak tree, wipe his tears, and sneak off to visit Berta. For days, he had been asking Mrs. Kingsley when Berta was going to get to come back to the big house. Mrs. Kingsley would just shrug off his questions and answer with an irritated and rash tone.
“Soon, boy, soon.”
He was tired of waiting for soon. Joseph hatched a plan to sneak off when no one was looking. He headed to the little house to see Berta even though he was forbidden by the Kingsleys to do so. He was always one to follow the rules the Kingsleys had dictated for him. However, in this instance, he missed his friend too much to care about the rules.
Joseph was also pissed and hurt by the abuse Mrs. Kingsley had dealt him in front of all those church ladies. It was humiliating and dehumanizing. Joseph was now feeling defiant and rebellious. This was the perfect time to sneak off: he was outside alone while Mrs. Kingsley was inside, busy gossiping about the whole town. Mr. Kingsley was away on business. The mixture of sadness, anger, and opportunity is what made him decide to make his move.
He quietly snuck off behind “the big house,” as he called it, through the tall cotton all the way to the little house in back. He glanced around slyly, as if he were on a covert mission, before he hopped up onto the porch. He quickly opened the creaky door and slipped in. His eyes needed to adjust to the lack of light in the windowless room. The only light came from the cracks in the wood on the walls and in the floor, where you could see straight down to the sandy ground. Some tall weeds had grown up through a few planks.
As Joseph looked around, he noticed how tiny and worn the room was. Even though he had never been loved or treated well by the Kingsleys, he had become accustomed to elegant surroundings, so this was new and different to him. He had been here once before—the day he was born—although he had no memory of that or of the inside of this wretched place.
It was a crowded space with a multitude of beds. It looked like someone had played a vigorous, piece-cramming puzzle game of Tetris to fit it all in there. The stove and one bed touched, that’s how jam-packed it was. He wondered how someone could warm a pot of tea or coffee without setting the bed on fire. The whole room smelled of sweat, blood, and thousands of tears. Joseph wondered how anyone could sleep there.
Suddenly, he felt a hand reach out and touch him. It was cold and fragile. There was not much flesh covering the bones. He jumped and started to scream, but then he heard a weak, shaky voice.
“Joseph?”
Without missing a breath, Joseph said, “Berta, is that you? I have missed you. When can you come back to the big house with me? I am lonely, and I have no one to talk to there. No one likes to talk to me. I have no friends but you. I want you to come back with me. It’s much nicer in there. Why do you have to stay here? It’s so little and scary. It smells funny, too. Why don’t you come with me?”
Berta waited until Joseph was done with all his questions, which he blurted out as if they were never-ending. Even though they were friends, she still knew he was just ten, and in her experience, ten-year-old boys had a lot of questions. Berta reached out and very tenderly touched Joseph’s face. Tears fell from her eyes and down her old, sunken, sun-worn cheeks.
“Joseph, I need you to be a big boy. I need you to follow your dreams. You dream big, now. You hear me, boy? You know all da time you wander off in your mind, and your mind tells you dis ain’t right? You listen to dat voice in you now, ya hea. Don’t let anyone hit you or treat you like you less than dem, because believe me, boy, you are not. You are as good as dem people or better. You have a bigger heart than dem people, and you know how to think on your own. You’re a smart boy, and I want you to act like one.
“Don’t stay around here and waste your whole life like I did. The only good thing I did by stickin’ around here was meetin’ you. Even if I had tried to leave when I was younger, and dey had killed me for it, my Jesus has a better place for me than here. If I had went to spend my life scrubbin’ Jesus’s feet, at least he would talk to me nice, he would look me in my eyes, and I would have a nice place to lay my head at night. I don’t want you to get my age and feel this regret, boy. No person should be dis age and still answerin’ to someone else.
“You need freedom. You deserve to be free of all dis just like your mind tells you so. So you listen to that voice inside. You leave, and you make a difference for you and for people like you. No needs in continuin’ like dis. You are strong. I believe in you. You, little boy, are my hero. Now you need to start actin’ like it and be your own hero.”
Hearing this, Joseph felt inspired and confused at the same time.
“Why do you tell me this, Berta?” he said. “I don’t want to leave, because I don’t want to leave you. I will stay as long as you do. If you really want me to leave, we can go together. You are my best friend. You are my only friend. Without you, I don’t have a friend, and I am very lonely. Please, Berta, don’t make me go alone. Don’t make me leave you.”
Joseph said this while becoming increasingly panicked and confused. Berta took a shallow breath and uttered, “Don’t be foolish, boy.”
She then reached out and took Joseph’s warm little hand into hers while tears streamed down her face. “Joseph, you won’t be alone; I’ll always be with you, but in a different way. I know dat you would never leave me, but I have to leave dis place now. I will find you again, don’t worry, boy. You’ll be much loved one day, but I have to go now. I can’t hold on any longer.”
Joseph, in a confused and nervous voice, questioned her. “But Berta, where are you goin’?”
Berta squeezed his hand. “My sweet boy, I am headed to wash Jesus’s feet.”
Berta died that day and was buried out behind the little house. There was no funeral, but when no one was around, Joseph went out with tears in his eyes and picked some of those blooming cotton blossoms and laid them on her grave. He had no idea of the irony and depth of laying those blossoms there—that’s the funny thing about being a kid. He was just ten years old and thought they were pretty. He knew how much Berta liked pretty things.
7
The Rose Vine
Joseph’s life for the next few years was pretty normal, considering his circumstances. He worked, and then he worked some more. Joseph was also starting to physically develop into a handsome young man. His deepening voice sure