The Darkest Hour
(Part Five to: “Colored and White” 1891)
Some of the color folk in shantytown (outside of Ozark, Alabama) were concerned about Witty Jackson, awfully worried, she turned to drink and stayed in her shanty, old Amos’ shanty, just refilling glass after glass of wine and moonshine—week after week, and month after month, after her episode with the Hester boy and the other three boys who tried to rape her, whatever she could get to drink—she drank, and was now starting to act, or was acting now silly during those long chilly afternoons and dark silent cold nights (in early winter, o ’91). Talking to herself, she was very lonely, she’d say appealingly to herself, “Nobody will ever know,” then she took hold of the whole bottle, one bottle one evening, and drank it down, “Heave-ho,” she said, and said it in a loud voice, almost in a singsong manner. She drank it down as fast as she could—hoping she’d stop her heart, and just die, as soon as she finished. But after a while, she had put a small amount of water in it, to delude it, it tasted so ugly, and she found out she couldn’t drink it down as fast as she expected, and her throat burned to high heaven, and her eyes busted out with tears, then she fell onto the floor, fell onto her elbow, she wasn’t in her underclothes now just a short jacket, she tried to reach the bottle, it had also fallen on the floor, there was a drop or two of spirits left in the bottle.
She tried once more to reach the bottle; she watched the last of the liquid gurgle out of the bottle, as she lay helpless, feeling as if she was going to have her last and short day—the one we all get sooner or later. She was feeling as if she was traveling—spinning, a hundred miles an hour into outer space, passing the moon and all. She shut her eyes, she held onto something, perhaps her soul, her last breath, her spirit, something, and everything around her seemed to be revolving faster and faster—around that something, with each slow breath she drew. And she said to herself—knowing she was dying, “The day of dying is better than the day of being born,” turning over on her back now, her soul seemingly was trying to runaway, like the horses and wagon she was on a while back, when those boys from school dragged her off her buckboard, to rape her, unsuccessfully behind the stables But it did not matter anymore, not now, she had let go of life—or was trying to, with all her might trying to, pushed it away. “I’m going to lose myself, forever,” she murmured, weeping. “I don’t want to die,” she said, “but I don’t want to live like this either, I know what the white boys want to do with me, and the white men do to colored women whenever they find a secret moment away from their wives, there is something always working against being colored, her short black jacket came above her bronze exposed thighs, I can’t hold on much longer,” and all she could see was how useless it all was.
It wasn’t as if she was bad, she told the Lord, she was just lonesome. And she told him, she just couldn’t help it anymore. “I’m tired,” she said, “it’s too much to take, when Amos was alive it was bearable, and when Hark and my sister Burgundy was alive, it was fun, and when mom and dad were alive it was great (meaning all the family) but now it’s just me, being lonely, everyday being lonely. The only ones that want me are the ones who want to feel like somebody, feel good about themselves, those who have self-interest, not mine —” she was no longer afraid to die, and she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into a lasting peace, gradually beyond the grips of humanity, her consciousness blacking out any worries that might have been, and then finding herself in a strange new world, no longer caring that she was colored.
No: 603 ((2-13-2010) (Originally: "Lonesome and Colored"))
(Part Five to: “Colored and White” 1891)
Some of the color folk in shantytown (outside of Ozark, Alabama) were concerned about Witty Jackson, awfully worried, she turned to drink and stayed in her shanty, old Amos’ shanty, just refilling glass after glass of wine and moonshine—week after week, and month after month, after her episode with the Hester boy and the other three boys who tried to rape her, whatever she could get to drink—she drank, and was now starting to act, or was acting now silly during those long chilly afternoons and dark silent cold nights (in early winter, o ’91). Talking to herself, she was very lonely, she’d say appealingly to herself, “Nobody will ever know,” then she took hold of the whole bottle, one bottle one evening, and drank it down, “Heave-ho,” she said, and said it in a loud voice, almost in a singsong manner. She drank it down as fast as she could—hoping she’d stop her heart, and just die, as soon as she finished. But after a while, she had put a small amount of water in it, to delude it, it tasted so ugly, and she found out she couldn’t drink it down as fast as she expected, and her throat burned to high heaven, and her eyes busted out with tears, then she fell onto the floor, fell onto her elbow, she wasn’t in her underclothes now just a short jacket, she tried to reach the bottle, it had also fallen on the floor, there was a drop or two of spirits left in the bottle.
She tried once more to reach the bottle; she watched the last of the liquid gurgle out of the bottle, as she lay helpless, feeling as if she was going to have her last and short day—the one we all get sooner or later. She was feeling as if she was traveling—spinning, a hundred miles an hour into outer space, passing the moon and all. She shut her eyes, she held onto something, perhaps her soul, her last breath, her spirit, something, and everything around her seemed to be revolving faster and faster—around that something, with each slow breath she drew. And she said to herself—knowing she was dying, “The day of dying is better than the day of being born,” turning over on her back now, her soul seemingly was trying to runaway, like the horses and wagon she was on a while back, when those boys from school dragged her off her buckboard, to rape her, unsuccessfully behind the stables But it did not matter anymore, not now, she had let go of life—or was trying to, with all her might trying to, pushed it away. “I’m going to lose myself, forever,” she murmured, weeping. “I don’t want to die,” she said, “but I don’t want to live like this either, I know what the white boys want to do with me, and the white men do to colored women whenever they find a secret moment away from their wives, there is something always working against being colored, her short black jacket came above her bronze exposed thighs, I can’t hold on much longer,” and all she could see was how useless it all was.
It wasn’t as if she was bad, she told the Lord, she was just lonesome. And she told him, she just couldn’t help it anymore. “I’m tired,” she said, “it’s too much to take, when Amos was alive it was bearable, and when Hark and my sister Burgundy was alive, it was fun, and when mom and dad were alive it was great (meaning all the family) but now it’s just me, being lonely, everyday being lonely. The only ones that want me are the ones who want to feel like somebody, feel good about themselves, those who have self-interest, not mine —” she was no longer afraid to die, and she felt herself sinking deeper and deeper into a lasting peace, gradually beyond the grips of humanity, her consciousness blacking out any worries that might have been, and then finding herself in a strange new world, no longer caring that she was colored.
No: 603 ((2-13-2010) (Originally: "Lonesome and Colored"))
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