Somethin’

Ferguson Williams

The girl hadn’t been gone long before there she was, right back in the kitchen. This was unusual for a workday; she usually never made it home before dusk, but she told her mama and daddy that Mister Mitchell said he didn’t need a girl anymore. Said all this through a closed door, wouldn’t even let her inside the house. Daddy asked who would be doing Mister Mitchell’s cooking and cleaning if she was no longer employed. The girl said she didn’t know but Mister Michell had placed a dollar —-a whole week’s pay which she promptly handed to her daddy—- under a rock on the porch and told her not to come back ever. 

Daddy was upset and rightfully so; the girl’s money meant a lot to the family. Said he ought to go have a word with Mister Mitchell, see if the girl had done something to his dislike. See if maybe Mister Mitchell’d be happier with one of the other girls coming out to work instead. Mama said not to. Said to let it be.

But Daddy couldn’t let it be. Four dollars a month was just too much money to give up, especially with the harvesting season coming to an end. It wasn’t just about the money though. White people speaking ill of a colored girl, or her family for that matter, was a troubling thing. Such talk got people hurt, killed even. So, after supper, Daddy headed out to speak to the man to settle any grievances. 

As he walked the dirt road to Mister Mitchell’s property, Daddy marveled at how beautiful the Carolina sun made every little thing. Trees had begun losing their leaves, but the sun highlighted the majesty of their thinning crowns anyway. The barren cornfields, the remnants of stalks looking like hands of the undead reaching out of the dry orange earth, seemed spry in the light. Day was preparing to transition into night and still the katydids, bees, and crickets played like children unwilling to settle down, singing a familiar song so sweet Daddy couldn’t help but smile. He was humming along when he finally reached his destination.

Daddy called from the fence; he didn’t dare walk onto the property without first being acknowledged. “Mister Mitchell? Hello, Mister Mitchell? I come to see if the girl did somethin’ wrong. I got another who can take her place if you like.” He thought he heard some movement inside the house, but Mister Mitchell didn’t appear, so Daddy took this to mean that any further talk would be in vain. “I appreciate you payin’ her for the week. I don’t want no ill will between us. Just wanted to make things right if need be.” As he turned to leave, the wind picked up and rustled the trees. An old hound somewhere nearby began wailing. 

How he heard the voice call to him over all that, he would later say he didn’t know, but he did hear it clear as day. When he turned around, he saw a man on the porch, his skin so dark it seemed to shine in the setting sun. The sudden vision of a man, a man of color no less, on the other side of that fence caught Daddy off guard. “O-oh good evenin’, sir. I was lookin’ to speak with Mister Mitchell. He ‘round?”

The man raised a hand beckoning Daddy forward as he himself went inside. Daddy opened the gate and entered the yard, but he hesitated on the porch. Mister Mitchell had never seemed welcoming of colored folk in his home, but when he heard Mister Mitchell’s voice clearly agitated say, “Don’t lollygag, boy. Come in and close the damn door,” he quickly stepped in.

The home was in disarray. Chairs were overturned. Papers were thrown about. Flies seemed to be everywhere. The air was dense and smelled of mold and decay. Daddy kept his hand on the doorknob as the man strolled to the kitchen, stood an overturned chair upright and sat. The man’s head was downturned and when he removed his straw hat Daddy saw straight, fine, sweat drenched hair. 

“Somethin’s done happened to me.” That was undoubtedly Mister Mitchell’s voice coming from this man and as he lifted his head, Daddy froze in disbelief. 

The forehead, the eyes, and the ears were clearly those of a white man—Mister Mitchell no less. The skin was red and blotchy as Mister Mitchell’s had always been but the nose, the cheeks and the chin were clearly those of a black man. Daddy had seen the bronzed skin of white men who worked long hours in the fields; this wasn’t it. Nor was it the burnt cork makeup that the white men used in the minstrel shows or the charred black of gangrene skin he’d witnessed in the war. 

“His lips,” Daddy would later say. “I saw his lips and I knew. He’d turned into a colored man.”

“Somethin’s done happened to me,” Mister Mitchell said as he studied his own hands. His palms were salmon colored and callused as they had always been, but the contrast of the peach colored nails and ebony skin on the other side had him perplexed. 

His grip still tight on the knob, Daddy tried frantically to retreat without taking his eyes off Mister Mitchell; he failed to notice that his unmoving foot had wedged the door. Mister Mitchell sprang to his feet. “Somethin’s done happened to me, boy,” and Daddy, now realizing that he was hindering his own escape, moved quickly, opened the door, and sprinted out the house. He jumped off the porch and before he knew it had cleared the gate and was running towards home. 

Days later, word spread that the body of an unknown colored man was found in Mister Mitchell’s home, his nose and lips practically sliced off, hanging on to the face only by a few flaps of skin. He’d bled out and Mister Mitchell’s whereabouts were unknown. 

Daddy said maybe he ought to go speak to someone. Said he ought to tell them who the man really was. Mama said not to. Said to let it be.

So, Daddy did as Mama said and let it be.