Chapter One Gesture of a Woman-in-Process --from a photograph, 1902 In the foreground, two women, their squinting faces creased into texture-- a deep relief--the lines like palms of hands I could read if I could touch. Around them, their dailiness: clotheslines sagged with linens, a patch of greens and yams, buckets of peas for shelling. One woman pauses for the picture. The other won't be still. Even now, her hands circling, the white blur of her apron still in motion. At the Owl Club, North Gulfport, Mississippi, 1950 Nothing idle here--the men so casual, each lean, each tilted head and raised glass a moment's stay from work. Son Dixon's center of it all, shouldering the cash register. This is where his work is: the New Orleans tailored suits, shining keys, polished wood and mirrors of the bar. A white Cadillac out front. Money in his pocket, a good cigar. The men gather here after work, a colored man's club. Supper served in the back--gumbo, red beans, talk of the Negro Leagues. They repeat in leisure what they've done all day-- stand around the docks, waiting for a call, for anything to happen, a chance to heave crates of bananas and spiders. A risky job, its only guarantee the consolation check for a dead man's family. Their lace-up boots say shipyard . Dirt-caked trousers, yard work . Regal Quarts in hand-- It's payday man. Three Photographs --by Clifton Johnson, 1902 1. Daybook, April 1901 What luck to find them here! Through my lens, I watch them strain against motion, hold still for my shutter to open and close-- two Negro men, clothes like church, collecting flowers in a wood, pine needles and ivy twisting round. I think to call it Bouquets for Sweethearts , a blessing though their faces hold little emotion. And yet, they make such good subjects. Always easy to pose, their childlike curiosity. How well this arbor frames my shot--an intimate setting, the boughs nestling us like brothers. How fortunate still to have found them here instead of farther along by that old cemetery too full with new graves and no flowers. 2. Cabbage Vendor Natural , he say. What he want from me? Say he gone look through that hole-- his spirit box-- and watch me sell my cabbages to make a picture hold this moment, forever. Nothing natural last forever. When I'm in my garden tearing these cabbages from earth, hearing them scream at the break, my fingers brown as dirt--that's natural. Or when I be in my kitchen frying up salt pork to cook that cabbage, them meeting in the pot like kin--that's natural. Grown cabbage and cook cabbage don't keep. Even dead don't keep same. But he will keep my picture, unnatural like hoodoo love. I could work a root of my own, turn that thing around and make him see himself like he be seeing me-- distant and small--forever. 3. Wash Women The eyes of eight women I don't know stare out from this photograph saying remember . Hung against these white walls, their dark faces, common as ones I've known, stand out like some distant Monday I've only heard about. I picture wash day: red beans simmering on the stove, a number three tin tub on the floor, well-water ready to boil. There's cook-starch for ironing, and some left over to eat. I hear the laughter, three sisters speaking of penny drinks, streetcars, the movie house. A woman like my grandmother rubs linens against the washboard ribs, hymns growing in her throat. By the window, another soaks crocheted lace, then presses each delicate roll, long fingers wet and glistening. And in the doorway, the eldest shifts her milk-heavy breasts, a pile of strangers' clothes, soiled, at her feet. But in his photograph, women do not smile, their lips a steady line connecting each quiet face. They walk the road toward home, a week's worth of take-in laundry balanced on their heads lightly as church hats. Shaded by their loads, they do not squint, their ready gaze through him, to me, straight ahead. Copyright © 2000 Natasha Trethewey. All rights reserved.
