CONGO SQUARE

Cory Zimmerman

Congo Square: The beat of the bamboulas and wail of the banzas can be heard far off. Five or six hundred unsupervised slaves dance about the grassy commons—the Bamboula, Calinda, Congo, Carabine, and Juba. They are ornamented with minkisi[CMP1] : tails of wild beasts, fringes, ribbons, little bells, and shells and balls, jingling and flirting about their arms and legs. The males cover themselves in Oriental and Indian dress, and women are covered by only a sash of the same sort wrapped around their bodies. Clusters of tribal groupings each take their place in different parts of the square. The musicians play drums, gourds, banjos, quill pipes made from reeds strung together like pan flutes, marimbas, and other European instruments such as the violin, tambourines, and triangles.

Besides the music and dancing, Congo Square provides the enslaved with a place to practice hoodoo ceremonies. While true hoodoo rituals are much more exotic and secretive, the hoodoo in Congo Square is predominantly a form of entertainment—pouring libations at the four corners of Congo Square at midnight during a dark moon. But on a Sunday, such as this, a ring shout is performed to invoke ancestral spirits for assistance and healing in the light of day.

The booming African drums and blast of huge wooden horns call the gathering for those far and wide. The drums are long, hollowed, from a single piece of wood, open at one end and having a goat skin stretched across the other. The smaller drums, bamboulas, are made from a joint or two of very large bamboo. Along with gourds, triangles, jaw harps, jawbones, “the grand instrument at last,” the four-stringed banjo, the bamboula performs for the dance[CMP2] a bamboula song—one said to be a frightful triumph of body over mind. And the only piece of music deserving to survive; and one that does, in fact, survive.

About the grassy commons—sacred ground, ancient corn harvest—the lively, three-beat rhythm cascades about the dancers, as well as women selling baskets of freshly made “calas,” deep-fried rice cakes covered in powdered sugar.

Two maids swat flies after spreading a quilt out on the lawn, upon which is arranged a silver platter with sliced peaches and a sprinkling of sugar, a few wedges of pimento cheese, a square of cornbread, and a jar of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Crossing the square, a lady carries a crocheted umbrella shading the high-noon sun. Her children, dressed in white, two boys and a girl, are on their best behavior as their daddy—the southern gentleman—strolls just behind with a bamboo cane. The lady is helped to the ground by the hand of one of the maids, as the gentleman stubbornly plops down on his rear end with a stiff knee, preferring not to be touched by the darker race. He wears a rather severe look but allows his children to run about freely, telling them to go and get, now.

“Y’all stay in earshot now, hear?” hollers one of the maids.

The gentleman lights a cigar.

On this fine afternoon, the family has come to see the darker race play their goat-skinned drums. The cadence of the exotic beat is exciting, one that brings a pleasure-smile to the lady’s face. While the gentleman prefers his earnest gaze, seeing he has a reputation to maintain. His mustache is finely oiled, his eyes squinting on this sunny day. And the square is filled with old money, lavishly adorned ladies of status, and gentlemen with their own severe gaze and stiff mannerisms—simple gestures of gratitude for female counterparts, picnicking, conversing, and socializing.

The entertainment: old African music—the rhythm of a dark heart echoing from well beyond Congo Square and the old plantations—a dark, intoxicating rhythm.

The gentleman puffs on his cigar.

The lady looks on in amazement as she narrows in on one young man beating his drum. His arms are muscular, his chest unruly. Flesh: dark, sweaty, glistening. Jaw: chiseled. Cheek bones: high. Eyes: wild and furious. His soul: alive. His body: beating the goatskin in perfect rhythm.

A fine specimen of humanity, the lady believes.

The corners of her lips turn upward. The vein in her thin, slender neck thumps faster. The veil before her passion grows more delicate, more transparent, as the soul creeps into her hand, as she grasps onto the earth, pulling at the grass desperately, hungrily. Her eyes widen with wonderment, pupils shrink and grow, and pulsate again. Her chest heaves and her breath quickens. And within her breath, one can almost hear her thoughts, how nice it would be to have him all my own.

The gentleman, hands clasped behind his back, strolls about the sumptuous rotunda of the crowded St. Louis Hotel. Women in long Southern gowns accompany their own gentlemen. Themselves adorned in suits and hats, canes tapping the floor, examining the hardiness of the muscular arms and legs that stand up on the block. Shirtless bodies adorned in rags that scarcely cover genital regions. Yet those too are inspected as canes lift loincloths, as one of the seven auctioneers hammers a gavel into the podium, as another rattles off numbers and names.

“Belonging to the estate of the late Johnathan Erwin, of the perish of Iberville, this Negro,” as he is called, “has been in the country for 10 years and is well acclimated. He is 27 years of age and is accustomed to all climates of sugar plantation work—all kinds of work on a sugar plantation, I tell ya. He is a first-rate copper—payable in credit, one year’s credit, payable in notes satisfactory to the vendor—”

The gentleman strolls about the seven auctioneers auctioning human lives [CMP3] in French, Spanish, and English. At the same time, the bidders bid, sip free drinks freely, play billiards, and admire the St. Louis Hotel’s ostentatious, decorative elements. Also being auctioned are Mr. Erwin’s possessions, such as paintings, furniture, and goods. But the gentleman is here today with an interest in a human being (“three-fifths” human being, to be exact). He’d read in the newspaper that the estate of wealthy slaveholder of the Perish of Iberville would be up for grabs, to the highest bidder, of course. He has his eye on the estate’s rather large holding of slaves.

The auction, held on this day, Saturday, March 27, 1858, under the domed rotunda of the extravagant hotel, has opened the auction with the youngest and strongest and has now brought Levy to the auctioning block.

Levy: 27 years of age, in the country for 10 years, well acclimated as said, payable in notes satisfactory to the vendor, has superior height, strength, and health.

The auction has opened—with not only the youngest and strongest—but with “mulattos” (half white, half Negro), “griffes” (Negro and Native mix), “quadroons” (one quarter Negro), and “octoroons” (one-eighth Negro), but now Levy stands on the auction block.

Levy: 100% Negro.

The gentleman, strolling about with his hands clasped behind his back, takes an interest in Levy. Seeing his heightened interest, the auctioneer encourages the gentlemen to make the highest bid.

“I’ll take this negro, hell, I’ll take all the whole coffle,” the gentleman says.

And a business transaction ensues, a bill of sale drawn up, papers signed, and the individual—Levy, 27 years old—and the whole coffle handed over to the gentleman as property to live out their lives of enslavement.

Levy is born in the Parish of Iberville, Louisiana, in 1830. Before he is old enough to remember much, he, his mammy, and his older brother are sold to Johnathan Erwin. Mr. Erwin treats his slaves pretty well but works them hard. He gives his slaves plenty to eat, but he has an overseer named Green Bush who likes to give out a good whoopin’ when it suits him right. And Bush is mighty rough with Levy and orders that ten-year-old Levy’s hide be torn open by the split tongue of a long leather whip of a snake for playing his drum too loud in the night. Bush has a big Black boy named Moses, mean as the devil and strong as an ox, who does all the whoopin’ for Bush. And Moses sure does lay on that rawhide lash as he whoops Levy, thirteen years old, so hard he nearly dies. And afterward, in the throes of fever, Levy has spells and fits the likes of the hoodoo, something that makes Johnathan Erwin powerfully mad, so much so he runs Bush and Moses off the plantation.

At the same time, Mr. Erwin buys a Black[CMP4] man named Joe. Joe is a preacher, and he is allowed to build a brush arbor in the pecan grove over in the big pasture, and all the slaves are permitted to meet there on Sunday for preaching and to play their drums. Joe gives a good sermon and, seeing young Levy’s inert talent, teaches him how to play the “talking drum.”

The talking drum: one skilled drummer can play to replicate the tones, punctuation, and accents of human language, originally intended to send messages from village to village and to call on people in celebration or to war faster than a person can run or ride a horse. Thus, the story of the talking drum is one of hope and despair. And Joe teaches Levy how to play the hourglass-shaped drum carved out of a hollowed-out log with a long narrow opening that resonates when struck with a drumstick on one end. He teaches Levy how to squeeze the strings under the arm to tighten and loosen the skin, to change the drum’s pitch in specific ways, to rise and fall, a sequence of low and high beats that imitate rhythm and replicate those tones of speech almost precisely.

On Sunday, Levy calls on slaves from far and wide, his talking drum calling on anyone and everyone to come worship, white folk alike, all the way from as far off as Hope Hill, six miles yonder down the stage road.

Tap-tap-tap-tapping, tap-tapping-tapping-tap!

How clearly the beats sound out over the forest. How exactly the call is repeated, its tempo the same every time, every pause in exactly the same place. But wait—it changes, and now goes Tap-tap-tap, tapping! Tap-tap-tap, tapping! Tap-tapping, tap-tapping!

Interpreting those beats, the intuitive mind rendered: “Kut pi mfañ étom, ba lemiti kope tyeñ.”

Repeated several times to gather attention, “Hey you—hey you!”

And then followed the phrase, also repeated, “Za’ avô, za’avô,” meaning, “come quickly, come quickly.”

On an ordinary day, Levy can be heard easily at three or four miles off. In the dead of night with his best drum, ten, fifteen, even twenty-five miles out over the bayou.

As you see, Levy doesn’t get any schooling for what it takes to work in the field, but he does get to walk the white children to school. And those white children show him pictures, and Levy learns a bit, though it doesn’t amount to much.

“One, never lean over the drum, straighten up, or its sound’ll be muffled,” says Joe. “Two, look in the direction you wishin’ the sound to go. Three, don’t hold yer arms against yer body—spread ’em out, and the sound’ll carry on yonder. Four, a good drummer musn’t eat chicken wings—give ’em to some‘un else. The flappin’ of a chicken wing ain’t sound far, an’ they ain’t help none.”

So, for what Levy fails to know in written words, he makes up for with his talking drum.

As Mr. Johnathan Erwin drops dead of an aneurysm, Levy plays his hollowed-out log wrapped in goat skin well into the night and makes that drum speak to the willows in both hope and despair as he feels they misery a’ comin’.

In possession of the gentleman, Levy keeps his cabin scrupulously neat and quite orderly in its arrangement. He spends his free time sitting out on his tiny front porch in the sunshine playing his drum. He works the field as he had for Mr. Erwin, only now he toils for the gentleman. And his wife, the lady, who carries her crocheted umbrella beside the gentleman as they stroll arm in arm alongside the rows of cotton. She is thrilled by her new lot. But takes particular notice of Levy and his physical attributes: muscular arms and legs.

Levy heaves a basket of cotton onto the back of a wagon. She bats her eyes as the gentleman swings his cane across the horizon of twenty acres of fluffy white cloud. The kids chase one another in circles about a blooming poplar tree. The lady glances at the glistening sweat that has formed on Levy’s biceps, accentuating his tone. She bites her lip, feigning to take notice of the kids running amok about the rose garden. And as she cannot take her eyes off Levy’s muscular thighs for long—well defined by the moisture saturating his flesh in the seething July heat—she fails to holler after them as they trample her pinks. She grips her umbrella tightly with her lace gloves, digging her nails into the bamboo reed, as the gentleman counts off for pleasure, her delight in her new measure of slavery—someone is bringing home the hog.

As Levy wipes his sweaty brow, the lady examines his firm jaw line and clenches her own. She grits and grinds her teeth as they stroll along the cotton fluff under the towering cumulous clouds that have rolled in from the west. The bird song grows swiftly louder, and that crisp scent of robust precipitation caresses the senses. The lady strokes her neck with her silk gloves, gazing at the contours of Levy’s rolling abdominal as he glares up at the Louisiana sky, anticipating a late afternoon rain to cool his fevered flesh, so moist—she pants.

As the rain pours down, thunder rumbles, and static lightning spreads across the air, Levy sits under the poplar tree with his drum. The two sides of the drum, one thick, one thin—the “male” and “female”—produce two distinct tones, one considerably higher than the other. As Levy beats the female side, the hearer, the lady, unknowingly reads them as the meaning becomes clear. Levy plays the intoxicating rhythm, those codes that shoot stimulating chills up the lady’s spine and goose pimples down her flesh as she squirms under the sheets beside the gentleman who rattles on about the discounted price of “niggas” —as he calls them.

Good thanks to the death of Mr. Erwin, she squirms to the beat of Levy’s drum, inching closer and closer to the gentleman’s loins, his thigh suddenly in her grasp.

He asks abruptly, “My darling, what has gotten into you?”

But as Levy pounds—pounds—pounds, taps—tappidy—taps, as droplets roll down his chest, dripping from his lips, his nipples, the gentleman squirms as she runs her nails up along his abdomen under the sheets, as he grins, moans, grunts, and groans, and calls her “darrr—ling,” with a roll of the tongue, and rolls to his side.

But as Levy switches back to the female side, she stops him.

Something different tonight, something new.

Tappy-Tap!

Levy never chooses his sentences at random, and she tracks her fingers down her own belly to her pubic mound. The gentleman knows not what to think but watches in an ecstatic, electrified state as the lady curls her toes, as the drumming shakes the windows, the rhythm of the code sentence the same as it would be if whispered rapidly with heavier stress into her ear as she gasps for breath and moans to the rhythm, “going, going, going,” speaks Levy, commands the drum, as she quivers and convulses by his side, whispering sweet nothings, screaming profanities—she can’t take it anymore and grabs the gentleman by the hair and pulls him onto her. The man hollers into the rainy night as the lady pushes him down. As the cotton, swollen with rain, oozes moisture down the stem, she kicks the sheets from the bed and buries his face in her pubic mound.

Levy beats on.

She grasps and tears at the bedding with her nails, curves her spine, eyes rolling into the back of her mind, and cries out, waking the maids as the gentleman, no longer so gentle, turns her over and thrusts deep into the night.

“Take care of the ground, that it is which will bury you!”

...speaks the drum.

At breakfast, the gentleman butters his bread with zest.

Given the heavy July heat, his mustache curls up at the ends ambitiously, with an extra sheen.

The lady, brisk about the day, smile on her face, stops at the window, spreads the lace curtains wide, and glares out at the field, where bent-over backs trudge around in the mud, gathering fluffy white, drying in the morning sun, in a steamy haze.

The maids wrangle the children, and the gentleman is off for a day of slave-driving, but not before a passionate kiss for the lady.

“See you tonight?” she asks flirtatiously.

“Surely, my dear,” he says. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

And with a skip in his step as he jazzes down the steps and hops on his horse in one fell swoop—neigh—he’s off, and even the horse can feel it in his loins as he grasps her back with his thighs.

“Oh, my,” gossip the maids—hoodoo is undoubtedly in the air.

“Even if you dress up finely, love is the only thing.”

The beating begins, and the gentleman blows out the candle before rolling over. Again, the lady digs her nails into the sheets until they tear, and the man throws back his head, the vein in his neck pulsating to the rhythm. The maids squirm in their beds anxiously, and the children toss and turn in interrupted sleep. The full moon exposes her face as the lady squeals and the gentleman howls. Levy gives the goatskin a good slap, and the gentleman collapses in exhaustion.

“He is weakening, weakening.”

And the maids yawn in the morning. And the dew glistens in the rising sun. And the ladybugs flutter about the rose garden as a bumble bee pollinates. And the hot cakes sizzle. And the maids gossip and giggle as the butter melts. And the children shoo off this way and that with yawns. And the gentleman hops wearily onto his horse as he has forsaken sleep for the fourth night in a row—for the hoodoo has swollen his loins. And the lady graces down the stairs to the parlor in such unfathomable delight, the maids see as she hovers across the room, and they clench their aprons anxiously as the lady’s feet barely touch the floor. And she waits the long day with anxious glee.

The Lady.

Basket of fruit beneath the poplar tree.

The gentleman patrols the fields, checking in on his field drivers. Eyelids heavy, he has a sore temperament this morning and kicks a young boy to the dirt, “Move it, boy!”

“Fore’s ya get trampled underfoot!” says the field driver.

This more excellent man and his beast, or so he believes, feeling the anguish in his loins. This ruthless nature accompanies a man who has forsaken sleep for as long as such, as the sun sears the edges of cotton leaves, as his mind fizzles under the haint-blue sky humming too bright for his tired eyes, his head pounds as the hooves pounds underfoot of his beast. He trots from field one to two, two to three, and in three, he spots Levy, but a stone’s throw away, as he heaves a large basket of cotton on his masculine shoulders. He sees the sweat oozing down his cleavage, his bright eyes on the task at hand, and a body tone with manual labor—slave work, to be exact. A body chiseled to a supreme state. And the gentleman feels his sore loins squeeze the saddle and his teeth grit. Levy flexes his biceps and his long muscular legs—and the gentleman yanks on the rein that pulls on the bit, and the beast spins twice, with an angry neigh, and trots off back for field one.

The lady takes a bite out of a luscious peach in the shade of the poplar upon a quilt. Swallowing, she looks up at the approaching gentleman and licks her lips, and he can see it in her eyes. He can see Levy in her eyes. He can see the moon rise. Hear the drumbeat. Feel the scratchy sheets he sweats upon as she runs her nails up his ravaged thighs. As the BEAT—BEAT—BEAT—tap—tap—tap carries on, the lady runs her soft, smooth leg along the back of his calves. Still, he kicks her away, and she grunts, fumes, and tosses herself angrily in frustration until the man sits up and shouts, “That’s it! I’ll have no more of it!”

The maids spring out of their beds for their window as the gentleman flies off the porch with his whip. The lady in her gown follows him into the night, pleading, “No, please no,” as she throws herself to the ground.

And as she lay there in whimpering tears, the hiss and snap of the snake’s crackling tongue licks open Levy’s back, as he falls to his knees, as his muscular arms wrap haplessly about the tree, wrists bleeding from rope, knees dug into the earth, blood oozing down his muscular back sliced open with another hiss. Levy flinches to the bite and to the snap that echoes through the night, as the dirt swallows every drop, every tear, as the lady runs back into the house and locks the gentleman from his own room and bed.

The gentleman crawls in bed with a maid. Makes her whimper in pain. But it’s of no use. And he goes to the sofa, to the floor, a chair, and finally in the kid’s bed, kids on the sofa, on the floor, in a chair, and the night is finally silent, and a week on, the loins begin to heal.

Tonight, as he tosses and turns and angrily wraps the pillow about his head in the silence, the gentleman grows anxious. He thinks of his lady in the night, nails on his flesh, her passionate kiss, and the gentleman reaches down. Still, after a dozen good yanks, he cannot take it anymore, kicks open the door, and grabs his wife by the hips, the breasts, the thigh, and tears off her gown. He kisses her neck, squeezes her neck, and pulls back on her hair. She does not resist, yet neither does the lady respond, though letting him have his way before dropping to the mattress like a dead fish, where she lies utterly unimpressed, utterly dry, stale, and bored—lifeless and depressed.

The gentleman says, “That’s it,” and flies off the porch with his whip as the maids spring out of their beds.

The gentleman makes his way to the slave shack, where he kicks Levy to the poplar tree and tosses his drum at his feet.

“Now beat it, nigga, beat,” he shouts.

Whisper sweet nothings to my loins, he hopes.

Turn my lady on, he demands. Make her wild, again! Make me shout in the night!

“Now play, boy, play!”

But Levy just sits there, listless in the dirt.

Your see, Levy will sit there in the dirt and play his drum if he wants to.

And Levy will sit there in the dirt if he don’t.

And the gentleman, now, the master, whips the man, calls him boy, “Play, boy!”

Beats him with the devilish strap, with a hiss and a snap, as flesh, barely healed over, slices open with a bite, and the blood splatters on the tree and oozes again to the earth—to the root, where the hoodoo dwells so thirstily. After half a dozen good lashings, Levy grabs the drum, grits his teeth, and beats—beats that skin with all his might. He scowls his face and shatters his molars and stares the stare of death as the master, now the gentleman says, “That’s a good nigga-fellow. Now, keep it up, boy for a good while now, wouldn’t ya,” and he springs back inside.

The gentleman knocks softly on the bedroom door.

The lady answers with a diabolic grin.

BEAT—tap—BEAT, through the branches, quivering leaves, sizzle static of the stars twinkling far overhead, and the maids roll over in their beds as the man howls into the night.

“You’ll die of witchcraft at midnight.”

As the lady falls heavily under the influence of Levy’s whispering drum, she grows more and more sexually restless and maddened as she overwhelms the delighted gentleman, begging for more, more, more. And as his moans crescendo, and his muscles convulse, as his rapturous moment returns, his motivation suddenly fades, his pleasure quickly withers, and his joy turns to sorrow. His arms give out, and he collapses beside the lady in exhaustion, out of breath, heart fluttering wearily.

Tap-tapidy-tap-tap-tapidy!

His mind slips and splits, and he hears two opposing thoughts at once and a shout, and he covers his ears to a piercing pain, and he grows short-tempered with the tap-tap-tap, tapping! Tap-tap-tap, tapping! Tap-tapping, tap-tapping, throwing the pillow in rage, cursing, “That’s it!” As he goes for his whip, he swiftly forgets and curtly cannot focus and stirs about the house in utter confusion and dismay, lost within his own walls, face aglow with the candle’s flickering flame. The gentleman simply cannot remember why he has left his bed.

“You’ll die of witchcraft at midnight!”

The flame blows out, and the gentleman locks himself in his study.

In fear and panic, he downs a bottle of sherry in three large gulps.

“You’ll die of witchcraft at midnight!”

He shivers, his knees give out, and he falls to the floor, curls up with his arms wrapped around his knees, and watches the clock approach midnight. And as the hour nears, in a squirm, he feels everything and nothing at all.

11:50 pm

The gentleman kicks the wall until he lies about scattered hands and gears, thoughts racing. He chews his nails off in terror as his timeless cries turn the maids and children in their beds, and the lady comes running and bangs on the door. He forgets who the lady is in his unnerved alarm and curses for her to go away.

“Damn you! Leave me be! Leave me be! Please, go away and let me live—I am so very sorry for all I have done, please, I beg of you! Please let me be.”

“Weakening, weakening!” answers the drum.

The first rooster out of the coop stirs the maids from their beds. As they make their way to gather eggs for the gentleman’s orange omelet, one lets out a dreadful scream before fainting to the dewy ground. The lady comes rushing down the stairs and out onto the porch, where she sees, hanging from the old poplar tree, the gentleman swingin’ in the breeze.

CREAK—Creak—creak—