The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 2: The Testimonial (23 page)

“I don't know what it is to be above, to be in front, to be the one whose favor everyone wants to court. But I do know what it is to be despised. As my friend, I want you to listen, to try to understand how I feel without telling me I am wrong.”

Thomas was silent. He did not look at Nat. He looked past him. “I am only trying to encourage you. I am trying to help you not to be morose.”

“I have every reason to be morose! If you want to help me not be miserable, then help free me! Don't tell me I am wrong—join with me to change my circumstances, loose my bonds.”

Thomas Gray sighed. “What you ask of me is too hard for one man.”

“You romanticize slavery because it serves you. If you are my friend, care enough to make my heartbreak your own. Be willing to be poor so I can be free. If you are my friend, raise
your voice, raise your pen to set me free! You choose to not understand because it benefits you. You don't have to help me because you discount me because you think I am inferior to you—it is easier to believe God meant this life for me than to stand up and do something about it. We give our lives to make you rich; risk your life to set us free!”

“You wound me, Nat Turner. You push me too far.”

“I know what I say is not safe, my friend. The safe thing is to tell you what you want to hear, to be Red Nelson. But that is not the honest thing. That is not the truth. And is that what you really want, for me to be a buffoon like Red Nelson?

“If a nail goes in my foot and it hurts, you understand; we have this pain in common. But you seem not to want to understand that a burden too heavy for your back is also too heavy for mine. My heart hopes like yours. My heart breaks when you steal my son as yours would if your daughter were stolen.”

Thomas rose and turned away.

1831

T
here was no way for Thomas Gray to know that this was Nat Turner's last summer. There was no need to tell him; he wouldn't believe.

Thomas Gray had romantic notions of slavery. He thought life would be easier as a slave, a slave with no responsibilities, a slave with no choices. He thought that if he were a slave, though he was bound, it would mean freedom for him. No one would care what he did.

Summer was coming, harvesttime, and this might be the last time he would see his friend. He did not want to part with angry words. “We are not so different. Each one of us must choose and fight to be free. In the end, we are all slaves if we don't have courage.”

Thomas turned back to him. “I've been thinking of your dilemma and I think I have a solution.”

Nat Turner turned to face his friend. “My dilemma?”

“You should never have been a slave; it was never meant for you. But I'm sure you will agree, those Negroes that drink, and brawl, and steal should be slaves. What else are we to do with them?”

“You treat me differently, think of me differently, because you know me. If we were not friends, you would count me as one of the nameless, faceless ones you think are only worthy of slavery. Slavery was never meant for anyone.”

“There are white men, I think, who deserve no more than to be slaves.”

“We are not judged by how we treat those we love, but by our treatment of those we despise.”

“It is always religion with you, Nat Turner. Why the allegiance to a God who has no allegiance to you? If it were not for God, notions of God, there would be no slavery. If I were in your position, I don't think I would believe. How can you sniff after the white man's God? All it brings you is trouble.”

The words brought Nat Turner to his feet. He grabbed Thomas by his vest, almost lifting him from the ground. “You have stolen my homeland, my wife and family! Now you wish to steal away the God of my fathers!” Nat shook Thomas. How much more was he supposed to bear? How much more could be stolen from him?

Thomas tried to pry his hands away.

“My fathers knew Him long before you. He was never the white man's God. Any man who says so is a liar and does not know Him. He is the God of all nations!”

Thomas struggled to loose himself from Nat's grip. “What is wrong with you, Nat Turner?”

Nat Turner hit him then. A red mark appeared near Thomas's mouth. Even as boys he had never raised his hand to Thomas.

Thomas jerked himself free. “Are you mad? How dare you!” He bent forward, collecting himself.

Nat Turner looked at his hands. The rush of anger had surprised him. He had been hit by others but had never struck anyone himself. His hands seemed to have a will of their own.

He had seen fear in Thomas's eyes. It was a new sensation. The power felt good, but the feeling startled Nat.

Thomas straightened his clothes. He swiped at his mouth, checking for blood. “How dare you hit me? If we were not friends…” They circled each other in the clearing like two wolves ready to attack.

Thomas snarled at him. “I happen to think your life might be more pleasant without your brooding over a god who may or may
not exist. It seems all the cruelty in the world is somehow connected with your religion.” Thomas Gray was goading him now, trying to get under his skin.

“Don't try to take God from me! What is my belief to you? Atheists rape, steal, murder, start wars. Look what you do for the sake of wealth—enslaving people, stealing from them—and you don't believe.”

“Must everything with you be about slavery? Slavery and religion? Oh, my little Candide, you are so innocent and trusting. Someday you will see that all this belief that you set such store by is for nothing. It only torments you. You'll likely hang for it!”

“Take my life then! Everything else has been stolen from me.” Nat was tired of being threatened. He'd lived his life under threats. “If I allow you to steal this one thing I have left from me, what will you give me in return? If I don't believe, do you mean to tell me that white men suddenly free me?” He lifted his shirt, showing his back. “Will these scars magically leave my body? Will you return my mother to Ethiopia? Will you return my wife to me?”

Nat Turner stopped himself so that he would not pound his friend, who stood now in the place of all other captors. “If I give up God, what do you, a mere man, have to offer me?” What could Thomas Gray give him? His fear? His doubt? His discontent?

Thomas Gray waved his hand dismissing the argument. “Whatever the case, you are a slave. That is your lot. Make peace with it; it will not change!”

The game always ended the same.

W
e won,” Nat insisted. “We bested you and fair is fair.”

“You cannot win. We always win.”

They were in the clearing again. Virginia had returned and, again, they were in Southampton, boys holding sticks instead of swords. Nat drew back his fist.

The slap stung his face and brought water to his eyes, but he would not cry.

Nat looked about the clearing. Make peace with slavery? How could he make peace with it? How could he make peace with something so unnatural? It was Thomas Gray who had brought Nat Turner the Declaration of Independence to read. How could he be content without the rights given to him by God? How could he make peace with allowing another man to usurp rights that could not even be given away? How could Thomas Gray consider something so ridiculous?

“I am no man's slave. I am a captive held against my will.”

“You are always quibbling over words, Nat.” Maybe it was no surprise that Thomas didn't understand; years ago, when they were children, Thomas had been learning, too.

Nat didn't want to argue about slavery. He wanted to sit with his friend. He wanted to talk about the books. It might be their last meeting.

Thomas walked to his horse, preparing to leave, and then he turned. “I could purchase you.” From the expression on Thomas Gray's face, Nat Turner could see that he was sincere. “I would pay more than you're worth; poor Sallie would be grateful for the money. Her husband and she are poor as church mice.”

“More than I'm worth? I will not be bought by you or any man again.”

“Why do you fight against it? Why does my offer to help offend you? Is there nothing I can say that does not anger you? Do you wish to die?”

“Your plan of rescue, at best, only rescues
me.
What about my family? What about the others? How could I have peace with my family in chains? How could I have peace with you in chains?”

Thomas laughed. “Me? In chains? You know if you continue to speak this way, I really will believe you are crazy. Even worse, if others hear you, you will end up dead.” Thomas Gray did not recognize how the life he had accepted kept him bound. He thought like others that it was all to his advantage.

“I do not want to die, Thomas—I want freedom, I want hope. But if a sacrifice must be made, better me than my child. There are worse things than death.”

He slapped Nat Turner on the back. “I think my offer is a fine one, and I still don't understand why it offends you.”

“I am offended, my friend, because you ask me to be satisfied with what is wrong. You ask me to depend on you for my peace and happiness. You know me better; you know this could not satisfy me. If you owned me, how could I ever cross you or disagree? Some business or illness could change my fortune. It would make you my god, and only God is my master.

“If God only desired my freedom, I never would have returned. I would have boarded the ship I was hired on and sailed far away.” He had returned to deliver his people. July 4th would come soon. “You have many gifts, Thomas.”

“So have you—you are not formally educated, but you are probably the most intelligent man I know.”

“You could change things, Thomas. You could do so much good if you had the courage.”

“The courage?”

“You are intelligent, you can write, and you can tell a story. You might change the whole country if you used your gifts for good.”

Thomas Gray's smile was tinged with bitterness. “You speak as though I had so many choices.”

“You do. You are a free man.”

“Free is relative, my friend.” Thomas forced a laugh. “This has been a fine afternoon—a spirited talk about religion and books, and even a round of fisticuffs.” He leapt to the saddle. “Your principles will be your undoing, my friend.”

It was a strange way to say good-bye. Nat Turner had imagined they would part with kind words. He had imagined they might embrace as friends. He walked nearer to the horse, took the bridle in hand.

T
here was no way his friend could imagine his struggles, nor could he imagine his. “You're right, Thomas. All of us have some darkness we must fight, even if it is only ourselves.” The worse thing Thomas Gray could imagine was death. “If it is God's will for me to live, then I will live. If the price for speaking the truth is death, then I am willing to pay the price.”

Nat Turner needed to convince himself of the truth of what he spoke. He needed to let go of life in this world. “I will die anyway. But there is no doubt that nothing will change if no one tries to stand against it. If no one stands, hundreds of years from now, things will still be the same. Greedy, selfish men and the wicked spirits that fuel them will not give up what they have stolen without a fight.”

Thomas Gray's horse bowed its head to nibble at the grass, and Nat stroked its mane. “You are my friend, Nat. Perhaps the only friend I have who understands me, the only friend I can tell that I am dissatisfied with my life, the only friend who says, listen to your heart. Maybe I am as selfish as the others who would keep you a slave. I would rather have you alive as a slave than to see you martyred to some romantic notion.”

“Cruelty is not romantic. It is a blow to the body, the heart, the mind, the spirit. There is nothing romantic about that.”

“Maybe you are who they say you are—a fanatic—and I am a fanatic for listening to you.”

Thomas's smile reminded Nat Turner of their boyhood summers. “If I am a fanatic, is it any wonder?

“I see possibility in everything around me. It is who I am. God
made me. If He intended me to be nothing more, why would He have me to see flowers and wonder what can be made from them? I hear the wind and see it blow the trees and I wonder what can be done with this wind. Can I harness it to draw the plow through the fields? Can I press leaves or skins to make parchment? Can I use black powder to make fireworks? What if? What if? I cannot stop dreaming.” Nat felt the anger draining from him. They were boys again.

“This life that men have decided for me means that I cannot dream. I am punished for dreaming, for having a mind, for using the mind that God has given me. I see white men do things and I think, I know a better way. But if I want to stay alive, I must pretend to be a brute.

“Then, if stealing my hope was not enough, my family is stolen. What man can exist without family? What man is not crazy without love?

“Why would God set up such a world? If I know to do good and I do not do it, that is sin. This system forces me to sin, to pretend I do not know what I know. It forces me to do less and be less than I can be. That is sin.”

“You drive yourself crazy, Nat. I tell you, Candide, that your religion, your mythical god, is at the heart of all this.”

“You don't believe that, Thomas. Scientists do harm, artists do harm, even lovers do harm, but you do not speak against them. The miracle, the proof of God, is that I still exist after all that the captors have done to me. The miracle is that I still love and still hope. The miracle is that I somehow still call you friend. You would not like who I would be or what I would do without God in my life.” He heard the bitterness in his voice. This was not the conversation he had planned.

“You speak of all white men as if we are one, as though each of us is responsible for one man's foul doings. I am no Nathaniel Francis, I am not like John Clarke.” Thomas Gray's face flushed.