Testement

The Testement of Cornelius Johnson

                One of the ghouls told me, soon as they came to wake me. Fire, over in Negrotown; Midnight's shack burned to the ground, the firetrucks took two hours to show up. What few neighbors would talk didn't know much. The shack had been surrounded by a pack of white men, with sheets and flaming torches, a big gasoline drenched cross raised in the front yard. Wasn't no Klan that did for Midnight. He'd have come busting through the wall and make damn sure he'd have to move, but there would be a few less good old boys in Natchez. It was Boone. Boone and some of his wolf boys.
                I got up, didn't even bother to drink tonight. I ain't never been a religious man, and old John, I think he'd have scared God as bad as he's bound to throw a fright into Lucifer. Some things are only proper, though. Tomorrow night, the woods will scream for mercy, and the gutters will run with blood like a hurricane passed through. Tonight... tonight, I pay my respects to Midnight, and say goodbye to the only truly loyal friend, the best man I've ever known.
                1797, when this whole area was still New France, I met that crazy Indian. Everything changed, but one thing didn't change. My best buck, John, he stayed loyal. Not that simpering house help loyal; "Yassa, massa," then spit in your soup. The change to blood improved the taste of the food, that's for sure. John was strong, and never knew fear. When I had to bullwhip him, he didn't cry out. When the change came, and I got so hungry I drank his daughter down in front of his eyes, he never feared. But he respected strength. He was a strong man, and did his duty as he saw it. Slave, yes, but no man's animal.
                In time, I came to rely on him as my eyes and ears during the day; relied on him like I never could any of the white overseers I ghouled. In 1817, when the Sabbat sieged, and took him... and he came to me, sweated out the Bond they put on him, and led me and my boys to where they were hid, I knew that black man was the greatest person I had ever known. I freed him, of course, and he was a night walker from that point, but there never came a night I wouldn't have traded every sucker in this state and the whole damn city to keep John Johnson as my friend. We shared a daddy; I used to be a little ashamed of that. My daddy made John on top of a slave blanket while mama had the vapors and refused to get swollen in the belly more then that one time. When I got to know the man that John was... black as Satan's asshole, but I am proud that man was my brother.
                When I made John sheriff, and stood him at my right hand at court it caused a fuss from Memphis to Atlanta. A black man passing judgement on a white man. People can be so stupid, and it ain't always smarts that gets someone turned to the night walk. We let them come, John and I did. They said their piece, they made their play, they fed the trees on the banks of the river. They didn't try often after the first few times. One bad ass buck in a small town on the river turned out to be just fine with every vampire in the cotton belt it turned out.
                As the town grew, I let others in, but I always kept tight reign. I ran this town like my daddy taught me to run the plantation. My sire's ideas about how to run it as a domain be damned. It takes a strong man, and a good one, to do what's right because it's the tradition, or Tradition. John Johnson was a man who lived by the traditions, but with those scheming sisters and that smiling horse thief Boone Daniels, one thing kept them in line. Fear. They saw strength and it made their bowels quiver inside their rotting shells. Scared them enough they kept the young ones in line just to keep me from going on a rampage.
                Well, here it is. What's left of it. The charred shell of three tiny rooms and a seeping dirt basement. The time I had with that man. "John, dammit, let me by you a proper house," and "I ain't having no brother of mine life in no shanty in Darktown." He had no vanity; only strength and respect for strength. Comfort meant nothing to him and he never was one for show. Strange for a darkie, he loved to learn. Back in 1967 when he caught that Arab lurking around, messing with the spirits of dead things he was on that vampire like a coon dog with a momma 'possom with suckers clinging to her back dangling from a tree branch. I don't think there was a night went by when he didn't start into beating and whipping on that thing to learn just a little more, find out one more secret. John never did learn to read or write, but back in Africa he'd have been one of them witch doctors, or a story teller. He had a memory that no man who reads could have. If he ever let himself forget something, he'd tell me, it would be gone forever. He was going to live forever, so it all had to stay with him. He got his strength and his patience from that dark blood, and his smarts he got from poppa. If daddy hadn't died, I think he'd have gotten to know John and left him the whole damn plantation. John was sure the better son to the old man.
                Here's John's old '87 Bonneville. By the time they started hooking engines to the front of carriages, I was already to old to ever learn how to keep the things on the road. John, it took him years, more then a decade, and more old beaters wrapped around trees then would fill one junk yard but that man damn sure taught himself to drive. He was sheriff, what living police would ask him for his liscence? Well, ask and live to find out that he ain't got no insurance, either.
                All my people here around staring at me. I scare them enough that even the young bucks gathering in groups on the sidewalk in the sticky night heat don't dare come bother me where I stand vigil over the burned shack, and this is still Mississippi. Not one dare call the police about the old white man that won't stop staring.
        The moon is sure bright tonight. I've been so caught in memory that I don't recall if it rained or I'm just damp from the mists rising off the river. Hot as it is, everyone's gone inside, or at least sleeping on their porches. Not long until sunrise. Once the sun's up, I'll walk home, and sleep on plans to make the world shake lose them who did for you, you old black devil.
                That's my tribute to you, my brother. From your house to mine, I'll day walk. By the time I get there, I'll be as black as you were, John. That's my strength, I can take the sun, but it burns, yes it burns. Tomorrow night, though, my pain won't be anything to the suffering that I'll bring on those who did this to you. Let them blood bags know what we are, who we are. I don't have no reason to live if it's all alone, afer this long. Nothing but hate and hunger.
                If they want my city so bad they'll do this to you, John, I will let them have this pile of bricks and all the sacks of skin and bones wandering in it. When they take it from my dead hands, they'll know they were in a fight. I'm taking ten of them, at least John. It's what I owe you.

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