The Civil War of Amos Abernathy, page 12
She sighed. “In a roundabout way, he does, Amos.”
I wasn’t expecting that. I sat back down on the bed. “How?”
Mom’s fingers were massaging the base of her neck. “He threatened to pull all his funding from the Living History Park if we didn’t ‘avoid blatant nepotism.’” She couldn’t even look at me as she said it.
“Are you kidding me?” My insides were shattering, but I jumped off the bed and started pacing. “So, the board is going to let Mr. Simmons bully them because they’re afraid of losing a little money?”
“It’s not a little money, Amos. The Simmons family funds a huge portion of the LHP. Without them, we’d have to shut down operations almost immediately. Never mind the fact that some board members truly think it’s the right thing to do.”
“What do you think?”
“Of course I think it’s ridiculous, but we can’t lose the Simmonses’ donation. We just . . . we don’t have the revenue to cover our costs. We’re talking about my job, Amos. Our livelihood.”
I kept pacing. “Did they even read our proposal? Do they have any idea how hard Ms. Wiseman, Chloe, Ben, and I worked on this?”
Her head hung. “Mr. Simmons got to the board before proposals were distributed for review, but many of them knew about it. I know Jerry Winfield was eager to read it. And I read it, cover to cover.” When she finally looked up at me, her eyes were glassy. “It was such a professional and important proposal. I would have been honored to select it. I am so sorry.”
I wanted to be angry. I am now. But right then, I just felt numb. “Did they decide on an exhibit yet?” I was pretty sure I knew where this was headed. All I had to do was follow the money.
“They did.”
“And?”
“I’m sorry, Amos.” She sighed. “Shoes of the Nineteenth Century will open in March.”
There you go, Albert. No exhibit for me, no apprenticeship for Chloe, no Ben for us, and no Ben allowed to be Ben (unless he was lying to me about everything).
It’s all a mess.
I’m so sorry, Albert. I hope you can forgive me. I really thought we could share your story.
Amos
22
Battlefield
Saturday, August 13, 2022—12:37 p.m.
After the first cannon blast, the Confederate infantry storms up the hillside, where pockets of smoke are planted in the grass. As Chase, Noah, and I beat our drums, Union soldiers fire and soldiers in gray fall. Dusty white clouds billow up from the field. Some of the reenactors have packets of “blood” waiting in their cheeks. When the time’s right, they chomp down and red runs over their chins. With the right flailing, a reenactor can sell a pretty cringe-worthy death. (At least, I hope that’s why our audience is cringing.)
At the far end of the field, the Confederate drummer boys—Tommy Graves, Braydon Wozniak, and Hal Harris—mirror us. While we drummer boys keep a steady beat, everyone else runs amok. Of course, it’s well-choreographed chaos. We’ve all been practicing for the past two weeks. Except five minutes into the battle, two of the Confederate drummer boys (Tommy and Hal) ditch their drums, snag two of their fallen companions’ guns, and charge up the hill, somehow dodging bullets and cannon blasts other soldiers fail to avoid.
Mental note: tell Mom Tommy and Hal are officially canceled.
Reenactments aren’t playtime. We’re trying to tell a story about things that actually happened. Even Noah rolls his eyes at me when Tommy and Hal suddenly decide to jellyfish to the ground without hitting a smoke pocket or reacting to a blast, gurgling and convulsing like they ran straight out of a swimming pool and into an electric fence.
Canceled.
Guys like them are the reason Mom doesn’t let kids fight in the battle reenactments, even though hundreds of actual Union and Confederate soldiers really were just kids.
That’s how I feel right now. Like a kid. Younger even—a little kid, anxious and confused and overwhelmed. Freaking Ben Oglevie’s got me all messed up.
I try to focus on the pulsing in my forearms and the tightness growing in my biceps from the constant ruh-ta-tuck-tuck of my drumming. It only works for a few moments before my mind wanders again, until the smack of bodies against the fort doors brings me back to the battle. Enough Confederates, as planned, have made it up the hill, oh so carefully dodging enemy fire. A group of them hold a rough-cut log eight feet long and thick as a goalpost.
When it rams against the fort, it makes a thud to rival the cannon blasts. Behind the gate, unseen by visitors, our Union soldiers stand ready, counting the thuds before they wrench the wooden double doors open, shouting as if the ram broke through at last.
Now comes the fun part.
(Except I’m not having fun.)
Chase and I nod to each other and set our drums down beside Noah, who, as the least experienced drummer boy, has to stay behind to keep the rhythm going.
“Let’s do this!” Chase yells, grabbing his rifle.
I pick up my own Springfield Model 1861 re-creation before I rush after him. Chase whoops loudly, but all the excitement I’d been feeling earlier is gone. This stupid rifle is more than four feet tall. I don’t care if it was the most popular gun during the Civil War. It’s awkward and heavy and hard to hold, especially now that my arms are sore from drumming.
By the time we make it to the ground, most of the Union soldiers are already through the gate and out on the field. Two men “died” just inside the fort and are sprawled out with their arms over their heads. Chase and I leap over them onto the flattened grass.
All up and down the hill, a few reenactors have given up shooting their guns and are brawling in rehearsed matches, swinging rifles and muskets like staves. It’s all done as safely as possible, soldiers falling when the butt of a gun swings anywhere close to their head. All over, limp bodies pepper the grass, surrounded by all these faces watching happily from the sidelines as our battle reaches its climax.
When I was little, I sat with those families, wonder struck as the soldiers duked it out. The last few years, I’ve watched the battle from above as I drummed in the fort, the soldiers looking like video game characters. Now, with the battle inches in front of me, boots churning green to mud, the shock of metal meeting metal ringing in my ears, I feel like a dishrag wrung too tight. The idea of dying, even if it’s all pretend, makes it hard to breathe.
I imagine Albert running beside me. Small as he is, his dark eyes are determined, his lips a flat, serious line. He doesn’t whoop like Chase. He doesn’t charge ahead with a fake gun and blanks.
For Albert, this was real. He spent three years in battle after battle, inches from death, watching his brothers fall, men and boys who didn’t pop up grinning at the sound of applause.
Off to the side, the crowd cheers louder; and for the first time, all of this reenacting feels . . . wrong. This violence in front of me is nothing like the reenacting I do at the homestead or the schoolhouse. All those smiling faces, safe behind their ropes, make me want to hurl. Even if it is entertaining, war isn’t entertainment—this is supposed to be a time to honor, remember, contend with one of the ugliest truths of America.
But people look happy.
I am the opposite of happy. Suddenly, the very last thing I want to do is keep running down the hill after Chase, who’s waving and shouting, “Amos! Come on!”
Just as quickly, all my sadness turns into something else. Heat and rage.
Frustration.
I want to hit something.
Instinct takes over as the sounds of battle sweep over me. I race after Chase. We jog past arms and legs and chests, sidestepping gun butts.
But about halfway down the hill, I forget where I’m supposed to run. Even after all the practicing we did, my mind goes blank. I inhale. Hot air sears my throat. I don’t see Chase anywhere. I scan the field, looking for someone to help.
Not far off, Darren is approaching a giant, ruddy, gray-bearded Confederate with shoulders that could get stuck in most doorways. Without thinking, I charge the pair, an animal cry spewing out.
Darren and Graybeard turn, confused by my appearance. I kneel, aim, and with a bear growl fire at the Confederate giant, who reacts a second too late with a groaning gut crumple. Darren gives me a nod and trudges deeper into the battle.
The crowd whoops and whistles. I shoot them a look.
This is not a game. This isn’t a movie. It’s not even theater. This is history. Real people died like this. People Albert knew. People Albert loved. They fought brother against brother, father against son, white slave owner against free Black man. Enslaved people fought their way to freedom, helping the Union army if they could, while others were forced to serve the Confederacy. It was brutal. I think about Jim at the homestead this morning, about all of the “simpler times” people. Nothing about war is simple. Nothing about history is simple. Not for people like me or Albert or Chloe or—
And something clicks into place. The past wasn’t brutal for just some people. The 1800s weren’t the good old days for anyone. Because when one person suffers, everyone suffers, even if they don’t realize they are. Thoughts of Ben and his family take over my mind, all the hate eating up him and his family. But that’s what hate does. It separates. It destroys. And that’s what war is, isn’t it? Hate in action. And hate doesn’t care who you are. It’ll hurt whoever it wants.
And here we are, rooting on hatred.
Cheering for anyone killing their family, their fellow Americans—it’s all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I reel back, staring at the man I just killed. He’s someone’s son. He could be someone’s father or grandfather. He could love someone. Someone could love him.
Something inside me tears that has never felt a crease or a bend or even a wrinkle.
My gun falls to the ground. Suddenly the sun is hotter than it was a second before. Much hotter. Dark spots crowd my vision and the world rocks under my feet.
Was my heart always racing this fast?
I collapse. The crowd cheers a few feet in front of me as I fall. Other soldiers run and tumble and fight around and beside me, but they’re far away. Strangers in another dimension.
I blink and the world blurs out.
23
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Dear Albert,
I’m sorry. I know it’s been a while and that I should have written sooner, but, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t going to write to you at all. Then Chloe got me thinking about you again. About all the LGBTQ+ people who still haven’t had their stories told. And Ben. I think about Ben a lot. I worry about him. I miss him. It’s not like we were anything more than friends, not really, but we were friends.
People shouldn’t just vanish from your life.
Mom knows I’ve been low. She actually scheduled a meeting for me with the school counselor today, and it was the most uncomfortable thing ever.
Her: So, Amos, tell me about what’s been going on.
Me: Nothing, really.
Me (translated): Nothing I want to tell you about. I just met you five seconds ago.
Her: Your mom is concerned about some recent disappointments in your life. She said last month, the anniversary of your father’s passing, hit you harder than it has in the last couple of years.
Me: I guess.
Me (translated): I guess Mom wants everyone to know my business now. I guess I don’t have a say in who I share my problems with. I guess I’m not telling Mom anything anymore.
Her: Well, do you want to talk about it?
Me: Not really (plus, a shrug).
Me (translated): Not with you.
That’s how our session went for almost an entire hour, Albert. I missed all of science and we were doing a lab, so now I have to make that up on my own time, which is so annoying. Ms. Counselor wanted to set up another meeting, and I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice, so I’ll be missing a class every Tuesday now.
I’m overjoyed.
Lies. All lies. I’m miserable.
And so is Chloe. When I told her our proposal wasn’t even considered, she said, “You got to be kidding me. First the blacksmith apprenticeship, then Ben, and now our proposal? Watch. Next, they’re going to tell us we can’t even volunteer anymore. I’m too Black, and you’re too gay.”
She’s right. It’s like Chloe and I are only allowed to exist if someone in charge says it’s okay. This is how stories of people with marginalized identities get silenced over and over again! And you know what I’m finally starting to figure out, Albert? It’s not just our stories. What about other people of color? What about Native Americans? I don’t even know how many people’s stories aren’t being told! It all makes me sick. I wish I could do more.
I wish Mom would do more.
As awesome as it was that she defended me to Mr. Oglevie, I don’t understand why she didn’t fight harder against Evil Santa or the LHP board and Mr. Simmons. I get that with the proposal, money was involved, but what Mr. Simmons did was WRONG, and if semi-bribing/blackmail isn’t against the law, it should be. All of this makes me feel like I matter to Mom, but only when it’s convenient for her. That my friends and I aren’t worth fighting the real fights for.
So, the other night Mom had to get some prep done at the LHP and made me come with her, and I asked Chloe to come along. Figured it’s better for us to be together when we’re feeling low, and I’d rather not be alone with Mom right now.
We were wandering around the main gallery, playing a game we made up years ago. The gallery is full of sepia-toned and black-and-white photos from the 1800s. We take turns captioning the pictures to see who can make the other laugh harder.
Photo: A white man and woman, holding a baby, stand in front of a sod house. Neither of them is smiling.
My caption: A rare photograph of Midwestern hobbit pioneers. Going on this adventure was not their idea.
Chloe’s caption: Hippies of the nineteenth century.
Photo: A group of white men with pitchforks stand around a wagon loaded up with hay. A white woman stands a little way off. None of them is smiling. (Albert, why was this no-smiling thing a trend?)
My caption: Haaayyyyyyyyy, gurl.
Chloe’s caption: After hours of searching, they still hadn’t found the needle.
Photo: A young white boy in a cowboy hat sits barefoot astride a calf.
My caption: It looked bigger in the catalog.
Chloe’s caption: I’ve always wanted a pet boy.
At some point, though, we stopped laughing. We stood in front of a picture of a line of white women with identical haircuts and identical blouses hovering over identical sewing machines in a factory. Chloe said, “I should start replacing some of these pictures with ones I found of women blacksmiths. Not to mention a few more Black people.” She paused. The gallery lights glowed amber on her skin. “I still think that’s why Evil Santa wouldn’t take me on. Because I’m a girl. And maybe because I’m Black, too.”
My first instinct was to tell her that couldn’t be it, that Evil Santa couldn’t be racist and sexist. But after an extra half second, I thought about all the history and racism I was only just now learning about. Of course, Brad could be acting racist and sexist.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “I think there’s a whole bunch of bigotry we’re fighting against. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia. And it’s all crap.” My fingernails dug into my palms. “I keep wondering if Mr. Simmons had an ulterior motive for stopping our proposal, too, you know? Since they go to Holy Cross.” I sighed. “Aren’t we supposed to be past all this? Men against women, straight against gay, white against Black. I mean, we’re all supposed to be ‘equal’ now. It’s on paper—it’s legal—but it obviously isn’t equal, you know?”
“Um, yeah. I’m aware.” Chloe gave me a very “duh” look. “You can’t make people change just by saying things have changed.”
“I guess . . . I guess I just thought the world was different now,” I said. “But so much of it is still the same. It makes me so angry.”
“Me, too.” Her eyes wandered the walls. “Lots of things in this place make me angry.”
I watched her gaze move from picture to picture. “What else?”
She gave me a funny look. “Can I show you something?”
I followed Chloe to a wall of photos from the Civil War, mostly boys and men from Illinois and Chickaree County. She stood in front of one photo and said, “Tell me what you see.”
Not sure what she was getting at, I said, “There’s a soldier sitting in front of a tent with a little boy behind him.”
“And what about the color of their skin?”
“The soldier’s white, the boy’s Black.”
“Now read me the plaque describing the picture.”
I did. “Shiloh, Tennessee: Unidentified Illinois soldier from the Twenty-Seventh Infantry holding a Springfield rifle.”
Chloe’s face fell a little. “Do you see it?”
I read it again, thinking I’d missed a typo or something, but when I looked back at the picture and really thought about what Chloe had asked me to do, it dawned on me.
“It doesn’t say anything about the Black boy.” I was ashamed I hadn’t realized it right away. “Just the white soldier.” There are dozens of other pictures on that wall. I wondered how many were like this. “What the heck?”
“I only realized it a couple of years ago,” Chloe said. “I’d passed by this picture a million times, and I knew something about it bothered me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was—and then it hit me. The Black boy has been totally erased. That description ignores that he’s even in the picture, like he’s as important as the tent or the sky. Just a part of the background. Even the freaking rifle gets a mention, but not him.”
“That’s messed up.”
“I’m tired, Amos,” Chloe said. “So freaking tired of fighting for people to be seen as people.”
I couldn’t stop staring at the picture or the plaque. Now that I saw it, I couldn’t not see it, and it made me even angrier than I already was. “I can’t believe I missed this all these years. I hate that I’ve been trained to see a white world.” I turned to look at Chloe. I felt so bad that my best friend had been feeling this way for so long. That I hadn’t been there for her. “We should do something. We should tell my mom about it.”
