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strike Homer hard in the face. She stagger back and fall against the step.—That’s enough out of you, he say. He turn back to Lilith.
    —And tell me, Lilith, by chance have you heard of a boy called Paris? Tall boy, thin, your height almost, maybe a smidgen taller. A new Johnny-jumper.
    —Me mama tell me to stay away from boy, massa.
    —Clever. Clever. I’m surrounded by clever niggers.
    Lilith look at the man. Tall with a slight hunch. Hair near white but eye green and bright. Massa Jack shirt open right to the waist, as be him custom. But he thin and muscular, mayhaps even strong, from all those years acting as the headman of Montpelier. Lilith can’t believe that this same man was driven to distraction sometimes as Homer say. He regard Lilith so long that she start to fidget.
    —Can’t have any nigger thinking they’re too special, you know. That’s why you were sent to the field. But this is as good a place as any, I wager. You find the cellar agreeable?
    —Is hard work, massa.
    —Well, niggers aren’t here to have things easy, are they, he say and laugh. He turn around and go back upstairs, leaving Homer to rub her face. Homer sit on the step while Lilith rub her fingers. Lilith don’t dare look at her. Not long after Pallas run down and stop on the step above Homer.
    —He run away? Why the Johnny-jumpers saying Paris run away when they know what happen? Homer? Homer, this don’t seem mighty peculiar to you? Why the Johnny-jumpers didn’t just say she kill him? Why they lie when we and them is not friend?
    —You ever see what happen when puss catch bird, Pallas?
    —Yes, but...
    —When puss catch bird. Think ’bout that for a while, Homer say and go upstairs.

3
    EVERY NEGRO WALK IN A CIRCLE. TAKE THAT AND MAKE OF it what you will. A circle like the sun, a circle like the moon, a circle like bad tidings that seem gone but always, always come back. Woman work round the sun and sleep round the moon and sometimes work round both, especially if it be crop time. Other times woman wait on the moon, especially if it fat with blood and rise low over the Blue Mountain. That be the season of the Sasa, the Asaase Yaa or the Ogun and the other forgotten gods.
    Truth be told, slaves in Jamaica have more ranking among themself than massa. In this place two thing matter more than most, how dark a nigger you be and where the white man choose to put you. One have all to do with the other. From highest to lowest, this be how things go. The number one prime nigger who would never get sell is the head of the house slaves. That position so hoity-toity that in some house is a white woman who be that nigger. The head house nigger get charge with so much that she downright run the house, and everybody including the massa do what she say. Homer careful not to cross the line, though. Position can make a negro girl forget herself and there is always the cowhide, the cat-o’-nine and the buckshot to remind her of her place. After she, there be the house slaves who work the rooms and the grounds and the gardens. Sometimes is the prime pretty niggers or the mulatto, quadroon or mustee that work there. Then you have the cooks who the backra trust the most, because the cook know that if the mistress get sick after a meal there goin’ be a whipping or a hanging before the cock even crow. Other house slaves be cleaning and dusting and shining and manservanting and womanservanting and taking care of backra pickneys.
    After the house slaves come the artisan niggermens, like the blacksmith, the bricklayer, the tanner, the silversmith, niggers who skilled with they hands, followed by the stable boys, coachmen and carters. Next is the field niggers, headed by the Johnny-jumpers who be the right hand and left hand of the slave-drivers. They do most of the whipping and kicking but when the estate running right they have nothing to do, so they whip and kick harder. After Johnny-jumper come the Great Slave Gang, the most expensive slaves,