Bones Christopher Chambers “MINSTREL, n. A nigger with a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can bear.” —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary Nanh-unh, Mr. Bones, I hissed inwardly, I’m not done with your black ass yet! I plopped him on the stool before his dressing room mirror. I cleared the stink of his whiskey breath from my nostrils. The stink of his words still assaulted my ears. “Brudder gwine guide me home . . . bright angels gwine biddy me ta come . . .” I felt my stomach shoot down in my knees when he said that. Oh, I heard him mumble when he was drunk before, or high as a cloud from his Chinaman’s pipe, sticky with opium. Yet tonight, he looked like he’d sucked down a cask just to die and spite me . . . as if that was possible. And the words? Not his usual liquor-induced grunts or fitful dreamy whining about what he did that night in Tennessee, when I first met him. He was just a child then. Still was, to me. At least I thought so, until tonight, and so I was shivering and pacing and wondering who’d gotten to him.
What do You think about Whispers In The Night (2014)?
