SPIZZERINCTUM

An hour later, Andrew Jackson presented himself at Bob’s door.  After shaking the rain from his coat, he handed it to Bob who hung it on a nearby peg.  Neither man knew how to proceed.  A white man making a social call on a black man was a new experience for both.

“I believe you said you had a drink.”

Bob threw back an animal skin to reveal a cache of jugs and selected one.

“You want a cup or you just drink from the jug?  It ain’t been touched.”

Andrew Jackson could not believe what he had just seen.  He picked up Bob’s candle from the cask it sat on, held it aloft, and looked about the room.  He saw food stores, tanned hides of several kinds of animals, and kegs stacked three deep and two high.

 “Bob, this looks like a storeroom.  What are you doing with all this merchandise?”

“You mean this stuff?  I works for white people and they pays me.  I help make whiskey all the time.  Sometimes we do it on shares.  I hunts, smoke meat, grind meal, whatever they wants, I do.  I trade a little with the black folks.  They ain’t got much, but it don’t hurt for them to have a few of the pleasures of life.”

“You have so much here.  Does your owner know about this?”

“Mistress Shaw ain’t never been here.  She say, ‘Bob, you can keep what you earn.’ This is what I earn.”

“This is worth a lot of money.”

“I don’t have much need for money.”

“I wish I could say that.”

Andrew Jackson’s astonishment at what he was seeing had made him forget his superior attitude.  He thought, “This little black man has a small fortune in here, and nobody knows about it.  And it’s all his.  Says he has no need of money, but I sure do.”  He blurted aloud, “Have you given consideration to employing an agent to act on your behalf.”

“Mister Jackson, that must be lawyer talk, ‘cause I ain’t understood a word you say.”

“Let me think about this for a minute.”  Jackson pulled the stopper from the jug and poured the clear liquid into a cup.  He took the strong drink into his mouth and savored it briefly before swallowing it.  He made the appropriate grimace and said, “That’s good stuff” before pouring another.  Then he remembered he was in this man’s home, and his manners returned.  Bob was no longer black; he was a potential client for the ambitious lawyer.

“Did you want a drink?  I’ve been caught a little off guard and forgot myself.”

“Oh, I drinks a little.  I don’t care much for that hot stuff.  I like the more gen’le.”

“What do you mean by more gentle?”

“I shows you.”

Bob took a keg and pulled the plug.  He picked up the lawyer’s cup and tossed the contents in a nearby bucket.  He poured two cups and handed one to Jackson.  “I calls this sippin’ whiskey.”