The Great Negro Plot by Mat Johnson Read Free Book Online Page A

silently begged a response as his lover forcibly tried to ignore him.
    "You what?" the court continued. "Oh, I see you are being quite the villainess this day, miss. Then, may I ask, what fact
     is it that you would be willing to testify to this day?"
    "Only to the goodness of my landlords, John and Sarah Hughson," Peggy told the room. "They are honorable, decent people and
     I am fortunate to board with them," she said, looking over to where the Hughsons sat, making sure they heard her every recommendation.
     The stolen property was not the only treasure that had been removed from John Hughson's tavern to his mother-in-law's. Unknown
     to the court that day, Peggy's young son was waiting for her with the old woman as well. Her only son, in the hands of the
     people she was being asked to incriminate. Some said the boy was as white as any colonist's child, others that he had the
     African blood in him as sure as any other mulatto. Either way, Peggy knew her only chance of protecting him would be to hold
     her tongue as concerned the family that now had him.
    After listening to his alleged sins revealed, his guilt reasserted, when called to testify, Caesar, too, denied all that involved
     him in the crime of the stolen property of Mr. and Mrs. Hogg. Not that his denial would mean much; any hope either he or Peggy
     held for being released on bail was now far gone. But when it came time to address the issue of his relationship with Miss
     Kerry, Caesar, his pride evidently still intact, and despite the sure knowledge of persecution such revelation would beg,
     was more forthcoming.
    "Mary Burton told the truth, in that regard," Caesar told the room as Peggy took her turn to stare downcast.
    He looked directly at her as he spoke, nonetheless. "I have been sleeping in the room of Peggy Kerry and I will not deny that,"
     he said.
    It was an admission that could surely cause his destruction, but Caesar stood proudly behind the pronouncement. Displaying
     the very defiance, stubbornness, and nihilism that soon would be revealed as archetypal of his brown brethren in response
     to their enslavement in New York City.

FIRE, FIRE, SCORCH, SCORCH, A LITTE, DAMN IT, BY AND BY
    EXACTLY TWO WEEKS LATER, at one in the afternoon, things started getting hot. At Fort George, on the southern tip of Manhattan
     isle, the glow of fire danced on the roof of His Honor, Lieutenant Governor Clarke's house. The light show came to fruition
     before notice was even called to it. It started on the roof of the east side of the house, about twenty feet from the closest
     building, the chapel. By the time the alarm was sounded, the blaze had ignited the entire wood-shingled rooftop, raging into
     a beacon that could be seen well beyond the city limits.
    The fires had started.
    The chapel's bell alerted the population at large to the conflagration. Soon the city's citizenry, never known for their general
     sense of community, interrupted their lives to come to the rescue. Fire was a communal event. The town's newly acquired state-of-the-art,
     side-stroking, manual-pump fire engine could divert some river water out its gooseneck onto a burning structure to slow some
     furies, but nobody thought that was enough, given the magnitude of the blaze. Once these wood-beamed structures really struck
     afire, the community's primary duty was reduced to removing all they could of the internal contents of the building, its destruction
     being a foregone conclusion. From practice, the approaching crowds knew how to set up a proper bucket brigade, to form lines
     to the doors, with at least one line carrying the building's prized possessions out into the safety of the street while another
     brought buckets of water in to slow the blaze. It was a group performance that was as practical as it was collective. Fire
     knows no satiation, and in a city with over eleven thousand people, where buildings had been erected so close together, if
     not handled immediately a fire such