Roman
James Ross
THE NIGGERS buried Roman in their graveyard at Cross Road•
I went there that afternoon to do my weekly trading instead of to
Corinth where I usually go. White folks don't go to nigger funerals
as a general rule, but I had had a lot of dealings with Roman, first
and last, and I thought it would look all right for me to go.
I took my basket of eggs and my kerosene can and started out
walking. I would have hitched up old Beck, but I had been work·
ing her mighty hard that week and I figured she deserved a rest.
It was a fine fall day. I felt good as I walked along through the
woods. I followed the old road that runs beside Ugly Creek. The
trees along there are all poplars and sycamores. The leaves were
already off the sycamores but a lot of poplar leaves still hung on.
They were curled up a little on the ends, red on top and chalk·
white underneath. I knew that before long all the trees would be
bare. Thinking about the dying leaves made me think about Roman
agam.
I was going to his funeral out of curiosity; not because I had
liked him. I was glad he was dead. I was afraid of him when he
was alive. He had been under my skin for a long time and it
pleased me to know that he was among the numbered, as the
mggers say.
Roman was a strange fellow. Nobody knew much about him,
not even the other niggers. He drifted in here about four years
back, but where he came from was a mystery and he never offered
to clear it up. Some said he was from Georgia and others said he
was a South Carolina nigger who had been working in Pittsburgh,
or some northern town until the hard times left him without a job.
He once told me that he had been on the chain gang in South
Carolina, but he didn't say where his home was.
He was a big, quiet nigger, about six feet three and straight
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