
Rebecca Gayle Howell (ed.)
et al.
Published online:
18 May 2023
Published in print:
07 March 2023
Online ISBN:
9780813197418
Print ISBN:
9780813182438
Contents
Cite
Dawes, Kwame, 'Work', in Rebecca Gayle Howell, Ashley M. Jones, and Emily J. Jalloul (eds), What Things Cost: an anthology for the people (Lexington, KY , 2023; online edn, Kentucky Scholarship Online, 18 May 2023), https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813182438.003.0041, accessed 15 May 2025.
Extract
Five days to go: Working for the next day—Bob Marley, “Work”
Look at this man’s hands, lookat the toughness in his fingers,the way his nails darken at the edges,the way his skin is markedby old scars, the way his palmsare leather-tough—a grater of skinif he drags those palms overyour arm. Those hands stillremember the smooth shapeof wood, the grooves wherethe blisters would settle and thenharden to toughness; the handleof the clumsy seed planter, bouncingon the uneven grooves, planting,planing. Sometimes it is easyto not know that on the plantation,out there on James Island,every morning, seven days a week,a bell would sound out, and thatbell would mean that thirty minuteswas left before you lined upby the fields to start to sweat.And you would work all dayto pay rent on the wood shingleand mud chimney that theyhad given you. And if you misseda day, your family would loseshelter. That is work. Work iskeeping the wolves from your door,work is the left foot followingthe right, the sickle swinging,the dirt on your skin. Workis always being behind, always owingsomebody something. Workis payment in June for debtfrom last December, when the coldreached into your gut, heldyou down. Work is one pairof shoes all season—barefootgrown man all summer long,and mules for the freezeall winter. Work is the dayyou think you are grown enoughnow to run, to run from thisconstant falling back, onlyto find that big-bellied whiteman with a shotgun saying, “Here aresome stripes, nigger, nice stripesto help you work better—nowyou get three meals a day;now you get a bed to sleep on,boy; now you got somethingto live for.” Work is alla nigger has for sure, and worktells you that nobody, nobodyis going to give you somethingfor nothing; work is like breathing—and every breath is a loanthat you can never pay back.Work is all a man has,and work is nothing, nothingat all; every day is work, work, work.
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