Smoking with Emmett Till

I check the time. Nine o’clock. This is the longest I’ve waited for any spirit to arrive, but I keep the faith that eventually he’ll show up. I stare at the horizon, kicking stones off his Mississippi steps until they’re cleaner than when I arrived. I lay my head down.

I wake up to the sound of small, impish footsteps. My heart flutters. Is this him or just some kid from the block? If it is him, I brace myself for the sight. Bloated body, cuts, scrapes, and fractures riddling every inch of brown skin. I’ve seen the pictures from his funeral and, like most, had to wrestle through hiccuping gags. I keep my eyes closed tight, beginning to question my decision. Maybe it’s not too late to get on the next flight and go back home, far away from this place and its black and brown skeletons… No. I have to do this. Every spirit deserves a chance at closure. As my eyes focus, I realize the person before me is a young Black boy. But no bloating, no cuts, no scrapes.

It’s not him.

I exhale a breath of both relief and disappointment. The kid seems harmless, so I mutter a soft hello. I’m tumbling back into the chrysalis of rest when I hear the boy say something in a squeaky voice. Annoyed, I open my eyes. “What’d ya say?” I ask, Mississippi twang already tiptoeing into my dialect.

The boy lifts his head higher and speaks with a clearer tone. “I’m Emmett.”

I leap up and stare wide-eyed at the kid, looking him up and down. Sure enough, it is young Emmett Till! He was wearing what any schoolboy would wear: a white button-up dress shirt, a black, silk-pressed neck tie peeking through the shirt, and a pair of black dress shoes, clean at the top but slightly muddied at the bottom. This must have been what he was wearing when he died. It checks out that his ghost would look like this and not like he did at his burial. This is the true Emmett Till.

“Hi,” I say sheepishly, still in awe. “Please, come sit down.” I pat the step next to me, the step he probably walked up a thousand times.

Emmett eyes me from the edge of the steps. After moments of looking me over, Emmett clears his throat and speaks in a shaky voice. “Ma’am,” he begins. “Are you… are you a white woman?” He emphasizes the word “white,” and he says it like “hwhite.” I can’t help but laugh, his tone both amusing and endearing.

“No,” I muster through a smile. “No, I’m Black, too.”

With this, Emmett seems more comfortable. He scoots closer, filling in the empty space.

Soon, another question. “What’s that?” Emmett points to the blunt.

I grow embarrassed. I’ve never smoked with someone so young. I pick up the blunt and conceal it in my pocket. “Oh, it’s nothing.” Emmett raises his eyebrow as though to say, “I don’t believe you.” I chuckle. “It’s weed. You smoke it. Like this.” I take the blunt back out of my pocket, then use the lighter to set it ablaze. Emmett’s eyes widen at the sparks.

“You smoke it?” he whispers, not taking his eyes off of the blunt.

“Yeah. Like this.” I put the blunt-tip to my lips and inhale slowly. Sparks fall onto the wooden steps. I exhale, smoke billowing from my mouth to the Mississippi wind.

I turn to look at Emmett. His eyes have narrowed as though he’s made a tough decision. “I wanna try.”

Now my eyes are the wide ones. “You sure?” I ask. Emmett nods. Emmett inspects it fully before putting it to his lips. He inhales, then mimics my exhale. I laugh as he coughs out clouds of smoke. “It’s strong, kid. Real strong.” I gesture to him to hand back the blunt, but he shakes his head. He takes one more small puff, blows it out sharply, coughs just as much as the first time, then hands the blunt back to me.

I smile tapping the end, the colored sparks landing on the ground. “You okay?” Emmett nods, pounding on his chest. “Will be,” he manages to say.

This time I burst out laughing. The history books never spoke of how funny this kid is. Was.

I muster up the courage to ask the question that I’ve been meaning to ask him. “Emmett, do you remember what happened to you?”

Emmett’s face freezes. He nods. I nod too.

I’m not sure what else to say. I know if I ask for details his ghost will vanish. I nod again. “I’m so sorry.” Emmett nods again, refusing to look me in the eye. He gestures for the blunt again and I hand it before after taking a long hit of my own. I begin to whistle to eradicate the silence.

“You can’t,” he whispers, looking around us as though someone dangerous is waiting to emerge from the shadows. “You can’t do that!” It takes me a moment to realize what he’s referring to. I stop whistling and smile sympathetically. “You know we can do that now, right Emmett? We can whistle if we want to.” Emmett’s face stays frozen, his fingers pinching the blunt so hard I picture it shattering into ash. I want to hug him, but I know he’s not palpable enough to touch. “We can whistle,” I repeat. I look at him and think this petrified face must have been the last one he ever made. Tears fill my eyes. I refuse to let them fall. I begin to whistle again, slowly, to ease him into it. His face begins to soften. “Go ahead,” I whisper. “You can do it too.”

Emmett for the first time looks me in the eye, probably assessing whether or not I truly mean him no harm. I’m sure he sees the tears in my eyes. He breaks his gaze, looks at the blunt in his small brown hands, takes one more hit, blows it out smoothly, then purses his lips.

Pleasure washes over me as he whistles his first note.

Lucianna Putnam is a young writer from Detroit.