Читать книгу The Collected Prose Works of Stephen Vincent Benét - Stephen Vincent Benét - Страница 10

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A long time ago, in times gone by, in slavery times, there was a man named Cue. I want you to think about him. I’ve got a reason.

He got born like the cotton in the boll or the rabbit in the pea patch. There wasn’t any fine doings when he got born, but his mammy was glad to have him. Yes. He didn’t get born in the Big House, or the overseer’s house, or any place where the bearing was easy or the work light. No, Lord. He came out of his mammy in a field hand’s cabin one sharp winter, and about the first thing he remembered was his mammy’s face and the taste of a piece of bacon rind and the light and shine of the pitch-pine fire up the chimney. Well, now, he got born and there he was.

His daddy worked in the fields and his mammy worked in the fields when she wasn’t bearing. They were slaves; they chopped the cotton and hoed the corn. They heard the horn blow before the light came and the horn blow that meant the day’s work was done. His daddy was a strong man—strong in his back and his arms. The white folks called him Cuffee. His mammy was a good woman, yes, Lord. The white folks called her Sarah, and she was gentle with her hands and gentle with her voice. She had a voice like the river going by in the night, and at night when she wasn’t too tired she’d sing songs to little Cue. Some had foreign words in them—African words. She couldn’t remember what some of them meant, but they’d come to her down out of time.

Now, how am I going to describe and explain about that time when that time’s gone? The white folks lived in the Big House and they had many to tend on them. Old Marster, he lived there like Pharaoh and Solomon, mighty splendid and fine. He had his flocks and his herds, his butler and his baker; his fields ran from the river to the woods and back again. He’d ride around the fields each day on his big horse, Black Billy, just like thunder and lightning, and evenings he’d sit at his table and drink his wine. Man, that was a sight to see, with all the silver knives and the silver forks, the glass decanters, and the gentlemen and ladies from all over. It was a sight to see. When Cue was young, it seemed to him that Old Marster must own the whole world, right up to the edge of the sky. You can’t blame him for thinking that.

There were things that changed on the plantation, but it didn’t change. There were bad times and good times. There was the time young Marse Edward got bit by the snake, and the time Big Rambo ran away and they caught him with the dogs and brought him back. There was a swivel-eyed overseer that beat folks too much, and then there was Mr. Wade, and he wasn’t so bad. There was hog-killing time and Christmas and springtime and summertime. Cue didn’t wonder about it or why things happened that way; he didn’t expect it to be different. A bee in a hive don’t ask you how there come to be a hive in the beginning. Cue grew up strong; he grew up smart with his hands. They put him in the blacksmith shop to help Daddy Jake; he didn’t like it, at first, because Daddy Jake was mighty cross-tempered. Then he got to like the work; he learned to forge iron and shape it; he learned to shoe a horse and tire a wagon wheel, and everything a blacksmith does. One time they let him shoe Black Billy, and he shod him light and tight and Old Marster praised him in front of Mr. Wade. He was strong; he was black as night; he was proud of his back and his arms.

Now, he might have stayed that way—yes, he might. He heard freedom talk, now and then, but he didn’t pay much mind to it. He wasn’t a talker or a preacher; he was Cue and he worked in the blacksmith shop. He didn’t want to be a field hand, but he didn’t want to be a house servant either. He’d rather be Cue than poor white trash or owned by poor white trash. That’s the way he felt; I’m obliged to tell the truth about that way.

Then there was a sickness came and his mammy and his daddy died of it. Old Miss got the doctor for them, but they died just the same. After that, Cue felt lonesome.

He felt lonesome and troubled in his mind. He’d seen his daddy and his mammy put in the ground and new slaves come to take their cabin. He didn’t repine about that, because he knew things had to be that way. But when he went to bed at night, in the loft over the blacksmith shop, he’d keep thinking about his mammy and his daddy—how strong his daddy was and the songs that his mammy sang. They’d worked all their lives and had children, though he was the only one left, but the only place of their own they had was the place in the burying ground. And yet they’d been good and faithful servants, because Old Marster said so, with his hat off, when he buried them. The Big House stayed, and the cotton and the corn, but Cue’s mammy and daddy were gone like last year’s crop. It made Cut wonder and trouble.

He began to take notice of things he’d never noticed. When the horn blew in the morning for the hands to go to the fields, he’d wonder who started blowing that horn, in the first place. It wasn’t like thunder and lightning; somebody had started it. When he heard Old Marster say, when he was talking to a friend, “This damned epidemic! It’s cost me eight prime field hands and the best-trained butler in the state. I’d rather have lost the Flyaway colt than Old Isaac,” Cue put that down in his mind and pondered it. Old Marster didn’t mean it mean, and he’d sat up with Old Isaac all night before he died. But Isaac and Cue and the Flyaway colt, they all belonged to Old Marster and he owned them, hide and hair. He owned them, like money in his pockets. Well, Cue had known that all his life, but because he was troubled now, it gave him a queer feeling.

Well, now, he was shoeing a horse for young Marster Shepley one day, and he shod it light and tight. And when he was through, he made a stirrup for young Marster Shepley, and young Marster Shepley mounted and threw him a silver bit, with a laughing word. That shouldn’t have bothered Cue, because gentlemen sometimes did that. And Old Marster wasn’t mean; he didn’t object. But all night Cue kept feeling the print of young Marster Shepley’s heel in his hands. And yet he liked young Marster Shepley. He couldn’t explain it at all.

Finally, Cue decided he must be conjured. He didn’t know who had done it or why they’d done it. But he knew what he had to do. He had to go see Aunt Rachel.

Aunt Rachel was an old, old woman, and she lived in a cabin by herself, with her granddaughter, Sukey. She’d seen Old Marster’s father and his father, and the tale went she’d seen George Washington with his hair all white, and General Lafayette in his gold-plated suit of clothes that the King of France gave him to fight in. Some folks said she was a conjure and some folks said she wasn’t, but everybody on the plantation treated her mighty respectful, because, if she put her eye on you, she mightn’t take it off. Well, his mammy had been friends with Aunt Rachel, so Cue went to see her.

She was sitting alone in her cabin by the low light of a fire. There was a pot on the fire, and now and then you could hear it bubble and chunk, like a bullfrog chunking in the swamp, but that was the only sound. Cue made his obleegances to her and asked her about the misery in her back. Then he gave her a chicken he happened to bring along. It was a black rooster, and she seemed pleased to get it. She took it in her thin black hands and it fluttered and clucked a minute. So she drew a chalk line from its beak along a board, and then it stayed still and frozen. Well, Cue had seen that trick done before. But it was different, seeing it done in Aunt Rachel’s cabin, with the big pot chunking on the fire. It made him feel uneasy and he jingled the bit in his pocket for company.

After a while, the old woman spoke. “Well, Son Cue,” said she, “that’s a fine young rooster you’ve brought me. What else did you bring me, Son Cue?”

“I brought you trouble,” said Cue, in a husky voice, because that was all he could think of to say.

She nodded her head as if she’d expected that. “They mostly brings me trouble,” she said. “They mostly brings trouble to Aunt Rachel. What kind of trouble, Son Cue? Man trouble or woman trouble?”

“It’s my trouble,” said Cue, and he told her the best way he could. When he’d finished, the pot on the fire gave a bubble and a croak, and the old woman took a long spoon and stirred it.

“Well, Son Cue, son of Cuffee, son of Shango,” she said, “you’ve got a big trouble, for sure.”

“Is it going to kill me dead?” said Cue.

“I can’t tell you right about that,” said Aunt Rachel. “I could give you lies and prescriptions. Maybe I would, to some folks. But your Granddaddy Shango was a powerful man. It took three men to put the irons on him, and I saw the irons break his heart. I won’t lie to you, Son Cue. You’ve got a sickness.”

“Is it a bad sickness?” said Cue.

“It’s a sickness in your blood,” said Aunt Rachel. “It’s a sickness in your liver and your veins. Your daddy never had it that I knows of—he took after his mammy’s side. But his daddy was a Corromantee, and they is bold and free, and you takes after him. It’s the freedom sickness, Son Cue.”

“The freedom sickness?” said Cue.

“The freedom sickness,” said the old woman, and her little eyes glittered like sparks. “Some they break and some they tame down,” she said, “and some is neither to be tamed or broken. Don’t I know the signs and the sorrow—me, that come through the middle passage on the slavery ship and seen my folks scattered like sand? Ain’t I seen it coming, Lord—O Lord, ain’t I seen it coming?”

“What’s coming?” said Cue.

“A darkness in the sky and a cloud with a sword in it,” said the old woman, stirring the pot, “because they hold our people and they hold our people.”

Cue began to tremble. “I don’t want to get whipped,” he said. “I never been whipped—not hard.”

“They whipped your Granddaddy Shango till the blood ran twinkling down his back,” said the old woman, “but some you can’t break or tame.”

“I don’t want to be chased by dogs,” said Cue. “I don’t want to hear the dogs belling and the paterollers after me.”

The old woman stirred the pot.

“Old Marster, he’s a good marster,” said Cue. “I don’t want to do him no harm. I don’t want no trouble or projecting to get me into trouble.”

The old woman stirred the pot and stirred the pot.

“O God, I want to be free,” said Cue. “I just ache and hone to be free. How I going to be free, Aunt Rachel?”

“There’s a road that runs underground,” said the old woman. “I never seen it, but I knows of it. There’s a railroad train that runs, sparking and snorting, underground through the earth. At least that’s what they tell me. But I wouldn’t know for sure,” and she looked at Cue.

Cue looked back at her bold enough, for he’d heard about the Underground Railroad himself—just mentions and whispers. But he knew there wasn’t any use asking the old woman what she wouldn’t tell.

“How I going to find that road, Aunt Rachel?” he said.

“You look at the rabbit in the brier and you see what he do,” said the old woman. “You look at the owl in the woods and you see what he do. You look at the star in the sky and you see what she do. Then you come back and talk to me. Now I’m going to eat, because I’m hungry.”

That was all the words she’d say to him that night; but when Cue went back to his loft, her words kept boiling around in his mind. All night he could hear that train of railroad cars, snorting and sparking underground through the earth. So, next morning, he ran away.

He didn’t run far or fast. How could he? He’d never been more than twenty miles from the plantation in his life; he didn’t know the roads or the ways. He ran off before the horn, and Mr. Wade caught him before sundown. Now, wasn’t he a stupid man, that Cue?

When they brought him back, Mr. Wade let him off light, because he was a good boy and never run away before. All the same, he got ten, and ten laid over the ten. Yellow Joe, the head driver, laid them on. The first time the whip cut into him, it was just like a fire on Cue’s skin, and he didn’t see how he could stand it. Then he got to a place where he could.

After it was over, Aunt Rachel crope up to his loft and had her granddaughter, Sukey, put salve on his back. Sukey, she was sixteen, and golden-skinned and pretty as a peach on a peach tree. She worked in the Big House and he never expected her to do a thing like that.

“I’m mighty obliged,” he said, though he kept thinking it was Aunt Rachel got him into trouble and he didn’t feel as obliged as he might.

“Is that all you’ve got to say to me, Son Cue?” said Aunt Rachel, looking down at him. “I told you to watch three things. Did you watch them?”

“No’m,” said Cue. “I run off in the woods just like I was a wild turkey. I won’t never do that no more.”

“You’re right, Son Cue,” said the old woman. “Freedom’s a hard-bought thing. So, now you’ve been whipped, I reckon you’ll give it up.”

“I been whipped,” said Cue, “but there’s a road running underground. You told me so. I been whipped, but I ain’t beaten.”

“Now you’re learning a thing to remember,” said Aunt Rachel, and went away. But Sukey stayed behind for a while and cooked Cue’s supper. He never expected her to do a thing like that, but he liked it when she did.

When his back got healed, they put him with the field gang for a while. But then there was blacksmith work that needed to be done and they put him back in the blacksmith shop. And things went on for a long time just the way they had before. But there was a difference in Cue. It was like he’d lived up till now with his ears and his eyes sealed over. And now he began to open his eyes and his ears.

He looked at the rabbit in the brier and he saw it could hide. He looked at the owl in the woods and he saw it went soft through the night. He looked at the star in the sky and he saw she pointed north. Then he began to figure.

He couldn’t figure things fast, so he had to figure things slow. He figure the owl and the rabbit got wisdom the white folks don’t know about. But he figure the white folks got wisdom he don’t know about. They got reading and writing wisdom, and it seem mighty powerful. He ask Aunt Rachel if that’s so, and she say it’s so.

That’s how come he learned to read and write. He ain’t supposed to. But Sukey, she learned some of that wisdom, along with the young misses, and she teach him out of a little book she tote from the Big House. The little book, it’s all about bats and rats and cats, and Cue figure whoever wrote it must be sort of touched in the head not to write about things folks would want to know, instead of all those trifling animals. But he put himself to it and he learn. It almost bust his head, but he learn. It’s a proud day for him when he write his name, “Cue,” in the dust with the end of a stick and Sukey tell him that’s right.

Now he began to hear the first rumblings of that train running underground—that train that’s the Underground Railroad. Oh, children, remember the names of Levi Coffin and John Hansen! Remember the Quaker saints that hid the fugitive! Remember the names of all those that helped set our people free!

There’s a word dropped here and a word dropped there and a word that’s passed around. Nobody know where the word come from or where it goes, but it’s there. There’s many a word spoken in the quarters that the Big House never hears about. There’s a heap said in front of the fire that never flies up the chimney. There’s a name you tell to the grapevine that the grapevine don’t tell back.

There was a white man, one day, came by, selling maps and pictures. The quality folks, they looked at his maps and pictures and he talked with them mighty pleasant and respectful. But while Cue was tightening a bolt on his wagon, he dropped a word and a word. The word he said made that underground train come nearer.

Cue meet that man one night, all alone, in the woods. He’s a quiet man with a thin face. He hold his life in his hands every day he walk about, but he don’t make nothing of that. Cue’s seen bold folks and bodacious folks, but it’s the first time he’s seen a man bold that way. It makes him proud to be a man. The man ask Cue questions and Cue give him answers. While he’s seeing that man, Cue don’t just think about himself any more. He think about all his people that’s in trouble.

The man say something to him; he say, “No man own the earth. It’s too big for one man.” He say, “No man own another man; that’s too big a thing too.” Cue think about those words and ponder them. But when he gets back to his loft, the courage drains out of him and he sits on his straw tick, staring at the wall. That’s the time the darkness comes to him and the shadow falls on him.

He aches and he hones for freedom, but he aches and he hones for Sukey too. And Long Ti’s cabin is empty, and it’s a good cabin. All he’s got to do is to go to Old Marster and take Sukey with him. Old Marster don’t approve to mix the field hand with the house servant, but Cue’s different; Cue’s a blacksmith. He can see the way Sukey would look, coming back to her in the evening. He can see the way she’d be in the morning before the horn. He can see all that. It ain’t freedom, but it’s what he’s used to. And the other way’s long and hard and lonesome and strange.

“O Lord, why you put this burden on a man like me?” say Cue. Then he listen a long time for the Lord to tell him, and it seem to him, at last, that he get an answer. The answer ain’t in any words, but it’s a feeling in his heart.

So when the time come and the plan ripe and they get to the boat on the river and they see there’s one too many for the boat, Cue know the answer. He don’t have to hear the quiet white man say, “There’s one too many for the boat.” He just pitch Sukey into it before he can think too hard. He don’t say a word or a groan. He know it’s that way and there’s bound to be a reason for it. He stand on the bank in the dark and see the boat pull away, like Israel’s children. Then he hear the shouts and the shot. He know what he’s bound to do then, and the reason for it. He know it’s the paterollers, and he show himself. When he get back to the plantation, he’s worn and tired. But the paterollers, they’ve chased him, instead of the boat.

He creep by Aunt Rachel’s cabin and he see the fire at her window. So he scratch at the door and go in. And there she is, sitting by the fire, all hunched up and little.

“You looks poorly, Son Cue,” she say, when he come in, though she don’t take her eye off the pot.

“I’m poorly, Aunt Rachel,” he say. “I’m sick and sorry and distressed.”

“What’s the mud on your jeans, Son Cue?” she say, and the pot, it bubble and croak.

“That’s the mud of the swamp where I hid from the paterollers,” he say.

“What’s the hole in your leg, Son Cue?” she say, and the pot, it croak and bubble.

“That’s the hole from the shot they shot at me,” say Cue. “The blood most nearly dried, but it make me lame. But Israel’s children, they’s safe.”

“They’s across the river?” say the old woman.

“They’s across the river,” say Cue. “They ain’t room for no more in the boat. But Sukey, she’s across.”

“And what will you do now, Son Cue?” say the old woman. “For that was your chance and your time, and you give it up for another. And tomorrow morning, Mr. Wade, he’ll see that hole in your leg and he’ll ask questions. It’s a heavy burden you’ve laid on yourself, Son Cue.”

“It’s a heavy burden,” say Cue, “and I wish I was shut of it. I never asked to take no such burden. But freedom’s a hard-bought thing.”

The old woman stand up sudden, and for once she look straight and tall. “Now bless the Lord!” she say. “Bless the Lord and praise him! I come with my mammy in the slavery ship—I come through the middle passage. There ain’t many that remember that, these days, or care about it. There ain’t many that remember the red flag that witched us on board or how we used to be free. Many thousands gone, and the thousands of many thousands that lived and died in slavery. But I remember. I remember them all. Then they took me into the Big House—me that was a Mandingo and a witch woman—and the way I live in the Big House, that’s between me and my Lord. If I done wrong, I done paid for it—I paid for it with weeping and sorrow. That’s before Old Miss’ time and I help raise up Old Miss. They sell my daughter to the South and my son to the West, but I raise up Old Miss and tend on her. I ain’t going to repine of that. I count the hairs on Old Miss’ head when she’s young, and she turn to me, weak and helpless. And for that there’ll be a kindness between me and the Big House—a kindness that folks will remember. But my children’s children shall be free.”

“You do this to me,” say Cue, and he look at her, and he look dangerous. “You do this to me, old woman,” he say, and his breath come harsh in his throat, and his hands twitch.

“Yes,” she say, and look him straight in the eyes. “I do to you what I never even do for my own. I do it for your Granddaddy Shango, that never turn to me in the light of the fire. He turn to that soft Eboe woman, and I have to see it. He roar like a lion in the chains, and I have to see that. So, when you come, I try you and I test you, to see if you fit to follow after him. And because you fit to follow after him, I put freedom in your heart, Son Cue.”

“I never going to be free,” say Cue, and look at his hands. “I done broke all the rules. They bound to sell me now.”

“You’ll be sold and sold again,” say the old woman. “You’ll know the chains and the whip. I can’t help that. You’ll suffer for your people and with your people. But while one man’s got freedom in his heart, his children bound to know the tale.”

She put the lid on the pot and it stop bubbling.

“Now I come to the end of my road,” she say, “but the tale don’t stop there. The tale go backward to Africa and it go forward, like clouds and fire. It go, laughing and grieving forever, through the earth and the air and the waters—my people’s tale.”

Then she drop her hands in her lap and Cue creep out of the cabin. He know then he’s bound to be a witness, and it make him feel cold and hot. He know then he’s bound to be a witness and tell that tale. O Lord, it’s hard to be a witness, and Cue know that. But it help him in the days to come.

Now, when he get sold, that’s when Cue feel the iron in his heart. Before that, and all his life, he despise bad servants and bad marsters. He live where the marster’s good; he don’t take much mind of other places. He’s a slave, but he’s Cue, the blacksmith, and Old Marster and Old Miss, they tend to him. Now he know the iron in his heart and what it’s like to be a slave.

He know that on the rice fields in the hot sun. He know that, working all day for a handful of corn. He know the bad marsters and the cruel overseers. He know the bite of the whip and the gall of the iron on the ankle. Yes, Lord, he know tribulation. He know his own tribulation and the tribulation of his people. But all the time, somehow, he keep freedom in his heart. Freedom mighty hard to root out when it’s in the heart.

He don’t know the day or the year, and he forget, half the time, there ever was a gal named Sukey. All he don’t forget is the noise of the train in his ears, the train snorting and sparking underground. He think about it at nights till he dream it carry him away. Then he wake up with the horn. He feel ready to die then, but he don’t die. He live through the whip and the chain; he live through the iron and the fire. And finally he get away.

When he get away, he ain’t like the Cue he used to be—not even back at Old Marster’s place. He hide in the woods like a rabbit; he slip through the night like an owl. He go cold and hungry, but the star keep shining over him and he keep his eyes on the star. They set the dogs after him and he hear the dogs belling and yipping through the woods.

He’s scared when he hear the dogs, but he ain’t scared like he used to be. He ain’t more scared than any man. He kill the big dog in the clearing—the big dog with the big voice—and he do it with his naked hands. He cross water three times after that to kill the scent, and he go on.

He got nothing to help him—no, Lord—but he got a star. The star shine in the sky and the star shine—the star point north with its shining. You put that star in the sky, O Lord; you put it for the prisoned and the humble. You put it there—you ain’t never going to blink it out.

He hungry and he eat green corn and cowpeas. He thirsty and he drink swamp water. One time he lie two days in the swamp, too puny to get up on his feet, and he know they hunting around him. He think that’s the end of Cue. But after two days he lift his head and his hand. He kill a snake with a stone, and after he’s cut out the poison bag, he eat the snake to strengthen him, and go on.

He don’t know what the day is when he come to the wide, cold river. The river yellow and foaming, and Cue can’t swim. But he hide like a crawdad on the bank; he make himself a little raft with two logs. He know this time’s the last time and he’s obliged to drown. But he put out on the raft and it drift him to the freedom side. He mighty weak by then.

He mighty weak, but he careful. He know tales of Billy Shea, the slave catcher; he remember those tales. He slide into the town by night, like a shadow, like a ghost. He beg broken victuals at a door; the woman give them to him, but she look at him suspicious. He make up a tale to tell her, but he don’t think she believe the tale. In the gutter he find a newspaper; he pick it up and look at the notices. There’s a notice about a runaway man named Cue. He look at it and it make the heart beat in his breast.

He patient; he mighty careful. He leave that town behind. He got the name of another town, Cincinnati, and a man’s name in that town. He don’t know where it is; he have to ask his way, but he do it mighty careful. One time he ask a yellow man directions; he don’t like the look on the yellow man’s face. He remember Aunt Rachel; he tell the yellow man he conjure his liver out if the yellow man tell him wrong. Then the yellow man scared and tell him right. He don’t hurt the yellow man; he don’t blame him for not wanting trouble. But he make the yellow man change pants with him, because his pants mighty ragged.

He patient; he very careful. When he get to the place he been told about, he look all about that place. It’s a big house; it don’t look right. He creep around to the back—he creep and he crawl. He look in a window; he see white folks eating their supper. They just look like any white folks. He expect them to look different. He feel mighty bad. All the same, he rap at the window the way he been told. They don’t nobody pay attention and he just about to go away. Then the white man get up from the table and open the back door a crack. Cue breathe in the darkness.

“God bless the stranger the Lord sends us,” say the white man in a low, clear voice, and Cue run to him and stumble, and the white man catch him. He look up and it’s a white man, but he ain’t like thunder and lightning.

He take Cue and wash his wounds and bind them up. He feed him and hide him under the floor of the house. He ask him his name and where he’s from. Then he send him on. O Lord, remember thy tried servant, Asaph Brown! Remember his name!

They send him from there in a wagon, and he’s hidden in the straw at the bottom. They send him from the next place in a closed cart with six others, and they can’t say a word all night. One time a tollkeeper ask them what’s in the wagon, and the driver say, “Southern calico,” and the tollkeeper laugh. Cue always recollect that.

One time they get to big water—so big it look like the ocean. They cross that water in a boat; they get to the other side. When they get to the other side, they sing and pray, and white folks look on, curious. But Cue don’t even feel happy; he just feel he want to sleep.

He sleep like he never sleep before—not for days and years. When he wake up, he wonder; he hardly recollect where he is. He lying in the loft of a barn. Ain’t nobody around him. He get up and go out in the air. It’s a fine sunny day.

He get up and go out. He say to himself, I’m free, but it don’t take hold yet. He say to himself, This is Canada and I’m free, but it don’t take hold. Then he start to walk down the street.

The first white man he meet on the street, he scrunch up in himself and start to run across the street. But the white man don’t pay him any mind. Then he know.

He say to himself in his mind, I’m free. My name’s Cue—John H. Cue. I got a strong back and strong arms. I got freedom in my heart. I got a first name and a last name and a middle name. I never had them all before.

He say to himself, My name’s Cue—John H. Cue. I got a name and a tale to tell. I got a hammer to swing. I got a tale to tell my people. I got recollection. I call my first son ‘John Freedom Cue.’ I call my first daughter ‘Come-Out-of-the-Lion’s-Mouth.’

Then he walk down the street, and he pass a blacksmith shop. The blacksmith, he’s an old man and he lift the hammer heavy. Cue look in that shop and smile.

He pass on; he go his way. And soon enough he see a girl like a peach tree—a girl named Sukey—walking free down the street.