Birth*Right

There are certain things you don’t want to see and certain things you can’t unsee. What I saw on that cold November the 1st afternoon was both. Perhaps it all happened because of mother nature, no fault of her own, as she rightfully toyed with the idea of sending us yet another Nor’easter. It was my job, you see, to grind the feed out back for the hogs and the chickens, no easy task for a 19 year old young Maiden also in charge of the kitchen, but I was never one to complain or shy away from my obligations, believing idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Bad weather or not, chores had to be done.

Right after I buttoned up the coop and the pigsty, I felt somewhat dizzy, like I could faint, and I tried to push through the discomfort rationalizing that the weather elements were undoubtedly stifling; or could it have been the first wet flakes making their way down from the heavens freezing out my sensibility? As I stood not ten feet in front of the barn the northerly wind pulled my attention out towards the gray pasture as if it was calling my name. What I saw was all hazy at first, blurry, like my eyes were looking through a frosted picture window pane, but the blood red color and the shape of a human form was unmistakable and my curiosity, I supposed, held me from running. Every time I wiped my eyes I would see another and another, and if I was asked to guess what I was struggling to see, the hazy figures beyond me were of men, women and children; all of them varied in stature. It was then, to my horror, I began to hear a thunderous cacophony of moaning and the jarring thwack of multiple whips, blow after blow when I clearly heard a voice say, “No Master. I swear I didn’t do it.” But there were no slaves round these parts for miles and miles. Certainly not on our farm. What exactly was I witnessing? Had I gone mad?

The macabre scene sparked a fury inside of me, rising up into my throat. With all my being I wanted to run towards them, crying out to God for help. I wanted to save them. I wanted to set them all free but I was as weak and disabled as a slave in chains. I could not move even a pinky finger or an eyelid and then poof, they were all gone, as if the storm had blown them away and what happened before my eyes had just been a day nightmare. And I prayed like the dickens that it was.

The storm increased in intensity and it might have been a squall that enveloped me next; I am not sure since I was still faint and dazed by repugnance as I began to spin and spin like a top until I was spit out right near the back porch. Crawling away from the weather up the steps, something about my person felt quite different, like I had four hands instead of two and I was quite grateful to experience strength after my state of paralysis.

Drenched and shivering, I knew it was necessary to undress; to remove my leggings, my skirt, my corset and my pantalets; all of my garments felt soaked through. Making my way towards my dressing room, it seemed strange that my feet felt so heavy, as if I had instantly gained weight, but perhaps it was just the weight of wet clothing. Alas what I saw next when I looked down was not as repulsive as what I saw outside but as every bit perplexing, since as I moved to remove my skirt, there was no skirt, but trousers, to be removed, and as I did so, horror of horrors, between my legs was a member unknown to me, a snake that I had never seen before and would not know how to handle.

There was only one mirror in the house in the parlor, as we were not vain, but we did believe in checking it once on Sunday mornings before leaving the house for service. Unsure of how to cloak myself, I grabbed the blanket off my bed and wrapped it around my naked body tightly for cover, making my way over to the parlor.

How all of this had happened I cannot say, but as a person of faith, I knew not what to do other than to surrender. As I looked in the mirror, the face looking back at me was no longer mine, no longer that of a young woman but that of a man with a full beard, a handsome young man that looked much like my only surviving immediate relative, my older brother, who was out helping settle things for our recently widowed Aunt.

My predicament may have had everything to do with the nightmare I was stuck in; a continuation of what had happened outside, so it was then I thought to reach for the family bible on the desk where I was sure the proof would be marked that my name is Alexandra B. Johnson and the next time I would look in the mirror, my smooth face and genitalia would be repossessed and I would wake up to the day as it had started.

But no. How could it be? Documents do not lie. After opening up the front cover, there I was written in my deceased mother’s hand, right under the name of my brother Cyrus, Alexander Bartholomew Johnson, born September 3, 1841. Me. Not female. Male.

And right beside the family bible was something that caught my eye next. A newspaper clipping cut out and left by my brother catching all my attention as a clue, suddenly making the whole day not only conceivable but desirable.

Presidential election

November 6th, 1860:

Abraham Lincoln, Hannibal Hamlin, Republican

John C. Breckenridge, Joseph Lane, Southern Democrat

Was it not in my reflection or out by the barn in my surrender that God had answered my prayer?

It was Alexandra that would sit home on election day as a female unable to vote.

Alexander, me, by the grace of God was ready, willing and able to cast a ballot with the utmost pride to help end the abhorrence of slavery.

There are moments in time when we should not question, we should just accept our fate as ordained. This was my moment. I relinquished the memory of my womanhood without apprehension thinking,

“By the power vested in me, dear fine Sir Abraham Lincoln, I, Alexander B. Johnson will see you next Tuesday, November 6th at the ballot box.”