Sarah's mind once again slipped wistfully into the past, to that One Hot Summer in 1957 in Madison County...
"Miss Sarah, I has a question..."
"Yes, my sweet Mandingo?"
"There are rumors going round town that a white woman is sleeping with a Negro. You don't think they're on to us, do you, Miss Sarah?"
"No, no. Towns always have town gossip, people chattering away like little birds about things they don't know anything about."
"It just makes me nervous, me being the only Negro in town and all. I don't wants to get lynched."
"You don't visit Mandy David, do you?"
No, Miss Sarah, I surely don't."
"See, when people in town think a white woman is sleeping with a Negro they think of Mandy David. Because Mandy David is a floozy and a whore."
"Really?"
"That's what people in town say. In this case even if the people are wrong, they're still right. Mandy David is just the kind of woman of no morals that would sleep with a lowly Negro."
"But you sleep with me, Miss Sarah, and I'm a Negro. You have morals, don't you?"
"My sweet dear Mandingo, everything we do together is morally wrong, and a sin, obviously. I have the proper morality to know that."
"What we are doing is morally wrong?"
"Of course, my dear Mandingo: I am a respectable woman. That is why, after we have relations, I say a quiet prayer to God to forgive me for sleeping with a Negro."
"Do you think God will forgive me, Miss Sarah?"
Oh, my silly Mandingo. There is nothing for you to be forgiven for. God doesn't expect morality from Negroes, Chinks and Retards. God might as well forgive a dog for being a dog."
"Morality sure is tricky, Miss Sarah."
"Be thankful you don't have to labor beneath it, my love. Just pretend you're still in the jungle and everything will work out fine..."
I am Laslo.
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