Antebellum (20 page)

I turned my head toward Roka. He stood with his fist clenched, his teeth grinding together, but he kept his mouth closed.

“You!” Bradley stared at Roka, but walked over to the crowd of slaves that stood at the warehouse door. “Y'all take a good look at this here nigger.”

He pointed up at me. I tried to kick him, but it was torture to try and use any of my muscles. I gathered as much saliva as I could, which wasn't much, and spit it out. Three tiny drops hit the ground in front of me. The spit wouldn't reach him, but the familiar hocking sound made the slaves gasp. Bradley turned and stared at me in disbelief.

“Go...call...my lawyer...”

Bradley began chuckling uneasily, but eventually fell into a rolling laughter. Finch looked confused, but took his cue from his partner and made himself laugh as well. When Bradley was done, he looked back at the slaves.

“Let this nigger be a lesson for all a' you! I control niggers on this here plantation. You cain't take a squat in a hole without my permission.”

He paused to let his message sink in.

“Talbert been protectin' you niggers till now. That black piece a' trash right here—” Bradley pointed again at Roka “—you shoulda been dead, but you pick mo' cotton than any two niggers out here combined. You thinkin' ol Bradley can't get to you 'cause Talbert say so, huh? But watch...you'se watch what happen after I crush this here nigger. Watch how much respect I get...hell, I buy all of you myself!” Again, Bradley pointed at Roka. “First thing I'ma do is cut off your balls and eat 'em for supper.”

Bradley broke into a wild, fanatical sort of laughter as he walked
over and picked up a whip that had been rolled into a coil. He grabbed the handle and flung the coil so that the whip stretched out to its full length, and grinned menacingly as he prepared to cock his arm back. His laughter didn't move me. I'd already felt as if I was about to die. There was nothing more fearful than what I had already experienced.

Finch reached up and ripped off my shirt. More gasps came from the slaves. I was too weary to wonder what the big deal was.

“Bradley...” Finch kept looking back and forth from me to his partner. “Bradley...looka here...this nigger's back...he ain't...he ain't never been whipped.”

Bradley dropped the whip, then walked over and clawed at the flesh on my back. I screamed inside my head. My throat wasn't strong enough to make it audible.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Bradley stared up at me, letting his uneasiness show for a second before he placed his mask back on. He walked back over to the whip he had dropped, and picked it up with a large grin. Squatting down slightly on his knees, he turned back toward me and stopped.

“Don't matter where you came from, you mine now, boy...”

He lifted the whip and cracked it toward me.

Hanging there by my wrists, I was certain that I was in more pain than I could ever express. My body hung limp and swayed with the nudging of the wind, and gravity continued to make an attempt at separating my torso from my legs. My head was pounding, as it had been for several hours now, and my exhaustion prevented me from doing much else other than moaning and swallowing spit. I figured there wasn't anything that could be done to me that was more painful than what I'd already felt.

I was wrong.

Fire from hell ripped the skin from my back. My eyes went
from fluttering to shooting open wider than I'd ever known they could go. My bone-dry tonsils pulsed and released a sound of pure agony.

“UhhhhggghhhhaaaAAAHHH...”

Bradley laughed out loud.

“Finch, I do believe you was right. This boy ain't never felt a whip before! Jesus must be smilin down on me today—give me this good luck.”

“Must be,” Finch said, and grinned.

I heard the long cord be pulled back and snatched forward, and felt the fire rip more flesh from my back. Cries came up and out from my gut, and had I heard a recording of these sounds, I wouldn't have believed they'd come from me. Every time the whip touched me, it took a piece of life with it. I began to suffocate on my own screams.

“DON'T LET THEM TAKE DIFFERENT!” I could barely make out Roka's voice, even though he yelled loudly.

“Goddammit...” Bradley reached into his pants with his free hand, pulled out his revolver and fired a shot at Roka. It missed Roka and hit an older woman beside him. She staggered backward two or three steps, and then fell down dead.

Three women with cloths wrapped around their heads ran up to the corpse.

“Awww, nooo...NOOOO...”

“Elizabeth...speak t'me, honey...please...”

“Please, Lord, no, please...”

A collective choir of sorrow began. Roka dropped to his knees and picked up the woman's body, and the multitude of slaves carried her back into the warehouse.

“Mr. Talbert ain't gonna be happy about that, Bradley...”

“Just another dead nigger,” Bradley said, and pulled the whip back again.

And suddenly it hit me, just as my eyes began to roll to the back of my head. This was no movie. These people weren't actors. No one was going to pop out of the bushes and shout that I had been punked. These weren't kidnappers or people wanting ransom, and this was not an elaborate movie set. This was real. These people were real, the whip was real, and the torture was real. There was nothing fake about any of it.

My body, in an act of genuine mercy, allowed me to pass out.

9

I
stared at the face in the mirror with confusion, and then grinned as the sound of the crowd echoed outside the door. The face in the mirror grinned back at me as if its ridiculously large smile was all there was to life.

I felt as if I'd just arrived where I was, although I knew I'd been here for hours. The soundchecks, the makeup, the wardrobe choice, it all felt like it happened in a cloud of time that blew away without ever being noticed. I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror once again. Custom Nikes, skinny jeans, Armani T-shirt and a Burberry jacket draped from my frame. A fresh shape-up outlined my face, and the waves above my hairline were flawless. I was ready to take on the world.

The crowd kept chanting “Nigga....Nigga......Nigga.....!”

I was starting to get hyped up from the crowd. I began bouncing up and down on my toes, throwing punches at my friend in the mirror.

“Hey, Henry, we gonna kill 'em tonight, dogg!”

No one answered. I look around the room, and it was empty. Not one breathing soul between the four walls but me.

I don't remember seeing anyone leave, though,
I thought to myself.

After figuring out that everyone would probably burst through the door in any minute to try and get me onstage, I considered sitting down and relaxing for a few minutes. Most of my concerts
went for two hours, and even though Henry, Brian, Ray, and Orlando could fill in for me if I got tired, the people paid to see me. I had to give them what they paid for. Most nights I needed a Red Bull and an E pill to enjoy the afterparty.

I sat back down in the plush leather seat and stared again at the grinning face in the mirror. The more I stared at his grin, the more I hated it. He wasn't grinning because he was happy. He was grinning because there was something hurting him, like a paper cut or a broken fingernail. Whatever it was, grinning was the only way he could fight it. If you stared at him long enough, as I had, you could see that the smiling was hurting him more than the affliction.

I reached out my hand to try and move the mirror so that I wouldn't have to look at the face anymore. The person in the glass reached back toward me, as if I held the key to his tears. I jumped back out of the seat.

“Jesus...Is that me?”

“Yes, it is.”

I heard the voice, but fear kept me from turning around immediately.

“Who...who are you...?”

“You know who I am, son.”

I spun around and my father stood in front of me.

“Dad!”

I ran up to him before I could remember that I wasn't a kindergartener anymore. When I reached him, I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him close enough to smell his cologne. He hugged me back, and almost took the breath out of me. I didn't care, though. I would've gladly suffocated there in his arms.

“Dad...what....where....where have you been?”

“I've been away, son. I've been far, far away.”

And we both cried like toddlers after dropping their candy.

After leaving puddles on the floor for us to leave our shoe prints in, my father slowly pulled away from me. I tried to pull him back, but he easily broke away from me. He was always stronger than I was.

“Son, listen to me, okay? Are you listening?”

“Yes, Dad,” I said, wiping the mucus from under my nose.

And suddenly his tears stopped and he stared me straight in the eye.

“Son, you can't go out there tonight.”

I stopped wiping my nose and looked at my father with shock.

“What do you mean, I can't go out there?”

“I mean, you can't, Moses. You don't know what you're doing. You got power you don't know how to use yet. You can't go out there...”

“The hell I can't, Dad!” I wasn't sure when my joy had turned to irrational anger. I just knew I was seeing red through my blurry eyes.

“You just a boy, son. You don't know...”

“Look, nigga, I took care of Mama and Big Mama when you died! I'm the reason don't neither of 'em have to work no more in they life!”

“Listen to me, son. It's not worth it.”

“Ain't worth what? Ain't worth savin' your mama and wife? Whatever, man. Get outta my face.”

Dad sighed long and hard, as though he was trying to find a reason not to give up. Finally, he gestured his hand to something behind my back.

I turned around to see SaTia in an outfit that made my jaw fall so that my goatee nearly hit the plush carpet.

“SaTia...what...where did you come from?”

“I just got here, Moe. I came just for you.”

I didn't try to hide my confusion.

“SaTia, what are you talkin' about?”

“I think it's time we made things more serious, Moe. I know how you feel about me, and I've loved you since high school. I don't think we should waste any more time.”

“Wow...you saying we should...like...get married?”

“Yes, I think we should.”

“Where did this come from, SaTia?”

“You do love me, right, Moe?”

I couldn't lie to her anymore. I dropped my head and felt my walls collapse. “More than anything. I...I just never thought...”

“It doesn't matter now, Moe. We can be together now. You will marry me, right?”

My head was spinning. I took a step back and put my hands up to my forehead, trying to steady myself. “I...I don't know what's goin' on.”

SaTia took a step toward me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Moe. will you marry me? Yes or no?”

I stared her in the eyes. “Yeah, yeah, of course I'll marry you.”

She wiped a tear from her left cheek and gave me a deep, passionate hug.

“I'll always love you, Moe, I'll always treat you right, and I'll always be there for you. There's just one thing you have to do...”

Still not completely sure of what was happening, I found myself starting to get excited by the idea of marrying SaTia.

“Yeah, okay, anything. What is it?”

She pulled me back to arm's length from her, so I could see that her face was no longer emotional. It was dead serious.

“You can't go out there tonight.”

I don't know where my anger came from. One second I heard
wedding bells, and the next I was ready to put my fist through a wall.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” I screamed. Both SaTia and my father were taken aback. They began backing toward the wall as my father spoke.

“Listen, son. This girl loves you. All she wants is—”

“Shut up! You shut up! You don't know anything about me. And you,” I said, and pointed to SaTia as she winced in pain. “You trying to use my heart to take me from the only thing I love! Take me from the only thing that's ever mattered to me.”

SaTia winced again, but this time from a different sort of pain.

“The hell with both of you! You listen and listen good...I will never stop! Out there, that crowd, they waitin' on me. They paid their good money to come see your boy, right here. I'll be damned if I disappoint 'em!”

SaTia and my father were now standing with their backs flat against the wall. They looked terrified. My dad looked at me as if I was pointing a gun to my head.

“Son, please, just hear us out...”

“No! No! This is finished! I'm going out there! Period!”

Both my father and SaTia dropped their heads and began sobbing, but my anger wouldn't allow me to care. I turned to the door, prepared to storm out, but Orlando, Brian, Ray, and Henry stood in front of it. They had the same grins on their faces that the man staring at me through the mirror had. They each had on a pair of old, worn down cotton overalls with no shirt underneath. And they each had a thick noose hanging around their necks. The ropes from the nooses hung down at their sides and dragged the floor.

I walked up to them slowly.

“Yo, y'all aight?”

“We good,” Orlando said through his grin.

“What y'all got on, man? You can't go onstage like that.”

“This what we supposed to be wearing, right?” Ray spoke up through his clenched teeth.

Confused once again, I walked over and braced myself against the wall. I glanced to my right, and my father and sweetheart were still sobbing. Dad was trying to comfort SaTia, but his tears just made her worse. I turned back to the fellas.

“Guys, man, I have no idea what's going on right now. I'm not even sure how I got here...”