Antebellum (22 page)

Susie's giggle came back as she stumbled and nodded her head.

I heard Bradley continue to fumble around. A hollow metal sound echoed around the barn. I thought, for a second, that I should be nervous, but the bass wave from the stereo sent another rush of heat across my body. I gritted my teeth and kept my body
still, trying to imagine a way to get back to my reality and out of this hell.

I heard three footsteps and saw Bradley's shadow out of the corner of my eye. He was standing right over top of me with something in his hand. He looked over at Susie and shook his head.

“You betta get yo'self back, sweetheart. Dis here nigger ain't ta be played with. What you 'bout to see ain't fo' the faint of heart...”

“I'm a big girl,” Susie said in a tone you'd expect from a three-year-old.

“Aight then...”

Whatever Bradley was holding, it wasn't a whip. He had to grab it with both hands as he towered over my frame, and I could tell by its shadow on the wall that it was some sort of pail. He took a deep breath, lifted it with both arms outstretched above his head, and turned it over.

I thought for a half second, as I watched the falling cloud through the shadow on the wall, that Bradley had sprinkled pixie dust. Everything else seemed possible in this god-forsaken place. Why not some pixie dust? I imagined myself floating up and out of the stable I was confined in, and then flying out of this dream-world like Neo in
The Matrix
. I saw myself traveling back to Mr. Rose, bursting through his window, and cursing him out for not finding me before I was tortured. And then, maybe, I could take my place again. I could go back to my old life.

But there was no pixie dust in the pail, and no escape from this place I'd found myself in. There was only desolation. And despair. And salt.

The tiny white crystals hit my back and everything else was a blur. The agony was so severe I jumped up off of the ground and leaped around like a madman. Bradley and Susie went pale and
jumped behind one of the stable doors, but they could've rolled around naked in the hay as well and I would've never known it. When your body reaches a certain level of anguish, your mind shuts down. It's as if it understands that it's safer for you to go insane than to feel what your body is going through. Had I been in my right mind, I would've known that my reaction supressed all doubts that Susie ever had about me being some sort of savage super-nigger. She would leave from Bradley's place and tell her own stories about me, the heathen beast. She would recount that Bradley had dumped the salt on me and I had grown four feet, swelled to the size of an enormous gorilla, and destroyed half of the stable before I shrunk back to my normal size. Whatever transformation I'd gone through, I wound up back on the ground, bleeding all over, and mumbling some lost ancient voodoo language.

My thin line of sanity snapped under the weight of the tiny salt minerals. My body fell back to the dirt floor. In an attempt to regain his pride from cowering, Bradley had begun to beat me with the metal end of his shovel. He had no idea that I wasn't there anymore. Instead, I had been taken to a place inside my head, where I was still dressed in my chains, jewelry, and custom shoes. I stood in the middle of one of the music studios for Rage Recka Records in Miami. I didn't have the time to wonder why it felt as though I was dreaming. My fear hung on me heavier than the rope chain, and was represented by the beads of sweat that ran down my face and splashed on the floor.

I could feel it coming.

I couldn't see it yet, but I could feel it, like a newly diagnosed HIV patient. I didn't know exactly what was coming, but I knew it would kill me eventually.

I heard a loud thud against the entrance of the studio, followed
by what sounded like a tornado and Bradley's voice echoing outside the door. He sounded as though he was swinging something downward with all the strength his drunken body could muster.

“You dirty nigger! Humph! You thinkin' you can jus' destroy my stable! Humph! I break every bone in yo body! Humph!”

I took off running. The studio was huge, and I sprinted through the recording room, out into the mixing room, and through the hallway with the four office doors on either side. Finally, I rounded the corner and found the exit. Lowering my shoulder, I burst through the door just as the unknown force destroyed the entrance behind me. I glanced back in horror as I saw a white cloud burst through the room like a gusty stampede. It sounded like a million Bradleys had jumped in a pool and began playing Marco Polo with one another. It devoured everything in the studio just as I slammed through the exit door. I didn't have much time. I looked around, expecting to be outside on the sidewalk or in the alley behind the building. I'd hail a cab and have it take me straight to the nearest hotel. But instead I was in one of Killa Krack Records' recording studios, staring at their wall of artists and waving off marijuana smoke.

“How the hell...?”

And then came the thud, and the sound of tornadoes and Bradley, and again I ran. It continued like this, with me being chased through every recording studio I'd ever stepped foot in, and then going back around again and again.

This is what I did, in my head, while Bradley broke me. Every once in a while I would try and come back; my mind knowing that if I stayed locked inside for too long I might never come back out. I'd run through a studio door and fall down on my face, and when I'd wake up I'd be back in the stable, or outside strung up while the elements bullied me around, or, toward the end, locked in a homemade cage with strange people staring at me. I'd
gain enough consciousness to feel the different types of agony that I'd been put through, and to wonder once again how I'd gotten where I was. Eventually, I'd hear Bradley's voice and begin to hyperventilate. He'd come and grab me, and take the time to prepare me for whatever sick torture he'd devised the previous night. And right before he would begin, my mind would burst back through my consciousness and drag me back down to the depths of its abyss; to the neverending chase. I would be so deep down into my subconscious that I would barely remember anything until I was allowed to re-emerge.

Later, Aunt Sarah would put me through a ritual that would unlock these memories. I'd remember being pissed and defecated on. I'd remember being whipped multiple times a day. I'd remember having my left pinky finger cut off and stuffed into my mouth. I'd remember being starved, and being made to drink pig urine, and being sodomized with a bayonet. I'd remember all of this later, when my mind could digest the thoughts and not vomit them back up. For now, there was another world inside my head where I was constantly being chased, but I was still free. I decided how fast and how long I wanted to run—no one else did. And so when Bradley approached me with the sharp metal end to his war rifle, for example, my mind would trigger the trapdoor and drop me back into oblivion. And all I did was run. From studio to studio, constantly being pursued. I never got exhausted. I never got sore. But I was always terrified. I couldn't help feeling as though I'd eventually be caught, no matter what I did.

It happened one day when my mind had released me to my consciousness, and I was trying to pick myself up from the bottom of the cage I had been locked in. It seemed as though every time I would find my way back into consciousness, the pain that my body had gone through had decided not to leave. Now, after the endless torture I'd endured, my entire body bore the weight of
all the days combined. I lay on the ground and felt as if I was being stepped on, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not get up. I placed both my palms on the ground, pushed up with all the strength I had left, and went nowhere.

Before I fell back down to the earth, I heard the faintest sound of footsteps on the dry ground.

I didn't know what Bradley had in store for me, and I couldn't even lift my head to see if he had anything with him. When my mind tried to pull the trapdoor, and drop me back into my subconscious yet again, something went wrong. My mind was too weak to protect me.

I knew then that I would die. Whatever Bradley was planning would kill me.

I placed my palms flat on the ground and tried to push myself up again, but this time I heard a snap and felt a thin needle enter into my right elbow and run its way down to my wrist. I collapsed on top of it, and silently writhed as my tormentor unlocked my cage and stepped up so his boots met my earlobe.

I was no longer Da Nigga, and I had no more pride left. The rapper with the gaudy jewelry and pristine clothes was gone. What was left was a sunken-faced, malnourished skeleton. In despair and desperation, I reached out, grabbed Bradley's ankle, and wept at his feet. I had no other options, and what little bit of life I had left in my body, I wanted to save.

Slowly, I heard Bradley laugh. It began as a low, deep laughter, and then grew into a rousing, exuberant howl. I continued to hold on to him and weep as his laughter finally died down, and he crouched and patted me on the head. “Now, dat there's a good nigger...”

And after a moment he turned around, closed the cage behind him, and walked away smiling.

10

I
didn't know how long I'd been in the cage that Bradley made. It was made of all wood, and the bars would've been near impossible to break if I was at my strongest. I barely had enough strength to sit up straight now, though, so escaping was not an option.

The cage sat apart from anything else, like it was the sole attraction of the field. It was long enough for me to lie flat on my chest with my legs out, which is how I stayed most of the time. It wasn't tall enough to stand up in, but my legs were broken. I couldn't have stood up anyways.

The days came and went, without even seeming to pass. I spent the time in my wooden box, huddled in the corner and trying not to look through the bars to a world I did not know. My body had changed so drastically I hardly recognized myself when I looked down at my arms, legs, torso, and feet. My skin had changed color. What used to be a caramel hue was now faded the color of moldy wheat bread. Black and white splotches were randomly situated across my body, and whenever I scratched them the skin would give way and a sore would emerge that would bleed continuously for hours. I was later told that the reason my skin seemed to be rotting off was because I had been fed a steady diet of rotten trash and pig dung. I had stopped caring about what food was given to me. I'd eat whatever was brought to me, with the knowledge
that, like clockwork, my body would reject most of it within the following minutes. Whenever Aunt Sarah could, she and the girls would sneak away and bring me food that didn't stampede through my stomach and out of my crevices. I would swallow it whole, forgetting to chew or taste it, and immediately become angry for not savoring it more. Then I would huddle up again with my back against the bars.

There wasn't a square inch on the floor of that gorilla cage that I hadn't vomited, urinated, or defecated on. Avoiding contaminated areas was useless, and so I huddled and lay down anywhere. I didn't open my mouth for anything except food. There was no reason to talk, and until I figured out who, where, and what I now was, it would only come out as gibberish anyways.

In my other life, I'd once given a bunch of money to a charity dedicated to the treatment of AIDS in the inner city. At the ceremony they'd thrown in appreciation, I met a man named Jerry. Jerry was HIV positive, but was built like a bodybuilder. The founders of the organization explained that they used Jerry to drive home the point for teenagers that anyone could have HIV, no matter who they were or what they looked like. Seven months later, Jerry's HIV had turned into full-blown AIDS. Two weeks before his death, he made a request to see me again. Mr. Rose implored me to go, and sent along a TV crew to help portray me as a patron saint. I walked past Jerry's bed twice, without recognizing him, before he finally called out to me. I couldn't believe it. He looked nothing like he used to. His chiseled frame was gone, replaced with a talking skeleton that had skin covering the bones for good measure.

“That's not the same youngin' I met before,” I remember telling SaTia at the time. “They switched up guys on me or somethin'. That's not the same dude.”

Now, staring at my own foreign limbs and unfamiliar skin, I thought the same about myself. I was Jerry, and AIDS seemed merciful compared to what was happening to me.

I was missing a finger. I had no idea where it had gone, or how it had been taken, but the nub left behind sent vibrations through my arm. The natural movement of my body was gone as well, replaced by a limp, a stagger, and sharp pains that I was still learning to manage. If I raised my right arm too high, the right side of my torso sent an electric shock through the rest of my body. If I straightened my left knee out as far as it could go, the lower half of my body went numb and was useless for the next half-hour at least. Every move of my body had a consequence, and the only way to avoid them was to keep still.

As the days drew on, I noticed that more and more white people began coming to Bradley's little section of the plantation. I only took notice because they seemed to wander for a moment, and then come straight to my cage. They would point and stare in awe while I ignored them. If I moved for any reason, they would jump back and rise up on their toes, ready to sprint away at the slightest sign of trouble. But mostly they just pointed, stared, and carried on conversations that passed through my ears without ever being actually heard. Two or three people turned into crowds of twenty and thirty, and trickles of conversation became rivers of noise as they poked and prodded and pointed and laughed. I didn't care.

One day, both Bradley and Mr. Talbert came strolling up to my wooden abode. It had just finished raining, and the freezing dampness made my body numb. I lay on the ground, huddled in a fetal position, with green mucus smudged in with the dirt on my face. I recognized both of their voices, but I couldn't move. I don't think they would've stood so close to me and held the conversation
they had under normal circumstances, but because I hadn't spoken in weeks, they'd both probably concluded that Bradley had beaten me deaf and dumb.