The 'N' Word, Book 1 (31 page)

“You’re getting off topic, Aaron.”

“No, it’s
on
topic. This information is what helped me.”

“If it helped you is still debatable but you already know without my mention of it, my stance on your theory of such.”

“Yeah, I know your stance on it, and Melissa’s, too, and both of you are misinformed.”

“Melissa?” The doctor smirked. “I take it that’s the young lady you’ve developed feelings for, your pen pal?”

“Yes, and she lives in some bubble. I got it comin’ to me from both ends now, inside the prison, and outside, but it’s fine; I’ll handle it. Anyway, you both are a bit delusional; someone needs to tell you. These black people and Latinos are criminals, completely corrupt. The illegals have taken all the jobs, too…they’ve ruined our economy. Runnin’ over here from Mexico, one of the most corrupt places on this goddamn planet, bringing’ all their foul behavior over here. Criminals! Every last one of ’em!”

“You do realize that your surrogate mother would also be considered debauched by popular definition. She was white, however. All races of people, Aaron, can have what you classify as immoral individuals.”

“Black people make up a little over 13% of the population, Dr. Owens yet they have the monopoly on violent crimes and out of wedlock children.”

“Could that be because of an unfair legal system, Aaron? Perhaps the same offenses that whites are committing in comparison to blacks in this country are being handled differently in the court system. Perhaps racism is at play when crimes are committed, and stiffer penalties are being given to those of African descent.”

“Bullshit. That’s just an excuse, some nonsense being used by the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world.”

“Alright,” Dr. Owens stated on an exasperated sigh. “Let’s go back to Patti’s boyfriend and school, stick to the subject, here. What happened next?”

“I kinda like what we’re doing right now.” Aaron smirked, enjoying the banter.

“I’m certain you do. Anyway, it isn’t productive. Continue with Edward’s influence in your life, please.”

“He told me I was smart, and that teachers were calling Patti all the time, wanting me to be in all these different programs for gifted children.”

“I’m not surprised by that, not surprised at all. Tell me something, Aaron. Was Patti also racist?”

Aaron sat there for a moment or two, never before giving that question much thought.

“Honestly, in the way you mean it, I don’t believe so. She never really said anything about blacks or non-whites, period, as far as I could recall. I do remember two of them from the neighborhood she even invited over for food sometimes before I’d gotten taken away from my parents. We didn’t think much of it at the time so I suppose if you offer to break bread with the motherfuckers, you’d not be considered racist.”

“I see, continue on in regard to school.”

“I liked school, but the niggers were ruining things for me, trying to push me to fight. I couldn’t afford to keep getting suspended. All I wanted was to get a damn education. I had a new start in life, and this is what ended up happening. So… I just accepted that I’d be tortured until I could get the hell out of there. I could take on one or two, but they like to come in tribes. They couldn’t get their asses to class on time but let there be a goddamn fight! Every single one of those black bastards was in attendance! Anyway.” He huffed. “I graduated at the top of my class, a 4.0, labeled an exceptional student. I got accepted into the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It was around that time I started watching Arnold Schwarzenegger in old movies, wanted to be big like him.”

“Yes, I saw in your paperwork that you attended college, Aaron.”

“Graduated with a degree in Exercise and Sports Science.”

“Mmmm hmmm, interesting. It appears you were on the verge of self-improvement. You were attempting to reinvent yourself?”

“In some ways, I suppose. My interests were changing. I was tall, not skinny, but I didn’t have any definition to me, either.” He pinched the fabric of his white jumpsuit between two fingers, tugging at his bicep just so. “The idea of
strength
,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “…of power, Dr. Owens, appealed to me. That stayed with me, so much so, I started my own business based on that concept. A successful business, too – ‘Brother’s Keeper’, 24-7 security.”

“Yes, I plan to discuss that with you later on. Now, had you felt like a victim up until that point?”

“A victim yes, but I didn’t feel sorry for myself.”

“But you felt vulnerable; hence, Arnold Schwarzenegger represented relief from such confines. You felt helpless, right?”

He swallowed, not liking this, not enjoying the taste of how things were going down.

“You
know
that I did. Let’s not play this game, okay? You know what I’m doing; you’ve known from day one. I know what
you’re
doing, too, but I’ve decided to go along with it.”

“Yes, that’s all true. Articulate to me how you were a victim, Aaron.”

“You already know!” A tiny shred of self-control had come undone like a shoestring, leaving him to almost trip over his sweaty grasp of composure.

“Say it…”

“First, my fucking mother was beating the shit outta me! I had so many purple bruises on me most of the goddamn time, I’m surprised I didn’t think I was a nigger, too! Then my father pissed away the money, the little we had on a monthly basis, treated me like trash, and then he turned around and let the state take us – just sat there, not even fighting for us. Then, at the new school, the shit started up again. I was being… being—”

“Bullied.”

Aaron inhaled long and hard, and exhaled in a similar fashion.

“Continue, please.”

“I decided to start working out, watching what I ate, though Patti made that really hard at times. Edward, the man I considered my stepfather, Patti’s boyfriend, had taught me some valuable information that I never forgot.”

“He nurtured the seeds planted inside of you initially from your mother, Aaron. She told you to stop playing with black kids. As a child, their skin color wasn’t a topic of concern for you until
she
made it so.”

“So what? She was right.” He leaned back in the seat.

“What would have happened if you continued to play with them, Aaron? What terrible things would have occurred if you made mud pies with a little black boy or engaged in a game of Freeze Tag with a few black children from your old neighborhood? Did the black children you played with hold the key to your destiny in some way? You were all children. Children do not understand racism, Aaron… only adults do.”

“Don’t try to minimalize this. If we thought like children, Dr. Owens, the world would be covered in finger paint and crayon sketches and our dinner would consist of cheese pizza and ice cream on a nightly basis!”

“Your step-father, as you call him, helped foster the disease of racism. He needed it to spread, and chose a child to empty his sickness inside of. Children are the most susceptible and the most important in regard to moving and growing a message. You were a vulnerable, confused child that was trying to be loved and fit in. He was one of your biggest abusers, Aaron! He abused your trust! Face the truth!” The man beat his palm on the desk.

“That’s not true. He was protecting me!”

“He offered a semblance of safety, a make-believe concept in the confines of a perceived, paranoid threat. You’d been indoctrinated, fallen into the milieu of absurdity. He saw how valuable you were; he more than likely envied your intelligence and your closeness to Patti. He could lure you closer to him by providing what I call the ‘gang mentality.’ Offering safety in numbers with promises that you’d be considered important, useful, and, dare I say, powerful. You’d
finally
be safe. You craved safety; he saw this. You desired it so much that you train bodyguards, Aaron!” The man exhaled in exasperation. “Can’t you see what has happened here? You’ve been trying to not only protect yourself, but others, too. You do it through your beliefs and via your vocation. It is something that you dealt with on a daily basis… a need to defend, due to fear.”

“You’re full of shit.” His teeth sank into his tongue a bit too deeply, rendering a dull wave of oral pain.

“Do you know how members are inducted into cults and gangs? By the offering of protection, safety, and a need to belong. These important needs will be quenched in exchange for your allegiance. Your organization is a gang, Aaron. I need you to understand the truth of this matter. You were brainwashed by your mother, but seasoned by Edward and somewhat also by your environment as a whole. These were people you looked up to, people you thought cared about you at least at some point in their lives.”

“He
did
care about me. He helped take care of me and my sister and brother, which meant everything to me, and he showed me how important knowing oneself was, my history.” Aaron jammed his index finger into his chest as he spoke emphatically. “I started to study and trace my family tree. I saw that my ancestors were from England and Wales. I took great pride in that, discovering that they were everything from architects to guitarists. It gave me a sense of pride… a sense of—”

“Self… of identity.”

“Yes… both, all of it and more. If you don’t know your past, you’re destined to repeat it. I know who I am, Dr. Owens. I’ve answered your question.”

“You’ve not even scratched the surface…”

An invisible fog filtered throughout the room, choking him, clogging his lungs with things he didn’t dare breathe in. Was it the truth? Was he choking on reality? Perhaps it had snuck up from behind and rearranged the realm, made a mess of things.

“Aaron,” the doctor spoke calmly as he cocked his head a bit to the right and clasped his knobby hands together. “You were the perfect storm.”

He looked at him as the realization sank in, taking root in a way he didn’t deem possible.

“You were ripe for molding. Sometimes, when a person is in great emotional pain, they wish to exert blame, name the cause, have the agony make sense. Blame allows us to define what is causing the distress so that we can then move in and attack it. In some instances, blame is necessary. For instance, with cancer cells…”

“Ohhh, here we go…” He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

“We have to know which cells are filled with disease, and attack them with treatment. We treat our emotional issues the same way but for you… for you, Aaron, something got lost along the way. As you placed blame, you were desperately trying to identify an enemy. The problem with blame is that it is often incapable of giving us the results we want because blaming a person, place, or circumstance for the pitfalls in our lives still does not solve the issue – even after we’ve identified it and even if that identification is proven and true. Emotional pain solutions are much more complex than medical ones. Do you know why, Aaron?”

“Because we have no real control over how others think in the long term.”

“Precisely. We can temporarily influence others, but that influence needs to be nurtured either by ourselves or others with similar philosophies. It is a full time job to manipulate someone.” His eyes narrowed and a haughty smirk creased his face. “Without a large support system to help carry the weight of an ideology, the philosophies, premises, and perceptions will not survive. Belief systems exist because well,” he said with a shrug and his customary smile, “people believe in them. Should we stop believing in certain concepts, those structures will depreciate in value and then disappear.”

“Like if only one person in the world believed in God…”

“Precisely. That one person would have no influence unless someone else that they shared the theory with also believed in it. And so it would go, and so the idea would spread. However, if it only resided within that one person and no one ever gave that person’s convictions any fertile soil inside of their mind to grow, then the concept would eventually die with the originator or inventor of the idea. Racism has enough fertile soil Aaron because of the desire to blame that I discussed with you previously, as well as the fact that there are enough wounded souls who have been incapable of placing proper censure and culpability onto the source of the problem. Do you know what the source of your problem is, Aaron? It’s three things and not necessarily in this order: fear, an addiction to power, and
you
…”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Aaron smirked. “For a quick second, you almost had me—
almost
had me—considering your bullshit.”

“I’m not crazy, Aaron. I am correct, and if correct means insane in this case, then that suits me just fine. Now here is what you need to understand. You being bullied by black peers was
not
your problem.”

“How the fuck are you goin’ to tell me what my fuckin’ problem was? Huh?! I lived the shit! Day in and day out!” He jumped to his feet, yelling at the top of his lungs. Suddenly, a guard burst through the door, but Dr. Owens calmly shook his head and waved him away.

“Everything is okay. He’s fine…”

Aaron shot the guard a glance from over his shoulder. The guy grimaced at him, tapped his billy club in a threatening gesture, and left back out the door.

“Aaron, keep on with what you were telling me before we were interrupted.” Dr. Owens leaned back in his seat, looking for all intents and purposes like he was bored to tears.

“Every time I caught a damn break, here their black asses came! Mama was right, Edward was right,
everyone
was right! Blame is there because
blame
is where it lies, and that’s truth, Dr. Owens! Black people are fuckin’ savages!”

“Bullies come in all shapes and sizes, Aaron…”

“I don’t give a shit about other ones. I’m only concerned about
these
bullies!” He pointed towards the other side of the room at a boogieman that wasn’t there.

“And how has that improved your life? Do the bullies that harassed you have a lesser quality of life because you placed blame upon their heads? Has their pay gone down, their homes been burned to the ground? Do they suffer in silence or protest at your home? Are they exhibiting anguish?”