He thought about what Akins and his girlfriend had said about Terry. They had both used the word “magic.” If Terry did have some power, then maybe, like Warren, he also needed time to come down after using it. Perhaps Terry might stay upstairs with Marco for a while longer. There was time then. Time for one more high—one last high, and then never again. Just enough to ease the pain. To slow his heart. To diminish the glow. “Never again,” he said to himself. “One last time.”
He rolled up his jacket sleeve, revealing his bare forearm, which was dotted with red scabs and pinpricks. He opened the largest bag he had taken from Akins. The tiny plastic vial rolled onto the ground, tinkling like glass. He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a tiny metal spoon. He rubbed it along the ground until it held a few raindrops. His hand shaking lightly, he emptied the vial’s contents—a brown, tar-like substance—onto the spoon. Then he produced from his pants pocket a black cigarette lighter, which he held beneath the spoon. The brown substance intermingled with the raindrops until it was smoother and thinner. Next from his jacket pocket came the syringe and the worn rubber hose, creased and flaking. The street lamp above the building was broken, but Warren didn’t need light. He had performed this act so many times before. He could find a vein blindfolded. He dipped the needle into the spoon and tugged on the plunger until he could feel the liquid filling the barrel. Once the spoon was empty, he tossed it deep under the stoop. “Never again,” he said. Then he wrapped the hose around his arm so that the veins rose up like routes on a roadmap. He tapped the plunger, spraying the first dash of dark liquid into the air, eliminating the air bubble. He grunted, breathing harder as he traced the tip of the needle along the veins. He could barely wait for the relief. The sensation reminded him of when he was a child, watching his mother baking. She had always let him spy on the cookies through the oven window, his mouth yearning for that first taste.
Finally, he found a spot that felt right, a vein that wasn’t too compromised. He drove the point down, the skin resisting for just a moment before breaking as the needle slid in. Warren barely felt it. “Never again,” he repeated. He pressed on the plunger, releasing the heroin from the barrel, sending it coursing through the needle and into the vein, into his blood. He thought of that first time, so many years ago, when he’d gone to his father for help, but Carl was too busy teaching Jerome to fight, too busy to listen. It was only marijuana then—just a joint or two to bring him down. Later, when pot and hashish and Quaaludes no longer worked, he finally turned to heroin. Warren knew it immediately, even that first time: heroin would always work for him.
The rush came almost immediately, a wave traveling through him, the wake coating his body like a frothy tide breaking on a dry shore. The swell made him reel, knocking him from his crouch, dropping him to his knees. He rocked unsteadily and then rolled onto his back, staring upward at his hands silhouetted against the storm-cloud evening sky. The glow was gone. His hands looked normal again. The headache had dissipated. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”
He lay there for some time; he didn’t know how long. He watched the clouds rolling by, the sky shifting from gray to black and then back to gray. The street was quiet, so he listened to the sound of his own breathing and imagined that he was the one making the clouds move, that he was blowing them away.
Then he heard a door shut, and he swung his gaze back to Marco’s building. Someone was coming out—Terry!
The boy moved quickly down the gray stone front steps. He stopped and looked both ways, and even listened for a moment, as if making sure that nobody was hunting him anymore. They’re not, Warren wanted to call out, but he started to feel sick again at the thought of what he had done.
Terry reached the bottom of the steps and turned toward Seventh Avenue and the path home. He looked almost happy, energized. Was he smiling even?
“Terry….” Warren heard himself saying, but the word wasn’t coming out right. His tongue felt heavy and numb, and he sounded like he was moaning, not speaking.
Nevertheless, Terry heard something and stopped for a moment. Seeing nothing, he moved on.
Then, a car door opened, and a young girl’s voice rang out. “Yeah, that’s him! That’s Terry Kelly!”
A Black man in a leather jacket leapt from the front seat. With two quick steps, he was upon Terry. He grabbed the boy from behind. With both hands, he covered Terry’s mouth. When he withdrew his hands, Terry’s mouth was covered by what looked like gray duct tape.
Akins’s girlfriend leaned out from the passenger window and cackled again, “That’s him!”
Why is she here, Warren wondered, and who’s she talking to? He tried to jump to his feet, to call out, to do something, but his body felt like melted wax, like he was dissolving, decomposing all over the sidewalk.
Next, the man wrapped one arm around Terry’s midsection, pinning Terry’s arms to his sides. With the other hand, he reached into his jacket pocket and came out with a cloth. He covered Terry’s nose with it. Within seconds, Terry went limp.
Finally, with tremendous effort, Warren staggered to his feet and stepped out from beneath the stoop. “What’s going on?” he mumbled.
The rear passenger door was open. There was someone inside, but Warren could see only a shadow. In the front seat, the driver, a Black man, rolled down his window and eyed Warren up and down.
“That’s him,” Leticia whined, “the one who killed Stephon!”
The man in the back seat bent forward, but Warren couldn’t see his face.
The first man was wrapping more duct tape around Terry’s wrists, binding them together behind his back. He slung the boy over his shoulder and carried him toward the car.
Warren tried to move forward, but his legs were so weak. Everything was so weak. He felt himself swaying, barely able to hold himself upright, but he tried his best to sound strong “Get away from my brother!”
The man in the backseat leaned out into the moonlight. His face was gaunt and pale, the skin almost translucent.
Warren felt cold suddenly.
And then Hendrik Van Owen climbed from the back seat of the vehicle and stood tall and erect, his eyes focused on Warren Kelly. The pale man smiled, cocking his head to one said as if pondering something interesting yet insignificant, and started walking toward him. “So, you’re Warren Kelly. I’ve been hearing some interesting stories about you and your family.”
Warren’s tone was hushed again. He stuttered as he spoke. “You’re…you’re him. You’re…”
Van Owen held a cane in his left hand, though he seemed not to need it. His right hand began to glow. “Yes,” he said, “I am he.”
Warren planted his feet and raised both his hands, pointing them at Van Owen. His legs were wobbly, his stance unsure, but his teeth were gritted. “You’re dead. You’re a dead man!” All at once, though, his expression fell. He shook his hands, clenched them into fists, shook them again—the same way he had when trying earlier to diffuse the glow. This time, though, he was trying to bring it back, but it wouldn’t come.
“Not fast enough, boy,” said Van Owen as sparks hailed from his right hand, and lightning shot out from his fingertips.
Warren dove behind the steps, back into his hiding place under the stoop. The lightning blast struck the bottom step, and the concrete exploded into rocks and dust.
“Come out of there and I’ll let you live,” Van Owen chirped as he advanced toward his prey. “I might even give you some of that brown goo you love so much.”
Beneath the stoop, Warren laid both his hands against the stone wall that connected the building to the one beside it. “Come on,” he whispered. “Come on.” He closed his eyes and groaned like a weightlifter. This time, his voice carried. “Come on!”
There was a loud hum, a blue flash, and then Warren was gone.
Fifteen
I’m not trusted here, not since Harry and Sam were killed. The other slaves eye me strangely, as if I’m not one of them, as if I’m their enemy. I
never tell them the whole story—that it was Harry who told me to run away, that I had no choice but to join Sam in the escape attempt, that I didn’t want to run at all. Excuses will not help. Two men are dead because of me; that is all they know. Though they all understand the longing for freedom and what it can drive a slave to do, they want nothing to do with me. I work alone. I eat alone. I am a pariah.
The part of me that was once the daughter of a chieftain wants to berate them for chastising me. Who are they to question me or my motives? Who are they to judge me? But I haven’t walked in their shoes. I haven’t lived my life in captivity as they have. They’re scared and beaten down; they live daily without hope of something I always took for granted—freedom. They know that Van Owen is the real enemy, but hating their master will serve no purpose. They cannot challenge him. Blaming me gives them purpose and helps them cope. And I can’t fault them for it.
Almost three months after my escape attempt, Van Owen has all of us meet in front of his mansion. The white guards line us up in neat rows like headstones on a dirt graveyard. They position themselves on all sides of us, rifles in their hands, dogs at their sides. Then, as if part of a choreographed stage play, the mansion door opens, and Van Owen strides out, dressed in white. At his side is a minister, a white man, bald, perhaps sixty years old, wearing simple black clothing and a white collar. His nose is too large for his face, and his eyes are sunk deep, making him appear somber and plain and almost kindly. Van Owen’s voice is imposing but not quite as autocratic as usual.
“This is Father Jamison. He will be tending to your souls, for, as he tells me, they do need tending to. Perhaps a little God in your lives will make you appreciate how good you have it here.” His head turns sharply, his eyes fixing on me. “Though some of you don’t seem to think so.”
I try to listen, but I am not interested in the foolishness he wants to sell us. He rambles on about a pinewood church that we are to build right on the ground where we stand. The men are to do the hard labor—the actual construction—while the women are to sand and polish the wood and line the pews daily with flowers. Van Owen calls it “a family venture inspired by the light of the Lord.”
I think of another light, a blue light I saw recently. Where was that? I cannot recall. But my mind is taken over by a vision of another blue light. I focus on it.
The light is so bright, bursting out from a crawlspace at the foot of a building. Someone is in there—Warren Kelly. The broken son. His hands are pressed against stone. He is covering the stone with blue light.
Van Owen is approaching him, a cane in his hand. He walks so confidently, a hunter closing in on his prey. There is a hum and a flash from beneath the shattered steps. Van Owen recoils for a moment, bracing for an assault, but the light fades. Van Owen moves quickly toward the building. He ducks beneath the stoop. Beneath his feet, metal and glass crumble into shards. Warren’s syringe. Van Owen searches the tiny crawlspace, but no one is there. Warren has found some other way out.
Van Owen climbs the steps and walks to a car. Leticia is inside.
“What was that you shot at him?” she asks. “Was that the same thing he used on Stephon? Was it like some kind of taser?”
Van Owen says nothing, though his face is twisted with confusion. He clambers into the back seat, avoiding Terry, who lays sprawled across the car floor.
“Did you get him?” Leticia asks louder. “Did you?”
“Take us back to the stable,” Van Owen orders the driver.
Leticia will not relent. “Just tell me—did you get him? Did you…?”
“Enough,” Van Owen says softly. He closes his eyes, and Leticia’s face loses all expression. She stares straight ahead as if lost in a dream. Her head bobs from side to side with the movement of the car.
And then I am back at the plantation, where Van Owen is still talking. Some of the other slaves seem pleased with his words. Many of them already call themselves Christians, which pains me. They know nothing of their people’s beliefs. They yearn instead for platitudes about the meek inheriting the earth.
“The Lord,” he goes on, “watches over all of us. He is my shepherd, just as I am yours. He keeps me in line, just as I keep you in line.” He gestures with both hands to the vast, fertile plantation grounds. “He provides for me, just as I provide for you. He rewards me for taking care of you, just as you will be rewarded someday for all your hard work.”
I cringe as I listen, wondering if he truly believes this drivel. There is no God. How can there be when Van Owen has been rewarded so richly for so many evil deeds? What sort of god would permit the empty promise that meekness and toil shall be rewarded with prosperity?
“On to your work now,” he orders. We begin to move toward the tobacco fields. “Amara, stay here a moment, won’t you?” I stop and turn toward him. “Come here.” He introduces me to the minister, who shakes my hand and smiles insipidly. His hand is soft and damp, like a sponge. His eyes travel up and down my body in a manner that I hadn’t expected. He reminds me of the ranker sailors from Van Owen’s vessel. “Amara is one of the newest workers here,” Van Owen goes on. Father Jamison nods. “She’s descended from royalty. Daughter of a chieftain. She’s really rather…unusual.”
I find myself thinking of a vision I had once: Carl Kelly is introducing his fiancée to his father. This is Dara, he says. His father smiles and nods his head, staring approvingly, with joy, with innocence.
“A chieftain’s daughter?” says the minister, speaking slowly, as if to a child. “Tell me, Amara, in your land, did you have gods that you prayed to?”
Van Owen tries to interrupt, to clarify that I don’t yet speak their tongue. I prove him wrong.
“We did not pray,” I tell Father Jamison. “We honored our gods with our songs and our deeds. We lived our lives in such a way that we praised the deities simply by living justly.”
The minister stares at me strangely, stunned by my mastery of the language. Van Owen’s mouth gapes. It is the first time he has heard me speak. He knew I could understand English, but he had no idea I could speak it so well—with a Southern accent even. He bites his lip to keep himself from scolding me and turns to Jamison with a forced grin, pretending he’s proud of me.
Jamison eyes me with a curious expression. “You didn’t pray? Surely, though, since you’ve arrived in America, you’ve heard the others praying. Captain Van Owen tells me of the joyous songs you all sing in the fields. I so look forward to hearing them. Surely you’ve been moved and wanted to join in the singing.”
I think of the songs of my people. I think of my wedding day, of the joy in the faces of the Mkembro and the Merlante as they sang Dji mi sarro ti kee la ti na-arro.
My face is stone as I answer the minister. “I don’t sing here.”
“You see,” Van Owen chimes in quickly. “You were right, Father Jamison. You are needed here. Amara needs you to cleanse her soul and bring joy to her life. She needs you to make her sing. You may return to your work now, Amara.”
They turn and begin to walk back to the house. It is Jamison who speaks first. “Hendrik, I still feel this is but folly. These Negroes have no right to petition the Lord with prayer. They are beasts of burden. The Lord put them on Earth to labor, not to be blessed or forgiven or rewarded for their piety.”
Van Owen’s tone is serious, as if his word is the last word. “Father Jamison, I like a clean house. The heathens’ conversion to the Lord’s way will serve to make my house cleaner, will it not? And surely your ministry has benefited amply enough from my patronage that I have earned your presence here once each week, has it not?”
They drift toward the house, so I don’t hear the minister’s response. I feel soiled. I walk off toward my place in the tobacco field, anxious to plunge my hands in the dirt to cleanse the skin that the minister touched. I turn back to scan the spot where we will build the church. Three years from now, I will burn it to the ground.
Sixteen
Regina waited patient
ly throughout the phone call. She wanted to enter her grandmother’s thoughts and listen in, but she’d made a deal with Terry and another one with Willa as well—no eavesdropping without permission. Still, Regina wondered who could be phoning her grandmother.
The old woman wasn’t doing much of the talking. Mostly, she was listening to the male voice at the other end, her face rife with questions. Finally, she told him, “Always,” and hung up. And then she remained almost motionless for nearly a minute before saying, “He’s like Berantu.” The phone was still in her lap, her hand still holding down the receiver. “Terry’s like Berantu. I don’t know how he could have that ability, though. Berantu wasn’t in our family.” She shook her head back and forth. “Yet Terry has his power. He can make people do things just by telling them to.”
Regina sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her grandmother. “What are you talking about?” she asked telepathically. “Who was that?”
“So you really weren’t listening?” she asked with a smile. “Good girl. That was Marco. Apparently, Terry was right about the fight in the lunchroom. Akins didn’t jump off of Terry because he was afraid of Jerome. He jumped because Terry told him to jump. That’s how the story went about Berantu also. He just told the slavers to stop in their tracks, and they did—even though he was speaking another language altogether.”
Regina looked up at the ceiling, straining to remember the tale of Berantu. Then she turned back again to her grandmother. Even in moments of confusion, it was always such a relief to be in this room, where nothing was hidden. Regina could communicate silently with Terry—they had their secret—but there was so much he didn’t know, so much that she couldn’t tell him. So much that only Grandma Willa knew. “Tell me about Berantu again?” Regina asked.
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