“Oh shit!” a voice from the car screamed. The other screamed in the language of fear. No words.
“Fela St. John,” Emmanuel screamed from somewhere deep inside himself. He ran to the other side of the car and smashed the other rear window in three swings. The screams, already impossibly loud, doubled in intensity. Everything sounded like everything else. The other door was open, then closed, open, then closed, in a tug of war between Boogie and the man in the car.
“FELA ST. JOHN!” Boogie yelled, pulling the man’s torso and head out of the car. His arm still gripped the door. Boogie raised his foot and kicked hard at the top of his head. Tisha did the same; she wore wedges that fell on the man’s head like bricks. Red blood drizzled the concrete. After a few more stomps, he seemed mostly powerless and let them drag his body out. The man in the glasses and Mr. Coder had the other door open and pulled out the woman, a young girl, maybe in college, who was kicking and yelling sounds that Emmanuel had heard only in horror movies.
“I beg of you, I implore you, not to consider anything but the facts,” the prosecutor says to begin her closing. “Over the last several days, we’ve heard the accused try to wiggle out of one simple fact: he murdered five children completely unprovoked. He may think his chain saw some holy weapon or a scepter bestowed on him by God, but don’t let him go on believing that. Please don’t let the blood of these five children—with all the potential in the world—spill into nothingness. Please show us that they mattered. These children who were killed before they ever got a chance to know the world, to love, to hate, to laugh, to cry, to see all the things that we’ve seen, and finally decide what kinds of people they might want to be. They mattered. Don’t let their deaths go unpunished.
“We have a system that, though it can never ease the pain, tries to right the wrongs. We have a system that, though it won’t ever succeed, attempts valiantly to fill this all-consuming void torn into the heart of the world by men like George Wilson Dunn. I happen to be one of the people who are perhaps foolish enough to believe there is a difference between good and evil. Somehow. Still. Please show me I’m not a fool. Show the parents of these children they aren’t fools for demanding justice. For knowing the idea of justice was born for them and this very moment. Mister George Dunn destroyed something. Maybe the only sacred thing. Show him it matters. Show him that you know these children, Tyler Mboya, Fela St. John, Akua Harris, Marcus Harris, and J. D. Heroy were humans with a heart, just like any one of you.”
The two white bodies huddled together, trapped in a circle of Emmanuel and the rest of them. The man was crying. His face was bruised. Red flowed from his nose to his lips. He’d been bargaining for the last minute.
“Please, please! What can we give you?” His body shook. “Please, it’s yours. Please!” The woman huddled on the ground beside him made raspy, choking sounds.
“Fela, Fela, Fela.” It was a trance. Emmanuel tried to look at the eyes of the young couple. He smashed his bat against the concrete several times while yelling the name. The bat bouncing off the ground sang a metallic yelp and shocked electricity into his veins.
“Say it for me,” Emmanuel said suddenly. A screeching, crazy voice came from a part of him he was just discovering, but which he understood had been growing for a very long time. “Say her name,” Emmanuel said. He pointed his bat at the couple. “Say her name for me. I need to hear it.” He raised his bat, and both the white bodies flinched in response. He crashed the bat down. He felt the bark of the bat against the concrete. This is what it is to be the wolf, the bat screamed. You have been the sheep, but now you are the wolf. “SAY IT FOR ME. I BEG OF YOU,” Emmanuel screamed. This, he knew, was going all the way. He could feel the group feed on his fury. “Fela St. John, Fela St. John, Fela St. John,” they chanted in praise. “Tell me you love her,” Emmanuel said. “Tell me I’m crazy. I’m begging you. Say her name.” Emmanuel looked down at the tears and the red that seemed to be all that was left of the couple. They weren’t even people. Just pumping hearts, hormones. He wondered if his rage would end; he imagined it leaking out of him.
He figured that at the other side of the tunnel—after the Naming—he might be happy. But as he thrashed and yelled and saw it all, he felt nothing leaving him. There was only throbbing. Yelling and screaming and banging a bat on the ground, he thought that maybe he was being exactly who he really was for once. Doing exactly what was expected of him. The screaming of the couple there, the honesty of their fear—he felt it giving him wings.
Boogie, standing beside Emmanuel, motioned for him to hand the bat over so he could finish what they’d started. Emmanuel looked toward the weeping man. His shirt was on backward. The woman was quieting down. She did not have much more breath to give. But in the middle of all those sounds of rage, timidly but definitely, Emmanuel heard something come from the woman’s mouth.
“Fela St. John,” the woman said. And as she did, Emmanuel looked into the eyes of the woman, and she looked back into his.
“Let me get that,” Boogie screamed, opening his palms to receive the bat. “I want to be the one. I want to feel it. Please let me. Please.” When Emmanuel did not hand the bat over, Boogie’s fire blazed brighter. “This can’t wait. I need this now,” he said as he pulled out the box cutter. “I’ll start it,” Boogie said, looking at Emmanuel.
Emmanuel gripped the bat. Boogie’s eyes were large and heavy as he turned toward the couple. The blade in his fist grew as his thumb pushed at the box cutter. He stepped forward.
“I don’t know what to do!” Emmanuel screamed, and swung the bat full force, cutting the wind in half and hitting Boogie in the flank, crashing the bat at his ribs. The box cutter fell to the floor.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Gentlemen and ladies.” The defense stands, strides toward the jurors, adjusts the knot of his tie then continues, “The prosecution has tried to prove that George Dunn is a monster incapable of love. A monster that would hack down five helpless children. But what the prosecution has failed to do is prove that he was not a hero saving his children from five monsters. That may sound harsh, but let’s be honest. We’ve seen this story before. A hardworking middle-class white man is put in a situation where he has to defend himself. And all of a sudden he’s a ‘racist.’ All of a sudden he’s a ‘murderer.’ No motive, no prior history, except for several ridiculous stories concocted by so-called ‘childhood friends’ and so-called ‘family members.’ It’s all very convenient, I think. That all these facts and testimonies suddenly align perfectly to incriminate a man who was spending an evening with his children. Before you make your decision, I want you to remember a single word: freedom. It sounds better than prison or death or fear, doesn’t it? Freedom just has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? Bring freedom. Please, please freedom.”
Boogie fell to the ground in a heap. “Goddamn it,” he screamed. Breathing seemed to be hard for him. Tisha yelled, then crawled to Boogie’s side on the ground. Her yellow dress puddled around her. Boogie mumbled violent words as he writhed in the middle of a small sun in Tisha’s arms. Mr. Coder and the man in glasses stood without moving. The white couple was now completely silent.
Emmanuel took two steps, dragging the bat on the ground. He stood above the couple. “Fela St. John, Fela St. John!” the couple screamed. Emmanuel looked down on them and saw himself in their eyes. He was the wolf. He felt the bat in his hands. He wanted to stand there forever. He wanted to scream and feel all their fear in his stomach till he burst.
Emmanuel looked around. He heard the screams of police vehicles more clearly now. Mr. Coder and the other man were running away. He heard the sirens, and for the first time in his life, Emmanuel did not fear them.
“Put your hands in the air,” a giant voice, one from an entirely different world, said. Emmanuel smiled. He very slowly raised both of his arms. Tisha cried quietly over Boogie, who was still mumbling in a dream.
“Drop the weapon,” the voice called. Red and blue lights tie-dyed it all.
/> “Fela St.—” Emmanuel began as he dropped the bat with his hands held above his head. He thought of the names. Then he felt it. The feeling of his Blackness rising to an almighty 10.0. He heard a boom that was like the child of thunder. He saw his own brain burst ahead of him. Hardy red confetti. His blood splashed all over the pavement and the couple. He saw the Finkelstein Five dancing around him: Tyler Mboya, Akua Harris, J. D. Heroy, Marcus Harris, Fela St. John. They told him they loved him, still, forever. In that moment, with his final thoughts, his last feelings as a member of the world, Emmanuel felt his Blackness slide and plummet to an absolute nothing point nothing.
Things My Mother Said
My mother’s favorite thing to say to me was “I am not your friend.” She’d often say, “You are my firstborn son, my only son,” as a reminder not to die. She loved saying, as a way to keep me humble, “I didn’t have a mother. You’re lucky. You have a mother.”
When the TV went dark, my mother said, “Good. Now you can read more.” Then our house at the bottom of a hill lost all its life: gas, water, electric.
One day I came home to the warm smell of chicken and rice. I hadn’t been able to steal a second burger in the cafeteria at school that day. My stomach whined. At home the fridge had become a casket bearing nothing. The range and oven had become decorations meant to make a dying box look like a home. Hunger colored those days.
“Where is this from?” I asked, already carving out a healthy portion from a worn gray pot.
My mother pretended she didn’t hear me. She was studying the pages of her massive white Bible at the kitchen table. Wide sheets of light pressed through the window and draped her. She spent her days reading that big Bible. Its pages wore to film as her fingers fluttered from psalm to psalm. She’d be asleep by the splash of dusk. I, on the other hand, would be up for hours. Trying to do homework by the blue glow of my cell phone, clinging to its light until it died. At night hunger and I huddled together. I’d fall asleep thinking one day I would change everything.
That afternoon I ate the chicken and rice. It tasted like pepper and smoke. “How did you make this, Mom?” I asked again. She looked up from her Bible. “Auwrade. Did you pray over your food? Did you say your psalms today?” I ate the food quickly, greedily. I chewed the bones till they splintered in my mouth.
Another thing my mother often said: “You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Later, when I was in the backyard, hesitant to return to the dying box as the sun dipped away, I found a patch of charred grass and a small circle of blackened stones and pebbles. An ash moon branded into a sea of wild green grass. I touched a gray rock partially blackened by flame to see if it was still hot. I felt proud and ashamed.
For the record, I know I was lucky, I know I am lucky, I don’t think you’re stupid, I know I am not your friend, I hope you can be proud of me.
The Era
“Suck one and die,” says Scotty, a tall, mostly true, kid. “I’m aggressive ’cause I think you don’t know shit.”
We’re in HowItWas class.
“Well,” Mr. Harper says, twisting his ugly body toward us. “You should shut your mouth because you’re a youth-teen who doesn’t know shit about shit and I’m a full-middler who’s been teaching this stuff for more years than I’m proud of.”
“Understood,” says Scotty.
Then Mr. Harper went back to talking about the time before the Turn, which came after the Big Quick War, which came after the Long Big War. I was thinking about going to the nurse for some prelunch Good. I do bad at school because sometimes I think when I should be learning.
“So after the Big Quick,” Mr. Harper continues in his bored voice, “science and philosopher guys realized that people had been living wrong the whole time before. Sacrificing themselves, their efficiency, and their wants. This made a world of distrust and misfortune, which led to the Big Wars.
“Back then, everyone was a liar. It was so bad that it would not have been uncommon for people to tell Samantha”—Mr. Harper points a finger at Samantha, who sits next to me—“that she was beautiful even though, obviously, she is hideous.” Samantha nods her ugly head to show she understands. Her face is squished so bad she’s always looking in two different directions. Sometimes, kids who get prebirth optiselected come out all messed up. Samantha is “unoptimal.” That’s the official name for people like her, whose optimization screwed up and made their bodies horrible. I don’t have any gene corrections. I wasn’t optimized at all. I am not optimal or ideal. But I’m also not unoptimal, so I wasn’t going to look like Samantha, which is good. It’s not all good, though, since no optiselect means no chance of being perfect either. I don’t care. I’m true. I’m proud, still. Looking over, being nosy ’cause sometimes I do that, I see Samantha log into her class pad: I would have been pretty/beautiful.
“Or”—and now Mr. Harper is looking at me; I can feel him thinking me into an example—“back then a teacher might’ve told Ben, who we know is a dummy, that he was smart or that if he would just apply himself he’d do better.” The class laughs ’cause they think a world where I’m smart is hee-haw. In my head I think, Mr. Harper, do you think that back then students would think you were something other than a fat, ugly skin sack? Then I say, “Mr. Harper, do you think back then students would think you were something other than a fat, ugly skin sack?”
“I don’t know what they’d say about me,” Mr. Harper says. “Probably that it was a great thing that I was a teacher and that my life wasn’t trash. Anything else, Ben?” I start to say something else about how they must have really, really liked lying to say Mr. Harper was a good teacher, but I don’t say that out loud because, even though I’m being true, they’d say I was being emotional and it was clouding my truth.
“I understand,” I say.
Being emotional isn’t prideful, and being truthful, prideful, and intelligent are the best things. I’m truthful and prideful as best as I can be. Emotional truth-clouding was the main thing that led to the Long Big War and the Big Quick War.
They’re called the Water Wars because of how the Old Federation lied to its own people about how the Amalgamation of Allies had poisoned the water reservoirs. The result was catastrophic/horrific. Then, since the people of the Old Federation were mad because of their own truth-clouding, they kept on warring for years and years, and the Old Federation became the New Federation that stands proudly today. Later on, when the Amalgamation of Allies suspected a key reservoir had been poisoned, they asked the New Federation if they’d done it. In a stunning act of graciousness and honesty, my New Federation ancestors told the truth, said, “Yeah, we did poison that reservoir,” and, in doing so, saved many, many lives that were later more honorably destroyed via nuclear. The wars going on now, Valid Storm Alpha and the True Freedom Campaign, are valid/true wars because we know we aren’t being emotional fighting them.
“Class, please scroll to chapter forty-one and take it in,” Mr. Harper says. The class touches their note-screens. The chapter is thirty-eight pages. I don’t even try to read it. I look at some chapter videos of people doing things they used to do: a man throws three balls into the air, a woman in a dress spins on one leg. After three minutes, the class is done reading the chapter. Their SpeedRead™ chips make reading easy/quick for them. SpeedRead™ lets optimized people take in words faster than I can hardly see them. Since I’m a clear-born, I look while they read. I will read the chapters on my own later. But even staring at the videos and pictures is better than some can do. Samantha can’t hardly look at her screen. And then there’s Nick and Raphy, who are the class shoelookers. All they do is cry and moan. They were both optimized and still became shoelookers. Being emotional is all they are, and it means they aren’t good for anything. I’m glad Samantha and Nick and Raphy are in the class. Because of them, I’m not bottom/last in learning, and I don’t wanna be overall bottom/last at all.
After the others have read the chapter, Mr. Harper goes back to
talking about how untrue the lives people used to live were. We’ve all heard about the times before the Turn, but hearing Mr. Harper, who is a teacher and, hopefully, not a complete ass/idiot, talk about all the untruths people used to think were regular makes me proud to be from now and not then. Still, I mostly only half listen ’cause I’m thinking.
When the horn goes off and it’s time for rotation, I hang back so I can speak truth to Mr. Harper.
“Mr. Harper,” I say.
“What, Ben?”
“Today, during a lot of your session, I was thinking about beating you to death with a rock.”
“Hmm, why?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a brain-healer.”
“If you don’t know, how would I? Go to the nurse if you want.”
I walk toward the nurse’s office. On the way there, I see three shoelookers together in front of one of our school’s war monuments: a glass case holding a wall with the nuclear shadows of our dead enemies on it. Two of the shoelookers cry, and the third paces between the other two, biting his nails. Marlene is near them. Marlene is my sibling. She is five cycles older than I am and training to be a NumbersPlusTaxes teacher.
Marlene is also the reason I was not given a prebirth optiselection. When Marlene was optiselected, all her personality points attached to only one personality paradigm and made her a para-one, a person who’s only about one thing. There are all kinds of paradigms, like intelligence, conscientiousness, or extraversion. OptiLife™ releases different personality packages people can pay for. My parents were successful enough to get a standard package of seven points to spread across a few paradigms. That’s what they wanted for Marlene: a balanced, successful person. But all seven of the points that could have gone toward her being a bunch of different stuff all went to one paradigm. Ambition. And that much of anything makes you a freak/the worst. But some companies like Learning Inc. prefer people like Marlene. She is a good worker. She is good at getting things she wants. It’s all she does. Get things.
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