by Osborne, Jon
Angel opened up the book again, her insides still churning with a dull, aching frustration that was spreading out to the rest of her body from the pit of her stomach. Directly following the racist dictionary was a selection of one-liner jokes. She didn’t find any of them in the least bit funny, of course.
How could anyone?
There were twenty-two of these – also a multiple of eighty-eight, making the authors two for two in their cleverly coded messages.
Heil fucking Hitler.
NIGGER ONE-LINERS
How do you stop a nigger from drowning?
Take your foot off the back of his head.
How do you get a nigger out of a tree?
Cut the rope.
What did the Alabama sheriff say about the nigger who’d been shot fifteen times?
Worst case of suicide he’d ever seen.
What’s a nigger’s idea of foreplay?
“Don’t scream or I’ll cut your fuckin’ throat, bitch.”
How do you baby-sit a nigger?
Wet his lips and stick him to the wall.
How do you get him down?
Teach him to say, “Motherfucker”.
What’s long and black and smells like shit?
The welfare line.
What are the worst three years of a nigger’s life?
First grade.
What’s long and hard on a nigger?
First grade.
How do you know that Adam and Eve weren’t black?
You ever try taking a rib from a nigger?
How many niggers does it take to pave a driveway?
One, if you spread him real thin.
What’s the difference between a nigger and a bag of shit?
The bag.
What do you call a nigger in a three-piece suit?
The defendant.
Why is Stevie Wonder always smiling?
He doesn’t know he’s a nigger.
Why are chimps always frowning?
They know that in a million years they’re going to turn into niggers.
Why are niggers like sperm?
Only one in a million actually work.
Why do police dogs lick their own asses?
To get the taste of nigger out of their mouths.
What can a pizza do that a nigger can’t?
Feed a family of four.
How do you get five niggers to stop raping a white woman?
Throw them a basketball.
How do you stop a nigger from going out?
Pour more gas on him.
Did you hear about the bumper sticker that says, “Run, Obama, Run!”?
You put it on the front of your car.
What’s the difference between a nigger and a snow tire?
A snow tire doesn’t sing when you put chains on it.
CHAPTER 95
The Race Master was jerked awake from his dream by the noises coming from outside his bedroom door, causing him to bolt upright in bed. At the foot of the bed, Bane lifted his own massive head and growled.
The sound of two voices, low and furtive, filtered into the room. The Race Master reached beneath his pillow and cocked the Walther.
A mutiny?
He strained his ears to catch their words. No use. They were speaking even softer now, a sure sign of murderous traitors, cowards creeping in the night.
The Race Master’s thoughts flashed to Claus von Stauffenberg, the German military officer who’d led a failed assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler on July 20th, 1944. The bomb had gone off, but Hitler had survived, leading to the arrest of five thousand people and the deaths of two hundred more in retaliation, effectively smashing the rebellion to smithereens.
The Race Master’s mind raced quickly through all the possible scenarios. Swiftly, the decision was made.
Motioning for Bane to remain very still, he lifted the pistol and aimed it through the darkness at the closed bedroom door twelve feet away. Outside, feet shuffled against the hardwood floor as the murderous traitors finally made their move.
The thunderous sounds of gunshots filled the room a split-second later, causing a confused Bane to raise his enormous head and let out an eerie, mournful howl that echoed throughout the entire house like the plaintiff wail of a thousand tortured demons.
And then there was only a silence so complete that it sounded positively deafening.
CHAPTER 96
Dana slipped under her covers an hour later; Oreo curled up beside her like a furry, purring hot-water bottle. After floating off into unconsciousness, she dreamt about her childhood. After all, as badly as everything had turned out in the end, it hadn’t been bad all the time. Not even close. There’d been plenty of good times, too.
Right up until the bitter, bloody end.
***
In Dana’s dream, she is four years old again. The date is July 4th, 1976 and dusk has begun to darken the summer sky in the West Park-section of Cleveland while James Whitestone barbecues hot dogs and hamburgers on a rusty outdoor grill.
***
Dana’s father flipped a burger expertly with a quick flick of his right wrist before using the spatula to motion to the sandbox where Dana was playing quietly. He spelled out the word to his wife so that their only child wouldn’t know what they were talking about. Although a precocious and highly intelligent little girl, Dana had yet to completely master the tricky art of spelling.
“Think we could let her hold a S-P-A-R-K-L-E-R when it gets all the way dark out?” he asked. “She’s been bugging me about it for weeks now.”
Sara Whitestone slid her sunglasses down the bridge of her slender nose and raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow in her husband’s direction. “Yeah, right, James. You’re the one who’s been bugging me about it for weeks now and you know it.”
Her husband grinned at her. He looked absolutely ridiculous in his Kiss the Chef apron, which was par for the course for him. James Whitestone was easily the world’s biggest dork – but then again that was precisely what Sara loved him so much.
“C’mon, honey,” he whined. “Whaddya say? It’ll be a lot of fun. Don’t pretend it won’t.”
Sara let out a soft sigh, knowing she’d lost the argument already. Dana was the apple of her daddy’s eye, and he never denied her that wasn’t unsafe to her. Probably the result of his growing up as the youngest of five sons of a strict Presbyterian minister, a stern man who probably would’ve been happy if playtime had been classified as the Eighth Deadly Sin. “Fine, you big goofball.” Sara finally relented. “But you’re the one taking her to the emergency room when her hair catches fire.”
Her husband’s lopsided grin exploded into a full-blown smile as he easily covered the fifteen feet between the grill and the lawn chair where she was sitting in three long, graceful strides. He leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “That anything like when my mom told me to not come running to her when I broke my leg?”
Sara laughed and punched him on one tree-trunk thigh. “Damn straight it is. Moms always know what we’re talking about. It’s hard-wired into our psychology.”
James groaned theatrically as he straightened back up, as though the strain of leaning down to kiss his wife had been enough to throw his back out of alignment.
Sara Whitestone was a remarkably small woman, a trait Dana would inherit as she herself grew into womanhood. Standing a shade under five feet tall, Sara tipped the scales at just below a hundred pounds, though those she went up against in court as a litigating attorney for the law firm of Smith, Frey and Bogner never seemed to mention anything about her size. Her diminutive stature simply didn’t register with them when she was in front of a jury, more often than not whipping their tails and looking for all the world exactly what she was: an intellectual giant with a brilliant legal mind. Whenever people would ask her if it were nice always being the smartest person in the room, she’d always smile politely and reply, “Well, no. Actually, it’s hell.”
Sara pou
ted and punched her husband on the leg again, harder this time. “Hey, be nice to me, you oversized gorilla. Be nice to me or no dessert for you tonight.”
James smiled and dropped down to his knees in front of her. His weight dented the soft grass as he wrapped his strong arms around her slender body and leaned forward to press his face into her breasts, which were braless and straining hard against a tattered Abba concert T-shirt. “Just exactly what kind of dessert are we talking about here, Mrs. Whitestone?”
Sara laughed and pushed his face away. “Nip it, lover boy. Nip it right in the bud. There’s a time and place for everything, and this is certainly neither the time nor the place for this little conversation. If you’re a good boy, though, maybe we’ll revisit this subject later on tonight when our little angel is in bed sleeping. Play your cards right and anything’s possible, I suppose.”
James favored her with a comically lecherous wink and rose to his feet, returning to the grill by way of the sandbox and stopping just long enough to ask Dana what heinous and unforgivable crime her Holly Hobby doll had committed to warrant the extreme punishment of being buried up to her neck in sand. Sara smiled at them as she watched them talk before turning her attention back to the legal brief she’d brought home from work.
Fifteen minutes later James announced that the food was ready and that Dana needed to go into the house to wash before they could eat.
“Why do I have to?” Dana asked, turning up her enormous blue eyes to meet his.
“Well, you have to because your hands are all dirty from playing in the sandbox, silly goose.”
Dana stood up with a dramatic sigh. Tiny granules of sand cascaded down from her Barbie T-shirt as she wiped her hands across the butt of her previously clean white shorts and held them up for inspection. “There. That should do it. All clean now. See, Daddy?”
James threw back his head and roared with laughter. It was a deep, joyful sound. “Sorry, kiddo, not good enough.”
He paused and grinned down at his daughter. “Now, I could be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure it’s just about time for this plane to take off.”
And with that he ran over and swept her small body into his strong arms, swinging her out wildly to his side in a horizontal position five feet above the ground. Dana’s eyes lit up brighter than the runway lights at Hopkins airport as he held her suspended in the air. They’d played this game many times before and it had always been one of her all-time favorites.
Winking at Sara again, James began humming loudly to imitate the rumbling of a plane’s engines. The sound came from deep within his chest and Dana could feel the vibrations as they tickled her body. “The pilots are ready for take-off in the cockpit!” James boomed. “Are the passengers ready?”
“Ready!” Dana giggled. “All the passengers are ready for take-off, Daddy!”
Engines rumbling joyfully, the impromptu summertime flight taxied quickly down the runway of the backyard and into the house, where it banked sharply to the right in the foyer before finally touching down at the kitchen sink to complete its vital hand-washing mission with a fresh bar of Ivory soap.
When father and daughter had returned and they were all seated around the wooden picnic table covered by a red-and-white plastic tablecloth in the middle of their backyard, the young family began eating and fell into an easy conversation centering on Dana’s trio of imaginary friends: Lula, Pano and Mr. Sunday.
“And just what is Mr. Sunday up to on the fine Fourth of July?” Sara asked, dabbing with a paper napkin at a smear of mustard that had found its way onto her daughter’s left cheek.
“He’s working today. No fireworks for him. And, boy, is he ever sad about that.”
“That’s too bad.” James empathized. “Seems pretty darn unfair that he has to work when everybody else is out there having a good time. What line of work is he in, anyway, sweetheart?”
“He’s a filthy prostitute,” Dana mumbled through a mouthful of half-chewed hot dog.
A shocked look flashed across Sara’s delicately pretty face. “What did you say?”
“I said Mr. Sunday is a filthy prostitute and he’s gotta work today,” Dana repeated nonchalantly, her attention now squarely focused on the tiny army ant that was steadily marching its way across the table and toward her plate.
James arched an inquisitive eyebrow at his wife before turning back to his daughter. “Where on earth did you learn a word like that, honey?”
“From that movie you were watching last night, Daddy. You know, the one with all the filthy prostitutes in it. Did you forget about it already?”
Sara shot her husband a look that could have frozen water. “That’s it, James. That is it. No more late-night television for you until this little girl’s been in bed and sawing logs for at least an hour. You ever hear the saying about little pitchers having big ears? Well, there you go. There’s your proof right there, buster.”
“But, Mom!” Dana whined.
“But, Mom!” James echoed in the same tone.
Sara held up a hand to silence them. “Don’t But, Mom me, you two. That’s final. I mean it, James. Only PBS until she’s in bed and lost in dream world, you hear me? The only words she needs to be learning are the ones they teach her on Sesame Street and The Electric Company.”
Turning back to Dana with a frown, she added, “And I don’t ever want to hear that word out of your mouth again, little lady. It’s a bad word and if I ever hear it again you’re getting the soap. You didn’t like it very much the last time, remember?”
Dana rolled her eyes and took a long drink of her Kool-Aid before smacking her red-stained lips once. “Fine, Mommy. I heard you the first time, you know.”
It took everything Sara had to hold back the laughter she felt coming on. In some ways her daughter seemed so advanced for her young age that she often had to remind herself that Dana wasn’t even five years old yet. “I only said it once, Little Miss Smarty Pants.”
“I know you did, and that’s the same time I heard you say it.”
“Hard to argue with that logic,” James chimed in helpfully.
Sara shot him another look. “You stay out of this, James. Stay out of it or you can consider the dessert menu off-limits to you tonight, if you catch my drift.”
James turned back to his daughter with a grin and held up his large hands, shrugging his broad shoulders in good-natured defeat. “Hard to argue with that logic, too. Sorry, kiddo, but Mom’s definitely got the trump card on this one. Daddy’s not the smartest guy in the whole world, but he sure as heck knows when he’s been beat. Only PBS on that television from now on.”
By the time they’d finished eating, cleared the table and brought the leftovers inside to the kitchen, the sun had set fully and the moonless sky above had sufficiently darkened for the Whitestone family festivities to begin at last. Off in the distance, they could hear the booming of the fireworks downtown as they streaked deep into the night to the accompaniment of the Cleveland Orchestra.
With an air of ceremony that made both Sara and Dana giggle, James switched off the back porch light and lit a sparkler from a box of ten with a cheap plastic lighter before handing it solemnly over to his daughter. Taking his wife’s hand in his own, they watched Dana run gleefully through the yard waving it around in figure-eight patterns. Little sparks of fire jumped off the stick in all directions, illuminating both a small circle of the night and the unadulterated joy on their only child’s smiling face.
“I’m a fairy princess!” Dana squealed with delight. “I’m a fairy princess and this here’s my magic wand!”
Sara smiled and slipped an arm around her husband’s waist, gently rubbing the small of his back. “You know what?” she said softly. “This is as good as it gets. I really think it’s moments like this that we’ve worked so hard for all these years.”
A single tear formed silently in the corner of her right eye, wavered there for a moment as though unsure what to do next, then slowly spilled out onto her sm
ooth cheek.
“You know what?” James answered, pulling his wife closer and gently kissing away the tear. I think you’re absolutely right.’
Sara Whitestone’s slender shoulders started to shake as she began to cry harder then, once again asking herself how she could continue keeping such a huge secret from this man who so obviously loved her more than he loved life itself.
But James Whitestone just held his wife tighter and kissed her again.
Even softer this time.
CHAPTER 97
Angel snapped shut the vile book again, her ears burning with that awful, nameless shame that she just didn’t understand.
Was she ashamed of being black? Or ashamed of being human?
An electric jolt of rage ripped through her muscles. There were people around – almost all of them white – but she didn’t give a shit. Standing up, she hurled the book over the cliff and out into the water as far as she possibly could, shocked and angry to realize that she had tears in her eyes.
Motherfucking piece-of-shit racists!
She took a deep breath through her nostrils and tried to calm down, but it didn’t work. Was it any fucking wonder that black people found it hard to trust even the white people who acted decent to them, though? Was this what they were all thinking? Calling them “nigger” behind their backs when they thought no one was listening?
The anger boiled inside Angel’s stomach, chest and throat before finally expressing itself as even more tears of rage and frustration.
But were they really tears of rage? Of frustration? Was Angel really angry? Or was she really just fucking hurt? Hurt all the way down to the goddamn bone?
As God as her witness, she just didn’t know.
Gathering up her things, she headed back toward her car. She just couldn’t be alone right now.
