Certainly it could be said that Zachary Black deserved any kind of hardship he encountered. He had taken advantage of Father Poole and stolen from St. Andrew’s Church. Moreover, he was a misanthrope, a trait he had kept bottled up while roaming from town to town and working odd jobs such as sweeping floors in bars, arranging inventory for store owners, and cleaning stables for farmers. It was a miserable existence for a young boy with no family, but Zachary was satisfied with having precious little.
He wandered further south, his intention being to make it to Taloola, Mississippi, where his father’s roots were, in an effort to find some sort of family, and in 1931 came across a pig farm in the middle of Hinds County. He walked through the property and up to the house. He watched the pigs as they pushed past one another, grunting as they went. He smiled and thought how much fun it must be to slaughter them.
He knocked on the door of the farm house and waited for the owner to open the door, welcome him, and offer something to eat and employment. To Zachary Black’s astonishment the man who opened the door was a young black man.
“Yes?” said Marshall Howell. “Can I help you?”
Zachary bit down hard on his bottom lip and curled his mouth in disgust. “Is the owner of the farm in?” asked Zachary, sounding rude.
The man laughed heartily. “You’re lookin’ at him, son!”
Zachary was about ready to leave when the man asked him what he wanted. The boy kept his feet firmly planted and turned his upper torso around to see how far away the road was from where he was standing. When he turned back toward Marshall Howell, he held his stomach and swallowed.
“Oh, Lord! I know that look. You want some grub, boy?”
Zachary hated Negroes and wasn’t keen on eating their food, but he had no choice. It had been two and a half days since he’d last eaten, and he was exhausted from the journey.
“How far is Taloola?” asked Zachary.
“I’d say about ten miles south o’ here,” replied Marshall, “but you won’t be gettin’ there unless you get yourself in here, boy, and have some chitlins.”
Zachary was led into the house by the pig farmer and sat down at the table. He was immediately served a bowl of broth with meat that resembled thinly sliced chicken. He didn’t fuss but grabbed a spoon. He began shoveling the food into his mouth as fast as he could without choking on it.
“Easy, boy! You fixin’ to give yourself a spell o’ indigestion!”
As he finished the last spoonful, Zachary kept his eyes on Marshall Howell without saying a word.
“You still hungry, son?” asked Marshall.
Zachary still didn’t respond.
“Why, boy, you ain’t needin’ to be shy or embarrassed! I’m all alone here. I love the company. Hell, if you ain’t fixed on headin’ anywhere, you could even stay here with me. Help me run the pigs.”
“Run the pigs?” Zachary said disdainfully. “What are you talking about?”
“Son, this is a pig farm. I don’t know if you noticed my hogs as you was comin’ up the way.”
While Marshall Howell served Zachary another bowl of hot chitterlings in broth, he began to talk to his young visitor about the pig-farming business.
“You mean you slaughter them right here on the farm?” asked Zachary, his enthusiasm unable to be contained.
“Well, surely!” answered the farmer. “And I need all the help I can get when I be roundin’ them up for slaughterin’. These piggies know just how to squirm away from ya, and although I’m no ol’ fart I sure as hell ain’t no teenage boy!”
The boy agreed to work for the pig farmer for an indefinite amount of time in return for room and board. “On one condition,” said Zachary abruptly, taking Marshall by surprise. “Don’t call me boy.”
Marshall’s smile faded while he blinked twice. “Alright son,” replied Marshall.
“And don’t call me son either. My name is Black. Zachary Black.”
Marshall couldn’t contain himself, laughing again in a high-pitched cackle. This infuriated Zachary, who assumed that the Negro was mocking his name. “No offense Zachary, but a white boy named Black. You know just last week I met a Negro fella by the name of Solomon White. He-he-he.”
Zachary didn’t find any humor in what Marshall had said, and the Negro’s laugh antagonized him further. To contain his anger, he got up from the table and walked to the window. He peered out and saw the pig pen in the distance.
“When am I gonna get to slaughter me some pigs?” asked Zachary.
“Well,” Marshall Howell said, “we can go right now if you want. I can show you how it’s done and what I’ll be askin’ you to be doin’ for me.”
The two went outside, and Marshall explained the intricacies of pig slaughtering. Zachary just stood and listened as the farmer explained how a pig is bound and killed.
“It’s important to slit the throat as quick as possible,” Marshall explained, “’cause the animal be puttin’ up a fight real good if tied up long enough. But you want him good an’ excited so his heart be racin’. That way all the blood be comin’ outta him good an’ fast.”
Marshall continued with his graphic explanation of killing swine, and Zachary took it all in, fascinated by the art of it all. He loved the fact that there was a methodical system for doing it, and Zachary knew that he’d never look at another piece of bacon the same way again.
“I wanna try,” Zachary said, in the most enthusiastic voice Marshall had heard from the boy yet. “I can do it. I wanna do it. Let me try.”
Marshall held the pig’s head still and watched closely as Zachary took the long, serrated knife and stuck it into the animal’s throat. He saw Zachary do this with as much zeal as he’d ever seen anyone do it. The pig squealed in one long shrieking cry and then convulsed for several seconds. The gurgling sound of the pig drowning in its own blood filled Zachary’s ears and made his heart race with the most excitement he’d ever experienced in his entire life.
Marshall reminded the boy always to be sure he sliced the throat outwardly through the skin so that the animal’s hair would stay outside the body. “This here’s a female,” Marshall added, pointing to its genitals. “If it was a male, we’d need to chop his balls off first so they don’t put any unnecessary shit into the pig meat.”
Zachary, meanwhile, kept slicing. When Marshall believed that it was enough, he had to pry the knife out of Zachary’s hand in order to make him stop. Zachary had pig blood sprayed all over his face and didn’t make the slightest attempt to wipe it off, even after Marshall told him to wash it off.
Zachary Black examined the dead pig and let his imagination take over. He fantasized that the pig farm was his own and that he’d go out every morning to slaughter five pigs before breakfast, then come inside with their carved-up carcasses and make pork chops, bacon, sausage, and ham hocks. He imagined chewing on pig ears and feet while doing his afternoon slaughter, to which ten more hogs would fall victim.
Marshall retreated to the barn. As he went he said, “Now we set fire to it. That will get all the hair off.” He came back with an armful of hay and threw it on top of the pig. “We do this a few times and then drain the blood some more. When that’s done, we remove the hooves, clean off what hair is left, and scrape off any burnt skin. Then we’ll be ready to hack off the head.”
Zachary was eager to find out what became of the head. “Can you save it?” inquired Zachary. “I mean, it was my first kill. Can I keep it?”
As Marshall lit a match and held it under the bundle of hay, he shook his head and said, “No sir! I ain’t got no time for that. An’ neither do you, Zacky boy. And there’s lots more to do ’round here than just slaughterin’. You’ll be cleanin’ out the chicken coop too and runnin’ errands. We gonna be busy here. Ain’t no time to be funnin’ ’round.”
Zachary watched as the fla
mes engulfed the dead pig. The smell, a mixture of burning hair, flesh, and barnyard stench, permeated his nose, but not once did he retreat in repulsion. Instead, he drew closer. Marshall walked away and began whistling a tune that was unfamiliar to Zachary. Within seconds after whistling, the pig farmer broke out into a song with these words: “WATCH THE PIGGIES, LITTLE PIGGIES, COMING HERE TO DIE! YOU’LL KNOW THEY’RE BEIN’ SLAUGHTERED WHEN THEY START TO CRY! WATCH AND LISTEN UP AND TELL THEM GOODBYE!”
Over the next several months Zachary pulled his weight as a dutiful farmhand around the Howell farm. He always did as he was told, and although he hated being in the service of a man he’d have loved to call “darkie” to his face, he realized that he needed this job for food, shelter, and the pleasure of killing pigs.
As time went on, Zachary’s hatred for the pigs increased because of their constant squealing and disgusting smell. When it came time to slop them, he would be deliberately cruel by dropping only a few scraps of food in their trough and making them fight over the scanty bits.
He also would kick them and pick up piglets by their ears or tails, making them squeal in pain. Marshall saw Zachary doing such things on a number of occasions. At first he thought the young man was just getting acclimated to life around hogs, and he figured it was better for Zachary to dominate the pigs instead of fear them.
However, while slopping the pigs one morning, Marshall came across something that caused him to confront Zachary Black about his brutality. As he spilled the feed into the troughs, he saw a trail of blood that led into the barn. At the end of the trail were the remains of one of the baby pigs, born to a litter of nine, with its head completely removed.
Marshall Howell ran back into the house and called for Zachary. The boy emerged from the back storage room that he’d made into his bedroom. He massaged his tired eyes and then collapsed onto the living-room couch, covering himself with the comforter that lay on top.
“Did you slaughter a piglet?” Marshall asked angrily.
Zachary, still groggy, squinted at his employer.
“Answer me, boy.”
“I told you not to call me boy,” Zachary snapped.
“I know what you told me, and I don’t care. Where do you get off killing a baby pig? For what reason?”
“I wanted the head,” Zachary said coldly.
“The head?”
“Yes. I told you I wanted a trophy.”
“So you killed a baby pig?”
“I didn’t think you’d mind. I was going to do it to one of the adult males but figured that would have made you sore.”
“So you slaughtered a baby?”
“He was the runt of the litter anyway. He would have died on his own if I hadn’t done it. What the hell do you care anyway? We got loads more. And they’re gonna all die eventually.”
“Son, we slaughter only when we need to slaughter. And there ain’t no one who benefits from a slaughtered piglet!”
“PISS OFF!” shouted Zachary, rolling over and pulling the comforter over his head.
Marshall paced the floor and thought of what he knew about this boy. He didn’t like the enthusiastic way Zachary went about killing the pigs. It was as if he wanted them to suffer, and he took too much pleasure in watching them die. And now this—killing a baby pig.
“Zachary, if you do one more thing wrong, I’ll be sendin’ you on your way. Now where’s the head?”
Black pulled the comforter down and turned his head toward Marshall. He was silent for a long time, staring angrily at Marshall, until the farmer repeated in a louder voice, “Where is it?”
“In my room,” Zachary finally replied.
Marshall walked into the boy’s room and immediately froze in place. Not only was the piglet’s bloody head lying on Zachary’s pillow, but also scattered around the room were the remains of butchered chickens. Four chicken heads were perched on the window sill; a pair of chicken legs protruded from Zachary’s bed sheets; two dozen white wings were nailed on the wall in the shape of a large cross. In the middle was an intact chicken. Its neck was broken, and the body had been affixed to the feather cross with its wings spread outwards, as if the bird had been crucified.
When Marshall ran out of the room to confront Zachary, the boy was already gone, along with the satchel containing his few meager belongings that had always been kept hanging by the front door. The pig farmer wouldn’t see him again for eleven years, which would coincidentally be the last day of Marshall Howell’s life.
Zachary Black stayed with a cousin of his father in Taloola, a man named Louis Black. He found this relative by asking people around the small town whether there were any Blacks in the area. The first person he asked was an old racist who said, “Boy, you askin’ if there be any Blacks around here? You’re in Mississippi, for cryin’ out loud! There are darkies ’round every corner!” After this response Zachary modified his inquiry to, “Do you know of any white families by the name of Black?”
His father’s cousin was able to afford the boy an education and a good place to live. He was a decent enough fellow as far as the Black family was concerned, and he even got word to Zachary’s maternal grandparents, Eric and Agnes Lindsay, that their grandson was now in Mississippi and living with him. At first the grandparents were reluctant to ask, but then, just as Louis was ready to hang up the phone, Eric Lindsay inquired whether the boy was as vicious as his daughter Olivia had indicated. Louis said that he didn’t think the boy was the happy-go-lucky sort but that he didn’t think Zachary was altogether bad either. It might just be, suggested Louis, the bitterness of having been abandoned by both his parents that made Zachary feel and act the way he did.
The two parties exchanged phone numbers and addresses before politely saying goodbye to one another. Louis didn’t like what Eric Lindsay had reported about Olivia’s impression of her son’s evil nature. Rather than the shame of his conception, it seemed an excuse for why she found it hard to love Zachary as a child.
Nonetheless, what Louis was able to provide for his cousin’s son wasn’t good enough for Zachary, and the boy began getting into trouble. He was caught stealing twice from the town’s general store. The first time the store owner let him off the hook. The second time he called in the sheriff, a big bear of a man by the name of Enos Lucas. Zachary told the sheriff who his relative was, and because Enos knew Louis Black he brought the boy to Louis. No charges were filed, but Louis told Zachary that he’d need to reform quickly because his patience was wearing thin.
After two more years of Zachary’s getting into fights with other boys, destroying both public and private property, stealing from Louis, and being caught with the head of a deformed pig he’d found on the road outside of town, Sheriff Lucas told Louis Black that the boy needed discipline.
“Louis,” the sheriff said, “I’ve known this cousin of yours now for a few years. He’s only getting wilder as he’s approaching manhood, and he’s only gonna get harder to control. Why not let me take him off your hands for a few months?”
“You really want him, Enos?” asked Louis.
“I can make a man out of him,” said the sheriff. “I used to be in the army, you know. Made it all the way up to drill sergeant. I’ll make him strong and feel good about himself. I think that’s why he does what he does. He hates himself. I mean, hell, I would hate myself too if I looked like a drowned rat.”
So at seventeen Zachary Black moved to the Lucas farm just outside Taloola. He carried a satchel that contained the few things besides clothes he seemed always to need since childhood—a pocketknife, a dirty magazine, and a slingshot. There was one other item in the satchel. It was the preserved face of the deformed pig that he’d slaughtered along that dusty road near Taloola.
Sheriff Lucas led Zachary to a small shack behind his own house. It was clean but spartan, with only a straw-mattress bed, a small table, an
d one chair. Zachary made his feelings known that this wasn’t good enough for him, but Enos Lucas just laughed and said, “We’re starting at dawn tomorrow. Be ready.”
Zachary Black awakened to the sound of a man screaming in his ear, “GET THE HELL UP AND OUTTA THAT BED, YOU PIECE OF MAGGOT SHIT!” It was Sheriff Lucas, and he was about to begin transforming this skinny, rat-faced boy into a strong young man.
Every morning the two ran together for five miles, a regimen that in the first few days made Zachary Black throw up halfway through the course. Then they took turns four or five times climbing up a thirty-foot rope to the barn’s uppermost beam, after which they would do sit-ups. On the first few days Enos Lucas was lenient, making Zachary do only fifty. Every other day he’d increase the number by twenty, until eventually the boy could do two hundred sit-ups.
By the end of the first month Zachary had made exercise an important and normal part of his daily routine. He would exercise in the morning by running five miles, carrying sacks of grain from one side of the barn to the other, and doing both push-ups and sit-ups. He then would spend the afternoon figuring out new ways to build up his muscles. One of these ideas involved lifting rocks tied up in a net and attached to a rope swung over a beam in the barn. This exercise allowed Zachary to build up his triceps, shoulders, and upper back. Then he’d take the same set of rocks, tie another rope to it, and pull it up toward his chest with his palms facing upwards, thereby building up his biceps.
It became evident to Enos and Louis that after three months with the sheriff Zachary had changed from a violent teenager to a strong man, but now a very dangerous man.
By the time Zachary was eighteen, his face had begun to fill out. His nose, once pointy and narrow, was now shorter and fuller. His hair had begun to show blond highlights due to his long hours in the sun, and his formerly pale skin was tan. Although his appetite for destruction and inflicting pain was still rampant, outwardly Zachary Black had bloomed into a handsome man.
Embracing Darkness Page 53
