Shella

by Andrew Vachss

  “No sir.”

  “After the Civil War, the niggers, the same ones who used to be slaves, they took over the South. Took it over. They were in charge. They owned the land, they owned the women. Naturally, white men could not tolerate this. That was the start of the Klan. And we’ve been moving forward ever since. Yes, there have been setbacks. But our real enemies have never been the niggers. Our real enemies have always been traitors. Traitors from within. We’ve got our list, and there’s more whites on it than blacks, I can tell you. Judges, senators, FBI agents. All traitors to the race.

  “That’s why those homo-sex-uals are so dangerous, son. Did you know that one of the real heroes of our movement was actually assassinated by one of his own men? Now that would be hard to explain except for one thing … it was a damn lovers’ quarrel! You understand? One fag jilted another fag, and we had a shooting. Now, the public doesn’t know this, but it’s a fact. The worst thing about a fag is how he thinks. So a queer can never be truly white, because he could fall in love with a nigger just like that!”

  His fingers made a bone-crack sound when he snapped them. I looked close at him, like he wanted me to.

  “You know why I’m telling you all this?”

  “No. But it’s good to know.”

  He looked over at the guy in the white shirt. Then he turned back to me.

  “You pretty good friends with Murray?”

  “I guess.”

  “He ever … act funny around you?”

  “No. I never saw him do that.”

  “You know what I’m getting at?”

  “Sure. I seen them before.”

  “In prison?”

  “Yes.”

  “In prison, you ever see a man with big, huge muscles, tattoos … and he’s still a queer?”

  “Sure,” I told him. It was the truth.

  “Keep your eyes open,” the leader said.

  After that, we had meetings every day. Like classes, with teachers. They had this big table, so big we could all fit around it. On the table they had little model cars, roads, and everything. Even a little armored car. They had maps. Not like maps you get in a gas station, black and white maps so big you could see the streets on them.

  Some days, the man in the white shirt told us how to do it. Other days, the leader told us why.

  They went over it again and again. Every time, they would ask a different guy the same questions. The man in the white shirt pointed at Murray. “What’s the procedure if you’re captured?”

  “I just say I want a lawyer. I don’t answer any questions. I just say I want a lawyer.”

  “Good! One of our lawyers will get to you eventually. Just remember, you may get some Jew Public Defender or something until we can get to you. Don’t speak to him either, understand? Wait for the word to get to you.”

  He looked around the room some more. “Billy, you’ve got the cash in the getaway car, okay? But when you approach the drop-off point, you see it’s covered. What do you do?”

  “I find someplace to hole up. I get off the road as soon as I can. Then I call the number and do whatever they tell me to do.”

  “Right! Now, what if you got a clear shot to make it back here with the money …?”

  “We never come back here. Never.”

  “Why?” the man said, turning his face so he was asking me.

  “So the cops don’t have an excuse to come in here,” I said. I knew all the answers by then, from listening.

  “Yes! This is sacred ground. We are all safe here. This is private property … remember how we talked about that? No cop, no FBI agent, no Treasury man, nobody from ATF … nobody comes in here without our permission. It’s like John here said … we can’t give them an excuse.”

  After the meeting, Murray slapped my hand, like he was proud of me for getting it right.

  I was watching a nature show on TV. It was quiet in the dorm. They showed different insects that looked like they were dangerous, but they weren’t. It was so other animals would leave them alone.

  Murray came in. He took off the little weights he wears around his ankles. He wears them around his wrists too. He came over to where I was. The show was just going off.

  “How old are you, John?”

  “Thirty-four,” I told him. Sticking as close as I could to the truth, like they had told me. The truth is I don’t know.

  “I’m twenty-nine.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You were in prison, right?”

  “Yeah, I was.”

  “More than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was never in prison. Never in the army either. Or an ex-cop, like some of the guys.”

  I lit a cigarette. A show about some kind of dancing was coming on.

  “You think it matters?” he said.

  “What?”

  “What I was saying, John? Not being in the joint, or the service … you know …”

  “No.”

  “You know, John, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings or nothing, but some of the guys, they think you’re not too bright. But me, I know better. You’re just quiet is all. I know you got a brain, that’s why I ask you stuff.”

  On the TV, people in white costumes were jumping around. Sometimes the men would catch the women in the air.

  “I never forget what you did, John. What you didn’t say, I mean. About the stuff in the trailer. We’re partners, you and me. Anybody fucks with you, they fuck with me.”

  He stuck out his hand. I shook it.

  There was a lot of training in the place. Everybody was always being trained for something. The men, anyway. There were women around, but I never saw them being trained.

  They practiced so much with the guns. Sometimes the noise was like a wave, it just kept coming.

  The Action Team was different. It was quiet. “They look at us different,” Murray said to me one time. “Because they know were on the team.” He meant some of the other guys. They looked at us all right—I saw that myself. But I didn’t think Murray got it.

  In the dorm, it was pretty much okay. There’s a bigger place over a few houses down. Like a tavern, I guess. They serve liquor, any kind you want. No charge. And they have a big-screen TV, pool tables, even waitresses. With their clothes on. It’s open all the time, I think, but people mostly go there only late in the day.

  Murray was always after me to go there. Most of the time I said no. One time I went with him. Some of the guys from another part of the camp were watching us. I always know when someone’s watching.

  Murray was wearing a black T-shirt, real tight, with the sleeves cut up high. It was a mistake, but I didn’t know how to tell him.

  I thought they’d start with him, but it was me. One of them banged a shoulder into me as I was carrying a couple of beers over to our table. The beer slopped over and some of it got on him. The guy who pushed me had long hair. A tall man, with fat, loose arms. He told me to watch where the fuck I was going, jabbed me hard in the chest with three fingers held together. I backed up. He came after me, shoving those three fingers at me, calling me names. Murray walked over, moving fast, tapped the guy on the shoulder. The man stepped away from me, three of his friends got up.

  “You want to play?” Murray asked the man.

  “I don’t play with faggots,” the man with the fat arms said. His friends laughed. Murray hooked him deep in the stomach. He didn’t know how to put his weight behind it—the whole punch was with his arm, but it was enough. The man went down to one knee, trying to breathe.

  Two of the man’s friends started toward Murray. I cocked the pistol in my hand. It made a loud noise, because everyone was listening. They all stopped.

  “Just them,” I said.

  “Come on, tough guy,” Murray said to the man on his knees.

  The man didn’t get up.

  “He’s a homo-sex-ual,” the leader said.

  “A fucking queer,” the guy with the shoulder holster said.

&nb
sp; “He’s on an Action Team. He knows the plans,” the guy in the white shirt said.

  “It’s up to you, son,” the leader told me. Then he walked out of the room.

  “He has to go,” the white shirt said.

  “You down to do it?” the shoulder holster asked me.

  I looked at him like I was stupid. But it only made things slower, it didn’t stop them.

  “It’s for the cause, John. For the Nation. This Murray, he’s dangerous. Probably a government agent.”

  “A government agent wouldn’t kill a nigger,” I told him. The acid test, like the crazy man said.

  The white shirt looked at the shoulder holster. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you’re right, John. But it doesn’t matter. Queers are unreliable. Like the leader taught us. They can’t be trusted. Murray … that’s a Jewish name too, I think. He’s gotta go, it’s already decided. I know the leader would personally appreciate it if you took care of it.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “It’s part of the price we pay, John. To be warriors of the white race. It’s not his fault he’s a queer, but that doesn’t matter … he’s a danger to us all.”

  They gave me the same gun I had taken with me to the trailers. It was just killing. I felt like I didn’t want to do it. I never felt like that before. I thought of Shella. How long I’d been there already. The leader.

  If I told them I didn’t want to kill Murray, I’d never get close to him alone.

  I walked in the dorm. Murray was lying on the bed. He had his shirt off. His hands were locked behind his head. When he does that, the muscles bulge in his arms and his chest. I walked over to him. He smiled. I raised the gun and pulled the trigger. I shot him in the chest three times. Then I shot him twice in the face.

  I heard people running out of the dorm.

  I sat down in the chair next to my bunk.

  The guy in the shoulder holster came in, two other men with him. He took the pistol out of my hand. Gave me a cigarette.

  He was talking to me. I wasn’t sure what he was saying. I heard one of the other guys whisper, “Just walked in and fucking blasted him right there.…”

  They rolled Murray’s body up in the blankets he was lying on and they carried him out. They took his bunk out too. One of them dumped Clorox on the floor and mopped it around. It made my eyes sting.

  The shoulder holster walked over to me. “You did great,” he said. “The leader said you were the right man, and he’s never wrong about people.”

  I went for a walk. Nobody said anything to me. In the woods, I saw a butterfly. A big one, black with little spots of yellow and blue. When I was a kid, in one of those places they kept me, I saw a butterfly come out, get born from a shell. I remembered it then, when I was walking. What I saw. It was brand new, wet. It flapped its wings to dry them off. I was watching it happen. One of the bigger boys came up. He was mean and nasty, asked me why I was crying. I didn’t know I was, until he said it. He grabbed the butterfly before it could fly away and he crushed it in his fist. He thought it was funny.

  They taught me not to cry in there.

  The next day, they took me to see the leader. This time, they searched me. Real close. Not as much as they did the first time, but they still touched me everywhere.

  “You’re gonna be alone with him,” the shoulder holster said.

  They opened the door and we walked in. The leader got up from behind his desk. He came over to me, stuck out his hand for me to shake. He looked over at the shoulder holster. They kind of nodded to each other and the shoulder holster walked out. He closed the door behind him.

  I was alone with the leader.

  He sat down behind his desk, pointed me to a chair.

  “You are a true warrior of the right, John,” he told me. “Sometimes it’s hard to do what is necessary … a man shows his true color under fire. You showed white. You showed right. On behalf of our people, I appreciate what you did.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re going to be spending some time with me every day from now on, learning some things. How’s that sound to you?”

  “Good.” Black dots jumped out on his face. Faint dots. I watched his mouth move while he talked, waiting for the dots to get darker. The door opened. The man with the shoulder holster came in.

  “There’s a call,” he said to the leader.

  The leader stood up. He made a sort of salute at me. I walked out. They both stayed in the room.

  I went over there every day. They always searched me. Nobody was allowed to be near the leader with a weapon, they said.

  One day, the leader got up, made a motion like I was to come along. We walked all around the compound. He was talking to me. About the race. Loyalty. A true white man. The shoulder holster was always close.

  Near the back of the compound, there was a whole lot of men standing around.

  “Here’s a treat,” the leader said. “Come on, John.”

  Men were standing around a ring. I thought it was going to be fighters until we got close. They stood aside so the leader could step up. I was right next to him.

  The ring was maybe fifteen feet across. A wood wall went all around it. It came to just past my knee. The floor was canvas. There was lines drawn on it.

  “You ever see one of these before?” the leader asked me. I saw the dogs then. “No,” I told him.

  He looked at his watch. “Roscoe’s the next match?” he asked the shoulder holster.

  The other guy nodded.

  It was quiet for a minute. Then men climbed into the ring, carrying dogs in their arms. The one closest to us was a big black dog with a white patch on his chest. The guy holding him said something to the leader—I couldn’t catch what it was.

  “That’s him!” the leader said.

  The other dog was white, with a black patch over one eye. One ear was black too. He was smaller than the black one. The guys with the dogs were rubbing them. One put his dog in a tub and gave him a bath. Money was flying all around, people betting.

  A man climbed in the ring, stood in the middle. He pointed at each of the men with dogs. They both nodded. Picked up their dogs and carried them forward. There was a line in the center. The referee stood on it. Each man came up to another line. They put their dogs down, held them between their legs, facing each other. The dogs were crazy to charge.

  “Go!” the referee said, and both dogs ran together.

  They fought hard, ripping. They locked together a couple of times, and the referee used a stick to break them apart.

  People were screaming. “He can’t be beat!” the leader yelled, right in my ear.

  Sometimes they would take the dogs into their corners. The men holding them would face them away from the center, looking at the wall, so they wouldn’t get crazy. They then would pick them up and bring them back to the center. When the referee said “Go!” they let the dogs free.

  They fought a long time. The white dog’s muzzle was all ripped, one of the black dog’s eyes was gone, somewhere on the floor. When they brought them back, the white dog couldn’t stand up.

  “Go!”

  The white dog crawled toward the black dog, ready to die. The black dog leaped on him. The white dog rolled on his back and nailed the black dog in the neck. Blood was all around his muzzle, but he couldn’t keep the hold.

  I figured it out. Every time they broke the dogs, it was a different dog’s turn to move forward first. If they didn’t go forward, they lost. If they did, one had to die.

  The black dog won every time they hit, but the white dog never quit.

  They faced them again, and the white dog crawled forward. He kept crawling. The black dog stood there, watching him. The white dog stopped. People screamed at him. A long time passed. The referee waved his arms.

  “He quit!” one guy yelled near the wall. He looked mad.

  “He’s dead,” another one said.

  The man was holding his white dog in his arms. I could see he was cr
ying.

  The man with the black dog came over to the leader. He held up his bloody dog like a prize.

  “Never defeated!” the leader said.

  We stayed there. After a while, the other guy came over to the leader, carrying his white dog.

  “You should be proud of him,” the leader said. “He was dead game.”

  The guy kissed his dead dog. “You hear that, Razor? You hear that? Dead game, boy! That’s you! Dead game!”

  He was crying when he walked away.

  I was mostly in the dorm by myself, nights. Sometimes I went for a walk, looked at the dark woods. I could never see anything.

  I was alone a lot with the leader, days. But I could never get the rhythm, never could tell when someone was coming in.

  “You learn anything from the fight?” the leader asked me.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Dead game, what that means for pit bulls, it means they never quit. That’s the quality you want, gameness. You know why we fight the dogs?”

  “To watch them?”

  “No, son. I know it must look like that, people screaming, betting, and all that. But the reason is to improve the breed. If you want a dog to be game, you have to test him. Only the true champions get to breed…. That way you get rid of the curs, the ones that will quit. You breed only game dogs, you get only game puppies, see?”

  “The white dog, it was game?”

  “All the way. Not a drop of quit in that beast.”

  “But it won’t breed.”

  “Well, no. It won’t. Only the best, John. Only the very, very best. What you want is pure.”

  He talked a lot to me about Valhalla. Where warriors go when they die. If they die the right way. It’s a perfect place for a man, he said.

  He told me about dying. How it can be perfect. A perfect sacrifice for the race.