The Girls With Games of Blood

by Alex Bledsoe

  And yet Clora stirred something unfamiliar inside him. He had no doubt the girl was as racist as those white-sheeted community leaders he’d witnessed as a child, but he wondered if there was something more to it. Perhaps the racism was just a sense of isolation, expressed the only way she knew how. It wasn’t, he pondered, that different from his own existence. He, too, was isolated, and spoke only in the language of his kind, which in its view of the living was every bit as prejudiced.

  But was that a valid comparison? And if it was, what did it explain about his confused, and confusing, feelings for the girl?

  He was so engrossed in this that he walked right into the ambush.

  The blow across the back of his legs knocked him down, and he tasted dirt as he landed face-first. There was no real pain, just the odd sense of being suddenly out of control. He lay still for a moment, listening as the attackers left their hiding places. There were four of them, and they had him surrounded.

  “I got him,” an excited male voice cried, almost cracking with excitement. “Did you see that? I got him!”

  “Shut up, Tiny,” a more authoritative voice said.

  “Holy shit, it’s a fuckin’ coon,” said a third.

  “She’s banging a nigger,” the last one said with more surprise than anger.

  Leonardo got to his knees, but was struck across the back with the bat. “Stay down in the dirt, nigger, where you belong!” the one called Tiny said.

  Leonardo did as ordered. It was so dark a normal person would make out only shadowy forms, but he had no trouble seeing their faces. They were all teenage white boys. Leonardo even recognized one of them: Bruce Cocker.

  “What you want to do with him, Bruce?” a tall, acne-spotted boy said. He had the swagger of a schoolyard bully, and the smile of someone who enjoyed hurting people.

  “Yeah,” added the fat one called Tiny. “If he needs another smack, let me know.”

  Bruce crouched in front of Leonardo. The boy’s gaze was cold and completely sober. “Depends on his attitude, I suppose.”

  Leonardo had seen that look before, the gaze of a white man certain his woman had crossed the color line. He smiled. “Hard for me to tap-dance for you while I’m down here, massah.”

  Bruce didn’t change expression. The acne-ridden boy appeared over his shoulder and whispered in his ear like some devil. “You’ve eyeballed him enough. Let’s teach him a lesson, like we planned.”

  “Clora’s my girl,” Bruce said to Leonardo. “And you been putting your hands all over her, haven’t you?”

  Leonardo raised one hand, the palm dirty from the ground, and looked at it in mock surprise. “This hand? Lordy, massah, I swear I ain’t.”

  Bruce smacked him openhanded. The blow wasn’t particularly powerful, and Leonardo absorbed it with ease. But he acted as if it hurt, and yelled in mock pain.

  “Integration was the worst thing ever happened to this country,” Tiny said in disgust. “These stuck-up darkies need a fucking lesson. Ain’t that right, Travis?”

  “You know it, Tiny,” the bespectacled one named Travis said, and slapped hands with the fat one.

  “Tie him up, Travis,” Bruce said as he straightened. “But don’t use the long rope. We’ll need that later.”

  Travis grabbed Leonardo’s hands and crossed his wrists at the small of his back. He tied him badly, using multiple pointless loops. Even if he’d been bound well, Leonardo could’ve easily broken free; but now he was curious to see if they’d really go through with what they clearly intended.

  “Get up,” Bruce said, and nudged him with his foot. Leonardo got to his knees, his eyes open extra wide to convey mocking minstrel-style fear. Bruce nodded to his pimply friend. “Dave?”

  “All the way up on your feet, you stupid tar baby,” Dave said, and kicked him for emphasis.

  Leonardo complied, head down to hide the attack of giggles building in him at the situation’s absurdity.

  Bruce grabbed a handful of Leonardo’s Afro and jerked his head back. “Something funny, nigger?”

  “Not a thing,” Leonardo managed to say with a straight face.

  “So how’d you meet Clora, anyway? Her daddy don’t let her out of his sight.”

  Leonardo’s lip trembled as he tried not to laugh. To Bruce it looked like terror.

  “Don’t matter how,” Dave said. “He knew not to cross the line. Your daddy never told you what used to happen to niggers who even looked cross-eyed at a white girl?”

  “Oh, lawsie, sir, I never knew who my daddy was,” Leonardo said with a grin.

  Dave punched him awkwardly over Bruce’s shoulder. Again Leonardo reacted quickly, rolling with the slap to keep from breaking the boy’s hand. Dave then spat in his face.

  Leonardo clenched his teeth and fought the desire to rip his hands free. He glared at Dave and said, “You mighty tough when you’re in a bunch. How about you untie me and try that one on one?”

  Dave just grinned. “Fuck you, nigger.”

  Leonardo wrenched his head free from Bruce’s grip. This game was quickly losing its charm. “Yeah, I been all over your pretty little Snow White up in her tower. I wrung her out so good, she begs me not to go every time I leave. She ever beg you?”

  Bruce stared at him, his expression more hurt than angry.

  “Cut his nuts off, Bruce!” Travis urged.

  At last Bruce asked calmly, “Do you know who I am?”

  “Just some pasty white asshole with a dick the size of my pinkie finger,” Leonardo said with a grin.

  “C’mon, quit talking, let’s teach this jungle bunny a lesson,” Dave said, jumping around in his fury.

  Tiny smacked the bat against his open palm. “Let me work on him some more.”

  Bruce stepped close to Leonardo and said, just loud enough for him to hear, “I’m Bruce Cocker. My daddy is Byron Cocker. That means I can pretty much do anything I want in this county and get away with it. You understand me?”

  Equally soft, Leonardo said, “Takes a big man to hide behind his daddy.”

  Bruce scowled, then spit in Leonardo’s face. Dave howled with laughter, while Travis and Tiny slapped high fives. Bruce whirled and said, “Keep it down, you dumb-asses. And bring him on.”

  They pushed Leonardo through the woods until they reached a clearing where a large oak tree rose into the night sky. “You know what this place is?” Dave asked Leonardo. “My daddy told me they used to hang uppity niggers from this-here tree. If you look close, you can see the scar in the branch where the ropes dug in.”

  With his vampiric night vision Leonardo had no trouble seeing the mark. He’d seen plenty of them on old trees throughout the South. He looked around at the boys. None of them was out of high school, and only Dave seemed to really be motivated by genuine racial hatred. Bruce acted out of jealousy, and the other two simply wanted the approval of their cool friends.

  Dave took the long rope and began expertly tying a hangman’s noose. “My daddy showed me how to do this. Said sometimes a man has to take the law into his own hands, because some folks just need killing. Know what I mean, nigger?”

  Leonardo stared at the noose, recalling the swinging bodies of slain men from his childhood. The reality of the situation drained the last bit of the humor from it. He stood up straight, looked Dave in the eye, and said coldly, “My name is Leonardo. You can call me Mr. Jones.”

  Dave smacked him across the face with the rough noose. “Your name is whatever I call you, boy. I am a white man, and you will respect that.”

  This time Leonardo did not pretend the blow hurt. “I don’t see a man anywhere around me. Just a bunch of chicken-shit cracker boys.”

  The rage in Dave’s face was something to see, but before he could respond Bruce got right in Leonardo’s face. “We’ll see how funny this is when you’re dancing in midair.”

  “Hey, y’all, wait a minute,” Travis suddenly said. “You know where we are? This is old Mama Prudence’s property. That’s her house over yonder.�
�� He pointed to a dark house through the trees. “They say she’s a witch. Maybe we should, I dunno, go somewhere else?”

  “Jesus Christ, are you six years old?” Bruce said. “She’s just an old lady. My daddy has to take her groceries to her.”

  “Maybe this ain’t a good idea in general,” Tiny said, his voice trembling. “I mean, he’s colored and all, but this is still, like, murder, ain’t it?”

  Dave ignored them and said, “Somebody put that bucket under the noose.”

  Travis put the metal bucket in place. Dave tossed the rope over the branch, then put the noose around Leo’s neck. As he cinched it tight he said, “Beg for your life, nigger, and you might see the sunrise.”

  Leonardo laughed. “I wouldn’t beg you to piss on me if I was on fire.”

  Dave spat in his face. He pulled on the rope, forcing Leonardo to climb onto the bucket. Bruce tied the loose end of the rope around the tree trunk, and Leonardo stood on tiptoes to keep the pressure off his neck.

  The boys silently watched him. The reality of their act registered on Tiny and Travis, but Dave was positively gleeful and Bruce remained enigmatic.

  “Last chance, nigger,” Dave said. “Beg for your life, and we’ll let you down.”

  Leonardo laughed, and directed his words to Bruce. “You know what your girlfriend told me about you, big man? She said, ‘Lordy, he got this thing between his legs that looks just like a man’s dick . . . only smaller.”

  Bruce’s face went cold with rage, and he kicked the bucket out from under Leonardo’s feet. “That’s it, man!” Dave cheered.

  The rope yanked tight. Leonardo gurgled and kicked.

  “Hey, I think the joke’s, like, over,” Tiny said. “He’s gonna get hurt.”

  “Fuck him,” Dave said, eyes alive with amusement.

  “Yeah,” Bruce muttered. “Fuck him.”

  Tiny and Travis exchanged a look, but neither had the courage to face Dave and Bruce.

  Leonardo made the convulsions weaker, until he finally hung limp, his tongue hanging out. He swung in a slow arc, his feet grazing the bucket.

  For a long moment the only sounds were insects and wind. Finally Dave stepped up to the hanging body and put his ear to Leonardo’s chest. He listened for a long moment, then said, “He’s dead, all right.”

  “Shit,” Travis said, his voice trembling. “We gotta get outta here.”

  “Just hold it right there,” Bruce commanded. “Nobody’s panicking. We did this, and now we’re gonna walk away. Nobody seen us, there ain’t nothing to tie us to this boy, and believe me, the sheriff ain’t gonna look too hard at one more nigger suicide.”

  “That’s right,” Dave said. He stepped behind Leonardo, uncinched his hands, and pocketed the twine. “So let’s just get back to our car and have a beer and a toke.”

  “And if any of you say a word about it, remember we can all be charged as adults. Remember that.” Bruce glared at his two friends, trying for the expression his father used on recalcitrant informants. It seemed to work.

  He went over to Leonardo and gave him a shove. His body swung in the night, the tree branch creaking under his weight. “Fuck you,” he spat. Then he walked away without a word. His friends quickly followed.

  CHAPTER 19

  “YOUNG MAN. YOUNG man!”

  Vampires did not lose consciousness in the standard way, but their minds could wander so that it appeared to outsiders that they had, in fact, passed out. Leonardo’s mind had wandered that way, into memories of humid South Carolina nights and the terror of white-hooded figures moving through the Spanish moss. Now he was yanked back to the moment by a sharp blow from a stick.

  “Ow!” he said, startled rather than hurt. He opened his eyes, and for an instant his swaying view of the world disoriented him. Then he remembered.

  “Don’t ignore me when I’m speaking to you,” the woman standing below him said in a thick drawl. She waved the stick like a rigid schoolmistress.

  It was still dark, but Leonardo saw her clearly. She was white, and wore an antique black dress with lace at the collar and wrists. Blond hair was piled high on her head in an outdated style. Despite these antiquarian signs, she appeared around thirty years old, and was beautiful in that cold European way. He instantly knew that she, too, was a vampire. She barked, “Now you come down from there this instant and tell me what in blazes you think you’re doing hanging there.”

  Leonardo reached up, grabbed the rope holding him with both hands, and pulled until it snapped. He landed silently and tossed the noose aside. “Lady, some crackers lynched me.”

  “I know, I saw that.”

  “And you didn’t say anything?”

  “You could easily have freed yourself, had you wished to do so. I’m wondering why you didn’t.”

  He brushed detritus from his jeans and felt his neck. The rope left little ridges in his skin. “Seemed easier to just go along with it.”

  “Really?” she asked dubiously.

  “And I wanted to see if they’d actually do it.”

  “You had any doubt?”

  He looked up at the rope end still swaying above him. “I guess not. Just hope, maybe.”

  She scowled, so that her face took on a pinched look as if she’d smelled something foul. “Hope for your kind is a misplaced and pointless indulgence.”

  He turned to her. “My kind? In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re the same.”

  She snorted. “Oh, hardly. You and I are very different, as anyone can see.”

  So as he always suspected, even the undead had a color line. After what he’d just been through, it surprised him but didn’t enrage him as it might have otherwise. He managed a slight smile and said, “Right. I’ll just be on my way, then, Missus Massah.” He was glad he parked the truck in a different place, where perhaps the rednecks hadn’t found it.

  “Wait,” the woman called after him. “I’m sorry, I’m not behaving like a lady. My etiquette tutor would turn in her grave. You’re right, making an issue of mortal demarcations is pedantic. You’ve been mistreated here, and it’s my duty to see that you’re taken care of.”

  He stopped and looked at her skeptically. “Why yours?”

  “This is my land. This old tree was planted the same year I was born.”

  Leonardo started to reply, but something struck him anew. As she moved into a clear shaft of moonlight, the woman looked uncannily familiar. “Do I know you?”

  She laughed at his presumption. “I don’t believe we move in the same circles.”

  He took a hesitant step toward her. Man, she did look familiar. “My name’s Leonardo Jones. Ma’am,” he added, with fake but hopefully passable humility.

  “I am Miss Prudence Bolade,” she said haughtily. “Owner of the Bolade mansion and plantation you see through the trees.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment. Each was ready to fight should the other attempt to exert any vampiric influence, but neither did so. Finally Prudence said, “To make amends for your treatment on my property, Mr. Jones, why don’t you come in for a cup of tea?”

  “You drink tea?”

  “No, of course not. But I find the aroma delightful.”

  He smiled. “You inviting me in to sniff your tea?”

  “I’m inviting you in to get to know you. Since you and I are distinctive creatures operating in the same area, it behooves us to be civil, and to understand each other. The tea just provides a social structure.”

  “I got a friend uses big words like that,” Leonardo said. He sensed no danger, and if he was wrong, he deserved whatever happened. “Sure, I’ll sniff your tea.”

  She curtsied. “I am truly obliged.”

  He followed her through the woods to the back of the big, dark house. It sent shivers of memory through Leonardo as he recalled similar houses of his mortal youth, and the fear associated with them. Even though most white people were kind to him, or at least benignly indifferent, the knowledge that they could mistreat him with
impunity poisoned all relationships. This night’s experiences brought all that vividly back.

  Suddenly he realized where he was. This was the very house where he and Zginski had gotten directions that day they picked up his car. Now he knew why the woman looked familiar: she had answered the door that day, and even though she’d been old and wrinkled, he knew it had been her. Vampires didn’t age in the traditional sense, but if they went too long without feeding they withered, which often looked the same. And because it had been broad daylight, when his powers were weak, he hadn’t realized what she was. And because he was a Negro and thus beneath her notice, she didn’t recognize him now.

  He kept all this to himself. Zginski would be proud.

  They entered through the kitchen door, which would’ve been the servants’ entrance in earlier times. Leonardo was totally on guard, but nothing appeared from the darkness to attack him, and Prudence puttered around the kitchen exactly as she might have had she been mortal. She did not offer him a seat, however, and he stood by the door, hands in his pockets.

  “You know, there was a time when a young man of your race wouldn’t have been allowed in this house as a guest,” she said as she put the kettle on the stove. “Times have certainly changed for your people.”

  “I’m real tired of that whole subject for tonight,” Leo said wearily. He noted that here among the faded finery, her clothes looked appropriate. “So how long you been in this house?”

  “I was born here. This house is over a hundred years old, and I can remember when different things were installed in it. The spiral staircase in the foyer? My daddy had it shipped from a plantation in Murfreesboro. It doesn’t quite fit, so he had to cut one corner off the door that opens under it.”

  She handed Leonardo a saucer and cup. She took her own, closed her eyes, and inhaled the steam rising from it. “Nothing like the smell of mint tea on a summer night,” she said.

  Leonardo sniffed his. There was a coincidental similarity to the cologne one of his erstwhile murderers wore, but he ignored it. “Not too bad. You do this a lot?”