The Doomsday Papers

by JanJan Untamed

  “Please, I need to be by myself right now. There are some things I need to pray over.” I wipe my eyes with my hand and hope that he gives me my space.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

  “I’m sure. Thank you.”

  “Are you upset with me for sitting with them? We were talking, Duma. That’s all.”

  “No, I am not upset with anyone. Stop explaining something that doesn’t need explaining. I don’t care what you were doing. I am not the same woman who was stolen, Judea. I have some things that I need to work through. Being locked five minute’s underground changes people.”

  That isn’t it at all. I was over the hole the minute I smelled fresh air again. It’s this new family that I am trying to accept. I want to be in good standing with the church. Mother was right. I am protected here. There are bad people out there. Did a bad person chase her back?

  “You don’t have to work through it alone.”

  “Yes, I do. I want to.”

  “I don’t like leaving you like this.” He says in a low voice.

  “I’m not going to run off or do anything stupid, I promise.”

  “That isn’t what I’m worried about. I’m worried about you hurting alone. I am here for you. I won’t sit by them anymore if it upsets you. I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be back later to check on you.”

  “I want to sleep alone tonight.”

  “Duma, you sleep with me. How is sleeping apart going to help? I decline that request.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Whatever? You told me you like the wives. You said they are useful.”

  “Aren’t I nice to them? Aren’t I here? Don’t reprimand me for not being nice enough.”

  “Come off it. You know what I am talking about. You’re jealous. You’re so jealous that you can’t even look at me right now. I know you. I saw the way you looked at them and the way you couldn’t look at me. I don’t like it. Look at me, now.”

  I can’t. I don’t want him to see the war that I am waging inside because it isn’t going well. I am losing. I lost my obedience somewhere. I lost my place in the church. I lost my husband.

  “Duma? I made love to you all day long and now you won’t look at me?”

  “We aren’t the same, Judea.” We never will be again.

  “No. We aren’t the same. Look at everything we’ve been through. You especially, you’ve suffered so much. My love for you hasn’t changed.”

  Lies. Judea is lying to me. How can he say that when he is in love with three women? How can he love me as much as he did when it was only me? He had to push me out to let them in. His love means everything to me. Judea doesn’t love me the way I love him. The affection he has for those women is changing me. It is making me bitter. There is a wall building between us brick by brick in front of his face and I wonder if he sees it. A wall that will be taller and wider than our walls back home. A wall tall enough to keep us apart forever. His wives are Godly women and good to him. He could not ask for better wives. I don’t care. I don’t want to share my husband with them or any women.

  The traitor put things in my head that I didn’t consider at the time. I wrote him off as an ignorant outsider. He wasn’t supposed to understand and I didn’t care how he felt about me or my church. The traitor is cowardly. He gave me those books knowing I would get engrossed in fables of handsome knights and damsels in distress. I was drawn in and left sweating after I read “The Libertine and the Butterfly.” Why did he give me that book? What kind of twisted mind comes up with stories like that? I wanted to stop and cross myself after the very first page. It goes against everything preached on Sunday morning. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it right now. Still, among the darkness were flecks of beautiful light. Like stars in a midnight sky. Like Judea’s eyes when he laughs. Lights of love.

  There were stories about families like mine. Polygamy. That’s what commoners call it. They have a word for it. I have a few words for it, our choice. I was far more intrigued with the common relationships than polygamy. I don’t like that word. It sounds dirty. It sounds like I am saying pig. We are far more chaste and cleaner than commoners. Still, their men pursue and devote their lives to one woman forever. The way Judea used to talk about. How can we have that now? How can I kill them if he won’t let me? Am so I envious and hateful that I would kill a pregnant woman and her kin to have a man to myself? A man who willingly laid with them? A man that I thought belonged to me.

  “You want me to leave? Why?”

  “Because, I can’t fucking look at you right now. That’s why. Go back to playing house, Judea.”

  He’s stunned right down to his toes but I’m not. I am tired. I wasted my entire life bending and kneeling and working. I spent my entire life loving him.

  “Dumani, you’re speaking in anger.”

  “Speaking in anger? You call that speaking in anger? If I was speaking in anger, I would have called you a weak-bellied, spoiled, horny, little boy.” I feel gratification when I watch him turn red. I don’t give him a chance to cut in. “You even didn’t wait to see if I was dead or alive and you were already making new babies. I was out there thinking of nothing but bringing our son home to you and you were here fucking like a bull. How could you do it? You are your father all over again, you piece of shit.”

  My head snaps under the force of his slap. I’m stunned. I didn’t see that coming. His face is a mirror of mine. He’s more surprised than I am. He blinks. I blink too. This isn’t happening. I am dreaming and this isn’t happening. Judea did not just raise his hand to me. My face is stinging. He hit me alright. I reach up to touch the wet trickle on my skin. It comes away red. Red like the rage I feel right now. He looks disgusted with himself. He looks horrified. This is the love of my life. How could he hit me? How?

  “Oh God, Dumani. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know what came over me—”

  I punch him in his mouth and knee him in the place that a good girl wouldn’t mention. His dick. He’s hurt but not too hurt to drag me down with him. I am not a common girl. I can best most men in a fight. That bastard with the knife got lucky. I fight Judea like a stranger. I do my best to take my pain out on him. He isn’t fighting me back. He is doing a piss poor job of trying to restrain me after being weakened by the sucker punch and knee between the legs. I’m glad he’s hurt.

  “Duma, ease up.”

  My brother lifts me to my feet and tries to hold me back but I will not be denied my satisfaction.

  “I loved you for most of my unfortunate life, Judea Hamilton. I gave you a son. I saved your blessed, stinking, life. I crawled back here for you and I find you waiting for me in bed with them. You didn’t want me to come back.”

  “I never said that and I never once thought it. Don’t pretend you aren’t familiar with the ways of men, Duma. What I do with them has nothing to do with you.” There, he finally said it.

  “It has everything to do with me, you bastard. You couldn’t wait a full year for me? I could have been fucking too and probably enjoying it. The traitor is handsome and he is twice as charming.”

  “Dumani.” Jude says dangerously.

  “Dumani, what?” I shrug Titus’s hands away. “I’m done with this shit.”

  “Did you let him touch you? You fucked him, didn’t you? That’s why you ran back to him, you whore.”

  I am stunned again. That hurt more than his puny slap.

  “Like my mother, right?” I blink back tears.

  “Watch it, you son-of-a-bitch.” My brother balls his fists.

  He is accusing me of another man. Me. The one who wants him more than I want my place in heaven. I don’t know this man. I want nothing to do with him.

  “We are no longer married, Judea Hamilton. I declare us divorced.” I say calmly.

  “We are not divorced.” He hisses angrily.

  “I’m going down the hill right now and I am going to tell the Deacons that we are no long
er married. You are the only man I’ve ever been with. How dare you raise your hand to me and call me a whore? Fuck you, Judea. Yes. I said, fuck you. I’m going to tell the men that I let the traitor have me and Judea isn’t your son. This whore is leaving you.”

  “Over my dead body. You will have to kill me to get past me. If you want to go back to your traitor, just say it.”

  “Don’t you dare make this about me, Judea Hamilton. There is no love triangle. There is only the mess that you have going on here. I come home to my husband and find him an expectant father and lover to all. I might be cut and unpretty but I deserve better than a third.”

  “Duma, I love you.” His dark eyes fill with tears and I feel a ping of sympathy. I love him. It will always hurt me to see him in pain. I feel my own eyes water over and leak onto my cheeks. When he approaches me, I don’t kick him in the kneecap. I don’t step away. I don’t welcome him any closer. He pulls my scarf down under my chin before he takes my face in his hands. I can’t help but to look at him.

  “Dumani, I will die for you. All I want is you.”

  I don’t know what to do. I can’t stop loving him. I can’t stop wanting him. I am a slave for his love and I don’t want to be free. That part has nothing to do with brainwashing. This is the way I love him.

  “I’m sorry.” His plea weakens my defenses. “Please.”

  “Jude, don’t toy with my sister. If you are so sorry, what were you doing in your wife’s bedroom while Duma was sleeping today? You were in there for an awfully long time.” Titus cuts in on what I thought was a heartfelt moment. Judea goes past red to green. My mouth falls open in disbelief. He wouldn’t. Our eyes meet. He did. We made love for hours today and it wasn’t enough for him? This is the worst day of my life. I am going to kill him. I am going to kill him and make the hurt go away.

  “Duma, nothing happened.” He promises. Judea is a liar. I can’t trust his word. I storm out of the room and stand over the second wife with my knife in hand. She cowers like Lucifer has risen from the underworld bathed in fire and surrounded by screaming souls to drag her to hell. She’s afraid of me. My face disturbs her. Her fear exposes her disgust. I swallow down the hurt like an uncoated pill. My throat is dry and it is tough to swallow.

  “Did my husband make love to you today? If you lie to me I will—”

  “Yes! I asked him to. Don’t hurt me!”

  I have never felt this kind of betrayal before. It shakes me in ways I can’t explain. He left my bed and went to hers? It’s his right. It’s his duty to please his women. I feel faint and I don’t know how to deal with it. Screaming won’t help, but I am doing it anyways. I’m screaming like a maniac. I am crumbling inside. I drop the knife and go for the gun laying on the table instead.

  “Oh shit!” Titus grabs my hand and Judea grabs me from behind.

  “I never should have come back here! I hate you!”

  “Stop this. Or, I’m going to have to handcuff you for our safety. I can’t let you kill him, Duma. Jude’s like a brother to me.”

  I want him dead. I want to shoot him in his handsome face and put the gun to my own head. I’m tired. I’ve been too far and seen too much and I am so damn tired. I’m lost and confused and there is no one to show me the way. There is no one I can trust.

  “She wants to fucking kill me. Are you happy, Titus? Why would you tell her that?”

  “Why did you go in there and fuck her while she was sleep? That’s why I told her. Get the handcuffs out of my bag. We’ll cuff her to the chair until she calms down.”

  They aren’t expecting my back up. Belle wraps her arm around my brother’s neck and starts choking him. He doesn’t want to hurt her and she doesn’t want to hurt him.

  “Belle, this has nothing to do with you.” Titus pleads. He removes her arm without trouble. Jude kicks the gun out of my reach and takes me down again.

  “Stop this. I am not going to fight you. I’m sorry, Duma. You are right about everything. I was selfish and I disrespected you after everything you’ve done for me.”

  “I’m not good enough for you? Is that why you did it? You need more than I have.”

  “Baby, never.”

  “You are the biggest traitor and coward of them all, Judea. Get away from me. I won’t touch you. I don’t want to touch you. You smell like vagina. You didn’t even bother to wash yourself after you fucked her.”

  “Stop saying, fuck. It isn’t you.”

  I am disappointed when he retrieves the gun before I can. He unloads it and checks the chamber before putting it down again.

  “How do you know? How do you know what am I anymore? You know nothing about me.”

  “I know everything about you. I know you better than anyone. I don’t care where I poke my dick. I am half of a man without you.”

  “Those women filled my place before and they will do it again when I’m gone.”

  “Duma, you’ve been with Jude forever. It isn’t like he asked for more wives. They were forced on him. He’s the good Reverend’s son and he has no choice. Jude is the head of the church. Father wants me to take at least three women home with me to refresh our numbers. I plan to take four. He’s doing his part but it doesn’t mean he can sneak around behind your back and disrespect you. I won’t have it. If he wants to fuck them, let him be bold enough to do it while you’re awake.”

  “This isn’t what he promised me, Titus. He told me that it would be the two of us.”

  “Duma, you are one woman. There are thousands of us scattered around the country. We need a strong leader and Jude was born to be that leader. I won’t let him leave the church for you. I won’t let you leave him either. You need each other. This is not the time for your women’s liberation bullshit. We need changes in the church. Jude is the man that can make them happen. He can stop the canings and do away with the glass. Think about it.”

  My heart is racing. Judea is the good Reverend Hamilton. He is their messenger. He is their leader. They’ve obviously discussed this. I wonder what else they talk about when I’m not around? I make eye contact with my husband. He says he loves me. I believe him. What I don’t do is trust him. I don’t trust him a single bit. I can’t respect someone I don’t trust. I don’t care if he bans the cane. I respect the idea but it doesn’t soften his betrayal.

  “He can do all of that without me.”

  “No, we can’t. We need you, Duma. We need your intellect and your skills in the new church. It has always been the three of us. There is no reason to change it.”

  “Judea betrayed me. That’s my problem and nothing either of you say is going to make me want to be with him. I don’t want to be the first wife and rule the church with Judea. I want to go home and farm and raise my son free to read Mark Twain and listen to Snoop Dog. I’m ruined. I am as common as copper penny now. And honestly, I don’t want to change back either.”

  They’re looking at me like they are witnessing a phenomenon of some sort. Titus reacts first. His laughter is loud and catches me off guard. Jude is unsmiling with a hard face and narrow eyes. He looks like he wants to tear off my clothes and throw me down right here. Despite my new boldness, I flush. I’ll tell myself that the sweat on my face is from this constricting brown dress and the southwest heat. Not, Judea’s look.

  “Snoop Dog? What do you know about Snoop Dog? We never listened to Snoop. I bet you can’t name one of his songs.”

  “You can laugh all you want Titus Dare. Despite his controversial lyrics, his music is catchy. I liked Doggy Style. It was the most anticipated rap album ever.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that again.” Jude warns red-faced.

  “Don’t say what? Anticipated?”

  “Doggy style. Don’t say it. I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t either.” Titus agrees. I roll my eyes at them both.

  “Did you know that he has a satellite radio station now based somewhere in Africa? I read he chartered cruise ships and took people with him like Moses leading his
people out of Egypt. Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre have very interesting stories if you aren’t biased. ‘Straight Out of Compton’ was a decent film.”

  “Straight out of Compton? Where in the hell did you watch that? What else did you watch?”

  “I told you, Judea. I was treated very well during my confinement and I ate, read, and watched whatever I wanted. I listened to whatever I wanted on the Alpine stereo and no one made me kneel in glass. I drank a coke and ate pizza. It was greasy and the coke burned but at least I can say I tried it. No one stood over my shoulder and slapped my hand with a wooden spoon. None of the men in any of the books or movies had five wives. Only the polygamy stuff and it’s filed under taboo. I know what taboo means.”

  “Hold your tongue, Duma. You are the Goodwife. You don’t have to be the person you were but you can pretend to be her around other people. You can pretend until we change things.”

  “I don’t want to pretend, Titus. What do I care about how the church sees him? He didn’t care about me when he was fucking those—”

  “Jesus, Dumani. Mercy. I was foolish. Please don’t give them anymore reason to condemn you. Stop swearing.”

  “The Judea I knew would be defending me, not the church. I am disappointed in you.” I shake my head sadly. It has come to this. They have some master plan that I am supposed to go happily along with because it’s what I do. I go along. He is killing me today.

  “Dumani—”

  “Stop, Judea. This is a lost cause. I don’t want to travel alone and I need you to get back home. I will go along with this farce until we get to New York. I am staying with my mother when we get there.”

  “You are not.”

  “Jude, she’s giving us our way right now. Let her have hers. Maybe she’ll change her mind.”

  “Don’t encourage him, Titus. I’m not changing my mind. The problem is, I fell in love with a boy who grew up to be a man that I don’t respect.”

  Titus whistles low as he walks away and leaves us alone.

  “Your words cut me, Duma. They hurt like hell. What hurts me the most is knowing you aren’t lashing out in anger. You’re telling me how you really feel.”