“I don’t get what’s going on in your head. I don’t understand whatever kind of ability you have, what kind of pain you’re going through, how much influence you can have on people. Honestly, it’s a little unbelievable…but I believe it. I’ve seen too much crazy shit to not at least think it could be real. And it’s a little scary. But no matter what it is, no matter what it means, please know that you’re right, what we did I wanted to do. Maybe not in that way, but I still wanted it. Just please…let me go about it in my own way next time, okay?”
Marcy nodded. “Okay. You don’t hate me, right?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good. I couldn’t live with that.”
“Actually, I think I’m starting to love you. In a big way.”
Marcy’s eyes widened and she felt a grin stretch across her lips. Without thinking about it she leaned in and kissed him again, this time thinking of nothing but her own feelings, her own wantonness. He gave that passion back to her, tongue flitting, hands groping. Their breathing accelerated, and she had to pull back.
“Whoa,” she said, fanning herself with her hand.
“See?” Leon said. “You don’t need to persuade me. I can get there on my own.”
She smiled at him, he smiled back, and once more they embraced. They lay back on the bed, holding each other and staring at the ceiling. It was comforting, just sharing in each other’s company, and never once did the invading thoughts re-emerge and fill Marcy’s mind. She harbored dreams that this would last forever, that the pain would never return and she would live a life of mutual admiration with this breathtaking man.
It was a wonderful fantasy, but one that only lasted until the apartment door caved in and soldiers ran shouting into the room.
* * *
Cody leaned against a tree just outside the grounds of the University Forest Apartments, a collection of single-level cottages set at the rear of the campus. It lived up to its name, looking like the hunting lodges he’d gone to with his grandfather when he was younger. It was rustic, peaceful, and presumably safe.
Someone grunted. Cody turned to the men behind him—Reverend Handley and seven of his followers, as well as six soldiers from Lumley’s crew, in addition to Herb and Garrett—and put a finger to his lips, shushing them.
From his vantage point, set far back from the parking lot and hiding in the shadows, he could see the facades of twenty or so cottages. There were people outside, hanging around, talking, laughing, cavorting. A few children gathered on the pavement, using the parking spaces as forts while playing an impromptu game of capture the flag. Cody sighed, again thinking back to his childhood. He’d loved playing that game. It was too bad these kids wouldn’t get to do so much longer.
“What the hell are we waiting for?” whispered Handley, obviously seething. “My boys are anxious. Let’s move in.”
“Shut it, asshole,” Cody snapped back. “We go when I say we go.”
The truth was, he’d gone through the register back at the main dormitories, searched every face among the women present, before sending them all off—separated into male and female groups—to their final cataloging. He’d actually thanked Lumley when the process went off without so much as a questioning word. These folks had lived footloose and fancy-free for more than a week. They probably expected job placement or something like that, which less than half of them—if that—would receive.
But for all his face-scanning, the girl he’d drooled over in the lobby when he showed up at the Omni was nowhere to be seen. Finally he gave up, assuming she’d taken up residence with the blacks, especially since she’d been escorted by two of them that day.
Finally, he struck paydirt. A man he recognized strode into view—young, strapping, strong, intelligent. He walked across the parking lot, high fived a few kids, and headed for one of the rear cottages. Excitement filled Cody, but also a sense of relief. If his girl was in there, he could get her out before dealing with the rest of the riffraff.
After the man disappeared, Cody signaled for those behind him to move forward, quietly. They snuck along the grounds, staying out of sight, and circled around once they reached the access road at the rear of the campus. Then they moved more forcefully, not worried so much about the noise they made as they were behind the line of buildings, and emerged from the trees.
Cody crept onto the lone step in front and pressed his ear to the door. He heard a woman scream. His heart rate quickened and he lifted his rifle. Then another sound came to his ears, this time a man’s voice, equally fierce and ardent. The two voices merged, becoming one as they shouted a series of grunts and moans.
There was no beating going on in there. They were fucking.
“Shit, no.”
He leaned to the side and peered through the window, hoping he didn’t see what he thought he would. And as his eyes scanned the interior he saw her, the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about, naked, breasts heaving while the black man atop her jerked his hips back and forth, violently.
Cody drew away from the window and ran his fingers through his hair. He shouldn’t have looked. He shouldn’t have let his curiosity get the best of him. Now there was no way he’d be able to get the image of his head.
He growled under his breath.
“What the hell are we doing?” someone asked. It was Handley again. Cody had to fight the urge to put a bullet through the impatient bastard’s forehead.
“We’re waiting,” he barked in reply, flipping the Reverend off and pointing to his rifle.
Handley backed off.
The frenzy inside the cottage died down. Soon there was nothing but heavy breathing, then raised voices, then whispers. He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, but by the way his men fidgeted he figured it had to be longer than ten minutes. He pressed his ear to the door once more, heard the two of them engaging in a calm, quiet conversation, and beckoned Herb and Garret to come forward with the ram.
Cody stepped aside as his two trusted subordinates ran up to the door, swung the steel barrel back, and then slammed it forward. The door, a flimsy particleboard construction, virtually disintegrated on impact. Cody grabbed the guy behind him, a kid with slicked-back hair and dark, Asian features, and said, “Grab her.”
When he rushed into the room, the two of them were sitting on the bed, mouths hanging open, looking comically shocked. Cody dashed to his right before either could move and brought the butt of his rifle down on the black man’s face. Bone smashed and blood flew, and the guy’s head snapped backward. The girl beside him—his girl—screamed, but the other soldier had his hands on her, lifting her off the bed with the help of another man before she could do anything rash.
Cody didn’t give his target a chance to recover, coming down with on him with the stock again and again. “How… dare… you… touch… my… GIRL!” he shrieked between thrusts. The guy’s face caved in with each progressive blow, becoming a ghastly shadow of the attractive thing he’d been before. Only after he stopped moving, after his brains started painting the wall along with his blood, did Cody stop swinging.
That’s when he heard the screams. They were the girl’s admonitions, combined with annoying sobs, piercing his eardrums like a giant needle. He twirled on his toes.
“Shut up!” he yelled.
She didn’t.
He stormed across the short span between them, raised his gore-stained rifle, and brought it down on the top of her head. The crazy chick didn’t even blink when he did so. Cody grunted in aggravation as her head slumped forward and her cries came to an end. The two soldiers hoisted her sagging form and exited the cabin. Cody followed.
Once outside, he faced Handley and his men. “Okay, I got what I came for,” he said. “Now you can do whatever the fuck you want with the rest. We’re outta here.”
He had a party to plan, after all.
-4-
Talking echoed through the spacious hall. It was almost deafening. Soldiers guarded every exit, looking just as li
kely to kill as protect.
Christopher sat behind a table along with a few other boys around his age. The prevailing sentiment he could gather from those around him was confusion. They’d been separated by gender and taken away from the campus under the assumption they were going to now be integrated into the rest of society. But as the busses pulled away, he first noticed the girls were headed in a different direction. The second thing was that Mr. Mathis and the rest of his lot weren’t present. Both these facts, along with the scowling faces of those standing guard, combined to make him quite nervous.
A pair of double doors swung open and a legion of men in different colored fatigues stormed into the room. Those in the lead pointed at certain tables, and the occupants of those tables were led away at gunpoint, all the while shouting their disapproval. Every person taken away was older, including a good number of Forrest’s cop buddies. That’s when Christopher realized that Forrest wasn’t there—and neither were Dr. or Mrs. Terry—which ratcheted up his panic even more.
The soldiers moved down the line, glancing at the clipboards in their hands, rifling through the pages upon them, randomly selecting certain individuals. One of them—a thick, older man wearing a dark green uniform—stopped in front of him. The man fiddled with his black SNF sash, and then he drew his eyes up.
“Christopher Mahoney?” he asked.
Christopher nodded.
“Please step over there.”
Christopher complied, following the man’s finger and awkwardly stepping through the mass of people until he reached a grouping of chair-and-desk setups that looked a lot like those he used to sit at in school. The man who’d chosen him mouthed sit down. Christopher did. The metal frame of the desk-chair combo creaked when he slid into the seat. It was a frightening sound, one that seemed to echo the fear he felt in his gut.
It took quite a while, but eventually another soldier approached him. This one was younger, with a head of sandy-blonde hair and wearing a deep blue, button-up outfit that made him look like a militant chef. The young man introduced himself as David Pyle, pulled up a chair, sat across from him, and stared at the papers on his clipboard. His eyes scanned back and forth, reading whatever was written there, but didn’t say a word. There was something about his mannerisms—the youthful way he flung his hair to the side, the way he chewed on the cap of his pen, his habit of looking up and speaking to himself as if trying to do math in his head—that set Christopher at ease.
Finally, the guy glanced up. “So, Mahoney, eh?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“That Irish?”
“I guess so.”
“Any other nationalities you know about?”
“Um…English, Scottish, Dutch, and a little Indian. Oh, and some German, too. On my mom’s side, I think.”
David nodded. “Well, you have the hair.”
Christopher shrugged.
“So you like hockey?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Were you good?”
“Sure.”
“Athletic?”
“I guess.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“What order?”
“Huh?”
“What type of church did you attend?”
“Oh. Methodist.”
“Acceptable. And how did you feel about the socio-economic depravity on display when attempting to falsely classify differing ethnic groups as equals in the time before the Day of Reckoning?”
Christopher’s eyes bulged and he stuck out his bottom lip. He said nothing.
“Good. No answer is better than the wrong one.”
The guy then took a page from the back of his clipboard, set it on top, and began scribbling on it. His eyes took on a wild, frenzied look as he worked. When he was finished, he slid the paper across the table.
“Congratulations, Mr. Mahoney,” he said. “You’ve been chosen.”
“Huh?”
David stood up. “As a fit young man of suitable lineage and faith, you have been selected to join the civilian ranks of the COC division of the SNF. You will join your outfit immediately, be given a uniform, bunk with your new brothers, and learn the art of civil defense. Your group is set to train under the 3rd Combat Division of the SNF Ground Forces—otherwise known as the Marauders.” He cupped his hand to his mouth. “Most of them are actually what’s left of the 42nd Airborne, from back when the US was still the US, so you got great teachers. But be careful. They’re vicious.”
“What the hell?” Christopher gasped.
“After your training, you will be regulated to the Lakeside area, where the rest of the COC resides. Your escort will be here to retrieve you and the rest of the recruits in a half-hour. God bless you.”
David saluted, bowed his head slightly, and turned to walk away.
“Wait!” Christopher shouted.
David came back over to the table. “What is it, Mr. Mahoney?”
“What the hell is this? What’s the COC? What’s the SNF? This don’t make sense!”
“Oh, kid,” said David, grinning. “You guys really were kept in the dark over there, weren’t you? Anyway, COC is our segment of society—The Church of Creation, under the leadership of Reverend Jacob Handley.”
“And SNF?”
“Those are the initials of the military arm of the New United Brotherhood. To most it stands for Soldiers of Newfound Freedom, but to us…let’s just say we’ve changed the meaning to fit our mission statement.”
“What’s that?”
David pointed at the paper he’d slid across the table, his fingertip resting right above the letterhead. He then swiveled and marched away. This time, Christopher didn’t call him back.
He read the words on the paper instead.
Society Nigger Free.
Christopher’s world began spinning, and he slammed his forehead against the desk.
-5-
Racism is dead.
I could not tell you how many times I have heard that very statement over the years. I argued with my colleagues endlessly while they waxed poetic, speaking of the advancements the African American community had made over the years in education, living conditions, and earned wages. Many of them thought these facts to be self evident, yet all one must do is peel back a single societal layer to see the river of ugliness flowing beneath.
No more do I question why they made such claims, for I now understand fully the nature behind them. The individuals who purported these statements—including a small number of my fellow African-Americans—were afraid. They were afraid of becoming insignificant, afraid that within the ills of society they might find those same ills inside themselves, afraid of upsetting the Status Quo. It is this last fear that is most ubiquitous, for now I sit here, in a place that had once been beautiful, and all I see is ugliness disguised as splendor.
I have been watching. For ten days I have glimpsed around corners, snuck through trails, peered over the walls that separate us. What I see is a lie, a culture built upon falsehoods and communal fear, both perpetuated by the chain of command. Most non-black faces I see greet me with one of three emotions—scorn, dread, or apathy. The scornful cast daggers at me with their eyes; the fearful cower, quickly moving as far away as possible; the apathetic do not give a second glance. And of all these emotions, the third—the lack of emotion—I find to be the most common. Why is it they pay me no heed, even though there are none other like us in all of the city, so far as I have seen?
I ask myself why. Why do I find those of Hispanic and Asian descent, but none of African or Middle Eastern? And afterward, when I have thought on it for long enough, I think myself obtuse for not realizing that the answer is plain to see, and should be for anyone with a cognitive mind..
We have become scapegoats, a tool to unite the people, nothing more.
It is like slavery all over again.
So now I think back to that statement—racism is dead—and cannot help but laugh at how erro
neous it was. Of course racism is not dead. It has been bred into the populace since the day the first society bloomed. Our great-grandfathers taught it to our grandfathers, our grandfathers taught it to our fathers, our fathers taught it to us. And we have facilitated the stigma every step of the way, embracing our role as the subjugated, the helpless, the flawed. Even when we attempted to pull ourselves up and out, we fell back into the same old traps. Modern rap music is a textbook example. The movement began as a tool for our youth to chant to their brothers, to poetically tell the tale of their struggles, to let those like them know you are not alone in what you feel. But through popularity and a media culture always seeking the next throwaway moneymaker, it became tinted with self-hatred. For every black man made rich beyond belief, there were still thousands who starved. For every black youth forced to contemplate their path in life, there were ten white children for whom NIGGER became a common and acceptable term.
Racism is dead? What an absolute joke. To utter such a thing is to draw the shades of your own mind, to huddle in the warm, wet darkness of ignorance and denial, telling yourself you are not a bad person, not a bad person, not a bad person. That same mantra is what allowed the situation here in Richmond to occur, for all the militias and hate groups that had been rising in popularity over the years to band together and form the core of what we now see. And to think we are only in the south. I cannot imagine what it is like right now out west…
“William?”
Billy glanced up from his notepad, squinting against the afternoon sun. He put down his pencil—now just a nub, one that hurt his fingers to use—and rubbed his hands together. Grass rustled under the blanket he sat upon as he shifted to a more comfortable position. A hand fell on his knee, and he turned to the woman beside him.
Cloris Adams was a nurse. She had a thin nose, wide eyes, well-manicured eyebrows, and skin many shades lighter than his. She was older than him—forty-nine, to be exact—and yet her flesh held not a single ripple, making her seem ten to twenty years younger. The first time she spoke to him back at the Omni, she’d seemed cold, shrewd in her choice of words. Her shrewd Pakistani heritage bled out with every word she uttered. Almost immediately he wanted to find out more about her.
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