by David McGhee
Chapter 15: Back to the beginning.
Every now and then he thought about it. Thought about how his life had been ruined. Malcolm sat on his black futon and could help but replay the horrible scene in his head over and over.
He was twenty one, happily married, and even had a child (a boy of two, Malcolm's pride and joy) when it happened. Malcolm had inherited land from his father as a wedding present and had gotten some slaves with his wife's dowry money. Back then everyone viewed them as property and Malcolm was no different. But he did have a little respect for them and found that they would work harder and be more productive if he treated them better.
Silly Malcolm... He quickly grew attached to them. Especially a young black man (nigger as he would fondly recall saying.... Again back then it was just a common name that held its usual derogatory status, but everyone said it, even the blacks) who showed himself to be quite smart. His slave name was George (he never was privileged to his African name) and he was all sorts of useful when figuring out how to do things and work tools that he had just picked up. Back then the cotton gin had yet to be invented but he found ingenious ways of getting around that crop. Like he'd use his own fine toothed comb to get all the seeds out of his load.
He grew to enjoy his observational remarks on slave life. He wasn't resentful but instead told him how God made everyone with a purpose. Malcolm admired this as at the time he was a devout Baptist. He knew that George would not get into heaven but that made him want to make his Earthly life a little more tolerable.
He would bring him food that none of the other slaves would get. Eventually after noticing him about to pass out in the field from heat stroke he quickly made him into a house hand in their sprawling Victorian mansion by the river. Malcolm remembered going swimming naked in that river as he did not want to ruin his cotton clothes. He usually brought his son along and tried very hard to make him enjoy the water. Although his son was not a fan of mud or the washing off that was required afterword. His wife, Elizabeth, had to adhere to the modesty laws and therefore could not go swimming with them. The bible had taught the colonies that women were of an unclean sort. She only had to be purified for thirty three days after the birth of their son, Adam. But he secretly saw Beth as her own person. She was good with the help and great at performing her duties to Malcolm, whether in the kitchen or in the bedroom. They did it so often that it was a wonder that she hadn't gotten pregnant again, although she appeared to not enjoy it as much as he did but then again he was the husband. It was his God given right to make love to her.
He observed the tradition of not speaking or looking at her when she was menstruating as per the bible's request and the urging of the church. He was not allowed to bring her to the Sunday services when she was doing so. Once he had made love to her while she was unclean and the red sticky blood had stuck to his black pubic hair and smelled awful for days on end. Plus when he went to the outhouse that morning after he found his urethra closed from the dried blood on his glands. He did not punish her for it though. He really wished that there was a way to tell her he loved her when she was going through her period. But it was her cross to bear as women were put to curse and shame for defiling Adam in the Garden of Eden.
It was during this time that Malcolm started hanging around George as he did his housework. He had become the official man servant and had praised Malcolm and God for his kindness. As Malcolm started spending more and more time with him he began to think unclean thoughts. He was wanting to hug him and he did not know why.
Leviticus: (paraphrase) He who lies with man as he does woman his blood shall be on his hands and surely be put to death.
This scared him. He couldn't not imagine the two together, and he was afraid to tell his pastor in fears of being punished by law. Malcolm wanted him and he had not the slightest clue where these feelings came from.
As the time passed by he got braver and braver. First he tried to teach George how to read but he refused the offer stating that he could be arrested under the laws where it made it illegal for a black man to learn how to read.
The second time he tried to get close he had asked George if he wanted to take a bath. He agreed and they went to the tub in the room farthest East of the mansion. Malcolm offered him his finest soaps and George was as usual, vocal about his gratitude. It was then Malcolm first saw him naked. The man was large as per the rumors about black men. Malcolm half jokingly enquired that he must have a heck of a time making love to a woman. George did not find this funny and told him that he was waiting for marriage. Sex outside of it was sinful. This broke Malcolm's heart a little and he abandoned his initial thoughts of washing George himself and left the room.
Things progressed little by little. He still had sex with his wife but the frequency was getting lower and when he did he thought of being with George, who made him push harder and deeper into Beth than before, resulting in massive bleeding and shrieks of pain. Sometimes the servants would talk about him beating his wife, which was untrue.
The first time Malcolm had made his initial advance on him would be the last time he would ever get the chance to. He had George follow him into one of the spare bedrooms and locked the door behind them. George was under the pretense that Malcolm Jefferson wanted to talk about something important. Malcolm told him to sit on the bed and he did so like a good black male servant. Malcolm undressed quickly and was fully naked in front of George. George was appalled and looked away.
Malcolm told him straight up that he was his property and he had to do what he told him to. He asked George to undress also and there was a small war of words but he reluctantly agreed and did as he was told, crying the whole time and praying for his soul. Malcolm gently pushed him on his back on the bed and got on top of George. Malcolm had never felt harder in his life and all eleven inches of him was threatening to poke a hole in poor George's abdomen.
While George closed his eyes and prayed for God to save him, Malcolm turned him over and spit in the crack of George's buttocks. From there things get a little blurry. All he remembers was that afterwards there was a lot of blood on his sheets and his penis had a thin coating of brown. Malcolm got up and wiped his dick on the bed sheets, which would need replacing. He quickly got dressed and told George to do the same.
George lay still and motionless. The only sign that he was still alive was his insistent crying. Malcolm went over and sat by him. He put his hand on George's back but the black man quickly pushed him away. This angered Malcolm and immediately ordered him back to the fields. The man got up and staggered toward his clothes. He put them on slowly and unlocked the door then walked out. Malcolm was furious that his advances were rebuffed so much.
He was still horny so he tracked down his wife in the library and forced himself on her on that very hardwood floor. She had become accustomed to his way of showing he was the man of the house and went limp, hoping it would be over soon. He went on for nearly thirty minutes.
Malcolm was lost in his thoughts. He was angry at himself for adhering to those stupid principles of his time. The whole man is before God and women before man bullshit was repulsive now when he thought about it. He hated the very idea of God and hated the fact that while the nation was supposedly secular from 1776 until now, it was only recently that it had begun to be enforced. Maybe without God he would have never gotten into what he had gotten into. Maybe he could of made his wife and child's life a little better instead of being so fucking domineering.
The night in question came but mere hours after sunset. A mob of his slaves had gathered out front with torches. Malcolm couldn't believe his eyes, it was unheard of for black men and women to revolt, but there they were.
Malcolm could only stare outside of his bedroom window as they set fire to his house. Without thinking he left his wife asleep in the master bedroom and rand down the stairs and to the kitchen, where the back porch was. To his utter horror he found the door burning and spreading fast towards the rest of the room. He was trapped!
Malcolm was too scared for his life to think about his family. During times like this you only think about yourself. He would later find out that this was one part of Darwinian natural selection, as Richard Dawkins put it "The Selfish Gene".
Malcolm thought for what seemed like hours and the only reasonable thing he could think of doing was to ram the door and break through. He backed away little by little and soon the door was threatening to collapse. That was when he made the move.
He made it through the door and threw himself onto his back porch, which spanned several yards. He was certain once he landed on his side that he had broken his arm. It felt hot and numb. The top of the porch was burning and pieces of hot ash fell upon him and burned his skin down to the meat. It took all of his strength to get up and move through the fire onto the lawn.
When he finally made it he saw a sea of black faces. All he remembered after that was they had ascended on him. He felt a few of the blows but after that he had blacked out. His last thoughts before everything went dark were of his child and wife and how they, like he, were about to die.
Malcolm wanted to take his mind off of all this stuff so he got up and searched through his video collection for something to watch. He couldn't find anything satisfactory but he did settle on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He wasn't really in the mood to watch it but suspected it would at least be a diversion from his rapid fire thought processes.
He couldn't take his mind off of the subject though. He didn't even try in the end.
Just like he was hoping to do with Josh, someone, no... Something had saved him. He awoke in a dark room surrounded with lit candles. His head hurt badly and so did his arm. The burns were excruciating and he could feel that some of his organs had ruptured inside him. That pain was too much for him to bear and he felt that he was on the verge of passing out again.
Then the short red headed man approached his bedside.
'You almost died out there.' he told Malcolm.
'Where is my wife and child?' Malcolm asked in response. The man nodded and went for a small box on a counter nearest the door, which was too dark to see in the dim candle light of the room.
Malcolm tried to move around but this brought too much deep rooted agony in his body. His breathing was labored and he was weakly coughing up blood. He wished he had died on his back lawn of the plantation. Maybe he would have died with his family and already be in heaven by now, walking with Jesus. But this man had robbed him of that...
'Something for the pain.' the short red headed man sang as he pulled out a few blackened chips that looked like sour communion wafers. He put both of them onto Malcolm's tongue where they dissolved into his mouth within a matter of minutes. It was not immediate but as the minutes passed Malcolm could feel his body letting go of the pain. He had it in his head that he would finally die peacefully. He accepted this with a smile. Soon he would join his wife and child.
The man told him 'I can either let you die, or I can let you live.' His voice was deep and gravely. Malcolm only nodded. The man had a halo over his head now and Malcolm took it as a sign of an angel.
'You've come from heaven to save me?' Malcolm whispered weakly. The man shook his head and went for the box again. This time he pulled out a large knife and pointed it at Malcolm.
Malcolm closed his eyes and prepared for what was to come next. But after a minute it had yet to happen so he opened his eyes again. The man was standing over him with the knife pointed at one of his arms.
'Do you want to live? If so I can make you live.' The man paused. 'If you want to die I can give you more opium chips and you can fade away from this existence peacefully.'
Malcolm began to cry. He did not want to die, he would accept it, but he would not want it to happen. 'Save me...' He croaked silently. The man put the knife to his wrist and made a long horizontal slit above his open palm. Blood immediately began pouring out. The short man put his wrist to Malcolm's mouth. Malcolm was too weak to resist and was feeling as if he was choking on the man's blood. He couldn't move his head and after a few moments he found himself wanting to suckle at the wound. It was so good, in fact better than anything he'd ever drunk. In fact it was more intoxicating than moonshine.
The man smiled. He put his whole wrist upon Malcolm's head and Malcolm could feel his strength come back to him little by little. It was as if his insides were melding back together and his broken arm was reconnecting. The feeling of euphoria grew even stronger as his blood flow started to transport the opium further into his extremities.
The man held his place for a minute longer then pried himself off of Malcolm's lips. Errant blood trickled onto his face and Malcolm used his good hand to wipe up the plasma and force it into his mouth.
The man went back to his box and pulled out a brown bandage from it and wrapped his wrist up. Then he pulled out a few more opium chips and went back to the bedside and offered them to Malcolm. Malcolm shook his head, he did not want to fall asleep and never wake up.
'You'll need these in about five minutes.' the man told him. Sure enough Malcolm, while very high on the opium and blood, could feel a small twinge of pain in his chest. He did not understand what this meant but knew something bad was coming. He took the chips and chewed on them, swallowing the bitter juice it made. He was finally able to ingest all three of them and the effect was not immediate, but it came pretty quickly.
As the pain grew his body became more and more distant. He was aware that his chest was seizing but he felt disconnected. Then it hit him. His heart stopped beating and his whole body convulsed in agony. Even with all the opium he had in his system it was still by far the worst pain he'd ever been through. His broken arm clenched over his heart and he was unaware that it had healed itself. Malcolm closed his eyes and prayed for the pain to stop, reciting the Lord's prayer in hopes of being saved one... Last... Time...
The man laughed and told him 'There is no God. You aren't dying. Well...' he paused. 'Technically you are but you'll live.'
Malcolm couldn't finish the prayer and began to scream in brutal terror. The man calmly put his small hand over his mouth and told him to be quiet. After about three minutes the pain began to subside. But it was still tremendous and he was certain the man was lying, he was dying and he couldn't see it.
Finally everything calmed down in Malcolm's body. He blinked a few times and suddenly felt very high and sleepy. The man told him to rest for the night. He left his bedside and blew out the candles in the room. He did not say goodnight but before he even left the doorway Malcolm was asleep. A quarter of his legs going beyond the end of the bed, (this was normal seeing as the average height of a man in those times was only about five six) he lay silent until dawn that morning.
Malcolm never saw that man again. He did not know where he was or what had happened the night before. The first thing he noticed about himself was the paleness of his skin. Then he felt a deep primordial urge to acquire more blood. Malcolm thought quickly about how there were supposed creatures in Europe that drank the blood of babies. Witches, werewolves, and vampires... The latter crossed his mind heavily, Malcolm was extremely superstitious and he fell to his knees on the foot of the steps to the cabin he had been in and prayed to God for forgiveness. For the first time in his adult life he felt like it was all moot.
He wanted to know where he was. He wanted to go back to his plantation and get that son of a bitch George.
Malcolm awoke from a deep slumber and checked his cell phone for the time. It was now almost twelve at night. He would go in and check on Josh in thirty minutes or so. He very much wished that he wouldn't die. But at the moment that was a small concern to him. Malcolm kept thinking about George. And that made him angry.
He didn't just kill George when he found him. He killed nearly all of the plantation slaves who had not yet escaped into the underground railroad. The method was one that shocked him. When he had tracked George down he had the insatiable instinct to bite him in the throat. It was so powerful that he had los
t track of all other thoughts. It was almost like when you are having sex and all you can think about is the sweet orgasm at the end of the act.
George never saw him. With speed that scared him he leapt into the night and seized little George, guided by inhuman strength he bent him down and held him firm to the ground until he had drained him of what blood he could before the miscreant's heart stopped bleeding. Even after he held on. He made love to the corpse and spit on his back.
Then came the rest of them... Those who took his human life away. He was sure now that he was not normal anymore. He was the hand of God, judging those who have wronged him. In later years he would adopt the ideal that if you didn't want to live your life to the fullest then you weren't living, but dying.
Malcolm was surprised at how tired he was. He wanted to go to bed but he supposed that he should check on Josh just in case something bad had happened to him. He would feel guilty about it but he prepared himself for the worse. He was never good at judging how much is too much. Normally he drank to kill. Had he done it right this time? Maybe he could do to him what the short man did to Malcolm? But he wouldn't want to do that without Josh's permission. This was a commitment. If Malcolm would have know what he had gotten himself into he thinks that he might of just asked for fifty opium chips and went peacefully.
But it's not as if the years past have been all bad. He's had some great relationships. He's seen technology and social issues come about for the better of humanity. He was there when the Berlin wall fell, hooked up with a cute German guy that night. He sometimes wished he had killed him but that's just the monster inside him talking. Sometimes the monster is too strong for him to resist, but he does most of the times.
After all these years he has grown to accept what he is and what he does to stay alive. Maybe one day he could go public if enough of his people would rise up for social change. Although he remembered the Holocaust pretty well and knew that it would just amount to them getting arrested and brought into labs to be dissected and studied. He would never be free again if he came out. Spending the rest of eternity in confinement scared him. It was enough that he couldn't die, at least in any way he has already tried. Bullet wounds healed. Fire seemingly misses his skin. Drugs get him high but he never can overdose. His body is too much like steel and such he can never get into a car wreck or be beaten to death.
Looking on the bright side he was excited for the future. Albeit the whole global warming thing was scary but when he researched into it he found that most of the global trends were in fact circular. We had just come out of an ice age and are due for some warming. That is, until the next ice age coming in thirty to ninety thousand years. The dinosaurs lived through an exemplary hot period in history and there was no evidence of any of the land masses being overrun by sea water.
One thing people don't know about these so called melting icebergs and snow masses is that whenever it seems to get smaller on top (as in icebergs and glaciers) new ice forms an even bigger foundation on the bottom, which you can't see because it's deep under water. For every inch that melts off the top another two inches seemingly grows deep under the ocean. Global warming may be a myth and it may not. Who knows if we are in fact contributing to such a degree that we are. Last recorded measurements of the CO2 content of our atmosphere during the 2000's was around one percent or so. With nitrogen making up nearly sixty to seventy percent of our air.
But still... What if this data is wrong? One thing Malcolm hated was extreme heat, even though he didn't sweat, it's still uncomfortable when he condensated and loses moisture. Fucking icebergs and glaciers...
Malcolm sighed and got up. He stretched his long body until every perceivable joint in his body had cracked and popped. He scratched his butt and walked to Josh's bed room. Malcolm listened to the door but heard nothing. He usually can hear a person breathe across a room but he thought to himself that maybe he couldn't hear Josh because he was taking such shallow breaths.
He opened the door. At first glance Malcolm couldn't see Josh on the bed. This worried him so he came closer to inspect the room. He walked behind the bed and found Josh on the carpet face down. A surge of terror went through Malcolm's veins and he jumped toward him, picking him up and examining his white blue face for signs of life. He was so light. He had never appeared more fragile than right now.
Malcolm put his hands through his hair and could feel tears coming along. He noticed the glass of water by the bed had tipped over. There was a piece of bed stuffing by it, soft cotton that was as white as Josh's arms.
Josh's arms... Malcolm checked the right one and found nothing but blue veins going up his extremity. The other one though, there was something on it. A needle poked out from his wrist and there was a pool of blood on the floor from where it had leaked from the vein. Malcolm felt cold. He took the needle out of his hand but no blood came out. Signifying that Josh's heart had indeed stopped beating.
There was black plastic wrapping next to where he had fallen. Malcolm let go of Josh and picked up the plastic, rubbing it between his fingers for the longest time. Was this what killed him? It was so little! Although the rational part of Malcolm's mind suggested that with his lack of blood the heroin would of been way more concentrated than normal. Did Josh know this? Was this intentional?
Malcolm got up and searched the bed. He only found rumpled up sheets and streaks of dirt from where his shoes had rubbed against it. His shoes... He wore size eleven, unlike Malcolm who had embarrassingly dainty feet. He was going to be alright, if he would of just listened to Malcolm. He wanted to blame this all on Cindy, who was stuffed in the closet down the hall, but he knew that this was a struggle that Josh fought and eventually lost.
Malcolm's eyes began to water and he went back to Josh's body. He sat down next to him and picked him up. He cradled him in his arms for the longest time and his tears made Josh's shoulders wet.
Malcolm had not prayed since the early nineteen hundreds, before he lost his faith in God. But now he was in autopilot and started to recite the last rights for Josh. He kept repeating the words until the meaning was lost on him. He didn't stop holding him for hours. And for hours he prayed. He cursed God, if he existed at all, for creating such a nasty drug and taking away such a beautiful young man. There was no God. The bible is a lie. It's nothing but seemingly justified genocide and fundamentalist bigotry.
Josh's body seemed to grow colder as the time passed. Malcolm wouldn't let go until dawn broke. He couldn't let go. If he had never taken so much of his life then he'd be alive after such a small dose. It was his fault. He was sure of it. And it was this period of time that he wanted to die and be with Josh. It was his fault... Malcolm felt like a bad person.
"I AM a bad person..." Malcolm whispered to himself as he continued to rock back and forth with Josh's dead body in his arms.
"I killed you..."
Epilogue: Wanna see my package?
It was a hot day in Texas. The venue "Emos" was packed to the rim with hipsters and kids dressed in black. Most had either long straightened hair or short spiky cru cuts. Almost everyone's doo was dyed black.
The band playing was a new Pitchfork Media approved piece of mediocrity. They had some catchy choruses but they were known to be pretty boring live. They were famous for just standing there motionless while they played. Other bands like Weezer and The Pixies pulled this off and yet they were still interesting to watch. It had to be seen whether these guys were worth his time or not.
The bar in the back had rows of top shelf liquor that enticed the twenty one and over crowd to partake in. The prices were a little high but then again the club could get away with it being so famous. You didn't just pay to see the bands play here. You paid for the privilege to be in one of the hippest venues in the country.
They say that the word emo (as it pertains to the musical genre where young men sing about being sad and never getting laid, mostly due to girls being bitches and only wanting to harm said young men) was derived from the comedian
Emo Philips. Legend has it that in this very club some band was onstage singing sad songs and the singer, who was apparently acting weird, had caught the attention of an audience member who shouted out to him "Hey! You act just like Emo!" And then a genre was born.
Although there had been bands before that are considered the Grandparents of the genre, it wasn't until the mid nineties when it got its name. Bands that came before were now being labeled as such. Bands like Rights of Spring and Jawbreaker were now considered to be the forerunners.
Of the most recent trends in the style, perhaps Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance had really put the genre on the map. He actually liked My Chemical Romance. Their lyrics were such downers that it bordered on self parody.
He stood at the bar watching the opening band start up. They were OK he guessed but their stage presence was amateurish. It's amazing how some bands can toil in obscurity for years without ever getting a decent show but some kids not even out of high school can form a band and become famous within two months. A good example of this hypocrisy was Panic At The Disco. He did like this band but he still considered it unfair. Just because you look good and know the right people, and they like you back, doesn't mean that you should drop whatever you are doing and pay attention to them exclusively while there are far more deserving and honest people who'd die for the chance to even get a chance.
No one cared for Nirvana when they first came out. Kurt Cobain was seen as a hanger on to the real big boys until their following grew so much that people in Seattle couldn't ignore them anymore. Even then people like Mark Arm of Mudhoney didn't want to acknowledge Kurt because he still saw him as a subordinate. The man standing at the bar didn't like Seattle because everyone seemed too full of themselves there. If you weren't born in Washington then you were an outsider.
Not that Texas is any better... He figured that he'd move soon enough. But first he'd give it a shot. The heat was awful and reason enough to pack his bags and move on.
A girl, obviously drunk, came up to the bar and stood in front of him. He held his long island iced tea with a steady grip and smiled. She smiled back. Her blond hair was striking but her demeanor was annoying. She had amazing brown eyes, signifying that she was not a natural blond. Why did people do this? He could see unnatural colors like blue and red being acceptable but why change your hair to something that would obviously be spotted out? What was the big deal with blonds being the most fuckable?
The world never ceased to amaze him.
The girl stepped closer and tried her best to stay steady. He was becoming attracted to her and wanted to get her in the sack. But the urge to drink her blood was far more powerful. He hadn't fed in a few days now.
"My name is Malcolm." He smiled and extended his free hand.
"You're cute!" The drunk blond said and wrapped her arms around his chest. Short girls were always the best in bed. Would her blood get him drunk? Only one way to find out...
"What do you say we get out of here and go to my place?" Malcolm said, grinning.
"Only if you promise to be gentle!" The lady slurred.
"It will be the best sex you ever had!" Malcolm laughed. He placed his drink on the bar and led her out of the club.
About the author
David McGhee currently lives in Denver Colorado where he tries to eek out an existence writing and getting government aid. If you are reading this then you have just helped him go one step further to having dinner.
You should be proud of yourself!
Reach out to David at:
https://facebook.com/trueposer
Twitter @trueposer
Blog (updated regularly)
https://trueposer.blogspot.com
and music!
https://goodbyetimebomb.bandcamp.com