"Do—not—speak!” the nigger said. “I will speak my piece and you will listen, you worthless shit. You piece of crap. You ... You...” He trailed off, taking a few deep breaths until he had regained his composure. “You may not know that you killed her, but you did. My wife rode your damn bus near every day for ten years, but I bet you wouldn't recognize her if I showed you a picture. I'd bet money on it. I'd bet my entire life savings."
Frank wanted to say but a lot of people rode my bus, but he kept silent. He didn't know how much further he could push the nigger. He sounded like he was about to snap, so he had to tread lightly. Try to think of a way to distract the nigger. He would get out of this, Frank would. He was a survivor. He wasn't going to get shot by no nigger.
The rain and the wind had slackened, allowing other sounds into the room. He heard creaking pipes, the drip from the faucet in the kitchen, the rhodie scratching against the living room window. He wished he would hear a car, but he knew that was unlikely. Right then he hated Alice for wanting to move out in the middle of godforsaken nowhere.
"I wish, just for a minute,” the nigger said, “I could climb inside your mind. Then I could know if there is even one shred of decency in you. What did you do, you want to know. All right, I'll tell you. My wife, she worked as a waitress in a diner. Even though I told her not to work overtime, she thought we needed the money. We had two young sons, and I was only a lowly assistant pastor. She didn't want her sons to look like beggars, she said. She had pride that way. I used to think it was a weakness of hers, but now I don't think so."
Frank began edging himself toward the far side of the bed. The nigger seemed to be obsessed with his own story. If Frank moved ever so slowly, maybe the bastard wouldn't notice.
"She rode your bus home from work every day,” the nigger continued. “Back then, my people had to pay up front, then get off and board in the back. I'm sure you remember. You were good at enforcing it. She told me how you used to throw Negroes off your bus if they got cross with you. ‘It's state law,’ you'd tell them. But my wife, she obeyed the rules. She was no Rosa Parks. She couldn't afford to go to jail, not with two sons and a husband who could barely put bread on the table much less pay the rent. But one day it was raining hard, and she was coming down with a cold, and maybe she wasn't thinking so clearly. Instead of getting off and reboarding, she just dropped in her coins and started for the back. You told her to get the hell off and board the way the colored are supposed to board. And she did. She did just like what you said. She was tired and sick and cold, and the rain was coming down something fierce, but she still went back outside. And that's when..."
The nigger's voice had become strained. He took a moment to gather himself, sucking in breath through his teeth. Frank had made it halfway to the other side of the bed. Just a little farther.
"That's when you pulled away from the curb and left her there,” the nigger went on, his voice rising. “Yours was the last bus of the night, so she had no choice but to walk downtown where we lived. Three miles. Three miles in the pouring rain. With a fever. She told me what happened when she got home, right before she stripped off her soaked clothes and collapsed into bed. I told her I was going to track you down and give you a piece of my mind, but she said no, that you didn't matter, that you were just a little man full of hate, and that we shouldn't bother with little men. God wouldn't want it. See, I was the man of the cloth, but she was the better person. She always was."
Frank was almost there. A few more inches...
"Well, you can probably guess what happened next,” the nigger said. “All that walking in the rain, she didn't have a chance. She came down with pneumonia. That night was the last time she was really coherent. Three days later, she was dead. You wouldn't believe how hard it was not to track you down and kill you right then, Granger. I wanted to do it. I was capable of doing it. But I was going to honor her last wishes. I put my faith in God. I let him guide my way. I raised my sons. I became the pastor of a church. I thought I had put you behind me."
Frank was now close enough to do the roll. Now he just needed that distraction. A pillow! He could throw a pillow at the nigger's face.
"But then one of my sons was drafted into the army,” the nigger said, “and the other one joined so they could go to Vietnam together. I was against it. I told them to go to Canada instead. They didn't listen. They went off to fight together. Three months later a Colonel in uniform showed up on Sunday in my pews, his face so solemn that he didn't have to say a word. Both of them gone, just like that."
Frank slid his hands behind his head and grasped the pillow. Sweat dribbled down his forehead. His heart pounded so hard it felt as if it would burst from his chest. If this didn't work, he was finished, but it had to work. He was going to blow this nigger to kingdom come.
"That's about when I stopped believing in God,” the nigger said. “I went on preaching for a while, pretending it wasn't so, pretending for myself just as much as for my congregation. But the belief was gone. And now I know that sometimes things happen to you, and then you just can't believe in God anymore. Some things just take away the possibility. Some people go on pretending, but they don't really believe."
The nigger shifted in his chair, and the sound made Frank freeze. When he spoke again, Frank realized that the nigger had leaned forward.
"Even then, I didn't come looking for you,” the nigger said, his voice barely a whisper. “God didn't exist, but my wife did. She was out there watching me, and I had made a promise to her. I've followed you over the years, and we've got a lot in common. You've got nobody left either, just like me, and I took some satisfaction in that. I told myself at least you would die alone. And that was enough, for a while. Then you bastards killed King. You killed King, and it was like the night you left my wife in the rain was just yesterday."
Frank knew the time had come. It was now or never. He clenched the pillow with his fists and—
"What you're about to do,” the nigger said, “I wouldn't do it."
Frank's body tensed. The nigger couldn't know what he was doing. Could he? “I don't know what you're talking about,” he said.
"Oh, sure you do. You're thinking of throwing that pillow at my face so you can roll off the bed and get to that shotgun. It may be dark, but I can see that plain as day. Do you think I would be stupid enough to leave that shotgun for you? Do you think I'd be that dumb, when I went to all the trouble to turn off the power? Do you really think this is the first time I've been in your pitiful little shithole?"
Frank felt as if he had been shot in the heart with an arrow. All his hope was bleeding out of him. “Please don't kill me,” he whined.
For a long time, the nigger didn't respond. Then Frank heard the wicker chair groan and whine, the rustle of clothing, footsteps on the floor. Panic seized him, and he scrambled for the other side of the bed. A firm hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him onto his back. He saw the nigger's dark outline, the gleam of glasses, a silvery mustache. Frank started to squirm, but then there was a gun in his mouth, shoved deep, the metal cold and pushing against the back of his mouth. He fell still, paralyzed.
"So it comes down to this,” the nigger said. “You took my wife from me, and now you're gonna get what you deserve."
The barrel went deeper. He felt the man's hand pressing down on his sternum. Frank's body convulsed. His bladder let go, his crotch warm and wet, and then the tears gushed from his eyes. “Pwea...” he said, the gun making it all but impossible to talk. “Pweeeaaa ... I doh waaa die..."
Frank didn't see his life pass in front of his eyes. What he did experience was an extreme heightening of the senses. The nigger was still shrouded in darkness, but he saw him better now—the protruding forehead, the depth of despair in the recessed sockets of his eyes, the leathery texture of his skin. He smelled himself, piss and alcohol, and he smelled the nigger, a musky odor mixed with the pungent vapors of drying clothing. Frank heard the creak of the loose gutter out back, the skittering of the
rats under the trailer ... It all came to him at once.
Then the nigger pulled the trigger.
There was a snap that Frank both heard and felt. For half a second he thought the bullet was already traveling through his mouth and out the back of his neck, but upon thinking this he realized that it couldn't be happening, because he wouldn't have been able to think at all. And then it dawned on him that although the nigger had pulled the trigger, the gun hadn't fired.
The nigger pulled the gun out of Frank's mouth. The bed squeaked and shifted as the nigger rose. Frank, unsure of what was happening, stared up at the dark blot standing over him.
"I'll have you know I was going to kill you,” the nigger said. “All the way up until tonight, I was going to do it. And I'm still going to do it. You just won't know when. You see, I realized something. I realized that if I just go on and kill you, you'll never know what it's like to live the way my wife lived when she rode your bus. You may still not really know, but at least you'll get a taste of it. You'll understand what it's like to live in fear. And I swear to you, I'm coming back, and that was the only empty chamber in the gun. I may come tomorrow, or next week, or even next year, but I will come."
Frank heard the nigger's footsteps. They were loud at first, and then they were muffled by the wall between the bedroom and the hall. The front door slammed. Footsteps on the gravel. And then nothing.
He lay completely immobile in bed, the piss drying on his body, the taste of metal still lingering in his mouth. The rain had picked up again, the wind, too. He knew he had to get up and do something about the power. Go find the circuit box and see if he could get the lights back on. He couldn't just lay there in the dark. It was making him crazy.
But Frank couldn't get himself to move. The nigger might be out there. He might be waiting for him, just giving him a bit of false hope before he took that hope away. His fear was paralyzing him. No, Frank thought. The nigger wouldn't kill him tonight. Maybe tomorrow, but not tonight. It wouldn't make sense for the nigger to let him live, only to shoot him a few minutes later.
And then an even more troubling thought occurred to Frank.
He realized there was a good chance this nigger was not the only one who wanted to kill him.
Copyright © 2007 Scott William Carter
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YOU WILL BE WEARING GREEN by Daniel Bennett
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Daniel Bennett was born in 1974. He studied at the University of East Anglia and the University of Colorado and now lives in South London with his wife and daughter. He has stories forthcoming in Black Static and his first novel, All the Dogs, will be published in 2007 by Tindal Street Press.
* * * *
A gang of teenagers sat laughing around a mobile phone on the 18:17 out of Victoria, but Derek tried to ignore them. He concentrated on his paper, reading the front page story about a body found in woodland on the outskirts of the city, a young female student who had been missing for over a week. Beyond the train window, the interior of the station drained away, soon replaced by the steel-crossed view over the Thames.
At Balham, the seat beside him was vacated, and a young woman sat down, brushing against Derek's leg as she moved past him. She was in her late twenties, a plain, ordinary looking woman with a narrow face, and a thin pointed nose turned up at the end. She sniffed constantly, and the nostril nearest to Derek was pink; she had a light cold. As she looked hopelessly through the contents of her bag for something to wipe her nose, Derek retrieved the pack of tissues he kept in his suit jacket pocket. He acted quickly, to ignore the growing feeling of doubt.
"Excuse me..."
The woman lifted her eyes. As Derek was about to continue, a man's sex cries cut into the quiet of the carriage. The teenagers cackled, turning up the volume on the mobile phone. For a second Derek and the woman stared at one another as the noise intensified, mixing commands and profanities. The woman looked away, and shifted slightly in her seat. Derek stared back down at the newspaper. The woman left at Streatham Hill. Derek carried on to West Norwood. The teenagers were still laughing when he left the train.
Recently, Derek's life had reached a state of crisis. A quiet, stolid man, he tended to occupy himself with whatever was placed in front of him, as long as what was placed in front of him was not human. Most of his relationships had been started by desperation or drunkenness; usually it was both. “We're moving in different directions,” his last girlfriend, Carol, had explained to him, a year before. “You want things ... I want things. They aren't the same things. I'll always think of you fondly.” It was clear that she had found someone else. Although the relationship had never been happy, the regular sex had been a welcome distraction. Now that it had gone ... it was a very frustrating time. There were ways of dealing with his situation—he had the internet, and full cable access—but these outlets seemed to make things worse. Eventually, he mentioned it to Sneddon.
They worked together in the complaints centre of a travel agents. It was a Friday afternoon. The phones were dead, the post brought nothing but circulars, the only email was spam from Nigeria. Across from the partitioned desks which Derek and Sneddon shared, a cardboard backdrop showed a blonde woman in a white bikini, reclining on a sun-lounger. Not a day would go past without Sneddon making a comment about this picture.
"They expect us to be bloody monks,” he said, staring up at the woman's tinted smile. “It's just such a bloody distraction.” Fake tanned, the tips of his brown hair highlighted blond, Sneddon sat back heavily in his chair, sucking on a lollipop. Ever since quitting smoking the month before, he ate as many as ten lollipops a day.
"I know what you mean,” Derek agreed.
"I'll tell you what, when I go out tonight, some little tart is going to pay for this.” Sneddon's voice rasped around the bowl of the lollipop, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth. “It's been two weeks since that night in Stepney, and that's two weeks too long."
Derek laughed. “God, it's been longer than that for me..."
"Since Carol? Christ, that was a year ago.” He stared over pityingly. “You should have come to me sooner."
It was true. Sneddon was a man to be admired. On the desktop of his computer, he had saved a picture: a bridge crossing a ravine of savage, orange rock. A line hung down into the maw of the ravine. From the line hung a man, dressed in white helmet, a red T-shirt, blue shorts. Sneddon was that man. He moved across and perched upon Derek's desk; he seemed genuinely pleased to be able to help.
"I can see that I'm going to have to explain a few things to you.” Sneddon paused and sucked on his lollipop, composing himself for what was obviously going to be an important lecture. “The world is made up of many layers,” he began. “Underworlds, subcultures, you can call them what you like. You and I, Derek, you and I live near the surface. We are honest citizens, taxpayers, homeowners, we drive our cars, we watch our TVs. We are the wheels of society.
"But often we have to move from our level to the one below. This can happen for a number of reasons. In years before this could be fraught with danger. Sometimes risks were punished. Do you know why?” Derek shook his head. “I'll tell you: it was because the space between the layers was too great.” He illustrated the gap holding his palms parallel to one another. “People, unwitting people who wanted to cross between the worlds, they fell through the gap."
"What happened to them?"
Sneddon scowled at the question. “The point is that now, these layers are closer to the surface.” He gestured to the computer behind him. “And all you need is this."
"I won't pay for it,” Derek whispered.
"Who said anything about paying? You're stuck in the old way of thinking.” Sneddon regarded Derek with pity. “Your problem is a lack of confidence. I've seen it so many times before.” He gestured at the poster. “You see a girl like that, you want her, but you imagine she will never want you.” He shook his head, took the lollipop from his mouth, an
d let it bounce in front of Derek's face, like a majorette's baton. “You need to realise: women have the same needs as men."
Sneddon sent him away with a couple of internet sites, and Derek began his search that evening, sitting at the computer in his front room. Eventually, he found a site advertising services for people around South London. It described itself as a singles agency, but the explicit images and text made it clear that no one was looking for a life partner. After paying a month's subscription, he registered as Robert Bower, deciding that it was only sensible to use a pseudonym. The name belonged to a man who had taken his family on holiday to a resort in Durban. A sewage pipe had cracked underneath the Olympic sized pool, sending raw human shit gushing into the pool while Robert Bower and his family had been swimming. Robert Bower had been understandably unimpressed, and had expressed himself to Derek very forcibly by letter and by phone. When Derek thought of the acts Robert Bower would soon perform with untold numbers of strange women, it seemed like better compensation than the refund and travel vouchers which he had actually demanded.
Unfortunately, those early experiences were disappointing. Every night, Derek would receive emails from a number of women in his area. After a few introductions, things became more heated. These exchanges could be stimulating, but it was hard to escape the sense of desperation. He had expected the website to provide him with something from his fantasies, but when it came time for swapping photographs, his interest faded. These were lonely, desperate women, as lonely and desperate, Derek realised, as himself. When Sneddon began to question him at work, Derek told him that yes, everything was fine, more than fine, that he was involved in the most exciting period of his life. The truth was that he found himself disillusioned, almost humiliated.
It was then that he heard from Janice. From the moment he received her first email, he was captivated; her photos were overwhelming. In her mid-twenties, she was attractive, with a narrow face framed by straight glossy black hair, a lithe muscular body. In one picture, she lay back on a bright red bedspread wearing a black silk nightdress. In another, she posed by an indoor swimming pool in a bikini of electric blue. The photographs looked professional, artistic. She was exactly the kind of woman who Derek had imagined for himself. The tone of her messages was confident and sensual, but there was also a hint of danger. “Hi Robert,” one read. “I see you want to play. Tell me what you want me to do.” Derek sent back an email, similar in tone to those he had shared with some of the other women on the site, but Janice was unimpressed. “Not good enough at all,” she wrote back. “I want something harder."
Crimewave #9: Transgressions Page 10