Amitola: The Making of a Tribe

by A. Grant Richard

“Just wondering…how do you know who the baby’s for?” Tye had wanted to ask that question ever since Kat told him she was pregnant. He couldn’t understand how a woman who is with multiple men could know who the father of her child is.

  Kat wasn’t born yesterday. She knew he was curious about her. “I chose to be with Tony early on. That means every man I was with wore a condom except for him. Other women take their temperatures faithfully, so they know when they're ovulating, and don’t have sex with anyone but who they want to get pregnant for during that time. That’s how we know who the fathers of our babies are.”

  “What about you, Maia? Are you gonna partner up with more than one guy? Inquiring minds want to know,” Tobi asked her.

  “I can't even comprehend this. I can see two women sharing a man much easier than I can see two men sharing a woman. Women might get jealous but if they feel as though he loves each of them completely and without reservation then they can work it out. Men are territorial. They'd regularly go against one another and put her in the middle of it. So, to answer your question, no, absolutely not.”

  Tye responded quickly, “Thank goodness. I can’t imagine having to compete with another man like that.” She looked at him, and he looked at her. “I don’t mean to imply us or anything. I’m just saying, in general, I couldn’t imagine it.” He wanted to smack himself in the forehead. He couldn’t believe he said that out loud.

  “Wait, you two aren’t together?” Kat asked. Suddenly, Jason was wide-eyed with curiosity.

  They looked at each other. Tye remained silent. Suddenly there was an emptiness in the back of Maia's throat. She didn’t want to answer the question with the truth, and she couldn’t fathom why. What she knew was that until she could figure out what was going on inside her head, she needed to leave emotion out of it. “No, we’re not. I mean we’ve been friends for a long time. He was one of Lance’s best friends. He was my trainer. I, we…I don’t know what I’m trying to say.” She downed the rest of her drink and sat in silence while everyone stared at her and Tye.

  Tobi put her arm around her friend and gave her a squeeze. “I’m apprehensive about all of this too. We’re all doing what we have to survive and give the best possible life to our kids. Sometimes that means re-examining the reason why we have certain beliefs. I think the only reason we are so against this one woman, multiple men thing is that as a culture, we never embraced it.”

  Maia sat back and stared at the ceiling. That sick feeling was back. Tobi said, “Remember how scared you were before you had Carsten? You said people shouldn’t have babies without an epidural. That it wasn’t normal.”

  She could feel the warmth of Tye’s legs on top of hers. Now and then she’d get a good whiff of his cigar as he blew the smoke her way. “I remember. You reminded me that epidurals were man-made and that women were giving birth naturally long before they existed. I’ll look into this too, but history and culture aren't so much the issue as male dominance is.”

  Jenna returned from the kitchen after making herself and Maia another drink, “Maybe it becomes about female dominance.”

  Some of the guys were conversing amongst themselves, discussing strategies and future missions. Kat walked over to Maia and sat in front of her, “So did I hear that right? You had your kids without an epidural?”

  She leaned forward a bit, “Yeah, why?”

  Kat wrinkled her face and asked, “How bad was it?”

  That’s when she realized most of these women had never done this before. “So that you know, I had every intention of getting an epidural. My child decided to show up two weeks early during a hurricane while we were staying at my parent’s house where there was only one road in and out. Of course, the storm knocked several huge trees down in the road. We couldn’t leave.”

  “Man, I remember that. That was a rough night,” Sean said. “Whoo.”

  Tobi was laughing, “Oh my gosh, that was my first delivery. I was working as an EMT, but I was still two semesters from graduating nursing school. I think I was more scared than she was, but it was the most beautiful and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I knew then that women are made for this.”

  “But did you get an epidural with your other kids?” Kat asked Maia.

  “I didn’t. I figured since I’d done it naturally the first time I might as well try it again especially after researching how much better it is for mom and baby. And Tobi is the best coach and support during labor. She made the experience a good one.”

  Tobi grabbed Kat’s hands and looked her in the eyes. “Our bodies know what to do, and we have to remember that in the midst of the pain. That’s why I became a midwife and trust me, you’ll do fine. Just be thankful you aren’t one of these women who’ve had c-sections. Most of them can deliver naturally after but the chances of something happening are greater once you’ve had one.”

  “Is that why women who haven’t had a c-section are sold for more? I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth.” Caleb shook his head and took another sip of his drink.

  Tobi replied, “I assume that’s why. The risks are higher for women who’ve had previous c-sections although I happen to believe any woman can deliver naturally if she listens to her body. But, it’s always wise to prepare for the worst, just in case.”

  Kat was in tears. Maia couldn’t stand to see that. She reached over Tye’s legs and grabbed her hands. “You are one of the toughest girls I know. This will be an adventure for you, and once that sweet baby is born, you’ll know that every bit of the pain was worth it. I promise.”

  She started crying uncontrollably. Tony jumped up and got on the floor to comfort her. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  Kat looked at Maia, and between sobs, she said, “I want you to be there. You are the only family Tony has left. That makes you my only family too. I need you to be there.”

  Maia pushed Tye’s legs aside and dropped to the ground with Kat. She held her and reassured her that everything would work out. “I don’t know how but we’ll figure it out. Somehow I’ll be there, okay? And look, I’m sorry for being a butt before. I know I can be a bit judgmental. I do like you, and if you’re with Tony now, then that’s as good as being a sister to me.”

  Those sentiments seemed to be enough to calm her down. “I’m sorry too. Until Tony explained everything to me earlier today, I thought he had a thing for you. I never realized you were the same girl he was always referring to as his sister. I get it now. Not that I wasn’t interested in this fine ass man…” she said putting her hand on his legs and flashing him a seductive smile.

  Maia removed Kat’s hands from Tye’s legs. “Okay, just because we aren't together doesn’t mean I’m totally cool with seeing you all over him. Especially when you’re pregnant with my niece or nephew, okay?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eventually, Caleb asked the dreaded question. No one wanted to answer it themselves, but they all wanted to hear the recollections of others.

  Sean, Tobi, and their kids were shopping when it all started. They recalled how the light fixtures swayed and the shelves threw their contents onto the floor making it nearly impossible to escape. They were near the automotive section, so Sean grabbed one of the kids and took the other by the hand then yelled for Tobi to follow. They made it out to the side parking lot in time to see the water coming straight for them. They ran as fast as they could to the front of the store. The original plan was to get in the car and go, but the water was coming too quickly.

  Sean said, “I could hear people yelling, and out the corner of my eye I saw people standing on top of those storage containers they keep by the garden section. They had piles of fertilizer on the sides of it so we jumped on the bags and the people pulled us up. The water mostly went around us. We stayed on top of there for hours.”

  He noticed the solemn look on Tobi’s face, so he reached over and grabbed her hand. “A bunch of people tried to leave when the water went down, but the roads were blocked. Our phones worked for a little wh
ile after so we were able to talk to our family about how bad it was. That’s when we decided it was best to stay put and wait for help. We were at the store with a group of people for almost five weeks before we saw Tony and ‘em. We grew up together, so trust wasn’t an issue. It had gotten real, real bad by then so when they offered for us to go with them we went. We’ve been here since.”

  “You were already here, Tony?” Tye asked.

  “Yeah, a bunch of us, me, of course, Al, Garcia, and Jenna, were here to watch the fight. I’m glad we were, but at the same time, I wasn’t with my family.” He looked over at Maia, and they shared a sorrowful glance.

  Kat hugged Tony tight. “Cutting hair didn’t pay enough, so I drove a rig a couple times a month. I had just loaded up for a two-day haul to Tallahassee and was on I-10 when it happened. I had a full load. I tried to stop, but the trailer was too heavy. In my side mirror, I caught a glance of a man right before it fell on top of his car.”

  Kat got lost in her thoughts for a moment. Everyone gave her time to process, unable to help themselves as they thought about what it would’ve been like if they were in her shoes.

  “Anyway, the water was a couple of feet deep. I managed to get out, and me and a bunch of other people tried to help. I’d never seen anything like that before. It was beyond morbid. When the water pulled back a lot of people got pulled away. The people we worked so hard to get out of the cars disappeared into the water."

  She wiped a tear from her face and continued, "After that we sat there, waiting for help to come but nobody did. I thought I was safe with this one group of people but, it wasn’t two weeks before they traded another woman and me for a bunch of cans of soup and some cigarettes. That happened a couple times. One of them was even sweet enough to use a branding iron on me and call me his own.” She moved her long hair and pulled her shirt down over her shoulder then turned her back to them to reveal a burn scar. It was a box on the left and immediately to the right a small rectangular bar above the letter “B.”

  Tye gasped. He’d seen the same kind of scar on the back of Maia’s shoulder. Suddenly, Maia was uncomfortable. She didn’t dare look at anyone. Tipping her glass, she finished off her drink.

  Kat laughed. “They said it stood for ‘Boxed Barbie’ which is a cutesie way of saying they dressed me up and whored me out for food and supplies. I never would’ve gone with him but, he kept telling me he’d take care of me and I’d be safe with him. Yeah, that was the last time I trusted someone just because they asked me to.”

  Caleb listened intently. “So, what happened after that?”

  “I finally got away and after a few days on the run with no food, no water, nothing…I ran into Tony and Dirk. I thought they were going to…” Her body tensed up then she put her head on Tony’s shoulders. “I begged him just to kill me. I tried everything I could to get him to grab his gun and pull the trigger.” She leaned forward and turned to look him in the eyes. “I’m glad you saw through that and brought me here instead.” Tony leaned in and kissed her.

  “What about you, Jason? You gonna share your story?” Tobi asked.

  “Nah, I’m good,” he replied.

  Tony’s eyes met Tye’s. “So, where were you when it happened?”

  Ty’s mind was overcome by the realization he had looking at the scar Kat was branded with. He said, “Um,” and shook his head to buy some time for him to formulate a thought, any thought, that wasn’t about Maia.

  The room was silent. They listened with anticipation as Tye and Caleb told their version of events, how they were both on Airline Highway during the first earthquake and wave.

  “I thought something was wrong with my car at first. Then I saw everything around us shaking. Everybody stopped. I couldn’t go anywhere. That’s when I saw the wave coming. I don’t know what happened because I got knocked out. All I know is I lost my wife on Judgement Day and my oldest son was dying. Then Caleb found us. He could tell you more than I could.”

  Caleb downed his drink and lit another cigar. “I was on my way to meet some friends. I had Elex with me. Thank God,” he thought out loud. “After the road flooded we could see people going crazy. We were coming up a side street between two buildings, so we didn’t get the brunt of it. When we finally saw what happened, it was unbelievable. I seriously thought they must be filming for a movie or TV show, but I couldn’t find cameras or crew anywhere. But this kind of stuff doesn’t happen, right? Cars on top of cars. People laying on the ground, dead or dying.”

  He took a puff of his cigar and continued, “I kept trying to call my dad, but I couldn’t get through, so we started walking towards the studio since I know people there. It was horrible,” he said wincing. “I kept looking for Tye cause I knew they were on Airline. I got a few minutes past the last place I knew they were and not far past that is when I heard him screaming for help. He was standing on the trunk of his car trying to pull the metal apart with his bare hands. He was covered in blood. He was trying to get Troy out of the car. The girls were crying. Junior was in the car trying to pull the seat apart but,” he stopped.

  He choked up, unsure if he could continue. He looked at Tye and knew he wanted him to keep going. “Junior couldn’t get Troy out either. His mom was in the way, and even though she was gone, he didn’t want to hurt her. I hope I never have to see anything like that again. The pain in their face…” His eyes watered and he stared blankly ahead.

  Maia felt Tye’s abdominal muscles pump hard as he let out deep breaths. She looked at him. He’d covered his face, but the tears had made their way past the barrier he tried to create with his hands.

  “He said that the garbage truck slammed into the passenger's side but, I don’t know. Something else must’ve happened too because the front right side of the car had been pushed into the SUV in front of it and the dashboard got pushed on top of Beth.”

  “Probably when that water pulled back it caused more damage,” Kate said.

  “Maybe,” Caleb acknowledged her. “The garbage truck was actually on top of the SUV in front of Tye and on the hood of their car. Beth…” He took a moment to push back the emotion. “She was crushed from the top, front and the side and her seat was where the back seat should have been, so Troy was trapped too.”

  He looked over at his friend who had relegated himself to a near fetal position in Maia’s arms, and his emotions escalated. He tried to hide it, but there was no right way to respond to having someone ripped from you.

  Caleb continued, “I grabbed Tye off the trunk and tried to make him understand he needed to keep Troy calm. I don’t know how but I remembered seeing a tree service truck back a lil ways, so me and Elex went straight to it and grabbed tools and a jack. Anything that looked like we could use it. I ended up having to use the jack to push Beth’s seat further…” he covered his face and continued, “into the front of the car. I had to. And we still had to pull part of the back seat into the trunk to get Troy out.”

  With tears still falling he started shaking his head, “He wanted to try to get Beth out. He was so out of it. I lied and told him a cop said they’d find us once they got her cause when I took the jack off…" He covered his face. "I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry.”

  When he looked up, Maia mouthed to Caleb, “I’m so sorry.” She held Tye through the agony. Most of the room was a sobbing mess now. After several minutes of tear therapy, wet rags to clean their faces, and another round of drinks, Caleb continued.

  Caleb said, “My dad was a film producer, so he knew people. At the beginning that helped us but eventually the people, we were traveling with died. We stayed a few places after that, but things were bad. Tye’s youngest daughter got taken, and we started hearing rumors about young girls being bought and sold all around us. We knew we’d be better off away from the city, so we started sleeping in the woods. That’s when we found Maia.”

  “This is all so unreal. What the hell are people thinking? What makes men believe that they can own women?” Jenna shook her head in pr
otest. “I wish somebody would’ve tried to brand me. Uh, uh. That wouldn’t happen.”

  Maia and Kat both sat up straight looking like they were ready to pounce her. The veins in Tobi’s neck throbbed. She had to intervene, “You can say you would do this or that all you want but you have no idea what it’s like for women out there. You’re here freely giving your body away while we had no choice but to allow ours to be taken just to survive, sometimes in front of our husbands and children. Don’t sit there and judge us when you haven’t so much as stepped foot outside of the comfort of this camp since it all happened.”

  Jenna sat on the edge of the couch and leaned toward her, “I’m not judging you. You did what you thought you had to do. I’m just saying I’d fight back.” She pointed between her legs and said, “They ain’t getting this without permission.”

  Kat stood up and yelled in her face while Tobi screamed from where she was sitting. Tony pulled Kat away and attempted to soothe her. Allen raised his voice and asked everyone to calm down. When Kat and Tobi stopped to breathe, Maia spoke.

  Sitting with her back against the sofa and Tye still curled up next to her, she looked at Jenna with calm, calculating eyes. “See, that’s the difference between you and me. Even if they did take this,” she said, pointing like Jenna did. “I wouldn’t be giving them a damn thing. They may as well lube up my arm or my feet and use that. They wouldn’t get me. They couldn’t have me. And I’d like to see you prevent it when they have guns pointed at the heads of people you love. Then what? It takes brains, not pride, to know when to fight. Otherwise, you die and so do people you care about.”

  Knowing she had to address the scar issue with Tye, she pointed at Kat. “I have the same brand on my back. Never in a million years could I have dreamed that would happen to me. I trusted this guy the way I trust Tony or Sean. I thought he meant it when he said he’d help me.”