Antebellum

  On my fourth day of recovery, I was able to stay awake the entire day. My pain seemed to grow with my energy, but I used Nessie, Bennie, and Liza as my medicine. They came and went, and I made sure to give them all smiles as they bathed and pampered me. Roka would come in and periodically check on me as well. He would never speak, just stare down at me as if he was trying to solve a puzzle written on my chest. I couldn’t talk to him yet either, and so his visits became staring contests that he inevitably won. When he was done, he would turn his head abruptly and walk out of the space without making a sound.

  On the fifth day, Aunt Sarah and her girls gingerly walked up to me after I had awakened. I was scared before either of them opened their mouths.

  “It’s time dat we get to fixin’ your bones, son,” Aunt Sarah began. “We goes any longer and you be bent down the rest of your life...”

  I nodded my head in agreement. If anyone could fix my bones, Aunt Sarah could.

  “We gots to break ’em again for them to heal good. We gots to break ’em and set ’em straight.”

  I started to nod my head again, and stopped. She had just said that she was going to break my bones again. I shook my head like a wet dog.

  “I knows you scared, son, but dis da only way we can get you back up. It’s da only way. You gotta decide whether you wanna stay like you is, or let me fix you.”

  I bent my head down again and looked at my mangled legs and arms. I’d never be any good to anyone, much less myself, if I stayed like I was. Slowly, I looked back up at Aunt Sarah and nodded my head.

  “Gots me a special root. Brought it here long time ago, when I gots here. Can’t give it to you till after, if you can hang on. You take it, and it be no pain. Take you somewheres only da spirits know about. When you get back in dis here world, your bones be healed. But, if you get yourself stuck dere, you gotta stay. Dey won’t letcha leave. It’s da only thing I gots for what you gots to go through.”

  “If be stuck?” Roka had come into the room while Aunt Sarah was talking, and responded to what he heard. It was my first time hearing Roka speak. I was shocked at the concern in his monstrous voice.

  “If da spirits make ’im stay, dey take his soul and keeps it there. He die here.”

  “No,” Roka responded, and his one word seemed to be final. He stared straight at Aunt Sarah as he spoke, and expected nothing said in return. She stared back at him, her face soft but determined. The power of their gazes began to send shock waves through the air, and I was sure that where their stares met each other would be the epicenter of some huge explosion if they kept it up much longer.

  Finally, Aunt Sarah spoke. Her hesitation was as shocking as Roka’s concern.

  “Roka, listen here, son...we gots to break da boy’s bones to get ’em back right. He gettin’ stronger, Roka, but a far cry from bein’ perfect. Gots tons mo’ healing to do. We puts ’im through dat kinda pain nows, and I can’t promise he gon’ make it. It’s just too much when he so far from a full health. Least these here roots gives ’im a chance.”

  Roka didn’t respond, but his face softened a bit.

  “Anyways you cuts it, he gon’ have to fight. ’Is body ain’t ready for it. Gotta take ’is chances on how strong he be on da inside. ’Sides, if he be who we’s all hope, den he gotta come back, huh?”

  I could see the uncertainty on Roka’s face. No one said anything, but everyone’s eyes bore into his wrinkled brows, and I knew the final decision was his. After some time contemplating, he turned his eyes back to Aunt Sarah.

  “If he dead—”

  Aunt Sarah gently cut him off.

  “’Lieves me, Roka, I knows what’s at stake. Dis da best way to get ’im back right again.”

  “But don know.”

  “Naw, only Jesus knowed what gon’ happen. I knows dis be da best thing fo’ ’im, and I do everything I can to help ’im. It’s all I can promise.”

  Roka took a deep breath and shut his eyes tight, whispering some kind of prayer as he exhaled. When he opened his eyes again, he turned back to Aunt Sarah and nodded.

  I had all sorts of questions. What exactly would this root do to me? How did they plan to break my bones? How could they be sure I would heal the way they wanted me to? Why did I have to risk death in order to get better? Didn’t Aunt Sarah have any Tylenol?

  My thoughts stopped abruptly.

  Tylenol...why does that sound familiar...

  An alarm went off in my brain, and I felt a spotlight shift from a clearing fog back to the fact that I was getting ready to have my bones broken. I opened my mouth to protest. I needed my questions answered before I let anyone touch me.

  “Drrrrrrrrriiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvppppppp...mmmmmmaaaaaazzzzzzzoooop...!”

  Defeated, I let my head fall to the side. I couldn’t talk and could barely move. This decision wouldn’t be up to me.

  Roka heard my incoherent protest, and walked up to the side of my bed. Without warning he placed one hand on my forehead and the other on my stomach, and spoke for several minutes in a language I could not understand. When he finished, he looked at me with the same wrinkled brow that he’d presented to Aunt Sarah.

  “You...must...live.”

  He spoke each word deliberately, as if each syllable were a sermon.

  “You...must...live.”

  He pushed his hands onto my forehead and stomach with enough pressure to cause me to wince, and then snatched them off as if my skin was on fire. Then he nodded and walked back over to Aunt Sarah. She whispered something to him, making sure that he understood everything she was saying. When she was done, he gave her a brief nod, and quickly left the room.

  Aunt Sarah walked back over to her table and began rummaging through all of her roots. Normally she would hum as she worked, but this time she moved with a focus that I could hear in her footsteps....

  Nessie, Bennie, and Liza remained by my side. They tried to talk and soothe me, but their voices betrayed them. Whatever was coming was bad enough to alter the melody of their beautiful voices, and every wrong chord made me more nervous.

  After about an hour, four slave men walked through the door. Aunt Sarah had been working so intently at her desk that I’d almost forgotten she was there. She jumped up when the men came through the door and immediately began telling them what to do. Two of them came over to the head of the bed and stood over me. They tried not to look down, but couldn’t help themselves. I was so intriguing they couldn’t help visually dissecting me. The other two stood at my feet, and as far as I could tell, they did the same thing.

  The medicine woman walked up beside my bed with a small bowl in her hand. She couldn’t hide her worry anymore. She spoke like a woman who was sending her child to surgery.

  “Dis here is da roots I tol’ you ’bout. Can’t give ’em to you till you at da worse, dat’s when your spirit be open da most. It’s gone be bad, real bad, but dis here take it all away. You jus’ gots to fight. Y’stands me?”

  My face was decorated with lines of panic, but I nodded anyway. She leaned down close to my ear, so that I couldn’t see her face, and she spoke again with a cracked voice.

  “I don’t know wheres you goin’, but you gots to come back. Promise me you comin’ back...”

  Aunt Sarah’s fear began to break me, and I felt my body begin to shake as I nodded my head. She stood and looked at me with glistening eyes. I stared back with terrified pupils, and tried to convey the promise that I would be back.

  She looked away from me and blinked her eyes repeatedly, refusing to let a tear drop. Then she looked at the two men at the foot of the bed and nodded. They grabbed hold of my feet and held them firmly in place.

  Roka seemed to come out of the shadows. I hadn’t even seen him come in. He stepped up to the bed and swung something above his head. There was no way I could know how thick or how hard that long piece of wood was, and if I had, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Roka’s body seemed as though it was made of elastic as his back arched, and he spr
ang forward with the log in his hand like a catapult.

  The log came down on my lower legs, forcing the bone in both of my shins to pop out of my flesh. It seemed to happen in slow motion. It seemed unreal.

  But then my face began to react to a pain that I hadn’t yet comprehended. My eyes went bloodshot red and expanded to twice their normal size. My teeth ground against each other as my mouth opened around them, showing my bleeding gums. The skin of my face grew tight enough to rip itself, and my entire body began to twitch. I hadn’t made a sound yet, but even Roka stopped when he looked down and saw who was staring back at him. He looked hesitantly at Aunt Sarah.

  “Ain’t no use in stoppin’ now. Gots to be strong, Roka.”

  He turned his gaze away from her and moved up a half step to my knees. Again, he curved his back into an arch, and flung himself forward, breaking my kneecaps.

  I screamed in a voice that was unfamiliar to me. Roka’s log may as well have been an axe. It felt as though every limb he hit was coming off. I began moving muscles I didn’t know I could, trying to get away from him.

  The two slave men standing near my head grabbed me by the shoulders, and Roka threw the log off to the side. Thinking it was all over, I let my head fall back onto the bed and my eyes close. My screams came involuntarily.

  Suddenly I felt my arm being raised. I figured it was to help move me to another position, and the agony I felt from my waist down prevented me from looking to see what was going on.

  A firm hand ran up and down my arm until it found the spot where the previous break had been. Two hands then grabbed my arm, one on either side, and yanked it in opposite directions. I heard the snap over my own screaming.

  By the time Roka had gotten over to my other arm, my eyes were already starting to roll back. I was covered in sweat, and my heart was beating fast enough to power a small engine. The breaking of my last arm came over me in a wave, like jumping into a swimming pool. The agony washed over me like ocean water on a beach.

  My screaming came in short bursts because I was having a hard time catching my breath. I began seeing two of everything, and then three of everything, and strange colors flashed in front of me and disappeared into people’s faces.

  “It’s time! Quick, put ’is head back!”

  I felt the two slave men grab my head and try and pull it back so that my mouth would open. Aunt Sarah stood over me with her new concoction. My vision and my coherence were fading fast.

  The next time I opened my mouth wide enough to scream, she poured the thick liquid into my mouth. The slave closest to her slammed his palm down over my mouth so that I couldn’t spit it out, and I swallowed it all in one gulp.

  There were a few things about my new medicine that became immediately evident. First, it had a taste that would cause a tongue to jump out of its owner’s mouth. Second, it numbed my throat as soon as it went down. The liquid seemed to hit my stomach, and then expand itself slowly throughout my entire body, like a peaceful fog. I realized I wasn’t hearing myself scream anymore, and I could barely hear anyone else. I also didn’t feel any pain whatsoever. There was a strange tingling sensation in my arms and legs, but the agony was gone. I began to giggle as the effects of Aunt Sarah’s potion became stronger. People’s heads began to blow up to huge sizes while their necks, chests, and legs shrunk, making them completely disproportionate. At first it was just the slave man that was closest to me, but soon enough, everyone’s body had been transformed into these hilarious balloon-headed figures. I laughed so hard I began to urinate on myself. I would have tried to explain to them why I was laughing, but they wouldn’t have understood me.

  “Dis happen right?” Roka turned again to Aunt Sarah.

  “Yeah, Roka, he on ’is way. He be fine.”

  The disproportionate people surrounding me continued to stare at me as I laughed, and then their skin began turning different colors. Roka’s marble skin turned canary-yellow as I stared in wonder. Aunt Sarah looked as if someone had painted her in the brightest orange paint they could find. Bennie, Nessie, and Liza turned off and on like lightbulbs, alternating between green, blue, and red hues. I stopped laughing and covered my eyes as their skin grew increasingly brighter, as if they each had a bomb inside of them waiting to explode.

  “You’re too bright!” I tried to yell out to my observers. “You’re hurting my eyes! Turn it down some!”

  But all that came out was a mouthful of gibberish.

  The light from each of them had gotten so bright that it began to burn through my skin. I looked down at my hands and saw the skin disintegrating from my fingertips. When I tried to look up at Aunt Sarah, her light shoved my head back down to the bed.

  I was dissolving into nothingness. The dust that was left of my fingers blew around the room and disappeared. By this time, I could feel my arms and legs beginning to turn to sand and blow themselves around the room as well. I tried to scream out again, but the light had stolen my voice. When all that was left of me was my chest and head, Aunt Sarah walked back to me. She placed her hand on a shoulder that was almost gone and leaned into my rapidly disintegrating ear.

  “Remember what you promised me...”

  And then, in the last hurrah of the storm, an explosion of flurries blew themselves all around the room, and when they settled, I was gone.

  I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here, but I was glad I’d arrived.

  The Platinum Palace club was one of the most lavish I had ever seen, and I’d seen a lot of them. This one set itself apart, though. The door to enter the club was one-sided glass. Everyone inside could see who was trying to get in, but no one outside knew they were being watched and laughed at until they were permitted to enter. Tiny diamonds ran along the outline of the bar, as well as the tables in the VIP section, and there were plasma screen televisions that adorned the walls and showed a constant stream of provocative music videos.

  None of that was what made the club so impressive to me, though.

  I had just finished the last performance of my “Hoes In Da Attic” Tour, and I’d killed it. The crowd was crazy, the music was on point, and the energy in the stadium was so thick you could pour it on your pancakes. I came back on stage for two different encores, and even after the second one, the crowd stayed for another half-hour chanting my name, hoping to get a third blessing. People were already starting to call my show the best they’d ever been to on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

  I didn’t think things could get any better, but it turns out I was wrong. Deez Nutz Records had rented out the club, the Platinum Palace, to hold my afterparty. Without my knowing, they had directed the club owner to set up a motif for the venue that would celebrate the “Hoes In Da Attic” tour.

  The entire club looked like a pimped-out cellar. Instead of chairs, everyone sat on shiny trunks that seemed to be lined with diamonds. The ceiling had been blocked off in a V-shape, to resemble an attic. Their were four large sets of stairs, two on either side of the space, that were set up to look as though they led to a lower level. Each set of stairs had a woman dancing on it that would give the most experienced video vixen a run for her money. There were cobwebs made of tiny silver chains and diamond spiders sprinkled randomly around the room, and there were golden storage boxes that seemed like someone had just tossed them and let them fall where they may.

  It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I just couldn’t remember how I’d gotten here.

  I was drunk before I realized where the VIP section was, and by the time I got comfortable, there were four empty bottles of expensive vodka decorating the table in front of me. I looked around the spinning room to tell Brian to go and grab another one, and I realized that he wasn’t here. None of the crew was here. Neither was SaTia.

  “Wh...wait...where did...how did I...?”

  That’s when I realized there were three women around me. All of them had on little more than the tops and bottoms of lingerie sets, and the three of them together were enough to make a man cry.
The first one was dark-skinned. She had an hourglass figure with more time at the top than on the bottom, short hair, and skin that glistened in the dim light. The second woman was brown-skinned, and had more time at the bottom than on the top. Her weave fell down to the small of her back, and when she flung it over her shoulders she looked like she was doing a shampoo commercial. The third one was light-skinned, and as close to perfect as I’d ever seen. Her curly hair fell to her shoulders, and her hourglass was as balanced as a scale.

  The women crowded around me, and wouldn’t let me move. They grinded on me and used their tongues to tease my skin. I was confused, but my hormones outweighed my distress. The light-skinned one stuck her tongue in my ear, and what inhibitions I had disappeared. When the women saw and felt my reaction, they stood up with smiles on their faces and led me to the back room.

  I hadn’t even noticed that there was a back room until they guided me toward the doors. Following the motif, the entrance looked like the folding doors of a closet. Had I had the use of all of my faculties, I would’ve known that this was no ordinary closet. Alcohol, having already taken its effect, however, I truthfully expected to see a small room of coats and scarves when we walked through. Instead I saw a large room with enough drugs in it to land us all in a federal prison.

  “Hell yeah!” I drunkenly yelled out as the three women continued to lead me to a couch in the corner. A sober part of me heard my drunken outburst and warned my brain of just how stupid I sounded.

  The three women lay me down gently on the couch, and then proceeded to slowly peel their lingerie off piece by piece.

  I’d been in situations like this before. I’d been in hotel rooms full of video chicks who were either stimulating themselves while anticipating some action from me, or starting the party on the labia of one of their friends. I’d had more sex than a porn star.