Antebellum

by R. Kayeen Thomas

  So I couldn’t figure out how I could be so enthralled with these women. I literally could not take my eyes off of them. Every paper-thin piece of lingerie that flew by my face made me less and less in control of myself, and before any of them had actually touched me, I had already moaned aloud and glued the crotch of my jeans...and it still didn’t help! I was so aroused my breathing became short and I broke out into a sweat. Confused, embarrassed, and believing I was going to have a heart attack, I turned my head to compose myself.

  The most perfect of the three women walked up to me and grabbed my chin. She turned my face until I was facing her, and then kissed me deeply, allowing her tongue to do jumping jacks in my mouth.

  “Don’t worry, Nigga,” she said as she pulled away from my lips. “You can have every part of us, any way you want us. You’ll never run out of it here...”

  The other two women joined her by my side. All their clothes were off as they took turns showing me the parts of themselves that they wanted me to enter. Some guttural sound released itself from my throat as I exploded again, while slamming my hand against the couch repeatedly.

  “Don’t waste anymore, daddy,” Brown-skin said. “We only getting started.”

  She reached down, unzipped the fly of my jeans, and began to reach into the abyss.

  That was when I heard another woman clear her throat.

  It stood out because it didn’t have the tone of the other voices in the room. Hers was softer, more innocent. Even with a hand snaking itself around my genitals I had to look up to see where it had come from.

  She was standing ten steps away, but directly in front of me. Her eggnog-colored skin and blonde pigtails seemed to shine through the darkness of the back room. She was as white and innocent as anyone I’d ever seen. Her yellow sundress with flower prints going around it swayed as she clasped her hands in front of her and rocked herself back and forth. Her ocean-blue eyes provided their own light. She could have stepped off the cover of a greeting card—leaving behind her mother to take apple pies out of the oven and place them on the windowsill by herself, opting instead to step into this den of sinfulness just to do what? To see me...

  I signaled for all of the other women around me to leave as I kept my eyes focused on her. They seemed hesitant, but after sharp glances and a shove or two, they finally moved. Innocence stood staring back at me, bashful but visibly excited. I motioned for her to come to me, and she approached me slowly. When she was close enough for me to smell the sweet shampoo she’d used in her hair, I held out my hand and she sat down on my lap.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” I asked.

  “Umm...I guess you can call me Miss.” Her slight Southern drawl altered the words she spoke. She twirled the end of one of her pigtails with her index finger and thumb.

  “Miss, huh? Well, Miss, what brings you up in here?”

  She giggled before she answered and turned her head away. “Umm, you, Nigger...”

  I shrugged off the unintentional insult. She obviously didn’t know what she was saying.

  “Me, huh? What you tryin’ to do, babygirl?”

  “This...”

  She reached through the open zipper of my pants and pulled out a prize. My eyes fluttered like butterfly wings. She smiled sweetly and climbed off my lap and onto the floor, stroking me the entire time.

  “O-M-G! I cannot believe I’m about to give The Nigger head!”

  I started to say something, but she shoved her mouth down on me before I could utter a complete sentence.

  “Said...ahh...my name wrong...mmm...”

  She went up and down like her neck had a motor in it. When she finished, she giggled again, and climbed up on my lap and began to slide down on my instrument.

  “Ooooo...oh, Nigger...you’re as big as everyone said you’d be...oh my God...”

  It felt as though someone was sliding me in and out of a bottle of sunshine, but I somehow forced my words to come out clearly. “Sweetheart...ahhh...you keep...sayin’ my name wrong...”

  Miss came up high, and then slammed herself back down on me. I thought I might explode again. She began inhaling and exhaling deeply as she spoke.

  “OOO...oooo, no, no I’m not, Nigger. That’s who...yes...you are. You’re...mmm...my nigger...”

  I stopped and opened my eyes, aware of her words, despite how good she felt. She kept rising and falling like clockwork. I’d never been so conflicted in my life.

  “Say it...say it...say you’re my nigger...say it...”

  “You crazy...” My voice caught. I could have pushed her off of me, but I didn’t want to.

  “Yeah...oooo...yeah, you’ll say it...I want you to say it...and then I...I...I want you to punch me. Take that big nigger fist and slam it against my skull!”

  There were now two of me contained in one body. The first me was ready to impregnate her. The second me was ready to throw her to the ground. They cancelled one another out, and so I didn’t do either. Instead I sat there, a torn man having the best sex of his life, being disrespected to the core the entire time.

  “Yeeeaaaahhhh, Nigger...that’s right...you make me bleed! You make this pure white pussy bleed, Nigger! And then, steal... my stuff...yeah...take it all! I want you to steal from me, Nigger! And...I’ll bring you back...whatever...you want...and you can take steal it again...just be my nigger!”

  She was moving up and down now as if she were operated by a hydraulic pump. It was faster than I ever thought anyone could move their body. And she continued to drip from her mouth.

  “Oh my God...my God. You’re so big...ohhhh...you...you can have me, Nigger! Take me away from...my parents...so I can go with you...yeeeaaaahhh! Uh...I wanna...sniff your powder...shoot your poison...let me follow you...’round like a dog, Nigger...I’ll be...strung out...crack...whore... slut...heathen...don’t worry... I want to...I want to! Just say...you’re my nigger...”

  Finally, something had to give. My two sides couldn’t coexist inside my body anymore. I had reached the end of two different ropes, and I was either going to release inside her like a broken fire hydrant, or get her off of me anyway I could. My mind was no good. The electricity inside my brain had stopped firing correctly as soon as she mounted me. It would have to come down to instinct. I closed my eyes and decided to let it happen as it would.

  My arms went up and shot out so quickly that the wind left Miss’s body as I knocked her over. When she hit the ground, she started coughing and wheezing. Though she couldn’t speak, she was clearly angry.

  I stood from the couch completely sober of all the drugs that I had ingested earlier. I pulled up my jeans and fastened them tightly before I took another look at Miss on the ground.

  She had stopped coughing. Standing to her feet, she took her innocent pose again, but her smile was dark and different.

  “Are you crazy?” I screamed before she had the chance to say anything. “The hell is wrong with you? I’m not your or anybody else’s nigger! My name is Da Nig...”

  I couldn’t say it. The words simply wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I cleared my throat and tried again.

  “My name is Da Nig...umm, it’s Da Nig...”

  It was as if my vocal chords had a fail-safe on them, and someone had flipped the switch each time I tried to finish my own name. What was wrong with me? I shook my head in denial and began to look around the room for some sort of explanation. The first person I saw was Miss. She was no longer smiling, and her hard, hateful expression made her seem like the star character in a teen psycho movie. The second person I saw was my dad. He stood about three steps behind her, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just arrived. He stared directly at me, as if no one else was in the room. He didn’t smile, but his face glowed with pride, and he nodded his head in approval.

  And everything went dark.

  I musta passed out.

  Those were the first thoughts that came to my mind as my consciousness began to reappear. I had the worst hangover in history, and
so I kept my eyes closed while I stirred from my sleep. Immediately, a pair of hands assisted me in sitting up. I had a bad habit of inviting ugly groupies to the room when I was wasted, and I hoped that when I gathered the strength to open my eyes, I wouldn’t want to slam them shut again.

  Last night must have been crazy, I thought to myself. My entire body was sore, and it seemed to take forever, even with assistance, for me to sit upright. I tried to remember what had happened, and for a while all I got was flashes of a flower print dress and strobe lights. I tried to dig deeper into my thoughts, but the smell of nature began to disturb me. Whatever hotel room I was in smelled like the campgrounds that my Boy Scout troop used to visit.

  “What the hell kind of hotel is this?” was what I meant to say, but all I managed was “Whhhaaaaahhhhmmmphis?”

  I heard myself and laughed out loud. I must have gotten bombed last night. I don’t know that I had ever been so hung over that I couldn’t speak right.

  Slowly, I began to open my eyes. I’d mentally prepared for the worst with the groupies, and besides, if I was in such bad shape that I couldn’t talk right, I figured I should probably call SaTia in as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d landed in the hospital after a wild night.

  It took much longer than normal for my eyes to focus. No matter how much I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and shook my head, I couldn’t erase the vision of myself in a one-room hut with two slave women beside me.

  And then it all hit me. All at once. Where I was, how I’d gotten here, why my body felt like leftover animal parts squeezed in a Spam can. I had experienced half of this movie before. Now I remembered the beginning.

  I tried to stand up and freak out, but my legs were held tightly in place. They had two wooden boards on either side and enough taut rope wrapped around them so I couldn’t see from the middle of my thigh to my ankle. My arms were in makeshift slings, and had smaller wooden boards tied to them as well. I freaked out as best I could with my limited movement.

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” I tried to say. “I don’t know how I got here. I’m not a damn slave—I’m a rap star. I’m famous. People love me. Nobody beats me. Nobody whips me. Nobody feeds me trash and makes me sleep in my own crap. I’m Da Nigga. You know—Hoes In Da Attic? I’m Da Nigga!”

  All that came out of my mouth was incoherent mumbling, but I didn’t care. I was confused and scared, and I resorted to the only side of me that could deal with those kinds of feelings. The slave women all stared at me. They couldn’t understand what I’d said, but my disgust made them crumble.

  “Who are you? Huh?” I turned and looked at each one of the women sitting around me. “Who da hell are you, huh? Ugly trick. Who are you? And you? Who are you? You know what? I don’t care who the hell you are! ’Cause I’m Da Nigga! I’m da man ’round here. I’m...”

  Just then the door to the cabin flew open, and two men walked inside. Immediately, it all started to come back to me. Nessie, Bennie, and Liza ran to the back of the hut and stood side by side with their faces to the ground. Aunt Sarah watched it all unfold.

  I took one look at the two white men, then turned away, and urinated on myself. The hot liquid flowed down my thigh and onto the mattress I was lying on. I started crying enough tears to drown in.

  Aunt Sarah stared at me in disbelief. One of the white men, Bradley, laughed with enough satisfaction to make me want to die.

  “Eh, that’s a good nigger...”

  The slings and leg splints didn’t matter. I was frozen. My muscles stood as terrified as I was. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at their faces. I just sat where I was, moist with my own liquid waste, shaking and terrified by two men whom I knew could do with me as they pleased.

  The other white man, Mr. Talbert, looked at Aunt Sarah with incredulousness pasted on his face. His sarcastic tone hid the slight fear behind his voice. “Are you sure it’s safe to come now, Sarah?”

  Aunt Sarah’s expression changed from the disbelief to innocence as she looked at Mr. Talbert. “Yassah.”

  Bradley moved menacingly in Aunt Sarah’s direction, but Mr. Talbert stopped him.

  “She was looking you in the eye, sir,” Bradley protested.

  “She delivered both of my children, Bradley,” Mr. Talbert said without looking at him. “I’ll let this one slide.”

  Aunt Sarah never changed her demeanor. She stood the same way, with Bradley standing down, as she had when he was on the attack.

  “Sarah,” Mr. Talbert started again, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to put one over on us with the nigger-disease you told us about.”

  Aunt Sarah maintained her innocent face.

  “Oh, nawsah, nawsah! Nigger sick like he were—” she pointed to me “—and white folk come round and kill all da light in they soul! Sweet Jesus knowed!”

  Mr. Talbert stood with a puzzled look on his face, likely deciding how much of Aunt Sarah’s story he believed. Finally, he took a deep breath and gave up. “Well, he’s cured for now anyways, right?”

  “Yassah. He jus’ waken two shakes befo’ youse came in. Don’ he look differen’, sah?”

  Mr. Talbert looked me over. My breathing turned shallow and my heart rate sped up. I thought I was going to pass out.

  “He does look like a new nigger, even with the things on his arms and legs. And he seems to have learned a little respect, too. Looks like both of you did your jobs.”

  Bradley grinned at hearing Mr. Talbert’s approval. Aunt Sarah nodded politely.

  “Well, we just came by to let you know that there’s been a lot of fuss in the town over that nigger. A lot of people believe Bradley’s story about him being...” Mr. Talbert cleared his throat, embarrassed to even repeat the rumor. “Half-ape, and don’t feel safe with him outside that cage. There’s been talk of people coming around here to kill him, and I don’t want to lose any of my property over this nonsense. I haven’t had any problems with my niggers that Bradley or any of the others couldn’t fix, and I don’t plan to start now. So if any folks come around here to grab up that nigger, you give him over, hear? I don’t want to hear about you trying to hide him or protect him or any other foolishness. You hand him over, and you go on about your business.”

  Aunt Sarah used everything in her to hide her concern. “Yassah.”

  “If he manages to survive through the week, he goes out in the field. No need in letting a good nigger go to waste.”

  “Yassah.”

  “Alright,” Mr. Talbert said, and he and Bradley turned to leave.

  “Sah?” Aunt Sarah called out softly.

  “What is it, wench?” Bradley roughly answered.

  “Yassah, sah what I do if da preacha come back ’round? He come time to time and check on da boy...”

  Mr. Talbert stopped and thought deeply. “Well...you can’t send him away on my orders, or I may have to suffer a penalty and he would surely have you hung. Damn that man and his father. Let him in, I guess.”

  Bradley couldn’t contain his aggravation. “Sir...”

  “No, Bradley, I’m not staking my business partnerships on making sure you get your pet nigger back! Whoever gets here first can have him. I’m tired of this whole thing. I’m washing my hands of it. The sooner he dies the sooner we can all get back to some degree of normalcy!”

  Mr. Talbert stormed out, with Bradley right behind him.

  Bennie, Nessie, and Liza began making their way back toward Aunt Sarah and me. Aunt Sarah turned around when the two men left and looked at me as if she was trying to figure out a calculus problem.

  Even though the two men were gone, I still couldn’t bring myself to move. I shook uncontrollably, and blinked to keep myself from bursting into tears again. The urine smell had begun to rise lightly through the air now, and the three apprentices began cleaning without being asked. It took all three of them to lift me, move me, and sit me gently on the floor so they could clean up the urine in the mattress. Aunt Sarah continued to sta
re at me. There were words sitting in her mouth that she couldn’t bring herself to utter. Without warning, she turned and left out of her hut.

  As I sat on the floor, watching three women clean up my waste, I had no doubt that I had died. I knew a world where I was once a king. Even if my royalty was false, enough people believed in it to make it true. I could pretend that my power was limitless, even though I was well aware of the boundaries I could and could not cross. But there was no pretending in this new world. There were no designer clothes or shiny jewelry to convince me that my life was something to be envied. I’d been beaten within inches of my life on countless occasions, and then thrown in a cage and left to rot and decompose like a dead carcass. But my heart was still beating, and my lungs were still drawing air. I was dead, yet my homicide was by way of spirit rather than flesh and I hadn’t even known it. I now knew a race of men who controlled my very fate. Controlled my destiny. Controlled when I lived, how long I lived, and under what circumstances I would live, or die. This world was not mine for the taking. It had been taken already, and I was part of the spoils.

  If I was trash in the world I came from, I didn’t know it. In this world, I couldn’t run from that understanding.

  The door opened again and roused me from my depression. My bladder tightened in anticipation of another ruthless white man. Instead, Aunt Sarah returned, Roka with her.

  And I realized then the irony of my situation. Aunt Sarah and Roka had saved my life in a world that I didn’t want to live in. I couldn’t figure out how to repay them for that sort of favor.

  Roka walked up to me as I sat on the floor, and kneeled down to face me. He looked deeply into my eyes, around my face, at my nose, ears, neck, and forehead. Then he looked into my eyes.

  “You lost,” he said matter-of-factly.

  There was no use in me responding. He wouldn’t have understood it anyway.

  “Them take you. Crush you. No same.”

  The man of so few words made perfect sense. He got up and turned to Aunt Sarah.

  “He come back from spirits?”

  “If he ain’t, he be dead and buried long time ’go.”