Shella (24 page)

When I walked in the bar Saturday night, Mack had a newspaper in the booth. I sat down next to him. He pointed to something in it.

“Lamont. Ain’t that a perfect nigger name?”

“What?”

“The nigger who got it last night. That was his name, Lamont.” He was smiling, a big smile, looking at me.

“I didn’t know,” I told him.

“Oh, man, how
would
you know? Listen, John, you showed me something last night. A lot of guys, they’re just talk. Like those boys who took you around …? They’re pretty good with baseball bats, doing little ‘actions,’ they call them, you understand?”

“No.”

“Like nigger-stomping, get it? Strike a blow for the race. I mean, lotsa people talk about they going to kill this or kill that, you know what I’m saying? But
doing
it, that’s what separates the men from the boys. Like going to prison. You see a lot of guys can’t hold themselves together in there, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, it’s the same thing. You can’t really tell about a man until he has to
do
something. The people I’m with, they do things.”

“I thought you said …”

“Not those
kids,
Johnny. Men. Men like us. The kids, they’re with us all right, but they’re not really down for race war. They’re like a … gang, or something. Not an army. Not professional. They’re too wild. You can’t count on them. Like the leader says, the niggers got us outnumbered. For now, anyway, until the white race wakes up. So discipline, that’s what we need.”

He stopped what he was saying when a waitress came close. Ordered some beers. He never did that before, stopped talking.

When the waitress went away, he leaned over close to me. “You like killing niggers, John? Let me tell you something,
there’s lotsa people feel the way you do. But killing them one at a time, they ain’t never gonna get it. The leader says, we kill them one at a time, the fucking monkeys could
breed
faster than we could kill ’em. What we need, what this country needs, is race war. Race
war.
And we got the start of it. Not so far from here. We want you with us, John. And you know what the best part is? You’ll be with your
brothers.
Men who’ll give their lives for you, go with you to the end. What do you say?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Look, how’d you like to quit working for niggers over at that car wash? Make some real money?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. I got the word. Got it this morning. You got a car?”

“No. All I got …”

“That’s okay. You had a car, you couldn’t bring it anyway. Security don’t allow it. Tomorrow night, I’ll pick you up myself. Take you to our camp. Then you’ll hear what we’re about, okay? Make up your own mind. You decide you don’t want to be with us, no hard feelings. And I’ll guarantee you a month’s pay, tide you over until you get another job, if that’s what you want. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He handed me a bunch of bills. I put them in my pocket.

“Tomorrow night. Ten o’clock. You be out in front of your house.”

“Okay, it’s over on …”I stopped, like I just figured out he must know where I lived. Where they dropped me off last night.

“See, John. We know what we’re doing.” He winked at me. “See you tomorrow night, brother.”

There was a note on my bed.
BASEMENT
, is all it said. I left the lights on in my room for a while. Then I turned them off like I was going to sleep.

He was there. “Was that enough for them?” he asked me.

“Tomorrow night, they’re coming to take me someplace. He gave me some money too.”

“I guess that did it. They took the gun from you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Listen to me now. I got to tell you a couple of things. First, don’t go to the car wash tomorrow. A guy like you, like you’re supposed to be, he wouldn’t go to work a car wash job, he had money. What time he’s supposed to pick you up?”

“Ten.”

“Okay. Stay in tomorrow, like you were sleeping late. Then go out, spend some of that money. Over on Sheridan, they got daytime whores working. Get one of them, spend some money. That’s what you’d do.”

“All right.”

“You have to … practice? What you do … with your hands?”

“No.”

“Good. Now listen. We know where their camp is. We’ll be there before you. And we’ll be there from then on. Until you come out, okay?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know how they work it. Could take weeks before you even see the head man. Or they could take you right
to him, I don’t know. We don’t know what they do, inside. Waiting don’t bother you, right?”

“No.”

“You talk like this when you’re around them?”

“Like what?”

“Yes. No. Okay.”

“I guess.”

“They don’t look at you funny?”

“They do all the talking. They like to talk.”

His teeth were real white in the basement. “Kill the niggers, huh?”

“And the others.”

“What others?”

“Jews. Spics. Queers.”

“No Indians?”

“They never said.”

“You understand what they’re saying?”

“The niggers are apes. All they want to do is fight and fuck. Especially fuck white women. Rape them. So the races get mixed. The white man don’t know his true place in America. This is a white man’s country. Like Rhodesia.”

He gave me a look.

“Rhodesia’s in Africa,” I told him. “White men, they built it right out of the jungle. A long time ago. But the niggers took it for themselves. And the UN, they didn’t do nothing. What we need is race war. But the white man, he’s too beaten down here. The white man needs to see the light. So what we need is to start the fighting. Then the white man will show his true colors.”

“Damn! You
listen,
huh?”

It made me feel good, what he said. “I always listen,” I told him.

“So they’re going to wipe out all the niggers?”

“That wouldn’t do any good,” I told him. “They’re not the real enemy. They’re like dogs—it all depends on who their masters are. The Jews—they’re the ones in control. All this stuff, it’s part of their plan.”

“The Jews, huh?”

“Yes.”

“You ever think about that stuff?”

“No.”

“Ever kill a Jew?”

“I don’t know…. how could I tell?”

He made a sound that was like laughing, but kind of strangled. He lit a cigarette, cupping the tip in his hand. Walked around in a little circle.

“You get a chance, ask one of them how it got its name. Rhodesia, okay?”

I nodded, waiting for him to say more.

“You know my name?” he asked.

“Wolf.”

“Yes. Listen, now. You get a chance, do him. Don’t wait around for the perfect moment—it might not come, okay? You need to be alone with him to do it?”

“It would be better…. depends on how many others.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured. You remember how to come out?”

“Tie something around my head and run.”

“Yeah. You got it.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. I waited. He came over, stood real close to me.

“If you think they’re on to you … if it looks bad … just … run for it. Don’t wait to do him. Run for it. We’ll get him some other way.”

I stayed in my room the next morning. Lying on my bed with my eyes closed. Like you do in prison. I was watching television. In my head. There’s no sound in my head either. I like to watch the nature shows. I look at the ones I saw before.

There was one. A caterpillar. It crawls over a plant, like a bright worm. Eating and eating. Then, one day, it stops. Stuff comes out of it until it’s all covered. Then the stuff gets hard. It looks like a jewel, hanging there. A long time passes, and the shell cracks. The shell cracks, and a butterfly comes out.

Then it flies away. I don’t know what happens to it after that. When I was a kid, I saw something like that, but I don’t remember it so good.

When I got up, it was almost twelve o’clock. I walked over to Sheridan. The whores were out. I saw one, a short blonde in red shorts. For a minute, I thought she was the same one that was with the pimp I killed, but it wasn’t her. This one was older.

It was twenty dollars for her, ten for the room. The room was much smaller than mine. A long, narrow room with a bed. There was a paper shade on the window. The sunlight came in. The sheets were gray.

She asked me if I wanted something special. Everybody wants something special. It costs more.

It didn’t take long. She cleaned herself off, squatting over a basin on the floor.

She asked me my name, said to come back and see her. I told her John, and said I would.

I had something to eat in a restaurant. I thought about the car wash for a minute—it’s open on Sundays. You could work seven days a week if you wanted to, but you had to work at least five, they said. Walking back to my room, I saw a blue-and-white police car go by. The cop on the passenger side gave me a cop look. I looked down—I never looked back.

I wondered if Shella knew I was coming.

My rent was paid till Monday, so Sunday night was the right time to go anyway. Maybe they knew that, the people Mack was with.

I packed my duffel bag. There was plenty of time, so I watched some more television in my head.