Shella (31 page)

“Just them,” I said.

“Come on, tough guy,” Murray said to the man on his knees.

The man didn’t get up.

“He’s a homo-sex-ual,” the leader said.

“A fucking queer,” the guy with the shoulder holster said.

“He’s on an Action Team. He knows the plans,” the guy in the white shirt said.

“It’s up to you, son,” the leader told me. Then he walked out of the room.

“He has to go,” the white shirt said.

“You down to do it?” the shoulder holster asked me.

I looked at him like I was stupid. But it only made things slower, it didn’t stop them.

“It’s for the cause, John. For the Nation. This Murray, he’s dangerous. Probably a government agent.”

“A government agent wouldn’t kill a nigger,” I told him. The acid test, like the crazy man said.

The white shirt looked at the shoulder holster. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you’re right, John. But it doesn’t matter. Queers are unreliable. Like the leader taught us. They can’t be trusted. Murray … that’s a Jewish name too, I think. He’s gotta go, it’s already decided. I know the leader would personally appreciate it if you took care of it.”

“All right,” I said.

“It’s part of the price we pay, John. To be warriors of the white race. It’s not his fault he’s a queer, but that doesn’t matter … he’s a danger to us all.”

They gave me the same gun I had taken with me to the trailers. It was just killing. I felt like I didn’t want to do it. I never felt like that before. I thought of Shella. How long I’d been there already. The leader.

If I told them I didn’t want to kill Murray, I’d never get close to him alone.

I walked in the dorm. Murray was lying on the bed. He had his shirt off. His hands were locked behind his head. When he does that, the muscles bulge in his arms and his chest. I walked over to him. He smiled. I raised the gun and pulled the trigger. I shot him in the chest three times. Then I shot him twice in the face.

I heard people running out of the dorm.

I sat down in the chair next to my bunk.

The guy in the shoulder holster came in, two other men with him. He took the pistol out of my hand. Gave me a cigarette.

He was talking to me. I wasn’t sure what he was saying. I heard one of the other guys whisper, “Just walked in and fucking blasted him right there.…”

They rolled Murray’s body up in the blankets he was lying on and they carried him out. They took his bunk out too. One of them dumped Clorox on the floor and mopped it around. It made my eyes sting.

The shoulder holster walked over to me. “You did great,” he said. “The leader said you were the right man, and he’s never wrong about people.”

I went for a walk. Nobody said anything to me. In the woods, I saw a butterfly. A big one, black with little spots of yellow and blue. When I was a kid, in one of those places they kept me, I saw a butterfly come out, get born from a shell. I remembered it then, when I was walking. What I saw. It was brand new, wet. It flapped its wings to dry them off. I was watching it happen. One of the bigger boys came up. He was mean and nasty, asked me why I was crying. I didn’t know I was, until he said it. He grabbed the butterfly before it could fly away and he crushed it in his fist. He thought it was funny.

They taught me not to cry in there.

The next day, they took me to see the leader. This time, they searched me. Real close. Not as much as they did the first time, but they still touched me everywhere.

“You’re gonna be alone with him,” the shoulder holster said.

They opened the door and we walked in. The leader got up from behind his desk. He came over to me, stuck out his hand for me to shake. He looked over at the shoulder holster. They kind of nodded to each other and the shoulder holster walked out. He closed the door behind him.

I was alone with the leader.

He sat down behind his desk, pointed me to a chair.

“You are a true warrior of the right, John,” he told me. “Sometimes it’s hard to do what is necessary … a man shows his true color under fire. You showed white. You showed right. On behalf of our people, I appreciate what you did.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re going to be spending some time with me every day from now on, learning some things. How’s that sound to you?”

“Good.” Black dots jumped out on his face. Faint dots. I watched his mouth move while he talked, waiting for the dots to get darker. The door opened. The man with the shoulder holster came in.

“There’s a call,” he said to the leader.

The leader stood up. He made a sort of salute at me. I walked out. They both stayed in the room.

I went over there every day. They always searched me. Nobody was allowed to be near the leader with a weapon, they said.

One day, the leader got up, made a motion like I was to come along. We walked all around the compound. He was talking to me. About the race. Loyalty. A true white man. The shoulder holster was always close.

Near the back of the compound, there was a whole lot of men standing around.

“Here’s a treat,” the leader said. “Come on, John.”

Men were standing around a ring. I thought it was going to be fighters until we got close. They stood aside so the leader could step up. I was right next to him.

The ring was maybe fifteen feet across. A wood wall went all around it. It came to just past my knee. The floor was canvas. There was lines drawn on it.

“You ever see one of these before?” the leader asked me. I saw the dogs then. “No,” I told him.

He looked at his watch. “Roscoe’s the next match?” he asked the shoulder holster.

The other guy nodded.

It was quiet for a minute. Then men climbed into the ring, carrying dogs in their arms. The one closest to us was a big black dog with a white patch on his chest. The guy holding him said something to the leader—I couldn’t catch what it was.

“That’s him!” the leader said.

The other dog was white, with a black patch over one eye. One ear was black too. He was smaller than the black
one. The guys with the dogs were rubbing them. One put his dog in a tub and gave him a bath. Money was flying all around, people betting.

A man climbed in the ring, stood in the middle. He pointed at each of the men with dogs. They both nodded. Picked up their dogs and carried them forward. There was a line in the center. The referee stood on it. Each man came up to another line. They put their dogs down, held them between their legs, facing each other. The dogs were crazy to charge.

“Go!” the referee said, and both dogs ran together.

They fought hard, ripping. They locked together a couple of times, and the referee used a stick to break them apart.

People were screaming. “He can’t be beat!” the leader yelled, right in my ear.

Sometimes they would take the dogs into their corners. The men holding them would face them away from the center, looking at the wall, so they wouldn’t get crazy. They then would pick them up and bring them back to the center. When the referee said “Go!” they let the dogs free.

They fought a long time. The white dog’s muzzle was all ripped, one of the black dog’s eyes was gone, somewhere on the floor. When they brought them back, the white dog couldn’t stand up.